Monthly Archives: May 2020

Facebook is launching what its calling a universal product recognition model that uses artificial intelligence to identify consumer goods, from furniture to fast fashion to fast cars.

Its the first step toward a future where the products in every image on its site can be identified and potentially shopped for. We want to make anything and everything on the platform shoppable, whenever the experience feels right, Manohar Paluri, head of Applied Computer Vision at Facebook, told The Verge. Its a grand vision.

Product recognition is the first in a slew of AI-powered updates coming to its e-commerce platforms in the near future, says the company. Eventually, these will combine AI, augmented reality, and even digital assistants to create what it calls a social-first shopping experience. In addition, it also today launched a feature called Shops, that lets small businesses set up free storefronts on Facebook and Instagram.

Fashion will be a key part of this, with the company suggesting that a future Facebook AI fashion stylist could offer users personalized shopping recommendations based on their wardrobe and daily suggestions for outfits tailored to the weather and their schedule.

This is something Ive wanted to build since I watched the movie Clueless, Tamara Berg, a Facebook research scientist, told The Verge. They really imagined everything back in 1995, but the technology I think is now finally ready to make it come to life.

But as the Clueless reference suggests, these features arent exactly new ideas. Even outside of Hollywood, theyve been tried and tested for years, often with mixed results.

Amazon already built its own AI-powered fashion assistant with the Echo Look, now little heard-of. And using machine vision to identify and shop for products has been a reality since at least the Amazon Fire Phone. Meanwhile, online shopping platforms like eBay already use AI to speed up the process of listing items for sale, and Amazon is one of a number of firms thats launched its own Shazam for clothes using machine learning.

Facebook says what makes its tools different are their scope and accuracy. The companys new product recognition tool, GrokNet, can identify tens of thousands of different attributes in an image. These range from specific brands to things like color and size.

GrokNet has already been deployed on Facebook Marketplace, where it helps users quickly list items for sale by identifying whats in them and generating short descriptions. You might upload a photo of your couch, for example, and Marketplace will suggest listing it as black, leather, sectional sofa.

The company is also testing a version of this tool thats built for businesses. When they upload photos to their page containing their own products, the AI system can automatically tag them and link to shopping pages.

In building these tools, Facebook is helped by its access to users photos on Marketplace. GrokNet is trained on a colossal database on the order of magnitude of around 100 million images, with the majority taken from Marketplace. Facebook says this data is vital in creating a machine vision system that can identify products in challenging lighting and from dodgy angles a part of the online shopping experience that isnt going away.

Its unclear, though, exactly how accurate GrokNet is. The company says it can identify 90 percent of images on Marketplace in the Home and Garden category, but it didnt give similar statistics for other types of product categories.

As is often the case with tools like this, the difference between the advertised features and actual user experience can be huge, and well have to wait and see what reaction GrokNet gets from Facebooks users.

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Facebooks new AI tool will automatically identify items you put up for sale - The Verge

Earlier this month, Facebook debuted its group video chat offering, Messenger Rooms, to a world under widespread pandemic lockdown, one thats in large part replaced face-to-face meetings with streamed conversations. The chief beneficiary of this shift, Zoom, has spent months as a punching bag for privacy advocates, so Facebook was quick to assure users that it had built Rooms with privacy in mind and that we dont watch or listen to your audio or video calls.

But today, well over a week after the rollout and nearly a month after Facebook announced and offered the privacy assurances about Messenger Rooms, its impossible to determine exactly what information will be collected about you and your life if you decide to use the product. The companys public documentation of Messenger Rooms, including a post focused on privacy, offers very few details, although the privacy post promises, narrowly, that audio and video from Rooms wont be used to inform ads. Facebooks communications department spent weeks researching my questions about Messenger Rooms privacy, only to come back with few answers, and offering instead only links to a spate of vague policies that predate the product.

Those policies, and the few specifics Facebook has given publicly about Messenger Rooms, leave unanswered important questions about how the company handles the metadata around video calls who you talk to, when you talk to them, from where, etc. including what metadata the company retains and with whom it shares it. Even Facebooks upfront pledge not to watch or listen to conversations isnt ironclad, privacy experts said.

The takeaway is that Facebooks latest product, like all its previous products and those of its competitors, requires a leap of faith. For those wondering what ditching Zoom for Facebook entails in complete and precise terms, there is quite literally no definitive answer, but only another question: Well, do you trust Facebook?

The privacy of Messenger Rooms is particularly important given how Facebook has positioned it to the public. Zoom is a contortionist technology, a service that now simultaneously facilitates workplace meetings, happy hours, and unsatisfying teleromance. Facebook is marketing Messenger Rooms for a more intimate role in your life, dispensing with talk of the workplace and offering instead a new way to spend time with friends and family through group video calls when you cant be together in person. In an effort to assure would-be Rooms users that the service can be trusted, an April 24blog post by Facebook Chief Privacy Officer Erin Egan outlines the kinds of data the company will collect if you use Rooms to host your next virtual board game night.

A few of them, at least. Finding a complete list of how Facebook will track your video chat sessions and how this data could be used is a fruitless experience, because if such a list exists, it isnt shared with the public or the press. Rather, Facebook provides only what it provides for every other app and service in its stable: Hypothetical examples of data it could collect, but not an exhaustive accounting of what it does collect. The automated surveillance of Messenger Rooms sessions is alluded to, glancingly, but never fleshed out.

For the most crucial question Will Facebook monitor my video chats the way it monitors the rest of my life? we are provided only with this assurance from Egans post: Regardless of whether you use Rooms through your Facebook account or join as a guest, we dont watch or listen to your audio or video calls.

But this pledge still leaves wide open the question of metadata collection, the sorts of more abstracted but still deeply intimate information about your conversations, like how often you talk to each of your contacts. Egan nods to metadata collection only once, acknowledging that Facebook may collect information like the name of a room and whos in it and that it may share that information with outside vendors that help us do things like reviewing and addressing issues reported by users. As comforting as we wont actively spy on you may be, the fact remains that the name of the room and whos in it can be profoundly personal and as revealing as the contents of any conversation.

A Facebook spokesperson declined to share a full accounting of exactly what Rooms metadata is shared with whom.

But what other information might Facebook share with its partners? Who are these outside vendors? Egan writes that things like the name of the room youre in might be tracked, but what else? By email, a Facebook spokesperson declined to share a full accounting of exactly what Rooms metadata is shared with whom, how long its stored, or to what end. When asked for a complete list of what information Facebook will extract from Messenger Rooms calls, the spokesperson pointed me to several different corporate documents, none of which add up to something resembling an exhaustive list. The Privacy Matters post, help center article, our data policy and terms of service explain all the types of information we collect and the examples are used to help people understand what that means, the spokesperson wrote.

This is where things begin to go around in circles. Facebooks data policy and terms of service provide only an aerial view of the entire companys data regimen across all its products, sites, and services, including photo-sharing service Instagram and messaging platform WhatsApp. Neither the data policy nor the terms of service mention Messenger Rooms by name; instead, what youll find in them are broadly general acknowledgements of what kinds of data, in a generic sense, Facebook reserves the right to siphon.

The Facebook data policy, which the company spokesperson repeatedly pointed me to as the firms canonical document for questions of information collection, is mostly built from vastly generalized statements (We collect information about how you use our Products) punctuated by slightly narrowed examples (such as the types of content you view or engage with). The word include or includes appears 10 times in the data policy, for example 19 times, and such as 30 times. Though these examples are helpful in getting an idea of how Facebook might monitor your video chats, they remain only examples. The two Facebook documents that specifically address Messenger Rooms data collection are light on details and refer curious readers to the official Terms of Service and Data Policy for a fuller rundown, though these documents, as mentioned, contain nothing specific to Messenger Rooms. The Facebook spokesperson confirmed that metadata collected from Messenger Rooms chats could be used for advertising purposes, but pointed to a general About Facebook Ads overview page that applies to the company as a whole and makes zero mention of Messenger Rooms.

Facebooks canonical data policy is built from vastly general statements punctuated by slightly narrowed examples.

Facebook is similarly opaque about how long Messenger Rooms metadata whatever it may be is stored. A spokesperson told The Intercept only that we impose strict controls and restrictions on how outside vendors use, store, return and destroy the data that we share, in accordance with relevant laws and our contractual agreements, and declined to share the identities of said vendors.

Those reading the all-encompassing Facebook Data Policy might be puzzled by a section toward the top that seems to contradict the companys pledge to not eavesdrop on your video chats. In this document, the social network notes, We collect the content, communications and other information you provide when you use our Products and Our systems automatically process content and communications you and others provide to analyze context and whats in them. To most humans unaccustomed to big tech legalese, this seems at odds with the simple claim that we dont watch or listen to your audio or video calls, or at least would seem to suggest that the company reserves the right to do so later.

Chris Hoofnagle, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, explained that Facebooks claim that it wont listen in on Messenger Rooms would make it legally difficult to do so in the future but not impossible. Once your organization becomes used to using Facebook, Facebook can change policies and most people wont churn, because the transaction costs in changing services is higher than it appears from a straightforward economic analysis, he said.

Frank Pasquale, law professor at the University of Maryland, agreed that this promise is likely short of bulletproof. I do think its an enforceable contract until [Facebook] changes the terms of service, which they have done repeatedly, Pasquale explained via email. Users rarely if ever review such changes, and even if some do, most people will probably just keep using the service. So theres probably a high risk of that change happening, and there being no significant consequences for [Facebook].

Facebook can change policies and most people wont churn.

Even understanding how Facebook is using certain words is tricky for Messenger Rooms users. What does watch/listenTheres No Telling Wh mean? asked Hoofnagle. Most users cannot even conceive of the idea that [machine learning] could watch a video, tag identities, try to make sense of lip movement, and so on. So, what I find frustrating about these kinds of representations is that they are based on 20th century concepts of surveillance, rather than contemporary ones that do not require a human agent to perform collection and analysis.

When asked about this sort of machine-aided monitoring, the sort Facebook employs constantly and on an enormous scale in other services, a company spokesperson indicated that the company will not engage in it in Messenger Rooms, writing, We dont watch or listen to the audio and video of calls in Rooms, so we dont analyze that content, and the Privacy Matters post, help center article, our data policy and terms of service explain what types of information we collect and how its used.

The elusiveness of firm answers about Messenger Rooms (direct eavesdropping aside) is not unique to Facebook, nor to its video chat competitors. Googles terms of use and privacy policy span 44 pages of text and, like Facebooks, provide only such as and including examples of how youre watched when you use their products. Zoom has not only a miserable track record of data security and privacy practices, but a history of misrepresenting them (Zooms privacy policy is also a constantly evolving horror show of its own). A recent Consumer Reports analysis of Webex, Skype, and Google Meets privacy policies found all three lacking and unclear. Apples FaceTime provides a superior alternative from a privacy perspective, but lacks many of the features thatve made Zoom so wildly popular, and, of course, will exclude your Windows and Android pals.

Those spooked by Zooms dismal privacy record and hoping for an unambiguously superior alternative will find no such thing, nor will they find comfort in Facebooks or Googles privacy policies, no matter how long they dig. The disclosures are never detailed enough to determine whats going on, said Hoofnagle. [Privacy] language is strategically used to maintain future options, and even where companies make specific promises, they can just change them by making a take-it-or-leave it offer. If Zooms dismal track record makes you curious about Facebooks alternative, theres still quite literally no way to determine with full certainty what youre agreeing to should you take your social-distancing book club to Messenger Rooms instead. With Facebooks stock price hovering around an all-time high and a captive quarantined audience of billions, theres little incentive for clarity.

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Facebook Says Very Little on Privacy of Messenger Rooms - The Intercept

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SAN FRANCISCO On Jan. 27, at a regularly scheduled Monday morning meeting with top executives at Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg turned the agenda to the coronavirus. For weeks, he told his staff, he had been hearing from global health care experts that the virus had the makings of a pandemic, and now Facebook needed to prepare for a worst-case scenario one in which the companys ability to combat misinformation, scammers and conspiracy theorists would be tested as never before.

To start, Mr. Zuckerberg said, the company should take some of the tools it had developed to fight 2020 election garbage and attempt to retool them for the pathogen. He asked executives in charge of every department to develop plans for responding to a global outbreak by the end of the week.

The meeting, described by two people who attended it, helped vault Facebook ahead of other companies and even some governments in preparing for Covid-19. And it exemplified a change in how the 36-year-old is running the company he founded.

Since the day he coded the words a Mark Zuckerberg production onto every blue-and-white Facebook page, he has been the singular face of the social network. But to an extent not widely appreciated outside Silicon Valley, Mr. Zuckerberg has long been a kind of binary chief executive extraordinarily involved in some aspects of the business, and virtually hands-off in areas that he finds less interesting.

The beginning of the end of Mr. Zuckerbergs distanced leadership came on Nov. 8, 2016, with the election of Donald Trump. From that moment, a relentless series of crises his casual dismissal of concerns over fake news as a pretty crazy idea; revelations that the platform had been used as a plaything for state-sponsored espionage; the Cambridge Analytica scandal jolted Mr. Zuckerberg to tighten his grip.

Many of his consolidation tactics have been highly visible: He replaced the outside founders of Instagram and WhatsApp with loyalists, and he refashioned Facebooks already-friendly board to be even more deferential, swapping out five of its nine members.

With the attention of a quarter of the worlds population to sell to advertisers, Facebook is so colossal that org-chart moves have the effect of creating powerful new characters on the global policy stage. Mr. Zuckerberg has elevated lieutenants to win over hostile territories the Republican operative Joel Kaplan in Washington, and the former deputy prime minister of Britain, Sir Nicholas Clegg, in the eurozone. And his more hands-on approach has caused, by the zero-sum logic of corporate clout, an effective sidelining of Sheryl Sandberg, his chief operating officer and the most high-profile woman in technology.

Now, the coronavirus has presented Mr. Zuckerberg with the opportunity to demonstrate that he has grown into his responsibilities as a leader a 180-degree turn from the aloof days of 2016. Its given him the chance to lead 50,000 employees through a crisis that, for once, is not of their own making. And seizing the moment might allow Mr. Zuckerberg to prove a thesis that he truly believes: That if one sees past its capacity for destruction, Facebook can be a force for good.

Mark has taken an active role in the leadership of Facebook from its founding through to today, Dave Arnold, a company spokesman, said in an emailed statement. Were fortunate to have such engaged leaders, including Mark, Sheryl and the entire leadership team. Facebook is a better company for it.

The revamp has not gone without incident. In early May, Facebook struggled with how to handle a viral conspiracy video known as Plandemic, waffling as the footage spread to the screens of millions of users. Last week, reporters at the Detroit Metro Times showed that the company was blind to assassination-stoking activity on pages with 400,000 members.

Still, for Mr. Zuckerberg, the pandemic has the potential to be a more favorable backdrop than what 2020 would have ordinarily been dominated by the presidential election and the difficulties of policing political speech.

In theory, the crisis plays to some of his strengths. Through his personal philanthropy, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, he has long been interested in curing and preventing disease. Covid is borderless, like Facebook itself, and will require a supranational response at a scale few other organizations are equipped to handle. Solutions, if they ever come, will be grounded in science and not emotion or politics.

Or the pandemic could take all that is dangerous about Facebook and amplify it. When the stakes are not merely a presidential election but global health, any role the company plays in elevating toxic information has the potential to make all its prior harms seem trivial. And if Mr. Zuckerberg is fully in control of his company in a way he wasnt before as acknowledged by interviews with more than two dozen people the success or failure of its response will reside entirely with him.

I think its going to piss off a lot of people, Mr. Zuckerberg said of his new management style in an interview at a tech conference earlier this year. But frankly, the old approach was pissing off a lot of people, too.

In Silicon Valley, there is a certain kind of company founder whose title is C.E.O. but who presents himself as a product guy. A product-guy C.E.O. feels more at home developing what is for sale than actually running the company.

At Apple, Steve Jobs was a product guy, inventing the iPhone while leaving the supply chain to his C.O.O. At Amazon, Jeff Bezos is a product guy, obsessing about retail customers while others run the profitable web-hosting division. And at Facebook, for more than a decade, Mark Zuckerberg was a product guys product guy.

In practice, this meant Mr. Zuckerberg dove into important new products, giving direct orders to middle managers in charge of whatever feature he was obsessed with that week. It also meant he was comfortable delegating in areas that interested him less keenly including the advertising machine that generated $70 billion in revenue last year. Even less compelling to Mr. Zuckerberg was the realm of Facebook policy around what kind of speech was and was not permitted. Those subjects fell into a specific category: Too important to ignore, but not exactly what a young billionaire wants to spend all of his time on.

Oversight of those areas went to his trusted inner circle, known as the M-Team. Short for Mark Team, its members knew they were never likely to succeed him as chief executive, but they could remain powerful and autonomous within their own departments. At the top was Ms. Sandberg, Mr. Zuckerbergs second-in-command, whose portfolio spanned advertising, marketing, regulation, communications and beyond.

The 2016 election made it clear to Mr. Zuckerberg that the accommodation was no longer viable, as he and Ms. Sandberg were pilloried for being absent and distracted, if not willfully negligent. Afterward, Mr. Zuckerberg spent a chunk of 2017 on a state-by-state tour of America, but it wasnt well received; mostly, his photogenic purple-state antics sitting on tractors, attending church, bottle-feeding calves just fed the rumor that he was making a run for president. Mr. Zuckerberg resolved to take control of the global superpower in which he already dominated the voting.

First, he made a show of owning up to its failures. Its clear now that we didnt do enough, he told reporters on a conference call in 2018, reflecting on the companys string of missteps. We didnt focus enough on preventing abuse and thinking through how people could use these tools to do harm as well. We didnt take a broad enough view of what our responsibility is, and that was a huge mistake. He added: It was my mistake.

Not long after, in July 2018, Mr. Zuckerberg called a meeting with his top lieutenants. In the past, he had used the groups semiannual gatherings to chart new courses for Facebook products, or discuss new technology he was interested in capitalizing on. This time, he told his executives that his focus was on himself. With Facebook constantly under attack from outsiders, Mr. Zuckerberg said, he needed to reinvent himself for wartime.

Up until now, Ive been a peacetime leader, Mr. Zuckerberg said, according to three people who were present but not authorized to discuss the meeting publicly. Thats going to change. Mr. Zuckerberg said he would be making more decisions on his own, based on his instincts and vision for the company. Wartime leaders were quicker and more decisive, he said, and they didnt let fear of angering others paralyze them. (Some details of the meeting were previously reported by The Wall Street Journal.)

Mr. Zuckerberg directed Facebooks so-called family of apps Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp and Facebook proper to work more closely together. Instagram had to start sending traffic back to the flagship product; WhatsApp had to better integrate with its sister social media services. Rather than execute Mr. Zuckerbergs vision, the heads of Instagram, Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, left the company in September 2018, after earlier departures by the disillusioned founders of WhatsApp. Together, they forfeited more than a billion dollars in compensation.

Mr. Zuckerberg also began to participate more directly in meetings that had previously been Ms. Sandbergs domain from the nitty-gritty of taking down disinformation campaigns, to winding philosophical discussions on how Facebook ought to handle political ads. Employees couldnt help but notice a shift in the balance of power in one of technologys most lucrative partnerships.

Giving speeches and schmoozing policymakers were two of Ms. Sandbergs specialties. Mr. Zuckerberg began to do more of that, too, starting with a lofty public address at Georgetown Universitys hallowed Gaston Hall, where more than a centurys worth of dignitaries had orated from the same antique, carved-wood podium.

Mr. Zuckerberg continued the speaking tour with regulator-heavy engagements in Utah, Belgium, Germany and elsewhere. In Europe, where Facebook had an especially frosty relationship with government agencies, he tapped Mr. Clegg, who has grown into a new role as the companys diplomat-in-chief.

Publicly, Ms. Sandberg has said her role at Facebook is larger than ever; she is directing a $100 million grant program for small businesses hurt by the pandemic. Many of the new hires, including Mr. Clegg, report to her, and she has said she has always wanted Mr. Zuckerberg to be more visible. I think we dont spend that much time worrying about our public image, Ms. Sandberg said in an NBC podcast interview in February. The issue is not what people think of me or Mark personally. What it is, is how are we doing as a company?

But privately, Ms. Sandberg has worried that she was being pushed aside and that her role at Facebook has become less important, said two people who work within her department. Through a spokesperson, Ms. Sandberg declined to comment.

Facebook disputes that the relationship has changed. Theres a clear structure. Mark is driving the product side of things, while Sheryl is running the business side of things, David Fischer, Facebooks chief revenue officer, said in an interview. It doesnt mean its all or nothing its not zero-sum between them.

Facebook devoted 2019 to a full-out lobbying assault on Washington, committing $16.7 million to influence policymakers. Only two other companies spent more. But even beyond cash, Facebooks most powerful weapon was access to its C.E.O.

Mr. Kaplan a well-connected veteran of the George W. Bush administration began arranging for Mr. Zuckerberg to host dinners with influential conservatives, including Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and the Fox News host Tucker Carlson. Mr. Kaplan also nurtured a relationship between Mr. Zuckerberg and Jared Kushner, President Trumps son-in-law.

In September 2019, New Yorks attorney general announced a multistate investigation into whether Facebook had broken antitrust laws. For Mr. Zuckerberg, it was the clearest indication yet that politics and government required his full attention a potentially existential threat to his company that could no longer be delegated to others. A week later, he traveled to Washington to court members of both parties.

In a private room at Ris, an upscale restaurant next to the Ritz-Carlton, Mr. Zuckerberg dined with prominent Senate Democrats. The group included Mark Warner of Virginia and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut both longtime critics of Facebooks security and privacy practices as well as officials newer to tech policy, such as Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada and Angus King, the independent from Maine.

Over grilled salmon, chicken potpie and roasted brussels sprouts, Mr. Zuckerberg gamely did the kind of basic D.C. give-and-take hed long asked Ms. Sandberg to handle: He listened intently and made assurances about a range of Facebook issues, from foreign election interference to cryptocurrency.

Hes an adroit performer, Mr. Blumenthal said in an interview. Almost certainly a result of professional advice, and maybe coaching and a lot of guidance from a heavy team of lobbyists here in Washington. Mr. Warner added: For a while, I think Facebook, along with a lot of tech companies in the Valley, thought that dealing with Washington was sort of beneath them. I think Mr. Zuckerberg has realized that its to his benefit to engage with us directly.

The Democratic dinner was just a warm-up for the really important meeting, which came the next day: Mr. Kaplan and Mr. Kushner arranged for Mr. Zuckerberg to sit down with the president. The two men had never met. Ahead of the Sept. 19 session, Mr. Zuckerberg asked his Washington staff to brief him about Mr. Trumps Facebook presence, so that he could casually rattle off some statistics in the Oval Office.

Wearing a dark blue suit and a burgundy tie, Mr. Zuckerberg sat between Mr. Kushner and Mr. Kaplan, facing Mr. Trump and his jumbo glass of Diet Coke. Mr. Zuckerberg quickly noted that the president had the highest level of engagement of any world leader on the social network. Mr. Trump who had previously savaged Facebook on a range of issues immediately adopted a new tone, describing the conversation in social media posts as nice.

A month later, the president invited Mr. Zuckerberg along with Facebook board member and Trump supporter Peter Thiel to a private White House dinner, which went undisclosed for weeks. Mr. Zuckerbergs simple flattery seems to have paid off. Mr. Trump hasnt publicly castigated the company since, and months later, he continues to tell audiences that he is No. 1 on the worlds largest social network.

Within Facebook, Mr. Zuckerbergs more engaged style was rankling employees. The discontent boiled over later in October, after Mr. Zuckerberg publicly laid out how Facebook would regulate political speech on the platform. In the name of free speech, he had said, the social network would not police what politicians said in political ads even if they lied. Facebook was not in the business of being an arbiter of truth, nor did it want to be, Mr. Zuckerberg said.

In response, more than 250 employees signed an internal memo arguing that free speech and paid speech were different and that misinformation was harmful to all. Facebooks position on political advertising is a threat to what FB stands for, the employees wrote. We strongly object to this policy as it stands.

Days later, on Halloween, Mr. Zuckerberg led a regular weekly question-and-answer session with employees. Near the end, someone dressed in an enormous, inflatable Pikachu costume lumbered toward the microphone and pressed the C.E.O. on his policy, according to three people who were present.

Mr. Zuckerberg, now less worried than ever about trying to make everyone happy, reiterated his position. When versions of the same question kept popping up during the session, he held firm.

This is not a democracy, he said.

Not a democracy could also describe Facebooks nine-person board of directors. Mr. Zuckerberg chairs the group, holds a majority of voting shares and controls its dynamics.

The board isnt exactly a check on his power. Last year, Kenneth Chenault, the former chief executive of American Express, suggested creating an independent committee to scrutinize the companys challenges and pose the sort of probing questions the board wasnt used to being asked. The idea, previously reported by The Journal, was swiftly voted down by Mr. Zuckerberg and others.

Other board disagreements, specifically around political advertising and the spread of misinformation, always ended with Mr. Zuckerbergs point of view winning out. In March, Mr. Chenault announced he would not stand for re-election; soon, so did another director, Jeffrey Zients, who had also challenged some of Mr. Zuckerbergs positions.

To replace them, Mr. Zuckerberg picked Drew Houston, the chief executive of Dropbox, who was also a longtime friend and occasional Ping-Pong partner, and Peggy Alford, the former chief financial officer of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. Three other appointees are set to join the board this year, including executives from McKinsey and Co. and Este Lauder. The remaining three board members are a friendly bunch: Mr. Thiel and Marc Andreessen, venture capitalists who are among Facebooks earliest and most loyal investors, and Ms. Sandberg.

With his board issues in the rearview, Mr. Zuckerberg has been able to devote more of his attention to the coronavirus. He started following the disease early, fielding reports from experts including Tom Frieden, the former director of the Centers for Disease Control. Mr. Zuckerberg was advised not to trust preliminary reports out of China that the virus was contained, or the baseless assurances from Mr. Trump that it would not greatly affect the United States. On March 19, well ahead of many states stay-at-home orders, Mr. Zuckerberg broadcast a live video chat with Dr. Anthony Fauci, the countrys top infectious disease official, on his personal Facebook page.

Since the pandemic began, video and audio calls on Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp have more than doubled. Group calls in some especially hard-hit countries, like Italy, soared by 1,000 percent. Messaging across Instagram and Facebook is up 50 percent across many of the busiest countries. Homebound in Palo Alto, Mr. Zuckerberg has been pushing his employees to build new products that people can use to connect with one another. The latest is a rival to Zoom, which he hopes will corner the video-calling market.

When the world changes quickly, people have new needs, and that means that there are more new segments to build, he said on a conference call with investors in April. I have always believed that in times of economic downturn, the right thing to do is to keep investing in building the future.

It remains to be seen what an increasingly visible Mr. Zuckerberg will do when challenged by the powerful. In March, in an interview with The New York Times, he said Facebook would not tolerate misinformation that has imminent risk of danger. He cited as an example things like You can cure this by drinking bleach. I mean, thats just in a different class.

Days later, during a White House news conference, Mr. Trump wondered aloud about an injection inside of disinfectant. As poison control centers were flooded with questions and the makers of Clorox and Lysol issued statements imploring Americans not to ingest their caustic cleaners, Facebook wilted, and across the platform, video of the comments went swiftly viral.

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Now More Than Ever, Facebook Is a Mark Zuckerberg Production - The New York Times

A GRAN-OF-10 has revealed how she fell in love and married a toyboy who is 36 years her junior - after they spoke on Facebook.

Isabell Dibble, 62, fell for Bayram Boussada, 26, a taxi driver, after he added her on Facebook in May 2019.

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The receptionist initially declined his online friend request - thinking he was "too young" for her.

Although Isabell was skeptical at first, after they got chatting the pair hit it off almost immediately.

The gran flew over to meet him in Madeira in October 2019, where he proposed.

Smitten Isabell said yes and despite their 36-year age gap, she says she has never been happier.

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The lovebirds tied the knot in January 2020 in Madeira at a registry, and celebrated with around 100 guests, including Bayram's family.

But now the couple are struggling to get Bayram to the UK amid the coronavirus outbreak and flying restrictions and they are not sure when they will next be together.

Isabell, from Kent, said: "I know there are so many cons that go on so I had my doubts and I was skeptical.

"I read stories about women like this and I never thought I'd be in this position.

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"He's never asked me for money, he's never asked me for anything.

"He doesn't care if I move there or he comes here, we just want to be together.

"I have family here, children and grandchildren, so I don't want to leave.

"We're struggling to get him over here with everything going on, neither of us earn enough unfortunately, but hopefully things will turn around soon."

Bayram had added Isabell on Facebook on a whim, but she initially turned him down thinking he was someone she met on holiday in Tunisia in May 2019.

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Isabell had been asked out by a barista in the airport on the way home from the trip, but said no as he was "too young".

When she got back to the UK, she noticed his friend's request but declined for the same reason.

However when she saw his profile again in her suggested friends, she decided to send him a request so they could 'chat'.

Isabell said: "He was good-looking but a very young looking chap.

"When he popped up again I thought: 'Why not add him?' "It would just be to chat - it didn't have to be anything serious."

However as Isabella started messaging the man online, she quickly realised it was someone different who had the same name.

His name was also Bayram and he also lived in Tunisia, but the pair had never crossed paths until now.

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She said: "We literally spoke for hours and sometimes we were up till 3am on the phone.

"I knew there was something there before we met face-to-face."

The pair started discussing marriage and Bayram invited Isabell out to visit him in Tunisia in October 2019.

She ended up staying for a week and met his parents, who helped set up a surprise proposal for Isabell.

She said: "It was like we'd known each other our whole lives. I know people say that but it really felt like that.

He was good-looking but a very young looking chap. I thought: 'Why not add him?' It would just be to chat - it didn't have to be anything serious.

"He started calling me 'his wife' and I said if he really wanted to marry, he'd have to ask properly.

"A week later he sent me pictures of a tray of rings and asked me to pick one.

"When I arrived in Tunisia, I met his parents - who were incredible.

"They set up candles everywhere and got a cake and he proposed to me in front of them.

"My family were a bit shocked to begin with and told me to be careful, which is natural.

"Some came around quicker than others but everyone is fine now and happy for me."

7

Isabell flew back over to Tunisia the following year and the pair tied the knot on January 2nd 2020.

She was joined by Bayram's family but her family stayed in the UK.

Despite their age gap, Isabell says her family is supportive of their relationship.

She said: "My family were unsure at first, of course they would be.

"But their attitude is: 'You had it tough in life, so do whatever makes you happy.'

"I lost three husbands and they know I need some excitement and love in my life.

"They know I'm young at heart and that he makes me happy.

She is so crazy but good crazy - I love her so much. Isabell is my gorgeous woman.

Isabell, who has three children and 10 grandchildren, says the pair on the same page about having kids.

Isabell said: "We've spoken about kids and I've already got three grown up daughters, so I don't want anymore.

"For now, he's happy not having kids.

"Plus he's young enough that if he does change his mind, he'll have time when he's older to have them with someone else."

The pair are now hoping to get Bayram across to the UK so they can start their married life together.

She said: "There must be so many people in our position with their partners stuck abroad and finding it hard to get a visa during the Covid-19 outbreak.

"It's so difficult with everything going on at the moment, it's a bit up in the air.

"I just can't wait to get him over here so we can stay enjoying time together."

7

Bayram, who works as a taxi driver, can't wait to start his life with Isabell once the travel restrictions are lifted.

He said: "I don't care about our age gap, I don't think about it.

"Age is just a number and I don't see her as an 'older woman', I just see her as a good woman.

"She just makes me so happy - I trust her and she trusts me.

"Corona is making it hard but she is my wife, I'd wait forever, and soon everything can start again.

"She is so crazy but good crazy - I love her so much. Isabell is my gorgeous woman.

"She is my soul, my everything."

He started calling me 'his wife' and I said if he really wanted to marry, he'd have to ask properly.

Isabell's daughter, Emma, 37, was dubious when she first found out about Bayram but is now fully supportive of her mum's relationship.

She said: "You hear all sorts of stories about younger men meeting older women and they're only after one thing.

"The thing that really worried me was that she was going to another country to meet a stranger.

"Although after seeing their connection, I can see how genuine they are.

"He clearly loves my mum.

"She's been through a lot over the years and had lots of losses in life so it's really nice to see her happy.

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Previously we shared how an age gap love pensioner, 83, still loves a romp with toyboy husband 40 YEARS her junior.

And couple with 31-year age gap got engaged just FOUR WEEKS after first date insist its true love.

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Gran, 62, weds Tunisian toyboy, 26, after he added her on Facebook and says shes never been happier - The Irish Sun

Samsung India has joined hands with social media giant Facebook to train offline retailers to go digital on platforms like Instagram and WhatsApp. The two companies have already trained more than 800 offline retailers and more training sessions are lined up in the coming weeks.

"The presence of local Samsung retailers on Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp will help consumers reach out to their local retailers for more information about their desired Galaxy smartphone, and shop for Galaxy smartphones on the platform of their choice," Samsung said in a statement.

"Our partnership with Facebook is helping a large number of our retail partners go digital in a big way. By leveraging the Facebook training, our retail partners will be able to discover and target local consumers digitally," Mohandeep Singh, Senior Vice President, Mobile Business, Samsung India, said in a statement.

The training helps Samsung's offline retailers make their business known locally and set up their business pages and accounts on Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.

"With the changing environment around COVID-19, people are spending more time on digital platforms including the Facebook family of apps. This has led brands to alter go-to-market models by adapting to changes in the value chain, rapidly digitising key journeys," Prasanjeet Dutta Baruah, Vertical Head - Technology, Telecom, Automotive, and New Business at Facebook India, said in a statement.

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Samsung India Partners With Facebook to Take Its Offline Retailers Online - Gadgets 360

Reliance Industries has traditionally dominated the market by undercutting prices of their competitors. To avoid a repeat of Reliance Jio in telecom sector, the government must ensure collaborative competition as Indias retail market evolves.

Facebook, the worlds largest social media company, has invested $5.7 billion for a 9.99% stake in Indias Reliance Jio Platforms, a subsidiary of Indias most valuable company, Reliance Industries. This deal is the largest foreign investment in Indias technology sector and one of the most significant cross-border investments in history, reminiscent of Yahoos $1 billion investment in Alibaba in 2005. The deal comes at an opportune time as it boosts Indias global image as a foreign direct investment destination, especially amidst the Covid-19 era and the nations broader macroeconomic condition. It should also remind India that one of our most valuable assets (particularly in the eyes of both Western and Far East investors) is the current and future consumption of its growing middle class, despite the negative headlines from near-term economic volatility. However, this is no ordinary deal. Both the Indian consumer and government must understand the complex strategic and economic implications for Reliance, Facebook and, most importantly, India.Facebooks WhatsApp has over 2 billion users globally and 400 million+ users in India. However, despite its sheer size and presence, WhatsApp has been largely unsuccessful in monetising its massive user base India, their largest market. This strategic alliance with Jio could be the catalyst Facebook has been seeking to accelerate its India revenue, while also fast-tracking regulatory hurdles that could unlock greater monetisation potential.Jio has invested heavily in building a digital commerce platform called JioMart. In the near-term, Jio/Facebook will enable millions of kirana stores to sell products and transact via WhatsApp. WhatsApp would be the platform providing Facebook with ability to monetise the payments volume. This is clearly a significant digitisation opportunity for Indias retail marketgiven approximately 90 per cent of Indias retail sector is currently unorganised and is mostly comprised of neighbourhood kirana stores.While full details are not yet announced, the business model likely entails on-boarding nearly 30 million kirana stores and providing them with a digital storefront via Jio/WhatsApp. The immediate impact could be even intense competition and price wars to a sector with already thin margins. Kirana stores were set up to serve a hyperlocal customer base, and now consumers could have the choice to buy from multiple stores, not just their closest neighbourhood favourite. It is also unclear at this stage if the kirana stores could face competition from Reliance Retail and JioMart themselves. If Reliance decided to compete with kiranas directly, they would be quite well-positioned as they own the critical data (e.g. which vegetable sells best in which neighbourhoods). Alternatively, they could insert themselves into the value chain and have kiranas act as last mile delivery, which would reduce kiranas value proposition and subsequently their margins. Reliance Industries has traditionally dominated the market by undercutting prices of their competitors. To avoid a repeat of Reliance Jio in the telecom sector, the government must ensure collaborative competition as Indias retail market evolves.Besides retail, the payments sector could also be targeted. Neither Jio Money nor WhatsApp Pay have excelled in India. However, combining forces may provide Reliance and Facebook with an opportunity to re-enter the currently fragmented market with greater leverage. Some industry analysts believe the strategic rationale of the deal is to create a super-app (e.g. WeChat in China) that leverages its massive install base and incrementally adds new products and services (e.g. ride sharing, food delivery, financial services). In this potential scenario, Reliance/Facebook could monetise all payment volume transacted through the app and could also force Indias startup ecosystem to either integrate or compete on the incremental services. Indias Competition Act is currently not strong enough to curtail abuses of monopoly power. The laws must be revisited in the wake of changing business dynamics where access to personal data is one of the most valuable assets that can be used to garner market share and quash competition.As the deal ultimately closes and business plans are finalised, the aggregate data across both Jio and Facebook would be enormous and provide both an undue advantage over competition, which include large players like Amazon and Walmart/Flipkart. Jio/Facebook would be best positioned to launch new products and even unlock high value advertising revenue. Unlike the United States and Europe, we currently do not have strong privacy laws in place to prevent misuse of personal data by either of these two entities. While the Supreme Court guarantees an individuals right to privacy as a fundamental right, India currently does not have a legal framework to guarantee that right. Data privacy and confidentiality need to go hand in hand with the continued digitalisation of India.Lastly, we, as Indians, should consider the impact of Jios strategy of recently selling equity to Facebook (along with other private equity firms such as SilverLake Partners, Vista Equity Partners, and General Atlantic). Its a shame that despite being the worlds fifth largest economy, Jio could not turn to domestic equity investors in either the public or private markets. Turning to foreign funding means that the economic windfall from Jio (i.e. from the digitisation of Indias growing middle class) will increasingly flow to US-based investors. While we acknowledge that Reliances equity ownership base (as well as other Indian equities) are very often held by foreign investors, its critical that India retains this benefit as much as possible.While optically the Jio/Facebook deal is about one of Americas largest and most successful companies investing in Indias emerging digital economy, there is more to it than meets the eye. Whether the deal fosters Indias digital growth competitively or the two platforms use this opportunity to gain further dominance remains to be seen.Vivek Tankha is a Member of Parliament (Rajya Sabha) from the Congress Party. A senior advocate practising in the Supreme Court, he has also served as Advocate General of Madhya Pradesh and the Additional Solicitor General of India.

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Facebook's investment in Jio: Another perspective - The Sunday Guardian

By: Express News Service | Ahmedabad | Updated: May 22, 2020 10:59:23 pm The FIR was lodged after the social media monitoring team of Ahmedabad Cyber Crime Cell took cognizance of the controversial Facebook posts on May 21.

The Cyber Crime Cell of Ahmedabad has booked seven Facebook account holders for allegedly sharing objectionable posts about Hindu gods and goddesses on the social media networking site.

According to officials, a total of seven Facebook profiles and a Facebook group have been mentioned in the first information report registered at the Cyber Crime police station on Thursday night for allegedly posting expletives against Hindu gods and goddesses in a bid to disrupt social harmony and to create enmity between religious groups.

The FIR was lodged after the social media monitoring team of Ahmedabad Cyber Crime Cell took cognizance of the controversial Facebook posts on May 21.

The accused Facebook account holders mentioned in the FIR are Jagdish Goswami, Md Ali, Mofizul Hoque, Datta Tilewad, Sham Singh, Md Irfan, Bilal Hussain and a Facebook group. All accused have been booked under Indian penal code sections 153 (wantonly giving provocation with intent to cause riots), 153 A (promoting enmity between different religious groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth), 153 B(imputations and assertions prejudicial to national integration), 120B (criminal conspiracy) and 294B (obscenity) along with sections of the Information Technology (Amendment) Act.

It has come out in probe that the Facebook group admin and active members under a conspiracy used their own Facebook profile link and group to create enmity between different religious groups and disrupt social harmony without any reason, read the complaint in the FIR.

The police have not been able to confirm whether the accused belong to Gujarat as they have sought help of Facebook to seek data of the accused account holders.

Speaking to The Indian Express, H N Prajapati, wireless sub-inspector of Cyber Crime PS, who filed the complaint, said, As part of social media monitoring, our job is to keep a watch on any attempt to create rumour mongering or hatred through the use of social media and after taking cognizance, we booked a case. Now, we have sought help of Facebook to get legal data of the accused including the IP addresses of their devices to probe further in the case.

The Indian Express is now on Telegram. Click here to join our channel (@indianexpress) and stay updated with the latest headlines

For all the latest Ahmedabad News, download Indian Express App.

The Indian Express (P) Ltd

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Ahmedabad: Seven booked for Facebook posts on Hindu gods, goddesses - The Indian Express

Conspiracy theories about the pandemic have gained more traction than mainstream online events. Heres how.

There have been plenty of jaw-dropping digital moments during the coronavirus pandemic.

There was the time this month when Taylor Swift announced she would air her City of Lover concert on television. The time that the cast of The Office reunited for an 18-minute-long Zoom wedding. And the time last month that the Pentagon posted three videos that showed unexplained aerial phenomena.

Yet none of those went as viral as a 26-minute video called Plandemic, a slickly produced narration that wrongly claimed a shadowy cabal of elites was using the virus and a potential vaccine to profit and gain power. The video featured a discredited scientist, Judy Mikovits, who said her research about the harm from vaccines had been buried.

Plandemic went online on May 4 when its maker, Mikki Willis, a little-known film producer, posted it to Facebook, YouTube, Vimeo and a separate website set up to share the video. For three days, it gathered steam in Facebook pages dedicated to conspiracy theories and the anti-vaccine movement, most of which linked to the video hosted on YouTube. Then it tipped into the mainstream and exploded.

Just over a week after Plandemic was released, it had been viewed more than eight million times on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, and had generated countless other posts.

The New York Times focused on the videos spread on Facebook using data from CrowdTangle, a tool to analyze interactions across the social network. (YouTube and Twitter do not make their data as readily available.) The ascent of Plandemic was largely powered by Facebook groups and pages that shared the YouTube link.

On Facebook, Plandemic was liked, commented on or shared nearly 2.5 million times, according to the CrowdTangle data. That far outdid Ms. Swifts May 8 announcement about her City of Lover concert, which plateaued at about 110,000 such interactions on Facebook. The Office casts Zoom wedding video, which was posted on May 10, reached 618,000 interactions in less than a week. And the Pentagons videos, which were posted on April 27, had one million interactions two weeks after the first post.

Plandemic stormed into peoples Facebook, Twitter and YouTube feeds even though its claims were widely debunked and the social media companies vowed to remove the video. Yet it has continued spreading online, raising questions about how it might damage trust in the medical community and color peoples views on a coronavirus vaccine.

Mr. Willis, who has said he plans to release a second video, did not respond to a request for comment.

Heres how Plandemic went from a niche conspiracy video to a mainstream phenomenon.

On the morning of May 5, less than 24 hours after Mr. Willis posted Plandemic, a Facebook group dedicated to QAnon, a right-wing conspiracy group, posted Plandemic to its nearly 25,000 members with the headline Exclusive Content, Must Watch.

Within days, more than 1,660 people had shared the video to their own Facebook pages after watching it on the QAnon page, according to CrowdTangle. The video went from being viewed directly on YouTube to people linking out to the video on Facebook, Twitter and other social media channels, fueling its rise.

On the afternoon of May 5, Dr. Christiane Northrup, a womens health physician, shared Plandemic with her nearly half a million Facebook followers. Dr. Northrup, who had developed a following from her appearances as a medical expert on Oprah, had previously expressed misgivings about vaccines.

Her status as a celebrity doctor made her endorsement of Plandemic powerful. After Dr. Northrup shared the video, more than 1,000 people also shared it, many of them to groups that oppose mandatory vaccinations, according to an analysis by The Times. She did not respond to a request for comment.

By the evening of May 5, Plandemic had popped up on a large-scale political page on Facebook.

The page was for Reopen Alabama, which has over 36,000 members and was part of the movement by Americans who wanted to lift shelter-in-place orders. Once the video appeared on that page, which was linked to dozens of other Reopen America groups, it quickly began spreading to the pages of those other groups in a kind of forceful multiplier effect.

The Facebook user who posted Plandemic to the Reopen Alabama page did not respond to a request for comment.

That same night, Nick Catone, a professional mixed martial arts fighter, also shared Plandemic on his Facebook page. Mr. Catone, 38, with nearly 70,000 followers on Facebook, has been an anti-vaccine activist since the death of his nearly 2-year-old son in 2017. Mr. Catone, who did not respond to a request for comment, has publicly blamed vaccines for his sons death.

More than 2,000 people quickly liked Mr. Catones post about Plandemic, which he exhorted people to watch before it was taken down. His post was one of the first by a public figure who had no special medical expertise.

Two days after Plandemic went online, it came to the attention of Melissa Ackison, who lost in the Republican primary for Ohios 26th District Senate seat last month.

On May 6, Ms. Ackison, 41, an anti-Obamacare campaigner, posted the video and told her 20,000 followers on Facebook, If you watch ANYTHING on my page, it needs to be this.

Her post spread the video to a broader political audience, which then shared it among conservative groups and other Republican campaign pages.

I knew when I shared that video that people would watch, Ms. Ackison said. People know me as a person who is skeptical of what the mainstream media narrative is telling them.

Mainstream Medias Tipping Point

BuzzFeed wrote an article on May 7 about Plandemic and its falsehoods, in one of the first signs that the mainstream news media had noticed the video. The article was shared on 63 Facebook pages, including the page of Occupy Democrats, a popular left-wing group, according to The Timess analysis.

Plandemic is a part of a larger narrative of conspiracy theories and disinformation reporters have been highlighting since the pandemic began, Jane Lytvynenko, who reported on the video for BuzzFeed, said in an email. Its popularity shows how vital it is to keep reporting on false and misleading information and take online events as seriously as offline ones.

After BuzzFeed published its piece, the tenor of comments and shares around Plandemic shifted. More people began to fact-check and debunk the video.

That same day, YouTube and Facebook removed Plandemic for violating their misinformation policies. By then, the video was fully in the mainstream.

Originally posted here:

How the Plandemic Movie and Its Falsehoods Spread Widely Online - The New York Times

Do you remember the first time you encountered new acrylic barriers at the grocery store? Those stores may have been early adopters of the panels, but they are far from the last. We're now starting to get an idea of just how much those barriers are in demand in a world trying to reopen safely.

As Catherine Kavanaugh writes, global demand for clear plastic sheet has doubled from a year ago and lead times are out as far as six months.

"Demand far exceeds the supply, and lead times for anything clear are out 22-24 weeks or more," says Craig Saunders, president of the International Association of Plastics Distribution.

Expect to see them at nail salons, schools, fast-food shops, Uber cars and even casinos, once they reopen.

"Plexiglass barriers will be installed in areas throughout casinos and lobbies, where appropriate, for the safety of guests and employees," MGM resorts said in a May 12 news release outlining its plans for reopening.

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Kickstart: Texas hold 'em (with sanitized hands behind a barrier) - Plastics News