Behind the scenes, seemingly benign Android apps are scooping up huge amounts of private data about your life and sharing with third parties. We need to assume, apparently, that 100% of Android apps are spyware. This is why Android apps are “free” – when its free, you are the product.
Facebook has the ability to track everything you do on line and off line, including links to store “loyalty card” purchases, online purchases from third part web sites, even when you look up information on medication conditions.
Avast anti-virus software has been tracking your web site visits, every web site page and click you make, your Google searches and GPS location information – and selling that to corporate America for marketing purposes. I just deleted all free anti-malware programs on my computer.
Rather than hire actual diverse workforces, or recruit actual diverse student bodies, businesses and universities are using AI generated fake images of people in order to show their diversity. Seriously.
Twitter is randomly inserting tweets from people I do not follow and this seems to be increasing. That suggests fewer and fewer people may be posting content on Twitter, or at least posting less. In order to continue providing content and making it look like Twitter is being used, Twitter’s algorithm is inserting more random Tweets from people we do not follow.
After Boeing’s internal records show employees criticizing the safety of the 737 MAX, Boeing insists “this is not who we are”. This is known as the “begging the question” fallacy, which is to assert that something is true, in spite of actual events, and assert everyone agrees with this. This method is extremely common in corporate and government propaganda efforts.
Instagram “engagement” is dropping, and so too is involvement with Instagram. Some think Instagram has past its hey day and is now in decline.
A month ago, the media gave us scary stories that “Fears of an economic recession could derail the holiday shopping season”. Actual sales rose by +3.4% year over year, even with a shopping season that was six days shorter than the prior year. Unfortunately, mindless speculative “news” is used to fill up air time and web page time with something new.
And as noted in the linked column, almost no one watches cable TV news: viewership is just 1% to 2% of the population. But its focus is on emotional click-bait creating shareable content for social media – and the perpetually outraged culture. Ultimately, cable TV news, say studies, leave you dumber and misinformed.
BBC is considering restricting the use of Twitter by journalists. There are potentially many reasons for that, but embarrassing tweets by journalists may be a factor.