Business, Spoken

Last year Jillian York, a free expression activist, was temporarily booted off Facebook for sharing partially nude images. The offending photos were part of a German breast cancer awareness campaign which featured, well, breasts. Facebook flagged the post as a violation of its Community Standards, which strictly prohibits most types of female nudity. Though the account suspension lasted only 24 hours, it had a powerful impact on York’s ability to get things done. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Amid ongoing concern over the role of disinformation in the 2016 election, Facebook said Wednesday it found that more than 5,000 ads, costing more than $150,000, had been placed on its network between June 2015 and May 2017 from "inauthentic accounts" and Pages, likely from Russia. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The co-chair of the New America Foundation told staffers Wednesday that neither Google nor its executive chairman Eric Schmidt---both donors to the think tank---played a role in the recent ouster from the foundation of an antitrust scholar who had been critical of Google. “Neither Google nor Eric Schmidt attempted to interfere” with criticism of Google by the researcher, co-chair Jonathan Soros wrote in a letter to New America staff and fellows. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Over the past few months, as the Federal Communications Commission has moved closer to weakening net neutrality protections, countless tech companies have signaled their support for a strong and open internet. The lone voice missing through the debate: Apple. Yesterday, the final day to comment on the FCC's current net neutrality proceedings, the company finally broke its silence with a comment filed in support of strong rules to protect the open internet. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

This past April, the Federal Communications Commission invited the American people to weigh in on whether the federal government should roll back the rules currently in place to protect net neutrality. By the time the online comment submission period ended last Wednesday, the agency had collected 21.9 million comments, an astounding level of participation on what at first glance appears to be a rather esoteric telecommunications policy issue. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Among its peers, Google is an unparalleled lobbyist. Between April and June of this year, Google spent $5.4 million lobbying the federal government, more than double the lobbying budget for Apple, a comparable global behemoth that also has to fend off regulatory scrutiny. The tech giant has also long funded a lengthy roster of think tanks, academics, and nonprofits that grapple with issues that could seriously impact Google’s bottom line, such as privacy, net neutrality, and tax reform. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

How fast is a broadband internet connection? That question is at the heart of a controversy at the Federal Communications Commission. After a study about connection speeds in the US last year, the FCC decided that too few people had access to high speed internet. But that conclusion never sat right with the commission's Republicans, who argued that the agency set too high a bar in deciding what counts as broadband. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

When Google and Microsoft boast of their deep investments in artificial intelligence and machine learning, they highlight flashy ideas like unbeatable Go players and sociable chatbots. They talk less often about one of the most profitable, and more mundane, uses for recent improvements in machine learning: boosting ad revenue. AI-powered moonshots like driverless cars and relatable robots will doubtless be lucrative when—or if—they hit the market. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Microsoft said last week that it had achieved a new record for the accuracy of software that transcribes speech. Its system missed just one in 20 words on a standard collection of phone call recordings—matching humans given the same challenge. The result is the latest in a string of recent findings that some view as proof that advances in artificial intelligence are accelerating, threatening to upend the economy. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The damage done by Hurricane Harvey is, as the National Weather Service, tweeted ominously over the weekend, “unknown & beyond anything experienced.” Rain continues to fall over the water-soaked region of Southeast Texas where the category 4 hurricane made landfall Friday night. It’s a living nightmare already drawing comparisons to Hurricane Katrina. One comparison offers a glimmer of hope amid the devastation: Communications networks have held much better. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices