Egg on the face?_其他_趣味英语-查字典英语网

Egg on the face?

Unfortunately, the education of Mark Zuckerberg — who famously dropped out of Harvard to give the world Facebook — is happening in real time. The data on users is valuable to those who wish to tailor messages for advertising, for political messaging or propaganda. It is tempting to keep the engine that delivered $40 billion in revenue last year humming — keep the eyeballs coming, keep the app developers and partners motivated and keep analysing the data to generate more advertising and affiliated revenue. However, as the Cambridge Analytica breach of trust, coming on the heels of Russian interference and “fake news” reveal, it is easy for the temptation to get out of hand. Where should Facebook draw the line? Which market norms should it use to decide on how much data privacy rules to maintain? How does it restrain its harvesting of user data to put an end to this extended backlash, without sacrificing its revenue model? These questions may not be that easy to answer. By applying the same standards across all markets its revenue engine could stall.

- One misstep too many, by Bhaskar Chakravorti, IndianExpress.com, March 28, 2018.

About the author:

Zhang Xin is Trainer at chinadaily.com.cn. He has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.