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  2. June 2017

June 2017

How Silicon Valley discovered the rest of America

Snap-happy tourists have long posed next to the billboard-sized “Like” sign outside Facebook’s headquarters, in awe of seeing the real-life company behind the app. But it has taken until 2017 — and a political situation the tech industry sees as a crisis — to get Silicon Valley truly interested in the real lives of its users.

So...what apps did people describe as their friend? Amazon, Uber and — a big surprise — the Bible. The Bible app allows users to choose their preferred version, bookmark key passages and sign up for daily quotes. An instant-access Bible may be the only on-demand app that Silicon Valley failed to dream up. It was created by religious organisation Life.Church, which has locations all over the south and is now on 250 million devices worldwide.

Public Interest Tech Team at New America Welcomes First Class of Fellows

New America announces its first class of Public Interest Technology Fellows. Fellows will come to New America from across private and public-sector organizations, including Facebook, Google, and the United States Digital Service at the White House. Together, they will work to influence demand for technology expertise among public interest organizations by building concrete examples that show the transformative impact of bringing technologists onto their teams. The goal of the initiative is to build a long-term, robust infrastructure that allows advocates, service providers, and leaders to harness the power of technology in serving communities.

A tale of two networks: How Fox News and CNN handled recent retractions

In recent months, both CNN and Fox have retracted stories on their websites regarding particularly high-profile topics on the left and right, respectively. Both sites issued similar excuses: A breakdown in normal editorial standards that led to something being published that shouldn’t have been. Yet in most other ways, the two cases are a study in opposites.

CNN, on one hand, retracted its story within a day and issued an apology. The network immediately carried out an internal investigation. Three employees resigned. Those that remained were told that any future stories on the topic would need to be vetted by two top executives before publishing. Fox, on the other hand, took a week to retract the story, though it was debunked by other news outlets within hours. Little news of an investigation within the network emerged. No on-air apology was issued, despite a week of speculative coverage on the cable network. No employees resigned. And one of the network’s stars — Sean Hannity — continues to promote the conspiracy theory to this day.

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