Posts Tagged: "Mark Zuckerberg"

In early May, the online creator advocacy group Content Creators Coalition (c3) published a digital ad calling on Congress to hold hearings to look into various illegal activities which have been enabled by abuse of online platforms maintained by Google. This push for Congressional oversight of Google comes after Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg appeared in hearings before the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives in early April. Various matters concerning Capitol Hill’s policymakers during those hearings are only more pronounced with regard to Google, c3 argues.

Facebook users continue to be shocked at the amount and kind of data being collected by the social media platform, including recent reports about call and SMS text messaging data which Facebook has been collecting from Android mobile users. Along with the political heat Zuckerberg continues to take, Facebook itself could be on the hook for a record fine from the Federal Trade Commission if it’s found that the company’s data practices violate terms of a 2011 consent decree between Facebook and the FTC. With all of this focus on Facebook’s data collection practices, we decided to take a look at some of the social media technologies patented by Facebook at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, which may give readers a better idea of just how this American social media giant leverages user data.

Dystopian novels and science fiction often return to the subject of the loss of personal privacy which is often encouraged by the use of technology enabling constant, omnipresent surveillance. Perhaps the most famous example of this in the science fiction canon of the 20th century is George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. First published in 1949, Orwell’s novel conceives of a world where government surveillance is so complete that the vast majority of citizens don’t mind being watched by two-way telescreens in their own apartments. Even the novel’s rebellious protagonist Winston Smith comes around at the end to fall prey to the same cult of personality that allows the government overseer — Big Brother — to remain in power… With concerns over the use of personal data fresh in the mainstream news, we’ll run a series of articles that will take a closer look at U.S. tech giants both in terms of the types of data they track and the purposes for which that data is used.

Reports about Musk’s talks with Cortica comes one day after Goldman Sachs analyst David Tamberrino affirmed his sell rating for Tesla stock on his expectation that Tesla stock would drop by 30 percent over the next six months because of production issues… On the same day that Goldman Sachs reaffirmed its sell rating on Tesla stock, Musk posted a video to Instagram, which is emblematic of the CEO’s Alfred E. Neuman-esque style of response to any perceived corporate turbulence. The video shows Musk in a bar in Jerusalem pouring flaming absinthe. Musk’s Instagram declaration that “Everything’s better with fire …” smacks of the same “What, me worry?” attitude that has allowed him to navigate uncertainty in meeting production goals without eroding shareholder confidence.

On January 19th, Facebook CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg announced that his company would increase its efforts against “fake news” by asking its users to rate the trustworthiness of news sources being posted to the social media platform. Zuckerberg wrote that Facebook will utilize ongoing quality surveys to ask users if they are familiar with a particular news source. Using this data, Facebook will then rate each publication based on the user ratings and prioritize those that are most trusted to surface on news feeds. “There’s too much sensationalism, misinformation and polarization in the world today,” Zuckerberg wrote. “Social media enables people to spread information faster than ever before, and if we don’t specifically tackle these problems, then we end up amplifying them.”

The Wall Street Journal explains ithat the Silicon Valley culture has long regarded copying as a good thing and necessary for rapid growth, first to market, first mover advantage, network effects, world domination, liquidity for early investors and Founders, etc. What complete and total garbage. When you live in a culture that tolerates and even promotes copying that is, in fact, what you get. When everyone copies everyone that means no one is innovating. Many studies and articles in recent years have highlighted how we have a net loss of startups over the past 30 years and that companies are no longer innovating.

Move Fast and Break Things, subtitled How Facebook, Google and Amazon Cornered Culture and Undermined Democracy, dissects the inordinate power of a handful of the popular, primarily Internet companies and those who run them, and its impact on culture, innovation and personal freedom. What Taplin does best is to connect the dots, distinguishing between true break-through ideas and the ability to simply profit from data and dominate markets by making content and information more widely accessible. His analysis reveals how a combination of bold vision, oversized ego and enormous wealth have resulted in undermining the rights of a wide range of people and businesses, and pillaging whole industries.

Text messages sent between Andreesen and Erskine Bowles speak to Zuckerberg’s desire to be able to maintain control of Facebook while possibly serving two years in government… The fact that Zuckerberg is open to serving in government might actually carry some sway with the Trump transition team, which includes a Facebook connection through Peter Thiel… Given Zuckerberg’s stances on Internet issues, one possible position for Zuckerberg could be at the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

In the days since the U.S. presidential election the scourge of fake news has been tearing at the soul of Internet media. An interview with a satire news website editor published by The Washington Post on November 17th discussed how shares of fake news stories on social media platforms may have had a real effect on the recent election. Fake news websites have been a lucrative business model, too… U.S. Patent Application No. 20160328453, titled Veracity Scale for Journalists, would protect a method programmed into a device’s memory which would acquire input from a user regarding an article or a journalist, collating and storing the input in a database, filtering the input to generate filtered data, applying a user-specific filter to that data to generate veracity information associated with the article or journalist and then displaying the veracity information.

Primo’s response of the ‘427 patent is evidence of a dismissive attitude towards someone else’s intellectual property right. Again not shocking, but what is interesting is that this London based company has financial backing from an investor with a name very familiar to those following the American high tech industry: Zuckerberg. Randi Zuckerberg, the sister of Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) CEO Mark Zuckerberg, is listed under “Investors & Advisors” in the press room section of Primo Toys’ website. A frequent member of our Companies We Follow series, Facebook obtains a great many patents, 374 U.S. patents in 2015 alone. There’s no clear direct link between the two companies.

Recently, some major American tech companies operating across the globe have publicly announced their agreement to a code of conduct developed by the European Commission and designed to “combat the illegal spread of hate speech online in Europe.” The code of conduct, to which these tech companies have promised the European Commission their online services will adhere, stipulates that the companies have to establish a couple of processes that target the elimination of hate speech.

A keynote speech delivered on the first day of F8 by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg along with other company executives laid out a 10 year road map for the company. ”We stand for connecting every person for a global community, for bringing people together, for giving all people a voice, for the free flow of ideas and culture across nations,” Zuckerberg said. He supported this with soundbites he has repeated in the past, including the four billion people around the world without any Internet access. Striking some chords of global economic goodwill, he then stated that for every 10 people who gain access to the Internet, one person is lifted out of poverty.

At this point in the presidential cycle it is too early to expect a great deal of substance on issues like patents? The point where patents may come up in the debates will be in these application layer issues of drug pricing, taxes or maybe trade. But even then the discussion will be delicate and nuanced, unless we have a February 2008 situation. Sure litigation gamesmanship (generally and not just patents) remains important and perhaps for reasons not widely appreciated given the recent Supreme Court decisions on class action lawsuits and arbitration issues that have changed the balance of the force. Senator Ted Cruz, Carly Fiorina and Senator Rick Santorum have already publicly expressed specific views about the Constitution and the patent system. And certainly the Constitution gets referenced a lot at the debates. But are they going to use their finite time at a debate to discuss patents when there is broader interest in guns, terrorism, refugees, wars, and the powers of the president?