TPR Newsletter No. 5
Thoughts on remote work, Facebook takes action on trolls, Twitter eyeing new service, Uber latest acquisitions, and The Trust Barometer.
My Article
Covid-19 is accelerating some work trends. On that note, I wrote a piece for the Forbes Technology Council about how we are moving from siloed organizations to teams composed of distributed individuals. >> Link
Tech
Facebook is becoming a regular on this newsletter. Unfortunately, the tech giant continues to make new for the wrong reasons. This week news came out of an internal audit the company made that found the company has been slow to adopt changes to protect users from discrimination and harassment. On a brighter side, the company is taking some action by removing accounts engaged in coordinated inauthentic behavior focusing on several Latin American countries and influencing political topics in the region. This is a step in the right direction, but Facebook's problems are from over. Here are a few articles that tackle these issues.
Facebook takes down inauthentic assets targeting multiple Latin American elections. >> Link
An Audit Slams Facebook as a Home for Misinformation and Hate >> Link
Zuckerberg Never Fails to Disappoint >> Link
Twitter is eyeing a subscription service, and it's stock when up as a result. Rumors about this feature started thanks to this job post. As you can see in the description, the full-stack engineer position is for a new team with the codename Gryphon and goes on to say, "We are building a subscription platform, one that can be reused by other teams in the future." >> Link
Uber is doubling down on its acquisitions to diversify its service offering.
Back in October of 2019, the company acquired the grocery delivery company Cornershop. This week the company announced it had begun rolling out a grocery delivery service in a few Latin American and Canadian cities, with plans to launch in Miami and Dallas "later this month." But, most importantly, it made the news for its acquisition of Postmates in an all-stock $2.6 billion deal. >> Link
Economics
Contrarian take on AI and employment automation by Cory Doctorow, Full Employment >> Link
Data
Trust in technology seems to hold steady within the last eight years.
However, there is an increasing distrust in the quality of information people receives.
See the full report here.
Interesting Stuff
All the Ways Google Tracks You—And How to Stop It >> Link
IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle. >> Link
Quote of the week
Think of those who, not by fault of inconsistency but by lack of effort, are too unstable to live as they wish, but only live as they have begun - SENECA.