Some popular apps essentially become accidental stalkerware. How can we avoid falling prey to using them—or designing them? — You may not realize it, but one or more of the more apps you use regularly may essentially behave like stalkerware. Stalkerware, by definition, allows someone to track your activity without your knowing or consenting to it. We typically think of stalkerware as something that’s accidentally installed by the user…

Extremists access gaming channels to indoctrinate young people with their ideology. Some new tools help identify them online and off. — It’s no secret that social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube host accounts, which cater to extremist and white supremacist ideology, sometimes even nakedly branding their accounts as such. Some extremists, however, go to greater lengths to disguise their recruitment efforts by sharing information within online channels devoted to…

(And how brands could learn a little from the Foo Fighters, too) — Brands like Budweiser and Target could learn a thing or two about responding smartly to hate from this new ad/music video from Liquid Death, the canned water drink with a particularly aggressive style of branding. Purportedly directed by “Puritan Worldwide,” the song’s catchy lyrics come from actual hate comments on…

Meta just made quite a splash with Threads, but what are the hidden privacy issues you may not be aware of? — Well, Meta’s alternative to Twitter, Threads, certainly took off with a bang, didn’t it? 30 million signups overnight? Of course, Meta did have the smarts to launch the new platform off the back of Instagram, where many folks have amassed huge followings already. And they did make hopping onto the…

Information wants to be free in North Korea and its citizens are consuming it at a tremendous rate — I don’t know about you, but before attending a tremendously informative panel at RightsCon in Costa Rica earlier this month, I assumed North Korean citizens were almost entirely cut off from news and culture from the rest of the world. Not so, as I learned. …

A detailed look at how Musk acts with intentionality to target the transgender community — On April 20th, as the owner of Twitter scarcely for 6 months, Elon Musk followed through on his promise to yank the once-coveted “blue checkmark” from people who weren’t paying for it. Remarkably, on that same day of 4/20 (Musk has a predictable, juvenile sense of humor), a rocket launched…

What does the 1940s French Census under the Nazis have in common with an online form created by the state of Missouri in 2023? — If you’ve been tracking transgender rights stories in the United States, you may already know that Missouri is poised to become the first state to actively restrict gender-affirming care from all trans people—including adults—in the state any day now. Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey unilaterally announced emergency measures to restrict…

Why it’s an important moment for more major media operations to lock their accounts and leave Twitter — National Public Radio made the very sensible conclusion to leave Twitter this week. In a story prepared by NPR’s David Folkenflik, the organization’s CEO John Lansing explained, “At this point I have lost my faith in the decision-making at Twitter. …

This exercise began as a joke. I just wondered how ChatGPT would react to being given the Voight-Kampff Test for determining whether someone is a replicant in the movie Blade Runner. Of course, this line of questioning didn’t work as ChatGPT makes no attempt to conceal its identity as an…