Zoom does the right thing, John Oliver breaks down facial recognition technology, and Big Tech companies still have a ways to go on diversity.
| | | | | | | | | Welcome to the Mozilla News Beat, a glance at the best and worst internet news of the week. We hope you enjoy it! |
| Baby Panda Bath. You know who has a better job than anyone else on the planet? This guy whose job it is to give baby pandas their bath. OMG it's so cute! | via Twitter | | | Online Pride. LGBTQ communities in the US and around the world celebrate Pride in June to commemorate the Stonewall riots and pride in being who they are. This year, these Pride celebrations have moved online and many have focused on supporting racial justice. | via USA Today | | | Good Zoom Call. Zoom announced that it will offer end-to-end encryption for all users — not just paid subscribers — in a win for privacy. The feature won't be on by default, users will have to toggle it on when it starts rolling out in July. | via Mashable & Mozilla | | Mute Button. Mark Zuckerberg announced this week the platform will let users opt out of political ads on Facebook and Instagram. Now if only they'd provide more transparency, improve their recommendation engines, stop profiting off of hate… you get the idea. | via MIT Technology Review | | Tweet Out Loud. Twitter is rolling out a new feature to iOS users (sorry Android folks) that lets people tweet audio clips. Users can record 140 seconds of audio and tweet it out in original tweets. Yeah, we're afraid too. | via The Verge | | Surveillance Techlash. IBM, Microsoft, and Amazon all announced pauses on their facial recognition tech last week. Now civil rights groups say the real work begins by holding Big Tech companies to more than PR announcements, like passing strong new laws regulating this technology. | via Washington Post | | John Oliver FTW. Brilliant & funny techsplainer John Oliver broke down the power and perils of facial recognition technology in the way only he can. This is must see TV. | via Last Week Tonight with John Oliver | | Don’t Put a Ring On It. Amazon Ring provides video to law enforcement through partnerships with over 1,000 police departments. After Amazon announced it would pause selling facial recognition tech to police, there are growing calls for Amazon to also end these Ring partnerships as well. | via Daily Dot | | Show Don't Tell. In 2014, Big Tech companies began putting out diversity reports showing most of these companies lack it. A recent look at these diversity reports shows Big Tech says it values diversity but has made little progress growing diversity in the last six years. | via CNBC | | Groups of Lies. Leading researchers warn Facebook Groups — built for privacy and community — are particularly fertile ground being exploited by bad actors, both foreign and domestic, to spread disinformation. | via Wired | | Facebook Hypocrisy. Journalists & activists in Syria, Tunisia, & Palestine who document civil rights abuses claim they had their Facebook accounts deactivated for being wrongly identified as having links to "terrorism" while Facebook allowed posts from politicians advocating violence to remain. | via NBC News | | Historic Death Toll. Gizmodo asked historians what technology over the years has accidentally killed the most people. The fascinating answers range from railroads to tobacco to the printing press and more. | via Gizmodo |
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