Searching for "privacy"
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
https://reallifemag.com/the-zoom-gaze/
In May 2020 the company removed the “unmute all” setting for hosts due to privacy concerns but now has brought it back as a nuanced “unmute with consent,” which allows a host to unmute an individual participant’s microphone at any time in any of the host’s meetings once given permission. But this framing of consent is problematic to say the least. Can you refuse if the host is your boss? What if they not only have authority over you but abusive intent?
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more on Zoom in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=zoom
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
https://www.businessinsider.com/check-point-researchers-tiktok-user-data-exposed-second-time-2021-1
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more on tik tok on this iMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=tik+tok
more on data privacy in this blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=data+privacy
DuckDuckGo surpasses 100 million daily search queries for the first time from r/technology
https://www.zdnet.com/article/duckduckgo-surpasses-100-million-daily-search-queries-for-the-first-time/
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Privacy-focused search engine DuckDuckGo grew by 62% in 2020 from r/technology
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/technology/privacy-focused-search-engine-duckduckgo-grew-by-62-percent-in-2020/
DuckDuckGo is a search engine that builds its search index using its DuckDuckBot crawler, indexing WikiPedia, and through partners like Bing. The search engine does not use any data from Google.
What makes DuckDuckGo stand out is that they do not track your searches to build a user profile or share any personal or identifying data with third-party companies, including ad networks.
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more on DuckDuckGo in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=duckduckgo
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more on privacy in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=privacy
The Smoking Gun in the Facebook Antitrust Case
The government wants to break up the world’s biggest social network. Internal company emails show why.
https://www.wired.com/story/facebook-ftc-antitrust-case-smoking-gun/
At first blush, privacy and antitrust might seem like separate issues—two different chapters in a textbook about big tech. But the decline in Facebook’s privacy protections plays a central role in the states’ case. Antitrust is a complicated field built on a simple premise: When a company doesn’t face real competition, it will be free to do bad things.
a conceptual breakthrough on that front. In a paper titled “The Antitrust Case Against Facebook,” the legal scholar Dina Srinivasan argued that Facebook’s takeover of the social networking market has inflicted a very specific harm on consumers: It has forced them to accept ever worse privacy settings. Facebook, Srinivasan pointed out, began its existence in 2004 by differentiating itself on privacy. Unlike then-dominant MySpace, for example, where profiles were visible to anyone by default, Facebook profiles could be seen only by your friends or people at the same school
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Facebook hit with antitrust probe for tying Oculus use to Facebook accounts
https://techcrunch.com/2020/12/10/facebook-hit-with-antitrust-probe-for-tying-oculus-use-to-facebook-accounts
In recent years Facebook has been pushing to add a ‘social layer’ to the VR platform — but the heavy-handed requirement for Oculus users to have a Facebook account has not proved popular with gamers.
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more on Facebook in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=facebook
Chris Hughes
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/2019/05/09/break-up-facebook/
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
Software can spy on what you type in video calls by tracking your arms
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2258682-software-can-spy-on-what-you-type-in-video-calls-by-tracking-your-arms/
A computer model can work out the words that the person is typing just by tracking the movement of their shoulders and arms in the video stream.
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more on privacy in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=privacy
More on surveillance in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=surveillance