The Daily Crunch 11/11/16 Trump's already contradicting himself online, and Facebook's wrestling with the implications of its influence. Meanwhile it's a huge day for shopping – in China. That and more in the Daily Crunch for November 11, 2016. 1. Trump tweets opposing viewpoints 12 hours apart In typical Trump form, the guy tweeted yesterday that protests opposing his victory were "Very unfair" and "incited by the media," as well as involving "professional protesters" (wonder what the benefits are like for that career?) but then this morning in a second tweet seemed to have come around. Either there's a rift within the Donald or between him and his team, and either way it's absolutely not presidential behavior. 2. Facebook contradicts itself, too People are pointing at Facebook as a possible source of some of the confusion around the election results, since it tends to favor showing stories a reader is likely to agree with, even if said stories are fake. The company admitted it has to do more to stop the spread of viral fake content passing itself off as fact, but then Mark Zuckerberg also shared a post in which he called the notion that the propagation of fake stories impacted the election results "a pretty crazy idea." People love being told they're crazy when they're justifiably angry about your product, Mark. 3. Meanwhile Facebook's ad targeting gets a little less race-based Facebook's also in the news for removing some of its advertiser tools that let brands target audiences who show a certain "ethnic affinity," or preference for "content relating to particular ethnic communities." The social network got called out for these practices, as they enable discriminatory advertising in areas including housing and employment where advertising on these grounds is illegal. FB is still allowing use of this type of advertising targeting in other areas, however, but will also take more initiative in terms of teaching advertisers what does and doesn't constitute discriminatory advertising. 4. Android's fragmentation problem is bad as ever More Android devices are using Gingerbread than Nougat, the latest version of its OS, which is very telling. That's why it's great news that Google is taking matters more into its own hands with the Pixel – hopefully in a few years' time Google's own hardware will have a big enough piece of the pie that the current version of the OS actually achieves a majority stake of Android in the same year it's released. 5. Singles' Day shopping hits another record It's the most wonderful manufactured holiday of the year in China, and Alibaba is celebrating because it just broke another sales record. 11/11 is Singles' Day, a holiday create by Alibaba where shoppers can expect big discounts online, and growth was huge even as some feared it might not be able to keep pace. 6. Grubhub CEO didn't target Trump voters, but did ask whose who shared his stated values to resign Headlines yesterday put Grubhub CEO as one of the most vocally aggressive Trump opponents in tech, but Matt Maloney has since clarified that all he did was push out a memo saying that if employees who aren't interested in equality and dignity for all should resign. The sentiment is still admirable, and still represents troubling Trump fallout – a chorus of tech leaders having to affirm a commitment to basic human decency as the result of the election of a U.S. president. 7. What using Snapchat's news Specs is like What's it like to see the world through Snapchat-tinted glasses? Like not using any kind of social at all, apparently. Early impressions indicate that using them is so easy they virtually melt away, leaving you to directly experience the world around you. Which sounds pretty great, actually. |
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