Facebook explored using a flock of small drones to increase phone data speeds

Facebook explored using a flock of small bird-sized drones to increase smartphone data speeds. The project, called "Catalina" was tested off the coast of California and was discontinued about a year ago.

Facebook has been exploring ways to increase mobile connectivity

The project was reported in the Business Insider. Facebook has been exploring ways to help increase mobile connectivity for years especially to bring more in developed countries to get online. While it could be seen as a humanitarian effort it also would help bring more into the company's app ecosystem.

The most visible Facebook projects have been its Internet.org initiative with its Free Basics and Express Wi-Fi for growing smartphone markets. There was also the discontinued Aquila project that was to fly large, solar-powered drones that could beam down Internet.

Catalina

A fleet of the bird-sized drones would be used to boost smartphone data speeds. The project was carried out in secret according to the Business Insider (BI). A recent Verge article says: "BI reports that the drones would be closer to the size of a sparrow, making them almost pocket-sized. The goal would not be to beam down a functioning internet connection to completely remote areas, but instead to augment existing, 2G-level connections to allow smartphone users to stream video and perform other more data-intensive tasks. It’s not clear how exactly that would have worked. The report describes the drones as designed to carry “high-density solid state drives... that could then be used to ferry data,” so perhaps the drones would act as a mesh network of sorts between a grounded connection and a user’s smartphone to facilitate high-bandwidth data transfers." Catalina is also described in this article.

Project Aquila

In March of 2015 Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg claimed there had been a successful test of a wide-wing solar-powered drone built to deliver wireless Internet services to remote locations. The test flight took place in the UK and was claimed to be a milestone in bringing online access to billions more people around the world. The drone has a wing span greater than that of a Boeing 737. The appended video from the summer of 2016 shows Aquila's first flight.

Previously published in the Digital Journal

Facebook testing dark mode in Messenger

Facebook has changed its Messenger app recently. The app has been slimmed down in order to focus more on the chat function. Facebook also has promised that it would eventually roll out what is called a dark mode.

Dark Mode

Dark mode is basically a display mode in which the screen background is dark and text and other features are light. Some operating systems have a dark mode as do some browsers. An article in Macworld last September explains how it operates in the Mac Mojave: "In macOS Mojave in Dark Mode, dark colors are used in place of light colors in the user interface. For example, in Dark Mode the menu bar at the top of the Mac UI is no longer white with black text. Instead, it’s inverted so the bar is a dark color and the the text is white. That dark theme is carried throughout the UI."

The browser Chrome is also testing a dark mode on Windows which is to be released later this year.

For some Dark Mode may not seem particularly significant but it does have a number of benefits that some users appreciate. The higher contrast for the text makes it easier to read documents and menu items. Using dark colours instead of white also reduces glare which reduces eye fatigue. Finally, it also can improve ones ability to see certain aspects of photos and videos including color and detail.

Dark Mode test on Facebook Messenger

There is no setting of any sort at present for transitioning to Dark Mode. The only way you get to test mode is to go on a chat thread and send the person the moon emoji. You can send it to someone else or to yourself. Once sent you tap on the sent emoji icon and a message should appear saying that you found Dark Mode. If that doesn't work quit Facebook Messenger and tap the emoji to see the Dark Mode message.

After having done this you can go to Messenger settings and toggle the Dark Mode switch to on. This should enable the Dark Mode interface. However, some have received a message that Dark Mode is still a work in progress. There is no date yet as to when the Dark Mode will be officially rolled out on Messenger.

Previously published in Digital Journal

Facebook, Google, and Amazon spend $48 million on lobbying in 2018

Google, Facebook and Amazon spent record amounts lobbying U.S. lawmakers last year, according to recently reported filings. This did not prevent them from being criticized by lawmakers.

The record lobbying expenditures

Altogether, the three large firms spent over $48 million last year on lobbying. The year was filled with congressional hearings about company actions but little concrete progress by lawmakers although they are putting pressure on the U.S. tech giants.

Individual company expenditures

The government disclosure form filled out for Google can be found here. Google spent $21.2 million on lobbying last year the most of the three companies. The previous record was $18 million spent in 2017. The money was spent on a huge array of topics including: online ad regulations, privacy and data security issues, data breaches, cybersecurity, global trade and tariffs, immigration, the opioid crisis, and policies on controversial content.

Facebook

Facebook spent $12.6 million last year. $2.83 million was spent in the final quarter. The total is up from around $11.5 million spent the year before. Facebook also spent its money on a variety of issues including: cybersecurity, encryption, data privacy and online advertising transparency. The fallout from the Cambridge Analytica scandal no doubt helped to make these issues a priority.

From looking at their yearly review one would not know that there were many issues that Facebook faced: "Facebook left a few things out its year in review — a lot. The social network’s list includes events like the Royal Wedding, the World Cup, the Super Bowl, and International Women’s Day, but seems to omit more Facebook’s involvement with things like genocide, election interference, privacy violations, data breaches, executive malfeasance, and conspiracy theories. Basically, Facebook wants you to know that positive global events did happen this year, and people talked about them on Facebook."

Amazon

Amazon also set a new spending record of $14.2 million last year. This exceeded the $12.8 million it spent the year before. It spent $3.71 in the final quarter. The issues it dealt with included: postal reform, cloud computing, the Internet of Things and data privacy. This last issue fit in with the fact that Amazon sells smart home products and also face the criticism advanced by Trump and others that Amazon is negatively impacting the U.S. Postal Service.

To round out the spending Apple spent $6.6 million and Microsoft $9.5 million — both expenditures down from 2017.

Pressure on the three by government is likely to remain in 2019

Often moved by public complaints, the US government is likely to maintain pressure on the three giants and others during 2019.

A recent article questions whether online companies bear the same degree of responsibility for protecting client's data as required by professionals such as doctors or lawyers: "A new bill introduced by Senate Democrats on Wednesday says the answer is 'Yes,' that some online companies should bear a comparable level of responsibility for the control and protection of Americans’ private data. Because ultimately, the argument goes, Mark Zuckerberg should have a similar level of responsibility to protect your data as your doctor does."

In other areas too large corporations spend millions on lobbying as shown on the appended video on pharmaceutical company lobbying.

Prevously published in Digital Journal

US officials discuss fining Facebook a record amount over 22.5 million

US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) officials have been discussing the imposition of a record-setting fine on Facebook, according to the Washington Post. The fine would be for major data breaches and improper data sharing.

Facebook's privacy breaches

There was an agreement between Facebook and the US government back in 2012 that was to protect user's data and make clear statements about their privacy that may have been violated as well. Last spring it was revealed that data on over 87 million users had been given to Cambridge Analytica, a political consulting firm, without the users' explicit consent.

The UK has already fined Facebook last October to the tune of 500,000 pounds, a sum that is small compared to the amount being considered by US officials. The fine is equivalent to about $600,000 US and is being appealed by Facebook. The Washington Post claims that the US fine would be larger than the $22.5 that the FTC imposed on Google back in 2012 for tracking Apple Safari web browser users after it had promised it would not. On the appended video it is claimed that at least one analyst suggested the fine could be above a billion dollars!

In the 2012 agreement with the FTC, Facebook agreed that it had deceived users by telling them certain information would be kept private when it was not. The company had made such information as lists of friends and published posts, available to the public and this could be shared without the users' consent. The FTC probably now thinks the agreement not to continue to do this has been violated.

Following the Cambridge Analytica scandal and similar incidents, which included a hacker accessing personal information on 29 million accounts, both members of the US Congress and advocacy groups called on the FTC to take action against Facebook.

Free Press, a media and technology advocacy group said: “Serious consequences are the only way to curb Facebook’s predatory behavior and change the industry’s amoral pursuit of growth at the public’s expense. This action should be the first of many taken by regulators and Congress in response to online platforms’ systemic abuse of their users.”

Another commentator, Marc Rotenberg, the executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said: “The agency now has the legal authority, the evidence, and the public support to act. There can be no excuse for further delay.”

Findings and fine have yet to be finalized

The Washington Post claims that the findings of the FTC investigation and the total amount of the fine are not yet finalized.

Facebook representatives have met with investigators from the FTC throughout last year. It is not clear if Facebook will accept the fine if and when FTC imposes it.

The FTC has been a victim of the partial US government shutdown with many of its non-essential employees being furloughed. The FTC made no comments when asked by the news source, The Verge, nor did Facebook. Facebook's actions and public statements are facing inquiries by several different federal agencies with respect to Facebook's mishandling of millions of users' personal files and data.

Previously published in Digital Journal

Facebook said to be developing its own cryptocoin to transfer funds

Facebook will build a crypto coin that is crafted to make it easier to transfer money on WhatsApp, according to a Bloomberg report. The coin will be focused on India and will allow Indian workers abroad to send funds back home.

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Coin should solve problems in international transfers

Other Bitcoin startups have already started working to solve problems involved with the difficult and expensive processes in international transfers of funds.

The Bloomberg announcement notes: "The company is developing a stablecoin — a type of digital currency pegged to the U.S. dollar — to minimize volatility, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing internal plans. Facebook is far from releasing the coin, because it’s still working on the strategy, including a plan for custody assets, or regular currencies that would be held to protect the value of the stablecoin, the people said."

Tether is the most prominent stablecoin at present, even though some have expressed doubts about whether it is back to one US dollar for each Tether as the company claims.

Back in May, the Cheddar news channel first broke the news that Facebook was developing its own crypto coin noting that Facebook had been considering the move for some time: "Facebook started studying blockchain almost a year ago, when a member of its corporate development team, Morgan Beller, began looking at how the social platform could use the emerging technology. At the time, Beller was the only Facebook employee devoted to studying blockchain, the digital and decentralized ledger that underpins cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum. Her work was thrust into the spotlight this week when Facebook announced that the vice president in charge of the Messenger app, David Marcus, would lead a new team to “explore how to best leverage blockchain across Facebook, starting from scratch. Marcus leads a team of less than a dozen Facebook employees working on blockchain. Before joining the company, he was the president of PayPal, which facilitates transactions between users in Facebook’s Messenger app. "

The Facebook coin would have its value based on the US dollar. This should minimize the volatility of the coin compared to more prominent coins such as Bitcoin, the number one cryptocoin by market value which have a high volatility as to their value. There are numerous details still to be worked out. It would appear that Facebook is still far from releasing the coin as yet. Indian foreign workers may have to wait a considerable time before they can actually make use of the planned coin.

Previously published in Digital Journal

Facebook loses more users in Europe last quarter but is growing elsewhere

Facebook finds its user base had gone down in Europe the company reported as it announced its third-quarter earnings. This is the second quarter in a row that the company has lost users in Europe.

Reasons for the decline of users in Europe

Two reasons for the decline in Europe are the Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal and the implementation of the new continent-wide privacy law, the GDPR.

The Cambridge Analytica scandal

Wikipedia describes the Cambridge Analytica scandal as follows: "The Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal was a major political scandal in early 2018 when it was revealed Cambridge Analytica had harvested the personal data of millions of people's Facebook profiles without their consent and used it for political purposes. It has been described as a watershed moment in the public understanding of personal data and precipitated a massive fall in Facebook's stock price and calls for tighter regulation of tech companies' use of data." This serious breach of privacy no doubt caused some users to simply stop using Facebook.

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)

Wikipedia describes the GDPR: "The General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679 ("GDPR") is a regulation in EU law on data protection and privacy for all individuals within the European Union (EU) and the European Economic Area (EEA). It also addresses the export of personal data outside the EU and EEA areas. The GDPR aims primarily to give control to individuals over their personal data and to simplify the regulatory environment for international business by unifying the regulation within the EU.[1]" There can be huge fines for violating the GDPR.

You would think this regulation would bring in more users as it protects their privacy. However, it requires all users to inspect their privacy setting forcing users to acknowledge how much information they are allowing to be collected. This may have caused some users to simply stop being engaged with the likes of Facebook.

Facebook executives have said that they will follow Europe's lead on privacy regulation in the US. This could lead to future declines in the US,

The decline in Facebook users in Europe

In Europe the active number of Facebook users is 375 million whereas in the US it is just 242 million. Two million users have left Facebook on a monthly basis since the first quarter, and even more, 4 million, have abandoned it on a daily basis. The last quarter is the first in which the GDPR rules have been in force. In Quarter 1 to 3 the decline in Europe has been from 377 million to 375 million. The decline in daily active users has been from 282 million to 278 million. The decline in daily users in Europe from its peak to its recent low is about 1.4 percent. If this happened in the US it would mean the loss of about 3.4 million users.

In other areas Facebook usage is growing considerably

The anxiety about a decline in the US in Facebook users as well as Europe is a bit misguided it seems to me in that in the Asia Pacific region and the rest of the world the user base is growing substantially. The number of users in those areas is far larger than in the US and Europe. The markets in US and the EU may be more or less saturated and not likely to grow more in any event.

The Business Insider's own monthly active user's chart shows that in the last quarter the user base in the Asia-Pacific Region went from 894 million to 917 million over three times as many users as in the US and more than twice that of Europe. The rest of the world went from 723 million users to 736 million users. The total number of users went from 2,234 million users to 2,271 million users. So Facebook is actually still growing substantially world wide even though it has lost some users in Europe.

The Business Week article notes that Facebook usually reacts to user-growth numbers. In pre-market trading on Wednesday morning its stock price was up about 5 percent. The article suggests that declines from the GDPR were already priced in. Perhaps why the price went up is that the total number of users is up substantially in spite of the fact that Europe has lost users and growth is virtually flat in the US. Both areas are minor relative to the total user base of Facebook.

Previously published in Digital Journal

Facebook bans more accounts said to be linked to Iranian influence campaign

After identifying more suspicious behavior linked to an ongoing Iranian influence campaign the company removed a combined 82 pages, groups and accounts that were pretending to be US and sometimes British citizens and organizations.

Some of the accounts had large numbers of followers

Facebook claims it removed 30 pages, 33 Facebook accounts, and three groups on Facebook. It found 16 new accounts on Instagram. About one million people followed at least one page. Approximately 25,000 people joined one of the groups. On Instagram about 28,000 people followed at least one of the accounts. Obviously, Facebook is taking down some pages and closing some accounts that people find quite interesting even though they do not pass the Facebook test of being authentic.

New bans are a continuation of a campaign begun in August

Back in August, Facebook saw evidence of an Iranian campaign designed to sow division and amplify tensions in the US. Google found that the operation was spreading to You Tube. Nathaniel Gleicher Facebook head of cybersecurity policy said: “Despite attempts to hide their true identities, a manual review of these accounts linked their activity to Iran. We also identified some overlap with the Iranian accounts and Pages we removed in August. However, it’s still early days and while we have found no ties to the Iranian government, we can’t say for sure who is responsible.” Note that there have been no actual ties found to the Iranian government.

In August, Facebook deleted over 600 accounts that it associated with Russia or Iran. It was alerted to the Iranian network by FireEye: "In July, FireEye tipped Facebook off to the existence of a network of pages known as Liberty Front Press. The network included 70 accounts, three Facebook groups, and 76 Instagram accounts, which had 155,000 Facebook followers and 48,000 Instagram followers. The network had undisclosed links to Iranian state media, Facebook said, and spent more than $6,000 between 2015 and today. The network also hosted three events." Facebook owns Instagram.

Most interventions are not aimed at supporting specific candidates

As with Russian interventions in the 2016 elections most posts are aimed at stoking tensions over high priority concerns such as immigration and race relations. Many of the examples shown by Facebook profess anti-Trump sentiment or they comment on recent controversies such as on the hearings for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. There does not seem to be an attempt to spread propaganda unilaterally but to inflame current disagreements. Of course they may do this by providing information or points of view that the US establishment does not like but is well appreciated by followers of the accounts.

Facebook sets up a war room to identify and counter suspicious behavior

The war room in its Menlo Park headquarters in California is fighting misinformation on Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. Katie Harbath, global politics and government outreach director said in an interview: “This is going to be a constant arms race. This is our new normal. Bad actors are going to get more sophisticated in what they’re doing, and we’re going to have to get more sophisticated in trying to catch them.”

Some of those involved in the Facebook filtering of fake news are hardly neutral

In a recent Digital Journal article that discusses the war room and its function it was noted: "Among those helping Facebook to filter the news is the Atlantic Council. Rania Khalek an independent journalist said in a tweet: “This is alarming. The Atlantic Council — which is funded by gulf monarchies, western governments, NATO, oil and weapons companies, etc. — will now assist Facebook in suppressing what they decide is disinformation." In Facebook's statement which announced the partnership it said that the company will use the Atlantic Council's Digital Research Unit Monitoring Missions during elections and other highly sensitive moments.

The Gray Zone of Max Blumenthal notes that the account of Sayed Mousavi an Iranian student and independent journalist was suspended from Twitter. Mousavi pointed out that Twitter’s second-largest shareholder is the billionaire Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal and that Facebook works with the Israeli government in that it censors Palestinian media based upon its requests. You do not see Facebook suspending Israeli accounts, trolls, or removing bots. He said that what is happening is just the tip of the iceberg compared to what we will see in the future. He also said of the Facebook suspensions mentioned earlier: "These suspensions were based on a questionable, thinly sourced report by the American cybersecurity firm FireEye, which is led by former US military officers."

US allies such as Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey continue to run their own troll propaganda campaigns without being shut down. Only some Saudi Arabian trolls have been suspended because they spread false news about the Khashoggi murder. They actually just report what Saudi officials say spreading the official line. This being in opposition to official US government narratives that gets you suspended.

In December 2017, journalist Glenn Greenwald warned: " “Facebook Says It Is Deleting Accounts at the Direction of the U.S. and Israeli Governments.” Since then, the repression has only grown."

Previously published in Digital Journal

WhatsApp interferes with Facebook's attempts to root out fake news

There is a conference room inside of Facebook's headquarters that is devoted to fighting election interference. Casey Newton a reporter with the Verge visited what is called the war room and wrote a recent article about the visit.

Newton visits the Facebook war room

After an introductory briefing, Newton got to visit the actual room. The room MPK 20 is just one of many conference rooms in the headquarters in Menlo Park, Palo Alto as shown in the appended image. There were desks for 24 people and the room is ringed by seventeen screens. Each screen highlights a stream of information that Facebook is monitoring.

Employees watch for suspicious spikes in spam and hate speech. In some cases they use special software to do this. They are looking for activity such as voter suppression. For example there may be posts saying that an election has been delayed because of long lineups. The team recently uncovered a hoax claiming that the Brazilian election had been delayed a day because of protests. The offending posts were quickly removed.

Newton was unfortunate in that nothing dramatic happened while she was there.

Facebook's war room is fighting a war in the Brazil election

Newton notes that the room was festooned with both US and Brazilian flags. The war room is waging war against fake news not only in US elections but those in Brazil as well. Surely, this might be considered interfering in the Brazilian election. Even if this is done in the name of stopping fake news, it could be considered interfering in the Brazil election. If Bolsonaro wins then Facebook could very well find itself banned in Brazil because its actions meant that he probably had less votes than otherwise.

It seems that a report by Folha on the scheme to use WhatsApp for fake news was timed to coincide with the reporters visit as it appeared while they were there. Buzzfeed notes: "The report was released the same day that WhatsApp's new CEO, Chris Daniels, published a piece in Folha, writing, "We have a responsibility to amplify the good and mitigate the bad." Thursday morning, also, appears to have been the time when Facebook allowed access stories from American journalists such as CNN covering Facebook's new "election war room" to publish. The timing of the embargo — an agreement between news organizations to publish news provided by a source at the same time — the investigation by Folha, and Daniels' op-ed throw into question exactly how Facebook intends to monitor fake news and hyperpartisan misinformation, especially in a WhatsApp-dominated country like Brazil."

In other words the timing was intended to ensure that the stories would point out the failings of WhatsApp. Newton uses Buzzfeed to explain what happened.

How the scheme worked

Media firms that support the right-wing front runner Jair Bolsanaro used his supporter database along with third party databases of phone numbers. Some agencies even broke down data on the basis of income level and location. They then used a service called mass shooting to send thousands of messages.

The Folha investigation alleges that the firms bought contracts worth up to $3.2 million dollars. This is not only an abuse of WhatsApp, its illegal in Brazil where companies are banned from donating to political campaigns and are not allowed to access a candidate's database.

The scheme may not show up on any Facebook screen

The media companies' scheme is most insidious in that it is not evident that any of the many screens in the Facebook war room can capture the malign activity. The fake news is spread virally using a platform that almost no one can see inside.

How the damage might be limited

Several Brazilian researchers have suggested three ways the WhatsApp propaganda could be limited. The number of times a message can be forwarded could be reduced from 20 to 5. Facebook already does this in India. Secondly, Facebook could lower substantially the number of people that a person can send a single message to from the present very large 256. Finally, the company could limit the size of new groups in the hope that this could limit the formation of misinformation mobs. As to the last technique, surely this would be easy to avoid by just forming many clones of smaller groups and having them work in concert.

Newton concludes that it would be best to not allow an app to have both end-to-end encryption and viral sharing mechanics just one or the other. This would allow the mobs to be in plain sight. It would be interesting to see what WhatApp would have to say about Newton's complaints and suggestions.

Are those helping to filter fake news neutral?

One should always be suspicious when giant corporations decide to protect us from fake news and misinformation. Obviously political figures such as Donald Trump and many other politicians make announcements that are lies and they are dutifully reported by the mass media ad nauseam often without comment since to comment is not straight objective reporting. Now this is not regarded as fake news but it has the same effect especially if the politician is regarded as truthful by many of his or her followers. No one suggests banning those reports. People are left to determine themselves whether what important figures say is true or false. Other reports may show these are lies or claim they are but such reports do not ban the original statements.

Among those helping Facebook to filter the news is the Atlantic Council. Rania Khalek an independent journalist said in a tweet: “This is alarming. The Atlantic Council — which is funded by gulf monarchies, western governments, NATO, oil and weapons companies, etc. — will now assist Facebook in suppressing what they decide is disinformation." In Facebook's statement which announced the partnership it said that the company will use the Atlantic Council's Digital Research Unit Monitoring Missions during elections and other highly sensitive moments.

Adam Johnson, a contributor at Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, said in response to Facebook's announcement: “Monopoly social media corporations teaming up with [the] pro-U.S. NatSec blob to determine truth was always the logical end of ‘fake news’ panic.”

While Facebook will naturally try to ensure that it does not place itself in a position where it breaks the laws of a country where it operates it would be wise not to hold itself otherwise responsible for filtering what appears on its platform. Leave it to the authorities to warn them when posts are against the law and to prosecute those who break the law as happened in Brazil. The companies using WhatsApp in Brazil broke the law and there is evidence for it. The way to stop them is to prosecute them not to complain about WhatsApp.

As the appended video shows Facebook even banned a video by well known Guardian columnist George Monbiot.

Published earlier in Digital Journal

Facebook to extend Facebook watch from the US throughout the world

Facebook Watch is Facebook's option for original video content. The tab within Facebook linking to Watch was launched in the U.S. last August, and looks to compete with streaming platforms like YouTube.

Facebook Watch already has a considerable user base

The launch was only in the U.S. but even now it has over 50 million regular monthly viewers who watch at least one minute of video. Just since the beginning of 2018 the total time spent viewing videos has increased fourteen times.

Facebook is adding more features to Facebook Watch

Facebook has been adding new social features to Watch during 2018. This includes participatory experiences such as Watch Parties. There are also features such as Confetti with audience involvement built on the new game show pattern. There are also basic search tools, and tools for saving videos. A new tool also allows users to customize a feed of videos from the Facebook Pages they follow.

More content publishers will be able to add ads

Ads can be either mid-roll in the video or be placed before the video starts. They can also be below the video. The ads can be inserted by publishers themselves or Facebook has an automatic insertion tool. Facebook claims that 70 percent of mid-roll ads are actually viewed to completion.

Ad Breaks will be now offered to creators who publish three minute videos that glean more than 30,000 1 minute views in total during the last two months, who have at least 10,000 Facebook followers, and who meet other eligibility requirements such as being in a supported country.

Facebook claims: "Supported countries today include the U.S., UK, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand. Next month, that list will expand to include Argentina, Belgium, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Denmark, The Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, France, Germany, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Peru, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and Thailand, supporting English content and other local languages. More countries and languages will then follow."

Facebook Watch

This is Facebook's video-on-demand service that was first announced on August 9 2017 and made available the next day. By the end of the month it was available to all US users. The original video content is produced by partners who receive 55 percent of ad revenue while Facebook keeps the other 45 percent.

Facebook Watch offers personalized recommendations for videos to watch. It also categorizes content bundles according to factors such popularity or social media engagement. It wants both short-form and long-form content on its platform.

It is reported to have a total budget of $1 billion for content through this year. For now the ads which bring in revenue from Facebook Watch are mid-roll but it will experiment with pre-roll ads as it is expanded this year.

In May and June of this year Facebook launched six news programs from partners. These include Buzzfeed, Vox, CNN, and Fox News. Head of news partnerships Campbell Brown developed these programs which reportedly have a budget of $90 million dollars.

The company said recently in an announcement:“Our goal is to provide publishers and creators with the tools they need to build a business on Facebook. Facebook’s Fostering an active, engaged community and sharing longer content that viewers seek out and regularly come back to are key to finding success"

Previously published in Digital Journal

Facebook to allow certain groups to charge monthly fees as a pilot project

Facebook has decided to allow administrators of some groups to begin charging $4.99 to $29.99 a month for exclusive memberships. The company made the announcement in a blog post indicating it was part of an early test.

Only certain groups will participate

Groups in the area of parenting, cooking and home cleaning will be the first to take part in the tests. For now the free groups will remain as they are but they will shortly have the option of launching premium groups with charges attached.

Groups that will participate include an Organize My Home group that will cost $14.99 a month to join and the administrator will be Sarah Mueller, a lifestyle blogger who now has a Declutter My Home group.

The Grown and Flown Parents group will launch a College Admissions group that will charge $29.99 a month and will enable members to access college counselors.

Reasoning behind the change

In the past Facebook groups have always been free but the company feels that a charge for membership would make members feel more special. However, it could end up just driving people away.

Another reason for the change is to allow administrators of groups to make some money for all the time and effort they expend to expand their groups. The money earned could also be used to purchase higher value content for the group, including more posts, videos, and even offline events.

The blog announcement notes: "We hear from group admins that they’re looking for ways to help them earn money to deepen engagement with their members and continue to support their communities. Many admins do this today by creating an additional subscribers-only group that sits alongside their existing group, and rely on additional tools to track and collect payments. Subscription groups were created to make it easier for admins to provide these experiences with built-in tools, and to save them time so they can focus on offering members-only content."

For now Facebook will not receive any part of the fees

The project is still at the experimental stage and Facebook will not receive any return from the fees charged. However, as part of the standard App Store and Play Store policies, Apple and Google will take a part of the subscription fees. However, this is just the beginning of Facebook's attempt to monetize groups. Unlike the News Feed, the groups do not rely on advertising to generate revenue.

Facebook

Facebook is an online social media and networking service company with headquarters in Menlo Park California. It operates world-wide except in a few countries where it is banned. The chief executive officer is Mark Zuckerberg.

The company was founded in February of 2004 by Zuckerberg together with a number of fellow Harvard College class mates.

Facebook had its initial public offering (IPO) in February 2012 with the company valued at $104 billion the largest valuation so far for a newly listed company. Most of Facebook's revenue comes from ads on screen.

As of January this year, Facebook had more than 2.2 billion monthly users.

Previously published in Digital Journal

Facebook hires two employees to filter out fake news

Facebook is looking for one English and one Spanish speaker who were originally described as a "news credibility specialist" but this was changed to "news publisher specialist". Whatever they are called they are to filter out fake news from Facebook.

After the news media, including the Guardian, discovered the postings and wrote about them it appears that they were edited.

The original postings

Originally according to the Guardian the postings said that Facebook was looking to hire two people with "a passion for journalism, who believe in Facebook's mission to make the world more connected" Applicants were informed that their job would be "developing "a deep expertise in Facebook News Credibility Program" and would also be "conducting investigations against predefined policies". The description appears to have been changed to not give away the fact that the job will be in effect a form of filtering out "fake news" which to some will no doubt appear as a form of censorship.

Filtering news has been problematic for Facebook

Earlier Facebook had an editorial team that filtered news that was supposed to be neutral. However, some conservatives claimed there was a bias against conservative views. Some leftists made a similar claim about their views. Facebook eventually fired the team and hired Poynter International Fact-Checking Network members Snopes and Politifact to both identify hoaxes and discourage people from sharing them.

It would seem that Facebook may be attempting to at least in part bring the job of fact-checking back in-house even though this will leave them open to charges of bias and blame for making errors whereas the independent checkers would otherwise be subject to the same criticisms. However, some of the independent fact-checkers may not like to be bound by Facebook procedures creating tensions between them and Facebook. There are some questions as to how reliable some fact-checkers are.

Snopes

WIkipedia's description of Snopes is almost all positive: "Snopes.com /snoʊps/, formally known as the Urban Legends Reference Pages, is one of the first online fact-checking websites. It has been termed a "well-regarded source for sorting out myths and rumors" on the internet.. It has also been seen as a source for validating and debunking urban legends and similar stories in American popular culture."

An article in the Daily Mail paints an entirely different picture in its usual sensational style. After the messy divorce of the two founders David and Barbara Mikkelson, he married a former escort and porn actress and she is now one of the company's staff members. Both David and Barbara accuse each other of financial impropriety.

Kalev Leetaru wrote an article in Forbes about his attempt to get Snopes to refute the claims made in the Daily Mail. He noticed that none of the mainstream press picked up on the piece and he took this as a sign that the article was another example of sensational fake news. He was surprised when he contacted Snopes by email. He expected to get a reply that showed point by point how each of the claims made by the Mail were false. However, no such reply ever came. When he asked again he was told that many of the points could not be answered because of David's divorce settlement. In another words, the truth had to remain secret. Leetaru was unable to get much information as to how workers were hired or about the processes used to determine if news were fake.

Leetaru concludes: Regardless of whether the Daily Mail article is correct in its claims about Snopes, at the least what does emerge from my exchanges with Snopes’ founder is the image of the ultimate black box presenting a gleaming veneer of ultimate arbitration of truth, yet with absolutely no insight into its inner workings. While technology pundits decry the black boxes of the algorithms that increasingly power companies like Facebook, they have forgotten that even the human-powered sites offer us little visibility into how they function."

Algorithms too are often biased. As an article written some time ago notes biased algorithms are everywhere.

UPDATE: Fred Walton pointed out that I left out an important recent development. The Atlantic Council is partnering with Facebook to help them weed out fake news especially during elections.

Facebook teams up with the Atlantic Council

Katie Harbath, the global politics and government outreach director for Facebook said: “Experts from their Digital Forensic Research Lab will work closely with our security, policy, and product teams to get Facebook real-time insights and updates on emerging threats and disinformation campaigns from around the world. This will help increase the number of ‘eyes and ears’ we have working to spot potential abuse on our service — enabling us to more effectively identify gaps in our systems, preempt obstacles, and ensure that Facebook plays a positive role during elections all around the world.”

This all sounds fine but for Sputnik News it just means filtering out news that contradicts the anti-Russian ideology of most western countries and NATO. However the New York Times, hardly a purveyor of Russian propaganda is also critical: "The Atlantic Council, which has seen its annual revenue grow to $21 million from $2 million in the last decade, offers access to United States and foreign government officials in exchange for contributions. Individual donors, like FedEx, have also helped fund specific reports that align with their agendas." The Atlantic Council is anything but neutral in spite of all its "expertise".

Previously published in Digital Journal

Facebook's new rules for placing political ads causing difficulties

Facebook's new rules requiring verification for ads regarded as political are causing serious problems for advertisers as their ads are taken down until the accounts are verified as political advertisers a process that takes several days.

The aim of the new rules

The new rules have been in force since last week. They are aimed at preventing political interference by Russian trolls and other foreign groups. A Verge articlecomments about the new verification process: "That verification typically requires a government-issued ID to trigger a verification code sent to a US mailing address, a process that takes several days and significant coordination. The system is meant to be a minor inconvenience for a political campaign, but those same rules also apply to neutral news content, and they seem to have taken many publications by surprise. A limited search by The Verge found 85 news posts that had fallen afoul of the rules in the first week of enforcement, including seemingly innocuous stories on graduation speeches or the British royal family. "

Showtime trailers

Showtime is a premium cable and satellite TV network. It is a subsidiary of CBS Corporation. The company's programming mostly consists of movies as well as original television.

Last Thursday, Showtime released a series of trailers for its documentary series The Fourth Estate. The series follows a group of New York Times reporters as they cover the White House. The company paid $1,000 to promote the trailers. Facebook did not run the ads but sent the money back. Facebook claimed the ads were too political without further verification.

On Facebook's political ads database the Showtime trailers are listed as inactive. A notice says: “After the ad started running, we determined that the ad had political content and required the label. The ad was taken down.” The political ad archive can be found here.

New Media Alliance's critique of Facebook's rules

The Alliance represents nearly 2,000 new organizations. When Facebook first proposed its guidelines the group wrote in an open letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zukerberg:“Your plan to group quality publishers alongside political advocacy, which the ad archive will do, dangerously blurs the lines between real reporting and propaganda. It is a fundamental mischaracterization of journalism that threatens to undermine its ability to play its critical role in society as the fourth estate.”

Local news aggregator targeted

News Break of Santa Clara California aggregates local news to an app. News Break has two million followers.

News Break has had 37 of its ads blocked for political content. The posts include one on a New Jersey school bus accident as well as another a high school bomb threat in Texas. None of the posts mention political candidates or parties.

Publishing company cannot promote a new book

Some ads are blocked before being published. Dennis Johnson, Melville House publisher says that the new rules have prevented him from promoting its new Trump/Russia book on Facebook, The words Trump and Russia appear to trigger filters so that the ads are automatically considered political. The company has decided it will just verify itself as a political advertiser. Johnson said: “We’re not finding any ways around it, nothing that makes it possible for us to talk about this book in an ad.. Everything we’ve tried to do in the past couple days has just been shut down.”

Rules define "political" too broadly'

Included in what counts as political are national issues of public importance, the economy, immigration, and even health. The idea is probably to flag non-campaign ads that are nevertheless designed to influence public discourse as apparently some Russian-financed ads did. The list also includes crime. Much news coverage of such events are neutral and not designed to promote some political agenda.

A Hawaiian fusion restaurant ran afoul of rules because it asked fans to vote in a local paper's "Best of Maui" poll. Facebook needs to do a lot of work before it can determine the difference between a restaurant trying to promote itself or a publisher pushing a new book and a Russian troll.

Previously published in Digital Journal

Facebook may launch its very own cryptocoin

A report from Alex Heath of Cheddar news service claims that Facebook is planning to launch its own cryptocurrency. The company is said to be focused on using the platform to make it easier to make payments.

Facebook's plans

However, the company is also said to investigating other ways it could use such a currency and its blockchain technology on its platform.

David Marcus is apparently heading a new blockchain division at Facebook "to explore how to best leverage Blockchain across Facebook starting from scratch".

One of the people familiar with the plan said that they were very serious about developing a blockchain system which would allow the many users of Facebook to make electronic payments.

Facebook has long been considering the blockchain technology

Facebook has been studying blockchain technology for about a year now when Morgan Beller started to look at how the social platform could use this emerging technology. At that time Beller was the sole employee looking at the technology.

The new team

However, recently the company announced that David Marcus, who was the vice-president in charge of the Facebook messenger app would lead a new team, as mentioned earlier. The team would consist of less than a dozen employees working on the blockchain. Before Marcus joined Facebook he had been president of Paypal a payment company that Facebook uses to facilitate transactions by users of the Facebook Messenger app.

Marcus is also one of the early investors in Bitcoin and is also on the board of Coinbase, one of the more popular cryptocurrency exchanges.

Up until now the blockchain initiative has not been much publicized

Executives usually talk about future initiatives with their employees. The company 10-year roadmap is given public presentations. However, the blockchain plans were not included in the roadmap. Up to now executives have not been forthcoming about any plans in the cryptocurrency area.

In an internal post earlier this week CEO Mark Zuckerberg did not explain in detail what the team would be researching. However, a company spokesperson said: “Like many other companies Facebook is exploring ways to leverage the power of blockchain technology. This new small team will be exploring many different applications. We don’t have anything further to share.”

Facebook plans may take years to become reality

People familiar with the situation said that Facebook did not at present have plans for an initial coin offering (ICO) to raise funds for a new coin, by releasing a limited number at a set price.

The blockchain technology could also help Facebook identify accounts and encrypt data.

In February, in an interview, Marcus said that Facebook was not intending to integrate cryptocurrency into its apps anytime in the near future saying: "Payments using crypto right now is just very expensive, super slow, so the various communities running the different blockchains and the different assets need to fix all the issues, and then when we get there someday, maybe we'll do something."

Prevously published in Digital Journal

Faceook has recovered all its losses from the Cambridge Analytica data scandal

(May 10)Facebook has managed to recoup all of the losses that it had incurred in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica data scandal.

On Thursday Facebook shares hit an intraday high of $185.99 just above their closing price of $185.09 the last trading day before news of the scandal broke.

Facebook's shares plummeted after scandal news broke

On March 20 an article reported that Facebook share prices had dropped 9.5 percent in just two days. $49.6 billion had been wiped off the company's market cap. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) was investigating the company's use of personal data by the firm to see if it had "violated terms of a consent decree over its use of personal data". On Tuesday, after the announcement, the shares fell 2.9 percent.

The shares had fallen an even larger percentage on Monday, after the news that Cambridge Analytica had accessed data from 50 million Facebook users without their permission.

Facebook enters bear market territory

By March 26, Facebook was officially in bear market territory, down more than 20 percent from recent highs, and shares were at their lowest level since July of 2017. The FTC had confirmed that they were investigating Facebook's privacy policies. The probe sparked fears about government regulation and possible negative effects on the growth of the company. Facebook shares were now down 17 percent for the year to date.

The road to recovery

It has taken a while for Facebook shares to recover from such huge declines but after reporting blow-out first quarter earnings sentiment changed, helped by the fact that the feared drop in users of Facebook had yet to happen. Many analysts also do not believe that the increased regulation expected from Europe will actually come to pass. Company fortunes appear to have recovered from the significant harm that the scandal caused it at first.

Now Facebook shares are up 2.36 percent for this year so far.

Previously published in Digital Journal