The rapidity with which falsity travels has been proverbial for centuries: “Falsehood flies, and the Truth comes limping after it,” wrote Swift in 1710. Yet empirical verification of this common wisdom has been scarce — to our chagrin these past few years as lies in seven-league boots outpace a hobbled truth on platforms seemingly bespoke […]
Facebook is streaming Major League Baseball, and now Twitter will stream Major League Soccer. The company announced on Friday a new three-year streaming deal that will bring at least 25 soccer matches that broadcast on Univision networks in Spanish to Twitter’s network, where they’ll be available in English. Notably, Major League Soccer (MLS) had partnered […]
Botnets are fascinating to me. Who creates them? What are they for? And why doesn’t someone delete them? The answers are probably less interesting than I hope, but in the meantime I like to cheer when large populations of bots are exposed. That’s what security outfit F-Secure’s Andy Patel did this week after having his […]
As we watch major tech platforms evolve over time, it’s clear that companies like Facebook, Apple, Google and Amazon (among others) have created businesses that are having a huge impact on humanity — sometimes positive and other times not so much. That suggests that these platforms have to understand how people are using them and […]
Zero-fee stock trading app Robinhood is getting some product firepower as it dives into cryptocurrency and weighs platform aspirations. Investor Josh Elman will join Robinhood as its VP of product while remaining at Greylock, though in a reduced capacity as a venture partner instead of as a general partner like before. With 4 million registered […]
A report commissioned by European lawmakers has called for more transparency from online platforms to help combat the spread of false information online. It also calls for urgent investment in media and information literacy education, and strategies to empower journalists and foster a diverse and sustainable news media ecosystem. The High-Level Expert Group (HLEG), which […]
Shares of Saudi Arabia’s Kingdom Holding, an international investment company controlled by Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal, soared in January when he was freed after two months of being held captive at a Ritz Carlton in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Turns out investors may have celebrated too soon. As people following the story may recall, Prince Alwaleed was arrested in […]
It’s a testament to quite how control freaky and hermetically sealed to criticism the tech industry is that Twitter’s CEO Jack Dorsey went unscripted in front of his own brand livestreaming service this week, inviting users to lob awkward questions at him for the first time ever. It’s also a testament to how much trouble social […]
Earlier this month, Twitter began soliciting proposals from the public to help the platform capture, measure and evaluate healthy interactions. Today, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and other members of the team held a public conversation via Periscope about the company’s new initiative to measure healthy interactions on Twitter. As Twitter previously noted, the goal is […]
Twitter is taking some steps to combat cryptocurrency scammers on its platform. But these are best classified as ‘baby steps’ at this point. The company does not currently have a specific ad policy relating to cryptocurrency and ICO related ads — which Facebook banned in January. “We allow ads that don’t violate the Twitter Advertising rules,” […]