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Jul. 23, 2021 09:30AM EST
Olympics greet visitors with app chaos
In the days leading up to the Tokyo Games, journalists had two big concerns — whether the Olympics would really happen, and if they would ever get access to all the mobile apps and websites required to get into the country and do their jobs.
Why it matters: Battling COVID-19 is crucial, of course. But most of the challenges faced by media and other Olympics participants were technical obstacles that had little to do with preventing the virus' spread.
With the Games taking place amid a state of emergency in Japan, strict testing requirements were inevitable.
- Attendees had to submit their flight information, as well as an activity plan listing everywhere they planned to go for their first 14 days in Japan. Participants also had to take multiple COVID tests before departing for Japan, and another as soon as they landed — as well as to monitor their health and alert authorities to any symptoms.
- Yes, but: Complying meant not only gathering the necessary information, but also uploading each piece of information to a different app or website — on the order of half a dozen. And that's where things went wrong for myself and nearly everyone I talked with before and after entering Japan.
- Yet another system, this one a web app, is required for journalists to apply for access to the events they wanted to cover each day — part of an effort to avoid overcrowding. Access to that system, though, was granted only after participants landed, made it through the immigration process and had their Olympic credentials validated. That wasn't clear up front, adding a fresh hassle to the process.
Between the lines: The logistical nightmares were the talk of the pre-games for journalists, many of whom were held up at one of Tokyo's airports because they were unable to put all the pieces of this puzzle in place.
- I received a query from a Spanish journalist who was also doing an article on the process. Among his questions was: "Have you suffered anxiety, nerves or anguish in this process?"
What they're saying: Organizers acknowledged the problems in an email to reporters.
- "We know that there has been a lot of pressure and stress involved in the preparation and travel coming here to Tokyo/Japan and we deeply apologize for the difficulties you have experienced on arrival," they said.
The big picture: The real issue of course, is stopping the spread of COVID-19, not navigating through the bureaucracy.
- The Olympic protocols focus on testing and contact tracing, rather than vaccination. But the focus for journalists and authorities alike became making sure all the right boxes were checked rather than practicing actual safety measures, such as social distancing.
- Testing, which should be central, was barely mentioned, though journalists are supposed to be tested for their first three days in Japan and every few days thereafter. None of the apps asked for reporting of test results — rather, they asked participants to enter their temperature and self-certify that they were symptom free and not in contact with someone known to have COVID.
- Communication issues exacerbated glitches with the apps themselves. And since problems were so widespread, support staff were clearly unable to respond to everyone.
The other side: Some systems worked relatively smoothly, including a web app designed to help people navigate the system of buses established so that media could comply with a requirement to avoid public transit for the first 14 days in Japan.
The bottom line: For many, the technical issues got resolved, though I ran into one journalist at the entrance to the main press center berating a volunteer because there was no one on site to answer questions, with a sign simply directing people to e-mail or call the same folks who had been unresponsive before.
Technology was necessary, but insufficient, to make the games safe. And the many tech snafus diverted the energy of organizers and visitors alike from what should have been their focus: the physical actions, like testing and social distancing, needed to reduce the risk of infection.
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Jul. 15, 2021 10:00AM EST
Data transparency debate around Facebook's CrowdTangle tool
Only Facebook knows for sure what's popular on its platform at any given moment. The rest of us, viewing our individual feeds and seeing only how our own posts fare, are left to guess.
Facebook could change that by giving the world real-time windows onto the social network. But it has long resisted doing so — and new reports suggest it's afraid greater transparency will just make it look bad.
Driving the news: A New York Times column by Kevin Roose describes a debate inside the company over whether to expand CrowdTangle, a tool Facebook offers that provides data on posts' performance.
- Roose had long used CrowdTangle, a startup Facebook acquired in 2016, to compile regular Top 10 lists of Facebook posts and share them on Twitter. The lists are almost always dominated by right-wing authors and news outlets.
- CrowdTangle measures only posts' engagement — whether people click on or react to them. Facebook regularly criticized Roose's posts by saying that more accurate lists could be compiled by looking at reach — how many people actually see a post.
- One problem: Reach data is only available to Facebook's own staff.
The upshot: Advocates of sharing reach data with the public lost the debate inside Facebook, Roose reports, and now the company is splitting up the CrowdTangle team.
- Current and former employees told Roose that "Facebook’s executives were more worried about fixing the perception that Facebook was amplifying harmful content than figuring out whether it actually was amplifying harmful content."
Why it matters: Facebook content shapes much of popular political opinion in the U.S. and globally. That has turned the social network into the information battlefield of our time — but it's shrouded by the fog of war, and only Facebook can change that.
Yes, but: Whatever controversies Facebook's transparency efforts provoke, Facebook still offers more engagement data than rivals like YouTube and TikTok provide.
- Facebook continues to make CrowdTangle available and says CrowdTangle's reorganization is aimed at improving it.
- "The entire point was to better integrate CrowdTangle into the product team focused on transparency," Facebook spokesperson Joe Osborne said in a statement.
Between the lines: Roose's portrait of a Facebook leadership more focused on protecting its image than sharing the truth found echoes in the publication last week of "The Ugly Truth," a critical book about the company by two other New York Times reporters.
- According to "The Ugly Truth," during the crisis within Facebook following revelations of Russian meddling in the 2016 election, top executives took a "blame the messenger" approach when they learned that an investigation by their security head had been tracking Russian-sponsored misinformation.
The big picture: "Transparency" is an oft-stated aim for Facebook, but, like most large corporations, the social network wants to retain the ability to choose and shape the stories its data tells the world.
- Facebook's reluctance to publicize reach data, like Google's resistance to revealing details of its search algorithm formula, may also stem from fears that more the public knows about how its platform works, the easier it is for bad actors to game it.
- Facebook also has a record of conflict and delays in efforts to provide academic researchers with data.
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Jun. 01, 2021 09:00AM EST
Facebook says U.S. is the top target of disinformation campaigns
Data: Facebook; Chart: Axios Visuals
Of the 150 disinformation campaigns that Facebook has caught and removed in the past four years, the U.S. has been the most frequent target by far, according to a new threat intelligence report from Facebook.
Why it matters: While most of the campaigns targeting the U.S. have originated abroad, Facebook found that a significant number of campaigns targeting people in the U.S. have originated from inside the U.S.
- "I think it's significant that while we saw a lot of foreign targeting of the U.S. ahead of 2020 election, there was also a lot of domestic targeting," says Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook's head of security policy.
- One campaign the company points to was the network operated by a U.S. based marketing firm, working on behalf of its clients, including a pro-Trump organization.
By the numbers: In total, the company said there were 16 takedowns of coordinated inauthentic behavior networks, or disinformation campaigns, ahead of the 2020 elections.
- Of those 16 networks, five originated in Russia, five originated in Iran, and five originated in the the U.S. One originated in China.
Be smart: Not all networks caught were attributed to individuals or organizations tied to governments, but a few targeting the U.S. ahead of the 2020 election were attributed to Russia and Iran.
- Facebook said it saw its first-ever "perception hack" stem from Iran last year, in which Iran-based actors use social media to create the false perception that they’ve pulled off major hacks of electoral systems.
Between the lines: Gleicher said the U.S. is uncovering more of these attempts thanks to a robust civic infrastructure, including cyber firms and academics in place to find and stop these types of interferences.
- He notes that other countries that are often targeted with disinformation campaigns also tend to have strong communities trying to police this type of activity, including Ukraine and UK.
- Countries that are experiencing high levels of civil unrest, like Myanmar, have also seen numerous examples of networks that originate in the same country of the people they are targeting.
The big picture: The findings from its most recent threat report show that online information warfare has become a common and pervasive tactic for political actors, and sometimes governments, to target both foreign adversaries and their own people.
- Overall, Gleicher says Facebook has gotten better at uncovering and stopping more campaigns over the past few years. "The sophistication tends to get smaller," he said. "We're catching more, smaller operations."
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May. 20, 2021 05:55PM EST
Snap says it now has 500 million monthly active users
Snapchat on Thursday debuted a slew of new products and user metrics for things like games and augmented reality lenses that have been built using Snapchat's developer tools.
Why it matters: It's an important milestone in Snapchat's transformation from a social network to a camera company that caters to developers.
By the numbers: Speaking to an audience of hundreds of thousands of developers and partners virtually at Snap's third annual Snap Partner Summit, Snap provided user metrics for several of its developer products, showing growth in areas like augmented reality, gaming and short-form video creation.
- 250,000 developers are registered to use Snap's developer tools, "Snap Kit," which helps developers build and distribute augmented reality lenses.
- 200 million people use Bitmoji stickers every day. (Bitmojis are personalized cartoon stickers made by a company Snap bought years ago.)
- 1 billion Bitmojisare sent per day. More than 34 million Bitmoji stickers are available to developers in a new "Bitmoji Developer Kit," that allows developers to insert Bitmoji stickers into their keyboards for their own apps.
- Nearly 30 million Snapchat users play games on the app per month. Snapchat's first game ever "Aqua park," has reached 45 million players to-date.
- More than 250 million people uses Snapchat's "Snap Map" monthly. The company now has more than 30 million businesses on the map. Moving forward, it plans integrate more business, stores and universities onto the map.
- More than 135 million people use Snapchat's TikTok rival feature "Spotlight." Over 5,400 creators have collectively earned more than $130 million dollars from payouts Snapchat has awarded to viral video makers. Snapchat will add "tipping" for creators later this year.
- Nearly 2 million augmented reality lenses have been created by Snapchat users using Snap's developer tools. Those lenses have been viewed by Snapchat users more than 2 trillion times.
The big picture: Snapchat's push to become a developer platform began three years ago, when the company first launched its developer tool kit for engineers around the world.
- The move has fundamentally changed Snapchat's business, allowing for much deeper engagement with its core products, like its map, video shows and messaging features, as well as new opportunities for revenue.
- Today, CEO Evan Spiegel says there are over 500 million monthly active users on Snapchat. About 40% of Snap's users now come from areas outside of North America and Europe, a testament to the company's ability to successfully redesign its app for Android, a feat given early failures to woo users.
What to watch: Moving forward, Snapchat says it wants to use the tools it's designed to help its users get creative to address societal issues that align with its mission.
- For example, the company debuted its efforts to make its camera more inclusive to capture a wider range of different skin tones.
- It also introduced a new partnership with re:wild and the National Parks Service to use augmented reality visualizations to help restoration efforts in areas devastated wildfires in Southern California.
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