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On Tuesday, as part of his crusade against net neutrality, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai went on an offensive
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| November 30 · Issue #37 · View online |
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The FCC chairman said that “happy timelines” on the site “changed dramatically in the lead-up to and aftermath of the 2016 presidential election.” “Where does America go from here? I certainly don’t have a magic solution,” he said. “But what I do know is that we can’t allow the strident rudeness of an angry few to overwhelm what I continue to believe is the quiet decency of most Americans.” On one hand, this is a reasonable view, presumably shared by many readers of this newsletter. Social media is strident and partisan and exhausting, and sometimes it inspires real-world violence. On the other hand, readers of this newsletter don’t have the power to regulate speech — and Pai does. His immediate aim is to push against (reasonable) fears that telecom providers will use their power, in a non-net-neutral world, to discriminate against different kinds of speech and content. Facebook and Twitter already do, he says; so what if his former employer Verizon does, too? “Despite all the talk, and all the fear, that broadband providers could decide what internet content consumers can see, recent experience shows that so-called edge providers are in fact deciding what content they see. These providers routinely block or discriminate against content they don’t like.” But even if you crave a return to a more temperate political climate, it can be chilling to hear a leading representative of a notoriously anti-free-speech administration saying "we can’t allow the strident rudeness” of social media users. Strident rudeness is, after all, protected by the First Amendment, however distasteful it may be. And while Pai took time to praise some recent social media trends — including the MeToo movement, believe it or not — his general outlook was dour, in ways that would spook me if I worked at Facebook or Twitter. Perhaps this is all partisan bluster meant to defuse critics on the way to the planned execution, on December 14th, of net neutrality. But as Pai begins planning his next initiatives, it bears watching whether his antipathy toward social media leads to new regulations. The idea that social media is a dangerous, destabilizing force has never had more currency — and it holds sway among liberals as well as conservatives.
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FCC chairman Ajit Pai condemns death threat allegedly sent to congressman over net neutrality
Not everyone supports Pai’s worldview, however! Earlier this week, federal prosecutors issued a criminal complaint against Syracuse man Patrick D. Angelo, who was arrested yesterday. The complaint alleges that Angelo left a voicemail last month threatening Rep. John Katko (R-NY) in which he said, “if you don’t support net neutrality, I will find you and your family and I will kill… you… all. Do you understand? I will literally find all… of… you and your progeny and just wipe you from the face of the earth.”
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Russian trolls pushed graphic, racist tweets to American voters
NBC News has a deep dive on Russia’s Twitter campaign during the 2016 election, with lots of examples attempting to link Clinton to racism and Satanic rituals. Apparently this sort of thing is very common in Russia! In the end, the troll strategy was an export of methods Russia has used for years domestically to get citizens to see themselves not as part of a nation but as members of smaller ethnic and identity-based groups, and play all sides against each other. “They want us fighting among ourselves,” said McFaul, the former ambassador. “Then we’re distracted. We’re not talking about Syria. We’re not talking about American leadership. We’re questioning whether democracy will survive. We’re less of a player internationally — and that’s good for Russia.”
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Why Twitter didn't delete Britain First videos Trump retweeted
Why didn’t Twitter delete graphic anti-Muslim videos by a British far-right group that were retweeted by President Trump? “To help ensure people have an opportunity to see every side of an issue, there may be the rare occasion when we allow controversial content or behavior which may otherwise violate our rules to remain on our service because we believe there is a legitimate public interest in its availability.” “Gotta hear alls sides” is an extremely problematic thing to say about content advocating violence against minority groups. This was a no-win situation for Twitter — but it still looks very ugly. As Charlie Warzel says: “not sure why Twitter doesn’t just come out and say that ‘Everything the President does is newsworthy. As a result we will not delete any of his tweets or suspend him.” |
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How 41 People in Lithuania Took Over Your Facebook Feed
What if there was a media company that had a good relationship with Facebook and used the platform profitably, sharing good-natured, entertaining content with a large audience? Kevin Roose found one! The company, Bored Panda, might not be familiar to you. But if you have a Facebook account and a pulse, you’ve probably seen its handiwork. Maybe it was “10+ Before-And-After Pics That Prove Men Look Better With Beards,” or “41 Times Uber Drivers Surprised Their Clients.” Or perhaps you watched “Shh, Don’t Wake Them,” a 49-second video montage of dogs, cats and hamsters sleeping peacefully. Lightweight and inoffensive posts like these have made Bored Panda one of the biggest attractions on Facebook. Its page received more than 30 million likes, shares, comments and reactions last month, far more than companies like BuzzFeed, CNN and The New York Times, according to NewsWhip, which compiles data on social media publishers. Its website had 116 million visitors in October, according to its internal analytics. It’s making money, too. The company has done all this without raising outside funding, unlike digital powerhouses such as BuzzFeed and Vice, which have collected hundreds of millions of dollars. It also has only 41 employees, and the low operating costs, along with its enormous popularity, have made for good business. Tomas Banisauskas, Bored Panda’s founder, told me he expects to be profitable this year with $20 million to $30 million in revenue, mostly from the advertisements that appear on its website. Roughly 90 percent of its web traffic comes from Facebook, making the social network by far the biggest factor in Bored Panda’s success.
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Tim Kendall, Pinterest’s top business executive, is leaving the company
Is any big tech company quieter than Pinterest? It has a big, engaged user base, some fairly interesting product ideas, and may IPO next year. And we know … very little about its day-to-day operations? Anyway, its president is leaving so that he doesn’t have to go through the IPO process, because why would you?
Naturally, Kendall’s next effort is a virtuous effort to get people to spend less time on Pinterest: Kendall, who worked at pre-IPO Facebook for more than four years before joining Pinterest, has long had an interest in starting something on his own. He’s a bit of a health nut, especially when it comes to mental health. He takes daily ice baths, for example, for physical rejuvenation but also for the mental clarity he says comes from the shockingly cold water. He also refuses to look at his phone during meetings, and forbids others from doing the same. Perhaps unsurprisingly, then, his new startup will focus on fighting device addictions, like an obsession with a phone or laptop, and the health concerns that come with them, according to a source.
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Facebook expands feature letting businesses build Messenger into their websites
To Facebook’s great consternation, the web is still alive, and occasionally businesses will attempt to have conversations with their customers using non-Facebook channels. Today Facebook announced that would no longer be necessary.
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Snapchat’s radical, self-serving, possibly brilliant plan to save us from fake news
Will Oremus gives Snap the benefit of the doubt: It’s often hard to tell these days how much of Spiegel’s philosophizing is earnest and how much is strategic—that is, a convenient way to take shots at rival Facebook while pumping up his own product. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter much. Snap may not succeed in developing a successful alternative to Facebook for reading the news on your phne. But if it does, we’ll all be better off for it.
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Goodbye, Twitter
Can Duruk, who worked at Uber and Yahoo among other places, always has something thoughtful to say to me on Twitter. But not anymore! Yesterday, I broke. It’s over for me. You’ve undoubtedly read a Why I Quit Twitter before, but this one had some fresh things to say about how Nazis and other bad actors are perversely good for Twitter: they drive up engagement. Yesterday, I got a “mention” from a Nazi. But not any other Nazi, a Nazi whose profile photo is a swastika made from Trump typography. He wasn’t yelling, he wasn’t being obnoxious. He was just quote tweeting an article about Trump’s tax bill. This is the world we live in now. I thought whether I should call him out, like I sometimes do. Or just block him. Should I respond to him and block him? Would he try to gang up on me? I have been bullied on Twitter before, people have tried to steal my account many times. But here was a Nazi. And then it hit me. Why am I engaging with Nazis? Why is this on me? Because Twitter wants me to. He concludes: I am done with Twitter. I am done seeing Nazis in my mentions, I am done frequenting the same places with them. Duruk is not the first good person to quit Twitter for this reason, and he won’t be the last.
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Vine co-founder Dom Hofmann says he’s working on ‘a follow-up to Vine’
Twitter killed off its once-beloved network for sharing 6-second video loops last year once as part of an effort to streamline the company’s offerings. Now one of its founders, Dom Hofmann, says he’s bringing it back: “i’m going to work on a follow-up to vine. i’ve been feeling it myself for some time and have seen a lot of tweets, dms, etc.” As I said on Twitter: with no product, users, or engagement, Vine is unquestionably the best social network of 2017.
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Questions? Comments? Bored Panda memes? casey@theverge.com
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