The Federal Trade Commission issued its largest-ever fine, of US$5 billion, to Facebook for violating a 2011 privacy settlement in late July. But the amount is only about a month’s worth of the company’s revenue, suggesting that the fine, while seeming large, is, in fact, rather modest. Continue reading
The International Forum for Responsible Media Blog
Month: July 2019 (Page 1 of 3)
The Trinity Term (and hence the legal year) ends on 31 July 2019. The summer legal vacation will last until 1 October 2019 when the Michaelmas Term begins. This will be the last weekly round up until October although we will continue to publish occasional “summer round ups”. Continue reading
The Great Hack has just dropped on Netflix (IMDB | Rotten Tomatoes | wikipedia | poster left). It is a documentary that explores “how a data company named Cambridge Analytica came to symbolize the dark side of social media in the wake of the 2016 US presidential election”. Continue reading
Facebook’s News Feed algorithm determines what users see on its platform – from funny memes to comments from friends. The company regularly updates this algorithm, which can dramatically change what information people consume. Continue reading
I have just taken an entire website and gigabytes of data offline. It covered a highly successful series of conferences on the data economy. It brought together thought leaders and key decision-makers from around the world for annual retreats – over a decade ago. And now it is gone. Continue reading
What sort of grounds of challenge can be run on an appeal against a monetary penalty notice issued by the Information Commissioner? Where the Tribunal has a full merits jurisdiction, is there scope for grounds of challenge relating to the process by which the MPN was reached? Continue reading
Before reacting to the title, please note the following qualifiers. By “real news”, I’m primarily referring to the political journalism of the Western and mainstream conservative press, though, centrist and ostensibly liberal outlets are also implicated when they use the manipulative reporting techniques discussed below. Continue reading
Twitter recently decided that rule-breaking tweets from influential politicians would be hidden behind a warning. Journalists were quick to label the new policy the “Trump rule”. But it wasn’t long before the rule was put to the test and found lacking. Continue reading
On 15 July 2019 The Observer’s Carole Cadwalladr responded to libel claim made by from Arron Banks, calling it “wholly without merit” and an abuse of process. In two recent speeches she said that Leave.EU co-founder Arron Banks was offered money by the Russian Government and had lied about his relationship with the regime. Continue reading
The rapid spread of fake news can influence millions of people, impacting elections and financial markets. A study on the impact of fake news on the 2016 US presidential election, for instance, has found that fake news stories about Hillary Clinton was “very strongly linked” to the defection of voters who supported Barack Obama in the previous election. Continue reading
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