Dec 17, 2020 | business, Facebook, law, Politics
In the last article I said that the Facebook lawsuits “will be difficult to win under the standards used in antitrust cases for the last few decades.” Rather precise phrasing, eh? It’s a literary trick called foreshadowing. I hope you felt the dramatic tension rise...
Dec 14, 2020 | business, Facebook, law, Politics, Privacy
We have to talk about antitrust. That’s a cliché, of course – every blogger that wants attention knows that “antitrust” is guaranteed clickbait, a real audience-grabber. There might be other things on your mind, what with a pandemic still spiking and the holidays...
Nov 22, 2020 | business, Facebook, Google, Internet, law, news, Politics, web_services
On October 14, the New York Post published a story alleging that smoking gun emails on Hunter Biden’s laptop implicated Joe Biden in corrupt schemes. It was immediately obvious that the story was almost certainly complete bullshit. Today, a few weeks later, it has...
Nov 19, 2020 | Amazon, business, Facebook, Google, Internet, law, news, Politics, web_services
Settle down, this is important. We’re going to talk about Section 230. I understand that you have no idea what that is. For now, take my word for it. I wouldn’t put you through this if it wasn’t a big deal. Section 230 is the key to understanding Facebook and Twitter....
Sep 13, 2020 | business, Facebook, Google, Internet
The advertising business doesn’t work the way you think it does. You figure you’ve pretty well got it – you watched Mad Men, right? Back in the 1960s, cigarette-smoking men from ad agencies would wine and dine with publishers and TV executives to get a...
Aug 23, 2020 | Facebook, law, news, Politics, science
What should the social media companies do with false information? Two years ago YouTube had a surge of videos encouraging teenagers to eat Tide Pods because they are secretly candy. Black salve, a caustic black paste that eats through flesh, was enthusiastically...
