This entire Washington Post report today is a must-read and once again deeply disturbing receipts on Facebook’s willingness to allow toxic sludge in order to maintain global scalability. It sure seems like they lied during the most significant external audit in their history. /1
Facebook even went to white people in the heart of deeply conservative America in order to establish content was objectionable. But even that apparently wasn’t enough to get Bickert+Kaplan to support that hate speech against the most vulnerable groups needed to be prioritized. /2
The “worst of the worst” may better describe the governance, executive leadership and policy team that protects Facebook’s toxic and harmful business model putting profits over democracy and civil societies. Andy Stone once again features in this report protecting Kaplan. /3
Here is Stone once again spreading misleading metrics which others regularly warn about onboarding and giving Facebook a platform to share them. % of content on the platform is irrelevant context for a report like this. /4
Even this sentence is deeply misleading. The word “proactive” is key as it means 80%+ ***of the removed hate speech*** is due to removal by software (as opposed to ~20% by humans). We learned from WSJ that maybe as low as 5% of hate speech is actually removed. /5
This stat is absolutely horrific and new to me. We learned in prior reporting that % removed by automation was driven up by Facebook creating friction in the human review process but I didn’t know it also was driven up by removing comments directed at white people. /6
Friday night KA-boom. In adtech antitrust lawsuit against Google, court has ordered the state AGs may depose Google co-founder Sergey Brin and CEO Sundar Pichai. Huge. /1
So the two cited reasons Pichai will be deposed (although not all of them) are incredibly sensitive. 1), “Jedi Blue,” the alleged collusion with Facebook that everyone wrongly wrote off back earlier in this lawsuit. Google CEO Pichai met directly with Facebook CEO Zuckerberg. /2
A reminder the Google and Facebook deal (aka the “NBA” or “Jedi Blue”) is also in a private antitrust suit against Facebook. The deal was signed by the lieutenants of the CEOs (Sheryl Sandberg for Facebook). /3
US v Google flooded docket (103 filings!) over weekend as Court said Friday...hey now, let's skip summary judgment, this baby is going to trial. Much is companies trying to keep their secrets sealed but we get a sense for the witnesses. And a small taste of evidence to come. /1
On the companies filing to keep their secrets sealed which they mostly provided under subpoena, it's a mix of adtech, agencies, platforms, you name it. /2
We also learn some glossary items which likely come up:
'RASTA' - Google's tool to evaluate new 'launches' (aka changes) in ad serving system, runs on live traffic
'Ariane' - identifies and summarized launches
'Launch' - creative name (lol), it replaced Ariane in 2020/2021 /3
SCOTUS just posted order list. It granted cert to Facebook on its Cambridge Analytica matter. Only first question but that’s a huge one. Basically should Facebook have disclosed to shareholders what it started to cover up in 2015 rather than presenting risk as hypothetical? /1
Here is the actual first question as written. One immediate item, it’s outrageous if Justice Kavanaugh didn’t/doesn’t recuse seeing his reported best friend, Joel Kaplan, was directly involved in the matter and its cover up. He threw his SCOTUS confirmation party IIRC. /2
Here is a link into background. I strongly urge press not to overlook this or assume you know fact history. Over the years much has played out in coverup and much of the reporting has been bent towards Facebook’s spin. I am more than happy to point you to the court records. /3
“X has lost dozens of major advertisers under Musk’s ownership, with 74 out of the top 100 U.S. advertisers from that month no longer spending on the platform as of May.” 1/4
Smart NBC report focusing on amplification, velocity and reach, “X isn’t living up to its own policies when it allows violent extremists to use the platform’s amplification features.” 2/4
“It’s not clear to what extent people at X were aware that the company was monetizing the extremist hashtags prior to NBC News’ reporting.” 3/4
Let’s do this. As I’ve said in the past, nothing makes a statement on important news close to the newspaper front page. Across America, almost every editor went with the simple fact, “Guilty.”
Let’s start with the biggest circulation. /1
I shouldn’t overlook Chicago and Los Angeles, Same. /2
Now let’s drop down to Florida for maybe obvious reasons to see how they reported it… /3
Super smart, important read in Washington Post for regulators, media executives, lawmakers. At a high level, Meta continues to use its market power to suppress all value in brands, news orgs and media companies. Brands are proxies for trust, but profit and data to Meta. /1
“These are platforms doing what platforms do, which is trying to optimize the time spent and the data collected. They don’t really have much interest or care for what happens to news outlets or journalists,” said @emilybell. /2
@emilybell But what is interesting here that needs to be pursued. How will Canada react considering they have a code that seeks to curb this imbalance in bargaining power. Facebook is attempting to run over to prevent further spread dismissing it as ineffective law. They’re wrong. /3