How do you cut Facebook in half?

The Public Sphere

This week we are talking about Facebook and the aftermath of the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Since the story broke, it's morphed several times. At first we feared the manipulation of public opinion using "Big Data." Then public opinion seemed shocked at how much data Facebook was keeping and potentially reselling. Feeling suddenly vulnerable, people asked, "Why didn't we know this?"

When Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said to CNN (March 21, 2018) that he wasn't sure Facebook shouldn't be regulated, it set off a another wave of punditry: on privacy, data, social media, and democracy.

We also take a few minutes to discuss the ouster of David Shulkin at the department of Veteran's Affairs and the hiring of John Bolton as National Security Advisor.

• Charlie Warzel, "Facebook Has Had Countless Privacy Scandals. But This One Is Different." Buzzfeed.
• Matthew Yglesias, "The case against Facebook," Vox.com.
• "Is Facebook Bad?" The Weeds podcast from Vox.com.
• Eliana Johnson, "John Bolton's knife-fighting skills alarm his critics," Politico.
• Mike Allen and Johathan Swan, "How to survive in Trumpland," Axios.

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