Australia Passes Law To Make Google, Facebook Pay for News

Australia’s law forcing Google and Facebook to pay for news is ready to take effect, though the laws’ architect said it will take time for the digital giants to strike media deals. From a report: The Parliament on Thursday passed the final amendments to the so-called News Media Bargaining Code agreed between Treasurer Josh Frydenberg and Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg…

Did Facebook Change Its Rules to Placate the Right?

Former lobbyist/political advisor Joel Kaplan joined Facebook in 2011 to lead its Washington D.C. outreach, reports BuzzFeed news. But some employees said they were very unhappy with decisions made by both Kaplan and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg: In April 2019, Facebook was preparing to ban one of the internet’s most notorious spreaders of misinformation and hate, Infowars founder Alex Jones. Then…

‘We Need to Inflict Pain’: Mark Zuckerberg’s War on Apple

When Tim Cook told an interviewer that Apple wouldn’t get in a Facebook-style data-collection controversy, “Mr. Zuckerberg shot back that Mr. Cook’s comments were ‘extremely glib’ and ‘not at all aligned with the truth,'” reports the Wall Street Journal. But “In private, Mr. Zuckerberg was even harsher. ‘We need to inflict pain,’ he told his team, for treating the company so…

Facebook Is Said to Be Building a Product to Compete With Clubhouse

Facebook is building an audio chat product that is similar to the popular young app Clubhouse, The New York Times reported Wednesday, citing two people with knowledge of the matter, as the social network aims to expand into new forms of communication. From the report: Clubhouse, a social networking app, has gained buzz for letting people gather in audio chat rooms…

Facebook will start showing some of its users less political content

Facebook will start reducing the amount of political content users see while scrolling their primary feeds. From a report: The social media platform will “temporarily reduce the distribution of political content in News Feed for a small percentage of people” in Brazil, Indonesia and Canada this week, it said in a blog post on Wednesday. The changes will be applied to…

Mark Zuckerberg Wants Commuting Replaced with VR/AR

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg wants commuting to work replaced with VR/AR telecommuting. Zuckerberg made the suggestion on a talkshow on Clubhouse, reports The International Business Times: “One of the things that [VR] will unlock is the ability to live anywhere you want and be present in another place and really feel like you are there,” the Facebook CEO said.”It is going…

Will Mark Zuckerberg Retire From Facebook in 2022?

Among tech pundit Robert Cringley’s predictions for 2021? “This year is going to be a tough one for Mark Zuckerberg.”
[W]hile I don’t expect Zuckerberg to abandon his CEO job this year, he eventually will, simply because it isn’t as much fun as it used to be and there will come a point (maybe in 2022) when leaving the top job will…

Facebook Looks To Take its Fight With Apple To Court

A long-simmering public dispute between Facebook and Apple has neared a boiling point. The Information: With the aid of outside legal counsel, Facebook for months has been preparing an antitrust lawsuit against Apple that would allege the iPhone-maker abused its power in the smartphone market by forcing app developers to abide by App Store rules that Apple’s own apps don’t have…

Facebook’s Secret Settlement On Cambridge Analytica Gags UK Data Watchdog

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Remember the app audit Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg promised to carry out a little under three years ago at the height of the Cambridge Analytica scandal? Actually the tech giant is very keen that you don’t. The UK’s information commissioner just told a parliamentary subcommittee on online harms and disinformation that a secret…

Facebook Refers Its Trump Ban To Its ‘Supreme Court’

While NBC News reported on Tuesday that Facebook “has no plan in place to lift the indefinite suspension on President Donald Trump’s Facebook account,” there was a new twist two days later. “Facebook on Thursday announced that it will refer its decision to indefinitely suspend the account of former President Donald Trump to its newly instituted Oversight Board,” reports CNBC:
The independent…