Earlier this year I mentioned that I would be taking the newsletter to four days a week, but would do
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January 25 · Issue #279 · View online |
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Earlier this year I mentioned that I would be taking the newsletter to four days a week, but would do Friday edition whenever the news called for it. Today, the news called for it. Let’s start with Mike Isaac’s scoop in the New York Times: Facebook will unify the infrastructure powering messages on Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, with a goal of finishing the work by early next year: That will bring together three of the world’s largest messaging networks, which between them have more than 2.6 billion users, allowing people to communicate across the platforms for the first time. The move has the potential to redefine how billions of people use the apps to connect with one another while strengthening Facebook’s grip on users, raising antitrust, privacy and security questions. It also underscores how Mr. Zuckerberg is imposing his authority over units he once vowed to leave alone. What does it mean? Here are two angles to consider. One is antitrust. The last time the US government roused itself to the work of breaking up a tech giant came two decades ago, when it sought the separation of the Internet Explorer browser from Microsoft Windows. Last year, Preston Gralla walked us through the history: Microsoft argued that Internet Explorer was an integral part of Windows, that its code was required for Windows to operate properly, and that unbundling it from Windows and allowing people to easily use other browsers would significantly harm the operating system. It was a ludicrous argument, and the court rightly ruled against Microsoft. It forced Microsoft to let people easily use other browsers than Internet Explorer. Ludicrous though the argument may have been, we may be about to hear it again. If the Federal Trade Commission ever planned to compel Facebook to spin out WhatsApp and Instagram — a big if, I know — you can imagine the company explaining that there was no longer such a thing as “WhatsApp” or “Instagram.” Going forward, those names will refer only to their respective graphical user interfaces. Behind the curtain, there is only Facebook. It’s a characteristically savvy — and ruthless — move from Zuckerberg and his lieutenants. A second angle to consider: encryption. As part of the plan, Facebook has promised to bring end-to-end encryption to its entire suite of messaging apps. (It is currently enabled by default in WhatsApp, and can be activated inside Messenger by creating a “secret” chat.) Facebook’s former security chief, Alex Stamos, says this would be a boon to user privacy. “Facebook Messenger and IG going E2E encrypted would pass up ‘WhatsApp encryption day’ as the most impactful uplift of communications privacy in human history,” he wrote on Twitter, adding: “We should support the idea and demand transparency in the safety-privacy-UX balancing decisions and technical details.” Alec Muffett, a former Facebook security engineer, agreed, tweeting that the move could enhance data privacy for billions of people. He also speculates that metadata shared between WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook could be useful in building a business that would support them. (Building a good ad business around messages when you have no understanding of their contents is a profound challenge.) In short, there are lots of good reasons to integrate these apps, from Facebook’s perspective at least, and increasingly little reason not to. The only real reason to hesitate would have been government intervention, but the government was shut down for the past 35 days. And even if the FTC were concerned, it seems unlikely that they would act in the three weeks until the government (in all likelihood) shuts down again.
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Fake news on Twitter during the 2016 U.S. presidential election
Only 0.1 percent of Twitter users shared 80 percent of fake news during the 2016 campaign, according to a new study in the journal Science. In a related piece in the Washington Post, Ben Guarino notes that fake news was shared more by right-leaning users than anyone else: In Lazer’s study of Twitter, age had an effect on someone’s likelihood to share fake news, but political orientation was the strongest factor. Among Twitter users who were on the left or center of the political spectrum, less than 5 percent shared fake content. But 11 percent on the right, and 21 percent on the extreme right, did so.
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One Man’s Obsessive Fight to Reclaim His Cambridge Analytica Data
Issie Lapowsky profiles David Carroll, whose early obsession with Cambridge Analytica kept the company in the headlines until it triggered a worldwide scandal over data privacy: WHEN HE STARTED out, Carroll was an underdog, facing off against a corporation with ties to the president of the United States and backed by billionaire donor Robert Mercer. If he lost, Carroll would be on the hook for the opposing team’s legal fees, which he wasn’t quite sure how he’d pay. But if he won, Carroll believed he could prove an invaluable point. He could use that trove of information he received to show the world just how powerless Americans are over their privacy. He could offer up a concrete example of how one man’s information—his supermarket punch card, his online shopping habits, his voting patterns—can be bought and sold and weaponized by corporations and even foreign entities trying to influence elections.
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Flood of complaints to EU countries since data law adopted
Citizens of the European Union are taking full advantage of the protections offered by the General Data Protection Regulation: More than 95,000 complaints have been filed with EU countries since the bloc’s flagship data protection laws took effect eight months ago, the executive European Commission said Friday. The complaints have already triggered three financial penalties, including France’s record 50 million euros fine Monday on US giant Google for not doing enough inform users on how their data is used.
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Russian disinformation system influences PH social media
Rappler found new links between disinformation in the Philippines and the Kremlin-linked Internet Research Agency: Among these links is an alleged “geopolitical expert” named Adam Garrie, who writes for websites known to spread misleading claims, and who has been quoted extensively in online posts and interviewed by news networks with links to Iran and Russia. (READ: Don’t let ‘experts’ online fool you: Here’s how) Garrie has also been identified in a research paper by New Knowledge about the Russian IRA as being part of the “broader propaganda ecosystem.” He is a contributor to globalresearch.ca, geopolitica.ru, and eurasianaffairs.net – all segments of the disinformation networks connected to the IRA and Russia. A Russian IP address is traceable from the last two sites.
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Is Big Tech Merging With Big Brother? Kinda Looks Like It
David Samuels explores the likelihood that big tech platforms will be used — and used effectively — to build a national surveillance state: It seems to me there is little reason to imagine that the people who run large technology companies have any vested interest in allowing pre-digital folkways to interfere with their 21st-century engineering and business models, any more than 19th-century robber barons showed any particular regard for laws or people that got in the way of their railroads and steel trusts. Nor is there much reason to imagine that the technologists who run our giant consumer-data monopolies have any better idea of the future they’re building than the rest of us do.
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NewsGuard, NuzzelRank, and the gold rush to rank media organizations’ trustworthiness.
Will Oremu explores NewsGuard and the other initiatives to profit by evaluating the accuracy of journalism in our social feeds: But if ranking stories based on clicks or likes was disastrous, ranking online publishers’ credibility brings its own set of problems. Not least of these is that credibility means different things to different people, and even the best-intentioned arbiters will be subject to both their own biases and outside pressure. The hope is that these systems rebalance the incentives facing online news companies. The risk is that they simply replace one set of self-interested media clearinghouses with another.
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How to Stop Misinformation
Aviv Ovadya considers who WhatsApp can prevent the spread of misinformation and hate speech without breaking end-to-end encryption: For starters, it could create an updatable list of rumors and fact-checks, similar to what Facebook uses to identify misinformation in its news feed. Each phone could regularly receive a portion of this list tailored to match what the user would be likely to see (based on metadata the app already collects, such as location). Whenever users post or receive a link or rumor that’s on the list, WhatsApp could display a fact-check, related article or other context, just as Facebook has started to. It could even warn them before they share known misinformation. The beauty of this approach is that it doesn’t require WhatsApp to collect any new information about anyone. It maintains privacy while directly addressing misinformation.
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The Covington Drama Shows Fake Video Isn't The Future Of Propaganda — Real Video Works Just Fine
In the wake of the Covington Catholic story, Tom Gara says that contrary to our expectations, even the best authenticated videos don’t resolve anything: Here in the US, putting body cameras on police officers and cellphone cameras in the hands of everyone else hasn’t done much to alter the way police brutality is understood by juries or prosecutors. And even in scenarios with infinitely lower stakes and vastly better footage, we can all see the same thing while seeing completely different things: Consider how useless video replay can be in sports, and how much more furious people are with the officiating in the age of the instant review.
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Journalists must attack Facebook and Google's stranglehold on ad revenue.
Ben Mathis-Lily says the digital advertising duopoly owes journalism a debt:
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A community fund for BuzzFeed News
BuzzFeed laid off as many as 200 people today, including many talented reporters whose work I have featured here. Advertising is the only proven business model for mass-media companies, and Google and Facebook built the best advertising tools in the world. With antitrust regulation moribund in the United States, the companies eventually formed a duopoly: they own 58 percent of the $111 billion digital ad market, and earn 90 percent of all new spending. That means an outlet like BuzzFeed can reach a monthly audience of 690 million people and still struggle to meet revenue goals. Among the reporters affected were the outlet’s entire national desk, which has shined a light on countless issues of concern to our democracy. Many of these reporters opened their Twitter accounts today only to find death threats from trolls. If you’re able, consider donating to this fund, which benefits the folks affected. I did, and I hope you will as well.
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Send me tips, comments, questions, and weekend plans: casey@theverge.com.
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