BC INTERNET
Saved by @CodyyyGardner

We’ve spent the last ten months building #CitizenBrowser, a project that aims to peek inside the Black Box of social media algorithms, by building a nationwide panel to share data with us. Today, we are publishing our first story from the project. /1

 .@corintxt crunched the numbers and found that after Facebook flipped the switch for political ads, partisan content elbowed out reputable news outlets in our panelists’ news feeds. https://t.co/Z0kibSBeQZ /2
You can learn more in our methodology, where we describe how we did this and what steps we took to ensure that we preserved the panelists' privacy. https://t.co/UYbTXAjy5i /3
Personally, this project is the culmination of years of experiments trying to figure out how to collect data from social media platforms in a way that can lead to meaningful reporting. I’ve described a couple of highlights below 👇 /4
My first attempt was in 2016 at Propublica, when I was working with @JuliaAngwin . We were interested in seeing if there was a difference in the Ad interests FB disclosed to users in their settings and the interests they showed to marketers. /5
We collected the data set of groups FB showed marketers through the FB Ad portal quite easily
but collecting what they showed to users was a non-trivial problem. /6
In order to collect this data I built a browser extension that let readers share their data with us. We released this as a part of @propublica’s Breaking The Black Box series. https://t.co/OD4A61n8WN /7
Sadly, this extension no longer works, but the 52k categories we collected from volunteers are still available to download. https://t.co/qslgqE5nJt /8
It was during this investigation that we first learned about the now infamous ‘ethnic affinity’ ad categories on Facebook. https://t.co/C0A1I0pMG1 /9
The second attempt was with @kashhill at Gizmodo investigating how Facebook's People You May Know algorithm suggested people to befriend. /10
Since FB doesn’t have an API for this service. I built a tool that allowed people to collect all the friends' suggestions Facebook made to them on a daily basis. If they found something interesting they could share it with us. https://t.co/d2e3PheugZ /11
Facebook wasn’t happy about our tool and asked us to take it down. To this day there is no easy way for users to get their friend suggestions data from Facebook. https://t.co/n83p5zS7SM /12
#CitizenBrowser is the next step in this journey. We built an app that we paid panelists to install, which collects data from their Facebook feeds at regular intervals. /13
It’s an ambitious experiment. But given that there is no other way to see what is happening on this important platform, we gave it our best shot. Grateful for @JuliaAngwin and @nabihasyed's fearless leadership that allowed us to push the limits. /14
Also grateful for our team, who just ran a marathon at sprint speed to get this project done! @angiewaller @leonyin @corintxt @jonkeegan @sammorrisdesign @mynameisfiber @magiccia @cortesi @jeffcrouse @iaaaan @rinapalta @simplysecureorg /eof

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Affidavit by former head of IT for large Italian defense contractor admitting he uploaded instructions through military satellite to Frankfurt to flip votes from Trump to Biden on election night under direction of US persons. Willing to testify.#ItalyDidIt
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That Happy Dude
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1/

Thread on @signalapp:

28th Nov 2011: A deal is made.

Security researcher @Moxie Marlinspike and Roboticist Stuart Anderson's brainchild, Whisper Systems, will be sold off to Twitter for a nice sum of money. It comes as a surprise because all of Whisper System's services


Lemme know of your thoughts on this entire story of the Signal App! Also help dispel the rumors surrounding it!

Cc: @UnSubtleDesi @swati_gs @rahulroushan @bhootnath @PrinceArihan @BefittingFacts @disclosetv @TheWolfpackIN @VertigoWarrior @WarHorizon @ExSecular @RDXThinksThat
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David Evans
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There has been speculation that changes to the way the internet is implemented will be rolled out to allow access only to authorized sites.

Some think this is impossible

I'm here to tell you it is not, and very likely.

Allowing access only to white listed IP addresses is easy.

The vast majority access the internet via their Internet Service Provider, and ISP's can easily block client access to any IP address they choose.

China has been doing this for years.

This is how firewalls work, and is much lower level than DNS blocking.

I would imagine this will be rolled out to 'Combat the ever growing threat of Cyber Attacks'.

Most people only use a few thousand services like Twitter, Facebook, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, Reddit etc, Walmart, Costco, Tesco, Morrisons etc. as it is.

It will be easy over time to require 'legal registration' for any and all other services and sites.

We already took a step toward this years ago anyway, so this is just the logical next step.

As 5G technology is rolled out in your city, more and more control is being introduced at the street level, using what are known as 'Edge Servers'.

While making services faster to access, it also allows an additional layer of security and access control at the local level.
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Paul Bannister
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This interview from @OSchiffey has great quotes that directly refute the nonsense that many privacy advocates spout about how the death of cross-site tracking will help ad-supported publishers on the open web. https://t.co/bj1gWPKOei 1/

The interview is with a senior leader at a major global ad agency. Someone who actually knows what advertisers are talking about, where they are directing their spending, and what the future trends will be. Not a privacy advocate who knows nothing about the advertising market 2/

First, privacy advocates spread misinformation and bad research data that ITP hasn't hurt publisher revenue and/or hasn't affected advertiser spending. And yet here is an unequivocal answer as to the impact of ITP on advertiser spending. 3/


The agency exec also clearly shares the opinion that the end of 3PC will push money away from the open web, exactly what privacy advocates claim won't happen. 4/

She also talks about how context matters, but so does audience. Audience targeting is effectively dead without 3PC and non-Chrome browsers are doing nothing to change this. 5/
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Amit Ganguli
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@amit_ganguli
Many conversations happening on #WhatsApp (WA) groups about new #WhatsAppPrivacyPolicy .
This thread has arguments to help ditch WA & move to @signalapp:
https://t.co/En4fe9VxUN
Share, use, copy-paste, modify with understanding as you deem fit on any platform in whole or part
1/n

Note: No affiliations, conflict of interest
Info presented with NO bias, prejudice, malice or indemnity.
Open to corrections: individual tweets may be deleted, tweets added to thread or corrected as replies.
Points that are unclear or uncertain are marked with "(?)".
2/n

CONTENT OF WA MESSAGES SHALL REMAIN ENCRYPTED END TO END.
BUT, there's data: contacts, group affiliations, co-affiliations, locations (live?), frequency of contacts, *tags* generated when we send or forward a message or file to contacts or groups, links, clicks on links, etc.
3/n

It is unclear whether this data is anonymized.
NOTHING in latest policy *prevents* the collection, retention, sharing or sale by FaceBook (FB: owner of WA) of this data in part or whole whether with identifying information or anonymized.
Meme source:
https://t.co/nMDTUlb0rl
4/n


Companies need to make money & generate profits:
To create software, install & maintain infrastructure.
Google, FB, Insta, Amazon etc sell data created from our content & data generated from our interactions (searches, clicks, purchases etc).
This makes many uncomfortable.
5/n
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A brief thread on Jovan Hutton Pulitzer, the crazy con man who is now claiming to have hacked into the Georgia voting machines in Fulton County. 90s kids and tech aficionados might remember Jovan as the inventor of the CueCat, the dumbest gadget of all time.

Also, for anyone who wants to claim that Jovan Hutton Pulitzer (not his given name, but one he changed legally after the CueCat debacle) invented QR Codes: he did not. Like that other right-wing crazy man who claimed to have invented email, Jovan didn’t invent QR Codes.

He did invent the CueCat, a product that somehow raised $185 million dollars for a tethered barcode scanner for magazines and newspapers, so you could get ads from your ads. As I said, the dumbest product of all time. Good backup barcode scanners after they were hacked, however

Oh, that’s another thing. When CueCat was a thing, its systems were hacked. I guess that’s what makes Jovan a security expert. His bankrupt company from 20 years ago was hacked and widely mocked. He’s a genius.

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Right, screw it. Here's a thread on *that* FBLive by Alex Cairnie about #Govanhill. Lets do a watch-through shall we? (Mind, I'm a resident of Govanhill, and a sociologist. I'm also 5'3, and a visibly queer woman so if half his claims are true I should be living in terror)

00:30: Welcomes viewers and uses points out that his videos are only getting attention b/c they're 'horrific'. Directs folk to his Youtube page. So already clout hunting.

1:08: "I've been warned to stay out of Govanhill. I'm a marked man" (proceeds to use a beanie as a disguise)

1:30 "Laughing and joking aside, here's somebodys front garden." Proceeds to show litter and claim its thrown from windows and this is 'common'. I know a handful of streets with litter issues like this, but its neither common nor unique to #govanhill and other deprived areas.

2:10 "Don't be under any illusion I'm only showing you the bad bits" - only shows you the bad bits.

3:45: He's had offers of help, but hes said no because hes not responsible for 'anybody elses safety' Good lord.

5:01: "Its not that bad. But its not all good either" -Correct

6:00: TW: child abuse - He starts claiming to have been contacted by a health professional and told about child abuse 'in the area'. Huge ethical issues here as the 'professional' who has 'been in the game a long time' is reporting to Facebook Dude and not authorities.
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Kestrel \u2664 lwj kin
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MDZS is laden with buddhist references. As a South Asian person, and history buff, it is so interesting to see how Buddhism, which originated from India, migrated, flourished & changed in the context of China. Here's some research (🙏🏼 @starkjeon for CN insight + citations)

1. LWJ’s sword Bichen ‘is likely an abbreviation for the term 躲避红尘 (duǒ bì hóng chén), which can be translated as such: 躲避: shunning or hiding away from 红尘 (worldly affairs; which is a buddhist teaching.) (https://t.co/zF65W3roJe) (abbrev. TWX)

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