Fast Company
Social media won't regulate itself. How should we?
2019 is likely to see many debates on possible regulatory strategies for social media platforms. We offer several ideas to help shape those debates. First, it’s necessary to prohibit the data-intensive, micro-targeted advertising-dependent business model that is at the heart of the problem. Second, it’s vital that countries craft rules that are appropriate to their particular domestic social, legal, and political contexts. Third, and most provocatively, it’s time to consider non-commercial ownership of social media entities–including nonprofit or some form of public ownership.
This maddening map shows everywhere T-Mobile and Sprint will dominate post-merger (Fast Company)
Submitted by Robbie McBeath on Fri, 01/11/2019 - 12:47Inside the upcoming fight over a new federal privacy law (Fast Company)
Submitted by Robbie McBeath on Fri, 01/04/2019 - 12:54Facebook pays $238k to settle lawsuit and will halt political ads in Washington State
Facebook will stop displaying political campaign ads in Washington State in order to comply with campaign finance laws, and will pay more than $238,500 to settle a lawsuit alleging violations of those rules. Google was also alleged to have violated state laws by failing to maintain records of election ads on its platform, and ceased its political ads this summer, after Attorney General Bob Ferguson filed suit against the companies. The lawsuits will end without an admission of guilt from either Facebook or Google.
Tech journalist Walt Mossberg says he’s quitting Facebook and Messenger (Fast Company)
Submitted by Robbie McBeath on Mon, 12/17/2018 - 12:41AT&T is celebrating the 25th anniversary of its “You Will” campaign and by thinking once again about what the future might hold (Fast Company)
Submitted by benton on Mon, 12/03/2018 - 11:45Washington State Public Disclosure Commission: Facebook and Google ads platforms are still breaking campaign laws (Fast Company)
Submitted by Robbie McBeath on Fri, 11/30/2018 - 17:47The 1996 law that made the web is in the crosshairs
In the face of that toxic content’s intractability and the futility of the tech giants’ attempts to deal with it, it’s become a mainstream belief in Washington, DC–and a growing realization in Silicon Valley–that it’s no longer a question of whether to, but how to, regulate companies like Google, Twitter, and Facebook to hold them accountable for the content on their platforms. One of the most likely ways for Congress to do that would be to revise Section 230 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996.