Earlier this month Facebook Chief Security Officer Alex Stamos threw a twittertantrum over accusations that Facebook’s algorithms promoted fake news in its users’ feeds: “I am seeing a ton of coverage of our recent issues driven by stereotypes of our employees and attacks against fantasy, strawman tech cos,” he wrote. “Nobody of substance…
Surveillance & Technology
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Sen. Richard Burr Says Media Botched Russian-Social Media Story…
The Russian operatives who ran Facebook ads surrounding last year’s election ran four times as many ads in Maryland — a deep-blue state — than they did on the critical swing state of Wisconsin, the chairman of the Senate intelligence committee said Wednesday. Sen. Richard Burr, North Carolina Republican, also said of the 55 ads […]
Twitter Censored #DNCLeaks, #PodestaEmails Tweets in Last Two Months of Campaign…
Twitter buried significant portions of tweets related to hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign chair John Podesta in the last two months of the 2016 presidential campaign. Twitter’s systems hid 48 percent of tweets using the #DNCLeak hashtag and 25 percent of tweets using #PodestaEmails, Twitter general counsel Sean Edgett said […]
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Robots Being Tested in 50 Wal-Mart Stores Across the U.S….
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. customers in a few Arkansas stores will soon cross paths with robots roaming the aisles. The Bentonville company said it will begin using autonomous devices in about 50 stores next month that are programmed to scan store shelves and identify things like out-of-stock items or products incorrectly priced or placed in the […]
Here Are Two of the Russian-Bought Facebook Ads That ‘Helped Sway the Election’…
Democratic Sen. Christopher Coons of Delaware shared two Russian-bought Facebook ads Tuesday during a congressional hearing on the foreign adversary’s attempts to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election. One post, published by a page called “Being Patriotic,” promoted an apparently phony event in Pennsylvania for “Miners for Trump” and advocated for coal-mining jobs. Another alleged […]
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On Russia, Tech Doesn’t Know What It Doesn’t Know…
While the Senate has spent the better part of a year making sense of Russia’s actions to influence the 2016 election, tech made quick work of its own analysis — or so it thinks. The glacial pace of Congress is often criticized, particularly contrasted to the tech industry, which still moves fast and breaks things, […]
Dumb and Dumber: Apple Fires iPhone X Engineer After Daughter’s Viral Video…
After his daughter’s YouTube video showing off the iPhone X went viral, Apple reportedly fired one of its iPhone engineers. YouTube vlogger Brooke Amelia Peterson said in a new video on her channel that her father, iPhone engineer Ken Bauer, had been fired after she showcased the new iPhone X. The phone will be available […]
One Awful PowerPoint Slide Accidentally Authorized the Air Force to Surveil U.S. Citizens Without Warrants…
The Air Force Office of Special Investigations, the branch’s chief investigative and protective service and a central organ of counterintelligence activities for the federal government, appeared to authorize warrantless domestic surveillance of U.S. persons even without a “specific connection” to foreign terrorism, thanks to a 2016 update to a DoD directive governing intelligence collection activities…
Russia-gate Breeds ‘Establishment McCarthyism’ by Robert Parry…
In the past, America has witnessed “McCarthyism” from the Right and even complaints from the Right about “McCarthyism of the Left.” But what we are witnessing now amid the Russia-gate frenzy is what might be called “Establishment McCarthyism,” traditional media/political powers demonizing and silencing dissent that questions mainstream narratives. This extraordinary assault on civil liberties […]
Twitter to Ban Ads from Russia’s RT, Sputnik…
Twitter says it will ban ads from RT and Sputnik, two state-sponsored Russian news outlets that the U.S. intelligence community has said tried to interfere with the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The San Francisco company also plans to donate proceeds from RT, formally known as Russia Today, and Sputnik ads to support outside research on […]
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Forcing Internet Platforms To Police Content Will Never Work
For many years now, we’ve pointed out that whenever people — generally legacy content companies and politicians — started pushing for internet platforms like Google, Facebook and Twitter to “police” content, that no matter what those platforms did, it was never going to be enough. For example, after years of resisting, Google finally caved to […]
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Trump Campaign: WikiLeaks Posting Hacked DNC Emails Was Legal…
WikiLeaks’ publication of thousands of emails apparently hacked from the Democratic National Committee was legal and specifically protected by federal law, the Trump campaign argued in a court filing Wednesday. Lawyers for the Trump presidential campaign came to the controversial transparency website’s defense in a bid to defeat a lawsuit three Democratic activists filed in […]
The Senate Intelligence Committee 702 Bill Is a Domestic Spying Bill…
Contrary to what you’re reading about it not “reforming” 702, the SSCI bill makes dramatic changes to 702. Effectively, it makes 702 a domestic spying program. The SSCI expands the kinds of criminal prosecutions with which it can use Section 702 data. It does so in Section 5, in what is cynically called “End Use […]
Facebook Tests Removing Publishers from News Feed–Unless They Pay…
Watch out, publishers: a nightmare scenario on Facebook may soon be a reality. The social network last week officially launched its secondary news feed called Explore. The feed generally features posts from Facebook Pages users don’t follow. News Feed, meanwhile, hosts posts from friends and Pages users do follow. But that’s not true for everyone. […]
Tesla Starts Energy Storage at Hospital to Help Puerto Rico…
After CEO Elon Musk extended an offer to help Puerto Rico earlier this month, Tesla is following through on a pledge to contribute to rebuilding the power grid devastated by Hurricane Maria, leaving thousands of people without electricity. In a tweet Tuesday, Tesla posted photos of Hospital del Niño and the solar and power storage […]
Boom Has Orders for 76 of Its Future Supersonic Passenger Jets…
Boom has a new design for its XB-1 Supersonic Demonstrator jet, the working prototype aircraft it’s creating to prove out its tech before beginning work on building real, commercial supersonic passenger aircraft. The new design was revealed Tuesday at the Paris Air Show, along with new business milestones: Boom has orders for 76 aircraft thus […]
How Facebook’s Master Algorithm Powers the Social Network…
Instagram engineers faced a Herculean task in early 2016. Fearing that people would miss the most important posts, Instagram’s leadership asked the engineers to transform the chronological photo feed into a curated list of posts based on users’ individual preferences. Development of a similar algorithm for Facebook ’s News Feed, which determines what 2 billion […]
O’Keefe Drops Part IV: 20-Year NYT Veteran Exposes “Culture Of Anti-Trump Bias”…
First it was Audience Strategy Editor, Nick Dudich, who admitted to repeatedly promoting content that intentionally sought to, among other things, damage President Trump’s businesses as a means towards forcing his resignation. Next came the NYT’s senior Home Page Editor, Des Shoe, who described Trump as an “oblivious idiot” and Pence as “f***ing horrible” while […]
Congress Probes Whether Obama DOJ Used the ‘Trump Dossier’ Before Surveillance Court…
Both the House and the Senate are investigating whether the former President Barack Obama’s administration used intelligence in a salacious “Trump Dossier” as “evidence” before a secret federal surveillance court to obtain permission to spy on Donald Trump campaign aides and later his transition team. Leaders in Congress are trying to find out if the […]
McCain’s latest surprise: Regulate Facebook…
Republican Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) knows his time in the public eye is short, so his big statements in recent weeks are especially resonant. Today, McCain will join with two Democrats — Sens. Mark Warner (Va.) and Amy Klobuchar (Minn.) — to give bipartisan imprimatur to the first of the “Facebook bills,” responding to last […]
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