[ad_1] #HashtagActivism: Networks of Race and Gender Justiceby Sarah J. Jackson, Moya Bailey, Brooke Foucault Welles For people living in the margins of American society, Twitter’s ability to connect and amplify their voices offers unprecedented social and political opportunity. Hashtags like #BlackLivesMatter, #GirlsLikeUs, and #ICantBreathe have become rallying cries whose online impacts have resulted in […]
Category: Politics
Researchers: Facebook’s ad transparency tools are ‘easy to evade’
[ad_1] In a new paper out of New York University’s Tandon School of Engineering, researchers found that thousands of advertisers were able to run more than 357,000 political ads without disclosing who was behind them. The researchers, Laura Edelson, Tobias Lauinger and Damon McCoy, studied the company’s Ad Library for more than a year, and […]
FCC could require phone companies to authenticate calls
[ad_1] Under the STIR/SHAKEN protocol, carriers verify that a call is legitimate (not coming from a spoofed number) before it reaches the recipient. In 2018, Pai urged carriers to implement the protocol by 2019. AT&T, Comcast, T-Mobile and Verizon (Engadget’s parent company) have all implemented the tech in one way or another, but robocalls are […]
EARN IT act targets online child abuse but could threaten encryption
[ad_1] The bill has powerful backers in the Senate, including Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R), Richard Blumenthal (D) and Dianne Feinstein (D). In a statement introducing the bill, Blumenthal said “Tech companies have an extraordinary special safeguard against legal liability, but that unique protection comes with a responsibility. Companies that fail to comport with […]
Facebook, Google and others adopt guidelines intended to fight child abuse
[ad_1] The document, Voluntary Principles to Counter Online Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse, includes 11 principles. It covers themes like targeting online grooming, preventing searches of child sexual abuse material and responding to evolving threats. According to a statement published by the DOJ, the principles are “intended to have sufficient flexibility to ensure effective implementation.” […]
What does the end of Elizabeth Warren’s campaign mean for big tech?
[ad_1] Warren drew significant attention over the past year by saying that many of the biggest tech companies in the world would be under close scrutiny if she were to become president. Specifically, she pledged to break up Amazon, Facebook and Google and accused them of using their power to unfairly influence the market and […]
Banjo AI surveillance is already monitoring traffic cams across Utah
[ad_1] Banjo relies on info scraped from social media, satellite imaging data and the real-time info from law enforcement. Banjo claims its “Live Time Intelligence” AI can identify crimes — everything from kidnappings to shootings and “opioid events” — as they happen. Banjo presents many of the same concerns that similar companies have encountered. One […]
YouTube’s tweaks to recommend fewer conspiracy videos seem to be working
[ad_1] The team trained its computers by having them analyze hundreds of conspiracy and non-conspiracy videos, helping them “learn” how to differentiate between the two. Once they were trained, the computers analyzed eight million recommended videos over the course of one year. Unfortunately, they were unable to classify the videos by actually watching them — […]
US charges Chinese nationals with laundering cryptocurrency for North Korea
[ad_1] While Yinyin’s and Jiadong’s involvement goes as far back as 2017, the DOJ’s announcement puts emphasis on a massive hack that occurred in 2018. Pyongyang hackers apparently stole $250 million from a virtual currency exchange that year and then had the funds laundered through hundreds of automated cryptocurrency transactions. They evaded being caught by […]
Leaked documents suggest Huawei violated Iran sanctions
[ad_1] Early last year, the US charged Huawei with violating sanctions on Iran and stealing trade secrets. The Department of Justice (DOJ) recently added more trade-secret theft charges to the case, and Huawei’s Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou is facing separate charges for allegedly committing fraud to bypass the Iran sanctions. Huawei has pushed back. […]