Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
At the Atlantic earlier this week, Sidney Fussell reported on Airbnb’s policies toward hosts installing cameras to observe their customers and the platform’s apparent ambivalence about enforcing them. As Fussell notes, Airbnb hosts are permitted to have cameras installed in living rooms, common areas, and outdoor spaces, but not bathrooms and sleeping areas. They are…
After a civil rights backlash, Facebook will now treat white nationalism and separatism the same as white supremacy, and will direct users who try to post that content to a nonprofit that helps people leave hate groups. Image: ZACH GIBSON/AFP/Getty Images In a major policy shift for the world’s biggest social media network, Facebook banned…
Hundreds of millions of Facebook users had their account passwords stored in plain text and searchable by thousands of Facebook employees — in some cases going back to 2012, KrebsOnSecurity has learned. Facebook says an ongoing investigation has so far found no indication that employees have abused access to this data. Facebook is probing a…
When Alex, now a high-school senior, saw an Instagram account he followed post about something called QAnon back in 2017, he’d never heard of the viral conspiracy theory before. But the post piqued his interest, and he wanted to know more. So he did what your average teenager would do: He followed several accounts related to it…
Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube, and Amazon are all working to keep dangerous anti-vaccination rumors and hoaxes from getting attention. Twitter’s Jack Dorsey, unintentionally it seems, is doing the opposite. Dorsey, who has been on a media tear lately, sitting for interviews with lots of podcasters, tweeted on Tuesday that he had a “great conversation” with author…
Photo: Moises Saman/Magnum Photos There’s a famous Ursula K. Le Guin short story called “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas,” about a fantasy city called Omelas, a joyous metropolis without guilt or violence, populated by “mature, intelligent, passionate” people who celebrate beautiful festivals and shop at (duh) a “magnificent Farmer’s Market.” Le Guin is…
The growing stream of reporting on and data about fake news, misinformation, partisan content, and news literacy is hard to keep up with. This weekly roundup offers the highlights of what you might have missed. Here are two truths and a lie. Which one’s the lie? 1. Pedophiles are taking advantage of YouTube’s algorithm to…
Men are scum. You can’t say that on Facebook. Men are pigs. You can’t say that either. Men are trash. Men are garbage fires. Also banned. It’s nine A.M. on an autumn Tuesday, and I’m sitting in on a meeting about “men are scum” at Facebook’s campus in Menlo Park, California. The trouble started a…
“Data is the new oil” is one of those deceptively simple mantras for the modern world. Whether in The New York Times, The Economist, or WIRED, the wildcatting nature of oil exploration, plus the extractive exploitation of a trapped asset, seems like an apt metaphor for the boom in monetized data. Antonio García Martínez (@antoniogm)…
Content warning: This story contains discussion of serious mental health issues and racism. The panic attacks started after Chloe watched a man die. She spent the past three and a half weeks in training, trying to harden herself against the daily onslaught of disturbing posts: the hate speech, the violent attacks, the graphic pornography. In…