Links, and occasional tweets, from around the web curated from The Nexus Today – an intermittent series
Update, November 2021: most of the semi-regular “tech news roundups” I did in early 2021 are now hidden. This top story on this one, though, relates to the the Washington privacy battle so I decided to leave it up.
If the tweet embedding isn’t working for you, it’s my thoughts on a Sen. Carlyle’s framing in a now-paywalled Wall Street Journal story State Data Privacy Bills Stumble looking at the state privacy landscape after the back-to-back failure of the Bad Washington Privacy Act and Florida’s privacy bill. The landscape’s changed a bit since then: Colorado passed the Colorado Privacy Act (ColoPA), and in New York SB 6701 (strong in many ways including opt-in) made it farther than people had expected.
@Reuvencarlyle continues to blame everybody but himself for his repeated failure. Who killed the bad bill?:
"It was the progressive activists and @AGOWA …
in the committee …
with the religious fervor!"
FYI @IndiPlusWA @IndivisEastside @IndivisibleCoup @DemCastUSA pic.twitter.com/RacrPgXZsK
— Jon Pincus (@jdp23) May 7, 2021
Sheikh Jarrah: Facebook and Twitter systematically silencing protests, deleting evidence
on Access Now (accessnow.org)
Facebook and Twitter are systematically silencing users protesting and documenting the evictions of Palestinian families from their homes.
‘I’m shocked that they need to have a smartphone’: System for unemployment benefits exposes digital divide
By Andrew Kenney on Associated Press (usatoday.com)
Like previous changes to the UI system during the pandemic, the new tech has caused a wave of confusion and complaints about overloaded help lines.
Tech service workers are essential. They want to be treated like it.
By Megan Rose Dickey on Protocol — The people, power and politics of tech (protocol.com)
Nora Morales, a janitor at Google, told Protocol tech offices would “fall apart” without service workers.
Foresight and Decolonial Humanitarian Tech Ethics
By Sabelo Mhlambi on Berkman Klein Center (cyber.harvard.edu)
Anasuya Sengupta, Sabelo Mhlambi, Andrew Zolli, and Aarathi Krishnan discuss if humanitarian actors can play a more intentional role in designing just and equitable digital futures
Perspective | Employers’ new tools to surveil and monitor workers are historically rooted
By Saima Akhtar on The Washington Post (washingtonpost.com)
Technology has just made century-old methods more efficient and widespread.
Fake net neutrality comment campaign a harbinger of automated disinformation to come – Justin Hendrix
By Justin Hendrix on Tech Policy Press (techpolicy.press)
Governments may not be prepared to contend with new mechanisms to automatically generate content and, indeed, online identities.
“The entire U.S. is built on algorithmic governance”
By Nancy Scola on Slow Build (slowbuild.substack.com)
A Q&A with Colgate’s Dan Bouk on the hidden formula binding Congress
WebAIM: Screen Reader User Survey #9
on webaim.org
Answering Europe’s Call: Storing and Processing EU Data in the EU
By Brad Smith – President and Chief Legal Officer on EU Policy Blog (blogs.microsoft.com)
Today we are announcing a new pledge for the European Union. If you are a commercial or public sector customer in the EU, we will go beyond our existing data storage commitments and enable you to process and store all your data in the EU. In other words, we will not need to move your data outside th…
Analytics Suggest 96% of Users Leave App Tracking Disabled in iOS 14.5
By Tim Hardwick on MacRumors (macrumors.com)
An early look at an ongoing analysis of Apple’s App Tracking Transparency suggests that the vast majority of iPhone users are leaving app…
Greek camps for asylum seekers to introduce partly automated surveillance systems
By Corina Petridi (Reporters United) on AlgorithmWatch (algorithmwatch.org)
An EU-funded surveillance system for “reception and identification centers” on five Greek islands raises questions about asylum seekers’ privacy and well-being. Despite assurances from European authorities, the Centaur system suggests that mass control, and not shelter, is the priority.
How can we resist surveillance advertising?
By Wednesday 19 May 2021, 18:00-19:30 on New Economics Foundation (neweconomics.org)
Join Heather Burns from the Open Rights Group, Duncan McCann from the New Economics Foundation and other guests TBA to discuss the growth of surveillance advertising
PSA: Twitter’s New Tip Jar Can Reveal Your Address
on vice.com
Twitter’s new feature to pay users is off to a rough start, as researchers find some issues that may reveal sender or recipient’s personal addresses.