Digital Content

Facebook allows advertisers to target users it thinks are interested in subjects such as homosexuality, Islam or liberalism, despite religion, sexuality and political beliefs explicitly being marked out as sensitive information under new data protection laws. The social network gathers information about users based on their actions on Facebook and on the wider web, and uses that data to predict on their interests.

The Justice Department and the FBI are investigating Cambridge Analytica, the now-defunct political data firm, and have sought to question former employees and banks that handled its business. Prosecutors have questioned potential witnesses in recent weeks, telling them that there is an open investigation into Cambridge Analytica — which worked on President Trump’s election and other Republican campaigns in 2016 — and “associated U.S.

The internet age has become an identity crisis as they face increasing competition from Silicon Valley, an uncertain merger landscape and global pressures in the race to 5G networks. It's no longer enough to power the pipes and cell towers that send internet traffic coursing around the world. The services that ride on top of that traffic, -- Google, Facebook and Amazon -- now dominate the internet ecosystem.

Potential deals between 21st Century Fox and Walt Disney (or Comcast), Viamcom and CBS, and AT&T and Time Warner have producers wondering just who the TV programming honchos will be. New ownership or management could lead to changes in programming strategy, determining which shows get renewed or canceled, where they fall on the schedule, and what kind of resources and marketing budget they get. The uncertainty adds to the other challenges facing the industry including competition for talent and viewers from deep-pocketed streaming services.

Klout, the service which measured online influence and assigned people a zero-to-100 score based on their social media followings, will shut down on May 25. Everyone’s Klout scores will go away, and with them, any remaining chance that businesses will treat us better or worse based on those scores. But the data Klout gathered from people presumably lives on. Lithium Technologies, the social-media marketing company that bought Klout in 2014, implied in its announcement that it has integrated Klout’s software and data into its own products. 

Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee made public for the first time the full cache of more than 3,000 ads that Facebook said were purchased by a pro-Kremlin group, the Internet Research Agency. The ads, fewer than 50 of which had previously been revealed, offer the clearest window yet into the evolving tactics used by the group as it sought to amplify social and political tensions in the US. The Russian-backed pages initially deployed relatively simple techniques, buying ads targeted to reach large segments, such as all Facebook users living in the US.

Facebook is defining what it considers "issue ads" through an initial list of ad topics, ranging from abortion to guns, that will require authorization and labeling on its platform in the US. Facebook's initial list of what it considers an "issue ad": Abortion, budget, civil rights, crime, economy, education, energy, environment, foreign policy, government reform, guns, health, immigration, infrastructure, military, poverty, social security, taxes, terrorism, and values. A list of topics is a good start, but there will inevitably be instances where there are discrepancies a

Social media platforms are using the same techniques as gambling firms to create psychological dependencies and ingrain their products in the lives of their users, experts warn. These methods are so effective they can activate similar mechanisms as cocaine in the brain, create psychological cravings and even invoke “phantom calls and notifications” where users sense the buzz of a smartphone, even when it isn’t really there.

First Lady Melania Trump said she would focus her official effort as first lady on teaching children to put kindness first in their lives, particularly on social media. She unveiled a program called “Be Best,” which she said would tackle opioid abuse, social media pressures and mental health issues among young people.

The Santa Clara Principles offer guidance to internet platforms on how to provide users with meaningful due process when their posts are taken down or their accounts are suspended, and to help ensure that the enforcement of company content guidelines is fair, unbiased, and respectful of users’ free expression rights. The three principles urge companies to:

• Publish the numbers of posts removed and accounts permanently or temporarily suspended due to violations of their content guidelines;