Tag Archives: Facebook

Facebook is shutting down its Trending Topics section

Facebook will remove its troubled “Trending Topics” section next week, the company said Friday, signaling that the controversial feature was better off dead as Facebook builds different products for news. The section, which takes up important real estate on the social network’s desktop interface, has faced backlash since it first rolled out in 2014. Often criticized …

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Will Zuck face the UK parliament? Meet the politician fighting to make it happen

Mark Zuckerberg and British MP Damian Collins have been stuck in a tug of war for two months now, and neither wants to give in. Collins, a Conservative member of Parliament representing Folkestone and Hythe since 2010, wants the Facebook CEO to answer questions on the Cambridge Analytica data scandal. Zuckerberg? Well, he’s not so keen. Collins chairs Parliament’s Digital, …

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Uganda imposes tax on Facebook and Twitter to cut down on ‘gossip’

Uganda’s parliament has passed a law to tax people’s social media use. The Excise Duty (Amendment) Bill imposes a 200 shilling (5 cent) daily charge for messaging services such as Facebook, WhatsApp, Viber and Twitter in the African country, BBC reported Thursday. Uganda President Yoweri Museveni has been pushing for the tax since March, when he wrote a letter to Finance …

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Oculus Venues brings VR crowds to real

It’s pretty clear what Facebook wants with Oculus: for you to use VR to socialize with your network when you’re not physically with your network. Sound creepy? I hopped around a virtual arena and sat with other avatars during a VR broadcast of a basketball game last week for an hour, and I didn’t hate it. Oculus Venues is the …

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Facebook will be banned in Papua New Guinea for a month

Citizens of Papua New Guinea are about to get a month-long digital detox from Facebook — whether they like it or not. Papua New Guinea’s communications minister, Sam Basil, told the country’s Post-Courier on Tuesday that Facebook would be banned in there for four weeks, providing an opportunity to identify fake profiles and work out how to prevent the spread …

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Fox CEO James Murdoch offers advice to Apple, Facebook and Snap

James Murdoch has some advice for non-media companies looking to enter the space: be tolerant of failure and have patience.  That goes for companies “dabbling” in TV content production. Namely, Apple. “Going piece by piece, one by one, show by show, it’s going to take a long time to really move the dial and have something,” Murdoch said in reference …

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Mark Zuckerberg’s next personal project? A ‘supreme court’ for Facebook

Oh it’s a jolly holiday for Mark Zuckerberg. The Facebook CEO finished up a trip to Europe on Thursday with a day out at the VivaTech conference in Paris, where he was greeted with rapturous applause from the audience and didn’t have to answer a single question from an indignant politician about his company’s part in one of the biggest …

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Yelp takes aim at Google with EU antitrust complaint

Yelp has filed an antitrust complaint against Google in the EU, crying out that the search giant has abused its dominance to favor its own services over competitors’. The complaint follows a 2017 EU ruling that Google misused its dominance in shopping search results. That ruling resulted in a 2.4 billion euro fine ($2.9 billion, £2 billion or AU$3.7 billion). Google is currently appealing …

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The questions Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg didn’t answer for EU Parliament

Mark Zuckerberg was saved by the bell at the European Parliament on Tuesday. The Facebook CEO sat through about an hour of questions from members of the group, and then spent only about 25 minutes answering them. The format for Zuckerberg’s testimony in Brussels was a stark contrast from his appearance on Capitol Hill in April. Instead of answering each …

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Getting bored with your Apple Watch face? (The 3:59, Ep. 406)

On this podcast, we talk about: Apple Watch needing a watch face store, stat.  Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg facing the EU for the Cambridge Analytica scandal Intel and Microsoft disclosing a new flaw in computers and mobile devices.  Now playing: Watch this: Are you getting bored with your Apple Watch face? (The… 4:26 The 3:59 gives you bite-size news and analysis …

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