Facebook was again hauled before Congress this week, this time to answer for a set of stories published in the Wall Steet Journal saying the company has internal research showing its tools hurt kids — Instagram exacerbates body image issues for teen girls, for example — but it hasn’t really [Keep reading]
I believe there are good people inside Facebook — plenty of them — who know the company’s tech tools are causing great harm, and wish to do something about it. But right now, the firm has mounting evidence that its software does damage to a great many people — teen [Keep reading]
Will a new Texas law require social media companies like Facebook and Twitter to host vaccine disinformation, or even hate speech? The law also makes it a crime to “de-boost” comments and other posts, forbidding firms from taking away algorithmic amplification that helps extreme posts go viral. But are Facebook [Keep reading]
Early September always fills me with a strange kind of dread. There’s a flood of horrid memories jumbled together with admiration and wonder for all the love and courage that each 9-11 anniversary churns up. I find the Tribute in Light over the World Trade Center a hauntingly beautiful, irresistible [Keep reading]
Facebook profits from advertisements it knows, or should know, are fraudulent, a federal lawsuit filed in California alleges. The social media giant makes it easy for criminals to target consumers who are not only likely to click on certain kinds of ads, but also likely to follow through with purchases, [Keep reading]
For many decades, economists wandered around in the dark, confused that their elegant formulas about consumer behavior failed again and again. They’d yell at their calculations in dark rooms, frustrated that people didn’t actually move through the world as rational actors, like the data they fed into those formulas. Then [Keep reading]
How do you catch Internet con artists? Well, you con them. Alan, who lives near Washington D.C., had traveled to Dubai and to Ghana thinking he was helping a princess gain access to her multi-million dollar inheritance. Before his fever was broken, Alan — not his real name — sent [Keep reading]
Jeremy Vincent was startled out of his sleep in the middle of the night with the ring of his smartphone. Its screen read, “Mom’s Cell.” But when he answered, he didn’t hear his mom’s voice. Instead, he heard this: “I’m going to let you talk to your mom, your mom’s [Keep reading]
Some people just don’t know when to cut their losses. OK, basically no one does. Sunk cost is not only a powerful concept, it’s a bad habit written into all our subconscious minds. I don’t think you can escape its powerful grip, but you can learn to live with it a [Keep reading]
There will be no avoiding the inflation conversation during the next few months. Prices are going up all around us — lumber (wait, they’re down suddenly), cars, my favorite chicken with mixed vegetables entree from Asia Sushi down the block. As I’ve written before, folks old enough to remember the [Keep reading]
Bob Sullivan