Facebook Fired An Employee Who Collected Evidence Of Right-Wing Pages Getting Preferential Treatment

Facebook employees collected evidence showing the company is giving right-wing pages preferential treatment when it comes to misinformation. And they’re worried about how the company will handle the president’s falsehoods in an election year.

After months of debate and disagreement over the handling of inflammatory or misleading posts from Donald Trump, Facebook employees want CEO Mark Zuckerberg to explain what the company would do if the leader of the free world uses the social network to undermine the results of the 2020 US presidential election.

“I do think we’re headed for a problematic scenario where Facebook is going to be used to aggressively undermine the legitimacy of the US elections, in a way that has never been possible in history,” one Facebook employee wrote in a group on Workplace, the company’s internal communication platform, earlier this week.

For the past week, this scenario has been a topic of heated discussion inside Facebook and was a top question for its leader. Some 2,900 employees asked Zuckerberg to address it publicly during a company-wide meeting on Thursday, which he partly did, calling it "an unprecedented position."

Zuckerberg’s remarks came amid growing internal concerns about the company's competence in handling misinformation, and the precautions it is taking to ensure its platform isn’t used to disrupt or mislead ahead of the US presidential election. Though Facebook says it has committed more money and resources to avoid repeating its failures during the 2016 election, some employees believe it isn’t enough. President Trump has already spent months raising questions about the legitimacy of the upcoming 2020 election, spreading misinformation about mail-in ballots, and declining to say if he’d accept the possibility of losing to Democratic nominee Joe Biden in November.

👀 👉🏼 https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/craigsilverman/facebook-zuckerberg-what-if-trump-disputes-election-results

#DeleteFacebook #zuckerberg #evidence #usa #elections #rightwing
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App Manager is now on the official F-Droid repo!

Link: https://f-droid.org/packages/io.github.muntashirakon.AppManager

If you're already using App Manager from IzzyOnDroid repo, you will still get updates from there (which will be faster than F-Droid).

Notice: F-Droid uses it's own signing config to sign an app. So, if you're migrating from IzzyOnDroid to F-Droid, be sure to take a backup of your blocking rules first as you will need to reinstall the app.

Judge blocks Uber, Lyft from classifying drivers as contractors in California

(Reuters) - A California judge on Monday granted the state’s request for a preliminary injunction blocking Uber Technologies Inc (UBER.N) and Lyft Inc (LYFT.O) from classifying their drivers as independent contractors rather than employees.

The ruling by Judge Ethan Schulman of San Francisco Superior Court is a defeat for the ride-hailing companies, as they defend against a May 5 lawsuit by state Attorney General Xavier Becerra and the cities of Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-uber-california/judge-blocks-uber-lyft-from-classifying-drivers-as-contractors-in-california-idUSKCN2562J6

#US #California #Lyft #Uber

Reddit CEO defends allowing Trump ads ahead of presidential election

Reddit is gearing up to run ads for President Donald Trump ahead of the 2020 presidential election despite concerns from employees, TechCrunch has learned. Reddit CEO Steve Huffman addressed some of these employee concerns during an all-hands meeting last week, viewed by TechCrunch.

https://techcrunch.com/2020/08/10/reddit-ceo-defends-allowing-trump-ads-ahead-of-presidential-election/

#US #Reddit #ads

How the U.S Government obtains & uses Cellphone location data.

A quick video by WSJ which shows how the U.S. government is using app-generated marketing data based on the movements of millions of cellphone users around the country for some forms of law enforcement.

📖 Read full article: HERE

📡 @howtobeprivateonline

RetroArch 1.9 Released with Many Goodies for Retro Linux Gamers

Daniel De Matteis released today RetroArch 1.9, a new major version of the popular and open-source frontend for emulators, video games, game engines, and media players.

If you are a hardcore retro gamer, RetroArch is what you want to install on your GNU/Linux distribution to enjoy those awesome cool retro games that you probably played all day long when you were young.

The latest release, RetroArch 1.9 is a massive one, bringing lots of goodies for retro gamers. Highlights include a new Explore View for all playlists, which lets you search for content based on various criteria, such as genre, origin, publisher, system, release year, developer, and amount of players.

https://9to5linux.com/retroarch-1-9-released-with-many-goodies-for-retro-linux-gamers

#linux

New York's Subway System Asks Apple for a Face ID That Works With Masks

New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority says too many riders are taking off their masks to unlock their iPhones using Face ID. So it's hoping Apple can design a better solution.

New York’s public transportation authority has a problem with Apple’s Face ID: The system is causing too many riders to take off their masks to unlock their iPhones.

So in response, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) is calling on Cupertino to "upgrade" the system for the ongoing pandemic, and make it smart enough to recognize the user —even when they’re wearing a mask.

https://www.pcmag.com/news/new-yorks-subway-system-asks-apple-for-face-id-that-works-with-masks

#US #NewYork #MTA #Apple #iPhone #FaceID

Therapy app Talkspace allegedly data-mined patients' private conversations with therapists

Insiders say data was mined to aid in marketing, and to push therapists to favor enterprise patients over others

A new report accuses the mobile therapy startup Talkspace of mining the data from clients' private therapy conversations. If true, the accusation raises serious ethical questions about the tech company's respect for patients' rights and its understanding of the strict ethical rules that govern patient-client confidentiality.

https://www.salon.com/2020/08/10/therapy-app-talkspace-allegedly-data-mined-patients-conversations-with-therapists/

#TalkSpace #privacy

French privacy watchdog opens preliminary investigation into TikTok

PARIS (Reuters) - France’s data privacy watchdog CNIL said on Tuesday that it has opened a preliminary investigation into Chinese-owned video-sharing app TikTok after it received a complaint.

TikTok, owned by China’s ByteDance, is already under investigation over privacy concerns by U.S., European Union and Dutch authorities.

“A complaint about TikTok was received in May. This complaint is now under investigation,” a CNIL spokesman said, confirming a Bloomberg report.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-tiktok-privacy/french-privacy-watchdog-opens-preliminary-investigation-into-tiktok-idUSKCN25718J

#Europe #France #TikTok

Police Are Monitoring Black Lives Matter Protests With Ring Doorbell Data and Drones

Amazon's Ring doorbell cameras, drones and a number of other surveillance technologies are being used by law enforcement agencies to monitor communities across the U.S., including Black Lives Matter protests.

According to a new searchable database called the Atlas of Surveillance, Amazon Ring has video-sharing partnerships with more than 1,300 law enforcement agencies across the U.S., including the Los Angeles Police Department in California, the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department in Missouri and the Louisville Metro Police Department in Kentucky.

https://www.newsweek.com/amazon-ring-drones-monitor-protests-1523856

#US #Amazon #Ring #protest #surveillance

Facial recognition use by South Wales Police ruled unlawful

The use of automatic facial recognition (AFR) technology by South Wales Police is unlawful, the Court of Appeal has ruled.

It follows a legal challenge brought by civil rights group Liberty and Ed Bridges, 37, from Cardiff.

But the court also found its use was proportionate interference with human rights as the benefits outweighed the impact on Mr Bridges.

South Wales Police said it would not be appealing the findings.

Mr Bridges had said being identified by AFR caused him distress.

The court upheld three of the five points raised in the appeal.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-53734716

#Europe #UK #Face #Recognition

Google Chrome Browser Bug Exposes Billions of Users to Data Theft.

The vulnerability allows attackers to bypass Content Security Policy (CSP) protections and steal data from website visitors.

A vulnerability in Google’s Chromium-based browsers would allow attackers to bypass the Content Security Policy (CSP) on websites, in order to steal data and execute rogue code.

The bug (CVE-2020-6519) is found in Chrome, Opera and Edge, on Windows, Mac and Android – potentially affecting billions of web users, according to PerimeterX cybersecurity researcher Gal Weizman. Chrome versions 73 (March 2019) through 83 are affected (84 was released in July and fixes the issue).

https://threatpost.com/google-chrome-bug-data-theft/158217/

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I can understand why Donald Trump threatens to ban TikTok unless its US assets are sold to US investors. After all, China bans pretty much every non-Chinese social media app on its territory. Why should the rest of the world, including the US, let a Chinese app have a free ride in their markets? If you want to access the markets of other countries, you should also open your market to them – that would be fair.

However, the US move against TikTok is setting a dangerous precedent that may eventually kill the internet as a truly global network (or what is left of it). Before the US-TikTok saga, only autocratic countries like Iran, China or Russia were known for bullying tech companies into selling parts of their businesses to investors with close ties to their governments. It’s not surprising, for example, that Uber had to sell both their Russian and Chinese branches to local players.

I am proud that, unlike Uber, we at Telegram have always declined offers to sell our operations in specific countries. A few years ago we received letters from two funds with ties to countries that later attempted to block Telegram. Both letters expressed the same idea: “Telegram is going to get blocked in our country soon, so your only option is to sell us the local part of your business”. My response to those offers has been along the lines of my 2011 middle finger photo: we are not in the business of betraying our users. We are not selling Telegram – neither in part, nor in full. This will always be our position.

The problem with the US-TikTok case is that it legitimises an extortion tactic previously employed only by authoritarian regimes. For decades, the US has been perceived as the defender of free trade and free speech. But now that China has started to replace them as the main beneficiary of global trade, the US (or at least the Trump administration) seem to have become less enthusiastic about those values. This is regrettable, because billions of people on this planet still like the idea of an open and interconnected world.

Last week, Turkey introduced a bunch of laws limiting social media companies. A few years ago, the US would have had the moral right to criticise such efforts, citing freedom of speech and free trade as ideological foundations for their concerns. Today it’s less clear whether the US still has that right. Authoritarian leaders all over the world are already using the TikTok case as justification in their attempts to carve out a piece of the global internet for themselves. Soon, every big country is likely to use “national security” as a pretext to fracture international tech companies. And ironically, it’s the US companies like Facebook or Google that are likely to lose the most from the fallout.

Leaked Documents Reveal What TikTok Shares with Authorities — in the U.S.

A glimpse at what the social media platform does in the U.S. underscores that data privacy issues extend beyond China.

President Donald Trump’s executive order banning Americans from using TikTok is driven by concerns that the company might hand over user data to Chinese authorities. Recently hacked police documents reveal the nature of the company’s relationship to law enforcement — not in China but in the United States.

TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, is headquartered in Beijing, where the government censors social media content and maintains other forms of influence over tech companies. But a glimpse at what TikTok does in the U.S. underscores that data privacy issues extend beyond China.

https://theintercept.com/2020/08/10/blueleaks-tiktok-law-enforcement-privacy/

#us #tiktok #privacy #surveillance

Android is now the world’s largest earthquake detection network

Google leverages the massive scale of Android to do phone-based earthquake tracking.

Back in 2016, Ars reported on an interesting use for the bundle of sensors we carry around every day in our smartphones—earthquake detection. The accelerometers in your phone make a passable-enough seismometer, and together with location data and enough users, you could detect earthquakes and warn users as the shocks roll across the landscape. The University of California-Berkeley, along with funding from the state of California, built an app called "MyShake" and a cheap, effective earthquake detection network was born, at least, it was born for people who installed the app.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/08/android-is-now-the-worlds-largest-earthquake-detection-network/

#Google #Android #Earthquake #detection #network

Pornhub Sister Company Wants to Expose Video Hosting Site ‘Pirates’

MG Premium has requested three new #DMCA subpoenas targeting the operators and uploaders of #video #hosting sites Tapecontent.net, Netu.tv and Gounlimited.to. Pornhub's sister company requests information from #Cloudflare in the hope of identfiying those who share its copyrighted material without permission.

The online porn industry is rather diverse but there is only one company leading the charge – #Mindgeek.

The company, formerly known as Manwin, owns one of the most visited adult websites, #Pornhub, and is also the driving force behind #YouPorn, #Redtube, #Tube8, #Xtube, and dozens of other sites.

Many of these tube sites became big by offering access to a wide variety of content, some of it posted without permission. However, that doesn’t mean that Mindgeek is turning a blind eye to pirates. On the contrary.

Mindgeek’s imperium also includes companies that create content. MG Premium, for example, which owns thousands of copyrighted adult videos, is the driving force behind popular brands such as Brazzers and Digital Playground. These videos are often pirated and shared through external sites, which is a problem for the company.

To address this issue, Mindgeek’s daughter company regularly goes to court. Last week, it requested three DMCA subpoenas targeting the video-hosting services Tapecontent.net, Netu.tv and Gounlimited.to.

👀 👉🏼 https://torrentfreak.com/pornhub-sister-company-wants-to-expose-video-hosting-site-pirates-200811/

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Spain’s largest bus terminal deployed live face recognition four years ago, but few noticed

Madrid South Station’s face recognition system automatically matches every visitor’s face against a database of suspects, and shares information with the Spanish police.

Around 20 million travellers transited last year through Madrid’s South bus terminal, known as Méndez Álvaro Station to locals. Those 20 million persons had their face scanned as they entered the station. They were tracked as they walked to the bays where their bus was parked, before leaving the Spanish capital. Unless the station’s face detection system produced an alert and they were arrested.

The terminal is a key transport exchange not only for Madrid, but for the whole country. It connects with subway stations and with Renfe, the national train service. Until 2010, the terminal did not have a security unit that was specifically tasked with coordinating the response to petty crime.
Running since 2016

The station is one of the few public buildings in Spain that deployed a live face recognition system. Miguel Angel Gallego, the station’s chief of security between 2010 and 2019, decided to deploy face recognition after he was contacted by a Spanish start up working with this type of software in 2016.

Mr Gallego faced an uphill battle. The Spanish police, who were not used to face recognition at the time, were not enthusiastic, and neither was Avanza ADO, the company that has been running the bus terminal since 2003. But he remained undeterred. The technology has been running for four years, without much scrutiny from privacy organizations or from the state.

👀 👉🏼 https://algorithmwatch.org/en/story/spain-mendez-alvaro-face-recognition/

👀 👉🏼 🇩🇪 https://netzpolitik.org/2020/gesichtserkennung-in-madrid-videokameras-ueberwachen-unbemerkt-millionen-fahrgaeste/

#biometric #facerecognition #spain #madrid #surveillance #thinkabout #why
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Briar is a messaging app designed for activists, journalists, and anyone else who needs a safe, easy and robust way to communicate.

Unlike traditional messaging apps, Briar doesn’t rely on a central server - messages are synchronized directly between the users’ devices.

If the internet’s down, Briar can sync via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi, keeping the information flowing in a crisis.

If the internet’s up, Briar can sync via the Tor network, protecting users and their relationships from surveillance.

Briar uses direct, encrypted connections between users to prevent surveillance and censorship.

Typical messaging software relies on central servers and exposes messages and relationships to surveillance.