Don't Let It Go

Today we’ll discuss substantive issues raised by Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen, as well as Facebook’s response. And more, including some updates on Flattening the CronyCare Curve.

We’ll stream live on my YouTube channel here. I’ll update this post afterwards with the link to the recorded show, which will also be crossposted to Rumble and various podcast outlets tomorrow.

UPDATE recording on YouTube here:

Support for the show is greatly appreciated! Contribute via Patreon here.

Program Notes:

https://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/facebook-hearings-fears-business-model-parler-execs

Amy on the Chris Salcedo Show (beginning of this hour of his show)

Google will prevent climate change deniers from making money from ads

By Amy Peikoff and Benjamin Chayes
(title in header here was as originally submitted to Fox Business)

Facebook was offline long enough on Monday for people to speculate, not only about what had incapacitated the social media behemoth, but also about life post-Facebook. For some that meant shopping for a competitor: Our company, Parler was one of them and experienced a surge of traffic.   

But we suspect others used the downtime to ponder the outage – also affecting Instagram and WhatsApp – coinciding with whistleblower Frances Haugen’s revelations appearing on front pages worldwide. Those revelations were the subject of yet another congressional hearing Tuesday, with Haugen repeatedly urging privacy-preserving congressional oversight for the platform’s “engagement-based ranking” algorithms, and explaining that, ironically, such oversight – which she assumes would yield more purely chronological feeds – would also be in Facebook’s long-term self-interest. 

Just as unconfirmed rumors have suggested for years, it appears that Facebook’s business model actually does depend upon amplifying conflict and divisiveness. According to Haugen, the company’s algorithms operate by stirring strong feelings – usually negative – about the content in users’ feeds. 

Read more at Fox Business

Merck’s new antiviral: is there a conflict of interest? Norway and Singapore choose to live life as normal, even with the virus as endemic. Texas legislators are trying to protect Texans from Biden’s proposed vaccine mandates. And more!

Reference: https://www.realclearpolicy.com/artic…

Support for the show always appreciated! https://www.patreon.com/AmyPeikoff

See you on Saturday, 12 ET at my YouTube Channel, so long as they’ll have me there 🙂