Most of us know what we want from Facebook. Family updates and sensational fake news! No, what we want is reform from within and regulation from the federal government. Have we properly considered what the company that owns Facebook wants? The company that owns Facebook wants "updated internet regulations to set clear guidelines for addressing today’s toughest challenges." Facebook also "supports a safe and secure …
Facebook Rebrands, The Company Is Now Known As ‘Meta’
Remember Second Life? Facebook didn't buy it, but now the social networking behemoth wants to become it. This is not a joke. Facebook has changed its company name to Meta. The word 'Facebook' now refers to just the social networking application and site. Meta was chosen as the new name because it points to Mark Zuckerberg’s commitment to creating immersive virtual experiences or a so-called 'metaverse'. The …
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Facebook Foibles and the Media Megaphone Mess
Facebook is under fire from all directions. Former employees are venting. The press is screaming. The federal government seeks to break the company's monopolistic hold. And we the people just want to scroll—something that was denied to billions of addicted users of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp for more than seven hours on Monday. In the center of the maelstrom is Frances Haugen, a former product manager at …
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Are We Profoundly Misinformed? It Must Be Someone Else’s Fault
Are we, the people, adrift in a sea of digital flotsam? Joseph Bernstein, a 2021 Nieman Fellow, has written a thought-provoking piece for Harper's. He believes we are profoundly misinformed about social media's role in keeping us misinformed. Bernstein points to a 2019 Pew survey, showing that half of Americans think that made-up news/info is “a very big problem in the country today,” about on par with the …
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Will Marketers Stop Funding Media Garbage Masquerading As News?
Faux News agreed to pay millions of dollars to the family of Seth Rich, the Democratic National Committee staff member who was murdered in Washington, D.C. in 2016. As part of the legal settlement, the details of the case were kept quiet until after the election and the resounding defeat of Don Trump. Ben Smith, media columnist at The New York Times has more: Why did Fox care about keeping the Rich settlement …
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In Fight to Diminish Apple, Facebook Runs Attack Ads, Creates New Microsite
Facebook versus Apple. The battle of the tech titans is on. According to Facebook, "Apple announced product and policy changes that will impact data sharing across iOS. The policy and the limits it places on advertising will harm the growth of businesses and the free internet." Here's the interpretation of the above in a full-page print ad (that ran in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and …
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No “Country” for Holocaust Deniers or Other Factless Conspirators
Haters are having a hard time pumping the socials full of hate, right now. No, their venomous fangs have not gone dry. Social media platforms are starting to enforce their own codes of conduct. Accountability—it's not just for breakfast anymore. F to the B Finally Tells Holocaust Deniers to Shove Off Monika Bickert, VP of Content Policy at Facebook wrote these words on the company's blog (published on …
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Facebook Is A Multi-Way Mirror; What You Put In Front Of It, Determines What You Get Back
Is Facebook the doom machine? The Social Dilemma, a new documentary-like film from Netflix, makes the case. https://youtu.be/uaaC57tcci0 One of the technologists in the film, Jaron Lanier, makes the case (in the film and in many other instances). To varying degrees, we all make our cases against F to the B. Some of us quit the platform if we can. We tolerate it if we can not. Others enjoy the …
Brighter Futures for the Ad Industry Are Possible, Following Massive Reform
Someone moved the ad industry's cheese. The various reactions from industry leaders have been slow and haphazard at best, but that's starting to change. The World Federation of Advertisers has formed the Partnership for Responsible Addressable Media. “In the ancient story of the Tower of Babel, the city collapsed because its inhabitants lost the ability to speak a common language,” says Bill Tucker, Group EVP …
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Coca-Cola, Ford, Starbucks et al Halt Ad Spending on ‘All’ Social Media Platforms
In 2018, Coca-Cola launched #RefreshtheFeed giving its social media accounts a complete factory reset. Coca-Cola's new social strategy was “rooted in optimism, uplift, and connection.” Now the beverage icon is going to pause paid and organic posts on all social media platforms globally for at least 30 days, effective July 1. Chairman and CEO, James Quincey, says a dedicated cross-functional and cross-continental …
More than 100 Companies Stop Advertising on Facebook (Sort Of)
Hit pause on hate. That's the call-to-action issued on June 17, by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL. Their new Stop Hate for Profit campaign asks businesses to suspend advertising on Facebook’s services during July. The campaign’s partners, including Color of Change, Common Sense, Free Press, and Sleeping Giants, assert that the social-media …
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You Can Check In To Holiday Inn, But You Can Never Leave
Retirement doesn't come cheap if it comes at all. Almost half of Americans — 49 percent — cite running out of money as their chief retirement concern, with another 44 percent citing declining health, according to a new report from the Aegon Center for Longevity, Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies and Instituto de Longevidade Mongeral Aegon (Brazil). Only 36 percent of American workers are very confident …
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