Boycotts rarely work. But in the face of advertiser boycotts, Facebook just did a U-turn on its policy on labelling or blocking presidential posts. The cause and effect here is a lot more complex than it appears. As recently as the beginning of June, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the right decision on presidential posts,…
CBS This Morning did a profile taking viewers inside the home of Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan. It was a big wet smooch. Will this help Zuckerberg and Facebook? Sure. Now we know that rather than being a robot with an evil product, he’s a human. Every CEO has an image, and tech…
Google will stop targeting political ads based on behavior. That’s a start. I call on every platform to end all targeted political ads (except by geography) — and for Congress to make this the law. Here’s what happened with political ads so far in 2019: Twitter banned all political ads. Google just announced that for…
The parent company of Facebook is now FACEBOOK. As rebranding goes, that sucks. I have some better suggestions. “Today, we’re updating our company branding to be clearer about the products that come from Facebook. We’re introducing a new company logo and further distinguishing the Facebook company from the Facebook app, which will keep its own…
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey just banned all political and issue advertising. Facebook currently accepts all political ads, even if they include false content. But rather than blindly follow Twitter’s lead, I think Facebook has to think a little harder. The current situation regarding Facebook advertising for candidates is unacceptable. Mark Zuckerberg says it’s a free-speech…
Sunday’s New York Times featured an op-ed by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, titled “Facebook Can Help the News Business.” It’s an outrageous ad masquerading as content — and demonstrates Zuckerberg’s arrogant attitude towards how Facebook has decimated the news business. Why is the New York Times publishing a product announcement as editorial content? The purpose…
Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook won’t block political ads with lies in them. Facebook has changed its policy on — lets call it what is — false advertising. Zuckerberg characterizes this as a “free speech” issue. This is misdirection, a smokescreen. It’s utter bullshit. I refer you to what I wrote earlier this year, after another trust…
A battle is waging between humanity’s evil side and the cleverness of Silicon Valley social network engineers. The evil side is winning. And it will always win. The Verge published some insightful articles on this topic in the last few weeks. Casey Newton published the second in a series of exposés on the outsourced operations…
Facebook’s under fire for allowing the posting of altered videos of Nancy Pelosi. One of those videos makes her appear drunk. For reasons that may not be clear at first, this is an existential crisis for Facebook. First, let’s clear up some confusion. There are at least two Pelosi videos under discussion right now. One,…