Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
The growing stream of reporting on and data about fake news, misinformation, partisan content, and news literacy is hard to keep up with. This weekly roundup offers the highlights of what you might have missed. Here are two truths and a lie. Which one’s the lie? 1. Pedophiles are taking advantage of YouTube’s algorithm to…
During Theranos’s final days, Holmes was wearing white fur and partying in the desert. Oh, and her dog-wolf, Balto—the one who pooped all over the office? That story just keeps getting weirder. February 26, 2019 6:39 pm Elizabeth Holmes in New York City in 2015. By Taylor Hill/Getty Images. By the end of…
Men are scum. You can’t say that on Facebook. Men are pigs. You can’t say that either. Men are trash. Men are garbage fires. Also banned. It’s nine A.M. on an autumn Tuesday, and I’m sitting in on a meeting about “men are scum” at Facebook’s campus in Menlo Park, California. The trouble started a…
Facebook Inc. has spent the better part of a year telling its users, Congress and the readers of this paper that we’re in charge of our personal data and the ads we see. The network has streamlined its privacy settings, shared more details about how data is used and highlighted how its ad controls work. If we take advantage of all these privacy controls, it shouldn’t still feel as…
“Data is the new oil” is one of those deceptively simple mantras for the modern world. Whether in The New York Times, The Economist, or WIRED, the wildcatting nature of oil exploration, plus the extractive exploitation of a trapped asset, seems like an apt metaphor for the boom in monetized data. Antonio García Martínez (@antoniogm)…
react-text: 123 After numerous controversies, /react-text react-text: 125 Rotten Tomatoes /react-text react-text: 126 announced today it will change its audience score. The key shift, per the /react-text react-text: 129 Los Angeles Times /react-text react-text: 130 , is that the site will stop allowing users to rate movies prior to their release in theaters. Users “will now…
Content warning: This story contains discussion of serious mental health issues and racism. The panic attacks started after Chloe watched a man die. She spent the past three and a half weeks in training, trying to harden herself against the daily onslaught of disturbing posts: the hate speech, the violent attacks, the graphic pornography. In…
More than 100 Microsoft employees have signed a letter sent to CEO Satya Nadella and President Brad Smith criticizing the company’s plans to build HoloLens AR tech for the military, the organizing group said Friday. The development is part of a $480 million military contract that Microsoft won this past November. The group’s letter demands…
[if (mso)|(IE)]> [if (mso)|(IE)]> It’s me again — Mr. Sunshine — with more wretched news about the rotting carcass of our once adequate industry. 1. Digital GangstersWe begin in Jolly Ol’ England where a committee of Parliament denounced Facebook and its leadership as “digital gangsters.” According to The New York Times… “…After 18 months investigating Facebook and…
ContentItemController, generated at 16:20:31 Fri Feb 22, 2019, by cds6 Facebook planned to use its Android app to track the location of its customers and to allow advertisers to send political advertising and invites to dating sites to ‘single’ people, confidential documents show. Facebook project teams developed technology to allow the company to track the…