Searching for "Facebook privacy"
https://www.spiegel.de/international/business/whatsapp-ceo-on-the-controversy-surrounding-proposed-german-communications-laws-a-2e6f4c52-4a39-4117-8199-1606e1f3ac87
Cathcart: Let me be very clear: We cannot read your messages, we cannot listen to your calls. When you send your location over WhatsApp, we do not know where you are.
DER SPIEGEL: But you do save data about your users like the device ID, the phone model, the WhatsApp user name, the phone book and thereby also the numbers of all their contacts, right?
DER SPIEGEL: Apple has recently introduced privacy labels that resemble nutritional labels about what kind of data an app collects and what it doesn’t. Why don’t you do something similar?
DER SPIEGEL: A new German law, if passed, would mean that WhatsApp would have to hand over account data to law enforcement. Do you hand over data about your customers to government agencies?
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more on WhatsApp in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=whatsapp
https://www.npr.org/2021/02/15/968116346/after-weeks-of-being-off-line-parler-finds-a-new-web-host
SkySilk, a Web infrastructure company based outside of Los Angeles, is now hosting Parler, SkySilk’s chief executive, Kevin Matossian, confirmed to NPR in an interview.
Matossian refused to comment on the terms of the arrangement, or under what conditions SkySilk will do business with Parler, which was heavily used by the rioters in connection with the violent storming of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.
In new content guidelines released by Parler on Monday, the company says it will deploy a “privacy-preserving process” using an algorithm and human moderators to police content that threatens or incites violence.
Additionally, Parler says there will be a “trolling filter” in which content that attacks someone based on race, sex, sexual orientation or religion will be covered up. Yet those who want to view the content will be allowed by clicking through the filter.
Mark Meckler, one of the early creators of the Tea Party movement and now Parler’s interim CEO, said the platform has been rebuilt on independent technology and is “not reliant on so-called ‘Big Tech’ for its operations.”
Indeed, Parler has turned to Web infrastructure companies that have welcomed extremist and hate-filled websites, including Epik, a firm based outside of Seattle that supports Parler’s domain, as well as sites including InfoWars, BitChute and Patriots.win, previously known as The Donald.
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more on Parler in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=parler
WhatsApp loses millions of users after terms update from r/worldnews
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/jan/24/whatsapp-loses-millions-of-users-after-terms-update
A poorly explained update to its terms of service has pushed WhatsApp users to adopt alternative services such as Signal and Telegram in their millions.
Apps like Signal, Telegram, Wickr, and WhatsApp offer privacy features ranging from end-to-end encrypted data transfer to ‘self-destructing messages’.”
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Fast-Growing Alternative To Facebook And Twitter Finds Post-Trump Surge ‘Messy’
https://www.npr.org/2021/01/22/958877682/fast-growing-alternative-to-facebook-twitter-finds-right-wing-surge-messy
MeWe markets itself as privacy forward. It doesn’t harness users’ data to sell ads or decide what content to show them. My note: but has to charge somehow, so, differently from FB Messenger, one needs to pay, in order to do audio call in MeWe.
MeWe’s Weinstein resists the comparison to Parler or Gab, which tout themselves as free-speech sites. For one thing, he says, MeWe is serious about putting limits on what people can say.
The tech website OneZero uncovered right-wing militia groups on MeWe as well as a “Stop the Steal” group that discussed shooting people. The company removed the groups after OneZero flagged them.
“I think we all still treat social media companies like they’re these inexpensive startups, but maybe they need to be treated more like starting an airplane company or a company that makes cars,” said Megan Squire, a professor at Elon University who studies online extremists. “You’ve got to think about seat belts.”
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more on social media in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=social+media
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more on privacy in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=privacy
https://www.spiegel.de/international/tomorrow/digital-violence-olimpia-coral-s-fight-on-behalf-of-the-women-of-mexico-a-b1da72f2-b720-4102-849a-d5a02def7d58
The recently published report “Free to Be Online?” by Plan International found that more than half of the 14,000 girls and young women surveyed worldwide have experienced online harassment or abuse.
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more on privacy in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=privacy
WhatsApp now lets you post ephemeral messages that disappear after 7 days
Ephemerality has been one of the most radical and sticky features in messaging in years — it has now been around for close to a decade. And it has arguably been the defining feature for one of the runaway, viral hits of the genre, Snapchat — so much so that clones of the feature have popped up in a number of other apps, from those focused first and foremost on privacy like Signal and Telegram, through to those that are aimed at more casual consumer audiences, like WhatsApp today.
And there could be signs that Facebook is may be looking to roll this out in other apps in its stable, too. Earlier this year it tested disappearing messages in Instagram, which now works officially.
As with the storage changes, the new disappearing feature will not be switched on for users by default: you have to proactively change the settings.
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more on Whatsapp in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=whatsapp
After March 2020 reports about Zoom privacy issues, now Zoom acknowledges working with the Chinese government:
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Is Zoom Safe for Chinese Students?
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/06/12/scholars-raise-concerns-about-using-zoom-teach-about-china
Unlike many other major tech platforms based in the U.S., Zoom, which is headquartered in California, has not been blocked by the Chinese government. Zoom said in a blog post that it is “developing technology over the next several days that will enable us to remove or block at the participant level based on geography” which will allow the company to “to comply with requests from local authorities when they determine activity on our platform is illegal within their borders; however, we will also be able to protect these conversations for participants outside of those borders where the activity is allowed.”
Zoom’s interference with the Tiananmen gatherings and its suspension of user accounts raised alarm among many in higher education, which increasingly depends on Zoom to operate courses remotely — including for students located within China’s borders.
Multiple scholars took to Twitter to express their worries
PEN America, a group that advocates for free expression, condemned Zoom for shuttering the activist’s account.
This is not the first time Zoom’s links to China have come under scrutiny. In April, the company admitted that some of its user data were “mistakenly” routed through China; in response, the company announced that users of paid Zoom accounts could opt out of having their data routed through data centers in China.
An April 3 report by scholars at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy said Zoom’s research and development operations in China could make the company susceptible “to pressure from Chinese authorities.”
Zoom, whose Chinese-born CEO is a U.S. citizen, said in its latest annual report to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that it had more than 700 employees at its research and development centers in China as of Jan. 31. The SEC filing notes that Zoom has a “high concentration of research and development personnel in China, which could expose us to market scrutiny regarding the integrity of our solution or data security features.”
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Zoom Just Totally Caved In to China on Censorship from r/technology
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more about Zoom in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=zoom
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https://blog.zoom.us/wordpress/2020/03/20/keep-the-party-crashers-from-crashing-your-zoom-event/
How to Keep the Crashers Out of Your Zoom Event
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How to Secure Your Zoom Meetings from Zoom-Bombing Attacks
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/software/how-to-secure-your-zoom-meetings-from-zoom-bombing-attacks/
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Maybe we shouldn’t use Zoom after all
he Intercept reported that Zoom video calls are not end-to-end encrypted, despite the company’s claims that they are.
Motherboard reports that Zoom is leaking the email addresses of “at least a few thousand” people because personal addresses are treated as if they belong to the same company
Apple was forced to step in to secure millions of Macs after a security researcher found Zoom failed to disclose that it installed a secret web server on users’ Macs, which Zoom failed to remove when the client was uninstalled
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‘Zoom is malware’: why experts worry about the video conferencing platform
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/apr/02/zoom-technology-security-coronavirus-video-conferencing
security researchers have called Zoom “a privacy disaster” and “fundamentally corrupt” as allegations of the company mishandling user data snowball.
A report from Motherboard found Zoom sends data from users of its iOS app to Facebook for advertising purposes, even if the user does not have a Facebook account.
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Zoom’s security and privacy problems are snowballing from r/technology
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this Tweet threads informative:
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https://www.edsurge.com/news/2020-03-27-holding-class-on-zoom-beware-of-these-hacks-hijinks-and-hazards
https://www.edsurge.com/news/2019-12-31-when-education-giants-stumbled-and-data-ruled
The tools that have delivered are specific, targeted solutions that are easy to use and provide teachers and students delight. Simple solutions, like Read 180, which helps accelerate learning for struggling students, still deliver 20 years later, now under Houghton Mifflin Harcourt instead of Scholastic. Accelerated Reader, a product that started more than 30 years ago, still motivates kids to read.
Companies that aim to provide student data in a usable fashion, like Schoology, still provide value.
the promise of data in education is still proving itself. It has taken awhile, but we’re getting to a point where data is more actionable. Renaissance just acquired Schoolzilla, which was launched in 2011, for this reason.
When it comes to devices, many kids today have access to iPads or Chromebooks. Although one-to-one computing hasn’t been as transformational as some predicted in 2010, we’ve certainly seen a huge shift
Most of these [textbook providers] companies tried to re-platform every unique product into one monolithic model, but the promise didn’t pan out—the products proved clunky and hard to use
Predictions that educators would want more assessment data to drive instruction have proven true. https://www.renaissance.com/
The prediction that digital reading would be simple and easy to implement has also proven true.
Virtual reality hasn’t panned out yet.
The rise of gaming in education was another prediction that has largely faded.
started to solve the challenge of data interoperability and portability.
Alongside that, privacy and data responsibility are still a problem
The role of the teacher, however, is still critical. Rather than take over responsibility for educating students, technology’s role should be—and increasingly is—to put multiple options into educators’ hands to easily solve different types of challenges for individual students.
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more on technology for the last decade
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/2020/01/02/100-tech-debacles-of-the-decade/
This startup claims its deepfakes will protect your privacy
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more on deep fake in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=deep+fake