Nearly three decades ago, an ambitious young London advertising executive named Nigel Oakes fell out with his partners, two psychologists, over a central claim of his new business: That using the tools of social science, he could plant motivations in a person’s brain without their knowledge, prompting them to behave […] Read more »
Facebook Users’ Privacy Concerns Up Since 2011
As Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Congress about his company’s efforts to protect user privacy, U.S. Facebook users are increasingly concerned about invasion of privacy when using the social media site. Currently, 43% of Facebook users are very concerned about their privacy being invaded, up from 30% in a […] Read more »
Most Americans Feel They’ve Lost Control Of Their Online Data
On Monday, Facebook began notifying the up to 87 million users whose information may have been compromised and given to Cambridge Analytica. … But how much do Americans care about the privacy of their information — and how do they distinguish which information they’re comfortable sharing? Lee Rainie, director of […] Read more »
Does Facebook Know You Better Than Yourself?
What makes you tick, who you know, where you go, even where you might end up. The information you share in your profile is a mere snippet of what Facebook and its partners really know about you. Kevin Roose, a technology columnist for The Times, explains. Ainara Tiefenthäler, Robin Stein […] Read more »
‘You Are the Product’: Targeted by Cambridge Analytica on Facebook
Christopher Deason stumbled upon the psychological questionnaire on June 9, 2014. He was taking a lot of online surveys back then, each one earning him a few dollars to help pay the bills. Nothing about this one, which he saw on an online job platform, struck him as “creepy or […] Read more »
Hey, Alexa, What Can You Hear? And What Will You Do With It?
… Amazon and Google, the leading sellers of such devices, say the assistants record and process audio only after users trigger them by pushing a button or uttering a phrase like “Hey, Alexa” or “O.K., Google.” But each company has filed patent applications, many of them still under consideration, that […] Read more »