The Knowledge

Happy Friday. Or better put, TGIF.

It’s been a whirlwind of a week. Hurricane Maria had her way with Puerto Rico and parts beyond. The earthquake in Mexico City shook the metropolis to its core. The United Nations General Assembly was filled with bombast and bluster, and now “Rocket Man” is threatening to explode a hydrogen bomb somewhere over the Pacific Ocean.

It may be time for a cocktail. Okay, not now, at 9:00-something in the morning, but very soon.

There could be plenty of time for cocktails soon for Uber drivers in London. Big news today on that front: Uber has lost its license to operate in London.

No, not because the drivers (or Uber’s AI) couldn’t pass “The Knowledge,” London’s infamous taxi driver test. No, it was said to be because of the firm’s approach to reporting serious driver offenses, its approach to driver medical and safety checks, and the users of its secret “Greyball” software to dodge transport officials.

The firm has 21 days to appeal the decision.

In the meantime, 40,000 Uber drivers and 3.5M Londoners using the app will need to make other arrangements. And you just thought the London Underground is crowded now!

Back across this side of the pond, some exciting news from Facebook that they needed like a hole in the head. They “announced” two weeks ago they had discovered more than 3,000 ads addressing “social and political issues that ran in the US between 2015 and 2017 and that appear to have come from accounts associated with a Russian entity know as the Internet Research Agency.”

Facebook will now “share these ads with congressional investigators,” according to a post by its general counsel, Colin Stretch. Here’s more of Stretch’s comment:

We believe it is vitally important that government authorities have the information they need to deliver to the public a full assessment of what happened in the 2016 election. That is an assessment that can be made only by investigators with access to classified intelligence and information from all relevant companies and industries — and we want to do our part. Congress is best placed to use the information we and others provide to inform the public comprehensively and completely.
– via newsroom.fb.com

My Take: The whole Russian Facebook advertising situation puts Zuckerberg and company between a rock and a hard place.

If they admit any culpability, then hey, Facebook Ads are AWESOME, they work really, really well, as they helped Russia elect an American president. Raise the CPM and let’s party like it’s 1999 on the Facebook Ad exchange!!

If they suggest, on the other hand, that they had no role whatsoever in helping Vlad and his cronies with their mission to bring the Trump Organization into the White House, then wait a minute, those ads are worthless, I want my rubles back!

Like a Facebook relationship status, “it’s complicated.”

Now where’s my Moscow Mule!