Millennials and Facebook, Project Dash, VR memories on Facebook, Cambridge Analytica closes, Ford supporting blind passengers, YouTube's misinformation timebomb, the future online climate.

1. Week 5, Spring 2018
J408/508: Demystifying the Media
7 things you need to know this week

2. “Why Millennials Won’t Unplug From Facebook”
Summary: (PRSay, http://prsay.prsa.org/2018/04/25/why-millennials-wont-unplug-from-facebook/)
• #DeleteFacebook trending but not a “meaningful number of people”
deactivate their Facebook account
• Three main reasons why:
• Connected to too many things
• Daily habits
• Apathetic to digital privacy
• What surprised you/why this matters
• Most millenials and younger generations see security breaches as unfortunate but
normal
• User agreements is where you relinquish control
• Personally, I agree
Hannah Lee

3. Project Dash
Summary: (http://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/how-doordash-is-partnering-with-feeding-america-to-combat-food-waste/)
• DoorDash is partnering with Feeding America to create Project Dash.
• DoorDash is providing drivers to deliver donated products to
recipient agencies. (Partnered with Feeding America to identify more
agencies)
• Cheesecake Factory (Every order placed through DoorDash)
• What surprised you/why this matters:
• 70% of restaurants want to donate food but don’t have the transportation/logistics to
get it donated.
• The average U.S restaurant waste is roughly 100,000 pounds of food each year.
• Since the launch (January) DoorDash has saved more than 3,000 pounds of food, and
donated roughly 1.8 million meals to those in need. Jack Talner

4. “Facebook Wants to Bring People on VR-Tours of their
Memories”
Summary: (VentureBeat, https://venturebeat.com/2018/05/01/facebook-wants-to-bring-people-on-vr-tours-of-their-memories/)
- At F8 (2018), Facebook shared ideas of reconstructing VR environments from photo
albums and videos through artificial intelligence.
- Goal: To revisit past memories that were captured by photo or video.
- In addition, Facebook is aiming to enable a feature that transforms 2D photos (on
Facebook) in 3D photos.
- Expected to be implemented within coming months.
- User experience through Facebook product called “Oculus Go”.
• What surprised you/why this matters
- I’m surprised that the implementation of 2D photos into 3D photos could be coming
in the coming months.
- Innovative way to train people through “real life scenarios”:
- Military/war, emergency services, natural disaster simulation, etc.
- Downside: Expected to only be accessible through Oculus Go ($199.00).
Charlie Walton

5. Blind Passengers Can ‘See’ the View Out a Car Window
With This Creation From Ford
Summary
• Ford has created a device that allows blind passengers a
chance to “feel” their visual surroundings while they’re
in the car. They take a grayscale picture of the window
view and then transform that into vibrations that the
passenger can feel. (via AdWeek)
• What surprised you/why this matters
• I didn’t know this technology existed. Imagine the
possibilities that could come from this.
• It’s a beautiful invention solving a human problem.
• Use of AI for things other than entertainment.
Brandon Reichelt

6. “Cambridge Analytica is shutting down”
Data analytics company that worked for
the Trump campaign
• got data on millions of Facebook users using a
personality test app
• sparked government hearings in U.S. and U.K.
• Read the article
• What surprised you/why this matters
• Power of media coverage
• “The siege of media coverage has driven away virtually all of the Company’s
customers and suppliers.” — statement from company
• Line between legality and ethics:
• company said it has been “vilified for activities that are not only legal, but also
widely accepted as a standard component of online advertising in both the
political and commercial arenas”
• What are the obligations of social media companies?
Derek Maiolo

7. “Why Google and YouTube Should Probably Start
Worrying”
Summary - https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/04/will-google-be-the-next-tech-giant-to-face-off-with-washington
• Facebook has taken a lot of recent criticism for sharing user data with
advertisers, but their problems may soon be overshadowed by YouTube’s.
• There remains a large amount of conspiracy theories and misinformation on
YouTube that appears on the trending tab.
• Ads for more than 300 companies ran on channels that promoted Nazism,
conspiracy theories, and pedophilia.
• Raises questions about whether advertising on YouTube will always carry a risk.
What surprised you/why this matters
• YouTube, Gmail, and other platforms owned by Google control nearly 40% of the
U.S. digital advertising market, compared to Facebook’s 20%.
• Google collects more data than Facebook, and Youtube is the largest revenue
driver for Google other than its search engine.
Mitchell Thomas

8. “The Online and Social Climate Will Only
Get Worse Before It Gets Better”
Summary: (AdWeek) http://www.adweek.com/digital/pew-research-center-the-future-of-free-speech-trolls-anonymity-
and-fake-news-online/
• Pew Research Center & Elon University’s Imagining the Internet Center surveyed
1,537 industry leaders.
• 42% expected “no major change.”
• 39% expected online to be “more shaped” by negative interactions.
• 19% expected the climate will be “less shaped.”
• What surprised you/why this matters
• A multitude of factors will influence the outcome.
• “The continuing diminution of what Cass Sunstein once called ‘general-interest
intermediaries’ … means that we have reached a point in our society where
wildly different versions of ‘reality’ can be chosen and customized by people to
fit their existing ideological and other biases. In such an environment, there is
little hope for collaborative dialogue and consensus.” - John Anderson
Parker Doyle