Browsed by
Month: January 2018

Millions of fake Twitter followers, often based on stolen Twitter account identities

Millions of fake Twitter followers, often based on stolen Twitter account identities

Not surprisingly, everything about social media is mostly fake. “Devumi sells Twitter followers and retweets to celebrities, businesses and anyone who wants to appear more popular or exert influence online. Drawing on an estimated stock of at least 3.5 million automated accounts, each sold many times over, the company has provided customers with more than 200 million Twitter followers, a New York Times investigation found. The accounts that most resemble real people, like Ms. Rychly, reveal a kind of large-scale…

Read More Read More

Americans throw away 500 million plastic straws each day – or not

Americans throw away 500 million plastic straws each day – or not

Americans are said to use 500 million plastic straws each cay. Where did the 500 million estimate come from? Someone named Milo Cress who did a telephone survey – when he was nine years old in 2011. This is said to be the sole source of this estimate, now quoted by politicians, the media, the National Park Service and the National Restaurant Association. A lot of people accept this number without realizing it means roughly everyone in the U.S. uses…

Read More Read More

George Soros says social media companies should be regulated like utilities

George Soros says social media companies should be regulated like utilities

“They claim they are merely distributing information. But the fact that they are near- monopoly distributors makes them public utilities and should subject them to more stringent regulations, aimed at preserving competition, innovation, and fair and open universal access,” he said. …. “There could be an alliance between authoritarian states and these large, data-rich IT monopolies that would bring together nascent systems of corporate surveillance with an already developed system of state-sponsored surveillance,” he said. “This may well result in…

Read More Read More

Social media appears to be losing its “safe harbor” protection against liability for speech on their sites

Social media appears to be losing its “safe harbor” protection against liability for speech on their sites

Social media companies have argued they are immune from liability (say for libel) as they are carriers of the speech of others, and do not have editorial control over the content on their web sites. They are like a phone company that is not liable for the speech conducted over their phone lines. However, with an awareness now that social media, such as Twitter, throttles tweet exposure, edits trending tag lists, and shadow bans some content, that defense becomes untenable….

Read More Read More

Social media appears to be losing its "safe harbor" protection against liability for speech on their sites

Social media appears to be losing its "safe harbor" protection against liability for speech on their sites

Social media companies have argued they are immune from liability (say for libel) as they are carriers of the speech of others, and do not have editorial control over the content on their web sites. They are like a phone company that is not liable for the speech conducted over their phone lines. However, with an awareness now that social media, such as Twitter, throttles tweet exposure, edits trending tag lists, and shadow bans some content, that defense becomes untenable….

Read More Read More