Facebook offers a $20 million sweetener to improve Silicon Valley communities
Mark Zuckerberg is well known for his philanthropic ventures -- he hardly keeps them quiet, after all. Now Facebook as a whole is getting in on the action, offering up a $20 million contribution to help improve the communities around Silicon Valley and the Bay Area.
It could be argued that the financial offering is not entirely selfless, but this will probably be of little concern to those who stand to benefit from a number of projects that will focus on building affordable housing, STEM training in the area, and legal support for those in need.
How to stop Facebook eating through your mobile data allowance
If you have an unlimited mobile data plan -- or a very generous one at least -- then you don’t have to worry about apps going crazy, and gobbling up data when you’re out and about.
If, however, you’re on a more limited plan, you probably want to save data where you can. Facebook is one of the worst apps for consuming data rather unnecessarily, but you can rein it in.
Facebook is monitoring Roku and Apple TV streams to deliver targeted advertising
Internet users are accustomed to the idea of targeted advertising. Both Google and Facebook take into account the things you look for online, the things you look at, the people you are connected to, and so on, and use this information to pelt you with ads they think you will respond to.
Having been forced to stop using data gathered from WhatsApp to deliver targeted ads to social network users, you might think that Facebook would consider toning down its ad personalization. But you would be wrong. For the last few weeks, Facebook has been testing the delivery of targeted ads to Roku and Apple TV based on what people are watching.
You can now play classic arcade games in Facebook Messenger -- Here's how
You’ve been able to play basic games in Facebook Messenger for a while -- things like chess, soccer and basketball -- but from now you’ll be able to play classic arcade games too.
So, if in a middle of a chat with a friend you’re suddenly overcome with the need to challenge them to a game of Pac-Man, Galaga, Space Invaders, Puzzle Bobble, or Track & Field, you can.
Right-wing Breitbart blocked by AppNexus ad exchange for hate speech
Right-wing website Breitbart -- the darling of the so-called alt-right movement -- has been blocked by a leading ad exchange. The site, home to Milo Yiannopoulos (also known as @Nero and banned from Twitter) will no longer be permitted to sell ad space via AppNexus.
The move comes after an audit by AppNexus found that Breitbart was in violation of its policies on hate speech and incitement to violence.
Facebook is ready to censor posts in China -- should users around the world be worried?
Facebook's relationship with China has a tense and turbulent history. The social network is currently banned in China, and this clearly takes a huge chunk out of Facebook's ad revenue. In a bid to keep Chinese authorities happy, Mark Zuckerberg has been involved in the creation of software that can be used to monitor and censor posts made by users.
In terms of playing by China's rules, this is clearly great news for Facebook, and it opens up the possibility of the social network operating in the country. While there is the slight silver lining that Facebook's censorship tool does not amount to a full blackout (as the Guardian puts it: "The posts themselves will not be suppressed, only their visibility"), the new program does raise a very important question: if Facebook is willing and able to create such a censorship tool for China, what’s to stop it doing the same for other markets, or even for its own benefit?
Black Mirror, Signal, Manoeuvre: Is social media the future of car insurance?
A multinational company with thousands of employees and a turnover of more than £2 billion in 2015 requests access to young customers’ private social media history to predict their likely future behavior.
While this might sound like the basis for an episode of Charlie Brooker’s dystopian TV series Black Mirror, it’s actually a real plan formulated by insurance provider Admiral to create more accurate quotes for young drivers. The initiative, aptly named firstcarquote, was intended to examine a user’s Facebook presence -- including the pages they like and the content they post -- to identify key personality traits. These traits, in turn, would be used to predict the prospective customer’s driving style.
How will Facebook fight the fake news phenomenon? Poorly... and stupid, lazy users don't help
Facebook has many problems, but the most recent and prominent of them has been the issue of fake news. So serious is the problem, that some have blamed fake news stories on Facebook as being the reason Donald Trump is now president elect.
Mark Zuckerberg has made it fairly clear he doesn't subscribe to this particular idea, but he is certainly aware that fake news is a problem. Under pressure to do something about it -- bearing in mind that for a worrying percentage of people, Facebook is their only source of news -- Zuckerberg wants to not only make it clear that "we take misinformation seriously", but also that there are plans to tackle the problem. But they're not very good.
Facebook fake news guru Paul Horner credits himself with getting Donald Trump elected
Fake news stories are on the rise, spreading across the internet via social media. They spread at a quickening rate thanks, in large part, to well-known people sharing them. Now some services are cracking down on these stories, but is it too late?
Just recently we learned that both Google and Facebook are clamping down on the spread of fake news stories, with Google withholding ads that appear on sites it deems to contain misleading content.
Facebook's Social Good Forum aims to improve the world with donations in live video and Community Help
Facebook just held its first Social Good Forum and used it to unveil a number of new tools and options focused around raising money to help out those in need. It also announced the expansion of the existing Safety Check feature.
The social network has faced criticism in the past for triggering Safety Check -- which lets Facebook users tells friends and family they are OK in the event of a disaster or crisis -- for some major events, but not others. Now Facebook is taking a hands-off approach: it can be triggered by the community. Another new feature announced is the arrival of Donate buttons in Live videos and posts.
Why Facebook Workplace has no future
On October 10, Facebook debuted its long-incubated and much-anticipated platform for business: Workplace. But within days it was already clear that it wasn't going to live up to the hype. In fact, there's no way it could have.
This is not meant as a snub of Facebook. It makes perfect sense that Mark Zuckerberg would want his platform to become as popular for work as it is for fun. It has even made some initial converts. Hootsuite CEO Ryan Holmes defended Workplace -- which he has implemented at his offices -- in a Fast Company article because it represents "part of a broader wave of the consumerization of IT".
Facebook's privacy-invading WhatsApp user data dipping ends in Europe
Facebook has stopped using data collected from WhatsApp users to customize ads in Europe. The move comes after the practice was banned in Germany, and after the UK's Information Commissioner announced an investigation.
The social networking giant had already agreed to stop using WhatsApp data from users in the UK, but this has now been extended on a Europe-wide basis. Last month Facebook was on the receiving end of criticism from the Article 29 Working Party who complained about the invasion of users' privacy.
Could alt-right account bans spell the end of Twitter?
Abuse and trolling has been a serious problem for Twitter for some time and continues to be so. Various measures have been introduced to help with the issues, but now the site is going down a more drastic route, banning prominent alt-right accounts.
This is not something that is entirely new; earlier in the year Breitbart's Milo Yiannopoulos (also known as @Nero) was permanently banned from Twitter. In the wake of Donald Trump's astonishing rise to presidency, the alt-right movement has enjoyed a major boost. The question is, does Twitter risk cutting off too many of its users if it continues its alt-right cull?
Mark Zuckerberg denies Facebook influenced the US election, and vows to tackle fake news
In the wake of the election of Donald Trump as Barack Obama's successor as president of America, Mark Zuckerberg has spoken out to deny claims that Facebook in any way influenced the result of the US election.
Criticism of Facebook has taken various forms. One of the key complaints is that its news algorithms serve to create an echo chamber, exaggerating the already-present confirmation bias effect. But there are also concerns that fake news is a serious problem on the platform.
Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg is dead... maybe you are too
A "terrible error" has been blamed for the accidental virtual killing of a number of Facebook users, including none other than Mark Zuckerberg. Thousands of users of the social network logged into their accounts to find out they were dead after Facebook experienced a strange bug.
The accounts of many people were memorialized as friends were invited to "remember and celebrate" the lives of the "deceased". The mistake led to Facebook users having to reassure friends and family that they were OK and remained alive and kicking.
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