ICYMI // April 23
(In Case You Missed It) Stuff happening in tech that is relevant to your kids, classrooms, and lives.
Here’s what caught my attention (among what felt like 80% manosphere & Clavicular in my feeds this week…)
I’ll start with just one thing from the deluge of manosphere content that seemed to be everywhere I went this week… if you haven’t seen Inside the Manosphere yet, see it. It’s a deep-dive into the ecosystem of “alpha male” culture that is shaping how boys view both themselves and girls. Even if you don’t have boys, watch it… because it will eventually affect your girls. Why? Kids don’t need to be engaging directly with these influencers, because it’s seeping out of the manosphere and into social circles IRL. Also have a look at this spoken word piece by Sambrownex.
On a related note: WIRED and Indicator found deepfake sexual abuse incidents at roughly 90 schools across 28 countries since 2023, with more than 600 identified victims. Boys are downloading social media photos of girls they know and using “nudify” apps to generate fake nude images in seconds. While schools and law enforcement struggle to figure out what to do, Apple and Google’s app stores are actively steering users toward nudify apps through search autocomplete, ads, and recommended results. Oh, and in the case of one major nudify app, about 90% of traffic comes from Meta platforms… I know, shocking.
🎉 In good news Maryland just became the first US state to pass a law banning surveillance pricing — the practice of using your personal data to charge you more than someone else for the same item. The law takes effect October 1 and covers grocery stores and delivery platforms.
Roblox (the world’s biggest social gaming platform for kids, with 151 million daily active users, including 1/2 of U.S. kids under 16) will be launching kids accounts in June, globally: “Roblox Kids” for ages 5-8, and “Roblox Select” for ages 9-15. The chat function will be off by default for kids under 9, requiring a parent to individually approve every person their child can chat with. Steps in the right direction, but only after lawsuits in multiple states... On a related note, their AI-powered (facial recognition) age verification has been a bit of a mess.
The CEO of the prediction (aka gambling) market Kalshi announced that parents can submit their ID to check whether their kids signed up, and are launching AI facial recognition to age gate the product. Aside from now having an excuse to gather personal data from non-users, it also raises the question: why does a sports gambling platform have so many children on it?
The internet’s primary tool for preserving history and creating a record of the web is under serious threat. (But not intentionally?) Basically… major websites (including the NYT, USA Today, and Reddit) are trying to stop bots from scraping their content and using archived information to train AI. Makes sense. BUT the collateral damage is that the Wayback Machine — an archive of the internet over time, that journalists, researchers, and lawyers rely on to prove what was said, when, and by whom — is being suffocated.
Thousands of men are buying hacking and surveillance tools on Telegram to stalk wives / girlfriends / former partners. Researchers analyzed nearly 2.8 million messages across 16 Italian and Spanish Telegram communities and found a thriving marketplace for digital abuse, including stalkerware marketed as “parental controls,” and over 82,000 abusive images shared alongside the listings.
Google, Microsoft, and Meta are tracking you even if you opt out... According to a forensic audit, 55% of audited sites set ad cookies despite opt-out requests. All three companies disputed the findings, because of course they do. 🥂 Poetic twist: the audit was led by a former head of Google’s own cookie policy team.
A new lawsuit claims that Meta deliberately profits from scam ads, which based on everything we’ve seen from Meta would be 0% surprising. Internal documents cited in the complaint show Meta projected 10% of its 2024 revenue (~ $16 billion) would come from scams and banned goods. AND… not only did they NOT block high-risk advertisers, Meta charged them a premium. The lawsuit also alleges that they ignored or incorrectly rejected 96% of valid user fraud reports each week. Again… this would be 0% surprising.
Sources & mentions this week: WIRED, Gadget Review, 404 Media, TechCrunch, Tech Transparency Project, Tech Policy Press, webXray/California Privacy Audit, Good News Network, Tech Justice, Wayback Machine, Gizmodo, Tech Crunch, The Guardian
