With more than 2 billion users, Facebook’s reach now rivals that of Christianity and exceeds that of Islam. However, the network’s laser focus on profits and user growth has come at the expense of its users, according to one former Facebook manager who is now speaking out against the social platform.
“One of the things that I saw consistently as part of my job was the company just continuously prioritized user growth and making money over protecting users,” the ex-manager, Sandy Parakilas, who worked at Facebook for 16 months, starting in 2011, told NBC News. During his tenure at Facebook, Parakilas led third-party advertising, privacy and policy compliance on Facebook’s app platform.
As Facebook transitioned from a Harvard dorm-room project into one of the world’s most valuable companies, its power grew in ways that founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg never could have anticipated.
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Facebook is a ‘living, breathing crime scene,’ says one former tech insider
North and South Korea agreed on Wednesday to march their athletes together under one flag at the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics next month and to field a joint women’s ice hockey team. It was the most dramatic gesture of reconciliation between them in a decade.
South Korea, host of the games, has said it hopes such a partnership in sports could contribute to a political thaw after years of high tensions. It came even as the prospect of war over the North’s nuclear and missile tests has grown especially acute.
The Games will begin on Feb. 9 in Pyeongchang, South Korea, and the women’s ice-hockey squad will be the first combined Korean team for the Olympics, and the first unified team since their athletes played together for an international table-tennis championship and a youth soccer tournament in 1991.
The two countries’ delegations will march at the opening ceremony behind a “unified Korea” flag that shows an undivided Korean Peninsula, negotiators from both sides said in a joint news release after talks at the border village of Panmunjom. The North will send 230 supporters to the Games, and negotiators agreed that supporters of both Koreas would root together for athletes from both countries.
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North and South Korean athletes marched together during the opening ceremony of the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy.CreditAmy Sancetta/Associated Press
A fresh layer of snow blanketed the ground on the night of Dec. 31, 1967, and revelers in Times Square and Central Park seemed to look to the future with some hope. “World Bids Adieu to a Violent Year” was the Jan. 1 headline in The New York Times.
But 1968 would be tumultuous, too.
Even from the distance of a half-century, the moment feels familiar. From January to December, people demonstrated against racial injustice and economic inequality. Abroad, the United States military slogged through a seemingly interminable war. And after two terms with a Democrat in the White House, a Republican presidential candidate campaigned on a promise of law and order, and won.
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An American lieutenant carried a wounded South Vietnamese Ranger to an ambulance in February 1968, during the Tet offensive.Dang Van Phuoc/Associated Press
‘I think we can call this the lowest day in Trump’s presidency … What he did was fulfill every description of him in the Michael Wolff book.’ — Even Ann Coulter is questioning Trump’s mental fitness.
Joan Blades and John Gable want you to make friends with people who vote differently than you do.A pair of political opposites, the two longtime pals know the value of engaging in honest conversations with people you don’t immediately agree with. Join them as they explain how to bridge the gaps in understanding between people on opposite sides of the political spectrum — and create opportunities for mutual listening and consideration (and, maybe, lasting friendships.)
The men packing the boat with rice, cigarettes and medicine had fled war and persecution in their home countries.
Now, at 1 a.m., off the coast of a remote island in Papua New Guinea, they were speeding back to the detention camp they hated.
Why, I asked, would they return to the prisonlike “refugee processing center” where they had been trapped for nearly five years?
“We have brothers to feed,” said Behnam Satah, 31, a Kurdish asylum seeker, as we cruised over moon-silvered waves on a hot November night. “We have brothers who need help.”
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Some holdouts struggle with anxiety and depression.
Less than a week into his term, President Trump has validated the concerns of #NeverTrumpers. His narcissistic temperament, impulsivity, reliance on family and ignorant cronies and own deliberate ignorance make governance an ordeal. The nuts and bolts of governance and early failures of his senior team in the West Wing, who lack any governing experience, deserve more attention. Let’s look at two missteps (aside from the bald-faced lies about crowd size and the millions Trump says voted illegally — assertions that leave us wondering whether he is mentally stable).
First, apparently after watching Bill O’Reilly on Fox, the leader of the free world tweeted out some statistics referenced by the gadfly and notorious purveyor of false information (here, here, here and here). The facts were wrong, and Trump added his own, bizarre vow: “If Chicago doesn’t fix the horrible ‘carnage’ going on, 228 shootings in 2017 with 42 killings (up 24% from 2016), I will send in the Feds!” The actual number is 37 killings — far too much — and the shootings, while too high, are on par with the previous year. (The Post reports: “According to a police department spokesman, there have been 38 killings through Tuesday night, up from 33 at the same point last year. Shootings were even, with 182 shootings through this date both years.”)
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Police detectives investigate at the scene of a fatal shooting last year in Chicago. (Joshua Lott/Getty Images)
Hillary Clinton on Friday called President Donald Trump’s reported remarks racist as she added her voice to the uproar after the president allegedly derided Haitians and referred to African nations as “shithole” countries in a discussion on immigration.
Civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga, went further: “I think the words and his actions tend to speak like one who knows something about being a racist. It must be in his DNA, in his makeup.”
He continued: “It’s frightening to have someone in the office of the president in 2018 speaking the way that he’s speaking. We’ve come too far, made too much progress to go back, to fan the flames of racism and bigotry.”
Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said Friday that he heard Trump repeatedly refer to African countries as “shitholes” at a meeting they both attended the day before.
Trump said “things which were hate-filled, vile and racist,” Durbin told reporters.
“The most disheartening thing to me is my belief that that was the first time words that hateful had been spoken in the Oval Office of the White House,” Durbin added. “I think back at presidents throughout history and I cannot imagine a moment where a president sunk to that depth. That’s what breaks my heart.”
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Durbin disputes Trump’s ‘shithole’ denial: ‘He said these hate-filled things’
All things considered, Botswana was as diplomatic as it could be.
Its government summoned the United States ambassador on Friday and asked him to “to clarify if Botswana is regarded as a ‘shithole’ country.”
They were not the only ones who were confused or disturbed by reports that President Trump had described Haiti and unspecified African nations as “shithole countries” during a meeting with senators on Thursday about immigration.
Mr. Trump appeared to deny on Friday that he had made the comment, but a senator, Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, was among several lawmakers present at the meeting who said that Mr. Trump had done so.
It would hardly be the first time that the president had made remarks about Africa that have come across as ill-informed or worse. In June, he said that Nigerians in the United States would never “go back to their huts” in Africa
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President Trump speaking to African leaders in September. His reported remarks on Thursday about some African countries appeared to put the State Department into damage-control mode.CreditBrendan Smialowski/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Film and Writing Festival for Comedy. Showcasing best of comedy short films at the FEEDBACK Film Festival. Plus, showcasing best of comedy novels, short stories, poems, screenplays (TV, short, feature) at the festival performed by professional actors.
Facebook is a ‘living, breathing crime scene,’ says one former tech insider
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James' World 2 