The world has changed radically over the past 200 years. At the same time, some of the most critical institutions in the most powerful nations either haven’t noticed the change or are so committed to an archaic worldview that they can no longer adapt to conditions they refuse to understand. They...
One insidious way to torture the detainees at Guantanamo Bay was to blast music at them at all hours. The mixtape, which included everything from Metallica to the Meow Mix jingle, was intended to disorient the captives and impress upon them the futility of resistance. It worked: This...
Sam Biddle of The Intercept recounts the story of a black woman who applied for a job at Facebook only to discover the nature of the cult-like empire Mark Zuckerberg has created. Her candidacy was rejected. Some surmise from this that Facebook’s policies are racist. That is certainly true, but...
National legislations across the European Union — with the exception of states that have implemented their own digital laws, such as Germany and France — are very difficult to enforce when it comes to online. This is because, in the absence of overarching legislation that...
A year ago, there was only one person in the world whose fortune clocked in at over $100 billion. At the time when Jeff Bezos reached that plateau, most people felt that because it was so exceptional, the English language didn’t need a specific word to describe that category of person. Now,...
In an interview with Gayle King on CBS, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg continued to defend what he sees as his mission to publish false information. He even sees this as a service for the benefit of the public. He thinks it will help people emerge from their state of political blindness and “see...
Christopher Wylie rose to fame when he blew the whistle on Facebook’s involvement in the Cambridge Analytica affair, which ended up costing Facebook $5 billion in fines. He has just published a book called, “Mindf*ck: Cambridge Analytica and the Plot to Break America” in which he denounces...
Like US President Donald Trump, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has an empire to defend. In contrast with Trump, who has been given the keys to the empire for a mere four years by its largely anonymous owners, Zuckerberg is serving a limitless term because he both owns and controls his empire. Modern...
Facebook seems largely undaunted by its settlement with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) that will oblige it to fork out the modest sum of $5 billion as a civil penalty as punishment for sharing users’ personal information. Caitlin Kelly and Fred Vogelstein, writing on this settlement for...
When a co-founder of Facebook signals abusive overreach by CEO Mark Zuckerberg, it’s time to recognize that the problem isn’t just a person, but a system and a culture. Former Facebook employee and best-selling author Antonio García Martínez has penned an article for Wired to second the...
Monopolist capitalism in the era of digital control reassures some and frightens others. Can it be controlled? After reformers, including Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren, called for laws to break up the monopolies of big tech companies such as Google, Facebook and Amazon, the...
Facebook’s idea of incentives sometimes goes beyond mere entrepreneurship. The Daily Devil’s Dictionary explains. In one of its recent investigative scoops, The Guardian revealed that “Facebook has targeted politicians around the world — including the former UK chancellor, George Osborne...
Facebook’s ruthlessness illustrates something deeper embedded in US culture: obesity as a positive value. The Daily Devil's Dictionary explains. No one doubts that Facebook single-handedly conquered the world of social media. When Hollywood decided to make a movie about Mark Zuckerberg’s...
Like canaries in a mine, two iconic figures of the right and the left sing in unison about the dangers of big tech and the importance of breaking them up. Something strange is happening. Steve Bannon, the former chief strategist of President Donald Trump, and Robert Reich, the Berkeley professor...
After promising to clean up the fake news coming from elsewhere, Facebook invested in its own fake news. For several years, Facebook was celebrated on Wall Street and the media for achieving the American dream. It succeeded in imposing itself as both a virtual and virtuous monopoly, despite its...
