vertical video outperformed square video within the Facebook News Feed... as much as 68 percent less expensive in cost per view... Facebook outperformed Instagram in overall cost per click (CPC) within the feed... But which format drives more engagement within the Instagram Feed? ... vertical video!... organic DIY videos outperformed polished vide…

Much of modern economic theory is based around a simple idea: Human beings maximize utility... To an economist, utility simply means how much people want something... tend to assume that utility is good... But what if the things people desire don’t bring them happiness?...People seem to reliably seek out a few things that make them unhappy... peop…

for manipulating public opinion... automation and artificial intelligence “can quickly generate traffic and publicity much faster than people.”...If disinformation in 2016 was characterized by Macedonian spammers... Russian trolls... 2020 is shaping up to be the year communications pros for hire provide sophisticated online propaganda operations .…

a workplace that is perpetually teetering on the brink of chaos... people develop severe anxiety in training... struggle with trauma long after they leave... conspiracy videos ... gradually lead them to embrace fringe views... By the end of 2018... more than 30,000 employees working on safety and security — about half of whom were content modera…

proposal ... for a U.S. government agency to regulate online speech... on all social media.... fails to make the case... the idea that a government agency would necessarily do better is naive... think about exactly who would appoint that agency’s leader, and to what political ends they might seek to put it...

Facebook needs to engage its users in more substantive acts of participation. ... mistakenly assumes that locally respected fact-checking NGOs can supply the trust Facebook itself is lacking. But NGOs lack standing... In a liberal democracy, NGOs can legitimately elevate arguments and offer counterarguments to government positions... we assume arg…

Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes laid out an argument for dismantling the social media behemoth... via antitrust legislation... a new age of innovation and competition... maybe not... competition  demands more data... engagement ... efforts to increase competition risk simply aggravating these problems.... We could simply choose not to have socia…

It’s been 15 years since I co-founded Facebook at Harvard, and I haven’t worked at the company in a decade. But I feel a sense of anger and responsibility... Mark’s influence is staggering... his focus on growth led him to sacrifice security and civility for clicks... surrounded himself with a team that reinforces his beliefs instead of challengi…

Facebook deliberately broke privacy and competition law and should urgently be subject to statutory regulation, according to a devastating parliamentary report...The Cambridge Analytica scandal was facilitated by Facebook’s policies

our vision and principles around building a privacy-focused messaging and social networking platform... Privacy gives people the freedom to be themselves and connect more naturally... private messaging, ephemeral stories, and small groups are by far the fastest growing areas of online communication... an opportunity to build a simpler platform th…

The Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee... final report on Disinformation and ‘fake news’.... in its evidence to the Committee Facebook has often deliberately sought to frustrate our work, by giving incomplete, disingenuous and at times misleading answers to our questions.

many of the initial conclusions ...about the scope of fake news consumption, and its effects on our politics, were exaggerated or incorrect. Relatively few people consumed this form of content directly during the 2016 campaign, and even fewer did so before the 2018 election. Fake news consumption is concentrated among a narrow subset of Americans …

I have basically figured out for myself how to use Facebook as a workplace.

The tension between literalism and contextualism is one fact-checkers face every day... Swing too far towards literalism and you’re a bone-headed bean counter. Get too contextual and you’re taking wild leaps of interpretation — something fact-checking was explicitly set up to avoid... This interpretative license can be heavily colored by personal …

the next iteration of technology applied to politics will be a huge leap forward with a greater ability to target people... address each of the 156 million of registered voters on the US with personalized messages.... a falsehood delivered in a personalized way is likely to be more efficient but less visible than a blatant lie put on Twitter; it w…

If Facebook is to thrive ... it’ll need to evolve. Here’s where we think it’s heading… developers and platforms ... will be unable to post content on behalf of personal Facebook profiles... can only post to business profiles and pages on both Facebook and Instagram... Facebook might be hoping that more unique content shared by users, reaching mor…

To #DeleteFacebook is to throw the baby out with the bathwater without solving the underlying problem.This is not another post on the benefits or evils of Facebook — you can figure that out for yourself…- my latest post accepted into The Mission

we found that there were four ways the original disputed flags experience could be improved... Disputed flags buried critical information ... could sometimes backfire... Requiring two false ratings slowed down our ability to provide additional context and often meant that we weren’t able to do so at all.... We only applied Disputed flags to “fa…

When in doubt, blame the robots. Facebook ... has proposed a familiar solution: f the algorithm has failed, let’s just build a better algorithm.... the focus on the software misses the point ... the Internet has failed as a public forum.... Perhaps we wouldn’t still be defending this failed experiment if it wasn’t so stunningly profitable... highl…

these technologies ... kind of a denial-of-service (DoS) attack on the human will. Our phones are the operating system for our life. They keep us looking and clicking... wears down certain capacities, like willpower... repeated distractions lower people’s effective IQ by up to 10 points... over twice ... that ... from long-term marijuana usage....…

it is not just Zuckerberg. None of the company’s key executives has a “normal” Facebook presence. You can’t add them as friends, they rarely post publicly and they keep private some information that the platform suggests be made public by default... Over at Twitter, the story is the same.... what do they know that we don’t?... former vice-preside…

uses the social network to promote her business... set up various safeguards to avoid becoming too emotionally invested ... a web browser plug-in ... replaces the social network’s endless stream ... with a single inspiring quote.... hired a social media manager ... because she could no longer stand the addictive feedback loop ... She had been a …

It is a cancer... weaning myself off of the platform by methodically running a script that will delete my old content... I would wager I use Facebook more to broadcast my ego than interact with real humans....It’s a useful tool when it is stripped of its power... larded with my personal details it is a weapon and a liability.... any posts older …

The work of researchers, designers, and artists ... includes apps, Chrome extensions, and desktop software... to give users some agency over their online lives.... understand the kind of information the platform may have on you... turn to Data Selfie... Matias’s posts include instructions on how to run your own Facebook audit... Chrome extensions …

It may be that ditching Facebook is not the answer, but rather restricting how your data is used and shared by the company. Facebook has just made its built-in privacy and data settings easier to use

The same amazing tech that enables people to forge deeper relationships, foster closer communities and give everyone a voice can also breed isolation, embolden racists, and empower digital bullies and nefarious actors.... used with great accuracy and potency “to assault... truth and trust... our personal foundations — our privacy and sense of ide…

Deactivating your account will ... make your profile invisible. All your messages will still be visible, but you won’t be able to use Facebook’s website to message users. For that, you’ll need to use the Facebook Messenger app.... When you delete your Facebook account, you’ll lose your friend list, your wall, posts, and access to your current Fac…

When I need to focus on a project or relax a bit, I turn off the noise that comes from Facebook ... delete your account... But don’t pretend it will make a difference to Facebook or to the state of the world... if tens of thousands of Americans quit Facebook tomorrow, the company would barely feel it... Its growth has plateaued in the United St…

The episode fits an established pattern of sloppiness towards privacy, tolerance of inaccuracy and reluctance to admit mistakes... the chances of a regulatory backlash are growing... Facebook needs a full, independent examination of its approach to content, privacy and data... role in the 2016 election and the Brexit referendum... Facebook and o…

Aleksandr Kogan requested and gained access to information from users who chose to sign up to his app, and everyone involved gave their consent.... In 2015, we learned ... Dr. Aleksandr Kogan lied to us and violated our Platform Policies by passing data from an app that was using Facebook Login to SCL/Cambridge Analytica... Approximately 270,000 …