Welcome to Part II of Edition No. 40 of my weekly newsletter, providing practical analysis in the world of digital content strategy.
ICYMI Thursday: Calculate the Cost of Your Social Media Account
Note: There will be no newsletters next week due to U.S. Thanksgiving.
Contents
I. Meta Security Workers Betray Meta Users (For Cash)
II. GA4 Director’s ‘Pro Tip’: Customization (Really??)
III. Twitter’s Moderation Capabilities Are Crippled
IV. Google’s Panda Algorithm Evolved into Coati
V. 280 Characters Isn’t Enough?
VI. Some Problems with Deleting Your Twitter Account
VII. Facebook is Watering Down Your Profile
When I started this newsletter, I said it would be dedicated to organic content strategy, not paid. While I have experience in the latter, I’m much more qualified to talk about the former.
Putting together this week’s rundown, I realized I have been including lots of analysis on paid-/advertising-related content for a while.
Going forward, I’m going to try to do a better job of avoiding that (unless there’s an organic tie-in). While that may mean fewer unique updates each Friday, I think it will allow me to do a better job on those I do include going forward.
That being said, I welcome feedback on all this.
Thanks for reading,
Brad
I. Meta Security Workers Betray Meta Users (For Cash)
Meta Platforms Inc. has fired or disciplined more than two dozen employees and contractors over the last year whom it accused of improperly taking over user accounts, in some cases allegedly for bribes, according to people familiar with the matter and documents viewed by The Wall Street Journal.
The article states that the fired employees were part of the security team whose job entailed helping users having trouble with their accounts.
🛠 Why does this matter? Takeaway: If someone says you have to pay to get access to someone who can help with your account, don’t pay them!
Unfortunately, Meta has become so big what with its billions of worldwide users (and myriad ongoing problems) that it doesn’t have the resources to properly address account issues individually.
And some of the resources it does have, apparently, were padding their paycheck by exploiting the company’s own tools.
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II. GA4 Director’s ‘Pro Tip’: Customization (Really??)
Martech interviewed Director of Google Analytics Russ Ketchum. Some highlights follow.
On the differences between Universal Analytics and GA4:
“The internet” isn’t a synonym for a desktop website. The internet is all around us and that’s the world that we’ve built GA4 to measure.
A “pro tip”:
here’s another pro tip to help focus on what matters to them the most: customize reports.
With all sincerity, that’s an extremely disappointing “pro tip.” Really? Customize your reports is a “pro tip”? Sigh.
On what’s coming in 2023:
Customers can expect even more out of the customization features I mentioned earlier, especially for SMB customers.
He also says Google will be adding more educational content in 2023.
🛠 Why does this matter? It’s nice to read Ketchum address some of the more common questions (no, the non-360 sunset date isn’t getting pushed back), but I must say this was a pretty underwhelming interview.
Any insights into future plans were vague, and any answers to current issues were cookie-cutter, and hardly practical, from my perspective.
I hope to soon begin rolling out some of the training materials I have been working on. Paid users of this newsletter will receive a discount, or free access, depending on their subscription level.
I’ll also be looking for testers to provide feedback.
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III. Twitter’s Moderation Capabilities Are Crippled
After Elon Musk bought the company and laid off 7,500 full time employees, disinformation researchers and activists say, the team that took down toxic and fake content vanished. Now, after years of developing relationships within those teams, researchers say no one is responding to their reports of disinformation on the site, even as data suggests Twitter is becoming more toxic.
🛠 Why does this matter? We’re now less than two years from the next U.S. presidential election, which promises to be a war on facts, regardless of the outcome.
As the article notes, election-deniers in Brazil have been prominent since their recent vote.
It’s not just that people can say incorrect things with a low likelihood they’ll removed (due to staff shortages), it’s that these lies lead to violence and other real-world consequences from which people like Musk (and Mark Zuckerberg) are largely immune in their billionaire bubbles.
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