James Farrell
Latest from James Farrell
Facebook announces upcoming content oversight board and how it will work
Facebook Inc.’s much-anticipated oversight board will get into action soon and its members will be announced in the “coming months,” the company said today. In a press release, Facebook said Thomas Hughes, a digital rights advocate and former executive director for the British human rights group Article 19, will become the director of oversight board ...
UK government introduces new rules for ‘internet of things’ devices
The U.K. government announced today that it will usher in new regulations for internet-enabled smart devices that can be used around the home. In a press release, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport said smart devices in the home, commonly called the “internet of things,” are on the rise but many of the connected ...
A political first for Seattle: voting by mobile phone
Residents of King County, Washington, which includes Seattle, will become the first people in the U.S. to be able to cast a vote by smartphone, it was announced Wednesday. It’s a modest start. The 1.2 million people in the area will be voting in the obscure King County Conservation District Board of Supervisors election, which will take ...
Facebook to expand in UK, hiring 1,000 new workers
Facebook Inc. will hire 1,000 new staff in the U.K., bringing its total number of staff there to 4,000, Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg announced today. Half the new roles will be focused in technology development, such as positions in software engineering and data science. The rest of the jobs will be positions in content ...
Uber sells its food delivery business in India to rival Zomato
Uber Technologies Inc. has sold its food delivery business in India in an all-stock transaction deal to local delivery outfit Zomato Media Pvt. Ltd. The deal, announced today, will mean that Uber now has a 9.99% stake in the Indian startup. All information from the Uber Eats app will be transferred to Zomato, including customer ...
Investigation shows Twitter allowed ‘neo-Nazi’ keyword to be used by advertisers
Twitter Inc. today issued an apology after an investigation revealed that it allowed keywords such as “neo-Nazi” and “white supremacist” to be used to target users on the platform. The results of the investigation were published today by the BBC, which said that other words such as “anti-gay” and “transphobic” could also become part of ...
Trump vents at Apple for not unlocking a criminal’s phone
President Donald Trump had some stern words for Apple Inc. Wednesday, when the leader let loose on Twitter about how the company doesn’t play ball. “We are helping Apple all of the time on TRADE and so many other issues, and yet they refuse to unlock phones used by killers, drug dealers and other violent ...
Study reveals Tinder, Grindr, other dating apps share user data with brokers
A new study has shown how popular dating apps such as Tinder, OK Cupid and Grindr are selling user data to third parties for advertising purposes. It’s not just dating apps, either. The same study also revealed how period tracking apps are also selling intimate information. The personal data bought by these brokers might reveal ...
US tells UK that using Huawei to build a 5G network would be ‘madness’
Security officials from the U.S. met with U.K. ministers on Monday and in no uncertain terms told them that Chinese tech behemoth Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. is not the right company to use to build its 5G infrastructure. The delegation that arrived in London had been put together by President Donald Trump and was led ...
Facebook won’t remove fictitious political ads but will let you see fewer of them
Despite ongoing criticism, Facebook Inc. said today that it will continue with its policy not to fact-check political ads on the run-up to the 2020 U.S presidential election. Late last year, the company was roundly criticized for this policy, something that was condemned inside the company as well as from outside. Nonetheless, Facebook said it would ...