The Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner. Benjamin Zhang/Business Insider

This weekend, Qantas will inaugurate a new route that will finally deliver non-stop scheduled flights between Australia and Europe.

The iconic Aussie airline will use its fleet of brand-new Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners for its new service between Perth, Western Australia, and London.

In October, Qantas took delivery of its first Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner. Currently, the airline boasts a fleet of four Dreamliners.

And by the end of 2018, that number will grow to eight aircraft.

The Dreamliner is the first new aircraft type introduced to the Qantas fleet in a decade and is destined to connect Australia and the UK with nonstop flying.

For Qantas, the significance of the new plane cannot be overstated.

"One of the big advantages of the Dreamliner is that it gives us a range of destinations we couldn't have done before," CEO Alan Joyce told Business Insider in an interview last October. "It gives you better economics because it's 20% more fuel efficient and with a lot lower maintenance cost given the new technology. That means there are routes we could have done before with distance, but couldn't do economically that now come onto the radar screen.

"For Qantas, it also starts overcoming the tyranny of distance we have," Joyce added.

Qantas also held a contest that allowed members of the public to submit names for the new plane. In the end, the name Great Southern Land was selected. It was chosen in honor of the '80s rock anthem of the same name by the band Icehouse, which is about the vastness and the beauty of the Australian landscape.

Boeing turned the plane over to Qantas at its Everett Delivery Center outside of Seattle, Washington.

As part of the festivities, Qantas allowed a group of journalists to experience the jet's delivery flight to company headquarters in Sydney alongside executives and dignitaries. Normally, delivery flights are fairly humdrum with only pilots and airline staff involved. However, this was a special occasion for Qantas, so the airline decided to make it a big event.

Business Insider was there. Here's how it went.

Robinhood

Robinhood, the brokerage startup known for pioneering free stock trading, reportedly landed a big $5.6 billion valuation recently.

It's adding new functions, such as crypto and options trading, at a breakneck clip. And its reported user growth is something its competitors on both Wall Street and Silicon Valley envy. At last check, the company claimed more than 4 million users with fully registered accounts. It launched in 2013.

Robinhood The company's newly rolled out web platform, which features a suite of features originally unavailable on its sleek smartphone app, is the latest service from the company.

But data showcased on the web platform also raises questions about the strength of its user base.

According to a list of the most owned stocks on the platform, about 140,800 Robinhood users own Apple — the most valuable company in the world and the most popular stock on the platform.

The next most popular stock, Ford, was owned by 127,000 users. GE rounded out the top three, with 122,500.

Based on those numbers, only 3.5% of Robinhood's 4 million registered accounts hold Apple.

"That's pretty surprising to me," Mike Dudas, a serial entrepreneur who cofounded the tech company Button, told Business Insider. That view was echoed by several industry insiders.

"It would shock me if less than 5% of Robinhood's registered users held Apple stock and even fewer held Snap," Dudas added. Snap has 68,000 holders on the platform, according to the website.

To be sure, Apple is a high-priced stock for those looking to make their first investment, closing Tuesday at $175.23. But more-affordable stocks like Ford ($10.99 a share) still have a comparatively small percentage of holders on the platform. The top exchange-traded fund on the platform, the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF, has 23,200 holders.

Five of the top 10 stocks on the platform have share prices below $15, which could suggest that many investors are strategically buying the lowest-priced stocks.

Two of the top 10 stocks, GoPro and Fitbit, trade for less than $10. A person familiar with the matter said their popularity could be due to Robinhood's referral program. Under that program, users who invite friends to the platform can be rewarded with free stocks. For the most part, the stocks given out are cheap, with a 98% chance the stock will be valued between $2.50 and $10, according to the company.

To be sure, just because a stock has a low price doesn't mean it isn't a good investment pick. In fact, the company prides itself on being a home to young, less wealthy investors.

"Our mission is to democratize access to America's financial system and we're thrilled that all types of investors choose to trade on Robinhood," the company said in a statement.

The top 10 stocks on the platform have a combined 1.1 million holders, though many of the investors holding Apple could also be invested in GoPro or Facebook or Twitter.

Brian Barnes, the CEO of M1 Finance, an automated financial adviser, told Business Insider he didn't think it was possible that Robinhood had 4 million funded accounts given the data, drawing a distinction between registered accounts, in which a user has signed up, and a funded account, in which a user has deposited cash to invest.

"Robinhood has 4 million brokerage accounts on the platform," Robinhood said in a statement. "As we expect, not all 4 million people own positions in equities or ETFs at all times."

Listen to Business Insider's recent conversation with Robinhood cofounder Vlad Tenev, here>>

Cheddar's valuation is on the rise. Facebook

Nobody seems to have a clear idea of how many people actually watch Cheddar. And it probably doesn't matter.

The web-video startup, which aspires to become the business-news outlet of record for millennials, has just pulled in another $22 million in funding, bringing its total to $54 million and landing it an impressive $160 million valuation in just two years of existence.

Those numbers are eye-opening, particularly in light of the recent fallout in digital media.

The fuzzier math: How many people are actually watching Cheddar?

It's tough to gauge. Even its founder, Jon Steinberg, says so.

Nielsen and comScore don't seem to have an answer. If the biggest TV networks in the US are having a hard time measuring how many people watch their shows on multiple devices and apps, consider that Cheddar is live eight hours a day on several fledgling streaming services, including Sling TV and Philo, while distributing live and on-demand clips on Facebook and Twitter, as well as on YouTube, Pluto TV, and Xumo, and even at some airports.

Can anybody come up with a rating number that captures all that?

According to the analytics firm Tubular Labs, Cheddar had close to 500 million video views on Facebook in the past 90 days. One clip, featuring a demonstration of a clothes-folding product, has generated nearly 100 million views.

To Cheddar's credit, its main Facebook page has nearly 3 million followers, while its Twitter account has nearly 150,000.

But it's also easy to find individual Cheddar live clips on Facebook or Twitter that generate fewer than 50,000 views.

Then there's Cheddar's distribution on various so-called skinny bundles, which 4.6 million people had signed onto by the end of last year, according to an estimate by MoffettNathanson Research.

Targeting the 'skinny bundle' crowd

Steinberg said that while Cheddar initially focused on Facebook — and particularly on Facebook Live — the plan was always to go for the emerging "over the top" opportunity.

"We knew we wanted to get out of Facebook, because we knew Facebook was going to screw publishers," he said. "We needed some Park Avenue real estate."

His thinking: As media and tech giants like DirecTV, Hulu, PlayStation, and YouTube have readied these scaled-down cable-TV alternatives, there would be an opening for a cheaper option.

Whereas networks like CNBC and Fox are used to commanding high monthly carriage fees from cable distributors, Cheddar would come in cheap.

"If they are getting a dollar per subscription, we'd offer 25 cents," Steinberg said.

Instead, the skinny-bundle companies said they'd be happy to carry Cheddar — but weren't interested in paying for that right.

"So I was back in the advertising business," Steinberg said.

He says Cheddar will have distribution on every skinny bundle by the end of this year and will pull in $40 million to $50 million in ad revenue by next year.

Does a huge audience matter for a media company anymore?

What's striking about Cheddar's funding announcement is that it came at a time when companies like Refinery29, Mashable, Vice, and BuzzFeed are going through cutbacks.

And the news didn't contain any claims that Cheddar reaches hundreds of millions of unique users. It surely doesn't.

Instead, Steinberg says his bar is relatively low. He looks toward the financial-news category, where CNBC's daily live shows regularly attract fewer than 200,000 viewers and whose average audience age is much older than Cheddar's, Steinberg says.

"All I need is a quarter of that," he said. "That network pulls in close to a billion a year."

He has a point. Nielsen says CNBC's average daytime audience contains only about 30,000 viewers between the ages of 25 and 54. And according to S&P Global Market Intelligence, CNBC will pull in $778 million this year.

Is that enough to excite investors, who like to see fast scaling revenue and dream of big exits? What is it about Cheddar?

Some point to Cheddar's fandom.

According to CrowdTangle, a Facebook-owned analytics tool, in February, Cheddar's videos generated more than 3 million interactions — more than CNBC, Bloomberg, and, yes, Business Insider. That kind of interaction (shares, comments, likes) is typically seen as a sign of audience devotion.

"Building a brand on the internet is hard," said Rich Greenfield, a media analyst. "Cheddar is trying to define the news category in video online. We all know the legacy ecosystem breaking down."

Greenfield cited other digital brands like Barstool Sports as a good example of a company with a far smaller audience than competitors (like, say, ESPN) but whose profile has been exploding.

"It's unclear if Cheddar can be a unicorn, but significant value can be created by the brand," Greenfield said. "They are a beachhead to build a multiplatform media business."

It's an advantage that Cheddar doesn't have legacy costs or infrastructure, said Farhad Massoudi, the founder and CEO of Tubi TV, an ad-supported video hub.

"I do think there's a business opportunity to produce news content and distribute it everywhere and not be locked into traditional news deals," he said. "They've also done a good job of managing to keep the production costs low."

"Cheddar is the leader in live digital news video and owns all its IP," said Simon Freer, the chief commercial officer of Liberty Global's content-investments arm, which participated in the most recent funding round. "We believe Cheddar can go global, and we are excited to collaborate with the company to make that a reality."

It's almost as if what matters to investors now is that Cheddar has built distribution, the ability to produce a large volume of content, and a name. Amassing a significant audience is a secondary concern.

Still, the Cheddar haters are out there

There's little question that Cheddar has become Cheddar in large part because of Steinberg's self-promotion, deal-making prowess, and connections in the media and ad worlds.

"He's a real hustler," said one digital-ad-industry veteran. "I've never seen somebody so transparently trying to sell a business. One thing he's got going for him is the dynamic of 'anybody will say anything if you stick a camera in their face.' But I don't know if 21-year-olds want to watch this."

Steinberg definitely has a showman side, which some love and some don't. He posts his workout videos on Instagram and wears funny hats while on Cheddar. He's known for putting together splashy press events, like an announcement on a yacht in Cannes a few years ago that he, WPP CEO Martin Sorrell, and Evan Spiegel, the founder of Snapchat, were launching a new social ad agency dubbed Truffle Pig.

Steinberg says he loves making deals. Sometimes that results in landing huge sponsors, but in other cases, it has meant bum deals. His spending $26 million to acquire Elite Daily while running Daily Mail's North American operations became a big money loser for Daily Mail's parent company, which eventually unloaded the property.

But Steinberg said he's not looking to sell Cheddar.

"I just raised $22 million," he said.

The other knock on Cheddar is that it is live during an era when young people want everything on demand.

"I don't think live TV makes any sense," one person told Business Insider. "That's dead."

So Cheddar is pushing into more non-newsy content. And its live footage can easily be turned into clips for the web.

Friends like these

Steinberg has surely used his connections to land guests such as Sorrell and the CEO of CBS, Les Moonves. But he bristled at the idea that Cheddar is just his Rolodex.

"These are not all my friends," he said. "We book 30 or 40 people a day. We had Drew Barrymore the other day; she's not my friend."

Cheddar even had Tim Kaine, the 2016 Democratic vice presidential nominee, as a guest.

Drew Barrymore on Cheddar. Cheddar

Going forward, Steinberg says that he'd welcome getting Cheddar on traditional cable packages and that he's interested in getting distribution via local broadcast stations.

He also sees an opening as some smaller local cable companies appear to shift their focus to becoming primarily broadband providers, given how high the profit margins are. His thinking is that perhaps Cheddar could provide video content for those services at a much lower cost, letting cable companies focus on broadband.

Steinberg acknowledges that big names and deals will take Cheddar only so far in the near term, as there's one group that will care about measuring Cheddar's audience: advertisers.

To ramp up ad revenue, Steinberg's talking to Google about testing "dynamic ads" that could be delivered automatically during breaks in Cheddar's livestreams. In the meantime, he's pushing hard for better third-party research to please ad buyers.

"We get very limited data from the skinny bundles and are prohibited from sharing," he said.

He says he's hired the research company Cogent (which CNBC also uses) to help track viewership on streaming services "at great cost to us."

According to Cogent, Cheddar viewership has already climbed to 10% among US millennials. In addition, upstart streaming web platforms like Pluto TV and Xumo add in about another million viewers, Steinberg says.

Cheddar says that, overall, "hundreds of thousands watch Cheddar live each day, and hundreds of millions watch Cheddar video clips on social media monthly."

But Steinberg seems to realize this hodgepodge of data won't be enough for big marketers in the long term. It's hard to plug these numbers into a chart and compare them with live-TV audiences.

So he's pushing for Nielsen to come up with a solution.

"It will probably cost me an arm and a leg," he said. "But I'm dying for it."

He added: "If I can get Nielsen to measure us, even if the average viewership they come up with is 5,000 people, I consider 5,000 viewers a victory, because CNBC only has 30,000 between the ages of 25-54 — our whole audience is in its 20s and 30s, and we are two years old."

"Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle." Sony

Things did not start off well for the sequel to "Jumanji."

Twenty years after the 1995 hit movie — which starred Robin Williams as a man who, after decades of being trapped inside a magical board game, is finally released to complete it with two kids — Sony announced in 2015 that it was going to dust off the property and reboot it.

The internet was not happy.

"It was like, 'You're ruining my childhood!'" Jake Kasdan, the director of "Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle," recalled when Business Insider asked whether he was aware of the backlash.

Following the Sony announcement, social media was flooded with negative reactions, the consensus being that a "Jumanji" reboot would tarnish the original's legacy and that the sequel was just the latest example of Hollywood running out of new ideas:

And things didn't get any better for the movie when, after the screenwriter Chris McKenna ("Spider-Man: Homecoming") was tasked with coming up with a new take on the movie, three more screenwriters came on board to give it a crack. The release date was also changed three times, eventually settling on December 20, the Wednesday after "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" would hit theaters.

These are not good signs for a movie.

But in one of the most miraculous turnarounds for a movie in recent memory, "Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle" didn't just hold its own against "The Last Jedi" in December (finishing in second place for the last week and a half of the year), it knocked the latest "Star Wars" movie off the top spot and went on an incredible three-week streak of topping the weekend domestic box office in January.

The movie went on to earn over $939 million worldwide, and over $400 million in North America — the second-best domestic performance ever for a Sony movie (just below the $403.7 million made by 2002's "Spider-Man"). All this came from just a $90 million budget.

And no one is more surprised by the movie's global success than Kasdan.

'I loved what this could be'

Known for R-rated comedies like "Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story" and "Bad Teacher," Kasdan came out of nowhere to prove he could helm a PG-13 action-comedy with major stars like Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, Karen Gillan, and Nick Jonas.

Kasdan signed on to direct a few months after Sony made the official announcement, despite being fully aware of the hatred for the idea by those on the internet.

"On some level I think there's a deserved skepticism about bringing back titles," Kasdan told Business Insider while promoting the Blu-ray/DVD release of the movie (available Tuesday). "Whether it's a sequel, reboot, relaunch, I think we've done so much of it that understandably the audience is kind of, 'Why does everything have to be like this?' But I loved what this could be."

Dwayne Johnson in "Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle." Sony What the haters online didn't know was that Kasdan and the screenwriters McKenna, Erik Sommers, Scott Rosenberg, and Jeff Pinkner all contributed to what can only be described as a unicorn in the movie business — a reboot that feels new while also paying homage to the original.

The major adjustment done for the "Jumanji" sequel was shifting the board-game element to better reflect the present gaming world.

At the end of the original "Jumanji," the two main characters toss the game into a river. The sequel starts years later in 1996, with the game being found on a beach. The boy who is given it ignores what he sees as a lame board game, so the game magically morphs into a more attractive video game, sucking him into it. Years later, more kids are sucked in and become avatars played by Johnson, Hart, Black, and Gillan.

That element opened incredible possibilities for the sequel's story, as it not only could bring the Jumanji game to life but also could deliver all types of gaming aspects to the movie — from the characters' three game "lives" apiece to the jokes about their avatar's strengths and weaknesses.

Kasdan said this was all pulled off not by one single screenwriter who finally figured out how to crack the story but by collectively using all of them, like a TV writers' room.

'It wasn't like someone was dismissed and never heard from again'

Traditionally, on a movie, when a screenwriter has handed in his or her draft and been told that another scribe has been hired, that usually means the director, producers, or studio executives (or all the above) didn't like the previous screenwriter's work. But that wasn't the case on "Welcome to the Jungle."

"What made this project unusual was I continued to work with a lot of the writers," Kasdan said. "It wasn't like someone was dismissed and never heard from again. Chris McKenna came up with the idea and wrote it with Erik Sommers, and then Scott Rosenberg and Jeff Pinkner came on, and I did some work on it as well. I just liked their work, so by the end it was this unique experience where they worked with me or each other. Everyone kept a foot in."

Though Kasdan thought they had made a worthy movie, he still had no idea how it would play in test screenings. So first, he decided to play the movie for his kids.

"My kids are like 7 and 5, which is sort of younger than we ever thought about our audience, but they loved it," he said. "That made me think that the movie had a larger possible audience than I had fully realized while we made the movie. They connected so strongly to the fantasy of it, it got me excited."

And the rest is history. The movie made just under $1 billion globally at the box office and solidified the star status of Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart. And Kasdan is still trying to take it all in.

"I've been doing this long enough to realize how extraordinary this is," he said. "It's kind of a dream."

But now it's back to the drawing board for a sequel. Kasdan, Rosenberg, and Pinkner are all set to return, along with the lead cast. But can a sequel that was praised for having its own identity pull off a successful encore? Can the video game storyline be used again? Is it right to bring back the same cast?

"We're just starting to figure that out," Kasdan said. "The honest answer is you could do all different kinds of things and we're trying to figure out what feels like the most organic and fun way to continue this."

More on 'Jumanji':

The Great Wall of China on February 20, 2018 in Huairou, China. Vincent Isore/IP3/Getty Images

It was 10.07 p.m. on a cool Vancouver evening when Shawn Zhang's phone rang. It was his mom.

Based in Wuyi, in the eastern Chinese province of Zhejiang just south of Shanghai, she had just received a call from the police. They were asking questions about a post her son, a law student in Canada, had put up on Weibo — they said it wasn't good and it would be better if Zhang deleted it.

Just a day earlier, China's legislature had voted — almost unanimously — to scrap presidential term limits, paving the way for President Xi Jinping to rule indefinitely. After weeks of extensive censorship, where everything from Xi's name to the words "immortality" and "lifelong" were banned, Zhang wanted to see if retweeting a picture would draw the ire of censors.

So that afternoon he set up an anonymous account on Weibo, posted a cartoon of Xi encased in glass and draped in a communist flag, and then retweeted it from his own account.

But before the post was censored or his account suspended, public-security police called his mum. All told, it took fewer than eight hours and four minutes.

"I didn't expect this picture would trigger the police's response. It is a parody picture, not a political statement," Zhang told Business Insider.

It is not the first time Zhang's posts have attracted scrutiny back home.

Earlier this year, he tweeted a picture of the Tibetan flag with the words "Free Tibet" after hotel chain Marriott controversially listed Tibet, as well as Hong Kong and Taiwan, as countries despite China's claims to those territories. And last year he gave an answer on the question-and-answer website, Quora, about the disputed Doklam territory which borders China, India, and Bhutan, which received 38,000 upvotes.

Both times, public-security police contacted his parents to try and convince Zhang to remove the posts.

"It's really disturbing that police called again and again," Zhang said.

But this time felt different.

"I also didn't expect police to respond so quickly. It suggests my social media account is probably under their close monitoring. They will read everything I say," Zhang said. "Last time I posted a Tibet flag, police responded because someone reported my posts to the police. But this time, the police's response seems more proactive. I am probably on their watch list."

Whether he is on a watch-list or not, Zhang is not alone in thinking censorship in China is rapidly changing.

The "Great Firewall" has gotten much taller under Xi

Kevin Frayer/Getty Images

In 2018, more than 600 million people will use social media in China — that's nearly one-quarter of all global users.

But these people will be faced with more censorship than ever before, according to a new report this month from human-rights organization PEN America, "Forbidden Feeds: Government Controls on Social Media in China."

While the term "Great Firewall" used to describe the large number of international websites blocked from China — Google, Facebook, Twitter — PEN says that censorship on local platforms has soared over the past six years.

"There has never been a particularly good time for internet freedom in China, or for free expression on social media in China specifically," the PEN report said. "Yet... the space for free expression online has been under increasing and unrelenting pressure by the government under the tenure of President Xi Jinping."

Xi Jinping. Lintao Zhang/Getty Images

In September 2015, censorship-monitoring site China Digital Times received a rare image of a censorship directive — usually editors receive tips verbally to minimize a paper trail, deputy editor Samuel Wade told PEN. This particular directive was numbered 320 and came from the Central Propaganda Department. Because this department is just one agency within the government and Communist Party that issues censorship orders, its fair to assume thousands of directives are ordered each year.

Advanced censorship technology combined with new laws, regulations, and increased enforcement are increasingly being used to "repress dissident voices and shape online conversation," according to PEN.

Just this month, a former prosecutor was arrested for making comments online about the removal of presidential term limits. The Globe and Mail also reported that around the same time a teenager, who posted a tool on Weibo allowing users to connect with people whose accounts were deleted, had his computer seized by the police who also took some of his blood to collect his DNA.

And as Zhang's case shows, China's attempts at censorship are no longer limited by geography or technology. Beijing is also trying to crackdown on overseas dissidents whose families are still in the mainland, despite the fact many posts are on platforms like Twitter that aren't accessible in China.

"Under Xi, the "Great Firewall" is getting taller," the PEN report said.

Fear of censorship has turned into a fear of arrest

ED JONES/AFP/Getty Images

The law, the courts, and the police have all become stricter in the last six years.

In 2013, the Supreme People's Court increased penalties for posts that are defamatory of contain "false information." If a post is forwarded more than 500 times or clicked on over 5,000 times, the author can go to jail for up to three years.

China is expected to block VPNs, which can get around the Great Firewall, at the end of March. Apple already removed VPNs from its App store in China last year at Beijing's request. GREG BAKER/AFP/Getty Images

Two years later it became illegal to post fabricated content about natural disasters, emergencies, or any reports of danger — encouraging netizens to closely stick to the government's narrative on major events.

Then last year, a new law made it illegal to endanger the "honor or interests of the State."

New regulations also urged social-media companies to begin rating users. Companies are encouraged to have a credit system for users, deducting points for disobeying regulations, and to grant the government access to the data.

"Before Xi Jinping we feared only that they would delete our posts. In the worst situation, they would delete [your account]," Qiao Mu, an academic told The Guardian in 2015. "But since Xi Jinping came to power this changed. They began to arrest people."

Chat groups are popular but their tendency to leak is dangerous

Groupthink. Wei Yongxian/VCG via Getty Images

In 2016, blogger Liu Yanli was charged with defamation and spent eight months in jail for copying a number of short posts critical of Chinese leaders, including Xi, into a private WeChat group.

The following year Wang Jiangfeng was sentenced to two years prison for using the satirical nickname "Steamed Bun Xi," also in a private WeChat group.

WeChat groups are popular in China, where there can be as many as 500 members in each group. And while there are numerous instances of the government appearing to have read private messages through some sort of back door, such large groups are, as PEN describes, "leaky by design" and can easily be infiltrated.

FRED DUFOUR/AFP/Getty Images

The problem isn't just limited to Chinese apps though. Despite WhatsApp's encrypted technology, Zhang Guanghong was charged last year with insulting the government for sharing an article that was critical of Xi in a group chat. According to The New York Times, this will be one of the first times conversation history from a non-Chinese app will be used as evidence.

Threats of prosecution pose risks for people who post content but also group creators. New regulations introduced in September last year hold group initiators criminally liable for content posted in any group they start.

The regulations also require the tech companies to monitor and keep records of chats for six months, and report any illegal activity to authorities. The companies have essentially been ordered to spy on their users.

Interestingly, group chats have more words censored than one-on-one chats, an indicator that China is focused more on dissent growing than it existing.

"China is more concerned about monitoring group opinion and preventing political mobilization than with censoring one-on-one discussions," the PEN report said.

Laws are intentionally vague and confusing so people will self-censor Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Aside from the new laws and regulations, since 2013 there have been seven "bottom lines" that social-media content shouldn't contravene: China's rules and laws, the socialist system, the country's national interests, the legitimate interests of citizens, public order, morality, and authentic information.

GREG BAKER/AFP/Getty Images

"The broad and vague nature of these lists provides authorities with unfettered discretion to crack down on anything they deem inappropriate," the PEN report said. "Additionally, it helps instill self-censorship among internet users, who are left with very little sense of what types of social media postings are appropriate."

Just this week, the values of the socialist system were interpreted to require an immediate crackdown on any and all parodies and spoofs.

"To be safe, a person must pull back in every respect, and moreover must become his or her own policeman," China scholar Perry Link wrote back in 2002.

For Zhang, he's already thinking about what posting online could mean for his family back in China.

"I was upset at that time because police harassed my family again," Zhang said. "I don't want them to be disturbed. Police calling gave them pressure. I have to think about my parents when I say something online."

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Stephen Lam/Reuters

Social media companies are under fire as regulators and users across the Atlantic raise new questions about their troves of personal data.

Reports over the weekend revealed that the data firm Cambridge Analytica harvested the personal data of 50 million Facebook profiles to target them with political ads ahead of the 2016 US election.

This kind of scrutiny is part of a broader trend pushing the needle closer to bursting the "data/platform bubble," according to Bilal Hafeez, Nomura's global head of G-10 foreign-exchange strategy.

"The bottom line is that trade wars, populism, income inequality can be looked at in isolation, but together they all point to a reaction against the growth of fluid intangible-intensive industries such as the data/platform companies," Hafeez said. "This means that these markets will come under increasing pressure on how they value data/platforms as the year unfolds."

Hafeez cites a political sea change against the sector as the core reason that the bubble is set to burst.

Since his campaign, President Donald Trump has focused on improving goods-producing sectors like manufacturing. Meanwhile, the services sector — a bigger contributor to the economy — continues to create the lion's share of US jobs.

Trump's approach has represented a departure from that of his immediate predecessor, Barack Obama, who embraced Silicon Valley and was the first to create executive positions for a chief technology officer and a chief data scientist.

It also doesn't help that data companies have helped widen income inequality by creating "winner-takes-all" dynamics, Hafeez said.

Hafeez also highlights "the cab driver" — people who aren't specialists but have become some of the biggest advocates of some technologies.

"A classic sign of the late stages of a boom is when non-specialists start to become the most vocal advocates for the boom," he wrote.

Bitcoin's explosion and subsequent rollover, which hurt many platforms created to profit from it, is probably the best recent example of a bandwagon that nonspecialists jumped on.

Finally, Hafeez says the rise of misinformation and fake news could also mean the end of the platform bubble.

"Today thanks to the increasing concerns that platforms and data-holders have been 'gamed' by corporations and foreign governments to manipulate consumers and voters, there is a growing backlash from individuals and governments on how these platforms can operate," he wrote. "For individuals, this could be resulting in a shift from 'crowd-sourced' information to 'reputation-based' information and opinion."

And the result for governments could be even more regulation — the final trigger, as companies move away from adhering to global standards to new regional rules.

"The EU is increasingly flexing its muscles on the rights of the consumer in relation to data/platform owners," Hafeez said. "That leaves the pioneering US companies with the most to lose as they have to retrench from these markets."

If you're looking for a trade recommendation that could profit from this, Hafeez advises that the Japanese yen "typically performs well in a volatile world."

Robin Marchant / Stringer / Getty Images

Chrissy Teigen, the 32-year-old model and host of the Paramount Network's "Lip Sync Battle," has become the latest celebrity to announce that she's quit photo messaging app Snapchat.

"I stopped using snap. The update, the constant complaints of people not being able to find me, plus the Rihanna poll...no bueno," Teigen wrote to her almost 10 million Twitter followers on Saturday morning.

The "Rihanna poll" she mentions is a reference to a huge controversy earlier this month, as Snapchat ad appeared to make light of Chris Brown's assault on the singer in 2009. "Shame on you," said Rihanna, as she slammed Snapchat for allowing the ad in the first place. Snap, the app's parent company, soon apologized, but shares of the company dipped 4% following her post.

As far as the complaints of people not being able to find Teigen on Snapchat, that's a reference to the widely-panned app redesign, which was intended to make it easier to use — but also made it harder to find photos and updates from celebrities and influencers, critics say.

Teigen is just the latest celebrity to quit the app. Back in February, Kylie Jenner announced she had quit Snapchat, too: "Sooo does anyone else not open Snapchat anymore? Or is it just me... ugh this is so sad," she tweeted to her 24.5 million followers. Following Jenner's tweet, stock in Snap dipped 8%, giving its market cap a $1.3 billion haircut. However, Jenner did return to Snapchat some time after sending that tweet.

Snap stock is currently flat in after-hours trading.

Business Insider/Julie Bort

On Thursday, Oracle officially opened its massive new Austin, Texas, campus which houses about 5,000 employees today, but will eventually hold 10,000.

This campus is unique in that it includes a luxury on-site apartment building. The live-in campus was the brainchild of Oracle co-CEO Mark Hurd as part of his Class Of program.

Hurd was inspired to create the program by a dinner he had with his daughter and her friends a few years ago. They had just graduated from college, landed sales jobs and were rooming together. They were chattering about their lives which consisted of selling stuff and partying.

"They had this infectious enthusiasm and I thought we should do the same thing at Oracle," Hurd told Business Insider. People inside Oracle's legendary competitive salesforce were not happy with the idea at first. Hiring untrained college grads was a big change for the software giant who had "historically hired from competitors," he said.

Undeterred, in 2013, Hurd began to hire thousands of college graduates to sell Oracle's cloud. He had to figure out how to train them and support their career growth until they could handle territories and clients on their own.

Today, the grads spend a few weeks in training, are tasked with cold-calling, then they shadow sales people. It takes three years of graduated training and work to get their own territories.

Then he decided Class Of employees need state-of-the-art facilities and help with affordable housing.

So in 2015, the story of this Oracle campus began, when Hurd hopped on a plane with Oracle founder Larry Ellison to Austin, and they walked along the river in search of the spot for the live-in campus.

Take a look ...

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has billions of reasons to be happy with his new pay package. REUTERS/Stephen Lam

Maybe it's just me, but $106 billion seems like a lot of money.

Heck, for me, $106 million is a good chunk of change. I could be motivated to do a whole lot of stuff for a mere $106 million. I bet you could too.

The board of directors at Tesla, however, don't think like you and me — and neither, it turns out, do the company's shareholders.

You might have missed it amid all the uproar over the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal, but Tesla shareholders this week approved a new pay package for CEO Elon Musk. Even if you did hear about it, you probably didn't realize just how massive or outrageous the pay package is.

Long story short: Tesla's shareholders agreed with the company's board that $106 billion wasn't enough money to encourage Musk to take the company's valuation to new heights. They figured he needed another $55.8 billion, an amount that is itself equivalent to the annual gross domestic product of Bulgaria.

Musk's payday is emblematic of just how broken executive compensation is this country. But it also offers a window into how inequality in this country has gotten so bad and why it keeps getting worse.

Tesla set lofty goals for Musk — but promised even loftier compensation

The payday Tesla shareholders approved for Musk on Wednesday consists of 20.3 million stock options that are subject to certain performance targets. Using a complex formula, the company estimated the value of the options, which have a 10-year lifespan, at $2.6 billion. That amount would be generous enough — it amounts to $260 million a year, after all, a heady salary for most CEOs — but it vastly understates the potential value of the options.

Tesla divided the options into 12 different tranches of equal numbers of shares. Each tranche only vests if the company meets certain operating results and its market capitalization reaches certain levels. Each market capitalization milestone is separated by $50 billion. The first tranche of options can vest when Tesla's market capitalization reaches $100 billion, the second at $150 billion, the third at $200 billion, and so on.

Those targets will be tough to meet, no doubt. But the way Musk's pay package is structured, his windfall will increase exponentially with each market capitalization milestone the company hits.

Tesla estimated that if only two of Musk's group of options vest, and he doesn't sell them until after both of them do, he'll realize about $1.4 billion in value from them. If four of his tranches vest — and, again, he doesn't sell until all of his options are vested — Tesla estimated he'll see $6.3 billion in value from them. If all 12 tranches vest — and he doesn't sell before they do — the total value of his options would be $55.8 billion, according to the company.

Even dividing that by the 10-year life of the options, that would still amount to a jaw-dropping payday of $5.6 billion a year.

Musk's potential windfall amounts to a steep commission

Here's another way of looking at Musk's potential windfall. For his first two groups of options to vest, Tesla's valuation will have to hit $150 billion, up from about $51 billion today. His own windfall from that gain would amount to about 1% of that rise in valuation. But his share of the increase would go up with Tesla's market capitalization.

For all 12 tranches to vest, the company's market capitalization would have to hit $650 billion. Tesla investors, of course, would be ecstatic if it got that high. But Musk's windfall would amount to 9% of the total increase in Tesla's valuation. That's a pretty steep commission in my book — no matter how much of a gain investors would have seen.

Now, you can argue that if Musk is able to drive Tesla to the operating and valuation targets laid out in his pay package, it will be worth it to give him such an outsized portion of the company's stock gains. After all, it's a huge mountain that the company would have had to climb.

Tesla has struggled to meet its production targets for its new Model 3 sedan. Hollis Johnson/Business Insider Tesla has struggled for years with with profitability and production. It's currently producing only a small fraction of the number of its Model 3 car — the vehicle on which Musk has basically bet the company — than it expected. So its chances of achieving even half of the goals set out for Musk seem unlikely at best.

In a letter to shareholders explaining the award, Tesla's directors said they intentionally gave him a tough challenge.

"Our aspirations may appear ambitious to some, and impossible to others, and that is by design," the board members said in the letter. "We like setting challenging, hard-to-achieve goals for ourselves, and then focusing our efforts to make them happen. This is why we based this new award on stretch goals and why we gave Elon the ability to share in the upside in a way that is commensurate with the difficulty of achieving them."

The directors designed Musk's award to ensure his interests are aligned with shareholders, they said. After Musk received a similar structured grant in 2012, Tesla's market capitalization increased 17 times, they noted.

"We believe [Musk's] prior award was instrumental in helping Tesla achieve the objectives laid out in the original Tesla Master Plan and the tremendous stockholder value that was created as a result," they said.

The rationale for Musk's new pay package doesn't make sense

Let's set aside the question of whether the goals in Musk's new pay package are achievable — or whether they're even appropriate for him to focus on. The idea that Musk needs a $55.8 billion incentive to achieve all of them is laughable on its face.

The theory behind giving executives stock awards is to allow them to benefit from the company's success, and thereby align their interests with those of shareholders. The assumption is that the executives generally don't hold much in the way of the company's shares, so they wouldn't otherwise benefit from a rising stock price. We can argue about how well that theory holds up in practice, and the incentives it creates for executives, but that's the basic idea.

But that theory just doesn't apply to Musk. He already holds a huge stake in Tesla. As of the end of last year, he owned 33.6 million shares of the company's stock, and held another 4.2 million options that could be exercised within 60 days. All told, that amounted to nearly 22% of the company's outstanding shares.

Because of that stake, Musk was already going to benefit if Tesla's valuation went up. And not in a small way.

In fact, the value of that stake alone will go up by an $17.5 billion if Tesla's market capitalization hits $150 billion — the second milepost in his new pay package — taking into account the dilution the company expects. If Tesla's market capitalization goes all the way up to $650 billion, that stake would appreciate by $106 billion, again taking expected dilution into account.

In other words, Musk already had a $106 billion incentive to hit the top valuation target in his new pay package — even before being granted the new shares. Sure, he'd have to hold on to his current shares, but to see that $106 billion windfall he wouldn't even have to hit any of the operating targets set out in his new package. Maybe I'm naive, but I would think that $106 billion is more than enough of a reason to get him to drive Tesla to that valuation.

If it's not, then maybe Musk isn't the right guy to be running Tesla. I admire Musk and what he's trying to build with Tesla and SpaceX and all of his other projects. But I'm sure there are plenty of capable CEOs out there who would be more than willing to take on the challenge of leading Tesla to that kind of valuation for a lot less than $106 billion — much less the $161.8 billion, which is the total Musk stands to gain between his existing stake and his new pay package. For goodness sakes, it's a CEO's job to be driving longterm shareholder interest anyway — no matter how much the CEO is paid.

Musk's potential gain would come at the company's expense

In crafting this new pay package, Tesla board members said they actually did take into account Musk's current stake in the company. But they didn't explain why the expected appreciation of that stake alone wasn't enough to encourage him to achieve the goals they set out for him.

Investors have the most to lose from Musk's new pay package. If and as Tesla's stock appreciates, their share of the gains will get smaller and smaller.

But they'll lose out in other ways that are often not appreciated, especially since options and other stock awards are often treated as a trivial, non-cash expense that's more than accounted for by dilution.

Each share awarded to Musk represents an opportunity cost for the company. It's a share that the company itself could have sold to the public to raise money for its own treasury. That's not a small consideration for Tesla, given that it has has repeatedly had to raise money to fund its operations.

What's more, assuming Tesla is around long enough, it will almost certainly do what nearly every other company that hands out stock awards does — buy back those shares to soak up dilution and shore up its stock price. To do that, it will have to use actual cash that could have gone to other other, arguably better uses, whether that's paying other employees, expanding its operations, or paying out dividends.

One would have hoped that given such costs — and the ridiculous size of this award — Tesla investors would have put their collective foot down. But no. While investors representing 27% of the company's shares did vote against the pay package — a not insignificant amount — the vast majority of the rest backed it.

"We believe the final plan is well-aligned with shareholders' long-term interests," T. Rowe Price, a big mutual fund company told Bloomberg in an article Tesla's board sent to shareholders to encourage them to vote for the package.

Such support is not unexpected. The big mutual fund companies often rubber-stamp executive pay and other initiatives proposed by corporate boards. Most are happy to go-along to get-along, and many of those mutual funds are eager to stay on good terms with directors in hopes of winning their business elsewhere.

It's hard to have sympathy for such shareholders. They, after all, are the ones that approved Musk's pay package. They ought to reap both the benefits and consequences of that decision.

But others stand to lose from it too

Unfortunately, though, Tesla shareholders aren't the only ones who stand to lose from Musk's outrageous pay package.

Corporate boards and their advisors typically justify their executive pay decisions by looking at the pay given to executives at what they consider to be their peer companies. Because of what's been called the Lake Wobegone effect— where every company considers their executives to be above average — boards typically pay their managers above the average rate. With everyone looking at everyone else, executive pay gets ratcheted ever upward.

Thanks to that effect, you can expect corporate boards at other companies to look at Musk's pay package and figure they need to up the pay of their own executives to astronomical levels also. So, thanks to Tesla setting a new bar for executive pay, stakeholders at other companies are likely to lose out as well.

But the phenomenon of ever-increasing executive compensation does more than affect corporate investors and shareholders. It's also played a significant role in the growth in inequality in this country. Even as executive pay has soared over the last several decades, the pay of average workers has stagnated.

That's not just a coincidence. CEO pay has increased almost in inverse proportion to the decline in the power and membership of labor unions, one of the forces that had previously helped to keep it in check and tilt companies' economic spoils toward their employees.

Because so much of executives' pay these days comes in the form of shares of their companies, and share prices are tied in large part to companies' profits, executives see their pay rise as their companies' bottom line improves. And one sure way to better the bottom line is to hold down costs — most notably labor costs.

Tesla has fended off efforts to unionize its workers at its California factory. Benjamin Zhang/Business Insider Tesla is a case in point. Even as it was preparing its gargantuan pay package for Musk, the company was fighting off union efforts to organize its Bay Area factory workers, who reportedly get paid well below the industry average even while living in one of the most expensive regions in the United States.

Free market absolutists dismiss the danger of rising inequality, arguing that in a capitalist economy, you need to offer outsized gains to spur risk taking, innovation, and entrepreneurship. But the types of outsized gains Musk and other executives are seeing now are arguably way past what's needed to encourage such ends.

And on the flipside, rising inequality is antithetical to democracy. It's tied to a whole host of social ills. And it's linked to slow economic growth and financial and political instability. Indeed, the last time the United States saw this much inequality was right before the Great Depression.

But, hey, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe Elon Musk really does need the lure of another $55.8 billion on top of the $106 billion he'd already see to give him the motivation to drive Tesla to new heights.

After all, shouldn't a CEO who's shooting for the stars have a payday that's equally lofty?

Cambridge Analytica CEO Alexander Nix gives evidence to the Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport Committee. Parliament TV

The Facebook data scandal all-but confirmed a long-held suspicion that Cambridge Analytica (CA) used online voter profiling techniques that may have helped swing the 2016 US election in favour of Donald Trump.

But while questions about CA's shadowy work in American democracy are being bottomed out, many still linger about the company's involvement in the UK's historic vote to leave the European Union.

British politicians have called for a full investigation into CA's work in the UK and overseas, particularly after the firm gave differing accounts of the work it undertook for Nigel Farage's Brexit campaign group, Leave.EU.

Here are all the times CA has brazenly contradicted itself over its involvement in helping to persuade British voters to leave the EU.

CA's CEO wrote that the firm had "teamed up with Leave.EU" — then furiously backpedaled

In February 2016, CA's Chief Executive Alexander Nix penned a comment piece for British trade journal Campaign about how data had — ironically — helped Ted Cruz beat Trump in the Republican primary in Iowa.

Within the column, which is still online here, Nix said the company had "teamed up with Leave.EU" to help the Brexit advocates "better understand and communicate with UK voters."

The CEO boasted: "We have already helped supercharge Leave.EU's social media campaign by ensuring the right messages are getting to the right voters online, and the campaign's Facebook page is growing in support to the tune of about 3,000 people per day."

But in evidence to the Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport Committee (DCMSC) last month, Nix furiously backpedaled from this version of events. He said the Campaign comment piece was drafted by a "slightly overzealous PR consultant" and was published before it entered into an official partnership with Leave.EU.

"It was an error. We were very vocal about that at the time and we addressed it head-on immediately when we realised that it had been put out," he told the DCMSC chair Damian Collins. Asked why the article is still online, Nix said: "I cannot speak to that personally, but I am sure that we have asked them [to withdraw it.]"

The CEO was pressed on the matter repeatedly by the committee. "The facts of the matter are that we did no work on that campaign or any campaigns. We were not involved in the referendum," he told MPs, adding that he would be "pleased" to provide bank statements showing that no money passed hands between Leave.EU and CA.

On Sunday, Collins cast doubt over Nix's evidence to MPs. He said the revelations that CA harvested data from 50 million Facebook accounts meant Nix had "deliberately misled the committee and Parliament" by saying CA does not engage in such activities.

Nix admitted CA "did undertake some work" for Leave.EU — but it was only preparatory

A year after writing in Campaign magazine, Nix again admitted to a relationship with Leave.EU. He told Bloomberg: "We did undertake some work with Leave.EU, but it's been significantly overreported."

Nix explained that the work he referred to was simply preparatory. He said: "I was using the word 'work' to mean that we met with them to discuss an opportunity. That is working.

"Unfortunately, having meetings, even if they do not lead anywhere, is still work but it does not entail the sort of relationship that you are trying to suggest existed between their organisation and our company."

A CA employee took part in the Leave.EU launch event, despite claims they weren't working together

Flashback again to 2015, and at a launch event for Leave.EU in November, CA's Business Development Director Brittany Kaiser was sat on the press conference panel.

Cambridge Analytica's Brittany Kaiser at the Leave.EU event. Leave.EU/YouTube

She told the audience that CA will be "running large-scale research of the nation to really understand why people are interested in staying in or out of the EU. The answers to that will help inform our policy and communications." You can watch the full press conference here.

But Nix said it was perfectly normal for two organisations to appear alongside each other at a launch event, despite having no formal connection. He told MPs: "It is not unusual, when you are exploring a working relationship with a client, to speak in public together about the work that you hope to undertake."

Leave.EU also repeatedly boasted that it worked with CA — and named the company in documents applying to be the official Brexit campaign group

It wasn't just CA that repeated claims that it worked with Leave.EU, the campaign group itself boasted about their collaboration on a number of occasions.

Aaron Banks, who bankrolled the campaign, wrote in his book "The Bad Boys of Brexit" that on 22 October 2015, Leave.EU "hired Cambridge Analytica, an American company that uses 'big data and advanced psychographics' to influence people."

Aaron Banks. Peter Macdiarmid/Getty

Furthermore, Communications Director Andy Wigmore admitted last year that Leave.EU hired CA and can "highly recommend" the company's services.

He also told The Observer that the group harvested personal data and targeted voters on Facebook with anti-EU messaging. He said Facebook was a powerful weapon in Leave.EU's armoury, claiming that the accuracy of the technology is "really creepy."

Wigmore explained that CA was "happy to help" with its work on Brexit because Farage is a "good friend" of Robert Mercer, the hedge fund billionaire who is reported to have invested in CA.

Leave.EU even named CA in its paperwork when it applied to the Electoral Commission to be the official Brexit campaign, according to DCMSC chair Collins. The company was not designated as the official campaign group and Nix said he was unaware CA had been named in the documents.

And just like Nix, Banks has rowed back from his statements about CA and Leave.EU's relationship.

In a letter to the DCMSC last week, he said: "Leave.EU's dealings with Cambridge Analytica were limited to tender discussions, negotiations regarding contract terms contingent upon winning designation, and Cambridge Analytica being presented as an intended strategic partner in the event that designation was secured."

Lewis Hamilton. Getty Images

Four-time Formula 1 World Champion Lewis Hamilton has agreed to take part in a two-man race.

There is, of course, a catch. The cars involved would have no steering wheels, no gearsticks, and no pedals.

Usually, this would cause problems — but not if you're Hamilton or his quadriplegic opponent, Rodrigo Hübner Mendes.

This is because if the race goes ahead, Hamilton and Mendes will use headsets that translate brainwave signals into commands, allowing them to accelerate, brake, and turn using nothing but their minds.

Hamilton verbally committed to the competition while speaking at the two-day Global Education and Skills Forum event in Dubai last weekend.

According to Techradar, Hamilton was giving a speech about what it takes to be a champion. At the end of the session, the floor opened up to questions.

Mendes was one of the people to ask a question, though he posed it as more of a challenge.

Mendes, the first person to control a F1 car with his brain, wanted to race Hamilton using Emotiv Epoc+ technology — a neuroheadset which measures brainwave signals, allocates them to commands, and allows users to control various devices, like a car, using their brain.

The initial challenge was for Mendes to race with a headset against Hamilton in his F1 car. Hamilton "clearly wasn't expecting the challenge," according to Techradar, but accepted on the terms that they both wear headsets.

The 2018 F1 season begins this weekend and Hamilton will be hoping to defend his world title. It is therefore unclear when the Briton will take part in the race against Mendes — but it is one we will certainly tune in for.

Flickr / Qfamily

As the Dow Jones industrial average plummeted more than 1,000 points last month, many human traders blamed their automated counterparts for massive selling.

That's unlikely to be the last of the finger-pointing or of flash crashes worsened by machines, according to Charles Himmelberg, Goldman Sachs' cohead of global markets research.

"We suspect the Feb. sell-off is symptomatic of a broader risk, namely, the rising 'financial fragility' during the post-crisis period," Himmelberg said in a note on Monday.

"By 'fragility' we mean price volatility that arises not from changes in the fundamental outlook for markets, but rather from markets themselves."

Although the Dow had its biggest ever one-day point drop last month, the biggest casualties were exchange-traded notes that had been engineered to profit from lower volatility. As the Cboe Volatility index, or VIX, had its biggest one-day spike ever, machines (and traders) invested in these ETNs were forced to cover their short bets. Two of the biggest ETNs lost 95% of their value that day.

The VIX reflects traders bets for turbulence on the S&P 500, and tends to rise when the index falls.

"It felt like the machines took over but we saw (human) investors buying the dip not only in financials but also other sectors," Vincent Kondaveeti, a financials sector sales specialist at Credit Suisse, said at the time.

"The machines took over" and other flavors of that opinion were shared by several fund managers after the sell-off.

According to Himmelberg, post-crisis regulations and technologies have already put the machines in charge, with dire consequences for trading liquidity.

"In this new market structure, machines have replaced humans, and speed has replaced capital," he said.

"While such changes have greatly reduced the need for equity capital, and are thus efficiency-enhancing, the same was also true about leverage and structured products during the run-up to the financial crisis. While the new ecosystem for providing market liquidity has arguably freed up equity capital for more efficient uses, it has also depleted the pools of capital that will be available for liquidity when the cycle turns."

At a recent Goldman Sachs conference, Himmelberg noted that episodes such as the February sell-off have so far happened against the backdrop of a growing economy. Additionally, investors were always on standby to intervene by buying the dip at cheaper prices.

But all this has bred complacency among investors, Himmelberg said. And, there could be a steep price to pay when, unlike now, there are more compelling reasons to sell stocks over buying.

"I think eventually the machines and AI will be so smart that your typical machine trader will be better than your typical human trader," Himmelberg said at the conference.

"Having said that, the problem with machines is they're very simple. They don't have any money. So when things get hairy ... the machines shut down."

Getty Images / Ethan Miller

Recent declines in bitcoin may be foreign to traders accustomed to record-breaking returns, but the cryptocurrency's price chart looks awfully familiar to strategists at Morgan Stanley.

It reminds the firm of how the Nasdaq traded in 2000, during the tech bubble's heyday. And based on the chart below — which overlays bitcoin's one-year performance over a 15-year Nasdaq line — they have some serious similarities.

The only catch is that bitcoin is moving 15 times faster than the Nasdaq did.

Morgan Stanley

Morgan Stanley highlights bitcoin's recent descent into a bear market, which has seen the cryptocurrency fall 70% from its mid-December peak to its most recent low in early February. The firm argues this is a totally normal turn of events for bitcoin, once again highlighting its similarities to the dotcom-bubble Nasdaq.

Perhaps most intriguing to bitcoin enthusiasts will be Morgan Stanley's finding that these types of weak spots have historically preceded rallies in the underlying asset.

During recent selloffs, the price of bitcoin has fallen an average of 47%, then rallied an average of 43%. Back in the span from March 2000 through October 2002, the Nasdaq fell an average of 44%, only to rebound roughly 40%, Morgan Stanley data show. Those are some eerily similar fluctuations.

So what's the big deal? Is there any insight to be gleaned from this intertwined relationship, marked by investor overexuberance? Given the similarities seen, investors should be able to use the historical Nasdaq chart to forecast moves in bitcoin — so long as they apply Morgan Stanley's 15-to-1 ratio.

Comparing the two is also a worthwhile exercise in staying calm amid panic-inducing conditions. As the chart below shows, even the worst selloffs in the dotcom-era Nasdaq were softened somewhat by the roaring rallies that followed.

Given where bitcoin is in its current cycle, bulls should find comfort in knowing a rebound may soon be afoot — that is, until the next inevitable reckoning.

Morgan Stanley

Head of Accenture Interactive Brian Whipple Accenture

The ad agency model continues to be under threat from from management consultancies, who claim that they can meet the needs of modern CEOs and CMOs by integrating traditional creative with business and tech strategy far better than classic ad agencies can.

Accenture Interactive, the agency wing of consulting giant Accenture, is no different. It is not only the largest digital agency in the world in terms of revenue, but continues to expand at a frenetic pace, making 12 acquisitions in the past 15 months and opening new offices across the globe.

While Accenture's existing relationships with Fortune 100 companies have helped steer Accenture Interactive business, it has plenty of other things going for it, says Accenture Interactive head Brian Whipple.

Business Insider caught up with Whipple during the South by Southwest Interactive conference last week for a chat. Here's an edited version of the conversation.

Tanya Dua: You've been on quite the acquisition spree over the past few years. What's the rationale behind these moves?

Brian Whipple: We are not like other financial entities where you're buying companies to just grow by revenue. That's not at all our strategy. There's really only two scenarios: one where we need to add a new capability, and the other is to scale something that we already do in other geographies.

So for instance, we bought Fjord in 2013 because we saw the connection between service design and all the technology-enabled work that we can do — and that has turned out to be a hugely successful play for us. Whereas buying PacificLink in Asia was an example of scaling geographically. So it's not quite an acquisition spree — where we decide where can we spend Accenture's money — it's more like if we need a new capability because that all be relevant to our clients in the future, we will invest in that.

Dua: But those post acquisition integrations must not always be easy. How hard is the process? Are there any cultural clashes, particularly in global deals?

Whipple: It would be accurate to say that — take a Pacific Link at Hong Kong — is very different from Accenture. But it's not very different from Accenture Interactive. If you go through the Accenture Interactive studio in Hong Kong you won't at all feel like you work for an old accounting firm or technology firm or anything like that at all. We believe in what we internally call the "culture of cultures" where the culture of these companies together makes up the culture of Accenture Interactive. We are kind of our own thing inside Accenture and we have been given great latitude in creating our own culture.

Dua: So the larger corporate culture of Accenture never seeps in or dominates the culture at Accenture Interactive?

Whipple: Accenture is a big company and it does a lot of different things, like infrastructure outsourcing and business processes and big IT consulting projects and all that stuff. And they're very successful at that.But it doesn't have much to do with us. What it does have to do with us is that CEOs of large companies are used to spending hundreds of million dollar sums in multi-year arrangements with Accenture and have a very trusted, high-quality type of relationship with it. And now, we're porting those relationships over to marketing services. That is the part of the mothership that is relevant: the role of being the trusted advisor to these companies.

Dua: What about traditional ad agencies? How similar to or different from them are you?

Whipple: You're not going to see us pitching for the new Olive Garden creative. We could do that, but we just wouldn't choose to do that. They may be great assignments for a lot of agencies, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. But they're going to negotiate for a $6.5-7.5 million retainer for the year, and it's going to be print and TV. We would never ever do that. But if Olive Garden wanted to invest in reinventing the restaurant experience — of which advertising would be a part — that is something we would be all over. We would rather deploy our resources in helping Maserati reinvent the car-buying experience than doing a TV spot. That's how we look at it.

Dua: And how do you think consultancies and this kind of an approach fits in with the current advertising landscape?

Hollis Johnson/Business Insider Whipple: I don't think they do. I think it's a new kind of a landscape. There are many smart leaders of iconic traditional ad holding firms and they have been successful for a long time, and they will continue to be successful. There's always going to be a Super Bowl ad and the need for that. But what we do is a different thing. We are catering to this kind of a business shift, and our business is focused on this entirely different need. Our decisions are about capitalizing on the shifts in spending away from the traditional toward more of business reinvention, such as how you try on clothes, how you buy a car, how you bank and dine at a restaurant. I don't care what we're called, we're just focused on helping our clients get closer to their customers through providing the best experiences on the planet.

Another way that our business is different — not better or worse — just different, is that we not only design these experiences and architect them through technology and processes and systems, but we also manage them. It's not just about creating the tech, someone's got to manage that mobile tech, someone's got to come up with the upgrade. You can see what a powerful business model this is for Accenture. Ad agencies are not even in that business at all.

Dua: How much are these changes being driven by the changing demands of clients? How are they approaching you differently and why do you think you are better suited in responding to them?

Whipple: It is still the job of CMOs and CMO-type people, whatever you may want to call them, to build and maintain a brand. However, how that's done has changed massively. Brands were built through advertising, marketing and messaging — where you could tell someone that coffee tastes a certain way and it means happiness and sunshine and a fresh start to the day — and that coffee is Dunkin'. If you keep saying that on the radio, in the Patriots' games and on television and your signage, pretty soon, people were going to believe that.

But what has started happening, thanks to companies like Uber, like Spotify, like Paypal, is that brands are now built through experiences. Uber has transformed transportation, reinvented technology in a way that you can do everything from your device, and did not advertise for the longest time. But everyone knows that their brand is about efficiency, choice and user empowerment.

CMOs are now doing things differently because they know that brands are now built through a collection of experiences, not advertising. Advertising is relevant, for sure, and will always be, but it does not drive a brand and is one of many things that do. That coincidentally fits in well with what we want to do.

Dua: Do you think traditional agencies are justified in being threatened by you guys?

Whipple: We are absolutely not out to put them out of work at all. We will never have massive creative capabilities for the sake of creative — but we will invest in creative to the extent that it is necessary for creating those experiences, just as we would invest in AR, VR and other things. What will put them out of work though is not having a business that addresses the shift in the industry and the ability to not run experiences. They traditionally have not moved much, they might move one chess piece around, but most of them still have their founders' culture. When we do our strategy meetings and I bring all my top guys together, we don't talk about them. Ever. Not because they're not great, but they're not relevant to what we're doing.

Our competition is the inertia that thrives in every industry till today. Think about all those experiences that haven't changed in years: getting a mortgage sucks, shopping for a car is horrendous, eating at a restaurant or how you try on clothes at a department store hasn't changed. Our competition is CEOs of these corporations wanting to be risk-averse and wanting to do the same thing that they did last year. We spend more time working with CEOs to transform and disrupt much more than we ever do comparing ourselves with ad agencies.

Dua: What are some things you can categorically say you do better than traditional agencies?

Whipple: Without a doubt, owning an experience from start to finish — through design to management — we're 100% number one. Number two would be managing complicated things on a global scale, and that's where we leverage the mothership. Pick a part of the world, say Tokyo, and we have people that know the culture at Accenture Japan, people who know how to do business there, people that know how to get real estate, people that understand the work laws. We don't have ot send people on a two month project to stick a flag, the flags are already there, we just take it an expand and bring in all the digital and marketing expertise. Having that global presence and being able to help along every part of the process is something that no one else does. And thirdly, if a client wants to focus on the experience, that is uniquely us.

Dua: Another criticism that agencies level at you is that they see you at client pitches, but never end up seeing actual work. How do you respond to that?

Whipple: Depends on how you define work. What is work? And ad? Typically they would say that because they want to point to a print ad or a TV ad or a campaign at Cannes — and that would only be a piece of what we do. We're basically advising on a client's business and how to reinvent that — not on their advertising. What we do is at the center of their business strategy, which is not something they typically launch a press release around. So in that sense there is no "work" to show. But that being said, there are many examples on how we're working on the future of the shopping experience, with Whole Foods, for example, or how you're going to buy a car in the future through a car configurator. It's not like we don't have award-winning advertising. But that's small potatoes to us. Our client is the CEO, not the brand manager.

Dua: So what is it that keeps you up at night?

Whipple: What I would lose sleep on is that Fortune 100 client electing not to proceed not to proceed on transforming the retail business. And that's not happening. Another thing that I would lose sleep over is if we were one day not being able to attract the best talent in the industry. And right now, we have our pick of the litter.

If you work at an agency that does $300-400 in revenue, that's a media-sized agency. For us, that's two projects. If you're a creative director or an account planner or a strategy person, you could work on award-winning stuff for us, travel wherever globally, and some people want to be a part of that kind of a bigger picture scenario.

Jeff Swanson/Getty

Good morning! Here is the tech news you need to know this Tuesday.

1. A self-driving Uber car hit and killed a woman in Tempe, Arizona while in autonomous mode. Uber suspended its entire self-driving car programme as a result.

2. The UK's data regulator has a warrant to raid political research firm Cambridge Analytica and seize its servers, after Facebook suspended the firm for misusing user data. Facebook had already sent in its own investigators to Cambridge Analytica, but "stood down" after the Information Commissioner's Office got involved.

3. Cambridge Analytica's chief executive, Alexander Nix, was filmed by Channel 4 boasting that the research firm could entrap politicians with sex workers. Cambridge Analytica nonetheless denied using such tactics.

4. Facebook's stock price took a hammering through Monday as politicians lined up to slam the company over the way it policed third-party use of user data. The firm had dropped around $35 billion by close of trading.

5. A Business Insider investigation has found it's incredibly easy to buy illegal fake luxury goods on Facebook Marketplace, with few protections for buyers in place. We spoke to sellers who tried to obtain our bank details and phone numbers.

6. Amazon is tracking how many people return to its cashierless Go supermarket after an initial visit. Shopping frequency will probably help determine whether Amazon decides to expand the concept.

7. Secretive virtual reality startup Magic Leap has given a preview of its platform to third-party developers with a "creator portal" that offers resources for people who want to build apps for its yet-to-launch headset. The portal lets people preview apps in a simulator.

8. Facebook's longtime and vocal head of security, Alex Stamos, may leave the company in August because he disagrees with how it handles big issues like fake news. Stamos merely commented on Twitter that "it's true" his role at Facebook had now changed, but didn't confirm or deny his departure.

9. Google is expanding its Instant Apps program to games, meaning Android users can find a game via the Play Store, click the "try now" button, and immediately start playing without downloading an app. The idea is to help people find more new games.

10. BlackBerry's shares rose after the firm announced a partnership with Microsoft, providing security for Office apps. The firm's share price was up 5% on Monday.

Business Insider's fake goods haul from Facebook. Business Insider

Facebook has a major problem with scammers and fake designer goods on its popular Marketplace platform, contributing to a global counterfeiting industry that is worth an estimated half a trillion dollars a year, or around £358 billion.

Marketplace lets users buy and sell almost anything they want on Facebook. A Business Insider investigation found that it was easy to buy illegal knock-off luxury goods, including a fake Rolex watch, Gucci bag, and Tiffany bracelet for £50 ($70) or less. None were flagged as fake, and the genuine articles can cost thousands of pounds.

Facebook has little protection in place for users who knowingly or unknowingly buy fake goods through its platform. Users don't pay for items through Marketplace itself, and Facebook never handles a payment. Instead, you deal directly with the seller.

Business Insider found sellers who asked for phone numbers or bank details to carry out transactions — something which UK police warned could lead to identity theft. We talked to around 30 sellers, most of whom were operating independently. In one case, a seller ran an entire online shop selling fake Tiffany bracelets.

Facebook does have policies against selling or advertising counterfeit goods on its platform, but the company evidently can't keep up with the plethora of fakes popping up on Marketplace.

When Business Insider highlighted the issue to Facebook, the firm said it vets new listings for counterfeit goods and is using machine learning to try and identify fakes. It has also started asking some sellers who sell branded goods for identification.

The company relies on users and luxury brands to file counterfeit forms if they spot fake goods, report policy violations and, in the case of brands, proactively search listings for rip-offs. After we flagged the seller who ran a counterfeit goods shop online to Facebook, the firm temporarily suspended that seller's account.

Business Insider

Rolex and Gucci declined to comment. Tiffany & Co's Chief Compliance and Privacy Officer Ewa Ebrams said Facebook has removed thousands of fake Tiffany postings in the past year.

Facebook's fakes marketplace is massive: In the first six months of 2017, the company removed more than 200,000 posts relating to counterfeit goods, according to a transparency report released in December. This is the first Facebook report which included counterfeit goods, making it difficult to see whether the problem has deteriorated since Marketplace first launched in 2016.

The sale of fake goods affects all the biggest e-commerce platforms, including Amazon and Ebay, though neither disclose statistics. But crucially, both have dedicated anti-counterfeiting programs in place that appear more robust than Facebook's.

Marketplace is a Craigslist-style local listings service

Facebook Marketplace is a little like going to the community noticeboard, seeing what's on offer, and then ringing up a seller directly to buy their goods. It's comparable to local classifieds service Craigslist.

You can search for almost anything on Marketplace — from bedding to food to a new phone. Once you've searched through the listings and found what you want, Facebook allows you to contact the seller directly through its Messenger service. After that, you're pretty much on your own.

Facebook Marketplace is an online listings service where you can buy almost anything Business Insider

From then on, you sort out how you'd like to pay — bank transfer, PayPal, cash in hand — directly with the seller, and whether you'd like to collect the item yourself or have it posted to you.

Facebook has brief safety instructions advising buyers to take a friend for any in-person purchases. It also gives some guidance on avoiding fake goods but the language makes it clear that it's the seller and you, the buyer, who are responsible for checking what you buy — not Facebook.

Facebook has never revealed how much it makes from Marketplace, but the service has the potential to become big business. During the firm's full-year 2017 investor call, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said more than 700 million people buy and sell items on Facebook, while COO Sheryl Sandberg said the firm was testing ads to make money from the service.

Last August, the firm revealed that US users placed 18 million items on sale on Marketplace in May alone. And if Facebook decided to bring Marketplace payments in-house, one estimate pegs potential annual revenue at $5 billion (£3.6 billion).

Because Facebook doesn't take responsibility for payments, and Marketplace is only open to individuals and not businesses, buyers don't have much by way of consumer rights. Although you have the legal right not to be tricked into buying fake goods, you would have to resolve any disputes with the seller directly or through the courts under UK laws, according to the consumer magazine Which. Facebook does not, and currently cannot, offer you any recourse if you are ripped off.

A Facebook spokeswoman told Business Insider that the company takes the problem of fake goods seriously:

"Making sure people have a safe and positive experience on Facebook is our top priority, which is why we are constantly working to improve enforcement of our Commerce Policies.

"We take counterfeit issues very seriously, and our terms prohibit people from posting content that violates third-parties' intellectual property rights. We built a variety of tools like our Commerce & Ads IP Tool to help rights owners protect their IP rights on Facebook, and we are continually improving how we address IP infringement to keep infringing content off of our platform.

"We also encourage our community to report any accounts or content they feel doesn't belong on Facebook, including sellers who they believe aren't acting in good faith. We are also building machine-learning models to better detect policy-violating content and are requiring identification from some merchants selling branded goods."

But despite Facebook's best intentions, it doesn't take long to run into sellers making money out fake goods on Marketplace. Business Insider picked three of the most counterfeited brands in luxury— Rolex, Gucci, and Tiffany — and found a large number of fakes being sold at a fraction of the price of the real thing.

The real version of this £50 'Rolex' costs around £20,000

Business Insider initially set out to buy one of the most counterfeited items in the world: A Rolex watch.

There are plenty of fakes on Facebook Marketplace, although actually buying one was surprisingly difficult. It was tough to find a seller who agreed to take a refundable and trackable PayPal payment, who would post the item, or who was based in London for a pick-up. It was also hard to find someone who wasn't selling an obviously fake watch for less than our budget of £75.

We started out simply by searching for "Rolex" on Facebook Marketplace. We found the top listings were full of grammatical errors, poor quality photos, and what appeared to be plasticky-looking fakes. One listing showed a £4,500 Rolex where the seller claimed to have "lost" the accompanying certification papers and box.

Business Insider Eventually, we found someone willing to take a trackable PayPal payment, and who would send us a photo of the package as proof of postage.

Business Insider

After messaging the seller, the process was reasonably straightforward. We sent our address to the seller, a PayPal payment, and a few days later the fake Rolex turned up in a padded brown envelope.

The fake Rolex. Shona Ghosh/Business Insider

The entire buying process should make you suspicious that you aren't buying a real Rolex, according to Joseph McKenzie, founder of independent pre-owned luxury goods seller Xupes. Xupes does not directly compete with Marketplace, but does offer a way for people to buy and sell designer handbags, watches, and jewellery.

The seller never offered a Rolex box or accompanying certification for the knock-off we purchased — the first clear sign of a fake.

And our £50 ($70) watch had some obvious flaws, which McKenzie identified within seconds of picking up our timepiece.

"This is supposedly a gold Rolex — and if it were a solid 18 karat gold watch than it would be a lot heavier than this," he said. "The bracelet and buckle are not correct, the case back is stainless steel as opposed to gold, and there's a random engraving on the back, which a Rolex never has."

The watch expert added: "The dial and the bezel is also incorrect. The bezel [here] is blue and red, and there is no such Submariner in the Rolex range. All in, this is a pretty obvious fake."

Even the Marketplace listings with Rolex-like pricetags of several thousand pounds might just be advertising "Frankenwatches" — sophisticated knock-offs that contain some genuine parts, he said.

In the video below, you can watch McKenzie comparing the dud watch to a £6,195 (£8,663) Rolex Submariner and a £17,295 Rolex GMT-Master II.

This Gucci bag normally costs £805 — but the fake version came with a Chinese tag

It took less than an hour for Business Insider to find and buy this fake Gucci handbag for £41 ($57). It's a clear imitation of Gucci's real "Soho" disco bag, which sells through online retailers for £805 ($1,190).

At no point was there any indication that the bag was counterfeit. Nor did the seller offer any kind of guarantees.

The original listing for the fake Gucci bag, with the seller's details blanked out. Business Insider

There are some obvious differences between the genuine article and the fake. The real bag is a classy tan colour, unlike the flesh-coloured knock-off. The fake version doesn't have extra detail like studding on the metalwork and, if you look closely, there is some loose stitching on the Gucci logo.

And probably the biggest giveaway was the cardboard label attached to the bag, which featured Chinese lettering and described the bag as "apricot," whereas Gucci describes its version as "rose beige." China happens to be the world's factory for counterfeit goods.

Business Insider

Victoire Boyer Chammard, head of authentication at luxury resale site Vestiaire Collective, said there are some obvious features to look for in a fake designer bag. Vestiaire Collective competes with Facebook Marketplace in that people can buy second-hand luxury goods via its site, though the company says conducts quality control checks on items.

"First of all look at the general aspects: Shape, proportion and posture. A real bag typically takes on a strong structure," Chammard told Business Insider.

"Then check the quality of the material the bag is made from — it helps to have an understanding of how good quality material should look, feel and smell in order to compare accurately.

"Look at the typography of the brand on the label, the stitching should be perfect with no inconsistencies. The metal details are also very important: The metal has to be [quality]. Finally, the packaging, you should always have the box, the dustbag and the invoice."

The seller in this instance was quick to nail down the deal, simply passing over their PayPal payment deals, requesting Business Insider's address, and sending a photo of the package.

Business Insider's exchange with a counterfeit goods seller. Business Insider

A Tiffany bracelet can cost around £4,000 — our fake was £15

Business Insider's final purchase was a fake Tiffany & Co bracelet, which didn't appear to be based on any particular original design.

The fake was made of cheap, gold-coloured metal rather than genuine precious metal, and the engraving featured the incorrect font, rather than Tiffany custom lettering.

The closest equivalent Business Insider could find on Tiffany's website cost £4,625 ($6,464). Our knock-off bracelet was £15 ($21) and arrived in a cheap brown envelope.

Tiffany & Co's Chief Compliance and Privacy Officer Ewa Ebrams said Facebook has a problem. "Tiffany & Co. rigorously enforces our trademarks to protect our customers and the strength of our brand, including robust efforts that target both physical and digital infringements. On Facebook, more than 2,000 counterfeit Tiffany listings have been taken down since the beginning of 2017," she told Business Insider.

Sellers asked for bank transfers, phone numbers, and for monet via an unprotected PayPal feature

The most alarming aspect of Facebook Marketplace was how unsafe it was for a buyer.

Despite Facebook's safety tips, there's little advice on the best way to pay, or how to keep your information safe. The Facebook Marketplace tab also does not directly link to Facebook's help pages.

Facebook only suggests that PayPal or cash are "good options" and that anyone paying in person should take a friend. For safety and practical purposes, Business Insider arranged PayPal payments, and for sellers to post us the fake goods.

Of the 30 sellers we contacted, five asked us to send money via PayPal's Friends and Family feature. This was to avoid the fee PayPal charges if you are buying goods or services.

Business Insider

But there's a catch for those who agree. Marketplace users who pay for items using PayPal's normal service are protected by PayPal's Buyer Protection program, meaning you can get your money back if the item isn't as advertised, or doesn't turn up. Paying through Friends and Family waives that protection — meaning unscrupulous sellers could take your money and never post you anything.

A PayPal spokeswoman confirmed that Friends and Family payments do not come with buyer protection and explicitly warned against buying goods and services through the mechanism.

She said: "If someone selling you goods or a service asks you to send a friends and family payment, you should refuse. There's no extra cost to you if you correctly identify a payment as being for goods or a service, and ultimately it ensures we can reimburse you if something goes wrong."

Business Insider refused to pay several sellers through Friends and Family, and that led to some transactions falling through.

In one case, a seller asked to move the conversation off Facebook and onto WhatsApp — meaning buyers would have to give away their phone numbers. And in another instance, a seller requested a bank transfer. Again, there's no way of getting your money back from a bank transfer, according to the consumer magazine Which.

Conversations with 3 Facebook Marketplace sellers about paying for items. Business Insider

Police warn that buying fake goods can contribute to human trafficking and slavery

According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the international economic policy organisation, most of the proceeds from buying fake goods goes towards organised crime.

Even buying a knock-off Gucci bag from someone in east London through Facebook Marketplace might be contributing to the issue, according to Nick Court a detective inspector at the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU).

"[PIPCU's] focus as far as possible is organised crime groups — targeting those is more likely to have an effect," he said. "Those groups are involved in other activity, like human trafficking, slavery, money laundering. But having said that, you can never be sure who you're dealing with until you meet them. You may be looking at someone [selling goods] in Barking, but until we talk to them and search their premises, we can't be sure."

In other words, even a small-time fake goods seller might be a front for something more sinister.

Court added that handing over payment details online was very risky and might lead to identity theft. "Using PayPal isn't foolproof, but it is a lot safer than giving your bank details or card details. That goes straight to people you know are suspected criminals," he said.

Police and consumer protection agencies say tech firms aren't doing enough

This isn't the first time buyers have spotted dodgy goods being sold on Marketplace.

When the service first launched in 2016, buyers found guns, drugs, and adult services for sale. At the time, Facebook blamed the problem on a technical glitch which meant the illicit goods got past its review processes. And there have been several investigations into buyers selling fake goods, suggesting Facebook isn't moving quickly enough to tackle the problem.

According to an annual government report into intellectual property crime, social media has overtaken auction sites like eBay as the go-to place for criminals to sell knock-offs.

Last November, UK Trading Standards called out Facebook for not doing enough to crack down on the sale of fake goods in the run-up to Christmas.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Stephen Lam/Reuters

At the time Mike Andrews, from the National Trading Standards eCrime team, described Facebook's responses to takedown attempts as "unsatisfactory."

National Trading Standards told Business Insider that it was reliant on the public reporting fakes. The organisation estimated 78 complaints for fake goods being sold on Facebook, but said the problem was under-reported.

Andrews told Business Insider: "Criminals are increasingly using social media platforms to sell fake designer goods. Counterfeit products leave consumers out of pocket and can sometimes be dangerous.

"Our understanding of the scale of the issue — and intelligence around major problem sellers — is supported by reporting suspected cases. At present this is an issue that is significantly under-reported — we urge consumers who suspect sellers of flogging fake products to call the Citizens Advice consumer helpline on 03454 04 05 06."

Facebook told Business Insider it ran a robust notice-and-takedown program, with a dedicated team that operated in several languages.

It isn't just Facebook. Fake goods are a big enough issue for Amazon that the firm expanded its anti-counterfeiting "Transparency" program to third parties who were being ripped off, according to Digiday. The "Transparency" program tells buyers where their product comes from, with details such as the manufacturing date.

And eBay has a program called "VeRO" for brands who want to report knock-offs directly. It also has an "Authenticate" service, which verifies bags from certain luxury designers such as Gucci and Chanel.

Detective Nick Court said: "Different marketplaces are reacting differently to PIPCU, and we're trying to encourage and help them to change things.

"In general, all these marketplaces could do more, and there's an awful lot of money involved. Technology isn't being used as well as it might be."

Security cameras look out over Tiananmen Square before Tiananmen Gate. Ed Jones/AFP/Getty Images

An expansive facial recognition network in the southwestern Chinese city of Guiyang have reportedly enabled police to detect and apprehend criminals in as little as two minutes.

The surveillance cameras are set up in more than 10,000 public places across the city, which is larger than the state of Delaware, reported the state-run newspaper Global Times this week. The cameras stream real-time footage back to a huge LED screen — 22 metres (24 yards) long and 5 metres (5 years) tall — which is monitored by police.

The system, which has a 90% accuracy rate, simultaneously checks faces against a nationwide database and can almost immediately provide a person's name, age, gender, ethnicity, as well as information including family members, people they regularly meet, and places they've recently been.

"The screen captures images of any suspects once they arrive in Guiyang, and then automatically reports them to the police command center which immediately allocates nearby police to make the arrest. The whole process from detecting to apprehending suspects usually takes less than two minutes," Global Times reported, citing a press release from local police.

The development is part of Skynet, a nationwide monitoring programme launched in 2005 to increase the use and capabilities of surveillance cameras.

In Guiyan last year, facial-recognition technology led to the apprehension of 375 suspects, including 39 fugitives, according to police.

"Guiyang has 'Skynet' everywhere. No matter where you go, there are eyes on you," Li Bin, an official at the Guiyang Public Security Bureau, said in a press release.

A BBC reporter put the Guiyang system to the test in December last year. In a city of 4 million people, it took only seven minutes for the reporter to be identified and arrested.

But as quick as Guiyang's police response times are, the number of cameras is lagging behind Beijing, which achieved 100% coverage of the city in 2015.

Currently, there are 170 million surveillance cameras in China and by 2020, the country hopes to have 570 million — that's nearly one camera for every two citizens.

Police are also developing AI-powered systems that, aside from recognizing faces, can identify people from their repeated behaviours or even gait. Officials want to use this information to predict crime before it happens.

China hits back at claims its surveillance infringes citizen's rightsSecurity cameras hang on a lamp at Tiananmen Square, Beijing. Feng Li/Getty Images

China has begun hitting back at human rights concerns over its expanding surveillance and facial recognition technologies.

"Some mainstream Western media outlets define the system as a tool for massive surveillance and suppressing human rights," an editorial in Global Times said last year. "This is the kind of fake news that US President Donald Trump often slams."

Part of the issue is that the government in China defines a person's right to privacy differently than Western countries.

The Global Times reported the system in Guiyang, like those across China, "does not infringe on people's privacy and human rights, as facial information is only collected in public places."

Its this approach to privacy that, until recently, has been a huge driver in China's soaring AI sector, according to a report out this month from Oxford University.

Lax privacy protections have allowed Chinese companies to access masses of data to develop AI and technologies like facial recognition technologies because "sharing among government agencies and companies is common," the report said.

Watch the BBC test here:

Facebook's dual-class stock structure insulates CEO Mark Zuckerberg from shareholder pressures — and accountability. Getty

If Mark Zuckerberg were a normal CEO, he might — emphasis on might— be fearing for his job right now.

At a typical company, a scandal the likes of the one involving Cambridge Analytica's illegitimate harvesting and possession of data on 50 million Facebook users might have directors asking some uncomfortable questions of the executive team. Those questions might be particularly pointed if that same company and executive team had already been at the center of a separate but related scandal regarding the 2016 election.

And a CEO who just saw $30 billion of his company's market valuation get evaporated in one day as a result of the most recent scandal might be rushing to get out in front of the news to try to protect his company if not his position.

But Facebook's not a typical company and Zuckerberg is not a normal CEO. No matter how bad the Cambridge Analytica scandal gets Zuckerberg is almost certainly staying put. That's because when it comes to whether Zuckerberg stays or goes, he himself has the final say. There's no way to appeal to the company's board, because for all intents and purposes, the board works for him.

Zuckerberg's power comes from Facebook's stock structure

Zuckerberg's unassailable position is due to the way Facebook's ownership is structured. Like several other tech companies, including Google and Snap, the social networking giant has more than one class of stock. Although all shares represent an equal stake in the company, one set — Facebook's Class B stock — has 10 times more voting power than the other.

Snap CEO Evan Spiegel has disproportionate control over his company, thanks to its multiclass stock structure. Michael Kovac/Getty Images for Vanity Fair Thanks in large part to his ownership of more than 75% of Facebook's Class B shares, Zuckerberg has more than half of the voting power at Facebook. That essentially gives him control over the company. He can vote directors in and out, vote down shareholder proposals urging reforms, veto merger proposals, and quash any effort to topple him — all by himself.

That structure was designed to protect Zuckerberg and his executive team from the often short-terms concerns of everyday shareholders so he could concentrate on building Facebook's business for the long term. That's a nice weapon to repulse unwanted meddling from malicious Wall Street forces that don't have the company's best interest at heart. But as the world is discovering now, when a company acquires the level of power that Facebook has, the implications of a dual-class stock structure stretch far beyond the firm's financial stakeholders.

If Zuckerberg doesn't want to be bothered with something, you really can't force him to care.

Dual-class stock structures can be beneficial — and controversial

Supporters of such structures can point to real-world situations where they've proven important, perhaps even crucial. Ford's dual-class stock arguably helped it survive the Great Recession without going into bankruptcy, unlike General Motors and Chrysler. The New York Times' dual-class structure arguably allowed it to better weather the downturn that's decimated other newspaper companies over the last two decades by allowing it to more easily invest in its online and other digital initiatives.

Still, the practice of giving certain insiders outsized control over a company has long been controversial, precisely because it limits the control everyday shareholders can exercise over a company. Dual-class structures also allow the empowered insiders to run the companies for their benefit rather than that of shareholders or the general public.

Zuckerberg's singular control over Facebook has already drawn criticism. Two years ago, he tried to force through a proposal that would have allowed him to maintain his control over the company even as he sold his shares. He eventually backed away from that proposal, but only after a lawsuit and stiff resistance from other shareholders.

Christopher Wylie, a cofounder of Cambridge Analytica, blew the whistle on its illegitimate harvesting of Facebook data. Channel 4 News/YouTube But now Zuckerberg and his company are under scrutiny for something that's important to a lot more people than just how he treats other shareholders — namely, how it handles and safeguards the data of its billions of users.

According to Facebook and published reports, Cambridge Analytica, the data firm that worked with Donald Trump's campaign to target voters, used a Facebook app to illegitimately glean data from some 50 million users of the social network without the knowledge of the vast majority of those users.

Facebook was aware more than two years ago that Cambridge Analytica got its hands on the data, but basically did nothing about it other than asking it to delete the data. It neither followed up to ensure that Cambridge Analytica actually did delete the data nor, apparently, did it warn users that the data firm had gotten access to their data. And it didn't even publicly acknowledge the data leak until late Friday and apparently only did it then because The Times and the Observer were about to publish reports about it.

Zuckerberg is acting like he did with reports of fake news

Since the leak, Zuckerberg has been nowhere to be seen. His absence from the scene and refusal to accept responsibility for what's happened are reminiscent of his initial response to reports that Russian-linked groups had exploited Facebook's network to spread fake news and propaganda in an effort to influence the 2016 US presidential election. Zuckerberg infamously dismissed such concerns.

Facebook's investors were obviously a bit more concerned than Zuckerberg seems to be showing publicly. Amid worries that regulators are going to step in because Facebook is doing such a poor job of overseeing its network, they sent the company's stock spiraling downward. It ended the day off 7%.

Zuckerberg is obviously very smart. He's also done a great job of growing Facebook into the behemoth it is today.

But when you give someone nearly unassailable, king-like powers, what you really want the person to be is wise and mindful of how his or her actions might affect others. Zuckerberg is showing he is neither.

Zuckerberg is smart, but not wise

To the contrary, Zuckerberg seems to have blinders on when it comes to the power Facebook now holds and the responsibility that comes with that power.

Virginia Sen. Mark Warner has been helping lead the Senate's investigation of the attempt by Russian-linked groups to influence the 2016 election through posts on Facebook and other social networks. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque The company holds vast amounts of data about its users. The large majority of its users probably have no idea how much data Facebook holds or how that data could be used to manipulate them. Indeed, for the few who likely ever try to take the time to do it, trying to figure out which Facebook-linked apps or services have access to which parts of your personal data on Facebook can be an exercise in frustration.

Yet the company has shown that it wants to collect ever more data on its users and generally do with it as it sees fit. And it obviously felt little compulsion to govern how that data was used by the partners who it gave access to that data.

Likewise, the company's social network is incredibly powerful both in its ability to disseminate messages — and to control what messages get seen. But Facebook has shown little concern with how the Russian-linked groups abused that power.

Facebook has more than 2 billion users, an unprecedented level of power and influence for a single company. It's so large that its actions and policies have repercussions for the entire world, even those who are not on Facebook.

And remember, when we say Facebook here, we mean Zuckerberg. Because thanks to the power he holds over the company, Facebook is Zuckerberg and Zuckerberg is Facebook.

To hold Facebook accountable, you've got to hold Zuckerberg to account. But Facebook's dual-class stock is intentionally designed to prevent just that from happening.

Investors might have been OK with that. But society doesn't need to be.

Alexa Dell. Sigmund Freud/25

When Alexa Dell, the 24-year-old daughter of computer magnate Michael Dell, set out to launch her career in the tech industry, she had eyes for only one global innovation hub.

It wasn't San Francisco.

Dell grew up in Austin, Texas, where her father created Dell Computer Corporation while a student at University of Texas at Austin. The family lived in a sprawling estate called "The Castle."

In 2013, Alexa Dell dropped out of college to pursue a career in tech and settled in Los Angeles.

The former Columbia University student started working at a dating app company that she declines to name. Dell took her learnings from the gig and created a tech consulting firm.

Dell also works as a branding consultant for dating app Bumble. Since joining the company as an adviser in 2016, Dell has helped Bumble launch several physical spaces called Hives, where app users attend activities and panel discussions. Dell describes the spaces as "Bumble IRL."

Though the company has headquarters in Austin, Dell works remotely from her home office in Los Angeles and Bumble hubs in cities including New York, London, and Paris.

"What I love about LA is there's a bit of everything. We have all kinds of industries," Dell said, adding: "I can have friends from finance, from film, from art, from tech. ... It's really great to kind of listen in on all kinds of conversations and be inspired by what everyone is doing."

The tech scene in Los Angeles is far less homogeneous than its counterpart in San Francisco, where Dell said, "you can't even step into a restaurant without hearing tech buzzwords."

Los Angeles' tech scene has been courting the tech elite for decades. In recent years, Peter Thiel, Tim Ferriss, and Elon Musk left San Francisco and the peninsula to the south — long seen as the epicenter of tech — to escape the self-described groupthink and arrogance of Silicon Valley. Thiel and Musk moved to Los Angeles, while Ferriss, the author of "The 4-Hour Workweek," decamped for Austin's tech scene.

Life in Silicon Beach, the Westside region of the Los Angeles metropolitan area, comes with perks. The area has a booming tech sector, proximity to San Francisco (a 75-minute flight away), and a diversity of interests among residents, though Los Angeles has its own lack of affordable housing.

Meanwhile, Silicon Valley is on the brink of an exodus.

San Francisco lost more residents than any other US city in the last quarter of 2017, according to a report from real-estate site Redfin. Data suggests the migration is far from over. Public-relations firm Edelman surveyed 500 Bay Area residents earlier this year and found 49% of respondents said they would consider leaving California because of the high cost of living.

Though Bumble has headquarters in Austin, Alexa Dell works out of her home office in Los Angeles. Sigmund Freud/25

Thiel, one of Silicon Valley's biggest success stories, announced he's leaving the Bay Area for Los Angeles earlier this year. His political views have made him a social outcast in tech, especially after the libertarian billionaire-investor supported President Donald Trumps' 2016 campaign.

Ferriss, who considers himself "very socially liberal," recently told Business Insider that Silicon Valley's tech scene can be punishing for people who don't subscribe to the same set of beliefs.

The author and podcaster was drawn to Austin because of its culture of diversity.

"In Austin I found a ... very young community and a medley of feature film, music — certainly tech if I need to scratch that itch — but there were more perspectives that I could borrow from and learn from than I found readily available in my circles in Silicon Valley," Ferriss said.

Dell said she thinks innovation can happen anywhere.

"To me, the idea that progress can only be made in one specific location geographically is complete nonsense. I think that successful companies will naturally thrive in cultures that best suit them and in spaces that, truthfully, are most convenient for them," Dell said.

She said that Bumble planted roots in Austin because it had a need for office space and because the founders appreciated the tech scene and "forward-thinking" culture in the Texas capital.

Dell said she plans to remain a visitor, rather than a resident, of the Bay Area.