Social media platforms stole the spotlight this week after Facebook, Apple, and YouTube banned multiple personalities over their controversial content; raising serious questions over who can regulate information dispersed to millions of Americans.
On Tuesday, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey defended his company’s decision to allow controversial political personality Alex Jones to keep his content online; saying he wasn’t suspended because he “hasn’t violated our rules. We’ll enforce if he does. And we’ll continue to promote a healthy conversational environment by ensuring tweets aren’t artificially amplified.”
We didn’t suspend Alex Jones or Infowars yesterday. We know that’s hard for many but the reason is simple: he hasn’t violated our rules. We’ll enforce if he does. And we’ll continue to promote a healthy conversational environment by ensuring tweets aren’t artificially amplified.
Breaking AlertsDon't miss the stories that matter.Get Sean's breaking news alerts — free, direct to your inbox.— jack (@jack) August 8, 2018
Dorsey stopped by ‘The Sean Hannity Show’ Wednesday to weigh-in on his platform’s policy towards free speech, hate speech, shadow-banning, and a host of issues facing the nation.
Listen to Dorsey on ‘The Sean Hannity Show’ below:
FACEBOOK FAIL: Obama Campaign ‘SUCKED’ Private User Data During 2012 Election
As the controversy surrounding Facebook’s alleged cooperation with outside entities continues to swirl; new information shows former President Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign mined the social network’s user data to help reach likely voters, reports Fox News.
Carol Davidsen, Obama’s former Director of Integration and Media Analytics, confirmed the campaign’s use of Facebook’s “social graphs” -illustrations that map users’ varying connections- on Twitter, saying “Facebook was surprised we were able to suck out the whole social graph, but they didn’t stop us once they realized that was what we were doing.”
“They came to office in the days following election recruiting & were very candid that they allowed us to do things they wouldn’t have allowed someone else to do because they were on our side,” she added.
I worked on all of the data integration projects at OFA. This was the only one that felt creepy, even though we played by the rules, and didn’t do anything I felt was ugly, with the data.
— Carol Davidsen (@cld276) March 19, 2018
Facebook was surprised we were able to suck out the whole social graph, but they didn’t stop us once they realized that was what we were doing.
— Carol Davidsen (@cld276) March 19, 2018
Davidsen’s admission comes as Facebook finds itself in hot-water over their policies permitting outside factors to impact the US electoral system.
Earlier this year, the Justice Department indicted 13 Russian nationals for exploiting Facebook in order to sway American voters.
FACEBOOK FAIL: Social Media Boss APOLOGIZES to Diamond & Silk Over Censorship
A high-ranking Facebook executive issued an official apology to pro-Trump duo Diamond and Silk Tuesday, admitting the social media giant “mistreated” and “badly mishandled” the conservative twosome.
According to the NY Post, Global Policy Management Chief Monika Bickert admitted the mistake while speaking before the House Judiciary Committee.
“We badly mishandled our communications with them,” she told Congressional leaders.
Diamond and Silk were thrust into the national headlines earlier this year after their pro-Trump content was suddenly removed from Facebook.
The social network claimed their comments posed a threat “to the community.”
The women appeared before a Congressional committee weeks later; slamming the media giant for censoring their opinion and violating their First Amendment rights.
Read the full story at the New York Post.
