We’re a tiny two-person-and-one-husky social enterprise striving for social justice in the digital age.
We make @better.
‘Google Plans to Launch Censored Search Engine in China, Leaked Documents Reveal’
“The Chinese government blocks information on the internet about political opponents, free speech, sex, news, and academic studies…”
https://theintercept.com/2018/08/01/google-china-search-engine-censorship/
Also on our radar: https://forum.ind.ie/t/google-plans-to-launch-censored-search-engine-in-china-leaked-documents-reveal/2260
John Oliver tells it how it is on this video about Facebook:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbNv9MP27xE
“Facebook was doing literally exactly what it was built for. That’s why it was worth six hundred billion dollars. You didn’t build history’s most profitable data harvesting machine by accident.”
Also on our radar: https://forum.ind.ie/t/john-oliver-facebook/2251
‘A reporter went undercover as a Facebook moderator and was trained not to delete certain racist memes and images of child abuse’
http://uk.businessinsider.com/channel-4-finds-facebook-not-deleting-child-abuse-and-racism-2018-7
“Channel 4 spoke with Roger McNamee, an early Facebook investor who has become a critic of the company over issues including the Cambridge Analytica data scandal. He said Facebook stood to benefit from extreme content.”
Also on our radar: https://forum.ind.ie/t/a-reporter-went-undercover-as-a-facebook-moderator-and-was-trained-not-to-delete-certain-racist-memes-and-images-of-child-abuse/2246
On yesterday’s Radar I posted about how home DNA test results will now be shared with mega pharma corp Glaxo, and along comes another article showing just how dangerous these ancestry sites are:
‘Canada is using ancestry DNA websites to help it deport people’
Also on our radar: https://forum.ind.ie/t/canada-is-using-ancestry-dna-websites-to-help-it-deport-people/2244
‘Drug giant Glaxo teams up with DNA testing company 23andMe’
Do you want your gene sequence in the hands of any private corporation? Sounds like the beginning of a sci-fi horror…
Also on our radar: https://forum.ind.ie/t/home-dna-test-results-will-now-go-to-big-pharma-company/2241
‘Amazon, Microsoft, and Uber are paying big money to kill a California privacy initiative’
“The campaign to pass the California Consumer Privacy Act is almost wholly funded by Bay Area real estate developer Alastair Mactaggart… He started working on the initiative about four years ago, after hearing a Google engineer say the public would be frightened to learn how much data the company holds on consumers.”
https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/15/17468292/amazon-microsoft-uber-california-consumer-privacy-act
Also on our radar: https://forum.ind.ie/t/amazon-microsoft-and-uber-are-paying-big-money-to-kill-a-california-privacy-initiative/2194
‘Thermostats, Locks and Lights: Digital Tools of Domestic Abuse’
“Smart home technology can be easily harnessed for misuse for several reasons… Usually, one person in a relationship takes charge of putting in the technology, knows how it works and has all the passwords. This gives that person the power to turn the technology against the other person.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/23/technology/smart-home-devices-domestic-abuse.html
Also on our radar: https://forum.ind.ie/t/thermostats-locks-and-lights-digital-tools-of-domestic-abuse/2193
‘Apple strikes blow to Facebook as it clamps down on data harvesting’
“Onavo ostensibly provides users with a free virtual private network (VPN) which, it claims, helps “keep you and your data safe when you browse and share information on the web”. What is not immediately obvious is that it feeds information to Facebook about what other apps you are using and how much you are using them back to the social networking giant.”
Also on our radar: https://forum.ind.ie/t/apple-strikes-blow-to-facebook-as-it-clamps-down-on-data-harvesting/2185
‘GDPR attacks: First Google, Facebook, now activists go after Apple, Amazon, LinkedIn’
“in some cases they don't let people use their services at all unless they consent to having their data exploited in ways that are not strictly necessary for delivering the core service. This all-or-nothing approach undermines the concept of consent, according to the new law.”
Comment on our radar: https://forum.ind.ie/t/gdpr-attacks-first-google-facebook-now-activists-go-after-apple-amazon-linkedin/2168
An easy-to-read guide to how data companies get our data, from Privacy International:
https://privacyinternational.org/feature/2048/how-do-data-companies-get-our-data
“Data companies – a catch all term for data brokers, advertisers, marketers, web trackers, and more – facilitate a hidden data ecosystem that collects, generates and supplies data to wide variety of beneficiaries.”
Also on our radar: https://forum.ind.ie/t/how-do-data-companies-get-our-data/2160
