Month: May 2019

Vice Reporter Becomes a Victim of Google’s Featured Snippets ⇥ vice.com

Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai, Vice:

This keeps happening. In the last three days, I’ve gotten more than 80 phone calls. Just today, in the span of eight minutes, I got three phone calls from people looking to talk to Facebook. I didn’t answer all of them, and some left voicemails.

Initially, I thought this was some coordinated trolling campaign. As it turns out, if you Googled “Facebook phone number” on your phone earlier this week, you would see my cellphone as the fourth result, and Google has created a “card” that pulled my number out of the article and displayed it directly on the search page in a box. The effect is that it seemed like my phone number was Facebook’s phone number, because that is how Google has trained people to think.

It’s not a stretch to think how this feature could be abused. Imagine if searching for “Microsoft phone number” produced one of those fake tech support lines. It would feel even more trustworthy because you’re calling them.

Marzipan Expectations ⇥ blog.iconfactory.com

Craig Hockenberry of the Iconfactory:

In the early days of the iPhone, there were many apps developed by folks who brought their sensibilities from Windows or the Mac to a new platform. Those apps felt wrong and have largely disappeared because everyone has figured out that different interactions are needed for a small, handheld device. Don’t let the same thing happen when you bring your iOS expertise to a Mac.

If you’ve been developing on iOS for any period of time, you’ve probably had the “flip a switch” experience when starting an iPad app. It’s fairly easy to get things up and running, but then you realize that there are a lot of design and code changes needed for a larger screen. You’ll start reworking things with master/detail views and auto layout constraints. You might even need to adapt your app to support input from a Smart Keyboard.

Look at how many user interface idiom checks you have and you’ll start to get an idea of what lies ahead for a macOS app. If you’re someone who’s decided that an iPad version of your app is too much extra work, you’ll likely think the same thing about all the conditional checks required for a Mac.

My initial pessimism towards Marzipan’s possibilities was mostly borne of what shipped in Mojave. But, apparently, those weren’t even the best that Apple could have done with the Marzipan tools in Mojave. Again, I question why they were shipped in the first place; I don’t know that they would be greatly missed if they didn’t make the final build.

Everything I’ve read from Steve Troughton-Smith over the past couple of months suggests that we’re headed in MacOS 10.151 for a promising if incomplete step towards a full declarative UI framework. It is slowly steering my mind towards a future where developers don’t have to write two entirely separate apps if they want their software on Apple’s biggest platforms. Make no mistake — that would be great news, if it is done well. Here’s hoping.

  1. Sonara, Kelso, or Tehachapi, perhaps? ↥︎

Section 230 of the CDA Does Not Create Definitions for ‘Platforms’ or ‘Publishers’ ⇥ techdirt.com

Mike Masnick, Techdirt:

This “publisher” v. “platform” concept is a totally artificial distinction that has no basis in the law. News publishers are also protected by Section 230 of the CDA. All CDA 230 does is protect a website from being held liable for user content or moderation choices. It does not cover content created by the company itself. In short, the distinction is not “platform” or “publisher” it’s “content creator” or “content intermediary.” Contrary to Coaston’s claims, Section 230 equally protects the NY Times and the Washington Post if it chooses to host and/or moderate user comments. It does not protect content produced by those companies itself, but similarly, Section 230 does not protect content produced by Facebook itself.

This is a misconception that seems to have become increasingly common as platforms grapple with moderating users’ posts. There is no legal obligation for any private website or service to be neutral, and there is — I believe — a strong moral argument for them not to be.

Unpacking Google’s Apparent Turnaround on Privacy ⇥ nytimes.com

It looks like something spooked Facebook and Google. Instead of ignoring the privacy implications inherent to their business models, they both decided to reposition themselves as privacy-forward companies. Facebook did so by having an op-ed from its CEO published in a national newspaper, and by trying to redefine privacy itself. Google’s strategy has, so far, been similar.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai in an op-ed for the New York Times:

“For everyone” is a core philosophy for Google; it’s built into our mission to create products that are universally accessible and useful. That’s why Search works the same for everyone, whether you’re a professor at Harvard or a student in rural Indonesia. And it’s why we care just as much about the experience on low-cost phones in countries starting to come online as we do about the experience on high-end phones.

Our mission compels us to take the same approach to privacy. For us, that means privacy cannot be a luxury good offered only to people who can afford to buy premium products and services. Privacy must be equally available to everyone in the world.

That is a terrific point. I would very much like to live in a world where Apple cannot compete on privacy because every company must follow a strict set of rules governing the collection and use of private data.

But we do not live in that world, and Google has little intention of actually changing that. For example, they announced that Chrome will soon restrict third-party cookies and cross-site tracking, but John Wilander of Apple’s WebKit team says that their plan will be ineffective for privacy protection:

For a cookie policy to have meaningful effect on cross-site tracking, you also need to partition storage available to third-parties, such as LocalStorage, IndexedDB, ServiceWorkers, and cache. Safari is the only major browser to have such partitioning and we shipped it in 2013.

[…]

Safari’s default cookie policy since 10+ years is to deny third-parties to use cookies unless they have been first party at some point. This used to be “Allow cookies for sites I visit” in Safari settings. No other major browser has shipped cookie restrictions on by default yet.

For what it’s worth, it was this very setting that Google circumvented in 2012 so that they could track Safari users, a decision which resulted in a $22 million penalty.

Google also says that they’re giving users more privacy-centric options, but they couldn’t commit to not using facial recognition in their Nest products for ad personalization.

The overall picture of Google’s approach to privacy is perhaps best summarized by Ben Thompson:

At the same time, from a purely strategic perspective, the positive message makes sense. Presuming that everything about technology is bad is just as mistaken as the opposite perspective, and the fact of the matter is that lots of people like Google products, and reminding them of that fact is to Google’s long-term benefit.

Moreover, a world of assistants and machine-learning based products is very much to Google’s advantage: the argument to not simply tolerate Google’s collection of data, but to actually give them more, is less about some lame case about better-targeted ads but about making actually useful products better. The better-targeted ads are a Strategy Credit!

In short, Google’s argument is that they’re able to protect you from other companies’ privacy-rejecting technologies, but you can and should give them more of your private data. You can trust them. But, as far as I’m concerned, they haven’t yet earned that trust.

The Potential Advantages of a JavaScript Whitelist ⇥ inessential.com

Brent Simmons:

What I want is two related and similar things:

  • The ability to turn off JavaScript by default, and turn it on only for selected sites. (For me that would be sites like GitHub.)

  • The ability to turn off cookies by default, and, again, turn them on only for selected sites.

If it‘s the opposite — if I have to blacklist instead of whitelist — then I’d be constantly blacklisting. And, the first time I go to a site, it gets to run code before I decide to allow it.

A cookie whitelist would, I think, be frustrating to non-technical users, but it would be nice to have as an option. And, I imagine, it could be extended to allowing any kind of local storage.

But a JavaScript whitelist is something I could absolutely get behind. When you think about it, it’s pretty nuts that we allow the automatic execution of whatever code a web developer wrote. We don’t do that for anything else, really — certainly not to the same extent of possibly hundreds of webpages visited daily, each carrying a dozen or more scripts.

The openness of the web is unlike other platforms that have become more locked-down. There are few permission requests when visiting a webpage. That’s both beautiful and potentially damaging, particularly as new JavaScript functionality has been added and browsers have increasingly prioritized JavaScript execution time. New engines run scripts far closer to the metal — as they say — but these speed improvements have come with increased risks. Two examples:

  1. I had a webpage open not too long ago that, astonishingly enough, was mining cryptocurrency with JavaScript. This was something I had previously heard about in the context of malware, but this was a legitimate page that was attempting to make some extra money by maxing out my CPU when I left the tab open. I only noticed it when my iMac’s fans started whirring like I was rendering video or something.

  2. The speculative vulnerabilities in Intel CPUs, revealed last year, were exploitable through JavaScript.

It’s baffling to me that trackers, ad networks, cryptocurrency miners, and image lightboxes are all written for the web in the same language and that there is little granularity in how they’re treated. You can either turn all scripts off and lose key functionality on some websites, or you can turn everything on and accept the risk that your CPU will be monopolized in the background.

Current and Former Employees Say the Apple Store Isn’t as Good as It Once Was ⇥ bloomberg.com

Mark Gurman and Matthew Townsend, Bloomberg:

In interviews, current and former Apple employees blame a combination of factors. They say the stores have become mostly an exercise in branding and no longer do a good job serving mission shoppers like Smith. Meanwhile, they say, the quality of staff has slipped during an 18-year expansion that has seen Apple open more than 500 locations and hire 70,000 people. The Genius Bar, once renowned for its tech support, has been largely replaced with staff who roam the stores and are harder to track down. That’s a significant drawback because people are hanging onto their phones longer these days and need them repaired.

This report mirrors many of my own complaints when I’ve had to go to an Apple Store in the past couple of years, particularly for service or support:

The overhaul of the Genius Bar has been especially controversial. Customers looking for technical advice or repairs must now check in with an employee, who types their request into an iPad. Then when a Genius is free, he or she must find the customer wherever they happen to be in the store. Ahrendts was determined to get rid of lineups, but now the stores are often crowded with people waiting for their iPhones to be fixed or batteries swapped out.

The store I most frequently visit when I need support has a really strange vibe around the Genius Bar. I guess the intent is that, while you’re waiting five to forty-five minutes for your technician, you can look around for stuff to buy. But I don’t see people doing that. I see lots of people sitting awkwardly waiting at tables with lots of other people also sitting awkwardly. All of us just want our products fixed so we can go home.

The last time I went to an Apple Store was at the end of March or the beginning of April. I had picked up a pair of AirPods with a wireless charging case, and I wanted to exchange them for the model with the regular charging case. As I walked in, I was welcomed to the store and I explained that I wanted to do a product exchange. The greeter gestured me towards the rear-middle of the store, near the Genius Bar area. So I walked over there and asked someone if they could help me with exchanging a product, and they pointed me to a different person, who I once again had to explain what I wanted to do. They seemed baffled but had me wait for them to bring me a new set of AirPods which, I think, were hand-carried from the factory at that moment, all while kind of standing in the middle of where some other customers were trying to browse products.

When I brought my Thunderbolt Display in a few years ago to have the Y-cable swapped after it started getting flaky, I was told that I was better off taking it to a third-party repair facility as it would take far longer for Apple to get the part in stock. In related news, please buy my Thunderbolt Display.

I’m sure the competition is worse; but, that’s not saying much. Apple shouldn’t shoot for good enough. It certainly does not in architectural terms.

A Crisis of Nature ⇥ bbc.com

Matt McGrath, BBC News:

From the bees that pollinate our crops, to the forests that hold back flood waters, the report reveals how humans are ravaging the very ecosystems that support their societies.

Three years in the making, this global assessment of nature draws on 15,000 reference materials, and has been compiled by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). It runs to 1,800 pages.

The brief, 40-page “summary for policymakers”, published today at a meeting in Paris, is perhaps the most powerful indictment of how humans have treated their only home.

It says that while the Earth has always suffered from the actions of humans through history, over the past 50 years, these scratches have become deep scars.

The report has some advice that we can individually use to try to help, but it is clear that any global problem like this one can only be addressed through far more radical policy initiatives. It is also clear that the people who can best affect change are those who care the least to do so.

Defining ‘Free’ For All

Brent Simmons wrote a piece recently that I’ve been thinking about a lot:

In a way, it feels like iOS devices are rented, not owned. This is not a criticism: I’m totally fine with that. It’s appropriate for something so very mass-market and so very much built for a networked world.

But what about Macs?

Macs carry the flame for the revolution. They’re the computers we own, right? They’re the astounding, powerful machines that we get to master.

Except that lately, it feels more and more like we’re just renting Macs too, and they’re really Apple’s machines, not ours.

With every tightened screw we have less power than we had. And doing the things — unsanctioned, unplanned-for, often unwieldy and even unwise — that computers are so wonderful for becomes ever-harder.

I don’t mean to pick on Simmons here — I’m not picking on anyone, in fact. I’ve seen a similar sentiment expressed by lots of people lately; but, in particular, due to two recent triggers: Marzipan apps, and app notarization. So that’s been rattling around my head lately.

But I’ve also been thinking about a piece by John Gruber, written between the time the iPad was unveiled and when it was made available to buy:

If you could go back and show my 10-year-old self an iPad — millions of colors, video, photographs, gorgeous typography, a touchscreen interface, networking (wirelessly!) — and offered to let me write web apps for it in exchange for my agreeing never to touch an Apple II again, I’m pretty sure I know what the answer would be.

Something important and valuable is indeed being lost as Apple shifts to this model of computing. But it’s a trade-off, because something new that is important and valuable has been gained.

Change is uncomfortable, particularly when it involves a shift in the balance of power. The things that developers can do in MacOS today are, in some ways, more limited than what was possible thirty years ago. Restricting a developer’s access to memory, for example, has likely made computers more secure and more stable, but it would not be possible without shifting control away from developers. Over the same time period, developers have been able to do far more due to greater system capabilities and easier-to-use tools.

I have not kept secret my personal feelings about the four iOS apps Apple shipped with MacOS Mojave. They are poor Mac apps. I am, therefore, more than a little apprehensive about what lurks a month away at WWDC. But I, frankly, don’t give one thought to what technologies any app is built with so long as it behaves like a Mac app. Electron-based apps, clearly, do not; neither do the apps Adobe has shipped for the Mac since, like, always. But if Panic’s next version of the-app-formerly-known-as-Coda is built with the same underlying code base for Mac and iOS devices and it feels entirely native on both, who am I to complain?

What does this say about platform freedoms and capabilities in general? Will Apple one day require all third-party Mac apps to come from the Mac App Store; or, would they consider locking down the platform entirely? I think the doom and gloom thoughts are wildly off base.1

Do I know, for certain, that Apple isn’t going to massively fuck up MacOS through its own actions and what it encourages from third-party developers? Of course not. But I think there’s a whole world of developers out there who are eager to find out what they can do once MacOS 10.15 ships because, perhaps, those things were unnecessarily complex or out of their reach. Something about that is, in its own way, freeing.

  1. A separate but related consideration is Apple’s motivation for control. There are some people who, as I see it, consider Apple fetishistic about controlling their platforms for no other reason than for its own sake. I don’t buy that. I think there are specific motivations for when Apple tightens control over something, often with security and privacy in mind. Their effectiveness at doing so is debatable, but I don’t see it as control for control’s sake. ↥︎

Facebook to Shut Down Bonfire, Its Group Video Chat App ⇥ theverge.com

Casey Newton, the Verge:

Facebook is shutting down a clone of the group video chat app Houseparty, The Verge has learned. Bonfire, which Facebook began testing in the summer of 2017, will stop working sometime this month. The app began testing in Denmark in the fall of 2017, but it never came to the United States.

“In May we’ll be ending support for the Bonfire tests,” Facebook said in a statement. “We’ll incorporate elements of what we learned into other current and future products.”

Josh Constine:

Houseparty’s App Store rank declined #75 a year ago to #327-> it stopped being a threat -> Fb shuts down its clone Bonfire -> group video hangouts becomes just a feature of Insta/Messenger not a new app

Video chat for groups is arguably not enough of a unique feature on which to build an entire business. But Houseparty’s implementation of that is a little different, and I think Constine has the right instincts here: Facebook’s blatant copying is an easy way to bury their competition, and their ability to monitor the success of third-party apps — until recently, through its creepy VPN apps; now, they could conceivably do the same by monitoring the use of SDKs that connect to Facebook — has given the company a unique vantage point to spot what to copy next.

The Creation and Domination of Amazon Prime, as Told by Those Who Made It Happen ⇥ vox.com

Jason Del Rey of Vox — formerly Recode; I haven’t settled on an attribution format yet — interviewed a bunch of people involved in the creation and growth of Amazon Prime, and it’s a fascinating story. I found the following particularly compelling (Vijay Ravindran is the former director of ordering, and Julie Todaro is the former director of finance):

Ravindran: There was a separate set of angst for people on the business side. Shipping revenue was part of the profit margin when Amazon sold goods. If you’re a retail category manager being measured on contribution profit for the quarter, your goals are aligned against that. If only the very best customers at Amazon signed up for Prime and then they took full advantage of free two-day shipping and did not have to pay, then that was going to add up pretty quickly.

[…]

Todaro: But the lovely thing about Amazon is that it doesn’t panic and overreact in those moments. Jeff wasn’t surprised. He’s probably the smartest man in the world. So we sort of held firm and kept looking at the shopping behavior.

While it’s an unbelievably analytical company, it doesn’t live or die by what the numbers say. Jeff just saw the strategic benefit of Prime and he saw the value to customers.

Whereas, I think at some companies they would say, “Yep, customers are doing what we want, but it’s a little too expensive. So let’s kill it.”

There’s something about services that operate at the speed of Prime that is completely magical. It truly feels like a promise of the future: whatever you need, delivered in as little time as possible to your door. It is not without its problems — Del Rey cites a designer requiring 120-hour work weeks to meet Jeff Bezos’ deadline for the service, which is unconscionable. But a service like this is so good that I hope working conditions can be improved and antitrust concerns can be alleviated.

Above all, the thing that stands out most to me as captured in the above excerpt is how it’s entirely about how the service feels. It’s a long-term bet, and it sounds financially catastrophic on first blush, but I wish more companies with the ability to do so would aim for a similar feeling of doing the impossible — not just in shopping, but in everything they do.

As Apple Fights ‘Right to Repair’ Legislation, Internal Documents Show That the Company Is Capable of Fulfilling Its Goals In Part ⇥ motherboard.vice.com

As Apple lobbies against right to repair legislation in the United States and Canada — often with ludicrous arguments — internal documents leaked to Jason Koebler of Vice suggest that the company could make device repairs a lot better for customers:

According to the presentation, titled “Apple Genuine Parts Repair” and dated April 2018, the company has begun to give some repair companies access to Apple diagnostic software, a wide variety of genuine Apple repair parts, repair training, and notably places no restrictions on the types of repairs that independent companies are allowed to do. The presentation notes that repair companies can “keep doing what you’re doing, with … Apple genuine parts, reliable parts supply, and Apple process and training.”

This is, broadly speaking, what right to repair activists have been asking state legislators to require companies to offer for years.

Koebler’s characterization of these changes as “broadly speaking, what right to repair activists have been asking [for]” is overly generous. He’s really letting the word “broadly” take most of the weight in that sentence. The objectives of the organization that has spurred the right to repair discussion indicate that they would like equal access to repair tools, parts, and manuals for companies and end users alike. However, this presentation indicates that Apple is providing only a select group of Apple repair shops access to parts and information.

I find it frustrating that Apple — and others — are working so hard to kill legislation rather than trying to find a middle ground closer to what they’re already doing. There are certainly components in a highly-miniaturized device that would not be sensible for most users to repair or replace themselves — though I do think battery and screen replacements should be doable by customers. (And they are, by the way; I have done both for friends’ devices.) Of course, it is less freeing that so much of our computing these days is obfuscated and less welcoming to tinkering, but that may be a price we must pay to have devices that feel less like an assemblage of parts.

Still, I can see nothing but good for users in helping third parties get the right tools and parts to do these repairs. It makes sense that technicians should be trained and certified. Customers should be provided proof that can be verified with Apple that their repair was completed with genuine parts and to their specifications. But getting devices repaired should be as easy as possible for users. We rely on these products.

Giving an F ⇥ underconsideration.com

I don’t have many cohesive thoughts about Facebook’s redesign, but I do have one big question: where’s the Facebook blue? As much as UPS owns that one shade of brown, Facebook entirely owned #3c5a99. Nothing needs to last forever, but why did they get rid of what is almost certainly the most identifiable part of their identity?

Burning everything about their old identity is probably the point, of course, but Facebook is still Facebook.

Instagram and Facebook Ban InfoWars and Far-Right Extremists ⇥ theatlantic.com

Taylor Lorenz, the Atlantic:

In an effort to contain misinformation and extremism that have spread across the platforms, Instagram and its parent company, Facebook, have banned Alex Jones, Infowars, Milo Yiannopoulos, Paul Joseph Watson, Laura Loomer, and Paul Nehlen under their policies against dangerous individuals and organizations. They also banned the Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, who has repeatedly made anti-Semitic statements.

Infowars is subject to the strictest ban. Facebook and Instagram will remove any content containing Infowars videos, radio segments, or articles (unless the post is explicitly condemning the content), and Facebook will also remove any groups set up to share Infowars content and events promoting any of the banned extremist figures, according to a company spokesperson. (Twitter, YouTube, and Apple have also banned Jones and Infowars.)

I see Facebook has found some courage — great.

This isn’t a ban on people who have argued for lower taxes or fewer government social programs. This is a ban on people who have repeatedly and consistently advocated for violence against historically persecuted groups of people. There is no reason why any social media service should feel compelled to provide a platform for viral bigotry.

Deplatforming works.

Update: Rob Price of Business Insider has a good skeptical take on this embargoed announcement:

There’s nothing unusual about media outlets agreeing to be pre-briefed on important news under “embargo”: Tech companies regularly make use of embargoes to coordinate coverage for product launches and the like. (Business Insider often agrees to embargoes from Facebook about news, though we weren’t given a heads up on this story.)

But these pre-briefings typically involve the launch of new products or business initiatives, not enforcement actions.

Thursday’s incident raises the question of why, if Facebook believed the targeted figures were promoting “hate and violence,” it took the time to organize a public relations opportunity around the bans — rather than taking action immediately.

Server Maker Super Micro to Ditch ‘Made-in-China’ Parts ⇥ asia.nikkei.com

Cheng Ting-Fang and Lauly Li, Nikkei Asian Review:

Super Micro Computer, the California-based server maker at the heart of spy chip allegations last autumn, has told suppliers to move production out of China to address U.S. customers’ concerns about cyber espionage risks, according to industry sources familiar with the matter.

Super Micro, the world’s third-largest server maker by shipments after HP and Dell, has strongly denied allegations made last October that its Chinese made motherboards had been implanted with malignant chips to hack big tech customers such as Apple and Amazon. Independent testing showed no evidence of the claims made by Bloomberg Businessweek, the group has said.

Nevertheless, U.S. customers and especially government-related clients have asked Super Micro not to supply them with motherboards made in China because of security concerns, according to one company executive.

Decentralizing the world’s manufacturing is probably a net benefit, especially when it’s located within a totalitarian police state. It’s not a great idea for the world to base its economy and communications on a country with an appalling human rights record.

Nevertheless, it is worth reiterating that the Businessweek story that triggered this move has not been corroborated by any other news organization — even in part. Fear, uncertainty, and doubt are very powerful emotions, indeed.

Apple Is Learning to Really Sell ⇥ sixcolors.com

Jason Snell’s interpretation of Apple’s second quarter results is a must-read:

There was a time — a very long time, in fact — when Apple didn’t need to make much of an attempt to actually sell iPhones. I don’t want to imply that the act of creating new iPhone models and new versions of iOS wasn’t an enormous task — it was. My point is, after the phones arrived on the scene, people really wanted them. And Apple just needed to make as many as it could and make them available in Apple retail stores and other locations, and they’d fly off the shelves.

That era ended last fall. And as Apple CEO Tim Cook and CFO Luca Maestri made clear on Tuesday’s conference call with analysts as a part of reporting the company’s latest quarterly results, Apple is now turning around iPhone sales by being more active when it comes to selling those iPhones to customers.

It isn’t just the iPhone. Services — Apple’s other really big business — has grown in part because of how much Apple has been actively selling them to customers. Investors are loving this; I’m not sure users are enjoying this more aggressive sales effort, though.

Update: An acute correlating observation from Dr. Drang:

Apple stopped reporting unit sales last quarter, and I just don’t care as much about revenue as I do (did) about unit sales. I know they’re tied together, but the emphasis has been turned around. Unit sales are about what Apple is doing for us; revenue is about what we’re doing for Apple.

Unit sales may not be a wholly accurate metric by which to judge a new product; there are lots of reasons why sales may not go up even when the products are very good. But an increasing focus on sales of products raises questions in my head about this more forceful push.

Facebook Officially Announces Merger of Messaging Service Infrastructure ⇥ engadget.com

As rumoured earlier this year, Facebook will combine the chat infrastructure for Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp.

Nicole Lee, Engadget:

This interoperability is just one of many features of the new Messenger. All messages will also be end-to-end encrypted, which is part of Facebook’s recent privacy-focused mantra. Sharma said that the inter-app messaging will work similar to how people make calls on phones today. You don’t need to know if your friend is on Verizon or T-Mobile, you can just call them. It’ll be the same on any of Facebook’s messaging services — just say you’ll want to talk to your friend, and that message will get to him or her on whatever service they use.

How much of this is driven by pained users who just wish so bad that they could message a WhatsApp friend without leaving Instagram, and how much is this driven by a fear that Facebook could be required by antitrust regulators to split itself apart?

Coverage of Facebook’s F8 Conference ⇥ getrevue.co

Casey Newton:

This year, the company sought to break with that tradition. Nearly every speaker at today’s F8 keynote, starting with Mark Zuckerberg, repeated a version of the phrase “the future is private.” Since Zuckerberg announced Facebook’s pivot toward private messaging last month, I’ve argued that the move represents a fundamental transformation of the company. On Tuesday, Zuckerberg sought to convince the world — and skeptics inside his own company — that he’s serious.

Zuckerberg took the second piece of advice given by bad public speaking teachers and led with a joke.1

His whirlwind pivot to privacy still seems like horseshit to me. This is a company founded on the basis that users who trusted Zuckerberg were “dumb fucks”, and he has broadly proved that point during his entire tenure at a company that is fundamentally untrustworthy. But perhaps this is simply because I’m relying on the common definition of privacy, not Facebook’s.

Casey Johnston, the Outline:

[…] WhatsApp messages have always been end-to-end encrypted, and Zuckerberg noted they would stay that way. He emphasized several times that Facebook will not be able to see the content of this material, saying it was private “even from us” several times about several features, and emphasizing the words “safety” and “secure.”

But what his presentation elided was the fact that Facebook does not need to see the content of what people are saying in order to advertise to them. The metadata — who, or what (as in a business), you’re talking to, and even where you are or what time the conversation is taking place as it comes together with other pieces of information — provides more than enough information to make a very educated guess about what you’re interested in, to the point that knowing specifically what you are saying adds almost nothing.

I’ve argued before that the entire tech industry is often judged monolithically by the behaviour of its worst players. Apple has sought to differentiate itself on privacy, in part through a relatively recent ad campaign. There are lots of reasons for Facebook to pretend to care about privacy now, but I think Apple’s campaign may have spooked them a bit. And what better way to try to compete on the same plane by redefining a somewhat nebulous word like privacy?

  1. Tim Cook, of course, took the first piece of advice back in March and led with a dictionary definition. Smooth. ↥︎

Recode Is Now at Vox ⇥ vox.com

Ezra Klein and Kara Swisher, Vox:

Mark Zuckerberg is writing op-eds begging for regulation. President Donald Trump is summoning Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to Washington to ask why he’s losing followers. Sen. Elizabeth Warren launched her presidential campaign by calling on antitrust regulators to crack Amazon and Apple apart. The Mueller report detailed how Russia used social media platforms and malware to sow chaos in 2016. Journalism has been transformed by social platforms that are absorbing their advertisers and reshaping their audiences. Vicious attacks against Muslim mosques and Jewish synagogues found their beginnings in the dark alleyways of the internet.

The future of technology is a political story. The future of politics is a technological story. If we’re going to understand the changing world around us, the old coverage silos no longer make sense. And so we’re breaking them down. Recode and Vox are joining forces.

Maybe you feel like you’ve read this story before, and that’s because you kind of have — in a way. When Vox Media bought Recode in 2015, much of the latter’s team collaborated with the Verge, and some moved over entirely. Now, Recode is operating entirely under the Vox banner.