#TheMarkup caught 4 more states sharing personal #health data with #BigTech
#TheMarkup caught 4 more states sharing personal #health data with #BigTech
An Essential Guide For Mindful Posting by #TheMarkUp
https://themarkup.org/hello-world/2024/02/17/an-essential-guide-for-mindful-posting
References the 2023 book “Share Better and Stress Less: A Guide to Thinking Ecologically About Social Media” by Whitney Phillips and Ryan Milner:
https://www.amazon.com/Share-Better-Stress-Less-Ecologically-ebook/dp/B0B96RH4X9
#MediaLit #MediaLiteracy #edtechSR #edtech #SocialMedia #Instagram #TechCorrection
Thousands of businesses hand over your info to #Facebook
A study by #ConsumerReports and non-profit #TheMarkup concluded that for the average lone Facebook user, 2,230 companies, and in some cases more than 7,000, will hand over that person's information to Facebook. We're told 709 volunteers took part in the study over three years, during which time 186,892 organizations passed data about them to the Meta-run empire.
https://www.theregister.com/2024/01/18/facebook_tracking_data/ #privacy #surveillance
Study: Thousands of businesses just love handing over your info to Facebook https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/01/18/facebook_tracking_data/
'The startlingly extent to which websites and brokers hand over details of people's habits to Facebook was revealed Wednesday.
A study [PDF] by Consumer Reports and non-profit The Markup concluded that for the average lone Facebook user, 2,230 companies, and in some cases more than 7,000, will hand over that person's information to Facebook. We're told 709 volunteers took part in the study over three years, during which time 186,892 organizations passed data about them to the Meta-run empire.'
#privacy #facebook #meta #SurveillanceCapitalism #TheMarkup #ConsumerReports
Fascinating article on a collaboration between #AmazonRing cameras and police and fire departments across the U.S. This is a grant-funded collaborative research piece between #TheMarkup, #AfroLA, and #LATimes.
My personal takeaway is it really highlights the complexity of digital #privacy, #security, and #infosec. As an amateur #infosec hobbiest the negative impacts from Ring to communities and society are glaringly obvious: such as growing the divide between more privileged and less privileged classes in local communities, promoting fear, further skewing the role of police as only protecting privileged classes. This is also very intertwined with #cambridgeanalytica and related current scandals, the roll of #bigdata in #uspol, and so much more. Plus throw in all the challenges with #AI.
We can't bury our heads in the sand on this, but its such a complicated, insidious, and nefarious topic ... its really hard to communicate this to people. Just like climate change.
37) Excellent graphic visualization from #TheMarkup on how #Twitter is attempting to strangle traffic to sites that #ElonMusk doesn’t like
Am I surprised? No
Is Twitter continuing to undermine its credibility? Yes
Will more users leave the site as a result? Maybe
With thanks to @dangillmor for sharing this piece. Dan is on my daily reading list and has been at the forefront of encouraging journalists to leave the #DeadBird site
#Twitter is Throttling Competitors’ Links
Links to #Bluesky, #Facebook, #instagram and #Substack, consistently take 60 times longer than the average wait for links to other sites.
.> ... large-scale AI models are indeed big water consumers. For example, training GPT‑3 in Microsoft’s state-of-the-art U.S. data centers can directly consume 700,000 liters of clean freshwater (enough to produce 370 BMW cars or 320 Tesla electric vehicles), and the water consumption would have been tripled if training were done in Microsoft’s data centers in Asia. These numbers do not include the off-site water footprint associated with electricity generation.
.> ChatGPT needs a 500-ml bottle of water for a short conversation of roughly 20 to 50 questions and answers, depending on when and where the model is deployed. Given ChatGPT’s huge user base, the total water footprint for inference can be enormous.
.> ... if we only consider carbon footprint reduction (say, by scheduling more AI training around noon), we’ll likely end up with higher water consumption, which is not truly sustainable for AI.
.> ... the vast majority of data centers still use potable water and cooling towers. For example, even tech giants such as Google heavily rely on cooling towers and consume billions of liters of potable water each year. Such huge water consumption has produced a stress on the local water infrastructure; Google’s data center used more than a quarter of all the water in The Dalles, Ore.
.> ... some AI conferences have requested that authors declare their AI models’ carbon footprint in their papers; we believe that with transparency and awareness, authors can also declare their AI models’ water footprint as part of the environmental impact.- The Markup: Water Footprint of AI Technology
Journalists should be looking for undocumented APIs. Here’s how to start.
"Especially in circumstances when data is not accessible otherwise, finding an undocumented API can be the key to allowing us to do an investigation — by finding public access to the data." -- #LeonYin #TheMarkup
đź‘€ See what data trackers are lurking and learn how to protect yourself. đź’Ş Join a crowdsourced database to help others stay safe. Don't wait; try #Blacklight today and take control of your digital life! #TheMarkup
Check out The Markup - a new, independent, nonprofit newsroom that investigates how powerful institutions are using technology in ways that impact society. #TheMarkup #journalism
Follow @themarkup here - https://newsie.social/@themarkup
OK, Facebook bad. Facebook pixel bad. But nothing on defense? Really? Without any talk of defense this is just scare mongering.
https://themarkup.org/pixel-hunt/2022/11/22/tax-filing-websites-have-been-sending-users-financial-information-to-facebook
#themarkup #facebook #meta
Major #TaxFiling websites secretly share #income data with Meta
> #TheMarkup published the data sent to Meta by these companies, which it confirmed was sometimes generated and shared “regardless of whether the person using the tax filing service has an account on #Facebook ” or other #Meta service.
Investigating YouTube’s Ideological “Rabbit Hole”
https://themarkup.org/newsletter/hello-world/investigating-youtubes-ideological-rabbit-hole
Now THIS, is a threat to #democracy and why #privacy matters!
Don't kid yourself, you do have something to hide
#privacy #datacollection #democracy #jonkeegan #themarkup #journalistsonmastodon
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