FanFare

From a New York Times investigative reporter, this “authoritative and devastating account of the impacts of social media” (New York Times Book Review) tracks the high-stakes inside story of how Big Tech’s breakneck race to drive engagement—and profits—at all costs fractured the world. The Chaos Machine is “an essential book for our times” (Ezra Klein). [more inside]
posted by gentlyepigrams on Feb 15, 2023 - 2 comments

This week.... Facebook announces their company is now called "Meta." (MeFi). Congress is hammering out Biden's final spending plan. And Now: Once Again, Our Annual Look At What Happens When Local News And Halloween Collide. Main story: Homelessness (25 minutes), and how our institutions make a bad situation for a lot of people worse.
posted by JHarris on Nov 2, 2021 - 6 comments

This week.... Idaho's Lieutenant Governor issued an executive order forbidding vaccine mandates, even though the Governor is opposed it. It turns out OAN, which has been covered by the show before, owes a lot of its existence to AT&T, the same AT&T that's Last Week's Tonight's abdicating business-daddy, which John Oliver cuts them no slack over. And Now: "Fox & Friends'" Brian Kilmeade Likes Christopher Columbus Way, Way Too Much. Main story (YouTube, 20 minutes) : Misinformation as it spreads through immigrant diaspora communities, for although more than 90% of Facebook monthly users are outside the U.S. and Canada, only 13% of hours the company has spent on monitoring information is focused outside the U.S. LWT made some memeable pass-around videos to try to spread the word about not spreading misinformation on the internet, available at bettermorningmessages.com. [more inside]
posted by JHarris on Oct 11, 2021 - 3 comments

"The Great Hack," relives the 2016 presidential election by following the personal journeys of key players in the Cambridge Analytica/Facebook data scandal. David Carroll, a media professor who spends the film doggedly trying to retrieve his personal data from Cambridge Analytica. British journalist, Carole Cadwalladr, who exposes how Cambridge Analytica harvested data from more than 50 million Facebook users to create targeted ads for the Trump 2016 campaign. And Brittany Kaiser, the former director of business development at Cambridge Analytica, turned whistleblower
posted by growabrain on Jul 28, 2019 - 2 comments

Everyone hates grammar and ethics cops. Until they need one.
posted by the man of twists and turns on Jul 10, 2019 - 2 comments

An atheist's life is turned upside down when he is "friended" by God on Facebook. [more inside]
posted by numaner on Nov 8, 2018 - 16 comments

This episode aired on July 29:

• More Stupid Watergate, "Something with the potential gravity of Watergate, if the entire White House was on bath salts and Nixon was a raccoon with his head stuck in a jar of peanut butter." Revealed is that Cohen secretly taped interactions between him and Trump, and some of one of the tapes was leaked, relating them planning to keep a story about Trump's affair with Playboy Bunny Karen McDougal secret. Also, Cohen claims Trump knew in advance of the meeting with Russian representatives in Trump Tower. And, Mueller is looking into whether Trump's tweets constitute obstruction of justice.
• Facebook loses $119 billion dollars of value, 19% of its total valuation, overnight. That's more than the value of the entire global cheese market: Facebook's stock dropped by the concept of cheese. It's because of piracy issues, which they've apologized for via an ubiquitous ad. LWT provides one of their trademark more honest versions.
• Main story: Workplace sexual harassment. In the wake of a number of prominent male executives being brought down, it's looking like something may finally be done about it... except that the current situation shares a lot of things in common with the 90s, at which time everything was supposed to change, and then, didn't. The issue became national news with the testimony of Anita Hill before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
• The last act was a great interview with Anita Hill herself.

Both the main story and the interview are on the show's official Youtube channel. (29m) [more inside]
posted by JHarris on Aug 13, 2018 - 1 comment

Act 1: Firings, Facebook, and (Not-So-Fond) Farewells

Act 2: The History Of Women's Pain -- Part 1 | Part 2 (with Laurie Metcalf!)

Act 3: Iraq War: 15 Years Later

[more inside]
posted by numaner on Mar 22, 2018 - 0 comments

After Andrea is attacked by a stranger in Mexico City, she just wants to figure out who the guy was. Investigating this question drops her right into the middle of one of Mexico's biggest conspiracies.
posted by latkes on Dec 18, 2017 - 12 comments

After landing a dream job at a powerful tech company called The Circle, a woman wrestles with whether the firm's 24/7/365 connectivity agenda represents a brave new world in which "Knowing is good, but knowing everything is better" or a horrifying breach of individual autonomy and privacy.
posted by carmicha on May 3, 2017 - 5 comments

Everybody has that one Facebook friend who just won't stop posting their political opinions. This week, we talk to one of those Facebook friends, someone whose opinions got her into an enormous mess. [more inside]
posted by radioamy on Dec 3, 2015 - 5 comments

Thomas Oscar is an Australian teenager who tried to make the most boring Facebook group possible - a group where members pretend to be corporate drones in a non-existant office.
posted by Tevin on Jun 24, 2015 - 14 comments

How a tiny group of social engineers are making our online relationships kindler and gentler, whether we like it or not. [more inside]
posted by jazon on Feb 10, 2015 - 1 comment

A chef who loses his restaurant job starts up a food truck in an effort to reclaim his creative promise, while piecing back together his estranged family.
posted by mathowie on Nov 2, 2014 - 15 comments

Eliza attempts to teach Henry "facebookery", while trying to turn a booty call into a dating relationship. [more inside]
posted by Margalo Epps on Oct 8, 2014 - 5 comments