Facebook are changing its newsfeed.  Less advertising, more connections with friends.

This is big news giving the share of advertising FB now has and is growing.

It is responding to sustained and increased criticism. One of the latest from early investor Roger McNamee.  This is notable due to his relationships with many of the senior FB team, his knowledge and understanding of social media platforms and his early insights into how social media was being “weaponised” / manipulated / abused by special interest groups.

Link to McNamee article here in Washington Monthly

“A consulting firm was revealed to be scraping data about people interested in the Black Lives Matter protest movement and selling it to police departments. Only after that news came out did Facebook announce that it would cut off the company’s access to the information. That got my attention. Here was a bad actor violating Facebook’s terms of service, doing a lot of harm, and then being slapped on the wrist. Facebook wasn’t paying attention until after the damage was done. I made a note to myself to learn more.

Meanwhile, the flood of anti-Clinton memes continued all spring. I still didn’t understand what was driving it, except that the memes were viral to a degree that didn’t seem to be organic. And, as it turned out, something equally strange was happening across the Atlantic.

When citizens of the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union in June 2016, most observers were stunned. The polls had predicted a victory for the “Remain” campaign. And common sense made it hard to believe that Britons would do something so obviously contrary to their self-interest. But neither common sense nor the polling data fully accounted for a crucial factor: the new power of social platforms to amplify negative messages”

If you'd like to feel inspired by commencement addresses and life lessons try:  Neil Gaiman on making wonderful, fabulous, brilliant mistakes; or Nassim Taleb's commencement address; or JK Rowling on the benefits of failure.  Or Charlie Munger on always inverting.  Or Ray Dalio on Principles.

Read about my questions to a dying man, on how to live a life well lived.

Or, a thought about the narrative of Bitcoin.