5) During this work, we discovered the scanning for known CSAM was broken on Twitter. We notified them and it got fixed.
6) Due to this work, Instagram discovered that their system for accounts being reported for child exploitation was broken and that tickets were being closed without resolution. That has been fixed.
7) Instagram has started taking down thousands of accounts related to this work.
8) We will be encouraging a cross-platform collaboration on SG-CSAM via the Tech Coalition.
I need to thank my incredible colleagues and co-authors, @det and @Noupside, and our Stanford colleagues (and bosses) Professors Jeff Hancock and Nate Persily for their support in doing this kind of difficult research.
We have built a bunch of systems to reduce the risks of doing child safety work in academia, including CSAM detection across our entire intake pipeline. We are happy to share these with other academic groups. I'm at stamos@stanford.edu.
ICYMI: I wrote about Chris Licht - and a pervasive worldview among self-proclaimed “moderate” elites that always naturalizes existing power relations and only accepts the status quo as reasonable.
The Status-Quo Fundamentalism of the “Moderate” Arbiters of Reason:
https://thomaszimmer.substack.com/p/the-status-quo-fundamentalism-of
Twitter is the fourth most hated brand in the US after Fox News, FTX and the Trump Organization. A truly impressive degree of brand destruction in less than a year.
In my first story for Texas Monthly, I wrote about @paul and @mark, founders of @tapbots, whose livelihoods were threatened when Twitter unceremoniously revoked their app Tweetbot. Now, they’re betting their futures on their latest creation @ivory, a third-party client for @Mastodon.
https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/texas-tweetbot-developers-fighting-twitter/
“An email to Twitter returned an automated reply with a poop emoji.”
https://www.reuters.com/article/twitter-management-idUSKBN2XN3WY
FTC: Amazon/Ring workers illegally spied on users of home security cameras
Amazon agrees to Ring and Alexa settlements but didn't admit violating any laws.
We're hiring someone to lead mozilla.social
Making this space safe and welcoming for all people is of utmost importance to us, and it starts with a product leader who is dedicated to driving positive change.
We're looking for people who are passionate about transforming online participation and enabling an engaging social experience that prioritizes health, safety and inclusivity. Please share with your networks and anyone who comes to mind!
#hiring #jobs
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/careers/position/gh/5082141/
FTC announces it has reached a $25 million settlement with #Amazon (market cap: $1.24 trillion) for its Alexa app keeping childrens’ voices and geolocation data for years and using it for its own purposes. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2023/05/ftc-doj-charge-amazon-violating-childrens-privacy-law-keeping-kids-alexa-voice-recordings-forever
In a new @epi report, Josh Bivens makes the case that Industrial policy and policies to rebalance labor market power are strong complements, not substitutes.
Full report:
https://www.epi.org/publication/industrial-policy/
from reddit /TIL: #TIL a family in Georgia claimed to have passed down a song in an unknown language from the time of their enslavement; scientists identified the song as a genuine West African funeral song in the Mende language that had survived multiple transmissions from mother to daughter over multiple centuries
Accelerator physicist Helen Edwards was born #OTD in 1936. She was the lead scientist overseeing the design, construction, and operation of the Tevatron particle accelerator at Fermilab.
Image: Fermilab
If you don't want to join Substack but you support our journalism on Twitter, please consider helping us buy our safety gear!
There are only a few more items we still need, but given the chatter about nuclear weapons usage we need to stock up on CBRN.
https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/3FMAKTUV6B7YU?type=wishlist&filter=unpurchased&sort=priority&viewType=list
Apple just now announced they're shutting down Photo Stream, directing people to iCloud Photos. Unlike Photo Stream, iCloud Photos is not a viable option for folks without ~fiber-grade broadband. I was never able to use iCloud Photos until a few weeks ago, when gigabit became an option in my life.
I understand why companies like Apple are shifting to cloud everything, but for folks without omnipresent LTE and gigabit, this shift is building a wall that they cannot climb.
Economist. Antitrust policy; industrial organization; history of economics