Month: October 2021

who earned his nickname by trying on various makeup products on his show, pre-sold 12 billion yuan in products ranging from Shiseido Co. lotions to Apple AirPods, according to preliminary data compiled by e-commerce data specialist Taosj.com.

Li’s sales are a record for any show livestreamed on Alibaba’s Taobao online marketplace, according to Taosj.com data. He has also survived a recent regulatory crackdown on androgynous pop idols and others who don’t conform to the country’s gender norms or express a more feminine style.

Source: China’s ‘Lipstick Brother’ Livestream Has Record $2 Billion Day – BNN Bloomberg

Note: This was originally published as the daily newsletter at the Columbia Journalism Review, where I am the chief digital writer

In September, the Wall Street Journal published a series of critical stories about Facebook that the newspaper said were based on a trove of hundreds of internal documents from an unnamed former employee of the company. Three weeks ago, that whistleblower revealed herself on 60 Minutes as Frances Haugen, a former product manager who said she became concerned about the harm being done by Facebook’s products, and the fact that the company allegedly ignored its own research. Haugen subsequently appeared before a Congressional subcommittee investigating Instagram’s impact on the mental health of young women. Then, beginning on October 24, Haugen launched what Ben Smith, the New York Times media writer, called “the journalistic equivalent of an outlet store,” by offering access to the complete trove of internal documents to a hand-picked group of news outlets.

The coverage of Facebook’s alleged transgressions is obviously a story about how a huge tech company deals with its responsibilities to its users, and to society. But, like any large-scale investigation—especially one that involves a consortium and a broken embargo—it’s also a media story. How the documents were released, and who was given access to them and why, has undoubtedly affected the coverage of the issues at hand, for better or worse. The use of an embargo, for example (one which was quickly broken, with the usual rationalizations) and the selection of a few media organizations as gatekeepers of the information seems almost deliberately designed to create a feeding frenzy among news outlets. This in turn has arguably resulted in massive duplication of effort and repetition of information.

Some believe the firehose of reporting risks overwhelming the public with information, and journalists have pointed out that much of what is being reported is already well known, and the new information isn’t terribly compelling. Not everyone agrees with that line of argument, however: Paul Kedrosky, a venture investor, called this “a very interesting rhetorical approach, the idea that if something heinous isn’t more heinous than we previously thought, that it’s fine.” Some might even argue that repeating stories about such complex topics is sometimes necessary, since many normal people (i.e., non-journalists) could have missed previous reports.

Continue reading “The Facebook Papers and media strategy”

Robert Liston was a British surgeon in the 19th century who was noted for his speed and skill in an era prior to anaesthetics, when speed made a difference in terms of pain and survival. In his most famous case, he amputated a leg in under 2.5 minutes, but the patient died afterwards from gangrene (not uncommon in those days). As a result of his desire for speed, Liston also amputated two fingers of his young assistant (who also later died from gangrene). And he slashed through the coattails of a distinguished surgical spectator, who was so terrified — thinking that the knife had pierced his vitals — that he fainted from fright, and was later discovered to have died from shock.

Note: This was originally published as the online newsletter for the Columbia Journalism Review, where I am the chief digital writer

Last Friday, David Amess, a 69-year-old British member of parliament, was stabbed to death while hosting an open house for his constituents at a church in Leigh-on-Sea, a town in southeastern England. A 25-year-old man was later arrested and charged with his murder. In the aftermath of the incident, a British politician asked for an amendment to the country’s Online Safety Bill—a proposed law that has been making its way through the British legislative process for several years—that he called “David’s Law,” which would bring an end to online anonymity by forcing users of social platforms and other services to reveal their real identities. These calls were surprising to some, since Amess’s death doesn’t appear to have anything to do with online anonymity, or even the internet (at least not yet). The man arrested, Ali Harbi Ali, is the London-born son of an advisor to the former prime minister of Somali and appears to have links to Islamic terrorism, according to a report from British police.

The fact that Amess’s murder has inflamed the debate about digital anonymity despite having no apparent connection to it is evidence of how charged the discussion about online safety has become in the UK, observers say. Mark Francois, a former defense minister and a close friend of the deceased MP, said he wanted to name an amendment to the Online Safety Bill after Amess because his former colleague had become “increasingly concerned” about what he called the “toxic environment” online, and the amount of abuse directed at British politicians, especially women. “If the social media companies don’t want to help us drain the Twitter swamp, then let’s compel them to do it by law,” Francois said on Monday, during a triibute to Amess in the House of Commons. “Let’s put, if I may be so presumptuous, David’s Law onto the statute book.” Francois said the chief executives of Facebook and Twitter should be called to appear before Britain’s parliament “if necessary kicking and screaming.”

Francois’s call for an end to anonymity seemed to get some traction with at least one of the main architects of the Online Safety Bill. Damian Collins, a British MP and chairman of a parliamentary committee looking at the law, said he believes there is a “strong case” for requiring Facebook, Twitter, and other platforms to record the real identities of users, so that those who engage in abuse online could be identified. “People would then understand that if they post abusive material, they could be traced back, even if they posted under an assumed name,” he told Britain’s Telegraph newspaper. Calls for action around online civility and harassment gained traction earlier this year in the wake of racist abuse on Twitter and Instagram directed at several Black members of the British soccer team because of their performance during the Euro 2020 final.

Continue reading “British MP’s death intensifies calls for end to online anonymity”

A classic e.e. cummings poem that seems strangely appropriate in these times of rabid nationalism and terrible deeds done in the name of patriotism — originally written by cummings in 1931, based on a prisoner of conscience he met:

i sing of Olaf glad and big
whose warmest heart recoiled at war:
a conscientious object-or

his wellbelovéd colonel(trig
westpointer most succinctly bred)
took erring Olaf soon in hand;
but–though an host of overjoyed
noncoms(first knocking on the head
him)do through icy waters roll
that helplessness which others stroke
with brushes recently employed
anent this muddy toiletbowl,
while kindred intellects evoke
allegiance per blunt instruments–
Olaf(being to all intents
a corpse and wanting any rag
upon what God unto him gave)
responds,without getting annoyed
“I will not kiss your fucking flag”

Continue reading “I sing of Olaf, glad and big”

“More than anyone else, John von Neumann created the future. He was an unparalleled genius, one of the greatest mathematicians of the 20th century, and he helped invent the world as we now know it. He came up with a blueprint of the modern computer and sparked the beginnings of artificial intelligence. He worked on the atom bomb and led the team that produced the first computerised weather forecast. In the mid-1950s, he proposed the idea that the Earth was warming as a consequence of humans burning coal and oil, and warned that ‘extensive human intervention’ could wreak havoc with the world’s climate. Colleagues who knew both von Neumann and his colleague Albert Einstein said that von Neumann had by far the sharper mind.” via The Spectator

The Illa de la Discòrdia or Mansana de la Discòrdia — which translates as “Block of Discord” — is a city block in the Eixample district of Barcelona, in Spain. The block is famous for having buildings designed by four of the city’s most important modern architects: Lluís Domènech i Montaner, Antoni Gaudí, Josep Puig i Cadafalch and Enric Sagnier, right next door to each other. As the four architects’ styles were very different, the buildings clash with each other and the neighboring buildings.

This Twitter thread is a persuasive argument that most — if not all — of the important parts of European civilization are built on ham and cheese, and that includes books, which were originally printed on vellum, a material made from the skin of young male sheep and cows (females being too valuable for breeding). Hardback books were invented because vellum tended to buckle and ripple, so boards were sewn into the cover to keep them straight. Furthermore, books also were built on snails.

Ultimately, the hardback book exists because of cheese. 4/ pic.twitter.com/AuyTDEXRTb

— Incunabula (@incunabula) September 6, 2021

If you’ve ever heard of “the Whilhelm Scream” — an audio file of a man screaming, which has been used in literally thousands of movies and TV shows — this prop, with its blinking neon light tubes, could be the physical equivalent. It has appeared in dozens of science-fiction TV shows and terrible movies, and has become such a ubiquitous player in various versions of Star Trek that it should have its own trailer by now. According to a comment on this YouTube clip — which is part one of a three-part series — Modern Props owner John Zabrucky designed it, and it dates to about 1977 or so, but was updated several times.

One great thing about fall is it’s a chance to post this timeless classic from McSweeney’s Internet Tendency — “It’s Decorative Gourd Season, Motherfuckers”

“I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to get my hands on some fucking gourds and arrange them in a horn-shaped basket on my dining room table. That shit is going to look so seasonal. I’m about to head up to the attic right now to find that wicker fucker, dust it off, and jam it with an insanely ornate assortment of shellacked vegetables. When my guests come over it’s gonna be like, BLAMMO! Check out my shellacked decorative vegetables, assholes. Guess what season it is — fucking fall. There’s a nip in the air and my house is full of mutant fucking squash.”

In September of 2014, Tom Maxwell moved with his family into a large, historic home in Hillsborough, North Carolina. With its affordable rent and lush surroundings, it seemed too good to be true. Nine months later, they broke their lease, loaded up the truck, and ran away as fast as they could from the spirits and apparitions that had tortured them. Only afterward would Maxwell learn about the 300 years of bad mojo that had piled up in the house they called Nannie.

“The old and sturdy house, set on rolling pastureland alongside a placid river, appeared safe and calm. It was not. Nannie, and the land around her, was thoroughly haunted. In less than a year we would break the lease, perform a binding ritual, and leave.

As the nature and intensity of the hauntings increased, an elongate man appeared downstairs, almost two-dimensional in his flatness. He would peep at you from around corners or through doorways, just inside your peripheral vision. When you looked at him, he would flash a toothy smile, flatten into the wall and vanish. Scratches appeared on Brooke’s back several times, before my eyes, as we showered.

A hooded thing with long, thin arms began standing over Brooke as she slept. We discussed the possibility of night-hag syndrome, a particularly unpleasant type of sleep paralysis. Whatever it was, it was recurring and utterly terrifying. We had a list of nicknames for our tormentors: Smokey, Spaghetti Arms, The Spook Parade, Bonnet Lady, Smiley, Buckskin Man, Kitchen Lady, The Upstairs Thing.”

In this new apartment complex in Harlem, some experimental apartments are fitted with a structural system designed by former Apple and Tesla engineers, which hides most of the resident’s belongings — including their bed — in the ceiling. Drawers filled with clothing and other articles drop down on command, using a smartphone, and according to the designers the app remembers where the owner put all of their clothing, so a user can request a certain hat or sweater and the system will bring down that drawer. Not a bad way of making a 500-square-foot apartment seem a lot larger!

Note: This was originally published as the daily newsletter at the Columbia Journalism Review, where I am the chief digital writer

Last week, Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen testified before a Senate subcommittee about the company’s propensity for disregarding its own research into the harms done by its content algorithms, particularly among young girls who use Instagram, its photo-sharing site. One of the solutions that Haugen recommended is something a number of other Facebook critics have also proposed over the past several years: regulatory oversight that would impose standards of behavior on the social network (and presumably other social networks such as Twitter and YouTube) in an attempt to minimize their various harms. “Right now, the only people in the world who are trained to … understand what’s happening inside of Facebook, are people who grew up inside of Facebook or Pinterest or another social media company,” Haugen told the Senate subcommittee on **. She said the company’s profit motive was so strong that Facebook would not change unless it was subjected to pressure from a government regulator. “Until incentives change at Facebook, we should not expect Facebook to change,” she said. “We need action from Congress.”

There are plenty of critics of this idea, but there’s also one somewhat surprising supporter: Facebook. In a March, 2019 op-ed in the Washington Post, Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Facebook, argued that government regulation is necessary and that he welcomes it: “Every day, we make decisions about what speech is harmful, what constitutes political advertising, and how to prevent sophisticated cyberattacks,” he wrote. “But if we were starting from scratch, we wouldn’t ask companies to make these judgments alone. “I believe we need a more active role for governments and regulators.” Among other things, Zuckerberg said he agreed with the need for a data protection law similar to Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation. “I believe it would be good for the Internet if more countries adopted regulation such as GDPR as a common framework,” he wrote.

Nick Clegg, Facebook’s vice president for global affairs, reiterated this line of argument in interviews following Haugen’s 60 Minutes interview. The algorithms the company uses “should be held to account, if necessary by regulation so that people can match what our systems say they’re supposed to do from what actually happens,” Clegg said on CNN. He also said the company is open to amending Section 230 of the Communictions Decency Act, which protects platforms from liability for what their users post. “We’re not saying this is a substitution of our own responsibilities,” Clegg told NBC, “but there are a whole bunch of things that only regulators and lawmakers can do. I don’t think anyone wants a private company to adjudicate on these difficult trade-offs between free expression on one hand and moderating or removing content on the other. Only lawmakers can create a digital regulator.”

Continue reading “Facebook hearing sparks talk of a social media regulator”