1. Monthly archive
  2. July 2018

July 2018

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Directed Ads to Americans

A broadcasting organization backed by the federal government has used Facebook to target ads at United States citizens, in potential violation of longstanding laws meant to protect Americans from domestic propaganda. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which typically broadcasts to audiences in Europe, Asia and the Middle East, bought several ads on Facebook in recent days that were targeted at users in the United States. The ads included several human-interest stories about Russia and a graphic about NATO’s popularity.

President Trump says ‘I told you so!’ after Europe fines Google $5 billion

President Donald Trump attacked the European Union for fining Google $5 billion for harming its competitors, tweeting that the incident proved the regional bloc has “taken advantage of the U.S., but not for long!” To President Trump, the fine appeared to serve as the latest evidence of Europe’s exploitation of the United States on a variety of matters, including trade and nations’ contributions to defense spending, and it came a day after he threatened “tremendous retribution,” particularly on European-made cars, if the EU doesn’t change its trade policies. The EU’s penalty stood in stark c

Comcast Pulls Offer for Fox Assets, Ending Bidding War With Disney

The cable and broadband giant Comcast said it was abandoning its bid to acquire a major chunk of 21st Century Fox but would continue its push to win control of the British satellite broadcaster Sky, a move that appeared to end a complex bidding war for Rupert Murdoch’s media company.

Media — both on the left and right — are pressing Facebook to define what journalism is

BuzzFeed’s Ben Smith was confused as hell and he wasn’t going to take it anymore. So while he’s not exactly Howard Beale, the famously pugnacious editor of BuzzFeed pressed hard recently on global news partnerships head Campbell Brown to explain how Facebook defines journalism and who practices it. The focus of his ire was the presence of six conservative publications at a biannual meeting that Brown ran recently with a group of editors and publishers Facebook works with.

Cost of Exclusion as a Proxy for Dominance in Digital Platform Regulation

While many regulations promoting consumer protection and competition apply throughout a sector, some economic regulations apply to “dominant” firms or firms with “market power.” Behavior that is harmless, or potentially even positive when done by smaller companies or in a more competitive marketplace, can be anticompetitive or harmful to consumers when done by dominant firms -- regardless of the firm’s actual intent.

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