Edit/additional note: Charlotte McLauchlan is not a journalist, but a paid consultant/writer. So, let's guess why she's written this piece ...
There are multiple angles to this:
Yes, social media is bad (for kids). So, go against the US Surveillance Tech social media mega conglomerates to get it right! Bust them in court to eternity for ludicrous sums of $$$ until they stop abusing their position.
Age gates are bad. They massively torpedo people's privacy. It needs to be a social **right** to get certain information anonymously (e.g. mental health, gender issues, and all kinds of other things).
Who's behind this? Predominantly the decision to adopt age gates has been driven and fuelled by Meta and other social media giants. Estimates are that Meta has put approx. US$ 2 billion into this in lobbying and funding of 'interest groups' that are supposedly pro-family and for child protection. Meta has the most to gain (exclusion of smaller competition that can't afford it, plus *verified* identity data of users for better targeting ads and campaigns).
Excited to share that I am one of 31 contributors to "Digital Inclusion in an Unequal World" by @TimUnwin
It was a privilege to be part of such a unique and diverse team, writing about digital colonialism and surveillance capitalism and how to counter these challenges.
If these topics matter to you, I highly recommend to grab your copy here:
#DigitalInclusion #DigitalEquality #TechForGood #ICT4D #manifest #DigitalColonialism #foss #SurveillanceCapitalism
Small act of resistance: preparing to exit cloud services powered by #surveillancecapitalism
#grateful for git-annex and rclone
Google Maps alternative needed. I got my export. I have 152 kmz files, maps for certain cities/regions. They look like this, I have continued with the old Google Maps icons. I have OsmAnd and I have imported kml files in the past and I have just tried it with kmz of my next destination, but all the points look the same. I have Marble Virtual Globe and that one displays the Google icons (I do not need them to be Google Icons, can be any set of free icons) but that is a desktop application, I need one on my phone. I do not want to change all the icons manually in OsmAnd. Is there a better Maps app for what I need? Is there an OsmAnd solution?
Edit: Thank you all for your suggestions. I am going to test them in the afternoon.
#degoogle #maps #navigation #danmarkskifter #surveillanceCapitalism
'Ruling that Meta and YouTube deliberately designed addictive products marks possible watershed moment for social media.'
'The verdict was the second blow in a week for big tech after Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, was ordered to pay $375m (£282m) by a New Mexico court. A jury found it misled consumers about the safety of its platforms. These had features that “enabled paedophiles and predators to engage in child sexual exploitation” and were intentionally designed to get young people addicted to them, said the state’s department of justice.
At $6m, the damages in the California suit were relatively small, but the consequences of the double verdicts will be much greater. It was a week in which a years-long campaign to shift the balance of power between big tech and children finally seemed to gain momentum.
Meta, YouTube, Snapchat and TikTok are facing thousands of similar lawsuits in US courts, testing if their platforms were designed to be addictive. If they lose, the damages could be crippling.'
#meta #facebook #google #addiction #lawsuit #MarkZuckerberg #youtube #SurveillanceCapitalism #capitalism #tech
The legendary Cindy Cohn of the @eff came to University of Michigan for a lecture and discussion on her new book, sharing insights and wisdom on the ongoing fight for digital #privacy.
Lot's of talk on the current state of tech, what privacy means to her in a social and democratic context, and a few jokes about the #FOSS community. 😂
I left inspired and excited, and can't wait to eventually crack this thing! Thanks for coming, Cindy!
Just heard @ethanz on the Kill Switch #podcast, and he gave a shout-out to #Mastodon. Came over here to give him a follow and was pleasantly surprised to find I was already following him. His interview is super great:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wbCtoLvgc4Q
I respectfully disagree with several of his takes, but they're all about opinion/perception and not the fundamentals of how the Internet works or doesn't.
#SocialMedia #tech #technology #SurveillanceCapitalism #privacy
Great news in the fight against Big Tech bullies!
EU Parliament Stops Mass Surveillance in Voting Thriller.
Paving the Way for Genuine Child Protection.
With a razor-thin majority of just a single vote, the Parliament first rejected the automated assessment of unknown private photos and chat texts as “suspicious” or “unsuspicious”
Read Patrick Breyers extensive coverage.
@echo_pbreyer
The controversial mass surveillance of private messages in Europe is coming to an end. After the European Parliament had already rejected the indiscriminate and blanket Chat Control by US tech companies on 13 March, conservative forces attempted a democratically highly questionable maneuver yesterda
“A jury in LA has delivered a damning verdict for two of the world's most popular digital platforms, Instagram and YouTube.
It ruled those apps are addictive, and deliberately engineered that way – and that its owners have been negligent in their safeguarding of the children who have used them.
…
Some experts have described the verdict as big tech's "big tobacco" moment, and we know how that worked out - although it didn't stop people smoking altogether.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c87wd0d84jqo
#BigTech #SiliconValley #peopleFarming #surveillanceCapitalism #BigTobacco #Instagram #YouTube
Guy
Paul Spiesberger
James
Dan Connolly
Enola Knezevic
Niklas Pivic
Jack
Seth G.
Amir Khan
Aral Balkan