Facebook Is a Doomsday Machine
The architecture of the modern web poses grave threats to humanity.
Great articles, every Saturday.
The architecture of the modern web poses grave threats to humanity.
Adrienne LaFrance The Atlantic Dec 2020 20min Permalink
For years, Mark Zuckerberg has faced criticism that Facebook is bad for democracy. A cache of leaked audio reveals the story of how much ultimately comes down to his judgment—and the forces freezing him in place.
Casey Newton The Verge Sep 2020 25min Permalink
Inside the tech industry’s decades-long failure to reckon with risk.
Catherine Buni, Soraya Chemaly One Zero Sep 2020 35min Permalink
The venture capitalist and Facebook board member staked his reputation on a Trump presidency. Now what does he have to show for it?
Rosie Gray, Ryan Mac Buzzfeed Sep 2020 Permalink
Tech oracle Jaron Lanier warned us all about the evils of social media.
Zach Baron GQ Aug 2020 20min Permalink
Inside an IRL cult built on Facebook memes and semen-drinking.
Emilie Friedlander, Joy Crane OneZero Jun 2020 Permalink
Open source materials suggest that, for now, the apocalyptic, anti-government politics of the “Boogaloo Bois” are not monolithically racist/neo-Nazi. As we have observed, some members rail against police shootings of African Americans, and praise black nationalist self defense groups.
But the materials also demonstrate that however irony-drenched it may appear to be, this is a movement actively preparing for armed confrontation with law enforcement, and anyone else who would restrict their expansive understanding of the right to bear arms. In a divided, destabilized post-coronavirus landscape, they could well contribute to widespread violence in the streets of American cities.
Robert Evans, Jason Wilson Bellingcat May 2020 25min Permalink
How new technologies and techniques pioneered by dictators will shape the 2020 election.
McKay Coppins The Atlantic Feb 2020 35min Permalink
There’s only ever so much you can control at any job.
David Roth Hazlitt Dec 2019 15min Permalink
Hundreds of pages of documents obtained by Motherboard show how Facebook is using the Menlo Park Police Department to reshape the city.
Sarah Emerson Vice Oct 2019 20min Permalink
Highlights from two hours of leaked audio from recent staff Q&A sessions with Facebook’s CEO.
Casey Newton The Verge Oct 2019 Permalink
Life in Silicon Valley during the dawn of the unicorns.
Anna Wiener New Yorker Sep 2019 30min Permalink
Brad Parscale has said he’s taking a relative pittance to run the president’s reelection operation. But as with much of what Parscale has claimed about his work and life, that’s not the full story. This is.
Peter Elkind, Doris Burke ProPublica Sep 2019 40min Permalink
Lessons from the death of a venture-backed, Facebook-dependent, millennial-focused news site.
Maxwell Strachan Huffington Post Jul 2019 30min Permalink
For the purposes of this essay, I’ll call it ‘ambient privacy’—the understanding that there is value in having our everyday interactions with one another remain outside the reach of monitoring, and that the small details of our daily lives should pass by unremembered. What we do at home, work, church, school, or in our leisure time does not belong in a permanent record. Not every conversation needs to be a deposition.
Maciej Cegłowski Idle Words Jun 2019 Permalink
A co-founder makes the case for government intervention.
Chris Hughes New York Times May 2019 25min Permalink
“The key differentiator of Super-Aggregators is that they have three-sided markets: users, content providers (which may include users!), and advertisers. Both content providers and advertisers want the user’s attention, and the latter are willing to pay for it.”
Ben Thompson Stratechery Apr 2019 Permalink
Scandals. Backstabbing. Resignations. Record profits. Time Bombs.
Nicholas Thompson, Fred Vogelstein Wired Apr 2019 40min Permalink
Inside Facebooks war on hate speech.
Simon van Zuylen-Wood Vanity Fair Feb 2019 25min Permalink
The secret lives of Facebook moderators in America.
Casey Newton The Verge Feb 2019 30min Permalink
It was Hell.
Kashmir Hill Gizmodo Feb 2019 20min Permalink
On Shoshana Zuboff’s The Age of Surveillance Capitalism.
By reengineering the economy and society to their own benefit, Google and Facebook are perverting capitalism in a way that undermines personal freedom and corrodes democracy.
Nicholas Carr Los Angeles Review of Books Jan 2019 15min Permalink
The reality of Silicon Valley is that it’s commerce by any means necessary. And the reality of Sandberg is that she’s excellent at it.
Anne Helen Petersen Buzzfeed Dec 2018 25min Permalink
Internal documents show that the social network gave Microsoft, Amazon, Spotify and others far greater access to people’s data than it has disclosed.
Gabriel J.X. Dance, Michael LaForgia, Nicholas Confessore New York Times Dec 2018 20min Permalink
How lies become truth in online America.
Eli Saslow Washington Post Nov 2018 15min Permalink