Ethan Black @golemwire@librem.one

@briankrebs I wonder what its biases are.

Finally, a positive use for AI!

Been playing with a free new tool from the folks at Unit 221B that uses AI to read news stories or watch Youtube videos and give them a bias or "spin" score, based on a number of criteria (bias, fallacy, misleading info).

One potentially cool thing about this tool is that you can feed it a story you've written (but not published yet) to see if it contains any of those criteria. It even has an option to read a "bias-free" version of the story you've submitted, which alters the text in an attempt to temper or remove those biases.

The one downside is it can take some time to process a story and tell you what it thinks of it. Here are some links to Spin Score's analyses on different stories that came across my feed here today or that showed up on Youtube front today.

https://spinscore.io/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fus-news%2F2024%2Fmar%2F03%2Fflorida-measles-outbreak-preventable

https://spinscore.io/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.emptywheel.net%2F2024%2F03%2F03%2Fthe-still-unidentified-big-guys-in-the-alexander-smirnov-saga%2F

https://spinscore.io/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F03%2F03%2Fworld%2Feurope%2Fnavalny-russia-kremlin-putin.html

https://spinscore.io/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailymail.co.uk%2Fnews%2Farticle-13142343%2FChinese-gangs-THOUSANDS-illegal-weed-farms-sparking-fears-CCP-new-cannabis-kingpins.html

https://spinscore.io/?url=https%3A%2F%2Farstechnica.com%2Ftech-policy%2F2024%2F03%2Fwhatsapp-finally-forces-pegasus-spyware-maker-to-share-its-secret-code%2F

https://spinscore.io/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DMRYYbEYslcU (Fox News)

https://spinscore.io/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DM83SeA6UusI (MSNBC)

@briankrebs also, pick up this warning our grandparents left for us. Update it, air it 24/7 https://youtu.be/vGAqYNFQdZ4?si=6yeE1Zp2iVr38pTF

The Federal Trade Commission has hit Avast with a $16.5 million fine over allegations that it told customers it would protect their security and privacy but then gave data about their browsing to a subsidiary called Jumpshot.

https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/blog/2024/02/ftc-says-avast-promised-privacy-pirated-consumers-data-treasure

The issue came to light in Dec. 2019, when Mozilla removed four Firefox extensions made by Avast and its subsidiary AVG after receiving reports the extensions were harvesting user data and browsing histories.

From the FTC's presser:

"Avast rebranded Jumpshot as an analytics company, which advertised that its “[m]ore than 100 million online consumers worldwide” would give Jumpshot’s clients “unique insights to make better business decisions.”

"Jumpshot further claimed to give its clients the ability to “see where your audience is going before and after they visit your site or your competitors’ sites, and even track those who visit a specific URL.” Of course, Jumpshot’s source of that massive amount of data about people’s browsing information – some of it highly personal in nature – that it sold to advertising companies, data brokers, individual brands, search engine optimizing outfits, and others looking for detailed information about consumers’ browsing histories was Avast, the company that pitched its products as a solution to intrusive online surveillance."

"According to the complaint, Jumpshot provided its clients with “extraordinary detail regarding how consumers navigated the Internet, including each webpage visited, precise timestamp, the type of device and browser, and the city, state, and country.” What’s more, most of the data included a unique and persistent device identifier, which allowed Jumpshot and its clients to trace individuals across multiple domains over time. The FTC says that included in the information Jumpshot sold was data about consumers’ visits to sites about religious matters, political candidates, health concerns like breast cancer, jobs at secure military facilities, student loan application information, dating interests, and sites of an adult nature. The complaint puts it this way: “The vast majority of consumers would not know that the Avast Software would surveil their every move on the Internet or that their browsing information might be sold to more than 100 third parties and stored indefinitely, in granular, re-identifiable form.”

https://www.zdnet.com/article/mozilla-removes-avast-and-avg-extensions-from-add-on-portal-over-snooping-claims/