In an op-ed for the New York Times, Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes suggests it's time to consider breaking up the monopoly that is Facebook.
Mark’s influence is staggering, far beyond that of anyone else in the private sector or in government. He controls three core communications platforms — Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp — that billions of people use every day. Facebook’s board works more like an advisory committee than an overseer, because Mark controls around 60 percent of voting shares.
Mark alone can decide how to configure Facebook’s algorithms to determine what people see in their News Feeds, what privacy settings they can use and even which messages get delivered. He sets the rules for how to distinguish violent and incendiary speech from the merely offensive, and he can choose to shut down a competitor by acquiring, blocking or copying it.
And I’m worried that Mark has surrounded himself with a team that reinforces his beliefs instead of challenging them. We are a nation with a tradition of reining in monopolies, no matter how well intentioned the leaders of these companies may be. Mark’s power is unprecedented and un-American. It is time to break up Facebook.
Pennsylvania state Rep. Brian Sims (image via Facebook)
I love that woofy, gay Pennsylvania state legislator Brian Sims does not back down from trolls and haters.
So, last week when a woman who appeared to be named “Jill Freb” sent him a message on social media reading, “You get out, f*gg*t,” Sims didn’t pause to share the comment with his followers.
Sims wrote, “Anyone know my new friend Jill?” He posted a pic of the comment and asked his peeps to report the comment to the powers that be at Facebook
But then, is a strange reversal, Sims himself was blocked from posting on his own account for sharing Kreb’s homophobic comment.
“Last night, I got back from the governor’s swearing-in ceremony,” Sims told Metro Weekly. “I went to put up some information about the swearing-in and a trans candidate who’s announcing a campaign today, and I got a notification that, because of that specific post with her telling me to “get out” and calling me a “faggot” — not even the other posts associated with it — I had been blocked from all my accounts, both public and personal.”
THIS IS REAL? So that post, where I got called a faggot last week on Facebook ...publicly on my Page, @facebook has banned ME for 24 hours as a result it! Anyone at @facebook or @fbnewsroom care to explain this one?!?! pic.twitter.com/6ngslvLMOX
Eventually, Sims got his Facebook account reinstated, admittedly because he happens to know some folks there.
So I guess the advantage of knowing a few people at Facebook, some journalists who saw this post, and a whole lot of organizations that interact with Facebook is that my account was reactivated. THANKS! No explanation. No response yet from @facebook. What. About. Everyone. Else? pic.twitter.com/mZd3YwrBL1
“I have dozens of connections to Facebook and had to use all of them to fix this,” he wrote. “What happens to the person who doesn’t know anyone there?”
He went on to say he never received any “explanation from Facebook Diversity, Government and Politics on Facebook or Facebook HQ” about the lockdown.
Eventually, Facebook responded to MetroWeekly with a statement regarding the ‘mistake.’
“We allow people to share messages they receive even hateful ones,” wrote the Facebook spokesman. “Removing this post was a mistake in misunderstanding that it was discussing a message Representative Sims had himself experienced. The post does not violate our Community Standards and has been restored and Representative Sims is no longer in a feature block.”
But Sims still has concerns for the free speech of those who may not have his connections or position.
“This isn’t just about getting my Facebook page turned back on,” said Sims. “This either needs to continue or start a conversation about what Facebook is doing, authentically, substantively, to make sure they’re not culling legitimate speech and not endorsing, supporting, or lifting up illegitimate speech — whether it’s hate speech or fake accounts.”
Remember during Pride Month last year, Facebook gave us the uber-adorable rainbow Pride reaction emoji?
Ah, good times 🙂
Yep – along with a thumbs-up, a sad or mad face, and love reaction we had the rainbow emoji even though it was only for Pride Month.
Last year, the rainbow flag was used millions of times as a reaction on multiple posts, pictures and events on social media.
But this year, our social media will be a bit less colorful as Facebook has decided to drop its Pride reaction emojis. It seems last year was just a “new experience test.”
Lisa Stratton, a spokeswoman from Facebook, told Business Insider that the social media giant is ending all custom reactions “for major holidays or moments in culture.”
Maybe on Mother’s Day you might have noticed the themed “flower” reactions were absent this year.
That said, though, it’s not all bad news.
Facebook is releasing a new set of Pride-themed filters and stickers for Facebook, Messenger and Instagram. Of course, Instagram has afforded us the rainbow emoji for some time now.
And, according to the Book of Face, the new stickers and filters will be available all year long – not just Pride Month.
For years, companies that offered services of specific interest to the LGBTQ community have been able to target their advertising to that particular audience utilizing the social media giant's "interested in" option.
But last month, Facebook quietly eliminated the ability to direct ads to folks based on sexual orientation. An exception, however, was made for dating apps to continue using that targeting option.
The change has impacted not only businesses that target the gay community, but important non-profit groups, like The Trevor Project, who offer life-saving services.
Facebook stopped allowing “interested in” targeting as part of a major overhaul of its ad platform, which the company initiated after facing scrutiny from users and Congress last year. Bad actors have mercilessly exploited the platform in recent years, including Kremlin-linked trolls who used its targeting options to reach millions of Americans in an effort to divide the country during the 2016 election. And dozens of companies have used Facebook’s ad targeting options “to exclude older workers from job ads,” a recent Propublica investigation found.
Some organizations supporting the LGBT community aren’t opposed to Facebook's move. A spokesperson for the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) told BuzzFeed news that Facebook’s call to remove identity-based targeting while keeping interest-based targeting is “a fair compromise” that could prevent malicious uses of the ad platform. GLAAD, an advocacy organization, does not use the identity-based targeting, or have a need for it the way the Trevor Project does.
But Facebook’s reluctance to allow the Trevor Project to use the criteria, even as it’s made special accommodations for dating apps, has frustrated the nonprofit. It was using the targeting to promote a national mental health survey. “We have a very limited budget, and so now I have to throw money at the wind, hoping it’s going to reach the group I want to reach,” Stowell said.
Facebook says dating apps are allowed to continue using sexual orientation thanks to a "legacy requirement." The social media company added, however, that will end at the end of April.
Facebook banned ad discrimination by sexual orientation, yay! Right?
Except suicide prevention hotlines for LGBT youth can’t reach the people they need to, oops https://t.co/vfcdrxMqDJ
So Facebook no longer lets ads be targets by sexual orientation… except for dating ads. Of course they're not allowing non-profits like The Trevor Project…
gotta love facebook https://t.co/w7mrcwmyzepic.twitter.com/Wc3zigJyqC
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, in a lengthy post on (where else?) Facebook, apologized for mistakes made by his company and outlined steps the social media giant plans to take for protect user data in the aftermath of the Cambridge Analytica debacle which revealed millions of users data was "harvested" for political use by folks working on behalf of the Trump campaign.
We have a responsibility to protect your data, and if we can't then we don't deserve to serve you. I've been working to understand exactly what happened and how to make sure this doesn't happen again. The good news is that the most important actions to prevent this from happening again today we have already taken years ago. But we also made mistakes, there's more to do, and we need to step up and do it.
[snip]
I started Facebook, and at the end of the day I'm responsible for what happens on our platform. I'm serious about doing what it takes to protect our community. While this specific issue involving Cambridge Analytica should no longer happen with new apps today, that doesn't change what happened in the past. We will learn from this experience to secure our platform further and make our community safer for everyone going forward.
I want to thank all of you who continue to believe in our mission and work to build this community together. I know it takes longer to fix all these issues than we'd like, but I promise you we'll work through this and build a better service over the long term.
After a detailed timeline of how Zuckerberg sees the Cambridge Analytica debacle, the CEO listed steps to be taken including:
• Conducting full audits of apps with suspicious activity and/or access to large amounts of data.
• Restricting developers' data access and removing access completely for apps that you haven't used in 3 months.
• Making it easier to know which apps you've actually given access to.
According to reports, Facebook's stock has taken a $50 billion hit since news of the Cambridge Analytica saga was made public.
Folks have also noticed that Zuckerberg has sold lots of his own stock in recent weeks.
BREAKING: Mark Zuckerberg shares "an update on the Cambridge Analytica situation."
"We have a responsibility to protect your data, and if we can't then we don't deserve to serve you." pic.twitter.com/z2j5vxYquX
In light of the recent revelations of a data breach by Cambridge Analytics of millions and millions of Facebook users, the social media's stock has dropped drastically today.
Facebook Inc. shares posted their steepest drop since 2015 as U.S. and European officials demanded answers to reports that a political advertising firm retained information on millions of the social network’s users without their consent.
Politicians on both sides of the Atlantic are calling on Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg to appear before lawmakers to explain how U.K.-based Cambridge Analytica, the data-analysis firm that helped Donald Trump win the U.S. presidency, was able to harvest the personal information.
According to The Daily Beast, Facebook has so far lost $42 billion in market value.
Donald Trump's voter-profiling company Cambridge Analytica "harvested" the private information of over 50 million Facebook users without permission in hopes of influencing voter behavior.
The firm had secured a $15 million investment from Robert Mercer, the wealthy Republican donor, and wooed his political adviser, Stephen K. Bannon, with the promise of tools that could identify the personalities of American voters and influence their behavior. But it did not have the data to make its new products work.
So the firm harvested private information from the Facebook profiles of more than 50 million users without their permission, according to former Cambridge employees, associates and documents, making it one of the largest data leaks in the social network’s history.
The breach allowed the company to exploit the private social media activity of a huge swath of the American electorate, developing techniques that underpinned its work on President Trump’s campaign in 2016.
An examination by The New York Times and The Observer of London reveals how Cambridge Analytica’s drive to bring to market a potentially powerful new weapon put the firm — and wealthy conservative investors seeking to reshape politics — under scrutiny from investigators and lawmakers on both sides of the Atlantic.
Christopher Wylie, who helped found Cambridge and worked there until late 2014, said of its leaders: “Rules don’t matter for them. For them, this is a war, and it’s all fair.”
“They want to fight a culture war in America,” he added. “Cambridge Analytica was supposed to be the arsenal of weapons to fight that culture war.”
According to The Times, Cambridge paid a third party to lie to Facebook in order to acquire the data saying the information was to be used for "academic purposes."
After knowing about the data breach for months, Facebook said last night it is suspending the account of Cambridge Analytica. I'm guessing the Times' article applied some pressure, no?
The article goes on to say that Cambridge still has most or all of the private information.
The Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee have shared some of the Facebook ads placed by Russian operatives during the 2016 presidential election.
Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee posted Wednesday a selection of the Facebook ads purchased by Russia-linked accounts as the committee’s hearing on how Russia exploited social media during the 2016 election got under way.
The committee Dems posted screenshots of the ads, as well as some of the the meta data associated with the ads, such as the amount of impressions the ads made and to which demographics the ads were targeted. Examples of Russia-purchased ads on Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, were among the ads released.
Some of the ads released Wednesday did not mention presidential candidates by name, but rather weighed in on political issues, be it pushing anti-Muslim or anti-immigrant sentiments, or mimicking the Black Lives Matters or LGBT rights movements.
Check out some of the ads below. More at the link above.
Yeah, I can see if these were targeted at folks on the fence about Hillary or Trump, these might have had some sway in folks decision-making on election day.
I had an interesting "conversation" on Facebook today.
I had shared a link to a story about an asshole volunteer firefighter in Franklin Township, Ohio, who posted on his Facebook that if he had to choose between saving a dog or a black man from a burning building, the dog would get priority, because “one dog is more important than a million n****rs.”
You get the point of sharing the article, right? He's an asshole, and nothing disinfects better than a little sunshine.
This guy, Justin MacDonald, had a problem with me sharing the story of this racist guy. He wrote,
"Why tf is this even a fucking news article? Other then to spread more hate?"
"So let's blast one firefighter from where? Iscrewmysister Idaho? We acknowledge that these people are out there. Deal with it locally not world news. Trying to muster up hate against all firefighters is what this is .. IMO"
"What's your opinion? To search out each and every person who says something. Welcome to Earth don't know about your retirement fund but you'll never run out of work. Glad I don't have to follow"
For full disclosure, I'll post the full back and forth below.
But this exchange did get me to thinking: is it really my job to "search out each and every person" who says or does icky/hideous things?
I don't know about that. I do know nothing gets better unless folks raise their voices. Even if it's one voice (which, in this case, it's not).
In the same week where we lost a huge civil rights hero, Edie Windsor, who brought down the Defense of Marriage Act by taking her case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, I'm reminded one voice can make a difference.
Edie Windsor's life story was a lesson in how the simple act of two people falling in love can change the world.
Now, I don't begin to equate myself with the amazing Edie. But I'm certain she would denounce this firefighter in Ohio for his divisive language.
And I have no illusions about what I can (or can't) accomplish by making sure people know that idiots like this guy in Ohio exist. But you can't fix a problem if folks don't know it exists.
But, I was reminded of this song from a few years back. Hunter Parrish, who most know from the series Weeds, starred in the Broadway revival of Stephen Schwartz's Godspell as "Jesus."
In the revival, they added a song for Hunter that Schwartz had written for the movie of the musical back in the '70s called "Beautiful City."
The lyrics came to mind, and I'll let you do the math.
We may not reach the ending
But we can start
Slowly but truly mending
Brick by brick
Heart by heart
Now, maybe now we start learning how
We can build a beautiful city
Yes we can, yes we can
We can build a beautiful city
Not a city of angels, but finally a city of man
Am I wasting my time pointing out jerks and assholes? It's true I probably won't "run out of work."
Maybe I'm naive. But I'll be happy and naive thinking I'm doing "something."
Something that maybe gets us closer to, if not a "city of angels," perhaps a city of real men.
Hey, Justin MacDonald - I hope you find a passion that inspires you to make a difference. Even if it does run out your retirement fund.
The folks at Facebook took a closer look at ads sold during the 2016 presidential election cycle and have realized $100K worth of ads can be traced back to Russia
Representatives of Facebook told congressional investigators Wednesday that the social network has discovered that it sold ads during the U.S. presidential campaign to a shadowy Russian company seeking to target voters, according to several people familiar with the company’s findings.
Facebook officials reported that they traced the ad sales, totaling $100,000, to a Russian “troll farm” with a history of pushing pro-Kremlin propaganda, these people said.
A small portion of the ads, which began in the summer of 2015, directly named Republican nominee Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton, the people said, although they declined to say which candidate the ads favored.
Most of the ads, according to a blog post published late Wednesday by Facebook’s chief security officer, Alex Stamos, “appeared to focus on amplifying divisive social and political messages across the ideological spectrum — touching on topics from LGBT matters to race issues to immigration to gun rights.”
The acknowledgment by Facebook comes as congressional investigators and special counsel Robert S. Mueller III are probing Russian interference in the U.S. election, including allegations that the Kremlin may have coordinated with the Trump campaign.
Join me for "A Tale of Two Theatrical Adventures" as two longtime out actors have separate, but euphoric experiences with New York Theater on the same weekend.
I followed both simultaneously on social media as they shared the elation of their personal milestones, and the journeys made my Grinchy heart swell.
Up first, Stephen Blackwell.
As his 50th birthday approached, Stephen made the decision to venture forth on his own to the Big Bad Apple for the first time and see his first productions on the Great White Way.
We all know New York City can be expensive for visiting fans of Broadway. As he recounts his big adventure, Stephen also has tips that helped him save money along the way, including:
• The app TodayTix (and the website version todaytix.com) helped Stephen buy discounted tickets to Broadway shows in advance without standing in lines or worrying about what his choices would be.
• Instead of pricey hotels, Stephen stayed in an apartment blocks from the theater district and saved hundreds using AirBNB. If you haven't tried the popular travel site, Stephen shares his experience.
• And don't be afraid to reach out to friends you've made on social media. Stephen met up with someone he knew from Facebook, and that friend acted as a guide to what to do after an evening in the theater.
The other gentleman in this dual adventure, Ed Dixon, has enjoyed a long, successful career on Broadway, off-Broadway and beyond. He’s an actor, playwright, composer and author.
After more than four decades of great work, Ed was honored by the Drama Desk Awards for his latest project, Georgie: My Adventures with George Rose, on the same weekend Stephen was experiencing NY theater for the first time.
I interviewed Ed weeks before during the aftermath of his grand rave-review opening, but watching him share his big Drama Desk win on Facebook felt like I was there.
You can listen to my previous interview with Ed here.
At a time when it feels there’s so much doom, gloom and grousing on social media, I loved watching these stories play out in front of me in real time on the Book of Face.
Hit play below to listen to the two men's simultaneous journeys.
Billionaire Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz is putting his money where his mouth is by pledging $20 million to help elect former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as the next president.
In a Thursday evening post on Medium, Moskovitz said he and his wife, Cari Tuna, are will be donating the money to super-PACs and Democratic committees dedicated to electing Hillary Clinton.
“Like many Democratic voters, we don’t support every plank of the platform, but it is clear that if Secretary Clinton wins the election, America will advance much further toward the world we hope to see,” Moskovitz wrote.
He added: “If Donald Trump wins, the country will fall backward, and become more isolated from the global community.”
Buzzfeed's legal eagle, and 2014 National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association "Journalist of the Year," Chris Geidner interviewed President Obama today in the Roosevelt Room of the White House to discuss SCOTUS nominee Judge Merrick Garland.
This was President Obama's first-ever "Facebook Live" interview.
From Buzzfeed:
Obama nominated Judge Merrick Garland to the nation’s highest court after Justice Antonin Scalia died in February. Garland currently is the chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
Top Republicans have said they would not consider any nominee and maintain that they will not hold hearings or a vote for Garland — not necessarily because of his positions, but because, they say, the next president should decide who is nominated.
The Ohio-based prankster began documenting their exchanges on Facebook in an album she titled “Texts from my Mother.” After screenshots were shared on Reddit on Sunday, April 3, they quickly racked up more than 200,000 views. Hammett’s public Facebook page now has nearly 180,000 followers.
Hammett’s hijinks include changing her mother’s phone settings to autocorrect a word to “butt,” pretending to be in police custody — and stealing silverware as punishment for not delivering food. “I told you there would be retribution if you did not bring me Easter dinner leftovers,” Hammett warned.
In one exchange, Hammett’s long-suffering mother writes: “You are an awful child. You know you’re killing me. You’re killing your mother Elizabeth.” In another, she calls her daughter an “ungrateful brat.”
The stats geniuses at FiveThirtyEight have published an interactive map showing which presidential primary candidates have the most Facebook likes in each county in the U.S.
From FiveThirtyEight:
If Facebook likes were votes, Bernie Sanders would be on pace to beat Hillary Clinton nationwide by a nearly 3-to-1 margin and Donald Trump to garner more support than Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio combined. Anything seems possible this year, but, still, be careful how you interpret these numbers: Facebook likes are not votes.
According to the Pew Research Center, 58 percent of American adults use Facebook. But this share is not a representative sample of the country — Facebook users are disproportionately young (although not as young as users of other social media networks), low-income and female. And the sample may be even more skewed because only some people on Facebook have liked a presidential candidate's page and because those pages haven't existed for the same amount of time.
Soon, you'll be able to do more than just "Like" your Facebook friend's posts. How much more? Huffington Post has the details:
The tech giant's chief product officer Chris Cox confirmed in a Bloomberg report that it's only a matter of weeks before Facebook users everywhere can hit the Reactions" icon.
Facebook announced last year that it would roll out "Reactions" buttons to accompany the familiar thumbs-up icon. Soon, there will be five emojis to represent "love," "haha," "sad," "angry" and "wow."
"Reactions" was first tested in Spain and Ireland in October. Then Facebook users in Chile, the Philippines, Portugal and Colombia got to try it. Soon, it will finally be available in the U.S. for the first time.
The company worked with sociologists to analyze the most common reactions across the social media platform to determine which emoji faces would make the cut. A spokesperson told Bloomberg that they decided to axe the planned sixth "yay" button, because "it was not universally understood.”
All of this comes out of Facebook users requests to be able to "dislike" something, like the passing of a friend's pet or losing a job.
Note: you still won't get the option to "dislike."
