In this modern world, some days it can feel like everything is out of your grasp. So take stock on those things that you can control. Like Messenger, Facebook’s increasingly feature-rich offshoot app, which now sports admin privileges for group chats. The new feature is rolling out this week, giving users the ability to better […]
Facebook is using us. It is actively giving away our information. It is creating an echo chamber in the name of connection. It surfaces the divisive and destroys the real reason we began using social media in the first place – human connection. It is a cancer. I’ve begun the slow process of weaning myself […]
Facebook is eager to displace YouTube and Patreon in order to become the home of online content creators, so it’s testing a bunch of new ways for them to earn money and connect with fans. Facebook’s dedicated Creator app that launched in November on iOS will come to Android soon, and it’s also starting a closed […]
Facebook said on Thursday it had suspended a data analytics firm associated with the Trump campaign, but may have indeed greatly downplayed the scale of the data that firm actually had access to, according to a new report in The New York Times. Cambridge Analytica had worked with University of Cambridge psychology professor named Dr. Aleksandr Kogan, […]
Google just banned cryptocurrency and ICO ads, a move that follows Facebook’s decision to do the same. The language is stark: You are no longer allowed to advertise “Cryptocurrencies and related content (including but not limited to initial coin offerings, cryptocurrency exchanges, cryptocurrency wallets, and cryptocurrency trading advice).” This is good news. In the Wild […]
Facebook wants you to pay for internet. This week TechCrunch was tipped off that Facebook had quietly launched an Express Wi-Fi Android app in the Google Play store that lets users buy data packs and find nearby hotspots as part of Facebook’s distributed Wi-Fi network. The company’s Express Wi-Fi program is live in five developing countries […]
Facebook’s Instant Games are now open to all developers, Facebook announced this week in advance of the Game Developers Conference. First launched in 2016, the platform lets developers build mobile-friendly games using HTML5 that work on both Facebook and Messenger, instead of requiring users to download native apps from Apple or Google’s app stores. The […]
“Facebook has played at times a negative role in the political discourse,” according to Facebook co-founder and Mark Zuckerberg’s Harvard roommate Chris Hughes. “The algorithms are not neutral,” he said today at a Bloomberg Beta event promoting his new book Fair Shot: Rethinking Inequality and How We Earn. Mentioning “the filter bubbles” and “the Russia stuff,” […]
The United Nations has warned that Facebook’s platform is contributing to the spread of hate speech and ethnic violence in crisis-hit Myanmar. It’s yet another black mark against social media at a time when the tech industry’s reputation as an accelerator of false information is attracting criticism from the highest places. This week the government of […]
Andrew Keen is the author of three books: Cult of the Amateur, Digital Vertigo and The Internet Is Not The Answer. He produces Futurecast, and is the host of Keen On. More posts by this contributor: In April 2004, a couple of Harvard undergraduate roommates took a walk in the pouring rain around the university […]