Wednesday, 27 February 2019

Matt Gaetz investigated over threatening Michael Cohen tweets

Photo: Matt Gaetz and Donald Trump in happier times, via the congressman's Twitter.

The Florida Bar is investigating Republican congressman Matt Gaetz one day after he tweeted a threat at Donald Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen.

Cohen is testifying before Congress today.

Separately, Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA) says the tweet by Gaetz (R-FL) should be referred to the Justice Department, so prosecutors may examine whether the notorious Trump supporter's tweet was foul play or witness tampering.

On Tuesday night, just hours before Cohen's public testimony before the House Oversight Committee taking place today, Gaetz tweeted at Cohen, "Do your wife & father-in-law know about your girlfriends? Maybe tonight would be a good time for that chat. I wonder if she'll remain faithful when you're in prison. She's about to learn a lot..."

Gaetz later deleted the tweet and apologized.

Asked on Tuesday if the Cohen tweet amounted to witness tampering, Gaetz told television news reporters -- he really said this -- it was “not witness tampering, but witness testing.”

The Florida Bar Association is investigating Rep. Matt Gaetz for his Michael Cohen tweet, and one potential result could be that he loses his license to practice law in the state.

The Florida Bar on Wednesday said they would send Gaetz a letter outlining the allegation against him. Gaetz will have 15 days to respond.

The Daily Beast first reported the investigation.

"It seems that the Florida Bar, by its rules, is required to investigate even the most frivolous of complaints," said Jillian Lane Wyant, a spokeswoman for Gaetz, when asked for a response to the investigation.

Witness tampering. So frivolous.



Posted by at

Small number of Facebook Pages did 46% of top 10,000 posts for or against vaccines

“WHILE FACEBOOK’s scale might as well be infinite, the actual universe of people arguing about vaccinations is limited and knowable,” writes Alexis Madrigal at The Atlantic in a piece that examines data about Facebook Pages and related Facebook Posts on the topic of vaccines.

Excerpt:

Using the web-monitoring tool CrowdTangle, I analyzed the most popular posts since 2016 that contain the word vaccine. I found that a relatively small network of pages creates most of the anti-vaccine content that is widely shared. At the same time, a small network of “pro-science” pages also experiences viral success countering the anti-vax posts.

While there is no dearth of posts related to vaccines, the top 50 Facebook pages ranked by the number of public posts they made about vaccines generated nearly half (46 percent) of the top 10,000 posts for or against vaccinations, as well as 38 percent of the total likes on those posts, from January 2016 to February of this year.

The distribution is heavy on the top, particularly for the anti-vax position. Just seven anti-vax pages generated nearly 20 percent of the top 10,000 vaccination posts in this time period: Natural News, Dr. Tenpenny on Vaccines and Current Events, Stop Mandatory Vaccination, March Against Monsanto, J. B. Handley, Erin at Health Nut News, and Revolution for Choice.

“The crucial factor is the huge audience that just a few social-media platforms have gathered and made targetable through regular posts as well as advertisements,” Alexis writes, and you're going to want to read the whole piece.

The point of it all?

It's actually way easier than we think for platforms to stamp out this kind of abuse.

Anti-vaccine posts coordinated in this manner by these kinds of shady entities is misinformation. It may be political or military-origin disinformation, if recent reports that Russia pushes anti-vaxx stuff online are true.

The Small, Small World of Facebook’s Anti-vaxxers [www.theatlantic.com]

IMAGE: Francis R Malasig/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)



Posted by at

FTC fines app TikTok/Musical.ly $5.7 million for child data privacy violations

The Federal Trade Commission today fined Musical.ly, now known as TikTok, $5.7 million dollars for violating children’s privacy laws.

The FTC press release says this means the Commission has obtained the “largest monetary settlement in a COPPA case.”

The FTC also notes there were reports of adults trying to contact children in Musical.ly Until October 2016, there was a feature that users view others within a 50-mile radius.

“The operators of Musical.ly—now known as TikTok—knew many children were using the app but they still failed to seek parental consent before collecting names, email addresses, and other personal information from users under the age of 13,” said FTC Chairman Joe Simons, in a statement. “This record penalty should be a reminder to all online services and websites that target children: We take enforcement of COPPA very seriously, and we will not tolerate companies that flagrantly ignore the law.”

From Sarah Perez at TechCrunch:

In an app update being released today, all users will need to verify their age, and the under 13-year-olds will then be directed to a separate, more restricted in-app experience that protects their personal information and prevents them from publishing videos to TikTok .

In a bit of bad timing for the popular video app, the ruling comes on the same day that TikTok began promoting its new safety series designed to help keep its community informed of its privacy and safety tools.

The Federal Trade Commission had begun looking into TikTok back when it was known as Musical.ly, and the ruling itself is a settlement with Musical.ly.

The industry self-regulatory group Children’s Advertising Review Unit (CARU) had last spring referred Musical.ly to the FTC for violating U.S. children’s privacy law by collecting personal information for users under the age of 13 without parental consent. (The complaint, filed by the Department of Justice on behalf of the Commission, is here.)

Musical.ly, technically, no longer exists. It was acquired by Chinese firm ByteDance in 2017. The app was then shut down mid-2018 while its user base was merged into TikTok.

But its regulatory issues followed it to its new home.

According to the U.S. children’s privacy law COPPA, operators of apps and websites aimed at young users under the age of 13 can’t collect personal data like email addresses, IP addresses, geolocation information or other identifiers without parental consent.

But the Musical.ly app required users to provide an email address, phone number, username, first and last name, a short biography and a profile picture, the FTC claims. The also app allowed users to interact with others by commenting on their videos and sending direct messages. In addition, user accounts were public by default, which meant that a child’s profile bio, username, picture and videos could be seen by other users, the FTC explained today in its press release.



Posted by at

100 knock-off magic erasers at a fraction of the normal price

I've written about melamine foam (sold as Magic Erasers) before. They're great for quickly removing mars, scuffs, and stains from almost any surface. I recommend buying 100 at a time.

Latest use case: Some old stickers on my laptop that I wanted to remove. After peeling them off, the sticky, tough, adhesive remained on the laptop. Magic eraser knockoff to the rescue! It took about 90 seconds of gentle rubbing with a damp magic eraser to remove all traces.

Before:

After:

Watch the video below to see different ways to use this wonder material.



Posted by at
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)