NewsBytes Briefing: Facebook develops concern for human rights, and more
Last time Apple feigned privacy concerns, that was revealed to be a ploy to ruin Facebook by going after its ad revenues. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg had responded by famously asking employees "to inflict pain" on Apple. Now, Facebook is concerned about human rights. Guess who extensively uses Uighur slave labor and lobbies Congress to turn a blind eye? Zuckerberg is preparing to inflict some pain after all.
Speaking of payback, Wikipedia is making Big Tech literally pay after letting them leech off its content for free. The lazy journalists' source for dubious information will require the likes of Google, Apple, and Amazon to pay for using its database for their AI assistants, among other things. The only problem is that Wikipedia will now find it hard to ask for donations.
This isn't a hyperbole. Facebook knows when 10-year-olds pretend to be thirteen in order to create Instagram accounts. And now it will use the power of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to keep these kids safe from pedophiles. But that begs the question. Why, in the name of all that is holy, is Facebook knowingly putting underage kids in a platform teeming with pedophiles?
When Indians revolted against the British, they divided us among communal lines. Google faced a similar revolt, with businesses and developers criticizing Play Store's 30 percent cut. Google channeled its inner East India Company by halving the billing fees for anyone making less than a million dollars. And now there's no one left to shed a tear for corporate fat cats such as Paytm.
Reams have been written on how Facebook destroyed an alarming number of small businesses by crippling their organic reach, which forced them to spend ever-increasing amounts of money in a futile attempt to reach their own followers. Now Facebook is planning to use the same ponzi scheme on journalists gullible enough to quit their day jobs to write newsletters on its upcoming Substack clone.
