James Farrell
Latest from James Farrell
Uber power struggle rages on: Ex-CEO Travis Kalanick appoints two new board members
Uber Technologies Inc. cofounder and former Chief Executive Travis Kalanick appointed two new board members on Friday, which somehow came as a total shock to the rest of the board. Kalanick named Xerox Corp. former Chairwoman and Chief Executive Ursula Burns and former Merrill Lynch Inc. Chief Executive and Chairman John Thain as the new ...
Twitter slammed for ‘inadequate’ response to Russian misinformation ads
Twitter Inc. dropped a bombshell Thursday after disclosing it had shut down 201 accounts connected to a Russian misinformation campaign. In a report titled “Russian Interference in 2016 US Election, Bots, & Misinformation,” Twitter said it had discovered that 22 accounts were linked with the 450 accounts that Facebook Inc. had also linked with Russian-based ...
Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t ‘like’ Trump saying Facebook is against him, and he fires back
Facebook Inc., accused of helping elect President Trump because of fake news and Russian-paid ads, now has been attacked by Trump for allegedly attempting to sway voters against him. Not surprisingly, Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg on Wednesday begged to differ. In a Facebook post, Zuckerberg wrote that Facebook was not against him, stating that ...
New report reveals tech freelancers are raking in the cash, but not without risks
For a few years now, a number of reports have documented that more and more people are deciding to go freelance. That may mean forgoing the two-week paid holiday in the Caribbean, but for some workers, especially in the tech milieu, it also means more personal freedom, the chance to work and travel, and the ability to ...
Tweet inflation: Twitter tests doubling up to a 280-character limit
Twitter Inc. announced today a giant step toward allowing people to better express themselves: It’s doubling the character limit on tweets from 140 to 280 characters. The new limit will be tested on only a select audience at the moment, but Twitter product manager Aliza Rosen explained that Twitter hopes to find a suitable character ...
Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg admits failure over racist ads, promises more human oversight
Facebook Inc. Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg has promised to change the social network’s ad policies following last week’s controversy in which it was allowing hate speech terms in ad categories. In a post on Facebook, Sandberg (pictured) said that she felt “disgusted and disappointed” that Facebook had allowed the categories to appear, saying that ...
Twitter removes 300K terrorism-related accounts in a matter of months
Twitter Inc. released a new transparency report Tuesday that reveals how busy it has been weeding out extremism on its platform. The report follows mounting pressure from governments for social media platform to get tougher on terror. The company said that it had removed 299,649 accounts that promoted terrorism or endorsed violence enacted by terrorist organizations in ...
Uber could be facing a massive license fee hike in London
Uber Technologies Inc. could be looking at paying £2.9 million, or about $3.9 million, to continue its operations in London –a huge jump from the £2,826 the city’s transport regulator charged the ride-hailing giant in 2012. Transport for London said the hike in licensing fees to all private car hire companies was imposed because of ...
Facebook, Google and Twitter allowed advertisers to target with hate terms
Updated with Facebook, Google and Twitter responses: It’s common knowledge that advertisers can find niche target audiences on Facebook, but a recent investigation found some of those advertisers could use hate speech terms including “Jew Hater” to reach people with beliefs most of us would find unsavory. An investigation by ProPublica released Thursday found that it ...
Facebook will stop running ads on, well, just about anything controversial
Facebook Inc. is taking more steps to make its social network a cleaner, more well-lighted site for advertisers, this time not by removing certain content, but by not allowing content it deems inappropriate to make money from ads. In a blog post today discussing the new monetization guidelines, Facebook said the latest move was to ensure ...
