Automates trending news
Facebook changes its trending news feature to an automated solution, which the company says will eliminate bias caused by human curation.
Our goal is to enable Trending for as many people as possible, which would be hard to do if we relied solely on summarizing topics by hand. A more algorithmically driven process allows us to scale Trending to cover more topics and make it available to more people globally over time. This is something we always hoped to do but we are making these changes sooner given the feedback we got from the Facebook community earlier this year. the potential for bias, the Company says it will no longer rely on editors to write descriptions for the topics and would instead show users the topic and how many people are discussing it.
WhatsApp, Facebook to share data
Facebook announces that WhatsApp will start sharing users phone numbers with Facebook. The company says the change will allow for more relevant advertisements and friend recommendations. It is WhatsApp’s first update to its privacy policy since it was acquired by Facebook. WhatsApp will also explore ways for businesses to send messages using its platform over the next several months.
Photo doodling
Facebook launches a feature for its photo-editing suite of tools that gives you the ability to scribble right on a photo before publishing it to the social network.
Developing dislike button
Zuckerberg says Facebook will roll out a button that lets users dislike comments and posts.
I think people have asked about the dislike button for many years. Today is a special day because today is the day I can say we’re working on it and shipping it.
Zuckerberg said the initial interface for Facebook didn’t allow for a dislike button because he didn’t want it to become a Reddit-like forum where posts and comments get upvoted and downvoted.
That isn’t what we’re here to build in the world. What they really want is the ability to express empathy. Not every moment is a good moment.
Expands Internet.org
Facebook expands the free basic mobile internet service, saying it will help billions of people without internet, mostly from Latin America, Asia, and Africa. It now allows any mobile operator to develop under the platform. The service has brought over 9 million people online over the past year with more than half of the users end up paying to access the wider web within 30 days. Source:
This is really a customer acquisition tool for mobile operators where the benefit to them of offering a very light amount of free data is to bring on more paying subscribers to their networks.
Tests online stores
Facebook is testing a feature that allows some small and medium businesses to sell products through their pages. Users can browse products on the company Facebook profile pages and either buy directly from their facebook page or be redirected to the company’s website. The feature is being tried in both mobile and desktop sites.
Valued at $250 billion
Facebook is valued at over $250 billion just three years after its IPO, the fastest company to reach that benchmark in Standard & Poor’s 500 Index. It is now the ninth largest company in the S&P 500.
Friendlier News Feed
Facebook announce three changes to the content that is displayed in users news feed. The changes will increase the amount of content from close friends in users feed.
The first is improving the experience for people who don’t have a lot of content available to see. Previously, we had rules in place to prevent you from seeing multiple posts from the same source in a row. With this update, we are relaxing this rule…The second update tries to ensure that content posted directly by the friends you care about, such as photos, videos, status updates or links, will be higher up in News Feed so you are less likely to miss it. If you like to read news or interact with posts from pages you care about, you will still see that content in News Feed…Lastly, many people have told us they don’t enjoy seeing stories about their friends liking or commenting on a post. This update will make these stories appear lower down in News Feed or not at all, so you are more likely to see the stuff you care about directly from friends and the pages you have liked.
Curbs hate speech, terror support, nudity
The Company says it will take down “graphic images when they are shared for sadistic pleasure or to celebrate or glorify violence,” and that it will not tolerate “supporting or praising leaders [criminal or terrorist] organizations, or condoning their violent activities.”
Nudity will banned except for images of breastfeeding, art or discussions of medical conditions:
These standards are designed to create an environment where people feel motivated and empowered to treat each other with empathy and respect.
Buys security start-up
In an effort to protect the site from cyber attacks, Facebook purchases PrivateCore, a company that builds security software. Joe Sullivan, Facebook’s chief security officer, says PrivateCore’s technology:
protects servers from persistent malware, unauthorized physical access, and malicious hardware devices.
Based in Palo Alto, CA, the company was started in 2012 by security experts from Google and VMware. PrivateCore CEO Oded Horovitz says the deal gives both companies “a huge opportunity to pursue our joint vision at scale with incredible impact.” Neither company discloses the purchase price.
Sandberg: No study apology
Facebook is not apologizing for performing a psychological study on nearly 690,000 of its users in 2012. Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg explains:
This was part of ongoing research companies do to test different products, and that was what it was. It was poorly communicated. And for that communication we apologize. We never meant to upset you. We clearly communicated really badly about this, and that we really regret.
Manipulated news feeds
In January 2012, for one week, Facebook manipulated the news feeds of more than a half a million users to see how postings that were being shown in the news feed effects the types of posts the users themselves would post after viewing them. The results were published this month in the academic journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. The findings show users who saw more negative content were more likely to create their own negative posts. Users who viewed more positive content were more likely to create positive posts. In response to the many upset users of the site, Facebook Data Scientist, Adam Kramer:
The goal of all of our research at Facebook is to learn how to provide a better service. Having written and designed this experiment myself, I can tell you that our goal was never to upset anyone.
Company diversity report
Facebook’s first diversity report states most of their workers are white males. The report reveals that 69% of Facebook’s global staffers are male and 85% of the company’s tech workers and 77% of its management team, are also men. The company’s U.S. workforce is 57% white, 34% Asian, 4% Hispanic and 2% black. Maxine Williams, Facebook’s global head of diversity:
As these numbers show, we have more work to do — a lot more.