#8 I don't want to moderate, DJ (DEEEJAAAAY)
Potential regulations are not making Facebook feel so nice.
It’s 404 time! We lived on farms, we lived in cities and now you can read about what’s happening on the internet:
Headlines
Embattled DJs could face a fresh streaming hurdle when Facebook announces new terms of service on October 1st.
While big names can negotiate bespoke deals with the platform, regular disc jockeys may need to find a new home if a key music policy is more actively enforced, as this could mean blocking and removing any content containing copyrighted material.
As always, the 404 has broken it down for you:
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Facebook Oversight Board Member Helle Thorning-Schmidt has warned against ‘excessive’ regulation of social media, pointing to its role in situations such as the internet shutdown in Belarus in August.
When it is up and running in late fall, Facebook’s internal oversight board will apparently be able to overrule even Mark Zuckerberg on removal of posts.
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The Washington Post has carried the resignation letter of a Facebook engineer. The former employee ‘could no longer stomach working for an organisation that is profiting off hate in the US and globally.’
Facebook employees were also angered by the decision to leave up Donald Trump’s post urging people to vote twice to test the validity of mail in voting.
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Time is running out for TikTok. The deadline for parent company Bytedance to negotiate a deal for its US operations has been pushed back to November, though Donald Trump insists it is still Tuesday.
It is thought to be weighing two deals: one from Oracle, and one from Microsoft and Walmart. It will reportedly take one of these deals forward for approval from the Trump Administration (whom Trump still thinks should get a cut.)
Microsoft and Walmart are thought to have the edge, though Oracle founder Larry Ellison is a prominent Trump supporter.
The Chinese threw a spanner in the works last week by listing the machine learning technology behind the app’s For You page, seen as the key to the app’s ongoing success, on a list of properties it will not allow to be exported.
The Chinese government now want’s Bytedance to close down its US operation rather then sell to a US company. There are also reports that Bytedance is negotiating to avoid a full sale.
Part of the App’s rapid growth in areas such as South East Asia is its emphasis on a larger suite of video apps leaning towards commerical advertising and e-commerce, and regulation of what it deems to be political content (it has admitted to restricting LGBT hashtags in certain Bosnia, Jordan, and Russia).
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The inventors of Facebook are making a bold move: inventing Facebook.
The platform is going back to basics with the launch of Facebook Campus, a service designed to allow college to connect with their peers. To create a profile, students (in the thirty US universities in which it is rolling out) must provide a .edu email address and their year of graduation.
Sound familiar?
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Facebook is also going toe to toe with the Irish Data Commissioner over proposals that could limit it’s transfer of commercial data from the EU to the US.
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Coke, McDonalds and Nike are still boycotting Facebook advertising buuuuuuuut it has more to do with the logistics of their advertising budgets than any ethical statement.
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Joe Biden’s presidential campaign has taken over an instagram Biden fan account.
The account, which was created earlier this year by a fifteen year old, has 83,000 follower and will serve as the campaign’s main grassroots outreach account.
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Google are giving away $8.5 million to universities and non-profits using AI to investigate Covid-19.
The company also claims to be working to remove auto-correct suggestions on it’s search engine that endorse or oppose any political party or candidate, or make claims about voting.
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Amazon has spent $24,000 lobbying Portland City Council commissioners in a bid to defeat the city’s proposed ban on facial recognition software.
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The battle between Apple and Fortnite creators Epic Games continues… Apple is now seeking damages for beach of contract.
The tech company has emphasised the highly co-ordinated nature in which Epic Games publicised its apparently abrupt decision to cease paying App Store commission on 13th August.
Meanwhile, Epic games have announced a concert series on Fortnite’s battle royale island. 12 million viewers watched a Travis Scott concert hosted in the game in April.
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People are streaming chess matches on Twitch. Because why the heck not?
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