Hashtag Trending: Zuckerberg turns down governments’ request; cord cutting is accelerating; Microsoft’s president calls for regulating facial recognition

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Trending on LinkedIn: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has declined the request of government officials from Canada and the U.K. to discuss fake news and data privacy. Facebook issued a letter to respective governments indicating it is aware of the seriousness of Cambridge Analytica but will only send Facebook’s senior representatives to confront lawmakers instead of Zuckerberg. Canadian and U.K. lawmakers unprecedentedly made a joint effort last week to call on the social media giant’s CEO to appear before respective committees. Officials from Argentina, Australia, and Ireland are also joining forces to have the CEO appear before committees.

Also trending on LinkedIn: traditional TV providers in the U.S. aren’t having a good day after reporting that they had their worst quarter ever with 1.1 million homes cutting the cord. That tally comes from losses from nine of the largest cable, satellite, and telecommunications providers. Satellite services DirecTV and Dish Network continue to be hit, making up two-thirds of the industry’s decline last quarter. The drop in cord cutters does not reflect live TV streaming services.

Finally trending on Reddit: Microsoft’s President Brad Smith says it might be important to start regulating facial recognition technology especially because it is already prevalent in a lot of mainstream technology. Think about it, remember the last time you uploaded a photo on Instagram using a face filter, or used iPhone’s Face ID, or even Facebook’s face tagging. Smith says that if we don’t begin to regulate this type of technology it could change the way we live especially when it comes to privacy. He says: “It potentially means every time you walk into a store, a retailer knows when you were in there last, what goods you picked out, what you purchased.”

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Jim Love, Chief Content Officer, IT World Canada

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Shruti Shekar
Shruti Shekar
Shruti Shekar is a video producer and reporter for IT World Canada. She was formerly a political reporter at The Hill Times and was based in Ottawa. Her beats included political culture, lobbying, telecom and technology, and the diplomatic community. She was also was the editor of The Lobby Monitor, and a reporter at The Wire Report; two trade publications that are part of The Hill Times. She received a MA in journalism from Western University and a double BA honours in communication studies and human rights from Carleton University. She was born in India, grew up mostly in Singapore and currently resides in Canada.

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