Down the rabbit hole: how QAnon conspiracies thrive on Facebook
A dive into the network of groups on Facebook linked to QAnon promoting a dizzying range of conspiracy theories.
The Golden Age of YouTube is Over
A piece examining a widening rift between YouTube creators and a platform pivoting away from user generated content.
How a 119-Word Local Crime Brief Became Facebook’s Most-Shared Story of 2019
A local news story that became an unexpected viral hit is used as a way to examine the algorithm that influences what people see on Facebook, a place where many people (43% of American adults per the Pew Research Center) continue to get their news.
Facebook’s Crisis Management Algorithm Runs on Outrage
Bloomberg’s cover story provides their take on Facebook’s apology cycles.
Why Some Platforms Thrive and Others Don’t
An analysis of the factors that make marketplace businesses work, and what makes them fail, comparing leading examples such as AirBnB, Uber, Alibaba, and Didi.
The Lost Civilization of Dial-Up Bulletin Board Systems
The author revisits the lost world of Bulletin Board Systems, and finds himself “strolling through a community frozen in time, Pompeii-style.” He finds discussions perfectly preserved, and in some cases maintained, since their heyday as an intimate precursor to the internet in the 1980s and 1990s.
You Are the Product
John Lanchester reviews three books on social media, the war for attention, and Silicon Valley giants. His conclusion? “I am scared of Facebook”.
Welcome to the Dark Net
A poacher turned gamekeeper hacker acts as a guide to the clandestine world of the dark net, a home for all sorts of illegal trade.
The Hills Have I.P.s
A issue with the internet’s mechanism for identifying device locations led to millions of devices being incorrectly located in an American couple’s front garden. A funny glitch surely? Perhaps, until the FBI show up.
The story of the internet, as told by Know Your Meme
Tales from the front line of meme documentation. As the Editor of Know Your Meme puts it, the internet is “kind of the anti-Bible. You learn everything terrible about human beings.”