Facebook’s handling of Alex Jones is a microcosm of its content policy problem

A revealing cluster of emails leaked to Business Insider offers a glimpse at how Facebook decides what content is objectionable in high profile cases. In this instance, a group of executives at Facebook went hands on in determining if an Alex Jones Instagram post violated the platform’s terms of service or not. As Business Insider […]

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The small corner of Instagram dedicated to temporary wallpaper is uncommonly magical

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This post is part of Hard Refresh, a soothing weekly column where we try to cleanse your brain of whatever terrible thing you just witnessed on Twitter.


When I was in middle school I begged my mom to let me redecorate my room. I wanted light blue walls, realistic-looking clouds painted on the ceiling, and adhesive glow-in-the-dark star decals scattered around so that when I went to sleep at night it would feel like I was looking up at the sky.

My design plans were admittedly a bit ambitious —  I only ended up with the blue walls. But I did have a formative conversation with my mom about wallpaper along the way. Read more…

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The ethics of internet culture: a conversation with Taylor Lorenz

Taylor Lorenz was in high demand this week. As a prolific journalist at The Atlantic and about-to-be member of Harvard’s prestigious Nieman Fellowship for journalism, that’s perhaps not surprising. Nor was this the first time she’s had a bit of a moment: Lorenz has already served as an in-house expert on social media and the […]

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What’s the cost of buying users from Facebook and the other ad networks?

This post reveals the cost of acquiring a customer on every ad channel my agency has tested.

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Facebook stored passwords in plain text for hundreds of millions of users

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Hundreds of millions of Facebook users’ passwords were stored in plain text, completely searchable by Facebook employees for years.

Some users had their passwords stored in plain text as early as 2012, according to a senior Facebook source who spoke to KrebsOnSecurity. The source, speaking on condition of anonymity, says that somewhere between 200 million and 600 million Facebook users were affected. More than 20,000 Facebook employees would have had access to these plain text passwords.

Shortly after KrebsOnSecurity published its story, Facebook posted its own statement by its vice president of engineering, security and privacy, Pedro Canahuati. He states that the company first discovered the issue during “a routine security review in January.”  Read more…

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Facebook admits it stored ‘hundreds of millions’ of account passwords in plaintext

Flip the “days since last Facebook security incident” back to zero. Facebook confirmed Thursday in a blog post, prompted by a report by cybersecurity reporter Brian Krebs, that it stored “hundreds of millions” of account passwords in plaintext for years. The discovery was made in January, said Facebook’s Pedro Canahuati, as part of a routine […]

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Instagram tests letting you rethink your terrible new username

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Instagram is about to give its users some time to think over that name change.

An automatic username lock feature has been discovered in the latest alpha version of Instagram’s Android application. The change, which is currently in testing, would give the previous owner of an Instagram handle up to 14 days to revert back to their old username after changing it.

Instagram will start locking old usernames for 14 days after changing so the previous owner can revert to it within the grace period

This is the end of username grabber bots 😀 pic.twitter.com/mAAgbDYny2

— Jane Manchun Wong (@wongmjane) March 20, 2019 Read more…

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PicsArt hits 130 million MAUs as Chinese flock to its photo editing app

If you’re like me, who isn’t big on social media, you’d think that the image filters that come inside most apps will do the job. But for many others, especially the younger crowd, making their photos stand out is a huge deal. The demand is big enough that PicsArt, a rival to filtering companies VSCO […]

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Sophie Turner chugging wine on a Jumbotron is deeply inspiring

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Game of Thrones star Sophie Turner (also known as Sansa Stark) dabbed then chugged a glass of red wine at a Rangers game Tuesday night. She was holding a Juul at the time. Also, this all happened while she was on the Jumbotron.

Sophie Turner is good.

Turner’s approach, which she displayed at a New York Rangers game on Tuesday night, should be the norm for Jumbotron moments from now on. None of this “waving” or “kiss cam” nonsense — no one wants to see that. People want to see celebrities drinking wine at a rapid pace. That mouth wipe! Read more…

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