#1 Fishing for Likes
In this edition of the 404 I have a closer look at some publicly available Facebook Data, and more!
Welcome to the first edition of this very exclusive and cool news ‘letter’ about internet. Thanks for subscribing!
It’s been a big week!
THE HEADLINES
For a couple of years, journalist Kevin Roose has been sharing the top ten posts with most engagements on CrowdTangle. These top tens have predominantly shown content from conservative outlets and individuals.
On Monday, Facebook Head of Newsfeed John Hegeman hit back. He came up with a very different list based on reach data. This data shows passive interaction rather than engagement, which CrowdTangle measures. (CrowdTangle also belongs to FB…)
For the time being this reach data isn’t open to the public, so I thought I’d dig a little deeper into what is available.
Between 16th and 17th July combined engagements for posts including the term ‘Portland’ went from 537k to 4.2 million:
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Twitter and Tik Tok took action against Qanon this week, taking related accounts, and hashtags respectively.
Facebook on the other hand is encouraging users to train themselves to spot disinformation. They are also carrying out internal AI tests to train bots to tackle harassment.
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US legislators are looking to ban Tik Tok on government issued devices due to on going security concerns due to purported links to the Chinese government.
This come’s after Amazon ‘accidentally’ sent an email urging employees to delete the App.
Rumour has it that a group of American investors in Tik Tok’s parent company are considering buying it outright.
Coming up…
Research from the Pew Centre says that most Americans feel that social media companies have too much influence over American politics.
We’ll get another chance to judge for ourselves tomorrow as Mark Zuckerberg, Tim Cook, Jeff Bezos, and Sundar Pichai are due to face the Judiciary Anti-Trust Sub-Committee.
Some may remember a viral exchange between Zuckerberg and Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez from his last congressional appearance.
One for the fans….
One from my own home town, all fans of Cork GAA clubs will be able to stream matches as along as the 200 person crowd limit is in place.
And on the point, the Lír academy’s production of As You Like it premiered on Friday evening. You can catch the performance here.
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See you next next, you digital fiends.