Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
President Trump’s decision to block his Twitter followers for their political views is a violation of the First Amendment, a federal judge ruled Wednesday, saying that Trump’s effort to silence his critics is not permissible under the U.S. Constitution because the digital space in which he engages with constituents is a public forum. The ruling rejects administration…
The Oxygen of Amplification: Better Practices for Reporting on Extremists, Antagonists, and Manipulators Online draws on in-depth interviews by scholar Whitney Phillips to showcase how news media was hijacked from 2016 to 2018 to amplify the messages of hate groups. Offering extremely candid comments from mainstream journalists, the report provides a snapshot of an industry…
In late April, the white nationalist Christopher Cantwell — commonly known as “the Crying Nazi” — made an appearance on a YouTube channel run by Andy Warski that boasts nearly 275,000 subscribers. Cantwell was there to talk about how he would build a whites-only country within the United States. At one point during the livestream,…
For at least a year, the biggest page on Facebook purporting to be part of the Black Lives Matter movement was a scam with ties to a middle-aged white man in Australia, a review of the page and associated accounts and websites conducted by CNN shows. The page, titled simply “Black Lives Matter,” had almost…
Their romance began on a server at a San Francisco startup. Anna Wood had submitted a profile to the League, a dating app aimed at young professionals. She was the perfect prospect: Degree from a top university? Check. Management-track job at a marquee company? Check. Carefully selected profile pictures and a winning smile? Check and check….
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – If a new European law restricting what companies can do with people’s online data went into effect tomorrow, almost 1.9 billion Facebook Inc users around the world would be protected by it. The online social network is making changes that ensure the number will be much smaller. Facebook members outside…
Facebook makes a great show of pretending to care about safeguarding your data, but today, it’s shattered that illusion. The company has confirmed to Reuters that it won’t be extending the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) laws worldwide. That means that the social network’s 1.5 billion users who reside in Asia, Africa, Australia…
Content warning: rape and death threats On the evening of April 6, a horrific highway crash occurred on Highway 35 in rural Saskatchewan. The crash would take the lives of 16 individuals on the team bus of the Humboldt Broncos hockey team. The loss of life is tragic, and in its aftermath, there has…
Over ten thousand people watched the second day of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifying in front of Congress today on The Washington Post’s Twitch channel. Following the Cambridge Analytica scandal, where it was discovered that the political data firm hired by President Trump gained access to private information of 50 million Facebook users, Mark Zuckerberg testified…
Graphic: Getty The vast majority of Facebook user data that was harvested by Cambridge Analytica came from Americans. But smaller countries are actually better at demonstrating just how big the problem got. Access to just 53 users in Australia reportedly allowed data firms to potentially capture information on over 310,000 people. According to data obtained…