Meta, to put it rather inelegantly, has a data non-compliance problem.  That problem began in the original conception of Facebook, a social network conceived by that most anti-social of types, Mark Zuckerberg.  (Who claims that these troubled sorts lack irony?) On May 22, the European Union deemed it appropriate to slap a $1.3 billion fine on the company for transferring[Read More…]

Africa has been a continent exploited since the European scramble carved it out in lines of a draughtsman’s crude design.  Its resources have been pilfered; its peoples enslaved for reasons of trade and profit; its political conditions manipulated to favour predatory companies. A similar pattern is detectable in the digital world.  The slavers have replaced their human product with data[Read More…]

Facebook’s algorithm is considering two sponsored posts that feature the same chicken. In the first post, she is alive and struggling, confined in a tiny cage, on her way to her premature death. In the second, she is dead, beheaded, and roasted. Can you guess which post was approved? It turns out that Meta, the parent company of Facebook, is[Read More…]

Facebook’s announcement has implications about digital life and work—provided it can attract younger users and gamer skeptics and overcome the hate speech and disinformation problems that could still plague Zuckerberg’s vision. On October 28, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg launched a new company brand, Meta, at the annual Facebook Connect event. According to Facebook, “Meta… brings together our apps and technologies under one[Read More…]