Facebook and Its Advertising: In Newspapers No Less
March 26, 2018
Google is allegedly earmarking millions to help dead tree publications survive the digital winter. Will the money help? Probably not.
I noted what struck me as an interesting move. The BBC’s write up “Facebook Boss Apologizes in UK and US Newspaper Ads” reveals to non newspaper readers the company’s fascinating mea culpa white out.
I learned:
Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg has taken out full-page adverts in several UK and US Sunday newspapers to apologies for the firm’s recent data privacy scandal.
Let’s recap the view of some dead tree senior managers.
- Digital media recycles our content and does not pay producers of “real news”
- Facebook and Google have replaced traditional newspapers and magazines as the gatekeepers of what’s right and what’s wrong, saying, “Hey, that’s our job.”
- Digital giants are indifferent to the downstream impacts of their nifty technologies.
Now Facebook is using the dead tree channels to explain:
“This was a breach of trust, and I am sorry.”
I assume that some at Facebook see the matter as off the table.
Ironic? Nope, just implement the “it’s easier to apologize than ask permission” method.
My question, “Has Facebook bought some Adwords or hired Cambridge Analytica-type outfits to make this apology more efficacious?”
Stephen E Arnold, March 26, 2018
CNN Facebook Put Down: CNN. Imagine!
March 24, 2018
I noted this article on the CNN Web site: “Mark Zuckerberg Is Not Comfortable with the Enormous Influence He Has Over the World.” I associate this type of take down with the gentleman who ran a charity in the US, loved cricket, and took a very, very dim view of Americans. He once told me, “Kentucky has a great deal about which to be modest.”
CNN appears to be suggesting that Mr. Zuckerberg is a little big man.
I noted this statement in the write up:
“Any company that can influence a US presidential election without being aware that it is doing so is demonstrably too powerful,” Roger McNamee, Zuckerberg’s former mentor and a venture capitalist, told CNN by email.
The write up offered this assessment:
Brian Wieser, an analyst who tracks Facebook for Pivotal Research Group, says the real issue plaguing the company may not be whether it’s too powerful so much as whether it became powerful too fast. “It looks like a problem that has emerged is that they may have become big and powerful too quickly, without ensuring their foundations were solid enough to withstand the growth they have had,” Wieser told CNN.
I wish CNN has asked Mr. Zuckerberg how he was going to cause the next recession?
Stephen E Arnold, March 24, 2018
Silicon Valley Management Method: Has Broflow Replaced Workflow?
March 23, 2018
In early March, we noted a story about Silicon Valley and evil. “How Silicon Valley Went from ‘Don’t Be Evil’ to Doing Evil” reported about the “bro” culture and a casual approach to customer privacy. There was a nod to fake news too. We noted this statement:
“[A] handful of companies or concentrated in one or two regions. The great progress in the 1980s and 1990s took place in a highly competitive, and dispersed, environment not one dominated by firms that control 80 or 90 percent of key markets. Not surprisingly, the rise of the oligarchs coincides with a general decline in business startups, including in tech.”
Today we noted “Here is How Google Handles Right to Be Forgotten Requests.” We found this passage suggestive:
Witness statements submitted by Google “legal specialist” Stephanie Caro (who admitted: “I am not by training a lawyer”) for both trials explained: “The process of dealing with each delisting request is not automated – it involves individual consideration of each request and involves human judgment. Without such an individual assessment, the procedure put in place by Google would be open to substantial abuse, with the prospect of individuals, or indeed businesses, seeking to suppress search results for illegitimate reasons.”
No smart software needed it seems. And the vaunted technical company’s workflow with regard to removal requests? Possibly “casual” or “disorganized.”
When considered against the backdrop of Facebook-Cambridge Analytics, process seems less important than other tasks.
Perhaps some management expert will assign the term “bro-flow” to the organizational procedures implemented by some high profile technology firms?
Stephen E Arnold, March 23, 2018
Patrick Roland, March 9, 2018
Open Source Panda Simplifies Data Analysis
March 20, 2018
An article at Quartz draws our attention to a potential alternative to Excel—the open source Pandas—in, “Meet the Man Behind the Most Important Tool in Data Science.” Writer Dan Kopf profiles Panda’s developer, Wes McKinny, who launched the Python tool in 2009. In 2012, Pandas’ popularity took off. Now, Kopf tells us:
Millions of people around the world use Pandas. In October 2017 alone, Stack Overflow, a website for programmers, recorded 5 million visits to questions about Pandas from more than 1 million unique visitors. Data scientists at Google, Facebook, JP Morgan, and virtually other major company that analyze data uses Pandas. Most people haven’t heard of it, but for many people who do heavy data analysis—a rapidly growing group these days—life wouldn’t be the same without it. (Pandas is open source, so it’s free to use.) So what does Pandas do that is so valuable? I asked McKinney how he explains it to non-programmer friends. ‘I tell them that it enables people to analyze and work with data who are not expert computer scientists,’ he says. ‘You still have to write code, but it’s making the code intuitive and accessible. It helps people move beyond just using Excel for data analysis.’
McKinney is inspired to improve data science tools because he likes to “empower people to solve problems.” In fact, Pandas sprung from his frustration at the limitations of available tools when he first came to embrace Python. See the article to follow the developer from his time as a high school athlete to his current, full-time work on Pandas and other open source projects, as well as more on Pandas itself.
Cynthia Murrell, March 20, 2018
Quote to Note: CNBC on Facebook Management
March 19, 2018
Talking head TV does not capture my attention. I did spot an interesting write up this morning. Its title? “Facebook Is Facing Its Biggest Test Ever — and Its Lack of Leadership Could Sink the Company.” Tucked in the analysis is a quote to note. Here’s the passage which I highlighted in high intensity yellow:
There’s no outside attacker bringing Facebook down. It’s a circular firing squad that stems from the company’s fundamental business model of collecting data from users, and using that data to sell targeted ads.
The phrase which is quite nifty is “a circular firing squad.”
The Facebook – Cambridge Analytic dust up is interesting. Our take on the use of academics, industrial strength intelligence analysis methods, and manipulating viewpoints will be featured in the April 3, 2018, DarkCyber video news program.
Until then, enjoy the “circular firing squad” trope. Oh, and a happy honk to the author, editior, producer who okayed this phrase. Nifty.
Stephen E Arnold, March 19, 2018
Facebook: Now Expectations for Responsibility Are Rising
March 14, 2018
Recently, British Prime Minister Theresa May spoke out against the vengeful and often dangerous way in which social media has been utilized. According to one account she stood up for women and minorities and other groups being disenfranchised online. Good, right? Apparently, it was a little too late, as a fiery Guardian piece told us in, “Theresa May Thinks Facebook Will Police Itself? Some hope.”
In typical British journalistic tradition, the piece heavily criticizes the PM’s statement:
“This is typical Mayspeak: it mimes determination but is devoid of substance. It’s like hoping that the alcohol industry will help to stamp out binge drinking or that food manufacturers will desist from encouraging childhood obesity. Neither industry will comply for the simple reason that their continued prosperity depends on people drinking more alcohol and consuming more sugar and fat.”
While a politician saying that they trust Facebook and social media to police themselves is laughable no matter what country you live in, it raises an interesting question. Wired recently took up the same topic with an interesting spin. While its author acknowledges Facebook’s attempts at correcting its mistakes and being a safer platform for users, it points out that there’s a really simple way to handle this: more transparency. Social media giants are may find themselves forced to shift from “utility” mode to “responsible publisher” mode. When this occurs, the algorithms which help generate revenue may be found to have an unacceptable social downside.
Patrick Roland, March 14, 2018
Facebook Fails Discrimination Test
March 12, 2018
While racism and discrimination still plague society, the average person does not participate in it. The Internet exacerbates hatred to the point that people believe it is more powerful today than it was in the past. Social media Web sites do their best to prevent these topics from spreading by using sentiment analytics. Sentiment analytics are still in their infancy and, on more than one occasion, have proven to work against their intended purpose. TechCrunch shares that, “Facebook’s Ad System Shown Failing To Enforce Its Own Anti-Discriminatory Policy” is a recent example.
Facebook demands to be allowed to regulate themselves when it comes to abuse of their services, such as ads. Despite the claims that Facebook can self-regulate itself, current events have proven the contrary. The article points to Facebook’s claim that it disabled its ethnic affinity ad targeting for employment, housing, and credit. ProPublica ran a test case by creating fake rental housing ads. What did they discover? Facebook continues to discriminate:
However instead of the platform blocking the potentially discriminatory ad buys, ProPublica reports that all its ads were approved by Facebook “within minutes” — including an ad that sought to exclude potential renters “interested in Islam, Sunni Islam and Shia Islam”. It says that ad took the longest to approve of all its buys (22 minutes) — but that all the rest were approved within three minutes.
It also successfully bought ads that it judged Facebook’s system should at least flag for self-certification because they were seeking to exclude other members of protected categories. But the platform just accepted housing ads blocked from being shown to categories including ‘soccer moms’, people interested in American sign language, gay men and people interested in wheelchair ramps.
Facebook reiterated its commitment to anti-discrimination and ProPublica responds that if an outside research team was called to regulate Facebook then these ads would never have reached the Web. Maybe Facebook should follow Google’s example and higher content curators to read every single ad to prevent the bad stuff from getting through.
Whitney Grace, March 12, 2018
Facebook Begins Censoring Content for Good and Ill
March 5, 2018
Facebook has been under a lot of scrutinies for fake news and propaganda lately. While the company has acknowledged its mistakes, the course it is taking to fix these problems should alarm people. We learned more on the social media giant’s censorship from a recent story in the Intercept, “Facebook Says It Is Deleting Accounts at the Direction of the U.S. and Israeli Governments.
According to the story:
Facebook has been on a censorship rampage against Palestinian activists who protest the decades-long, illegal Israeli occupation, all directed and determined by Israeli officials. Indeed, Israeli officials have been publicly boasting about how obedient Facebook is when it comes to Israeli censorship orders.
Shortly after news broke earlier this month of the agreement between the Israeli government and Facebook, Israeli Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked said Tel Aviv had submitted 158 requests to the social media giant over the previous four months asking it to remove content it deemed “incitement.” She said Facebook had granted 95 percent of the requests.
This is a no-win situation for Facebook. By trying to keep questionable content off the net, it opens the door for censoring its users. A slippery slope, to be sure. If we were to guess, Facebook will make a few more missteps before correcting things appropriately.
Patrick Roland, March 5, 2018
Self Regulation: Is This a Facebook Core Competency?
March 3, 2018
Recently, British Prime Minister Theresa May spoke out against the vengeful and often dangerous way in which social media has been utilized. According to one account she stood up for women and minorities and other groups being disenfranchised online. Good, right? Apparently, it was a little too late, as a fiery Guardian piece told us in, “Theresa May Thinks Facebook Will Police Itself? Some Hope.”
In typical British journalistic tradition, the piece heavily criticizes the PM’s statement:
“This is typical Mayspeak: it mimes determination but is devoid of substance. It’s like hoping that the alcohol industry will help to stamp out binge drinking or that food manufacturers will desist from encouraging childhood obesity. Neither industry will comply for the simple reason that their continued prosperity depends on people drinking more alcohol and consuming more sugar and fat.”
While a politician saying that they trust Facebook and social media to police themselves is laughable no matter what country you live in, it raises an interesting question. Wired recently took up the same topic with an interesting spin. While its author acknowledges Facebook’s attempts at correcting its mistakes and being a safer platform for users, it points out that there’s a really simple way to handle this: more transparency. Social media giants are shrouded in secrecy and until they can be more candid and open, all we’ll have is hot air from politicians and nothing more.
But Facebook may have the gift of governance: Both and art and a like?
Patrick Roland, March 3, 2018
Facebook Floundering Again?
March 2, 2018
It is no shock to say that Facebook has had some rough months lately. Amidst controversy over their handling of fake news and algorithms that seem to avoid friends, the company’s biggest problems are actually internal. The social media giant’s culture is beginning to gain a lot of attention, and not for good reasons. We learned more in a Slashdot excerpt, “A Facebook Employee Asked Reporter to Turn Off Phone So Facebook Couldn’t Track its Location.”
One troubling part of the story said:
“According to his recounting of the meeting, she asked him if he had been in touch with Nunez (the Gizmodo reporter, who eventually published this and this). He denied that he had been. Then she told him that she had their messages on Gchat, which Fearnow had assumed weren’t accessible to Facebook. He was fired. “Please shut your laptop and don’t reopen it,” she instructed him.”
There is a lot of interesting stuff here and it links to a larger Wired piece that shows even more of the depths. This is at odds with other reports of the company, which claim it has a winning culture and that Facebook’s corporate environment is a success. We are inclined to believe the Slashdot look at things. Likely, these positive spins are PR related in the wake of so many rotten news pieces. Facebook has long been an innovator, so it’ll be interesting to see if they can revolutionize their culture.
Patrick Roland, March 2, 2018
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