Vox: All Posts by Kurt Wagnerhttps://cdn.vox-cdn.com/community_logos/52517/voxv.png2019-04-29T06:00:00-04:00https://www.vox.com/authors/kurt-wagner/rss2019-04-29T06:00:00-04:002019-04-29T06:00:00-04:00Facebook’s next move
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<figcaption>Christina Animashaun/Vox</figcaption>
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<p>The social network you love — or hate — needs a radical reboot.</p> <p id="zPqI1X">In late 2011, Facebook found itself in a terrifying position for a soon-to-be-public tech company: It was behind. </p>
<p id="EP76x5">After months of planning, Facebook had just wrapped up its annual F8 developer conference, a chance to show off new products and features to a room full of partners and press. The unveiling, which came on the heels of a company-wide “lockdown” following the unexpected announcement from earlier that summer that Google was building its own social network, was well received. Facebook demoed a newly designed user profile — they called it “Timeline” — and comedian Andy Samberg kicked off the event with <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_vz6Me_TIY">a <em>Saturday Night Live</em>-style impersonation of CEO Mark Zuckerberg</a>, complete with signature black zip-up hoodie. </p>
<p id="sejYxZ">But as the dust settled on F8 and Facebook executives started to look ahead to what was next, the company’s problem was suddenly obvious: While Facebook had been heads-down for nine months building and preparing for its big conference, the rest of the world was rapidly moving toward smartphones and mobile devices. Facebook, too, was growing quickly on mobile phones, but wasn’t prioritizing them at all internally. Facebook still thought of itself primarily as a desktop service, and nearly everything it unveiled at F8 was built for the web. </p>
<p id="3cx8Ms">Facebook had mobile apps for iPhones and Android phones, but they were built using the technology known as HTML5 — a relatively new software language good for building web pages but not for building apps native to iOS and Android devices. Facebook had universalized its code, using the same technology for all of its services instead of building apps specifically designed for each operating system. As a result, the apps were buggy, slow, and prone to crashes. </p>
<p id="DNxVGL">As Zuckerberg would admit two years later: “We took a bad bet.”</p>
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<cite>Kimihiro Hoshino/AFP/Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg delivers a keynote during the Facebook f8 Developer Conference in San Francisco on September 22, 2011. </figcaption>
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<p id="KGyEA3">What happened next has gone down in Facebook lore. In early 2012, Zuckerberg redirected the entire company to focus on mobile. He all but abandoned his laptop and started working primarily from a mobile device. Product managers disabled their own desktop versions of Facebook, forcing themselves to use the mobile version instead. In meetings, Zuckerberg expected employees to present the mobile version of new products first. If they didn’t, the meeting was over. Facebook hired new iOS and Android engineers, held week-long bootcamps to get their existing employees up to speed, and embedded mobile engineers onto every product team at the company. </p>
<p id="7WZywv">Zuckerberg even wrote the shareholder letter for the company’s IPO filing — <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2012/09/11/zuckerberg-wrote-all-2179-words-of-facebooks-s-1-founder-letter-on-his-phone/">all 2,000-plus words</a> of it — on his phone. Facebook was all in on mobile. </p>
<p id="S77gPy">That company-wide pivot — despite the bad timing, considering the then-looming IPO — is widely considered the most important move in Facebook’s history. It was a recognition by Zuckerberg that mobile, not desktop computers, was the next great platform. If Facebook wanted to survive, it would have to do so by riding that mobile wave. Today, with a market cap over $500 billion and more than 2.3 billion users worldwide, it has been a sweet ride. </p>
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<p id="ImvYfG">Eight years later, Facebook is going through another pivot. Mobile devices are still far and away the most popular way people use Facebook services, but after two years of privacy debacles, misinformation campaigns, and political polarization, how they interact with those services is starting to change</p>
<p id="1G5bNv">Private messages and disappearing Stories — popular on Facebook-owned Instagram and WhatsApp — are in. The mostly public, mostly permanent, social network on which Facebook built its empire is reaching a plateau. The Facebook app is no longer growing in the US or Europe. Some estimate that the <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/6/18253274/facebook-users-decline-15-million-people-united-states-privacy-scandals">social network’s user base is actually shrinking</a>. Zuckerberg’s <a href="https://www.recode.net/2019/3/6/18253461/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-private-messaging-future-whatsapp-messenger">recent announcement</a> that the company is shifting toward private, encrypted messaging is the most striking sign yet that Facebook and News Feed are no longer the company’s future. </p>
<p id="I0PsHy">“If you look at the ways that people are interacting now online that are growing the fastest, it’s messages, it’s small groups, and it’s ephemeral stories. And these all have the property that they’re more private than these digital town square-type equivalents,” Zuckerberg said in <a href="https://www.facebook.com/zuck/videos/10107028374517921/">an interview<strong> </strong>with Axel Springer CEO Mathias Döpfner</a> that was published in April. “So I don’t know whether you call this a pivot ... but it’s clear that this is the next big thing people want to get built.”</p>
<p id="M6miqY">Facebook’s core social network isn’t going away anytime soon, but there’s a good chance — probably a <em>great </em>chance — that the way you use Facebook’s products in 10 years will look and feel very different from the way you use them today. The device you use it on? That may change too. </p>
<p id="r4qTwY">Zuckerberg isn’t just thinking about that reality, he’s already betting on it. He <a href="https://www.recode.net/2016/3/24/11587234/two-years-later-facebooks-oculus-acquisition-has-changed-virtual">acquired the virtual reality headset maker Oculus</a> for $3 billion back in 2014. He’s building augmented reality glasses, and Facebook launched a video chat device for the living room last November meant to rival other in-home devices, like Amazon’s Echo and Google’s Home. <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/17/facebook-building-voice-assistant-to-rival-amazon-alexa-and-apple-siri.html">CNBC reported</a> this month that Facebook is even building its own voice assistant, and the company has a blockchain team working on secure payments through digital tokens, presumably akin to bitcoin. </p>
<p id="R3qC2l">Zuckerberg has even talked openly about the idea that, one day, you may be able to type messages using only your thoughts — no keyboard necessary. “That’s going to be an interesting thing down the line,” he said rather casually of the mind-reading technology <a href="https://www.facebook.com/zuck/videos/10106612617413491/">during a conversation</a> at Harvard in February. </p>
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<cite>Josh Edelson/AFP/Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>Barnabas Lazarus tries out the new Oculus Go during the annual F8 summit in San Jose, California on May 1, 2018.</figcaption>
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<p id="qKfTQG">Most of this technology is still unavailable to consumers, and the stuff that is available — Oculus and Portal — you likely use sparingly if at all. It’s clear that nailing private messaging is Facebook’s current challenge, but if the company is still relevant a decade from now, messaging will probably just be one of multiple pivots the company has to make. It’s possible the physical technology people use Facebook on will change, too. You might connect with friends through a VR headset or through AR glasses. Maybe voice commands will be the dominant way people interact online, through devices like in-home speakers. If so, Facebook will need to adjust accordingly. </p>
<p id="XE49ah">It’s anybody’s guess which technology platform will dominate, but Facebook and Zuckerberg are trying to avoid another mad scramble. </p>
<p id="PPmObn">“The one advantage Facebook has, and it’s the same advantage Google had, is they just have a really profitable business, tons of cash, so they can really experiment in a way that very few other companies can,” says Mark Mahaney, a Wall Street analyst covering the tech industry for the investment bank RBC Capital Markets. “They can throw a lot more stuff up against the wall. They can easily afford to do that. God, that’s a good position [to be in].” </p>
<h3 id="AmWPDo">Project Oxygen</h3>
<p id="hj5ppN">Facebook employees use a lot of code names. Most new projects and initiatives have one — the new wireless virtual reality headset Oculus unveiled last September was previously codenamed “Santa Cruz.” <a href="https://cheddar.com/media/facebook-plans-camera-tv-device-project-ripley">Other hardware projects at Facebook</a> have used code names like “Ripley,” “Sequoia,” and “Aloha.”</p>
<p id="9xx6PG">Project “Oxygen,” though, isn’t code for a fun new hardware device. It’s Facebook’s plan to protect itself against Google.</p>
<p id="savo6c">Located less than seven miles south down the freeway from Facebook’s sprawling Menlo Park, Calif., campus, Google has been Facebook’s greatest threat for the better part of the company’s existence, especially in the social network’s early days. In fact, Facebook employees still use Microsoft Outlook for email and Quip for document sharing, instead of Gmail and the suite of Google document services the company used to use until around 2012 because, former employees say, Facebook executives never trusted Google. (Though it sounds as though the company is finally <a href="https://www.theinformation.com/articles/in-reversal-facebook-mulls-switch-to-google-apps">considering a return to Google products</a>.) </p>
<p id="upWcc6">In 2011, when Google announced Google Plus, its own social network intended to kill off Facebook, Zuckerberg immediately called the company together and told them “Carthago delenda est,” Latin for, “Carthage must be destroyed,” according to <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/06/how-mark-zuckerberg-led-facebooks-war-to-crush-google-plus"><em>Chaos Monkeys</em></a>, a book by former Facebook ad exec Antonio Garcia Martinez. It was a call to arms credited to ancient Roman senator Cato the Elder, who inspired his countrymen to crush Rome’s rival in battle. </p>
<p id="cOd2ei">(Zuckerberg’s war cry must have worked. Within a few years, Google Plus was all but forgotten. <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/10/18134541/google-plus-privacy-api-data-leak-developers">It formally shut down earlier this month</a>.)</p>
<p id="olXESr">But Oxygen, according to four sources familiar with the plan, is intended as a defense against a bigger, longer-term issue that Google created for Facebook: As the owner of the Android operating system — and thus the Google Play store where billions of people around the world can download Facebook’s products — Google has a virtual chokehold over Facebook’s distribution. Oxygen is the “break glass in case of emergency” plan Facebook put in place in case Google ever decides to suck all the oxygen out of the room. </p>
<p id="xLTBAN">The plan was created around 2013, sources say, a time when Facebook was still very much transitioning to mobile and worried about Google’s leverage. It’s unclear how necessary Oxygen is today, though in the past the plan included ways to ensure people can access the Facebook app on Android phones outside the Google Play Store, according to former employees. That includes strategies like sideloading, which would let people download an Android app from a mobile web browser instead of the Play Store, for example. </p>
<p id="TBNwRw">The mere fact Oxygen existed at all is a reminder that, as dominant as Facebook has been on mobile, the company’s original sin is that it has never owned the phone or the operating system necessary to deliver its services to people. Facebook is, essentially, reliant on Google and Apple. </p>
<p id="85sUuc">“There’s a duopoly in mobile, and they control distribution,” explained one former Facebook exec. “If they wanna pull you off the App Store, they can do that. That’s a lot of control.”</p>
<p id="bQWlXV">Zuckerberg <a href="https://www.recode.net/2018/6/6/17434646/facebook-mark-zuckerberg-phone-data-china-chinese-government-huawei">acknowledged</a> this weakness as recently as last spring. </p>
<p id="XBKqhm">“One of my great regrets in how we’ve run the company so far is I feel like we didn’t get to shape the way that mobile platforms developed as much as would be good,” he said on a company earnings call last April. “IOS and Android, they came out around 2007, we were a really small company at that point — so that just wasn’t a thing that we were working on.”</p>
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<img alt="A bystander takes a photo of Mark Zuckerberg on their mobile phone." data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/XujI3bco06I9mGeJc9ieOq2GzfY=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/16191218/GettyImages_527130638t.jpg">
<cite>Manuel Blondeau/AOP.Press/Corbis via Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>A bystander takes a photo of Mark Zuckerberg during his keynote speech at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, on February 24, 2014.</figcaption>
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<p id="f9eGlo">Numerous executives who have worked with Zuckerberg say he can be paranoid about the competition — a paranoia that can be felt among the rest of Facebook’s employees. Before Facebook’s IPO, Zuckerberg left a book on every employee’s desk full of inspirational quotes, according to <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/copycat-how-facebook-tried-to-squash-snapchat/">Wired</a>. One near the back of the book read, “If we don’t create the thing that kills Facebook, someone else will.” Like any successful business executive, Zuckerberg is constantly looking for leverage over potential competitors, especially Google and Apple. </p>
<h3 id="QXYQ6T">The Slayer Phone</h3>
<p id="hqoUXB">Facebook’s leverage today is its size. Its apps and products are simply too popular for Google or Apple to mess with. They need Facebook’s services on their respective platforms, otherwise users won’t want to use them. Given the current regulatory environment, it’s also hard to imagine Apple or Google would ever pull Facebook from their respective stores; it would look very anti-competitive. (Apple did, however, fire a shot across the bow: In January, after revelations that a Facebook “research program” was collecting data — a violation of Apple’s terms of service — it revoked Facebook’s special access to publish internal app versions, <a href="https://www.recode.net/2019/1/30/18204001/facebook-apple-punishment-internal-apps-not-working">basically shutting the company down</a> for a day.)</p>
<p id="OMfJ92">But back in 2010, before Facebook had that leverage, its dependence on Apple and especially Google started to grow and worry Facebook’s executives. The company tried to gain leverage in another way: It decided to build its own phone and operating system to compete. </p>
<p id="UikQuA">Codenamed “Slayer,” a portmanteau of the phrase “social layer” and later renamed “Buffy” (as in <em>Buffy the Vampire Slayer</em>), Facebook set out to build an all-in-one smartphone device. <a href="http://allthingsd.com/20111121/the-facebook-phone-its-finally-real-and-its-name-is-buffy/?mod=snippet">Imagine iPhone, but from Facebook</a>. The effort, led by Chamath Palihapitiya — then a Facebook product and growth executive and now a well-known venture capitalist — quickly ran into engineering challenges and barely made it past the prototype stage. The hardware wasn’t in Facebook’s wheelhouse and the operating system was a bigger lift than expected. Perhaps wisely, Facebook decided that competing with incumbents like Google and Apple on mobile operating systems was a tall order. “You don’t bring a knife to a gun fight,” explained one former employee. </p>
<p id="jyLO1G">So Facebook <a href="http://allthingsd.com/20111122/the-facebook-phone-the-slayer-wasnt/">decided instead to work with HTC</a> to try and build a phone with the Facebook’s social features built in. What Facebook ultimately launched was a drastically scaled-down version of the original phone plan: a software program <a href="http://allthingsd.com/20130409/facebook-gets-a-hold-on-phones/">called Facebook Home</a> that brought Facebook pictures and status updates directly to the phone’s home screen on Android phones.<strong> </strong>It came pre-loaded on one type of HTC phone but never gained any traction. It was a monumental flop. </p>
<p id="OL7Hiu">The experience, though, left a lasting impression on Facebook’s executive team. The fact that Facebook did not own the core device on which its app is accessed was seen as a serious problem, one it didn’t want to encounter the next time around. It was a major reason Zuckerberg decided to buy Oculus well before virtual reality was an established, mainstream platform, according to those who have worked with him. </p>
<p id="weAaU3">“We still have a lot of work to do on mobile, but at this point we feel strong enough in our position that strategically we also want to start focusing on building the next major computing platform that will come after mobile,” Zuckerberg said on a 2014 <a href="https://www.scribd.com/doc/214950394/facebook-to-acquire-oculus-investor-call-transcript">analyst call</a> announcing the purchase of Oculus. “Today’s acquisition is a long-term bet on the future of computing.”</p>
<h3 id="wvoUnN">Finding the next smartphone</h3>
<p id="3XdjrY">Four years in, it’s clear that virtual reality is not the next big platform Zuckerberg once believed it might be. At least not yet. Market research company <a href="https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS44966319">IDC estimates</a> that 8.9 million AR and VR headsets will ship globally in 2019. For comparison, IDC also <a href="https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=US44916519">expects 1.8 billion</a> smartphones to ship this year. VR clearly has a long way to go. </p>
<p id="D5GuIa">But Zuckerberg has learned his lesson from Facebook’s early mobile struggles. Even if Oculus turns out to be the hardware equivalent of Facebook’s early HTML5 mobile apps, it’s far from the only bet Zuckerberg is making. </p>
<p id="4ZJAGF">In addition to Oculus, which has <a href="https://www.recode.net/2017/10/12/16463464/oculus-facebook-vr-virtual-reality-headsets-rift-santa-cruz-go-cost-samsung">unveiled four different iterations of its virtual reality headset</a>, Facebook has a number of other hardware projects in the works. Last October, it launched an in-home <a href="https://www.recode.net/2018/10/8/17937366/facebook-portal-video-screen-launch-privacy-alexa">video chat device, Portal</a>, meant to compete with Amazon’s Echo and Google’s Home. The company is also building some kind of video-calling device for your TV; a digital projector code-named “Sequoia,” <a href="https://cheddar.com/media/facebook-plans-camera-tv-device-project-ripley">according to Cheddar</a>; and has talked publicly about its research into <a href="https://www.recode.net/2017/4/19/15361568/facebook-mark-zuckerberg-brain-mind-reader-regina-dugan-building-f8">converting human thoughts directly into text on a screen</a>. That last one might be a bit far off.</p>
<p id="30vv28">But one of the most nascent, and perhaps most important, of these bets is a pair of augmented reality glasses that Facebook first announced last spring. The public has yet to see a working prototype, but what augmented reality offers that virtual reality doesn’t is mobility. Virtual reality is great for immersing yourself in another world while while sitting on your couch. Augmented reality, however, would be able to overlay digital objects onto the physical world around you. The thinking is that, like your mobile phone, augmented reality glasses will be portable enough to become a near-constant part of your everyday life. </p>
<p id="ejn9Em">For Facebook, betting on virtual reality is a stepping stone of sorts to augmented reality. </p>
<p id="2YRP8r">“We can’t build the AR product that we want today, so building VR is the path to getting to those AR glasses,” Zuckerberg told Recode last April. </p>
<p id="5BleF8">AR glasses have been a dream for a lot of companies, not just Facebook. Google tried and failed to gain any traction with <a href="https://www.recode.net/google-glass">Google Glass</a>. Microsoft is building its own AR glasses called <a href="https://www.recode.net/2019/2/22/18236290/microsoft-military-contract-augmented-reality-ar-vr">HoloLens</a>, and Magic Leap, which has taken <a href="https://www.recode.net/2014/10/13/11631842/google-is-set-to-lead-a-huge-investment-in-magic-leap-a-company-that">investment from Google</a>, is also building glasses. They <a href="https://www.recode.net/2018/2/13/17010340/watch-video-shaquille-shaq-oneal-magic-leap-new-ar-glasses-augmented-reality-basketball-nba">aren’t very fashionable</a>. </p>
<p id="zplozk">But imagine walking into a party wearing your Facebook AR glasses. They’ll be able to recognize the people around you using facial recognition technology — even people you’ve never met — and will display their Facebook profile next to their face, hovering for you to see through the glasses but completely invisible to anyone else. </p>
<p id="az9JSj">It’s the kind of creepy science-fiction scenario that doesn’t yet exist, but certainly could one day. And if it does, Facebook wants to own those glasses. And better yet, the software that powers the glasses. And you can bet that glasses made by Google (or Amazon or Apple or Microsoft) would likely display something very different from a Facebook profile. </p>
<p id="MX7TuZ">That reality and who will control it are still a long way off. </p>
<p id="cPj2Oc">“We’re kind of driving blind in a sense right now, at least in my opinion, in terms of what’s going to happen with interfaces past the touchscreen devices that we have,” says Michael Sayman, a former Facebook product manager who spent three years helping the company better understand and build products for young people before <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-28/facebook-s-21-year-old-wunderkind-sayman-leaves-for-google">leaving for Google in late 2017</a>. “It’ll take one of those [moments like], “Oh my gosh, we had no idea this was going to be a thing but now it’s obvious.” I think that kind of a moment will have to happen at some point in the next 10, 15 years.”</p>
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<cite>Justin Sullivan/Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>Attendees of the F8 Facebook Developers conference use the Oculus Go VR headset on May 1, 2018 in San Jose, California. </figcaption>
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<p id="9IxDTJ">At Facebook’s annual F8 conference in 2016, Zuckerberg laid out a 10-year roadmap for the company that he’s referenced numerous times since. The roadmap lists AR and VR as part of the long term plan — the part that’s 10 years out — and mentions them in the same category as <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/26/17507826/facebook-aquila-internet-drone-project-shut-down">Facebook’s internet connectivity efforts</a>. Still, it’s possible that AR or VR never materialize in any mainstream way. </p>
<p id="tkgCSx">“I don’t know exactly when it’s going to be a big deal,” Zuckerberg <a href="https://s21.q4cdn.com/399680738/files/doc_financials/2018/Q1/Q1-18-Earnings-call-transcript.pdf">said of virtual reality last April</a>. “I think the reality is Facebook needs to be investing before it is a big thing in order to build some of the muscles to be competitive.” </p>
<h3 id="eOCJAh">Can Facebook get out of its own way?</h3>
<p id="bNAbby">Mark Zuckerberg is known as one of the greatest product builders in Silicon Valley history. A more apt description, perhaps, may be that Zuckerberg is one of the best product <em>thinkers</em>. </p>
<p id="FYwBND">Many of Facebook’s most valuable products weren’t invented by Facebook or Zuckerberg; the company merely perfected them. Instagram, for example, was a $1 billion purchase back in 2012 <a href="https://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/04/09/facebook-buys-instagram-for-1-billion/">with just 30 million users</a>. It now has over 1 billion users, and SunTrust estimates it will <a href="https://suntrust.bluematrix.com/sellside/EmailDocViewer?encrypt=df07352a-ee2c-4553-b93d-0dd7f8dbe3a5&mime=PDF&co=Suntrust&id=kurt@recode.net&source=mail">bring in almost $16 billion</a> in revenue this year. </p>
<p id="D2DcAM">WhatsApp, the encrypted messaging service that suddenly looks like the blueprint for Facebook’s future, was a <a href="https://www.recode.net/2014/2/19/11623682/facebook-to-buy-whatsapp-for-16-billion">$19 billion acquisition back in 2014</a> with 450 million active users. Now it has more than 1.5 billion users. Stories, the disappearing photo and video product that Facebook built into all of its apps, was originally invented by Snapchat. On Facebook’s apps, hundreds of millions of people use Stories every day. </p>
<p id="4JD9Rt">Knowing what to buy and what to copy takes skill, and Zuckerberg has proven to be the best fast follower in tech. If private messaging is indeed the next big wave of communication — and who’s to say it won’t be? — Zuckerberg laid the groundwork for that four years ago when he acquired WhatsApp and spun out Facebook Messenger into its own standalone product, a signal that it was important enough to exist outside of the core app. Now he’s trying to link all of the company’s messaging features to combine their respective user bases into one massive network. </p>
<p id="H6e4Ne">“When we bought WhatsApp for $19 billion I was like, ‘Really?’ And, “We [already] have a messaging system,’” jokes Mike Rognlien, who spent seven years at Facebook working on human resources projects like new hire orientation and employee onboarding. “But that’s one of the things that’s really brilliant about Mark [Zuckerberg] and the leaders that he surrounds himself with. He can see around corners that you don’t even know exist.”</p>
<p id="7g3vuI">Even if Zuckerberg has identified the next big wave, having a plan is different from executing a plan — and Facebook has two major obstacles working against it. </p>
<p id="DHklNM">The first is that Facebook has <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/business/consumer/trust-facebook-has-dropped-51-percent-cambridge-analytica-scandal-n867011">lost an incredible amount of user trust</a> in the past two years. Between Facebook’s role in the 2016 US presidential election, the Cambridge Analytica scandal, and the near-constant privacy and user-data mishaps, Facebook doesn’t look like the kind of company you want controlling the screens and devices you use on a daily basis. </p>
<p id="eVxjTA">Public criticisms of Facebook have even come from former employees who built their fortunes thanks to the company’s success. Brian Acton, the WhatsApp co-founder who made billions on the acquisition, <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/20/17145200/brian-acton-delete-facebook-whatsapp">encouraged people to “#deletefacebook”</a> last spring. And Palihapitiya, the same Palihapitiya who worked on the Facebook phone, <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/11/16761016/former-facebook-exec-ripping-apart-society">told a group at Stanford</a> that social media was “ripping apart the social fabric of how society works.”</p>
<div class="c-wide-block"> <figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/hLUS1UT6frvJGT3n9y4493RMk8A=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/16191559/GettyImages_944366000.jpg">
<cite>Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call via Getty Images; Alex Wong/Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>Demonstrators set up a display of Mark Zuckerberg cutouts ahead of the Facebook CEO’s joint hearing with the Senate Judiciary and Commerce Committees on the protection of user data on April 10, 2018.</figcaption>
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<p id="shNMp4">Burghardt Tenderich spent over a decade doing public relations for tech companies primarily in Silicon Valley before joining the University of Southern California as a PR professor in 2010. He teaches his students about corporate communications, and says Facebook comes up “on a daily basis” in his teachings and research. Tenderich says he’s noticed a dramatic change in public perception for Facebook and its tech peers since the 2016 US presidential election. </p>
<p id="pkeYY4">“By default, tech companies and web companies were a good thing,” he says, referencing the public perception from a few years ago. “But then we’ve seen a complete turnaround where trust has completely eroded.” </p>
<p id="mvAb8X">Tenderich believes Facebook’s trust issues are so deep they could have a “tremendously negative impact” on the company’s ability to sell hardware devices moving forward. </p>
<p id="rVPgJq">“When you told me you were writing a story about Facebook entering the hardware market, I instinctively thought and felt right away: ‘Oh my God, I would be scared of that,’” he said in an interview with Recode. “They will now be physically in my home or in my hands. And they will probably be able to encroach on my privacy even more.</p>
<p id="98Wz08">“They would be met with fear, cynicism, anger, and would create a very tremendous PR problem.”</p>
<p id="tFTWm4">The second potential obstacle for Facebook is that it has become Washington’s favorite big-tech punching bag. Facebook is being sued or investigated by nearly every three-letter government agency you can think of. The <a href="https://www.recode.net/2019/1/23/18193314/facebook-ftc-fine-investigation-explained-privacy-agreement">FTC is investigating</a> Facebook’s data policies, and so are the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/02/technology/facebook-federal-investigations.html">DOJ and the FBI</a>. HUD, meanwhile, is <a href="https://www.recode.net/2019/3/28/18285782/facebook-hud-lawsuit-charges-housing-discrimination-ad-targeting">suing Facebook for allegedly perpetuating housing discrimination</a> through its targeted advertising products. And a slate of politicians are <a href="https://www.recode.net/2019/2/18/18229833/facebook-regulation-uk-india-germany-ftc">dreaming up ways</a> to hold Facebook and its data-powered ad business to account. </p>
<p id="uTdR1T">So far, Facebook has taken the punches in stride, and Zuckerberg is even leaning into the idea. He published an <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/mark-zuckerberg-the-internet-needs-new-rules-lets-start-in-these-four-areas/2019/03/29/9e6f0504-521a-11e9-a3f7-78b7525a8d5f_story.html?utm_term=.421b8853ba61">op-ed in the Washington Post</a> in March outlining areas he actually <em>wants</em> Facebook to be regulated — areas like harmful content, election integrity, privacy, and data portability. </p>
<p id="ml7H18">The goal seems to be to shape the regulation rather than fight it, a move that might even give Facebook a competitive advantage. </p>
<p id="YbuQCa">“We view this move as very shrewd and positive for Facebook over time,” wrote SunTrust analyst Youssef Squali after Zuckerberg’s op-ed. “It puts the onus of resolving these issues on regulators, [and] Facebook has clearly invested the most time, effort and money trying to address these issues.</p>
<p id="E6EnIs">“As a result it is likely best positioned to comply with the rules once set up by regulators,” he continued. </p>
<p id="eKhYaW">Squali pointed out GDPR, the new European privacy laws meant to hold big tech companies to account for their data practices, has been a non-factor for Facebook — despite a lot of buildup and concern for its potential impact. “GDPR has had virtually no negative affect on Facebook so far in terms of user growth or monetization,” Squali concludes. </p>
<p id="q9IkMb">Facebook’s data practices aren’t the only part of the business drawing scrutiny from Washington, though. There are some who believe Facebook is too big. When Zuckerberg testified before Congress last April, he was asked multiple times if Facebook was a monopoly. He had trouble even naming a single Facebook competitor. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who is running for president, wants to break up Facebook and unravel its different apps and businesses. Ben Thompson, founder of the influential tech newsletter Stratechery, <a href="https://www.recode.net/2018/6/2/17413786/ben-thompson-facebook-google-aggregator-platform-code-conference-2018">called Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram</a> the “greatest regulatory failure of the last ten years.” </p>
<p id="wajmcH">Doug Melamed spent five years at the Department of Justice in the antirust division in the late ’90s under President Bill Clinton, then served as the general counsel at Intel before <a href="https://law.stanford.edu/directory/a-douglas-melamed/">joining Stanford’s Law School as a professor</a> back in 2014. He believes it would be a “real long shot” that regulators would dismantle Facebook entirely the way Warren and others might hope, though he does believe tech mergers like Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram will get more attention than before. </p>
<p id="1Mn1ZC">“I would certainly hope, frankly, that the agencies would be more aggressive,” Melamed said in an interview with Recode. “And if they find the right case would go into court to try and push the boundaries of the law a little bit there.”</p>
<p id="fIQalY">What will be harder to measure will be the deals that don’t materialize at all. Facebook has stayed on top over the years thanks to shrewd acquisitions. Facebook may be able to hold onto Instagram and WhatsApp, but more scrutiny from antitrust regulators may make it harder to do deals moving forward. </p>
<p id="oWTFrA">“Both buyers and sellers will look at this as a longer, more problematic road and may pull back a little bit from some deals they otherwise would have pursued,” Melamed added. </p>
<p id="ahbKmu">But even if regulatory efforts don’t hurt Facebook’s business today, they could have consequences down the road. Writing op-eds, assisting government investigations, and constantly explaining data and security mishaps take a lot of time and attention. In the fast-paced world of consumer tech, those distractions could hurt Facebook in ways it doesn’t even realize until it’s too late. </p>
<p id="mZExB4">“The absolute sheer, utter level of distraction that they have going on,” said one former executive, “what are they gonna miss?”</p>
<p id="07z0v2">At the end of Zuckerberg’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9r46UeXCzoU">keynote at F8 2011</a>, he talked about Moore’s Law, the idea that computing power will grow exponentially, and said that Facebook was preparing for a future where the amount that people share grows exponentially, too. “We can look into the future, and we can see what might exist, and it’s going to be really really good,” he said. </p>
<p id="w0Qr2x">When Zuckerberg <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKYpm3OFcvY">took the stage at F8 2018</a> nearly seven years later, he spoke not just about <em>preparing</em> for the future, but about <em>building</em> it in a way that aligns with Facebook’s products. </p>
<p id="DZokTd">“When I look out today, it still surprises me how little of the technology that our industry produces is designed to put people first. Our phones are designed around apps, and that’s not how people think,” he said. “I believe that we need to design technology to help bring people closer together. And I believe that that’s not going to happen on its own.” </p>
<p id="25sby6">“The world,” he continued, “isn’t moving in this direction by itself. So that is what we are all here to do.”</p>
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<img alt=" " data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/yvZdL0NUTHV1tQuDc71Q5v90ASY=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/16191489/GettyImages_953557460t.jpg">
<cite>Josh Edelson/AFP/Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>Mark Zuckerberg speaks during the annual F8 summit in San Jose, California on May 01, 2018.</figcaption>
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<hr class="p-entry-hr" id="QCopXQ">
<p id="M1B6gK"><em>Recode and Vox have joined forces to uncover and explain how our digital world is changing — and changing us. Subscribe to </em><a href="https://www.vox.com/recode-podcasts"><em><strong>Recode podcasts</strong></em></a><em> to hear Kara Swisher and Peter Kafka lead the tough conversations the technology industry needs today.</em></p>
https://www.vox.com/2019/4/29/18511534/facebook-mobile-phone-f8Kurt Wagner2019-04-18T14:01:58-04:002019-04-18T14:01:58-04:00Facebook says it stored millions of Instagram passwords unencrypted on its servers
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<img alt="Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg onstage gesturing at a picture of a lock." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/iQOv7t9d-X7i4E41Zwd1cxYkjXw=/263x0:3000x2053/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/63614024/953377518.jpg.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. | Justin Sullivan / Getty Images</figcaption>
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<p>This number is much, much bigger than Facebook originally shared. </p> <p id="ltwSYf">On the same morning Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian election interference <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/4/18/18301054/mueller-report-full-read-text-trump-russia-collusion">finally became public</a>, Facebook dropped some troubling news: Millions of Instagram users’ passwords were accidentally stored unencrypted on Facebook’s servers, which means Facebook employees could access them. </p>
<p id="fhzsUz">Facebook first announced late last month that it had <a href="https://www.recode.net/2019/3/21/18275917/facebook-passwords-privacy-encryption-employees-access">stored hundreds of millions of user passwords unencrypted</a> on its servers, a massive security problem. At the time, it said that “tens of thousands” of Instagram passwords were also stored in this way. </p>
<p id="3NdfAz">On Thursday morning, Facebook <a href="https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2019/03/keeping-passwords-secure/">updated its blog</a> to say that, actually, “millions” of Instagram users, not “tens of thousands,” were impacted: </p>
<blockquote><p id="ZNqzxW">Since this post was published, we discovered additional logs of Instagram passwords being stored in a readable format. We now estimate that this issue impacted millions of Instagram users. We will be notifying these users as we did the others. Our investigation has determined that these stored passwords were not internally abused or improperly accessed.</p></blockquote>
<p id="dOdkxK">A Facebook spokesperson pointed <strong>Recode</strong> to the update and reiterated that “there is no evidence of abuse or misuse of these passwords.” But the timing of the update — again, during the release of Mueller’s report — doesn’t convey the message that Facebook cares strongly that users are aware of this issue. </p>
<p id="aLnsar">Facebook is under <a href="https://www.recode.net/2019/1/23/18193314/facebook-ftc-fine-investigation-explained-privacy-agreement">investigation by numerous government agencies</a>, including the FTC and the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/15/us/cambridge-analytica-federal-investigation.html">DOJ</a>, for its data collection and privacy practices. It’s unclear if issues like unencrypted password storage could play a role in those investigations, but it’s not a good look regardless for a company that is <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/business/consumer/trust-facebook-has-dropped-51-percent-cambridge-analytica-scandal-n867011">already struggling mightily with user trust</a>. </p>
<aside id="WVszHt"><div data-anthem-component="newsletter" data-anthem-component-data='{"slug":"recode_daily"}'></div></aside><p><small><em>This article originally appeared on Recode.net.</em></small></p>
https://www.vox.com/2019/4/18/18485528/facebook-instagram-passwords-stored-unencrypted-security-issueKurt Wagner2019-04-18T08:21:25-04:002019-04-18T08:21:25-04:00Recode Daily: “Hey Facebook” — The social media giant is building a voice assistant
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<img alt="Facebook sign." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/nF6sMBGyY6YroZLtoj4yNZPzxYQ=/450x0:4063x2710/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/63611848/512015962.jpg.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>Sean Gallup/Getty Images</figcaption>
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<p>Plus: Susan Wojcicki has one of the toughest jobs in Silicon Valley, and Apple and Google are blocking TikTok in India.</p> <p id="7sHPN7"><a href="https://recode.cmail20.com/t/d-l-pjtjykd-ydyhdtqtk-t/"><strong>Facebook is building a voice assistant to rival similar assistants from Amazon, Apple, and Google.</strong></a> Facebook is also talking to companies in the smart-speaker supply chain, according to a story from CNBC. A personal assistant makes sense for Facebook, especially given its recent push into in-home hardware. Last fall, when the company launched its video-chat device for the home, Portal came equipped with Amazon’s Alexa instead of a native Facebook assistant. When we asked why, a Facebook executive said: “We looked at [our own assistant], and really our vision is that … the assistant is not the platform.” Apparently those feelings have changed.<br>[<a href="https://recode.cmail20.com/t/d-l-pjtjykd-ydyhdtqtk-i/">Salvador Rodriguez / CNBC</a>]</p>
<p id="vaq0Gg">[Want to get the <strong>Recode Daily</strong> in your inbox? <a href="https://events.recode.net/newsletters/subscribe/?utm_campaign=recode.social&utm_content=recode&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=apple-news"><strong>Subscribe here</strong></a>.] </p>
<p id="lemgkA"><a href="https://recode.cmail20.com/t/d-l-pjtjykd-ydyhdtqtk-d/"><strong>Susan Wojcicki has one of the toughest jobs in Silicon Valley. </strong></a>As the CEO of YouTube, she is ultimately responsible for what content is allowed, and what content is removed, on a platform where people upload the nastiest types of videos you could ever imagine. And have you ever read the comments? 2019 has already been a tough year, full of controversy for YouTube. “One way I think about some of the decisions is putting myself in the future and thinking: in five or 10 years, what will they say?” Wojcicki told the New York Times in a profile that’s worth your time. “If someone were to look back on the decisions that we’re making, would they feel we were on the right side of history? Would I feel proud?”<br>[<a href="https://recode.cmail20.com/t/d-l-pjtjykd-ydyhdtqtk-h/">Daisuke Wakabayashi / New York Times</a>]</p>
<p id="B6EvJw"><a href="https://recode.cmail20.com/t/d-l-pjtjykd-ydyhdtqtk-k/"><strong>U.S. lawmakers will get their first look at the Mueller report on Thursday</strong></a><strong> </strong>after Attorney General William Barr holds a press conference at 9:30 am ET. Someone who won’t be surprised about what the report contains? President Trump. The White House has reportedly been briefed on many of the report’s findings ahead of Thursday’s presser. “The talks have aided the president’s legal team as it prepares a rebuttal to the report and strategizes for the coming public war over its findings,” the New York Times wrote. Some aren’t happy that President Trump is getting early access: Rep. Jerry Nadler, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, tweeted Wednesday that he was “deeply troubled” by the briefings.<br>[<a href="https://recode.cmail20.com/t/d-l-pjtjykd-ydyhdtqtk-u/">Mark Mazzetti, Maggie Haberman, Nicholas Fandos, and Katie Benner / The New York Times]</a></p>
<p id="Pku7gp"><a href="https://recode.cmail20.com/t/d-l-pjtjykd-ydyhdtqtk-o/"><strong>Apple and Google are blocking TikTok,</strong></a> a popular Chinese video app, from their respective app stores in India at the Indian government’s request. India demanded the apps be removed because of “concerns the video-sharing mobile app exposed children to troubling content, including pornography,” according to Bloomberg. TikTok, once called Musical.ly, lets users share short-form video and is incredibly popular with young people. India has been on the forefront when it comes to policing technology platforms. The Indian government proposed rules late last year that would require platforms like <a href="https://recode.cmail20.com/t/d-l-pjtjykd-ydyhdtqtk-b/">Facebook and Google to track what people share on their respective platforms.</a> Critics say the rules would be detrimental to encryption and free speech.<br>[<a href="https://recode.cmail20.com/t/d-l-pjtjykd-ydyhdtqtk-n/">Mark Bergen and Saritha Rai / Bloomberg</a>]</p>
<p id="2AKS1L"><a href="https://recode.cmail20.com/t/d-l-pjtjykd-ydyhdtqtk-p/"><strong>More tech IPOs are on the way:</strong></a> Both Pinterest and Zoom are expected to list their stock publicly for the first time on Thursday, and the two companies may actually end up with similar valuations. But it’s Pinterest, which has way more brand recognition than Zoom, a corporate video conferencing service, that will garner most of the attention, writes Recode’s Teddy Schleifer. “The stock market is about perception as well as fundamentals. And our perceptions are driven by companies that we actually know, like Pinterest.” Lyft, another tech unicorn that went public late last month, has already seen its stock drop by more than 26 percent.<br>[<a href="https://recode.cmail20.com/t/d-l-pjtjykd-ydyhdtqtk-x/">Teddy Schleifer / Recode</a>]</p>
<p id="4uYKaU"><a href="https://recode.cmail20.com/t/d-l-pjtjykd-ydyhdtqtk-m/"><strong>AirPods are everywhere these days — and they’re making human interaction a little, er, awkward.</strong></a> Workers in the service industry, like coffee shop baristas or hair stylists, are finding it can be uncomfortable to interact with patrons who don’t take their earphones out of their ears. It can be hard to tell, for example, if someone is listening to your conversation or just listening to their music. “The idea that they’re always in your ears has really changed the way I’ve interacted,” a barista told BuzzFeed News. “It’s kind of a reminder of how people view service workers. I think there’s a good percentage of people who don’t see me as a full person.”<br>[<a href="https://recode.cmail20.com/t/d-l-pjtjykd-ydyhdtqtk-c/">Alex Kantrowitz / BuzzFeed</a>]</p>
<h2 id="5VyUIA">This is Cool </h2>
<p id="fqrY25"><a href="https://recode.cmail20.com/t/d-l-pjtjykd-ydyhdtqtk-q/"><strong>Instagram is changing NBA photography.</strong></a></p>
<aside id="BTucud"><div data-anthem-component="newsletter" data-anthem-component-data='{"slug":"recode_daily"}'></div></aside><p><small><em>This article originally appeared on Recode.net.</em></small></p>
https://www.vox.com/2019/4/18/18484660/facebook-youtube-susan-wojcicki-tiktok-google-apple-mueller-report-ipo-pinterest-zoom-recode-dailyKurt Wagner2019-04-17T08:43:30-04:002019-04-17T08:43:30-04:00Recode Daily: Silicon Valley can’t decide which Democrat to endorse
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<img alt="Sen. Cory Booker." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/AMUVAqBYqy4_9IzFJuce8ysCVPg=/333x0:3000x2000/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/63572360/1143188574.jpg.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>Even Sen. Cory Booker, who has deep ties to the Bay Area, is not a clear-cut favorite. | Scott Olson/Getty Images</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Plus: Twitter claims it’s improving when it comes to fighting spam and abuse, and Netflix has nearly 150 million subscribers. </p> <p id="XmNyH1"><a href="https://recode.cmail19.com/t/d-l-pjjtdll-ydyhdtqtk-t/"><strong>Silicon Valley can’t agree on which Democratic presidential candidate to get behind. </strong></a>The Federal Election Commission’s first fundraising snapshot came out Monday, and it shows that money from Silicon Valley’s tech leaders is spread across multiple candidacies. Kamala Harris, the senator from California, has garnered donations from former Facebook exec Alex Stamos, Y Combinator’s Sam Altman, and venture capitalist Ron Conway. Meanwhile, Cory Booker, the senator from New Jersey (and Stanford alum) has secured funding from former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, among others. As Recode’s Teddy Schleifer writes: “There is no clear frontrunner among the donor class.”<br>[<a href="https://recode.cmail19.com/t/d-l-pjjtdll-ydyhdtqtk-i/">Theodore Schleifer / Recode</a>]</p>
<p id="zobwHU">[Want to get the <strong>Recode Daily</strong> in your inbox? <a href="https://events.recode.net/newsletters/subscribe/?utm_campaign=recode.social&utm_content=recode&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=apple-news"><strong>Subscribe here</strong></a>.] </p>
<p id="dSTU34"><a href="https://recode.cmail19.com/t/d-l-pjjtdll-ydyhdtqtk-d/"><strong>Twitter claims it’s improving when it comes to fighting spam and abuse. </strong></a>CEO Jack Dorsey announced at TED on Tuesday a few new metrics about the company’s abuse-fighting efforts. Among them: Using technology, the company now catches 38 percent of the abusive content it takes action on, which means it doesn’t have to wait for humans to report those tweets to the company. A year ago, Twitter didn’t catch any abusive content proactively. Given the massive size of social media platforms like Twitter, which has hundreds of millions of monthly users, automating these abuse efforts is key to cleaning up the service.<br>[<a href="https://recode.cmail19.com/t/d-l-pjjtdll-ydyhdtqtk-h/">Kurt Wagner / Recode</a>]</p>
<p id="cn4Z3S"><a href="https://recode.cmail19.com/t/d-l-pjjtdll-ydyhdtqtk-k/"><strong>More internal Facebook documents leaked</strong></a> show the company used its massive trove of personal user data to hurt certain competitors and help partners. NBC News got its hands on 4,000 internal documents tied to a Facebook lawsuit, papers that were part of the <a href="https://recode.cmail19.com/t/d-l-pjjtdll-ydyhdtqtk-u/">same set of leaked documents made public last fall </a>by British lawmakers. The documents are further proof that Facebook used people’s personal data to strengthen its business relationships. “Facebook gave Amazon extended access to user data because it was spending money on Facebook advertising and partnering with the social network on the launch of its Fire smartphone,” NBC reported Tuesday.<br>[<a href="https://recode.cmail19.com/t/d-l-pjjtdll-ydyhdtqtk-o/">Olivia Solon and Cyrus Farivar / NBC News</a>]</p>
<p id="Q1OJK6"><a href="https://recode.cmail19.com/t/d-l-pjjtdll-ydyhdtqtk-b/"><strong>Netflix has nearly 150 million subscribers</strong></a><strong>,</strong> but investors are concerned that the streaming service’s growth may be slowing down in the US. During the company’s first-quarter earnings call on Tuesday, Netflix projected it will add around 300,000 subscribers next quarter, which is less than the 650,000 analysts had hoped (and much less than the 1.7 million it added in Q1). The stock fell, then rebounded in after-hours trading. Still, Netflix is growing like crazy outside the US, and CEO Reed Hastings shared some viewership details about some of the company’s high-profile titles, something it started doing at the end of last year. A new Ben Affleck movie, <em>Triple Frontier</em>, was watched in more than 52 million households, Hasting said. Netflix’s Fyre Festival documentary, which showed the grim reality of a disastrous music festival, had more than 20 million viewers.<br>[<a href="https://recode.cmail19.com/t/d-l-pjjtdll-ydyhdtqtk-n/">Peter Kafka / Recode</a>]</p>
<h2 id="xhB72w">Top Stories from Recode</h2>
<p id="pxTxLD"><a href="https://recode.cmail19.com/t/d-l-pjjtdll-ydyhdtqtk-p/"><strong>AMC Networks boss Josh Sapan wants the people who make TV to look at the data — but not too much.</strong></a><strong> </strong>There’s no algorithm for creativity yet, Sapan says on the latest Recode Media.<br>[<a href="https://recode.cmail19.com/t/d-l-pjjtdll-ydyhdtqtk-x/">Peter Kafka</a>]</p>
<p id="3SoL0K"><a href="https://recode.cmail19.com/t/d-l-pjjtdll-ydyhdtqtk-m/"><strong>Netflix makes up nearly 30 percent of global streaming video subscriptions.</strong></a>The streaming video company now has 155 million total subscribers globally.<br>[<a href="https://recode.cmail19.com/t/d-l-pjjtdll-ydyhdtqtk-c/">Rani Molla</a>]</p>
<p id="OlpcOY"><a href="https://recode.cmail19.com/t/d-l-pjjtdll-ydyhdtqtk-q/"><strong>Here’s why some Silicon Valley families should remain nervous about the college admissions scandal.</strong></a><strong> </strong>Who is next?<br>[<a href="https://recode.cmail19.com/t/d-l-pjjtdll-ydyhdtqtk-a/">Theodore Schleifer]</a></p>
<p id="oC56HD"><a href="https://recode.cmail19.com/t/d-l-pjjtdll-ydyhdtqtk-f/"><strong>Ford CTO Ken Washington explains why self-driving cars are such a hard tech problem.</strong></a><strong> </strong>And why Tesla’s so-called Autopilot features are not really “self-driving.”<br>[<a href="https://recode.cmail19.com/t/d-l-pjjtdll-ydyhdtqtk-z/">Kara Swisher</a>]</p>
<h2 id="MBtxhq">This is Cool</h2>
<p id="qLsOLb"><a href="https://recode.cmail19.com/t/d-l-pjjtdll-ydyhdtqtk-v/"><strong>Donating to rebuild Notre Dame. </strong></a></p>
<aside id="4BUaHS"><div data-anthem-component="newsletter" data-anthem-component-data='{"slug":"recode_daily"}'></div></aside><p><small><em>This article originally appeared on Recode.net.</em></small></p>
https://www.vox.com/2019/4/17/18411870/recode-daily-silicon-valley-cant-decide-which-democrat-to-endorseKurt Wagner2019-04-16T15:35:20-04:002019-04-16T15:35:20-04:00Twitter says it’s getting better at detecting abusive tweets without your help
<figure>
<img alt="Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/7DDPMNCGGO8e06Jz_sluRMeScpY=/1683x874:4606x3066/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/63568275/1091905990.jpg.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. | David Becker/Getty Images</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Twitter is using technology to catch more bad tweets. </p> <p id="ihFleb">Twitter can be a terrible, hateful place. It’s why the company has promised <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/charliewarzel/twitter-would-like-you-to-know-it-is-committed-to-being#.xeevXkB3z">over</a> and <a href="https://www.recode.net/2017/10/14/16475824/twitter-abuse-safety-jack-dorsey-rose-mcgowan-women-boycott">over</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/jack/status/1020767812107743232">over</a> again that it plans to clean up its service and fight user abuse. </p>
<p id="bDhfo7">Part of the problem with that cleanup effort, though, has been that Twitter predominantly relies on its users to find abusive material. It wouldn’t (or couldn’t) find an abusive tweet without someone first flagging it for the company. With more than 300 million monthly users, that’s a near-impossible way to police your service. </p>
<p id="R7Vqt4">Good news: Twitter says it’s getting better at finding and removing abusive content without anybody’s help. </p>
<p id="c9Gj3q">In a <a href="https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2019/health-update.html">blog post</a> published Tuesday, Twitter says that “38 [percent] of abusive content that’s enforced is surfaced proactively to our teams for review instead of relying on reports from people on Twitter.” </p>
<p id="5gCzkE">The company says this includes tweets that fell into a number of categories, including “abusive behavior, hateful conduct, encouraging self-harm, and threats, including those that may be violent.”</p>
<p id="BVFQ5R">A year ago, 0 percent of the tweets Twitter removed from these categories were identified proactively by the company. </p>
<p id="ha3GUg">The blog post included a number of other metrics Twitter shared to try and convey to people that Twitter is getting safer, but the 38 percent number was the most important. The reality of having a platform as large as Twitter’s is that it is impossible to monitor with humans alone. This technology is not just useful — it’s a necessity. </p>
<p id="cAGoxH">Facebook, for example, has for years been proactively <a href="https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/11/enforcing-our-community-standards-2/">flagging abusive posts with algorithms</a>. With “hate speech,” Facebook says last fall it removed more than 50 percent of posts using algorithms. In the “violence and graphic content” category, it proactively identified almost 97 percent of violating posts. For “bullying and harassment,” Facebook is still just at 14 percent.</p>
<p id="fI8sWs">Algorithms are far from foolproof. On Monday, as video of the Notre Dame Cathedral burning was shared on YouTube, the company’s algorithms started <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanhatesthis/youtube-notre-dame-fire-livestreams">surfacing September 11 terrorist attack information</a> alongside the videos, even though they are not related events. When a shooter opened fire at a New Zealand mosque late last month, algorithms on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter <a href="https://www.recode.net/2019/3/19/18271829/facebook-youtube-new-zealand-video-viral-scale">couldn’t stop the horrific videos from spreading</a> far and wide. </p>
<p id="Kzp6D8">But algorithms designed to improve safety are the only way Twitter is going to keep pace with the volume of tweets people share every day. Twitter is far from “healthy,” but it may be getting a little closer to cleaning up its act. </p>
<p id="oWcXYj">One element missing from Twitter’s blog: Any update on its efforts to actually <a href="https://www.recode.net/2019/3/8/18245536/exclusive-twitter-healthy-conversations-dunking-research-product-incentives"><em>measure</em> the health of its service</a>, something Twitter announced over a year ago it would work on. Those efforts have been slow, but Twitter executives told <strong>Recode</strong> last month that some of their work in measuring the health of the service could appear in the actual product as early as this quarter. </p>
<aside id="kKiSS3"><div data-anthem-component="newsletter" data-anthem-component-data='{"slug":"recode_daily"}'></div></aside><p id="urNSMF"></p>
<p><small><em>This article originally appeared on Recode.net.</em></small></p>
https://www.vox.com/2019/4/16/18410931/twitter-abuse-update-health-technology-harassmentKurt Wagner2019-04-16T09:50:11-04:002019-04-16T09:50:11-04:00Europe is passing strict new copyright laws that could hurt companies like Facebook and Google
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<img alt="A large group of press photographers stand outside waiting for an event." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/GGhC0lOwiKDw3vMryCeI_ud1SQw=/0x0:2511x1883/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/63565399/104426767.jpg.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>Tech companies like Facebook and Google may soon need to pay content creators when their work is shared to their respective platforms. | Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Facebook and Google could soon be forced to pay more creators for the content that appears on their sites. </p> <p id="LgORue">Facebook and YouTube will soon face strict new copyright laws across Europe that could impact what content users share on social media.</p>
<p id="gH0bAm">The new rules, which were initially proposed more than two years ago but were finally approved by the European Parliament last month and the European Commission on Monday, will require platforms that host user-uploaded content to cut licensing deals with creators so they are paid when people share their content online. </p>
<p id="PAthfO">The law would apply to music and film producers, but also to newspapers and magazines, according to the European Commission’s <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/faq/frequently-asked-questions-copyright-reform#1541">FAQ page</a>. The move is meant to hold tech platforms accountable for the content its users share, and to try to return some of the billions of dollars in revenue that Facebook and YouTube make each year to the people who actually create the content that appears on those sites. (Perhaps coincidentally, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg <a href="https://www.recode.net/2019/4/1/18290330/facebook-news-tab-mark-zuckerberg-license-fee-axel-springer-mathias-dopfner">recently discussed a plan</a> to pay news publishers for putting their stories into a dedicated news section in the Facebook app.) </p>
<p id="oejF8x">What’s unclear is how exactly this law will be implemented and what, specifically, companies like Facebook and Google will need to do to comply. </p>
<p id="h9vytz">YouTube, for example, already uses technology to search for copyrighted videos and music through a matching <a href="https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2797370?hl=en">system called Content ID</a>. Facebook offers something similar, called <a href="https://rightsmanager.fb.com/">Rights Manager</a>. </p>
<p id="m2eaoU">In YouTube’s case, if content owners find that someone else has uploaded their video, they can ask YouTube to remove it or make money off the video by having YouTube run ads alongside it. </p>
<p id="R5Ep46">It’s possible that matching technology could be used for these new EU laws, though the European Commission FAQ page says building those kinds of matching filters won’t be a requirement. </p>
<p id="BEUG8D">“The text of the political agreement does not impose any upload filters nor does it require user-uploaded platforms to apply any specific technology to recognise illegal content,” the site says. If companies like Facebook and Google can’t come to licensing agreements with content owners, they’ll need to “make their best efforts to ensure that content not authorised by the right holders is not available on their website.” </p>
<p id="51okp8">What exactly does “best effort” mean? It appears to be up for interpretation. </p>
<p id="Y7clqq">Facebook and Google are not pleased with the proposed rules. For starters, each European Union member country will implement the rule in its own way, which could mean tech companies need to abide by a different set of guidelines in each country. </p>
<p id="wUyU9T">Then there is concern that while trying to comply, tech companies will take a heavy hand with moderating what is allowed and what isn’t. Google’s senior VP of global affairs Kent Walker <a href="https://www.blog.google/around-the-globe/google-europe/copyright-directive-one-step-forward-two-steps-back/">wrote a blog post</a> published last month titled “EU Copyright Directive: one step forward, two steps back.”</p>
<p id="fKh1lw">“The directive creates vague, untested requirements, which are likely to result in online services over-blocking content to limit legal risk,” Walker wrote. </p>
<p id="firstHeading">A Facebook spokesperson declined to comment Monday on the laws but pointed <strong>Recode</strong> toward a statement made by the Computer & Communications Industry Association, a tech trade group of which Facebook is a member. </p>
<p id="ejbTBA">In <a href="https://www.ccianet.org/2019/04/eu-copyright-directive-a-missed-opportunity/">a statement</a> from one of the association’s policy managers, the CCIA echoed Walker’s concerns. “Despite recent improvements, the EU Directive falls short of creating a balanced and modern framework for copyright,” the statement reads. “We fear it will harm online innovation and restrict online freedoms in Europe.”</p>
<p id="9dzITO">While Monday’s approval by the European Commission has brought the copyright rules back to the surface, they may not affect consumers for a while. Each EU member country has 24 months to create laws that enforce the rules. </p>
<aside id="3C39X2"><div data-anthem-component="newsletter" data-anthem-component-data='{"slug":"recode_daily"}'></div></aside><p><small><em>This article originally appeared on Recode.net.</em></small></p>
https://www.vox.com/2019/4/16/18311833/european-union-copyright-laws-facebook-googleKurt Wagner2019-04-16T08:49:39-04:002019-04-16T08:49:39-04:00Recode Daily: A fascinating, incredibly detailed look inside Facebook’s past 15 months
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<img alt="A Facebook sign at a trade show." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/9QCjvIyhbt-qzAb6L8i5acFfJfM=/310x0:5259x3712/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/63556476/971974428.jpg.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>Alexander Koerner/Getty Images</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Plus: People around the world were stunned as images and videos surfaced of the iconic Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris engulfed in flames. And winners of the 2019 Pulitzer Prize were announced on Monday. </p> <p id="lQ6vCD"><a href="https://recode.cmail19.com/t/d-l-pjyijc-ydyhdtqtk-t/"><strong>Here’s a fascinating, incredibly detailed look inside Facebook over the past 15 months</strong></a>, which has been rife with scandal. If you’ve been following Facebook news (or reading <strong>Recode</strong>), you’ve heard about much of this: The <a href="https://recode.cmail19.com/t/d-l-pjyijc-ydyhdtqtk-i/">Instagram founders’ abrupt departure</a>, product boss Chris Cox leaving <a href="https://recode.cmail19.com/t/d-l-pjyijc-ydyhdtqtk-d/">after disagreements over product direction</a>, and the day <a href="https://recode.cmail19.com/t/d-l-pjyijc-ydyhdtqtk-h/">Apple pulled the plug on all of Facebook’s internal apps</a>. But Wired’s Nick Thompson and Fred Vogelstein tied it all together in one in-depth exposé that gives you a sense of just how chaotic the past year has been for one of the world’s largest tech companies.<br>[<a href="https://recode.cmail19.com/t/d-l-pjyijc-ydyhdtqtk-k/">Nick Thompson and Fred Vogelstein / Wired</a>]</p>
<p id="AVecy9">[Want to get the <strong>Recode Daily</strong> in your inbox? <a href="https://events.recode.net/newsletters/subscribe/?utm_campaign=recode.social&utm_content=recode&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=apple-news"><strong>Subscribe here</strong></a>.] </p>
<p id="GU0JVC"><a href="https://recode.cmail19.com/t/d-l-pjyijc-ydyhdtqtk-u/"><strong>The European Union will require tech companies like Facebook and Google to take a stricter stance on copyrighted content</strong></a> as part of a new set of rules endorsed on Monday by EU member countries. The new rules will require tech platforms that host copyrighted content, like YouTube or Facebook, to establish licensing deals with creators of that content. “If licences are not concluded, these platforms will have to make their best efforts to ensure that content not authorised by the right holders is not available on their website,” the European Commission wrote in a <a href="https://recode.cmail19.com/t/d-l-pjyijc-ydyhdtqtk-o/">press release</a>. The rules will go into effect sometime in the next two years, but the idea is to force tech companies to take responsibility for what people share to their services — and the hope is that content creators will be more fairly compensated when their work is shared.<br>[<a href="https://recode.cmail19.com/t/d-l-pjyijc-ydyhdtqtk-b/">Foo Yun Chee / Reuters</a>]</p>
<p id="oUCdoK"><a href="https://recode.cmail19.com/t/d-l-pjyijc-ydyhdtqtk-n/"><strong>Winners of the 2019 Pulitzer Prize were announced on Monday.</strong></a> The Wall Street Journal won a Pulitzer for its coverage of President Trump and payments he made during the 2016 US presidential campaign to women with whom he had affairs. The Pittsburgh-Post Gazette won the “breaking news” category for its coverage of the shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in October, and the South Florida Sun Sentinel won for public service for its coverage of another shooting: the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL, last February.</p>
<p id="tAf7C4"><a href="https://recode.cmail19.com/t/d-l-pjyijc-ydyhdtqtk-p/"><strong>People around the world were stunned on Monday as images and videos surfaced of the iconic Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris engulfed in flames.</strong></a> The footage was shared widely on services like YouTube and Twitter. In true YouTube fashion, the service flagged the videos as potential misinformation and accidentally started <a href="https://recode.cmail19.com/t/d-l-pjyijc-ydyhdtqtk-x/">showing news snippets about the September 11 terrorist attacks</a> alongside footage of the burning church. President <a href="https://recode.cmail19.com/t/d-l-pjyijc-ydyhdtqtk-m/">Trump weighed in on the fires with condolences shared on Twitter</a>, and then offered his own solution: “Perhaps flying water tankers could be used to put it out. Must act quickly!”<br>[<a href="https://recode.cmail19.com/t/d-l-pjyijc-ydyhdtqtk-c/">Adam Nossiter and Aurelien Breeden / New York Times</a>]</p>
<h2 id="tVaSnp">Top Stories from Recode</h2>
<p id="9O1lBz"><a href="https://recode.cmail19.com/t/d-l-pjyijc-ydyhdtqtk-q/"><strong>New immigration rules could prevent our next Elon Musk.</strong></a><strong> </strong>Silicon Valley wants people with experience. US immigration services want people with grad degrees.<br>[<a href="https://recode.cmail19.com/t/d-l-pjyijc-ydyhdtqtk-a/">Rani Molla</a>]</p>
<h2 id="4b2lfd">This is Cool </h2>
<p id="jZPtIG"><a href="https://recode.cmail19.com/t/d-l-pjyijc-ydyhdtqtk-f/"><em><strong>Star Wars</strong></em><strong>’ new teaser trailer came out Friday. We’re still thinking about it.</strong></a><strong> </strong></p>
<aside id="6NjbxM"><div data-anthem-component="newsletter" data-anthem-component-data='{"slug":"recode_daily"}'></div></aside><p><small><em>This article originally appeared on Recode.net.</em></small></p>
https://www.vox.com/2019/4/16/18402131/recode-daily-wired-facebook-google-eu-notre-dame-fire-pulitzer-prizeKurt Wagner2019-04-04T15:12:42-04:002019-04-04T15:12:42-04:00Here are all the new products Snap launched at its first partner conference
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<img alt="A Snapchat Ferris wheel from Cannes, France." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/53kDc0AtpXqrRV7stpDZRoiLFqA=/328x257:4017x3024/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/63351875/snap_ferris_wheel_cannes_2017.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>A Snapchat Ferris wheel was not one of the new Snap products launched today. | Kurt Wagner / Recode</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Snapchat games, new shows, and more augmented reality. </p> <p id="iA1K4B">Snap held its first-ever “Partner Summit” on Thursday — the Snap equivalent of the larger, more established developer conferences held by tech giants like Facebook (F8), Google (Google I/O), and Apple (WWDC) each year. </p>
<p id="zs0aos">The point of the event was to unveil new products — some for users, some for developers — and encourage potential partners to build features or products that work with the Snapchat app. The event was very on-brand for Snap, which likes to consider itself and its product a “fun” way to communicate. Hosted at an LA studio lot in West Hollywood, the event featured a number of playful product announcements, new mobile games, and lots of augmented reality. There was even a Snapchat ghost mascot walking around to take pictures with attendees. </p>
<p id="kdRCrA">One of the most important announcements, at least from a business perspective, came in the form of <a href="https://www.recode.net/2019/4/4/18294545/snapchat-audience-network-targeted-ads-business-launch">Snap’s new ad network, called Snap Audience Network</a>. The plan is for Snap to sell ads that will appear inside other companies’ apps, a move that will help Snap advertisers reach a larger group of people than just those who use Snapchat, and theoretically help Snap grow its business despite the fact <a href="https://www.recode.net/2019/2/5/18212673/snap-q4-earnings-stock-android-app-user-growth-snapchat">its own user base is no longer growing</a>. </p>
<p id="07zHnS">Snap Audience Network wasn’t the only announcement, though. Here’s what else the company unveiled on Thursday. </p>
<h2 id="5yB9XB">Snap is building Stories for other apps</h2>
<p id="TxJVti">Snap invented Stories, the ephemeral photo and video montages that <a href="https://www.recode.net/2017/3/28/15079774/facebook-stories-snapchat-instagram-copy">Facebook copied into all of its apps</a>. The format took off and is a <a href="https://www.recode.net/2018/10/30/18044962/facebook-stories-business-user-growth-q3-earnings-zuckerberg">major part of Facebook’s future</a>. Snap clearly believes Stories will be a popular sharing format for other apps as well. On Thursday, it announced App Stories, which will let people share the photos and videos they take from the Snapchat in-app camera to a Stories feature built into other apps, like Tinder and Houseparty. </p>
<p id="9vhZFi">In other words, Tinder thinks Stories is a cool way for its users to share photos and videos about their life, but doesn’t want to build that product itself. So Snap is building it for them; once people link their respective accounts, they can share Stories from Snapchat’s app directly to Tinder’s. </p>
<p id="tm7I4f">Snapchat clearly sees value in providing the camera software and technology to create Stories inside other apps. If Stories take off inside Tinder, for example, it should create some dependence on Snapchat and its camera product. Perhaps more importantly, these partnerships give Snap more real estate outside of its own app to better compete with Facebook’s stable of Stories products that <a href="https://www.recode.net/2018/8/8/17641256/instagram-stories-kevin-systrom-facebook-snapchat">have grown much bigger, much faster</a>, than Snapchat’s original version. </p>
<h2 id="OyqHW5">Snapchat is launching games</h2>
<p id="lNbAjM">Snap unveiled a new game that was built in-house, called Bitmoji Party, which lets users play mini competitions against one another to earn things like coins and virtual prizes. People can play the game as their Bitmoji avatar, which means you get to play the game as a cartoon version of yourself. </p>
<p id="sBPEL0">Snap also announced new games from partners like Zynga and ZeptoLabs. The games are meant to be multi-player, and you can launch them from inside a conversation thread. Two potential benefits of adding games to user chats: People may spend more time inside the app, and more time usually means they see more ads (which means more revenue for Snap). Plus, games will give Snap even more ad inventory. Some of the games will ask users to watch a six-second ad in exchange for special features or bonuses, like coins or power-ups. If games take off — a big <em>if</em> — it could lead to more revenue.</p>
<h2 id="vy5eYl">More augmented reality features that aren’t face filters</h2>
<p id="Cb7wsR">Snap is best known for its <a href="https://www.recode.net/2017/5/16/15643284/instagram-snapchat-facebook-face-filters-copy">wacky face filters</a>, which let users turn their selfies into a zombie or a puppy. But Snap has <a href="https://www.recode.net/2017/5/15/15640998/snapchat-ads-augmented-reality-ar-snap">built other augmented reality features</a> that aren’t face filters, and added a few more on Thursday. Developers can now create AR features for a user’s full body or their hands, not just their face. They can also build AR filters for pets, like a dog or cat. </p>
<p id="4bT1V1">Snap also announced a product called “Landmarks” — imagine a face filter, but for iconic landmarks around the world, like the Eiffel Tower. It’s tough to argue that these kinds of playful AR elements provide a huge business boon, but they play into Snap’s reputation as a playful product. </p>
<div id="kCIrxr">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">Answer: This new camera feature that adds AR graphics to real-world landmarks <a href="https://t.co/nhoQ8sRNY3">pic.twitter.com/nhoQ8sRNY3</a></p>— Kurt Wagner (@KurtWagner8) <a href="https://twitter.com/KurtWagner8/status/1113877029449916416?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 4, 2019</a>
</blockquote>
<script async="" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
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<h2 id="3L6mv1">More original video content</h2>
<p id="3NLoTS">Snap <a href="https://www.recode.net/2018/10/10/17957984/snapchat-tv-shows-originals-launch">launched a slate of original shows</a> last fall for its Discover content section. The 3- to 5-minute shows were exclusive to Snapchat, and each series included a number of episodes. The arrangement was successful enough that Snap has decided to do that again. It announced eight new original shows on Thursday, including a comedy show, a zombie apocalypse show, and a docu-series about race in America. Two of the shows are produced by <a href="https://variety.com/2017/digital/news/snap-nbcuniversal-studio-venture-duplass-brothers-shows-1202591040/">Indigo</a>, a joint venture between Snap and NBC. Other partners include Dakota Pictures and Insurrection Media. </p>
<p id="geF5Y5">In some cases, Snap is funding the shows. In other cases, the show is paid for by media partners. In both instances, the shows will include ads, and the revenue split for those ads depends on who’s footing the bill when it comes to production costs. </p>
<p id="1gDpEe">The ultimate goal, again: Create more reasons for people to spend time inside Snapchat’s app. If people come to Snapchat to message their friends but stick around to watch some shows (and also watch some ads), Snap will be happy. </p>
<aside id="e80mrk"><div data-anthem-component="newsletter" data-anthem-component-data='{"slug":"recode_daily"}'></div></aside><p><small><em>This article originally appeared on Recode.net.</em></small></p>
https://www.vox.com/2019/4/4/18294676/snapchat-conference-new-products-launch-games-original-shows-ad-networkKurt Wagner2019-04-04T13:54:50-04:002019-04-04T13:54:50-04:00Snap is building an ad network to run ads inside other apps
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<img alt="Snap CEO Evan Spiegel." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/nGW-5J643zFhU8-za2CI02cD1BM=/931x71:2970x1600/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/63350589/1056125024.jpg.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>Snap CEO Evan Spiegel. | Michael Cohen/Getty Images for the New York Times</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Here’s one way for Snap to grow its business without adding new users. </p> <p id="oMxfsv">Snap has a plan to grow its young business: It wants to sell ads that appear inside other companies’ apps. </p>
<p id="1aAJ3e">Snap, which owns Snapchat, announced what amounts to a mobile ad network on Thursday at the company’s first-ever partner summit in Los Angeles, its version of the much bigger developer conferences hosted by Facebook, Google, and Apple each year. </p>
<p id="DGjnIm">The ad platform, which is called the Snap Audience Network, is akin to Facebook’s Audience Network, which has <a href="https://www.recode.net/2014/4/20/11625822/here-comes-facebooks-ad-network-mobile-ads-launching-this-month">been around since 2014</a>. App developers that sign up for the program will fill their ad inventory with the same full-screen, vertical video ads that appear inside the Snapchat app. In exchange for selling these ads on behalf of the app developer, Snap will keep a portion of the ad revenue. Any company with a need for video ads but that doesn’t have a large sales team would be a prospective client. </p>
<p id="CCMHq2">Snap hopes advertisers will use the Snap Audience Network to reach a larger group of people than if they advertised on Snapchat alone — an important point considering <a href="https://www.recode.net/2019/2/5/18212673/snap-q4-earnings-stock-android-app-user-growth-snapchat">Snapchat’s user base is no longer growing</a>. If Snap can show the ads to more people, it should make Snap’s ad business more appealing to advertisers. </p>
<p id="QLiEio">What’s unclear is how this will work in practice. Snap’s announcement on Thursday simply unveiled plans for the ad network, but it is not up and running yet. The company is asking for developers to submit applications to join the network before it launches later this year. </p>
<p id="z4sRa4">In a briefing Wednesday with reporters, numerous Snap execs talked about how they believe Snap’s Audience Network will offer users more privacy than traditional ad networks. The problem is that the company is not saying anything yet about what kind of data will be required to target people on apps that aren’t Snapchat. </p>
<p id="gvwwv9">Snap has made a point of saying that its developer partners <a href="https://www.recode.net/2018/6/14/17461562/snapchat-evan-spiegel-data-snapkit-api-facebook-login">do not get access to personal data from the people who use Snapchat</a>, in conspicuous contrast to how Facebook’s developer policies have worked over the years. Only Snapchat display names are shared when someone links their Snapchat account with another app — but nothing else, like an email or phone number, Snap claims. </p>
<p id="qLu6Tz">Targeted ads, especially when they appear on apps you don’t own, usually require some kind of personally identifiable information. If Snap is not sharing data with its ad partners, those ad partners will have to share data back to Snap so it knows who it is targeting. Again, the company is not sharing any details yet about how this will work or what will be collected in order to do that. </p>
<p id="o8wrOj">It’s also unclear if these ads will only appear to Snapchat users who use other apps, or if Snap can deliver them to non-Snapchat users as well. Executives hinted at the latter on Wednesday, claiming a major point of this effort is to expand the potential audience for Snap’s advertisers. How will it deliver targeted ads to people it knows nothing about? We’re not sure. </p>
<p id="Fr44PD">What we do know is that Snap is trying to take the next step to become a more established advertising business in the likeness of Facebook and Google. But announcing that plan is one thing; we’ll see if Snap can execute. </p>
<aside id="NQ1mld"><div data-anthem-component="newsletter" data-anthem-component-data='{"slug":"recode_daily"}'></div></aside><p><small><em>This article originally appeared on Recode.net.</em></small></p>
https://www.vox.com/2019/4/4/18294545/snapchat-audience-network-targeted-ads-business-launchKurt Wagner2019-03-28T15:24:52-04:002019-03-28T15:24:52-04:00The US government says Facebook’s ad business creates housing discrimination
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<img alt="Houses for sale in Chicago." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/fv07IattUAurROwj3GS_eO0ym6o=/136x0:2803x2000/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/63316064/950869198.jpg.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>Houses for sale in Chicago. | Scott Olson/Getty Images</figcaption>
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<p>The Department of Housing and Urban Development has issues with Facebook’s targeted ad business. </p> <p id="GBoCzh">Facebook has a <a href="https://www.recode.net/2019/3/7/18254298/facebook-private-messaging-zuckerberg-questions-social-network-dying">$55 billion annual advertising business</a> in part because it lets advertisers pick and choose, with precise detail, who they want to target their advertisements to. </p>
<p id="8v7zqG">That’s great if you’re Coca-Cola, and historically it’s been great for Facebook. But the Department of Housing and Urban Development, commonly referred to as HUD, said Thursday that Facebook’s targeting actually creates some serious problems. </p>
<p id="kKjTEp">Specifically: HUD claims Facebook’s ad platform is “causing housing discrimination,” and can “exclude people” from seeing certain ads based on traits that are defined by HUD as “protected characteristics,” like race, national origin, and religion. Twitter’s and Google’s ad businesses may be <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/03/28/hud-charges-facebook-with-housing-discrimination/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.6be2026c5204">creating the same problem</a>. </p>
<p id="WVjDK3">“Facebook is discriminating against people based upon who they are and where they live,” HUD Secretary Ben Carson said in a <a href="https://www.hud.gov/press/press_releases_media_advisories/HUD_No_19_035">press release posted to the HUD website</a>. “Using a computer to limit a person’s housing choices can be just as discriminatory as slamming a door in someone’s face.”</p>
<p id="zdrv4p">You can <a href="https://www.hud.gov/sites/dfiles/Main/documents/HUD_v_Facebook.pdf">read HUD’s full charge against Facebook here</a>, but the press release outlines the main accusations. The big problem is that Facebook uses its own algorithms to determine who should see which ads, and HUD claims those algorithms can unintentionally exclude groups of people with similar protected characteristics just because Facebook’s systems don’t necessarily deem them a good match for the ad. </p>
<p id="Ry78Tl">Imagine a housing developer wants to promote fancy, new condos in San Francisco on Facebook. The developer sets the targeting parameters in a way that means there are one million Facebook users who <em>could</em> see the ad, but the developer only pays to reach 100,000 of those people. Facebook then determines which 100,000 people to show the ad to based on which people it thinks may find the ad most relevant. That means, though, that Facebook’s algorithms could prioritize certain groups of people over another, and HUD claims those groupings may be created using data about protected characteristics. </p>
<p id="yGINQY">“Facebook combines data it collects about user attributes and behavior with data it obtains about user behavior on other websites and in the non-digital world,” the press release reads. “Facebook then allegedly uses machine learning and other prediction techniques to classify and group users to project each user’s likely response to a given ad, and in doing so, may recreate groupings defined by their protected class.”</p>
<p id="bteqaW">Facebook says it’s been working with HUD to solve the issue, but that the two sides came to a roadblock when HUD asked for data about Facebook’s users and targeting the company refused to hand over. Here’s Facebook’s full statement:</p>
<blockquote><p id="Tsvdr4">We’re surprised by HUD’s decision, as we’ve been working with them to address their concerns and have taken significant steps to prevent ads discrimination. Last year we eliminated thousands of targeting options that could potentially be misused, and just last week we reached historic agreements with the National Fair Housing Alliance, ACLU, and others that change the way housing, credit, and employment ads can be run on Facebook. While we were eager to find a solution, HUD insisted on access to sensitive information - like user data - without adequate safeguards. We’re disappointed by today’s developments, but we’ll continue working with civil rights experts on these issues.</p></blockquote>
<p id="BCJEJn">This is far from the first ad snafu for Facebook in the past 18 months. The company has been called out multiple times for letting advertisers target people based on <a href="https://www.recode.net/2017/9/15/16311724/facebook-ad-targeting-jew-software-algorithm-mark-zuckerberg">keywords like “jew haters”</a> and <a href="https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-facebook-nazi-metal-ads-20190221-story.html">“Joseph Goebbels.”</a> Then, of course, there was the <a href="https://www.recode.net/2017/10/30/16572644/russia-2016-election-facebook-twitter-google-testify-fake-news-congress-house-senate">2016 US presidential election</a> in which Russia used targeted Facebook ads to try and sway voter opinion ahead of the election. </p>
<p id="3C7zey">The bigger concern for Facebook will be if any of its ad practices lead to serious regulatory problems. The company is being <a href="https://www.recode.net/2019/1/23/18193314/facebook-ftc-fine-investigation-explained-privacy-agreement">investigated by the FTC</a> (and other government agencies) for Cambridge Analytica, a situation in which personal data from millions of Facebook users was collected and later sold by people outside the company without users’ knowledge. </p>
<p id="4WgLhI">The claims against Facebook by government agencies are piling up, and it’s only a matter of time before a shoe drops — it’s just unclear what shoe it will be, and how much it will hurt. </p>
<aside id="jsmTYS"><div data-anthem-component="newsletter" data-anthem-component-data='{"slug":"recode_daily"}'></div></aside><p><small><em>This article originally appeared on Recode.net.</em></small></p>
https://www.vox.com/2019/3/28/18285782/facebook-hud-lawsuit-charges-housing-discrimination-ad-targetingKurt Wagner