Facebook: Too big to flail

Facebook: Too big to flail

A decade ago, in the social media business book Groundswell, Charlene Li and I described online social technologies as an uncontrollable grass-roots movement. I had hoped social media would be a force for good. But now Facebook, along with its subsidiary Instagram, dominates that movement. It controls more of our collective attention – and gathers…

How Facebook’s “privacy-focused vision” will further violate your privacy

How Facebook’s “privacy-focused vision” will further violate your privacy

Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg announced a major strategy shift towards messaging and “privacy.” Don’t be fooled. It’s not about making you feel safer — at all. At the center of this two-step are two different definitions of privacy. When you think about privacy, you are thinking “I don’t want my private information shared.” That’s not what…

Zuckerberg’s Holocaust conundrum — and how Facebook can escape from it

Zuckerberg’s Holocaust conundrum — and how Facebook can escape from it

Mark Zuckerberg got himself in hot water by explaining why he couldn’t kick Holocaust deniers off of Facebook. That sounds indefensible until you try to figure out how you’d do it. It’s a hard problem, but I have a solution. Here’s what Mark Zuckerberg told Recode in an interview with Kara Swisher: Zuckerberg: I’m Jewish,…

The best questions that senators asked Mark Zuckerberg yesterday
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The best questions that senators asked Mark Zuckerberg yesterday

Based on my Twitter feed yesterday, people in Congress were asking some pretty dumb questions of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg yesterday. (One analyst tweeted that her head was going to explode.) So I looked at the transcript. What I found was some excellent questions that don’t have any simple answers. Here’s a good sampling. (The…

Mark Zuckerberg on Facebook’s future: the spirit is willing, but the algorithm is weak
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Mark Zuckerberg on Facebook’s future: the spirit is willing, but the algorithm is weak

Mark Zuckerberg published a 5800-word letter on the future of Facebook. It’s thoughtful, well-reasoned, articulate, and full of truth. It’s also full of wistful promises, which I don’t trust no matter who offers them. Mark Zuckerberg’s letter, Building Global Community, starts like this: On our journey to connect the world, we often discuss products we’re building…

Amazing! Facebook solves fake news problem! (Not really.)
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Amazing! Facebook solves fake news problem! (Not really.)

The problem of fake news on Facebook is now a news story. The last few days have seen tons of articles about it, most misleading or wrong. Ironically, these are exactly the kind of articles that spread virally, with misleading headlines. The headlines I show here are real, only the articles don’t match the headlines (yup, clickbait). None…

Mark Zuckerberg’s delusions regarding fake news on Facebook
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Mark Zuckerberg’s delusions regarding fake news on Facebook

Mark Zuckerberg defended Facebook this weekend regarding the role of fake news in the election. It’s way worse than he says, and he has a lot of work to do to fix it. Ignorance is the biggest problem in our democracy, and Facebook is making it worse. First, let me ask you: was your news…