Google analyzes the photos you take with your phone
Google even analyzes the photos you take with your phone, including collecting data for facial recognition, and attempts to identify the emotions of those in the photos.
Can email scammers steal medical records? Yes
This week, one of the largest health care providers in the State of California emailed to me the entire 101 page medical records of one of their patients. I have no relationship with this health care provider and do not live in California. By sending someone’s medical records to a random stranger on the Internet (me), this health care provider lost all control of their patient’s medical records. I informed the provider, and I also filed a HIPAA violation complaint…
By design: BBC-“Social media apps are ‘deliberately’ addictive to users”
Source: Social media apps are ‘deliberately’ addictive to users – BBC News Their primary purpose is mind control, creating platforms for the dissemination of propaganda intended to persuade you to adopt someone else’s agenda (including buying products, services and ideologies). There is not much mystery here – it’s their business model!
More examples: Facebook’s dossier for advertising is bogus
Facebook’s advertising interests thinks I’m interested in the California Democratic Party *AND* Republicans for the Rule of Law. Seriously? I have no relation with either political party or group. Only one of these ads involves someone we’ve interacted with (Sarita Dua, and outstanding real estate broker in the Portland area). Paging down through their list, may be 1 in 20 or 30 ads has any relevancy. That’s lame for a targeted advertising network that supposedly knows so much about us.
News: Being overly dramatic
The Intercept published an article about likely locations of NSA voice and data intercept equipment located in AT&T “central office” network switching locations. They’ve promoted the article on Twitter with this poster: The statement they’ve written is basically true but is written using numerous emotional click bait words to exaggerate. Each of those attributes are features that make perfect sense and have nothing to do with their likely co-location of NSA surveillance gear. The intent in the above wording is…
Computer algorithms that analyze #Facebook “Likes” understand your thinking better than your spouse #DeleteFacebook #Privacy
Facebook (and Youtube and Twitter) have conducted a global experiment on human populations without consent of the guinea pigs by analyzing our “Likes”. Facebook’s digital model of us is more accurate than our own understanding of ourselves. Computers need evaluate as few as 100 Likes to make a judgement more effective than a human. Analyzing just 300 Likes enables the model to know more about the subject than does the subject’s spouse. Computer models achieve “peak” accuracy when more than…
Architectural propaganda – how stores are designed to trap you
Costco stores, like many stores, are designed to trap you inside longer and to walk further to be exposed to more buying temptations. Food and toilet paper are placed in the back so you will have to walk past more tempting items to buy. Costco tends to move products around inside the store so that you will walk more to find them on your next visit. Costco is not alone. Grocery stores put milk and eggs in the back of…
#Facebook targeted emotionally vulnerable youth for advertising
Facebook … conducted research about exploiting posts by kids as young as 14 to show how its algorithms could help advertisers pinpoint emotionally vulnerable moments for the purpose of targeted ads. Source: Facebook able to target emotionally vulnerable teens for ads | CSO Online Facebook research showed how to identify young people who felt “worthless”, “stupid”, “anxious” and so on, based on their Facebook usage, and researched how this could be used to target them for advertising. Facebook does not…
Proctor and Gamble decided in 2016 that targeted #Facebook advertising did not work #DeleteFacebook
If targeted advertising does not work, then the only remaining business for Facebook is spying on people: Targeting to super-specific audiences was expensive but didn’t result in a big difference to its business, P&G CMO Marc Pritchard told The Wall Street Journal. The company, whose massive portfolio of household brands includes Tide and Crest, had experimented with Facebook’s most sophisticated targeting tools, which allow advertisers to reach a narrowly defined audience. Source: Why P&G Decided Facebook Ad Targeting Wasn’t Worth…
Youtube’s recommendation algorithm pushes people to watch ever more extreme content
“Soon I noticed something peculiar. YouTube started to recommend and “autoplay” videos for me that featured white supremacist rants, Holocaust denials and other disturbing content. … What we are witnessing is the computational exploitation of a natural human desire…. YouTube leads viewers down a rabbit hole of extremism, while Google racks up the ad sales.” Regardless of topic, Youtube’s recommendation algorithm recommends videos containing more extreme versions of whatever it is you just watched. This makes sense from a…