Facebook’s patents show a commitment to collecting personal information
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
I think there was recently a company that got patent on “clicks in your email messages” and sued everyone relevant to shake out $$, and got laughted at by judge. (Im on mobile so can find relevant article atm)
On the one hand, I have several patents for project(s) that took years to develop. The processes are unique, very difficult to replicate, and should be offered some protection (if we agree that motor designs should be protected). The companies I have worked for would defend the IP and would constitute these as "offensive" patents, because they would use it to actively stop upstarts.
On the other hand, I also have worked with lawyers to just patent ideas I had off hand. These are "defensive" patents, and go into the patent arsenal, containing hundreds to thousands of patents, to be used if someone decides to sue. These are just "ideas" and often will only have the most basic design(s) and testing (if at all).
Unfortunately, it's impossible to tell the difference, and more over - I don't think it's fair (personally) to patent something that doesn't exist in reality yet.
What's even more frightening to me personally, is that I am morally opposed to patenting... However, when someone offers me $1k, $3k, $5k, etc. to work with them to file a patent I'm incentivized to file. I have to be pragmatic for my family.
For reference, I'm on or currently working through filing close to 150 patents.
For each one, I donate a portion to the EFF; for what it's worth...
What a great idea. Thanks
Almost no one involved with software patents think they are a good idea, but until everyone backs down at the same time, you gotta keep doing it or that one evil player will destroy everyone.
I don't think software patents should exist, but I've worked on a bunch (and have a few myself). Not a single person I've worked with in that process, including the lawyers, thinks software patents are good.
But if my company didn't file them, then another patent troll or big evil corp could sue us out of existence.
By having a huge patent library, it make the discussion easier. The big companies just get together and decide to cross license all their patents at no cost to either party. But if you don't have a big inventory of patents, then the company that does won't want a cross licensing deal.
Of course the size of the other party's portfolio shouldn't matter if you're only interested in defensive use.
Also, large patent collections don’t protect you from patent trolls since they aren’t exposed to counter suing anyway - they don’t make or sell anything!
But whatever you have to tell yourself to sleep at night, right?
Same thing here. Big companies have large patent portfolios. If my company doesn't have one as big as the evil corp, then my company will have problems when they sue.
And having a large patent portfolio does protect against trolls -- because if you're cross licensed with another big portfolio, you can use all of those to defend yourself in the suit. The trolls know this and will be less likely to sue the companies with large cross licensed portfolios.
That said, my employer has filed a patent for some work I did for them, and it’s a tough issue for me. In this case, I don’t think the innovation is so world changing that I need to fight for it to be open, nor do I think they would honor my desire to leave it unpatented as I’m not really in a position to ask for that.
But it’s an issue I feel uncomfortable with, and I kind of dream of moving to a different place where my employer doesn’t try to patent my work.
It is tough when they offer you a few thousand for these ideas you come up with. That money could help me build a family, but in closing off these ideas I’m making it harder for everyone else to prosper.
FWIW, if anyone says “patents encourage innovation” I would ask you for citations. I understand this is the story we’re told, but it’s typically presented with simple anecdotal evidence and hunches. I’ve never seen a thorough study of the issue.
It is also a wealth transfer from the poor to the wealthy: the justice system protecting IP capital is financed by taxpayers, the hard majority of which hold no patents.
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/10/06/a-closer-loo...
Patents are government-enforced monopolies. They enable all of what anyone would expect with monopolies, namely high prices for consumers.
If you've ever tried to read a patent, you'll know this system has failed. In almost no cases can you meaningfully replicate an invention from a patent. Quite apart from which, a huge number of things under patent protection today are public knowledge anyway, or can be considered 'obvious'.
Ive never been satisfied with this necessity; its not like innovation would just seize without patents: innovation in processes is still incentivized, because falling behind would mean higher prices than competition, and lost market share, so you still need to r&d to at least match the competition, let alone best it. Innovation in consumer products is still incentivized, by first movers effect, though perhaps the easiest copied things are lost (ie plastic lids might be too easy to copy design updates). Innovation in software obviously wont stop, and shenzhen succeeds in electronics with lax (absent?) patent/copyright law.
The primary innovation patents might be necessary for is a small company taking on a larger one, and needing to protect its design while it gets itself going.... but in practice, it proposed hinders innovation there more than it helps.
Patents, I think, are about essentially open-sourcing the design of things, and the incentive to do so is a temporary, gov-enforced monopoly. If theres any idea about innovation, its in the long-term, as 5,10,20 years from now, we can read up on these ideas and build on top of them, instead of seeing them lost in time with the company's demise.
However I never found that argument to be believable. Big companies have such a vast patents portfolio that it's impossible for small companies that try to create a product to not infringe on anything. So what happens many times in practice are actually cross-licensing deals.
Therefore small companies developing some innovative algorithm or technology are better off keeping it a trade secret until launch.
In the real world, open source and open research communities have no shortage of innovation, even without being able to place artificial blocks on the competition. It turns out, creator's motivations are more complicated than making money alone.
In my opinion, innovation might move a bit slower without the money injections from VCs who can be confident they can get patents and a safe ROI, but I think we'd be better off in the long run if we allowed creators to build off past ideas without the fear of being sued.
Disney making billions off Mickey Mouse? They can pay a tiny fraction of that and they can have their extension.
Novel by obscure dead author? Don't extend the copyright unless the estate wants to pay for it.
Abandoned and nobody to pay the tax? Enters the public domain.
All those defensive spurious patents? They impose a search cost on every single other innovator. There should be a carrying cost for the defensive patent wall.
The tax on this value could scale from 1% for year 10 onwards, increasing by 0.25% per year. Year 50 of your copyright? Be prepared to pay 11% APR rent on its value.
I don't disagree. I look at it as a way for me to profit, I have to be pragmatic, unfortunately. I do donate 25% of each bonus to the EFF and personally I look at it another way...
This problem is going to get worse before it gets better. If I don't do this someone else will. The powers that be want this, and the lower levels like myself live on a bounty. It'll eventually fix itself, but until then I can net enough money to pay off my student loans, my cars, my house.
I should also add that usually the inventor can't take the patent to their next job but if the inventor wrote super-narrow claims into the patent then that would be easy to work around at a future employer.
But you can't "use it" unless you own rights to the invention. Patent inventorship and ownership are different things.
Most likely, you assigned all rights to your invention to your employer at the time of invention. The patent will name you as the inventor, and your then-employer will have all rights to the invention.
Neither you nor your next employer can use the patent unless you negotiate permission from the rights holder (your former employer or whomever they sold the rights to).
Basically, increasing the cost of filing patents incrementally to regulate excessive patenting and encourage companies to be more selective.
Unfortunately Berne convention has been written in a way that basically does not allow any kind of taxation of IP in arts and literary works. Which, of course, is amazing, mindboggling power grab by IP industry, done already in 18th century.
Generalizing patents and copyright as IP is a fallacy and leads to wrong conclusions.
I recommend reading this article by Richard Stallmann on this topic https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.html
It's not free at the beginning, and the fees are less than you suggest, but that's mostly what we do have: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maintenance_fee_(patent)
Just to clarify the discussion. Patents do not exist for protection of innovations or to guarantee income for innovators. Patents exists so that the society would get more innovations. And that is the only measure that patents should be judged against: Do we generally get so much more innovations (within motor designs kn this case) with the patent scheme that the welfare loss caused by monopolizing the IP is covered?
Interestingly enough, it is widely agreed that monopolies are bad, so one could imagine that the proof pf burden here would be on the ones who support monopolization of IP. And I have seen very little proof of benefits of patents that do not reduce to assuming that patents are benficial as per the measure I described above.
This is a forward looking protection mechanism due to the environment that we actually have in the real world today. Even so, I don't like the idea of a social media company that sells advertising to have so many patents of the kinds mentioned in the article.
Just FYI, a patent doesn't "grant rights to do operation XYZ". Patents only allow you to forbid others from doing XYZ. That means that you can have a patent that covers XYZ, but if someone else has a patent to do X (or XY), then they can stop you from doing XYZ.
Some people mention "defensive" patents; They are only defensive in the sense that "the best defence is an offence" - that if someone attacks you, you have something to attack them back with. But that's not actually useful against entities that aren't practicing, such as Intellectual Ventures.
In that way, while there isn't legal approval, there are real world patent rights that create a bar which stops many from interfering with your business processes. In this way, there is a non-offensive and defensive ability to conduct business.
I am the inventor on a number of patents, and this is exactly how patents work out in practice for the specific type of industry and purpose that this thread is about. I am not talking about the law of patents but how patents are used in the actual real world by large companies. That was in reply to what the GP wrote, "It's crazy how the large companies file so many patents for any idea their employees can think of."
In fact, it's not "crazy" that companies do this. What is crazy is the system in which they are forced to do this. Unfortunately lawsuits take a lot of money and time, which I am sure you are familiar with.
That makes no sense at all:
Cost of publishing in a newspaper, or arxiv, or any other verifyable source: $0.
Cost of getting a patent: $5K-$100K spent on patent editors, patent lawyers, maintenance fees, re-editing after feedback, etc.
It's been a long, long, time since I heard about anyone spending less than $20K for a granted patent. Paying $20K for something that you can get (essentially) for free, prior art defense, makes no sense at all.
Patents are an offensive legal measure; the only way the work for defence is in the "offence is the best defence" sense.
Also worth noting that even if they don't themselves derive certain conclusions from our data or use that conclusion, it doesn't mean another party does not. For instance, a user's sleep/wake cycle could be determined by others from the data FB collects and shares with them.
Whether it's a good thing that patents exist is another matter, though.
Magsafe connector is an engineering invention that doesn't exist or derive from anything in the nature.
Also, IMO, a formula, which tells you what to compute, is essentially different from an algorithm, which tells you how. FFT would be patentable because it is non-obvious, even when given the formula for doing a Fourier transform.
It still might be non-patentable on other grounds, such as the fact that Gauss apparently described it in 1805 (http://www.cis.rit.edu/class/simg716/Gauss_History_FFT.pdf), two years before Fourier published his work on what now is known as Fourier series.
A mathematical formula is just a symbolic expression of an abstract concept, with the procedure (algorithm) how to use it being implicit (= obvious to the person skilled in the art).
A computer algorithm can be trivially converted into purely mathematical/logic representation ("formulas" if you want), e.g. using things like lambda calculus. And vice-versa - an abstract mathematical problem formulation can be converted into an algorithm (assuming the solution is known).
If you start patenting algorithms, you are patenting math.
For example, you could write a formula to express the property of order in lists, and maybe with some mechanical procedure (falling under "obvious to the person skilled in the art") you could then generate an algorithm that sorted lists. However, what's the time/space complexity of that algorithm? What are the practical runtime characteristics? For industry applications the practical runtime characteristics matter as much as anything else. That you technically could compute something doesn't matter at all, if that computation might not finish until relevant celestial bodies have phase changes.
I'm not saying Quicksort should be patentable, but I do think it's at least a step and a half removed from pure math.
When the people who spread adoption ignore the law, sure patents don't prevent anything, e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MP3#Internet_distribution
If you take a different example, say, improvements to JPEG, it's a lot harder for camera manufacturers to ignore patents. You're at the mercy of the patent holders, whose terms apparently haven't been reasonable enough for anybody to improve the compression in digital photos beyond what we had decades ago.
We don't see people arguing we shouldn't patent physical machines because ultimately each operation is a simple physical movement, so the sum of everything is just a sequence of physical movements.
Yet we see people arguing we shouldn't patent software "machines" because ultimately each operation is a simple mathematical operation, so the sum of everything is just a sequence of mathematical operations.
The argument against the patentability of maths, AFAIK, has always been "maths is naturally inherent and merely discovered by humans". This, to me, is an argument against pure maths especially; but as we get into applied maths I think it's much less arguable that algorithms and data structures are naturally inherent (much like how physical constructions—machines—aren't naturally inherent from the laws of physics).
I still strongly think far too many patents get issued, but I'm less convinced than I used to be software patents are inherently bad, and that patents do need reform in various ways.
Then you are against software patents.
If millions of people carried machine shops around in their backpacks, you would be against mechanical engineering patents, because far too many patents would be issued.
At the core of patent law is "presumption of validity", which places the burden of proof on the accused, rather than the accuser. Anything that multiplies the number of patents the PTO has to examine makes that presumption less reasonable. At some point it's arguable that a party accused of patent infringement is not getting due process.
Software patents. Presumption of validity. Due process. Choose any two.
It's especially problematic in software because algorithms are very closely tied to fundamental mathematical axoims. For example, you can't just try really hard and make a O(n) sort. There is no benefit to society to granting a monopoly on a faster O(nlogn) sort
They were intended to solve the problem of technological progress being hindered by trade secrets that never come into the public domain. If you couldn't protect your recipe for making a life saving drug, no one else could make it even if you decided not to anymore or went out of business.
From the Constitution (Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8):
"To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."
Point being, FB could have focused their data collection on only that information that their user's post.
Group SMS is some next-level shit and my friends still talk to me, I swear. It's cool, I don't have to rub my life in their face with life event posts before I talk to them. When I talk to them, I get to catch up with their life and build a relationship like normal humans used to do.
What is "server 112"? Is this some internet-ism I don't know about?
Background check companies that do employment reference verification checks for employers
All three credit reporting companies have employment history products. So for example if your rental application includes your current and/or past employers, those will end up permanently with the credit reporting agency.
Plus others. Basically anyone that gets your employment info will sell it since as far as I'm aware it is not protected in the same way your credit history is.
Can you elaborate? If not with details then in general terms, i.e. what I had for breakfast last week, etc...
Also, at least in my case, both Google and Facebook periodically reach out, years after our last formal interaction.
Had a recruiter working for one of my clients for a few years. They later left the company and joined the competition. Recruiter's past "success stories" all got contacted, not a week after.
Your recruiter is leaking your data, same happens in the UK. If you pass 3rd stage interview in Google, suddenly you get calls from Oracle, IBM, Amazon, MS and more. I never asked them to call me, never applied there, they just "somehow now" and want to rush with interviews with you.
Whatsapp is difficult, it’s the defector way to communicate for most people I know
I helped out a little with this piece. Aside from being happy to answer questions — I want to share a few bonus interesting Facebook patents that didn't quite make the final cut:
In "Systems and methods for directing messages based on social data" (https://patents.google.com/patent/US20180041464A1/en), Facebook talks about creating "user influence scores" as a metric of your reputation on the social network. It talks about how, "the user influence score can be decreased when the sender is reported to be associated ... with undesired content." Or can be decreased when your friends are "reported to be associated with undesired content."
In "Multi-Factor Location Verification" (https://patents.google.com/patent/US20170261590A1/en), Facebook ponders how to accurately track your location when you have your phone's GPS turned off. The phone can ping nearby RFID readers, NFC systems, see a nearby Bluetooth device, or the MAC address of your router, or the wifi SSID. But that's the easy stuff — what if you have your phone turned off entirely? The patent discusses tracking your location based on your calendar events, concert tickets, and dinner reservations: “A location determination method may include advanced knowledge of the user's intended or estimated location, such as a reservation for an event at a particular time (e.g. restaurant, theater, concert…)”.
In "Identifying users of client devices for tracking user interactions..." (https://patents.google.com/patent/US20170353564A1/en), Facebook discusses the problem of shared computers, where different family members may use the same web browser, and therefore the same tracking cookies. The patent discusses how to feed the web browsing and activity data into a "user identity matching module", which figures out which Facebook profile to attach the activity log to based on what you're doing online. Shopping for motorcycle parts? Log it for the husband. Dora the explorer? Probably the kid. Works just as well when you're logged out.
If you guys have any favorite mildly disturbing personal surveillance patents — please share! They're fun to collect.
And in related news — this piece running this weekend turned out to have interesting timing. This week the Supreme Court ruled, somewhat tangentially, on digital privacy, in Carpenter v. United States. The narrow majority opinion held that your cell phone tower location data should not be available to government search without a warrant. The five justices wrote about 24/7 location tracking: "Only the few without cell phones could escape this tireless and absolute surveillance."
And then some of the even more interesting argumentation came in the dissents — especially Gorsuch's.
He seems to want to develop an even stronger constitutional protection for personal data, throwing out the current "third party doctrine", and rooting it instead in a more expansive reading of the Fourth Amendment. He writes: "Can the government demand a copy of all your e-mails from Google or Microsoft without implicating your Fourth Amendment rights?" And "Just because you entrust your data — in some cases, your modern-day papers and effects — to a third party may not mean you lose any Fourth Amendment interest in its contents."
I know it's wishful thinking, but I'd love to see a day when "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures..." covered all of the personal data hoards that Facebook and Google have amassed.
I have two arguments here.
1. The kind of data Facebook collects has nothing to do with AI, but advertising.
2. Even it mattered for AI, why do you think staying relevant in AI-powered future is more important than our privacy?
As if there weren't already enough dystopian scifi around to make you think twice about whether that's actually a good thing...
They patented a feature of their own platform?
The author suggests Facebook through these filings shows a commitment to collecting personal information. Mr. Lo's statement does not deny this suggestion. Note also he uses the word "most". This implies that some of the technology has been or will be used by Facebook.
Instead of addressing the issue, Lo recited a truism. (At least that is all we're told about the email response.)
The truism is that out of all US patent applications filed by all applicants for all inventions, the vast majority are never embodied in either a product nor a service. For a company with its size and budget, it is obvious that this would apply to Facebook.
What is a US patent? It is not a "government-granted monopoly". It is not a right to make or sell an invention. In terms of rights, it is nothing more than the right to sue an accused infringer.
By seeking patent protection for methods Facebook will never use, Facebook demonstrates it has an interest in either (a) being able to sue others who might use them and/or (b) whether anyone else has that ability.
Thus, the question for Mr. Lu is why Facebook wants to be able to sue others for patent infringement based on the methods disclosed in these applications and/or why it cares if others have that ability.
If we are to believe that Facebook will never use the methods disclosed in the applications, then we can also believe that Facebook would never be a target of patent litigation based on use of the methods in these applications. As such they would have no reason to want to keep others from having the ability to sue.
If we are to believe Facebook is hoping to license or sell these applications to others, then we can also believe that Facebook does not care if others use the "creepy" methods disclosed in the applications. In that case, Facebook's interests are misaligned with the interests of users who care about use of methods like the ones disclosed in these applications.
If we are to believe Facebook wants patent rights as a "defensive", retaliatory or coercive measure against some other company (e.g., Facebook wants counterclaims if it is sued, or wants to be able to make Steve Jobs-like threats of "thermo-nuclear war" via patent litigation) then we can also believe that Facebook perceives itself in competition with companies that may practice the "creepy" methods in these applications.
The underlying issue raised by these applications and many others filed by Facebook is the nature of its interest in collecting personal information (cf. merely publishing information that users choose to upload or post):
Does Facebook perceive itself in competition with companies that collect personal information and take money from advertisers? Does Facebook perceive itself in competition with companies who would use the methods in these application? If yes, why?
I always knew of FB's issues, but what this whole pitchfork-building exercise has shown me is how the outlets people always defend for accuracy maintain a narrative by story choice alone. In their quest for views, they've fucked up the signal-to-noise ratio.
1) The New York Times has published an endless stream editorials calling for Facebook to be destroyed [1], insisting Facebook is a thread to national security [2] and declaring Facebook a threat to the republic [3].
2) These editorials are joined by "reporting" insinuating that Facebook is working with the Chinese [4] (an obvious lie), accusing Facebook of lying to Congress and giving "data access" to device makers (another obvious lie) and, of course, when in doubt, it publishes pure rumour and speculation about Facebook [5].
And now we get yet another hit piece about Facebook's "creepy" patents. The reporter decided to pick the 7 most "creepy" patents and insist this shows Facebook's "plans" while dutifully ignoring the hundreds of other patents Facebook has generated. The reporter makes no effort to determine whether other companies have similar patents since this would reveal there's absolutely nothing special or unusual or "creepy" about such patents.
Throughout this propaganda campaign there's no mention of any conflict of interest despite the fact that we know the NY Times and other media corporations derive significant revenue from Facebook's platform and do not agree with many of Facebook's policies [6].
So it makes you wonder: what is a company supposed to do when the "leading paper" decides to continually attack them on the most flimsy terms? (Next week in the Times: Zuckerberg's creepy new haircut!) What exactly is Facebook's play here when its not foreign media waging the propaganda campaign?
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/03/opinion/facebook-fix-repl...
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/05/opinion/facebook-china-pr...
[3] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/29/opinion/facebook-privacy-...
[4] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/05/technology/facebook-devic...
[5] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/19/technology/facebook-alex-...
[6] https://www.adweek.com/digital/facebook-new-york-times-execs...
In fact, in catering to simply the loudest popular sentiment, they put themselves in the position of having to apologize for their recent election coverage due to how utterly biased it ended up being.
I understand they're all struggling in the battle for people's attention these days, but as an institution they somehow seem to feel they still stand out from, and above of, others such as buzzfeed.
It's quite likely that they believe they have to write that way today, or shutter the doors.
They could still care more about good journalism, while mostly having to write in a style that looks like if they don't.
Only way to know for sure is to look at their economy, and how much is driven by per click ads, and how much is subscriptions/other sales.
Presumably, stop being a threat to national security, republic democracy, and making creepy patents, and if these issues are structural within the company, get destroyed.
Just because there be other bad actors in this space and similar technology spaces doesn't mean we shouldn't hold Facebook's feet to the fire on their flaws. The others, respectively, will and should ultimately get their turn.
Did fb turn evil in 2017.
I think it’s reasonable for them to have more scrutiny now as it’s clear they don’t intend to fix their practices.
I cant seem to find any. Do you have examples?
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/23/technology/facebook-offer...
https://gadgetwise.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/27/facebook-sti...
Fact that you had to look very hard and go all the way to 2010 to find examples proves my point not yours.
Going back to 2010 doesn't mean plenty.
I simply posted the first few result that were returned by my search query.
And publication dates and volume of articles are completely orthogonal.
I personally assume that all news outlets are biased one way or another. And I do not believe there's a news outlet anywhere which is totally fair, unbiased and objective.
It seems reasonable to guess that the NYT's leadership believes FB is extremely influential in US politics and that it is imperative that FB avoid facilitating another 2016-style presidential campaign. In addition, most of the NYT's readership almost certainly believes that FB helped unfairly swing the election to Trump through illegal Russian funded ads and so forth, and it's good for business for a paper to cater to that readership.
Definitely agree.
> Could it just be that NYT is printing a lot of negative articles because they're are a lot of incidents involving Facebook doing something wrong?
Yes probably, though I've also noticed a certain level of bias. Google and Amazon probably have as many "creepy" patents to infer user behaviour, yet we don't hear as much about them on this space. Hell, Google pretty much invented the whole concept of tracking users across websites, "shadow profiles", and personalized search/ads.
Cambride Analytica was bad and Facebook should've veto'd its API users better from the get-go. The next obvious step after that article was a look at Google's own leaky data practices: I've installed too many Android games which ask for essentially full-phone access and I'm sure there's people who, much like with CA, don't consider the implications and just hit "ok".
I'm not trying to defend Facebook here, but I do want to point out they're not the only ones who should be getting scrutinized.
I don’t know about the media our parents had but I can personally attest that today’s media is poor entertainment at best and hateful propaganda at worst.
I stopped reading 99% of news a year ago (by blocking all outlets websites on my phone and computer) and am just doing fine...heck I would say I am actually doing better since I have more headspace for things that really matter and have more balanced view points (the later is obviously self attested).
The real news trickle up to me anyways.
The very first word on this page is "Opinion", making it very clear that this piece is in no way reflects the editorial polices of The New York Times.
Opinion pieces by their very nature make no claims of objectivity. The "Ed-Op" section has long been a mainstay of daily news organizations in the US.
In your list of citations you've mixed both objective journalism pieces and editorials. Based on this and your comments I suspect that you might not know the difference.
If you are going to be critical of a news outlet you might want to learn to identify the different article types first.
Facebook has been a regular part of the news cycle precisely because it is so central to an ongoing dialog regarding privacy, regulatory regimes and the power of a single corporate entity.
I find your insistence of a conspiracy while using phrases like "propaganda campaign" and "hit piece" very disturbing.
The sheer volume of articles now, regardless of whether you tell people they are in different forms, are there to drive views and, when categorized by topics, build the momentum to view more on all sides of the paper. This is not the print days of old. They are using all sections to obtain eyes and calling most of them news. Pretending what are basically blogs with official seals as what used to be print pieces ignores the sheer volume and collective value they have nowadays. The noise is much too large to compare to the past.
> Facebook has been a regular part of the news cycle precisely because it is so central to an ongoing dialog regarding privacy, regulatory regimes and the power of a single corporate entity.
Disagree. The news cycle is driving the dialog at this point, not responding to it. It's clear in the vast number of sustanceless articles. The disturbing part is that you accept your pitchfork, bow, and parrot these views while telling others what they have to learn before they can be critical.
No, op-ed pieces by there very nature are not subject to editorial review. Anyone is free to right one. And it is quite common to have editorials with opposing views published opposite each other in the Ed Op section. Saying that ed-op pieces have a "slant" is absurd. The entire purpose of an editorial is to express the views of an individual.
>"This is not the print days of old."
No the New York Times actually a physical news paper that you can buy at a newsstand. I did so yesterday. It is also a newspaper of record.
>"The news cycle is driving the dialog at this point, not responding to it."
The Cambridge Analytica scandal came to light because Christopher Wylie blew the whistle and began speaking about it. I would very much consider that a human driving a dialog.
I specifically said "volume and slant" not just "slant". Combined, they have value. I don't know why you chose just one part.
> No the New York Times actually a physical news paper that you can buy at a newsstand. I did so yesterday. It is also a newspaper of record.
That is not as related to their website as you are making it seem. I even cautioned against pretending they're the same and you did it again.
> The Cambridge Analytica scandal came to light because Christopher Wylie blew the whistle and began speaking about it. I would very much consider that a human driving a dialog.
I specifically said "at this point". I don't know why you are talking about when it started.