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India
AI-based self-driving tech start-up Minus Zero unveils India’s first fully autonomous vehicle
Bengaluru-based artificial intelligence (AI) start-up Minus Zero has unveiled what it claims is India’s first autonomous vehicle. Based on a camera-sensor suite, the fully-electric prototype called zPod can drive in all environmental and geographical constraints, and can scale up to Level 5 autonomy capabilities. Level 5 autonomy refers to the highest level of autonomous driving, where a vehicle is fully capable of operating without human intervention in all driving conditions and environments.
‘Will never allow driverless cars to come into India’: Nitin Gadkari
While addressing road safety concerns in the country during the Zero Mile Samvad hosted by IIM Nagpur, Gadkari outlined government measures to mitigate the accidents such as the incorporation of six airbags in cars, reducing black spots on roads, and increasing fines through the Electric Motors Act.
Smartphone Addiction Causing Speech Delay Among Kashmiri Children
The excessive use of smartphones, besides causing neurological disorders, including fragmented focus and insomnia, is significantly contributing to the speech delay among children in Kashmir. Four to five children with speech delays, as a result of excessive screen usage are seen at the District Early Intervention Centre (DEIC) at the government’s G.B Pant Hospital here on a daily basis.
Rashmika Mandanna deepfake video probe hits a wall: US tech firms not sharing data, say Delhi Police
Investigation into the deepfake video of actress Rashmika Mandanna has hit a wall as US-based tech companies, whose portals were purportedly used to make and share the AI-edited/deepfake video, have not provided details to take the case forward, police sources said.
First Read: The Telecom Bill, 2023 is on Santa's evil list
The Telecommunications Bill, 2023 (“Telecom Bill, 2023”) was introduced in the Lok Sabha on December 18, almost a year after the conclusion of the consultation process for its 2022 counterpart, i.e. the draft Indian Telecommunication Bill, 2022 (“Telecom Bill, 2022”). After several reported inter-ministerial discussions over the year, the Department of Telecommunications (“DoT”) has released a repackaged version of the colonial 1885 law it meant to overhaul, which continues to retain the draconian surveillance and internet suspension powers of the Union government.
Control + All or Delete: The Draft Broadcast Bill Is a Blueprint for Censorship
The “central government” wants to drag independent news into a censor board framework. No independent regulation is proposed. The government is everywhere and in control. The dubious ‘3-tier’ regulatory structure proposed is recycled out of IT Rules 2021, which has been stayed by two high courts.
Use of AI for deepfake worrying, saw a video of me doing garba: PM Modi
Speaking to journalists at a Diwali Milan programme at the BJP headquarters, Modi spoke of the increasing efficiency of media outlets given the power of technology and social media.
India warns Facebook, YouTube to enforce rules to deter deepfakes - sources
India's government on Friday warned social media firms including Facebook (META.O), opens new tab and YouTube to repeatedly remind users that local laws prohibit them from posting deepfakes and content that spreads obscenity or misinformation, two sources told Reuters. The warning was conveyed by deputy IT minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar in a closed-door meeting where he said many companies had not updated their usage terms despite 2022 rules that prohibit content "harmful" to children, obscene or that "impersonates another person".
India drawing up laws to regulate deepfakes - minister
In his opening remarks at a virtual summit of G20 nations, Modi called on global leaders to jointly work towards regulating AI, and raised concerns over the negative impacts of deepfakes on society. The process of drafting regulations would also look at penalties on both the person uploading the content and the social media platform on which it was posted, Vaishnaw added. The move comes as countries across the world race to draw up rules to regulate AI.
Eyeball Politics: How Facebook Gave BJP a Leg-Up
A year-long investigation by Reporters Collective found that Facebook's algorithms amplified pro-BJP content and suppressed anti-BJP content, giving the BJP an unfair advantage in the 2019 Indian general election. The investigation also found that Facebook was slow to remove fake news and hate speech from its platform. The article's findings have been met with criticism from Facebook, which has said that the investigation is "misleading" and "flawed." However, the article has also been praised by experts, who say that it provides "powerful evidence" of Facebook's role in the spread of misinformation and hate speech.
The withdrawal of the PDP Bill and the road ahead
While India has some laws to regulate sensitive data under the Information and Technology Act of 2000, no legislation has been passed so far to implement the ethos of the Puttaswamy judgment, which guaranteed Indians their right to privacy. As Indians increasingly onboard onto digital platforms, there is an urgent need to protect citizens’ personal data and make the data utilisation process transparent.
Interview: ‘Pegasus is a great example of how the government wants information on everybody but will not give information in return’
The authors of ‘The Art of Conjuring Alternate Realities’ on how what we think of as ‘reality’ is shaped and manipulated by various stakeholders — from governments to godmen to advertisers.
Facebook Did Not Block Fake Accounts Linked To BJP MP: Whistleblower
Whistleblower Sophie Zhang alleges the BJP, the Congress, and the AAP used fake accounts to influence the polls, however, only the network of accounts directly linked to a BJP MP was not removed by Facebook.
The biggest data breaches in India
Over 313,000 cybersecurity incidents were reported in 2019 alone, according to the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), the government agency responsible for tracking and responding to cybersecurity threats.
Aadhaar debate: Privacy is not an elitist concern – it's the only way to secure equality
Aadhaar reflects and reproduces power imbalances and inequalities. Information asymmetries result in the data subject becoming a data object, to be manipulated, misrepresented and policed at will.
India ramps up Facial Recognition to track down individuals without any laws to keep track of how this technology is being used
The Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF), as a part of the Project Panoptic, has written to the government asking them to address the ongoing concerns around the use of facial recognition technology and to call stakeholders and privacy experts for consultation on how this affects individual fundamental rights.
Nine-pin bowling aimed at free speech, privacy
By and large, the Information Technology Rules, 2021 go against landmark judicial precedents upholding key rights
Indian Personal Data Protection Bill 2019 vs. GDPR
This chart provides a high-level comparison between the EU General Data Protection Regulation and India’s Personal Data Protection Bill.
Aadhaar Is a Mass Surveillance Tool and There Should Be Criminal Penalty for Its Misuse, Says Edward Snowden
Snowden feels Aadhaar should be used only for social benefit from the government and not for any other service from the government as well as private players. "The biggest crime behind this system is that it is being used for things that are unrelated to what the Government is paying for.
World
Google is paying parents $50 to collect children’s facial eye colour, face tone and other data, claims report
Google, through its subsidiary Telus International, has paid parents in Canada $50 per child to collect video footage of their children’s faces, a report has claimed. The project ran from November 2023 to January 2024, and has raised concerns about children’s privacy and consent. According to a report by 404 media, the footage will be used to train facial recognition technology, specifically for age verification purposes.
Steve Jobs thought devices would become ‘a bicycle for the mind’–but their effect on our brains is similar to that of smoking and junk food
It’s been 33 years since Steve Jobs talked about the personal computer becoming a bicycle for the mind. In those years, the advent of the smartphone and the mass adoption of social media have turned those bicycles into runaway trains. Americans spend more than four hours a day on their smartphones–and more than half say they are addicted to their device. In May 2023, the surgeon general issued a warning about the concerning effects of social media on youth mental health.
OPENAI QUIETLY DELETES BAN ON USING CHATGPT FOR “MILITARY AND WARFARE”
OpenAI quietly deleted language expressly prohibiting the use of its technology for military purposes from its usage policy, which seeks to dictate how powerful and immensely popular tools like ChatGPT can be used.
Meet ‘Link History,’ Facebook’s New Way to Track the Websites You Visit
Facebook rolled out a new “Link History” setting that creates a special repository of all the links you click on in the Facebook mobile app. You can opt out if you’re proactive, but the company is pushing Link History on users, and the data is used for targeted ads. As lawmakers introduce tech regulations and Apple and Google beef up privacy restrictions, Meta is doubling down and searching for new ways to preserve its data harvesting empire.
Substack Has a Nazi Problem
The newsletter-hosting site Substack advertises itself as the last, best hope for civility on the internet—and aspires to a bigger role in politics in 2024. But just beneath the surface, the platform has become a home and propagator of white supremacy and anti-Semitism. Substack has not only been hosting writers who post overtly Nazi rhetoric on the platform; it profits from many of them.
Indonesians boycott McDonald’s, Starbucks over support for Israel
Ade Andrian, operational manager of the Medan branch of the humanitarian organisation Medical Emergency Rescue Committee (MER-C), used to visit McDonald’s at least once a month with his family. “My favourite order was the family meal,” Andrian told Al Jazeera. “Or if I went to the drive-through, I would always order ice cream.”
FTC Report Shows Rise in Sophisticated Dark Patterns Designed to Trick and Trap Consumers
“Our report shows how more and more companies are using digital dark patterns to trick people into buying products and giving away their personal information,” said Samuel Levine, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection.
The world’s most valuable resource is no longer oil, but data
A new commodity spawns a lucrative, fast-growing industry, prompting antitrust regulators to step in to restrain those who control its flow. A century ago, the resource in question was oil. Now similar concerns are being raised by the giants that deal in data, the oil of the digital era. These titans—Alphabet (Google’s parent company), Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft—look unstoppable.
How big tech finally awakened to the horror of its own inventions
It took years for ex-Facebook and Google bosses to criticize what they had created – but they seem to have had a collective change of heart. Perhaps it’s because they now have children of their own.
The Dark Psychology of Social Networks
Human beings evolved to gossip, preen, manipulate, and ostracize. We are easily lured into this new gladiatorial circus, even when we know that it can make us cruel and shallow. As the Yale psychologist Molly Crockett has argued, the normal forces that might stop us from joining an outrage mob—such as time to reflect and cool off, or feelings of empathy for a person being humiliated—are attenuated when we can’t see the person’s face, and when we are asked, many times a day, to take a side by publicly “liking” the condemnation.
An MIT psychologist explains why so many tech moguls send their kids to anti-tech schools
Technology moguls like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and other high-powered entrepreneurs tend to share similar qualities: persistence, ingenuity, grit, just to name a few. But one of the more surprising traits is the philosophy that kids ought to be raised tech-free. Gates, for example, didn't let his kids use cellphones until they were 14. Jobs, the inventor of the iPad, prohibited his own kids from using the tech.
Misinformation
McDonald's hit by Israel-Gaza 'misinformation'
McDonald's relies on thousands of independent businesses to own and operate most of its more than 40,000 stores around the world. About 5% are located in the Middle East. Since Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October, the McDonald's corporate headquarters has tried to keep a low profile regarding the conflict. But its brand has still been caught up in the fight.
OpenAI Takes Measures To Counter Election Misinformation: Will They Be Enough?
"As we prepare for elections in 2024 across the world’s largest democracies, our approach is to continue our platform safety work by elevating accurate voting information, enforcing measured policies, and improving transparency," OpenAI said in a blog post.
AI Is Tearing Wikipedia Apart
As generative artificial intelligence continues to permeate all aspects of culture, the people who steward Wikipedia are divided on how best to proceed. The concern is that machine-generated content has to be balanced with a lot of human review and would overwhelm lesser-known wikis with bad content.
Here Come Writing Robots: How is Automated Journalism Impacting the Media?
Automated journalism is starting to become a norm, at least in fields that rely heavily on data such as in sports and finance. Human journalists are bound by their commitment to the truth, conscience, and loyalty to the citizens. How can these ethical principles be cascaded to robot journalists? It looks like ethical AI has to be extended to include automated journalism.
Frances Haugen takes on Facebook: the making of a modern US hero
In her explosive Senate testimony, the former employee exposed how the tech giant puts profit before the public good.
Facebook, YouTube moves against QAnon are only a first step in the battle against dangerous conspiracy theories
Facebook’s actions will do permanent damage to the presence of QAnon on the platform in the long run. Short and medium term, what we will see are pages and groups reforming and trying to game the Facebook algorithm to see if they can avoid detection.
How WhatsApp became linked to mob violence and fake news — and why it's hard to stop
"Political messaging operations use these services to spread disinformation about opponents and groups, which has led to violence," Joan Donovan, media manipulation research lead at Data & Society, an independent nonprofit that covers the social and cultural impact of technology, said in an email. "Because the messages tend to come from trusted sources ... it presents a new challenge for stopping the influence of disinformation on the public.”
Generative AI and Large Language Models (LLMs)
NY Times sues OpenAI, Microsoft for infringing copyrighted works
The New York Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft, accusing them of using millions of the newspaper's articles without permission to help train chatbots to provide information to readers. The Times is the first major U.S. media organization to sue OpenAI, creator of the popular artificial-intelligence platform ChatGPT, and Microsoft, an OpenAI investor and creator of the AI platform now known as Copilot, over copyright issues associated with its works.
Generative AI Has a Visual Plagiarism Problem
The degree to which large language models (LLMs) might “memorize” some of their training inputs has long been a question, raised by scholars including Google DeepMind’s Nicholas Carlini and the first author of this article (Gary Marcus). Recent empirical work has shown that LLMs are in some instances capable of reproducing, or reproducing with minor changes, substantial chunks of text that appear in their training sets.
ChatGPT Creator OpenAI to Pay Politico Parent for Using Its Content
News-publishing giant Axel Springer has inked a multiyear licensing deal with ChatGPT creator OpenAI, a significant milestone as media companies push for compensation for the use of their content in artificial-intelligence tools.
Google And Universal Music Reportedly Discuss AI-Generated Music
Google and Universal Music (and other music companies) may be in negotiations to license artists’ voices and melodies for songs generated by artificial intelligence (AI). This development, initially reported by the Financial Times, emerges as the music industry faces new challenges and opportunities in monetizing AI-generated deepfake songs.
Duolingo cuts workers as it relies more on AI
Language-learning app Duolingo has been steadily firing contract writers and translators, replacing them with artificial intelligence, in one of the most high-profile instances yet of a company getting rid of human workers in favor of AI.
ChatGPT ‘hallucinates.’ Some researchers worry it isn’t fixable.
The finding, in a paper released by a team of MIT researchers, is the latest potential breakthrough in helping chatbots to arrive at the correct answer. The researchers proposed using different chatbots to produce multiple answers to the same question and then letting them debate each other until one answer won out. The researchers found using this “society of minds” method made them more factual.
Dark Corners of the Web Offer a Glimpse at A.I.’s Nefarious Future
In the hands of anonymous internet users, A.I. tools can create waves of harassing and racist material. It’s already happening on the anonymous message board 4chan.
Hate Speech, Polarisation
64% of the time, when people join an extremist Facebook Group, they do so because the platform recommended it – Facebook’s internal study
“Our algorithms exploit the human brain’s attraction to divisiveness,” read a slide from a 2018 (Facebook) presentation. “If left unchecked,” it warned, Facebook would feed users “more and more divisive content in an effort to gain user attention & increase time on the platform.”
Facebook weighted the angry emoji as five times more powerful than a like
Facebook engineers gave extra value to emoji reactions, including ‘angry,’ pushing more emotional and provocative content into users’ news feeds
Model Suggests Digital Media Contributing to “Maelstrom” of Societal Division
Regular users of social media platforms are well aware that they often produce toxic discourse. But while social media executives such as Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and Nick Clegg continue to make straw man arguments designed to undermine the contention that products such as Facebook play a role in exacerbating societal divisions, communications and political science scholars continue to produce results that bring clarity to the mechanisms by which digital and social media exacerbate partisan and identity-based conflict. A better understanding is crucial for keying in on what platforms should be held responsible for, devising better policy, and potentially designing solutions.
‘Beyond Fake News’ BBC study 2018 - India
Our analysis suggests that people India are not that concerned about fake news, no matter what they say in quantitative surveys. First, the initial association with or the working definition of the term ‘fake news’ is largely limited to scams (all kinds of schemes, offers and attempted cons) that they keep coming across, or messages in the realm of the fantastical, which are just too incredible to believe.
Facebook India: Caste and Religious Hate Speech - Equality Labs
Facebook staff lacks the cultural competency needed to recognize, respect, and serve caste, religious, gender, and queer minorities. Hiring of Indian staff alone does not ensure cultural competence across India’s multitude of marginalized communities. Minorities require meaningful representation across Facebook’s staff and contractor relationships. Collaboration with civil society and greater transparency of staffing diversity strengthens hate speech mitigation mechanisms like content moderation.
Data and Privacy Breaches
Google settles $5 billion consumer privacy lawsuit
Alphabet's Google has agreed to settle a lawsuit claiming it secretly tracked the internet use of millions of people who thought they were doing their browsing privately. U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in Oakland, California, put a scheduled Feb. 5, 2024 trial in the proposed class action on hold, after lawyers for Google and for consumers said they had reached a preliminary settlement.
‘Privacy & AI’
The year has barely started, and the New York Times vs. OpenAI lawsuit signs massive AI-led changes to the internet as we know it. Read about what’s happening in this article.
Aadhar data leak: Massive data breach exposes 81 crore Indians’ personal information on dark web
A report by US-based cybersecurity firm Resecurity has claimed that personal identifiable information of about 815 million which is 81.5 crore Indians has been leaked on the dark web, as reported by Business Standard.
Augmented reality has immense power. Users will need rights
Tony Fadell, the co-creator of the iPod and iPhone and founder of Nest Labs, has said, “I wake up in cold sweats every so often thinking what did we bring to the world? Did we bring a nuclear bomb with information that can — as we see with fake news — reprogram people? Or did we bring light to people who never had information, who can now be empowered?”
The Privacy Paradox
Whenever researchers, opinion pollsters and other busybodies ask people if they value their privacy, they invariably respond with a resounding “yes”. The paradox arises from the fact that they nevertheless continue to use the services that undermine their beloved privacy.
The Dangers of Hacking and What a Hacker Can Do to Your Computer
Anyone who uses a computer connected to the Internet is susceptible to the threats that computer hackers and online predators pose. These online villains typically use phishing scams, spam email or instant messages and bogus websites to deliver dangerous malware to your computer and compromise your computer security.
So FLoC trials are delayed in Europe thanks to GDPR. Now what?
Marketers are showing signs of strain but not panic as the initial furor over the delayed test of Google’s cookie alternative in Europe settles.
Ad tech stocks surge as Google delays killing third-party cookies until 2023
Google is pushing back its timeline to deprecate third-party tracking cookies, giving the digital advertising industry more time to iron out plans for more privacy-conscious targeted ads.
Targeting and Profiling
Apple knew AirDrop users could be identified and tracked as early as 2019, researchers say
Security researchers warned Apple as early as 2019 about vulnerabilities in its AirDrop wireless sharing function that Chinese authorities claim they recently used to track down users of the feature, the researchers told CNN, in a case that experts say has sweeping implications for global privacy.
Psychographic Microtargeting – Cambridge Analytica
How do 87m records scraped from Facebook become an advertising campaign that could help swing an election? What does gathering that much data actually involve? And what does that data tell us about ourselves?
Everybody lies: how Google search reveals our darkest secrets
What can we learn about ourselves from the things we ask online? US data scientist Seth Stephens‑Davidowitz analysed anonymous Google search results, uncovering disturbing truths about our desires, beliefs and prejudices
The Real Threat From A.I. Isn’t Superintelligence. It’s Gullibility.
The rapid rise of artificial intelligence over the past few decades, from pipe dream to reality, has been staggering. A.I. programs have long been chess and Jeopardy! Champions, but they have also conquered poker, crossword puzzles, Go, and even protein folding. They power the social media, video, and search sites we all use daily, and very recently they have leaped into a realm previously thought unimaginable for computers: artistic creativity.
Amazon Puts Its Own “Brands” First
The online giant gives a leg up to hundreds of house brand and exclusive products that most people don’t know are connected to Amazon.
Targeted ads isolate and divide us even when they’re not political
We found that online targeted advertising also divides and isolates us by preventing us from collectively flagging ads we object to. We do this in the physical world (perhaps when we see an advert at a bus stop or train station) by alerting regulators to harmful content. But online consumers are isolated because the information they see is limited to what is targeted at them.
Surveillance capitalism, and the fight for a human future
The assault on behavioural data is so sweeping that it can no longer be circumscribed by the concept of privacy. This is a different kind of challenge now, one that threatens the existential and political canon of the modern liberal order defined by principles of self-determination that have been centuries, even millennia, in the making.
The adversarial persuasion machine: a conversation with James Williams
My whole digital environment seemed to be transmogrifying into some weird new kind of adversarial persuasion machine. But persuasion isn’t even the right word for it. It’s something stronger than that, something more in the direction of coercion or manipulation that I still don’t think we have a good word for.
Everybody lies: how Google search reveals our darkest secrets
What can we learn about ourselves from the things we ask online? US data scientist Seth Stephens‑Davidowitz analysed anonymous Google search results, uncovering disturbing truths about our desires, beliefs and prejudices
Apple’s moves to tighten flow of user data leave advertisers anxious
Apple’s changes, unveiled during its developer conference Monday, threaten to restrict companies’ abilities to track users’ web behavior and gather information on them from third parties such as data brokers.
Online child abuse and mental health
Snapchat's abusive dark patterns
Snapchat's paid subscription service was launched in July 2022. In order to grow at high speed, Snapchat has added features that are extremely problematic, unfair, and, also abusive, especially when the majority of the users are so young (13-24 years old). These are dark patterns that exploit teenagers’ vulnerabilities.
Zuckerberg ‘ignored’ executives on kids’ safety, unredacted lawsuit alleges
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg “ignored” top executives who called for bolder actions and more resources to protect users, especially kids and teens, even as the company faced mounting scrutiny over its safety practices, a newly unredacted legal complaint alleges.
More data is collected about children growing up today than ever before. – Children’s commissioner UK.
The Children’s Commissioner is concerned that information collected about a child today might jeopardise their future, potentially affecting whether they are offered a university place, job or financial products (such as insurance or credit). She is worried by the risk of a child’s data being used to commit identity theft when the child turns 18.
Identifying and Eliminating CSAM in Generative ML Training Data and Models
Generative Machine Learning models have been well documented as being able to produce explicit adult content, including child sexual abuse material (CSAM) as well as to alter benign imagery of a clothed victim to produce nude or explicit content. In this study, we examine the LAION-5B dataset—parts of which were used to train the popular Stable Diffusion series of models—to attempt to measure to what degree CSAM itself may have played a role in the training process of models trained on this dataset. We use a combination of PhotoDNA perceptual hash matching, cryptographic hash matching, k-nearest neighbors queries and ML classifiers.
Google Contractor Pays Parents $50 to Scan Their Childrens' Faces
Google is collecting the eyelid shape and skin tone of children via parent submitted videos, according to a project description online reviewed by 404 Media. Canadian tech conglomerate TELUS, which says it is working on Google’s behalf, is offering parents $50 to film their children wearing various props such as hats or sunglasses as part of the project, the description adds.
Smartphone Addiction Causing Speech Delay Among Kashmiri Children
The excessive use of smartphones, besides causing neurological disorders, including fragmented focus and insomnia, is significantly contributing to the speech delay among children in Kashmir. Four to five children with speech delays, as a result of excessive screen usage are seen at the District Early Intervention Centre (DEIC) at the government’s G.B Pant Hospital here on a daily basis.
Sonali Patankar: There is an urgent need for comprehensive online safety education and parental guidance
In this interview with Sarika Sawant for Open Interview, Patankar talks about the issues and challenges being faced by- especially- women, children and elderly due to the growing cases of cybercrimes. She shares her experience of solving cyber issues, creating awareness about preventive measures for cyber frauds and attacks, results of surveys she conducted and also provides practical and achievable solutions to deal with the varied forms of cyber issues.
Surgeon General Issues New Advisory About Effects Social Media Use Has on Youth Mental Health
With adolescence and childhood representing a critical stage in brain development that can make young people more vulnerable to harms from social media, the Surgeon General is issuing a call for urgent action by policymakers, technology companies, researchers, families, and young people alike to gain a better understanding of the full impact of social media use, maximize the benefits and minimize the harms of social media platforms, and create safer, healthier online environments to protect children. The Surgeon General’s Advisory is a part of the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) ongoing efforts to support President Joe Biden’s whole-of-government strategy to transform mental health care for all Americans.
Teen suicides now outnumber homicides - and there's a terrifying reason why
Over the past decade, psychologists have come to see a picture in which young, developing brains are pitted against the power of brightly-colored notifications, relentless pocket vibrations, and addicting apps. The byproduct has been an increase in disorders such as depression and anxiety, which sometimes turn fatal.
Youtube girl videos wormhole 2019 - Matt Watson (video)
Over the past 48 hours I have discovered a wormhole into a soft-core pedophilia ring on Youtube. Youtube’s recommended algorithm is facilitating pedophiles’ ability to connect with each-other, trade contact info, and link to actual Child Porn in the comments.
8 in 10 users have faced online harassment, claims survey
The most common forms of online harassment were found to be abuse and insults, which was reported by 63% of respondents. This was followed by malicious gossip and rumours (59%), malicious comments/threats on a social media site (54%), trolling (50%), and attacks/abuse from a coordinated group (49%).
The Warped Self – Predictive processing and neuroscience explains online hyperstimulation
Over time, such systems build up a ‘generative model’, a structured understanding of the statistical regularities in our environment that’s used to generate predictions. This generative model is essentially a mental model of our world, including both immediate, task-specific information, as well as longer-term information that constitutes our narrative sense of self.
'We lost control of our creations': The Silicon Valley heretic on a mission to make Big Tech repent
These factors together have created a "race to the bottom of the brainstem", in which increasingly "overwhelming" and sophisticated AI tools are devoted to exploiting what Mr Raskin calls the "soft underbelly of our animal minds". They even propose something more sinister: that these AIs have learned to make us more anxious and more confused, because these qualities make us better customers (or rather, more lucrative eyeballs). That, says Mr Harris, puts us at "a civilisational moment" – a crossroads where the wrong turn could mean "the end of human agency".
How TikTok is addictive
TikTok is the fastest growing social media platform in the world! Each month TikTok has 800 MILLION active users. That is more active users than Twitter, Reddit, SnapChat, and Pinterest! Unlike these and other rival platforms, TikTok at its core recommends content.
Teen girls body image and social comparison on Instagram - WSJ
This internal study by Facebook researchers published internally in 2020, examines teenage girls' experiences with appearance comparisons on social media and how that affected their body image and mental health.
Behaviour Manipulation
A model of behavioral manipulation
The default position among most economists and AI researchers is that the combination of large amounts data and advances in AI will bring widespread benefits to society. For participants in online platforms, these may take the form of more informative advertising, better targeted products, more personalized services, and perhaps better information and recommendation for decision-making across a variety of domains. One challenge to this optimistic scenario is that the information that online platforms collect could be used for good or for bad—to mislead rather than help users. Is this likely? If it is, what form would such behavioral manipulation take? And how can it be countered?
Is So-Called Contextual Advertising the Cure to Surveillance-Based “Behavioral” Advertising?
Contextual advertising is said to be privacy-safe because it eliminates the need for cookies, third-party trackers, and the processing of other personal data. Marketers and policy makers are placing much stock in the future of contextual advertising, viewing it as the solution to the privacy-invasive targeted advertising that heavily relies on personal data.
The Ethics Of AI: Navigating Bias, Manipulation And Beyond
One of the key concerns surrounding the ethics of AI is the potential for reinforcing existing biases. As discussed in a conversation with Michelle Yi, Senior Director of Applied Artificial Intelligence at RelationalAI, bias in AI systems can have far-reaching consequences. When biased data is fed into AI models, it can perpetuate biases on an unprecedented scale.
How AI can affect our decisions
One of the key concerns surrounding the ethics of AI is the potential for reinforcing existing biases. As discussed in a conversation with Michelle Yi, Senior Director of Applied Artificial Intelligence at RelationalAI, bias in AI systems can have far-reaching consequences. When biased data is fed into AI models, it can perpetuate biases on an unprecedented scale.
AI and The Death Of Exploration
The ability to choose well is arguably the most powerful right in today’s world. Wars have occurred and millions of lives have been lost for the freedom that has ultimately given the power to each one of us to choose. The person or group that controls the choice of people controls the environment around them. So how exactly are we protecting this cardinal right in today’s world?
'Our minds can be hijacked': the tech insiders who fear a smartphone dystopia
It is revealing that many of these younger technologists are weaning themselves off their own products, sending their children to elite Silicon Valley schools where iPhones, iPads and even laptops are banned. They appear to be abiding by a Biggie Smalls lyric from their own youth about the perils of dealing crack cocaine: never get high on your own supply.
Netflix knows you better than you know yourself - A former Google data scientist explains why
As a result, Stephens-Davidowitz writes, Netflix stopped asking people to choose what they wanted to watch in the future. Instead, Netflix made recommendations based on movies that similar users had watched. "The result: customers visited Netflix more frequently and watched more movies," he adds. That's kind of creepy - and creepier when you realize that Netflix is hardly the only business making bank on people's lack of self-knowledge.
New Study Shows Impact of Technology on Relationships
* Forty-five percent consider technology a big problem in their marriage.
* More than one-third of the adults use technology in their bed every night or almost every night. Even more, 43 percent, report that their spouse/partner uses technology in bed every night or almost every night. That may be why nearly 25 percent feel like their partner’s use of technology in bed interferes with their sexual relationship.
* Fifty-five percent feel like their spouse/partner spends too much time on their cell phone, and 48 percent wish their significant other would spend less time on their cell phone and more time with their children.
Why Your Brain Needs Idle Time
Experts say idle time likely also helps develop mental processes that are far more complicated than memory storage and retrieval. “The deeper reflective states, where you make meaning of what’s going on and connect it to self and identity and integrate knowledge together into coherent narratives — these kinds of processes only happen when you’re not focused on some in-the-moment activity,”
Post-truth world
Deepfake Elections: How Indian Politicians Are Using AI-Manipulated Media To Malign Opponents
Election propaganda in India has evolved beyond door-to-door campaigns and wall posters to AI-generated fake videos. This technology allows a bunch of people sitting in their Delhi NCR offices to deploy deepfake videos that can sway voter sentiments in any poll-bound constituency hundreds of miles away.
The Meta Studies: Nuanced Findings, Corporate Spin, and Media Oversimplification
A collaboration between social scientists and Meta has been held up as a potential “new model for platform research” that may help explain the effects social media companies have on politics and democratic institutions. With the first results from this ongoing project – four peer-reviewed studies – released last week, now is a good time to ask whether the unusual endeavor is living up to the hype.
Facebook whistleblower says company incentivises "angry, polarising, divisive content”
"Facebook's mission is to connect people all around the world," said Haugen. "When you have a system that you know can be hacked with anger, it's easier to provoke people into anger. And publishers are saying, 'Oh, if I do more angry, polarizing, divisive content, I get more money.' Facebook has set up a system of incentives that is pulling people apart."
Facebook whistleblower says company incentivises "angry, polarising, divisive content”
"Facebook's mission is to connect people all around the world," said Haugen. "When you have a system that you know can be hacked with anger, it's easier to provoke people into anger. And publishers are saying, 'Oh, if I do more angry, polarizing, divisive content, I get more money.' Facebook has set up a system of incentives that is pulling people apart."
Google page ranking rigging 2016 US elections
Google has the ability to drive millions of votes to a candidate with no one the wiser.
Computational Power: Automated Use of WhatsApp in the Elections
Our study concluded that there is strong evidence of automation being used in multiple WhatsApp groups and that there is a high degree of interconnection, as evidenced by the large number of administrators and members shared by these groups among each other.
The Platform Press: How Silicon Valley reengineered journalism
There is a rapid takeover of traditional publishers’ roles by companies including Facebook, Snapchat, Google, and Twitter that shows no sign of slowing, and which raises serious questions over how the costs of journalism will be supported. These companies have evolved beyond their role as distribution channels, and now control what audiences see and who gets paid for their attention, and even what format and type of journalism flourishes.
Information Warfare
Information warfare & cyber insecurity may impact 2024 polls globally, AI biggest threat: WEF report
Information warfare and cybersecurity threats could affect electoral campaigns and outcomes across 45 countries this year, a report by the World Economic Forum (WEF) has revealed, adding that artificial intelligence poses one of the biggest threats to the coming elections in 2024.
How Hamas’ Information Warfare Strategy Both Succeeded and Failed
A scathing retaliation and military operation in the Gaza Strip has ensued, with tens of thousands of casualties. The military retaliation would play into Hamas’ hands, but the lack of regional support has hampered the terrorist organization’s freedom of movement.
Fake News Danger Becomes Top Davos Worry in Year of Elections
False or wrong information poses the biggest danger to the world in the next two years amid a confluence of elections and economic drudgery, according to a survey by the World Economic Forum.
Facebook - Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior Explained
“Coordinated inauthentic behavior.” If you keep up with news from Facebook, you’ve probably heard us use this term before. In recent months, we’ve removed numerous Pages and accounts for engaging in it — but what does it actually mean? And how is it different from “fake news”? I lead the team responsible for enforcing against this behavior and in this video, I’ll give you a quick rundown of what it means.
Politibots - The bots that are changing politics
Bots and their cousins—botnets, bot armies, sockpuppets, fake accounts, sybils, automated trolls, influence networks—are a dominant new force in public discourse. You may have heard that bots can be used to threaten activists, swing elections, and even engage in conversation with the President. Bots are the hip new media; Silicon Valley has marketed the chatbot as the next technological step after the app.
IBM abandons 'biased' facial recognition tech
A 2019 study conducted by Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that none of the facial recognition tools from Microsoft, Amazon and IBM were 100% accurate when it came to recognising men and women with dark skin.
Microsoft won’t sell police its facial-recognition technology
“When even the makers of face recognition refuse to sell this surveillance technology because it is so dangerous, lawmakers can no longer deny the threats to our rights and liberties,” Matt Cagle, a technology and civil liberties lawyer with the ACLU of Northern California.
The US is readying sanctions against Russia over the SolarWinds cyberattack. Here's a simple explanation of how the massive hack happened and why it's such a big deal
Foreign hackers, who some top US officials believe are from Russia, were able to use the hack to spy on private companies like the elite cybersecurity firm FireEye and the upper echelons of the US Government, including the Department of Homeland Security and Treasury Department.