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Economy

2022 State Legislative Preview

Nine things I’m watching at the statehouse level this year

January 24, 2022 • by Pat Garofalo

Legislative sessions in most states either started recently or will start soon, so it seems like a good time to take stock of what’s happening at the state level and what I’ll be paying attention to in the coming year when it comes to corporate subsidies and the larger effort to ...

The Internet

The Fall of Facebook

Plus the insurrection subcommittee prepares to confront Trump and the debt ceiling fight continues

October 5, 2021 • by Heather Cox Richardson

“hello literally everyone,” the official account of Twitter tweeted on Monday afternoon, after Facebook and its affiliated platforms Instagram and WhatsApp went dark at about 11:40 this morning. The Facebook outage lasted for more than six hours and appears to have been caused by an internal error. But the void ...

Politics

Actually, Facebook Does Kill People

Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang’s “An Ugly Truth” reveals why Mark Zuckerberg’s denials that Facebook is a Covid-19 conspiracy superspreader are laughable

August 6, 2021 • by Claire Potter

_____ On July 16, a reporter writing a story about Covid-19 vaccine disinformation asked Joe Biden: “What’s your message to platforms like Facebook?” The President answered, “I mean, they’re killing people. Look, the only pandemic we have is among the unvaccinated. And they’re killing people.” I want to point out that although ...

Politics

Break Up the Tech Monopoly

No corporation should be so big or systemically important that it can credibly threaten to cut an entire nation off from the news

February 3, 2021 • by Pat Garofalo

Australian leaders want Google to pay news outlets for articles the tech giant serves up to users. In response, Google threatened to pull its search engine from the entire country. Not just news, but democracy is at stake. Google’s threat sounds absurd. But it actually happened. And Google wasn’t alone: Facebook also ...

Capitalism

Can We Trust Monopolies to Play Fair?

Current debates on Big Tech and antitrust law lack a clear definition of “competition”

October 19, 2020 • by Sandeep Vaheesan

----- For the anti-monopoly movement, the past three months have been exciting but sobering. In late July, the House Antitrust Subcommittee held a landmark hearing at which members of Congress forced the CEOs of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google to admit to business practices they would rather have stayed private. Amazon ...

Capitalism

Big Tech May Be Closer to Home Than You Know

How digital behemoths create economically vulnerable communities — and then prey on them

October 1, 2020 • by Pat Garofalo

----- In May, 2020, the city of Gallatin, Tennessee, voted to provide nearly $20 million in tax breaks to an entity called “Project Woolhawk” that proposed building a data center in the area. Local economic development officials refused to confirm who or what was behind that name, only that it was ...

Big Tech May Be Closer to Home Than You Know

Past Present

Social Media Deplatforming

Past Present Podcast, Episode 236

July 7, 2020 • by Nicole Hemmer, Natalia Mehlman Petrzela and Neil J. Young

Here are some links and references mentioned during this week’s show: Social media platforms like Reddit are taking a harder line on regulating extremist content. Natalia referred to this article about the undisclosed relationship between Ben Shapiro’s conservative sites and Facebook, and to this Vice piece about the effectiveness of social ...

Democracy

The Business of Disinformation

In Central and eastern Europe, political disinformation is highly profitable

May 7, 2020 • by Judit Szakács

Since February 2019, the Center for Media, Data and Society at Central European University has been mapping individuals and companies running or owning disinformation websites in five central and eastern European countries: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Hungary, Moldova, Romania and Slovakia. The goal is to collect data on independent (i.e. not ...

North America

Revisiting the Netroots, 2020 Edition

Recent reports that Russia has been interfering with the election are no surprise — but this is what to do about it

February 22, 2020 • by Claire Potter

But at Public Seminar, we have been paying attention to the corruption of what blogger Jerome Armstrong dubbed “the netroots” in 2002: grassroots political activism that occurs primarily online. In collaboration with our friends in the Eurozine network, we have a cluster of articles in this week’s issue about Disinformation. Adam Ramsay shows how disinformation, on its ...

Feature

Cambridge Analytica, the Austin Serial Bomber, and Stanford’s “Manel”

Past Present Episode 124

March 28, 2018 • by Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, Nicole Hemmer and Neil J. Young

In this week's episode, Neil, Natalia, and Niki debate the historical significance of Cambridge Analytica and its relationship with Facebook, a serial bomber in Austin, and an all-white, all-male history conference at Stanford.

...

Facebook

2022 State Legislative Preview

Nine things I’m watching at the statehouse level this year

The Fall of Facebook

Plus the insurrection subcommittee prepares to confront Trump and the debt ceiling fight continues

Break Up the Tech Monopoly

No corporation should be so big or systemically important that it can credibly threaten to cut an entire nation off from the news

Can We Trust Monopolies to Play Fair?

Current debates on Big Tech and antitrust law lack a clear definition of “competition”

Big Tech May Be Closer to Home Than You Know

How digital behemoths create economically vulnerable communities — and then prey on them

The Business of Disinformation

In Central and eastern Europe, political disinformation is highly profitable

Revisiting the Netroots, 2020 Edition

Recent reports that Russia has been interfering with the election are no surprise — but this is what to do about it

Newsletter

Connect With Us

Nine things I’m watching at the statehouse level this year

Plus the insurrection subcommittee prepares to confront Trump and the debt ceiling fight continues

Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang’s “An Ugly Truth” reveals why Mark Zuckerberg’s denials that Facebook is a Covid-19 conspiracy superspreader are laughable

No corporation should be so big or systemically important that it can credibly threaten to cut an entire nation off from the news

Current debates on Big Tech and antitrust law lack a clear definition of “competition”

How digital behemoths create economically vulnerable communities — and then prey on them

Past Present Podcast, Episode 236

In Central and eastern Europe, political disinformation is highly profitable

Recent reports that Russia has been interfering with the election are no surprise — but this is what to do about it

Facebook’s motto to connect the world is failing, and Zuckerberg isn’t helping

Deleting your account won’t un-elect Trump

Past Present Episode 124

Newsletter

Connect With Us