James Farrell
Latest from James Farrell
Most Americans don’t know Facebook has made them targets for advertisers
Despite Facebook Inc.’s attempts to become more transparent about what it does with its users’ data, it seems most Americans remain clueless. That’s the takeaway from a survey that the Pew Research Center published Wednesday. Some 963 adults from the U.S. with Facebook accounts between Sept. 4 and Oct. 1 of last year were asked a ...
Facebook is investing $300M to support local news in the US
In another move by dominant internet platforms at least to appear to support struggling traditional media,Facebook Inc. will invest $300 million over the next three years to support local news in the U.S., the company announced today. The money will go toward programs, partnerships and content, said Facebook, adding that it felt responsible for helping local ...
Google employees double down in their fight against forced arbitration
Scores of employees at Google LLC are increasing their efforts to end forced arbitration at the company to create more awareness of a practice they deem unacceptable. Late last year, Google staff all over the world took to the streets in protest and demanded an end to forced arbitration in sexual misconduct cases. Google reacted ...
Carriers are still selling your location data, says new report
Bounty hunters and other sketchy figures have been buying people’s location data, according to a report published today by Motherboard. The report said data from companies such as AT&T Inc. and Sprint Corp. and T-Mobile US Inc. are ending up in the wrong hands, and all for a small price. During the investigation the journalist ...
U.S court rules politician cannot block critic on social media
A federal appeals court Monday said that when a U.S. politician blocked one of her constituent’s on Facebook, she violated the First Amendment. The court decided 3-0 that the chair of the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors, Phyllis Randall, violated the rights of Brian Davison because she banned him from her “Chair Phyllis J. Randall” ...
Screen time may not be that bad for kids, British doctors say
A lot of time spent looking at smartphone screens might not be too bad for kids if they have healthy lifestyles already, according to some leading British children’s doctors. The Royal College of Pediatrics and Child Health, an organization that trains people working in child medicine, produced a guidance report for under-18s last week that said ...
Netflix snaps up former Activision Blizzard CFO Spencer Neumann
Netflix Inc. today confirmed it’s hiring former Activision Blizzard Chief Financial Officer Spencer Neumann as its new CFO. Neumann was jobless only two days, after being let go by the video game company, but apparently, his release was not related to the company’s financial performance. In an announcement Tuesday, Activision said that Neumann “was terminated ...
The internet is a ‘lawless abyss’: Scarlett Johansson on ‘deep-fake’ pornography
Actress Scarlett Johansson called the internet a “lawless abyss” in an interview with the Washington Post over the weekend about the proliferation of deep-fake pornography. Said to be the highest-paid female actress in Hollywood, Johansson (pictured) talked about the difficulty of fighting against people superimposing stars’ faces into porn scenes, something of which she has been ...
Facebook’s moderation rulebook has issues, according to report
Facebook Inc.’s almost Sisyphean task of moderating billions of posts cannot be easy, but the company could be doing a better job, according to a New York Times expose Thursday. The Times managed to get hold of 1,400 pages from a rulebook Facebook uses to moderate the platform, which were given to the newspaper by a disgruntled employee ...
After Gatwick Airport fiasco, UK gets new drone detection systems
Drone detection systems are currently being deployed throughout the U.K. following rogue drone invasions over a major airport that halted flights last week. About 1,000 flights were affected by “drone intrusions” leading to 140,000 passengers having their flight cancelled or diverted, causing chaos at the U.K.’s second largest airport over a three-day period. At the ...