Facebook

"Facebook: a threat and an opportunity" is the name of the latest instalment of May First/People Link's audio interviews and discussions, as part of the Need to Know project.

This story’s about many things: the power that data gives to data companies like Facebook; the potential that it gives those companies and others to influence opinion; the impact of new media on old, on politics and populism.

I don’t have a Facebook profile.  People ask me why I don’t.  After all, it seems, this puts me in the minority among users of the Internet worldwide.  Answering this question’s made me consider my relationship with social media, and social media’s relationship with our society.  

In late May the Guardian released the Facebook Files, leaked internal documents revealing how the company moderates content. Although Facebook has made some improvements, these documents confirm that it's often one step forward, one step back, as the platform continues to censor women's agency, especially women of colour and especially in relation to activism, while letting harassment flou...

When you receive calls at all hours from women desperate to get intimate photos shared without consent taken offline, it's a relief to hear about Facebook's latest move to address the distribution of non-consensual intimate images. Finally! 

Each week David Souter comments on an important issue for APC members and others concerned about the Information Society. This week's blog post comments on Mark Zuckerberg says in his recent online "manifesto".

A couple of weeks ago, Mark Zuckerberg posted a manifesto on his Facebook page. In it, he addressed some of the challenges he sees facing Facebook and its peers.

  Time and again, Facebook proves to be that Uncle who keeps telling you your skirt is too short, but keeps a stack of highly sexualized and objectifying images of women in his folder. Facebook and I have had a difficult relationship when it came to women’s bodies.