James Farrell
Latest from James Farrell
Facebook creates a chatbot to help employees deal with criticism
Facebook Inc. created a bot called “Liam” to help employees better deflect criticism, the New York Times reported Monday. According to that report, the bot was introduced for the holiday period when staff might return home and have to answer difficult questions coming from friends and family. The social network has been embroiled in multiple issues ...
Apple bows to pressure and shows Crimea as part of Russia in its Maps app
Apple Inc. has made some changes to its Maps and Weather apps and made Crimea part of Russian territory. Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula back in 2014, which was roundly criticized by much of the international community. The U.S., along with the EU, doesn’t recognize the annexation. The changes Apple just made won’t affect anyone ...
TikTok owner ByteDance distances itself from China to appease US investigators
ByteDance Inc. is planning to move operations for its massively popular TikTok app away from other parts of its business to appease those in the U.S. government who think the app could be a threat to national security, according to a report by Reuters today. People familiar with the matter told Reuters that the Chinese ...
TikTok denies US teen was banned from platform for China criticism
A U.S. teenager said this week that she was kicked off the popular Chinese-owned video streaming platform TikTok for criticizing China and its treatment of Uighur Muslims. TikTok quickly responded, saying that wasn’t the case. The video in question appears to be at the start just an ordinary beauty tips video. But the young woman, named ...
Twitter’s ‘Hide Replies’ function goes global
After testing in various countries this year, Twitter Inc. is now rolling out its “Hide Replies” feature worldwide. “Everyone should feel safe and comfortable while talking on Twitter,” said Suzanne Xie, director of product management at Twitter. “To make this happen, we need to change how conversations work on our service.” Twitter explained how it works ...
Google will limit political ad targeting and prohibit false claims
Political advertisers will now have a very limited scope for whom they can target, Google LLC announced Wednesday. Scott Spencer, vice president of product management for Google Ads, said in a blog post that given the controversy surrounding political ads and big tech lately, Google felt it had to set down some rules. These rules, said ...
DoorDash sued over deceptive tipping policy
San Francisco-based delivery outfit DoorDash Inc. was sued on Tuesday by Washington D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine for deceptive practices regarding its tipping policy. The complaint, lodged at the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, accuses the company of the deceptive practices from July 2017 to September 2019. Earlier this year, DoorDash changed its ...
US senator proposes bill that would restrict flow of data to China
Republican U.S. Senator Josh Hawley introduced a new bill today aimed at stemming the flow of Americans’ personal data to China and other countries that he said threaten America’s national security. The bill, called the National Security and Personal Data Protection Act, follows a hearing in which experts revealed that the relationship between some companies and ...
US big tech will help foot the bill for universal free internet in the UK
Jeremy Corbyn, the British Labor Party leader and possibly the country’s next prime minister, has said that if he wins the upcoming general election, he will nationalize British Telecom and give all houses in the country free broadband. According to The Guardian, in a speech to be delivered Friday Corbyn (pictured) will announce a plan ...
Instagram joins Facebook’s latest Community Standards Enforcement Report
Facebook Inc. released its Community Standards Enforcement Report Wednesday, revealing that the company is improving at proactively removing disturbing content from both Facebook and Instagram. Among the wide variety of content were child nudity, child sexual exploitation and terrorist propaganda, as well as illicit firearms, drug sales, suicide and self-injury. The issue of misinformation circulating on Instagram ...