Inside PR

First, up on Inside PR this week, Martin points to Farhad Manjou’s final “State of the Art” column for the New York Times. Some smart advice for these digital times:

Another blockbuster story from the New York Times (they seem to be making this routine.) This time, the Times stripped away any illusion that we may have had that those give us your locationopt-ins are being used only for the purposes we think they are. Scary stuff.

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This week, we cover a new Stories feature that LinkedIn is testing, the launch of another daily news podcast, this time from the Washington Post, and Facebook meets it match in the United Kingdom Parliament.

LinkedIn is beta testing a Stories feature called Student Voices. On one level, it sounds like a good idea. However, if aimed at younger users who have seen Snapchat Stories as ephemeral content that enabled them to be spontaneous and genuine without fear of their mistakes showing up in a data cache. When they use LinkedIn Student voices, will they bring this expectation only to discover that the information lingers on their profile and is being viewed by prospective recruiters? Maybe there is an argument for keeping different social networks separate according to use and audience.

The Washington Post has launched Post Reports, an afternoon news podcast. It is the latest in a series of high quality news podcasts, including The Daily, Up First, and Front Burner, that collectively signal a significant shift in the news diet of an increasing number of people.

They also represent a challenge for PR Pros. The one thing these new podcasts all seem to have in common is that they are highly curated. There are limited slots for stories in the short format adopted by all of the news podcasts – and they are cherry picking for their line up from the stories covered on their companion traditional news outlet. So, getting a story placed and covered on the news podcasts is not a linear extension of the traditional pitch. PR pros will have to watch closely to understand the unique perspective and focus of each of the new podcasts in order to find a way to ease a story’s coverage. But a straight up pitch? Probably not.

Facebook may have more members than any country has population. And Mark Zuckerberg may feel he’s too important to accept an invitation from legislators representing eight countries to testify before them. But Mark Zuckerberg definitely isn’t bigger than Damian Collins, MP. Last week, Collins made good on his promise to release the documents from Facebook vs Six4Three court case. And the picture they painted of Facebook’s competitive behaviour and Mark Zuckerberg’s role in decisions that would exploit Facebook user data to advantage Facebook and disadvantage its competitors was …. ugly.

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Two hours after we recorded last week’s Inside PR, the New York Times posted a bombshell report – Delay, Deny, Deflect – about Facebook’s management of legislators and manipulation of the truth.

And in this report, they answered the question that Gini Dietrich has been asking since the whole Cambridge Analytica fiasco broke – where are Facebook’s communications team and what are they advising. Well, as it turns out, the real question should have been, what communications playbook are they using?

Making the world more open and connected? Maybe for you and me. But for Facebook, definitely not more open.

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Sometimes, the stars just align perfectly. When we recorded this episode of Inside PR, we did not know that, within hours, the New York Times would publish a bombshell storydelving into Facebook’s tactics to avoid full transparency and accountability for the existence and persistence of Russian troll activity and other bad acts on Facebook. In this episode, you’ll hear us discuss that the only truly satisfactory response on the part of Facebook must go beyond simple PR bromides to real actions that align with its promises. Something which the NY Times story suggests Facebook fell far short of.

Ironically, it was the NYTimes Tech Reporter, Kevin Roose, who provided the most succinct definition of what’s really going on in a Tweet following the picture that emerged of a group of boys allegedly giving the Nazi salute prior to their prom. Roose tweeted, “has anyone answered “a generation raised on platforms that reward provocation in a culture with a shrinking list of taboos” yet[?]”

has anyone answered “a generation raised on platforms that reward provocation in a culture with a shrinking list of taboos” yet https://t.co/V9xTaTxO38

— Kevin Roose (@kevinroose) November 12, 2018

And it’s not just outside observers who are rethinking the approach the social media platforms took to driving growth and user engagement. Recode reportedthat Twitter co-founder Ev Williams told a tech conference in Portugal, “I think showing follower counts was probably ultimately detrimental. …. It really put in your face that the game was popularity.” Williams went on to discuss the “suggested user” list that helped new Twitter users start to follow people on Twitter by suggesting well-known are widely followed people for them to follow. Reflecting on this, Williams suggested, “Those weren’t really interest-based follows, and then someone who had grown their following organically compares themselves to them. It’s inauthentic.”

And that brings us back full circle to Facebook. Even before the NY Times story dropped, legislators outside of the US were demanding that Zuckerberg provide some accountability to them for Facebook’s operations in their countries. A few weeks back, we discussed the fact that Canadian legislators were prepared to travel across the Atlantic to attend a joint session with their counterparts in the UK Parliament – if Mark Zuckerberg would agree to appear before them. Last week,legislators from Australia, Ireland and Argentina joined their counterparts from the UK and Canadato provide Zuckerberg with a five for one offer. One appearance for five countries. Yet, at the time of recording Zuckerberg and Facebook still had not agreed to appear.

And then the NY Times story dropped – and we saw in vivid detail the machinations and manipulation Facebook was taking to duck calls for full transparency everywhere.

Delay. Deny. Deflect. Now that we understand this, could this be only the first of many bad weeks for Facebook?

Do you ever connect to the Internet via a public WiFi network (think airports, hotels and Starbucks?) Have you read the terms of use you have with your Internet Service Provider (ISP)? If so, you may discover that they can share with “partners” data about your Web surfing and Internet activity from inside your home! Yes, it’s a scary world.

Cloudflare, the company that many developers rely on for Domain Name Server (DNS) and Content Delivery Network (CDN) services, is making it easier for all of us to increase the security and privacy of our connections to the Internet – whether at home or in public places. Last April, the company launched its 1.1.1.1 DNS resolver service that enables you to keep your Web activity private – even from your ISP. Now, they have introduced apps to bring the service to your mobile phone. I’ve installed the 1.1.1.1 app on my iPhone. It took less than three minutes. You too can download the app from the iOS and Android stores. It’s an easy, simple step to protect yourself online.

When you pitch an article to an online news outlet, do you expect them to include a link back to the source you provided to them? Do you see this as good SEO for the news outlet? As important to your client? A recent PR article on obtaining links in articles referencing clients got us thinking.

Finally, we talk about  the emergence of Nanoinfluencers. From a thousand points of light may come great influence?

This post originally appeared on the Inside PR podcast blog.

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This week, on Inside PR 526, Gini Dietrich, Joseph Thornley and Martin Waxman discuss:

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