Facebook Has a Superuser-Supremacy Problem

Plus: Salesforce Is Making a Wellness Retreat for Workers, Digital books are not fireproof, and more ...

Jose Montes de Oca

Feb 11, 2022

Good Morning! and Happy Friday. Here is what’s on today’s edition:

Facebook Has a Superuser-Supremacy Problem (Matthew Hindman via The Atlantic)
Salesforce Is Making a Wellness Retreat for Workers. (Katherine Bindley via Wall Street Journal)
Digital books are not fireproof. (Chris Freeland via ZDNet)
New algorithm bill could force Facebook to change how the news feed works. (Makena Kelly via The Verge)
The Fed is likely to still take a measured approach to rate hikes despite calls for bigger action. (Steve Liesman via CNBC)
Ada Palmer and the Weird Hand of Progress. (Gregory Barber via WIRED)
Affirm shares plummet after accidentally tweeting financial results early. (Kif Leswing via CNBC)

Enjoy! see you all on Monday.

— Jose Montes de Oca

P.S. Was this forwarded to you? Sign up here.

Today’s pick

Facebook Has a Superuser-Supremacy Problem

(Matthew Hindman via The Atlantic). Most public activity on the platform comes from a tiny, hyperactive group of abusive users. Facebook relies on them to decide what everyone sees. Read More.

Matthew Hindman @MattHindman

Our new research, out in @TheAtlantic, shows that Facebook’s user problems are both worse and *different* than people outside the company have known. For academics, this raises new questions about whether Facebook-approved data sources are hiding as much as they the reveal. https://t.co/J8GB6tvPaD

Adrienne LaFrance @AdrienneLaF

For more than a year, @MattHindman @natelubin and Trevor Davis have been analyzing a massive new data set they designed to study the 500 U.S. Facebook pages that get the most engagement. “We expected it would be ugly. What we found was much worse.” https://t.co/DrdC1k1e9Y

Forget the Office-Salesforce Is Making a Wellness Retreat for Workers

(Katherine Bindley via Wall Street Journal) In the work-from-home era, the ranch is the tech company’s new corporate-culture epicenter. Read More.

Katie Bindley @katiebindley

NEW from me: Salesforce really is going to build an employee ranch! Meantime, they signed a deal w a woodsy retreat outside Santa Cruz and will start sending employees there next month to mitigate the effects of remote work on company culture:

wsj.comWSJ News Exclusive | Forget the Office—Salesforce Is Making a Wellness Retreat for WorkersSalesforce.com is creating a corporate culture epicenter at a California retreat where thousands of workers will connect in person and get training.

Librarian's lament: Digital books are not fireproof

(Chris Freeland via ZDNet). Publishers are using copyright law as a battering ram to assert corporate control over the public good. Read More.

Internet Archive @internetarchive

🔥🔥 Turns out there's more than one way to burn a book. In Texas they are banning them. But as librarian @chrisfreeland explains, corporate publishers are suing the @internetarchive to destroy 1.4 million digital books. zdnet.com/article/digita…

zdnet.comLibrarian’s lament: Digital books are not fireproof | ZDNetPublishers are using copyright law as a battering ram to assert corporate control over the public good.

New algorithm bill could force Facebook to change how the news feed works

(Makena Kelly via The Verge) A new bipartisan bill, introduced on Wednesday, could mark Congress' first step toward addressing algorithmic amplification of harmful content. Read More.

Makena Kelly @kellymakena

little exclusive, here's a @SenAmyKlobuchar and @SenLummis bill that could regulate algorithms without changing Section 230

theverge.comNew algorithm bill could force Facebook to change how the news feed worksKlobuchar is spearheading the bipartisan bill.

The Fed is likely to still take a measured approach to rate hikes despite calls for bigger action.

(Steve Liesman via CNBC) Several Federal Reserve officials, both privately and publicly, are pushing back against calls by St. Louis Fed President Jim Bullard Thursday for super-sized rate hikes, and instead suggesting the central bank is likely to embark initially on a more measured path. Read More.

Jay Yarow @jyarow

Steve Liesman called around and … Fed rate hike unlikely to be as aggressive as what some people feared after yesterday’s action.

cnbc.comThe Fed is still likely to take a measured approach to rate hikes despite calls for bigger actionAtlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic told CNBC on Thursday after the inflation report, “My views have not changed.”

Ada Palmer and the Weird Hand of Progress

(Gregory Barber via WIRED) The sci-fi author writes about the 25th century and teaches college students about the 15th. The past we think we know is wrong, she says—and so is the future. Read more.

Anthony Lydgate @anthonylydgate

Read this mind-expanding profile of Ada Palmer, sci-fi author and Renaissance scholar. It has everything: Machiavelli, manatees, visions of the 25th century. It’s by @WIRED’s own @GregoryJBarber, who stayed at Palmer’s “bash’house” for this assignment.

wired.comAda Palmer and the Weird Hand of ProgressThe sci-fi author writes about the 25th century and teaches college students about the 15th. The past we think we know is wrong, she says—and so is the future.

Affirm shares plummet after accidentally tweeting financial results early

(Kif Leswing via CNBC) Affirm stock dropped 21% to a share price of $58.68 on Thursday after the company reported second-quarter results ahead of schedule. Read More.

Affirm @Affirm

Due to human error, a small portion of Affirm’s fiscal Q2 results were inadvertently tweeted from Affirm’s official Twitter account earlier today. Affirm has since issued its complete fiscal Q2 results, which are available at bit.ly/3stjhxb.

bit.lyQuarterly Results | Affirm Holdings, Inc.The Investor Relations website contains information about Affirm Holdings, Inc.’s business for stockholders, potential investors, and financial analysts.

That’s all for today! Thanks for reading to the bottom and soaking in our Newslit fuelled highlights for your morning.

I hope you found it interesting and, needless to say, if you have any questions or feedback let me know by hitting reply or on Twitter.

Take care,

Jose

Newslit Daily

Discussion about this post