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FYI

Is Facebook Crazy, Or Are We?

The following is excerpted from Bob Hoffman's often humorous and always informative The Ad Contrarian newsletter.

Is Facebook Crazy, Or Are We?

By External Source

The following is excerpted from Bob Hoffman's often humorous and always informative The Ad Contrarian newsletter.


Facebook advertised their app on services beloved by teens, like Snapchat and Instagram, seeking participants between the ages of 13 and 35. The sign-up process required minors to get parental consent. (How rigorous? Users simply had to scroll down and click on a check box.)"

The story gets juicier as Apple, pissed off about Facebook's abuse of one of its product to conduct this espionage, entered the fray and crippled Facebook's internal communication and information networks. "This is because the same (Apple) certificate that authenticated the research apps was also used in the key internal Facebook apps its tens of thousands of employees use every day," says Business Insider.

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If that wasn't enough to grind your gears, there's this. This week it was reported that Facebook had crippled transparency tools by ProPublica and other user-friendly organizations that allow consumers to see how Facebook's advertisers are targeting them.

Senator Mark Warner said, “This is very concerning...Investigative groups like ProPublica need access to this information in order to track and report on the opaque and frequently deceptive world of online advertising.”

One would think that the last thing Facebook needs at this point is headlines about new secret spying schemes and efforts to thwart transparency. But, one would be wrong. Here's why Facebook and the rest of the online ad industry continue to go all-in on surveillance and don't give a flying shit about privacy ...

...this week, Facebook reported record profits of almost 7 billion dollars as revenue grew 30% this quarter.

Are they crazy, or are we?

 

 

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Charles Officer
Petr Novák, Wikipedia

Charles Officer

Culture

Award-Winning Canadian Director Charles Officer Has Died

The celebrated Toronto filmmaker and director of K’naan’s “Strugglin'” video died after an illness.

Canadian filmmaker Charles Officer, known for his work on CBC show The Porter and features like Akilla's Escape, died on Dec. 1 after an illness. He was 48. The director and writer was celebrated for his work in a range of forms, including scripted television, documentary, and even an early music video for Somali-Canadian artist K'naan. He directed four out of eight episodes of the acclaimed series The Porter, which tells the story of railway workers in the 1920s who formed North America’s first Black union. The Porter won ten Canadian Screen Awards this year, with Officer winning Best Direction.

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