Axios
Trump's 2020 plan: Target seniors on Facebook
The Trump campaign is spending nearly half (44%) of its Facebook ad budget to target users who are over 65 years old, as opposed to Democratic candidates who are only spending 27% of their budget on that demographic. Other data points pulled from the Facebook ad archive show that the President is using most of those ads targeted towards older people to talk about immigration. Trump is using nativist language around immigrants in 54% of his ads, according to Bully Pulpit Interactive.
How Big Tech stays ahead
The harsh reality behind Big Tech's power consolidation is clear in these five trends:
- Data begets data, and that begets power
- Size begets more heft and dollars.
- Automation screws a lot of workers.
- Algorithms favor the fortunate in big business.
- Tech is also making big, bigger in media.
A new form of American capitalism
It’s no longer debatable: The system makes the big, bigger and the rich, richer. The rest of America stagnates or suffers. Since 1980, the incomes of the top 1%tripled, the top 10% doubled, and the bottom 60% of prime-age workers were flat. This may manifest on the campaign trail as a referendum not only on reversing the tax cuts and implementing a Green New Deal, but then moving in the exact opposite direction — President Donald Trump as the last gasp of trickle-down economics. It's hard to imagine a more worthy debate at a more important time for America.
Facebook's forever war on misinformation
Facebook spent 3 hours detailing its efforts to fight misinformation, highlighting points of improvement but leaving unanswered the overarching question of whether users are safer than they were 2 years ago. Facebook is getting better at both detecting and removing some types of content, with a particular focus on efforts to subvert democratic elections. But other types of negative content remain prevalent on Facebook. Facebook's pledge to shift toward private, encrypted conversations is likely to make it harder for the company to monitor and remove objectionable content.
"Skinny" TV bundles keep getting fatter (Axios)
Submitted by benton on Thu, 04/11/2019 - 10:49Internet companies spend billions to get people connected
The world’s biggest tech companies are spending billions of dollars on projects to get more people around the world connected to the internet. Facebook is in talks to develop an underwater data cable ring around Africa.
The next big news fight is between Chinese aggregation apps (Axios)
Submitted by Robbie McBeath on Tue, 04/09/2019 - 10:27What the internet knows about you
Any search engine can quickly reveal your phone number, address and family information with a surprising level of detail. This information, combined with social media posts, can be used by anyone to intimidate, harass, or stalk high-visibility people like politicians, business leaders, celebrities and journalists. However, going through smart opt-out processes can reduce your online footprint, making it more difficult for malicious actors to target you. Here’s how: Go to one of the lists of people aggregator sites, like the one provided by IntelTechniques, and go through the opt-out steps.