“I thought we were gonna get television. The truth is… television is gonna get us.” —Dick Goodwin, Quiz Show When Mark Zuckerberg went to Capitol Hill earlier in the year I knew Facebook was in serious trouble. Ostensibly, he was there to apologize to us about how Facebook used customer data so cavalierly. But, really he…
If you’ve ever had the sneaking suspicion that your phone might be watching you, new research suggests you’re not being paranoid. Research scientists at Northwestern University in Boston spent a year trying to determine whether or not smartphone applications are secretly recording our private conversations to send personal data to advertisers. Fortunately, the researchers did…
A recent Reuters report about the supposed prevalence of so-called “fake news” ahead of Mexico’s upcoming election this weekend quotes an anonymous Facebook employee who alleged that people are being paid to like, share, and comment on posts, which disturbingly suggests that the company might take punitive action against users who innocently interact with what…
A couple years ago, something strange happened. A friend and I were sitting at a bar, iPhones in pockets, discussing our recent trips in Japan and how we’d like to go back. The very next day, we both received pop-up ads on Facebook about cheap return flights to Tokyo. It seemed like just a spooky…
Facebook and other social media were supposed to foster community and give a voice to the greater masses. This was the appeal of social media in the first place. In case Mark Zuckerberg or Twitter’s Jack Dorsey forgot – we made you, and we can break you. The recent move by Facebook to censor ads…
Facebook has engaged a think tank funded by weapons manufacturers, branches of the US military and Middle-Eastern monarchies to safeguard the democratic process. It’s akin to hiring arsonists to run the fire brigade. If Facebook truly wanted to “protect democracy and elections worldwide,” it would build a broad coalition of experts and activists from a…
