Introducing a speed limit of 80mph (130kph) would bring substantial benefits, research says – but there’s no political will for it. CC-licensed photo by John M on Flickr.
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It’s Friday, so there’s another post due at the Social Warming Substack at about 0845 UK time. It’s about political advertising.
A selection of 9 links for you. Vroom vroom. I’m @charlesarthur on Twitter. On Mastodon: https://newsie.social/@charlesarthur. Observations and links welcome.
Apple’s decision to kill its CSAM photo-scanning tool sparks fresh controversy • WIRED
Lily Hay Newman:
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This week, a new child safety group known as Heat Initiative told Apple that it is organizing a campaign to demand that the company “detect, report, and remove” child sexual abuse material (CSAM) from iCloud and offer more tools for users to report CSAM to the company.
Today, in a rare move, Apple responded to Heat Initiative, outlining its reasons for abandoning the development of its iCloud CSAM scanning feature and instead focusing on a set of on-device tools and resources for users known collectively as Communication Safety features. The company’s response to Heat Initiative, which Apple shared with WIRED this morning, offers a rare look not just at its rationale for pivoting to Communication Safety, but at its broader views on creating mechanisms to circumvent user privacy protections, such as encryption, to monitor data. This stance is relevant to the encryption debate more broadly, especially as countries like the United Kingdom weigh passing laws that would require tech companies to be able to access user data to comply with law enforcement requests.
“Child sexual abuse material is abhorrent and we are committed to breaking the chain of coercion and influence that makes children susceptible to it,” Erik Neuenschwander, Apple’s director of user privacy and child safety, wrote in the company’s response to Heat Initiative. He added, though, that after collaborating with an array of privacy and security researchers, digital rights groups, and child safety advocates, the company concluded that it could not proceed with development of a CSAM-scanning mechanism, even one built specifically to preserve privacy.
“Scanning every user’s privately stored iCloud data would create new threat vectors for data thieves to find and exploit,” Neuenschwander wrote. “It would also inject the potential for a slippery slope of unintended consequences. Scanning for one type of content, for instance, opens the door for bulk surveillance and could create a desire to search other encrypted messaging systems across content types.”
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Apple says it’s going to introduce scanning for CSAM: result, outrage.
Apple says it’s not going to do scanning for CSAM: result, outrage. Though I’m puzzled by Apple’s assertion that scanning for CSAM would “create new threat vectors for data thieves”. What’s the thinking there, exactly? It isn’t explained.
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The real story of Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover • WSJ
Walter Isaacson:
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[Musk, who had agreed to join Twitter’s board after buying a ton of its shares] then flew to Larry Ellison’s Hawaiian island, Lanai. He had planned the trip as a quiet rendezvous with one of the women he was occasionally dating, the Australian actress Natasha Bassett. But instead of using it as a relaxed mini-vacation, he spent his four days there figuring out what to do about Twitter.
He stayed awake most of his first night stewing about the problems Twitter faced. When he looked at a list of users who had the most followers, they were no longer very active. So at 3:32 a.m. Hawaii time, he posted a tweet: “Most of these ‘top’ accounts tweet rarely and post very little content. Is Twitter dying?”
About 90 minutes later, Twitter CEO Agrawal sent Musk a text message: “You are free to tweet ‘Is twitter dying?’ or anything else about Twitter, but it’s my responsibility to tell you that it’s not helping me make Twitter better in the current context.” It was a restrained text, carefully worded to avoid implying that Musk no longer had the right to disparage the company.
When Musk got the text, it was just after 5 a.m. in Hawaii, but he was still going strong. He shot back a scathing reply: “What did you get done this week?” It was the ultimate Musk put-down.
Then he texted back a fateful three-shot volley: “I’m not joining the board. This is a waste of time. Will make an offer to take Twitter private.”
Agrawal was shocked. “Can we talk?” he asked plaintively.
Within three minutes, Taylor, the Twitter board chair, texted Musk with a similar plea to talk. “Do you have five minutes so I can understand the context?” he asked Musk.
“Fixing Twitter by chatting with Parag won’t work,” Musk answered. “Drastic action is needed.”
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And, well, you know what happened after that. Isaacson of course is Musk’s official biographer, though it’s not fawning. (The link may let you jump the WSJ paywall.)
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With five old phones and some Pew data, the BBC’s Marianna Spring monitors social media from the inside • Nieman Journalism Lab
Sophie Culpepper:
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Marianna Spring realizes it’s a little bizarre to carry around five old cell phones.
Spring, the BBC’s misinformation and social media correspondent, keeps them in a tote bag, and uses stickers to distinguish them. It’s challenging, among other things, to keep them all charged, she tells me in an interview. But for nearly a year, that clunky, antiquated tech has served a cutting-edge reporting purpose for the 27-year-old London-based reporter: helping her get inside the black box of social media algorithms, and get a firsthand sense of what they feed to American voters with different political and personal profiles.
Since September 2022, just before the U.S. midterm elections, Spring has maintained social media accounts that correspond to five different “voter profiles” she developed using Pew Research Center data:
• Larry, a “faith and flag” conservative, is a 71-year-old white retired insurance broker living in Oneonta, Alabama
• Britney, a 50-year-old white school secretary living in Texas, is a Populist Right voter
• Gabriela, a 44-year-old Hispanic nanny living in Florida, is a “stressed sideliner” who is not that interested in politics
• Michael, a 61-year-old Black protestant and a teacher in Milwaukee, is a “Democratic mainstay”
• Emma, a 25-year-old graphic designer who lives in New York City with her girlfriend, is a Progressive Left voter.Each character’s accounts are confined to a single phone to avoid contaminating Spring’s findings. The reporter maintains accounts with computer-generated profile photos on a range of platforms — Facebook, Instagram, Twitter (now X), TikTok, and YouTube — and, essentially, lurks. She Likes posts, but the accounts are all private and are not “messaging people or commenting on stuff,” she said. “They’re very much passive social media users to an extent — so all I have to do is feed the algorithm: watch content, like content, follow content. But they’re not deceiving people in any way.”
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Very smart approach by Spring; as you’d expect, her fake IDs get very different views of the world.
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Car smuggling from Chile to Bolivia is booming • Rest of World
Daniela Dib:
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TikTok is full of videos of chuteros, or car thieves, venturing into the impressive Bolivian salt flats as they avoid police raid sites. They usually do stunts to show off the cars they’ve stolen [from neighbouring Chile; 20% of cars in Bolivia are smuggled], mostly high-end SUVs or expensive sports cars, attracting praise from wannabe chuteros who ask for information on how to become one. Those interested in buying stolen cars inquire about prices of specific models in the comments. It makes for a striking feed: hundreds of TikTok videos set to the beat of “Chutero Yo Soy,” a song about the chutero lifestyle.
On the Chilean side of the border, car theft victims are whipping out their phones to try and tackle the problem themselves. Hugo Bustio, a former policeman, founded a volunteer group called Vehicle Search Group (GBV) after realizing the local police were overwhelmed by reports of stolen cars. Its members are mostly car theft victims. They patrol the streets, taking photos and sharing them on GBV WhatsApp groups as they try to find stolen cars before they’re taken to Bolivia.
GBV has even partnered with a Chilean AI startup called SafeByWolf to identify cars faster. Felipe Lobos, SafeByWolf’s founder and CEO, told Rest of World his app is able to identify licence plates on moving cars. Its algorithm is allegedly smart enough to identify if licence plates have been swapped, and it then feeds the information into the police database to find a match in the stolen car reports. The company was specifically created to deal with this issue, as the Chilean car insurance industry — Lobos’ main customer — has been increasingly disheartened by the smuggling situation in recent years.
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At least a numberplate isn’t personally identifying information.
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Broadband ISP Brsk faces full fibre anti-pole campaign in Burnley • ISPreview UK
Mark Jackson:
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Broadband ISP and network builder Brsk, which has so far deployed their own gigabit speed Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network to 250,000 UK premises (RFS) – mostly in the Midlands (rollout plan), is facing a petition from 40 residents in Burnley who want to see their newly installed telecoms poles removed.
Like most full fibre builders, Brsk has been deploying plenty of poles (telegraph / telecoms poles), which are usually made of wood and stand around 8-9 metres high. This approach tends to be much more cost-effective and less disruptive to local residents than digging trenches for underground cables. The lower cost impact can often mean the difference between building into an area or skipping it entirely.
Brsk is supported by at least £259m of funding from Advencap and the Ares Management Corp. The operator aspires to cover 1 million homes with FTTP by 2026 – focusing on the Greater Manchester, Lancashire, West Yorkshire and the West Midlands of England.
However, poles also have a growing tendency to divide public opinion, particularly when built into an area that previously only enjoyed the benefits of underground infrastructure. Complaints often focus on their negative visual appearance, concerns about the risk of damage from major storms (example), and the lack of prior consultation.
In the past it was harder to deploy new poles, but the rules have long since been softened to aid the rollout of gigabit broadband. Today poles are built using Permitted Development (PD) rights, which means they don’t have to go through the usual planning process and can pop up quickly, often without residents getting much of a say. Operators usually only need to give the most minimal of prior notification (e.g. sticking a notice to a lamp post).
…A second online petition for the area has also been set up, which rather oddly moans that “these 10m poles, erected outside our homes and cluttering our streets with wires, are hindering our progress towards faster broadband connectivity … We must consider alternative methods that do not compromise the aesthetics of our neighbourhood while still providing us with access to advanced technologies“.
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Mad. People are mad. This is Britain’s productivity and growth problem in a nutshell.
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Worldwide smartphone shipments forecast to reach lowest volume in a decade • IDC
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Worldwide smartphone shipments are forecast to decline 4.7% year over year in 2023 to 1.15 billion units, the lowest volume in a decade, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker. This is a downward revision from IDC’s previous forecast of -3.2%, driven by a weaker economic outlook and ongoing inflation, which has dampened consumer demand and lengthened refresh cycles. Despite the lower forecast for 2023, IDC expects the market to recover in 2024 with 4.5% year-over-year growth followed by growth in the low single digits through the remainder of the forecast, resulting in a five-year compound annual growth rate of 1.7%.
“Although inventory levels have normalized, the majority of OEMs remain extremely cautious in their business planning for the short term, yet again kicking the recovery can down the road.” said Nabila Popal research director with IDC’s Mobility and Consumer Device Trackers. “While the market will undoubtedly return to growth, longer refresh cycles are tapering the rate of growth over the long run, preventing the total available market from reaching pre-Covid levels.”
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At the same time, also forecasts that iPhone sales will nudge up to their highest-ever share, at just under 20%. Nearly one in five new smartphones sold in 2023 will be an iPhone? What a stunning statistic – particularly compared to PCs, where Apple has never, post-Windows, been above 10%.
But again, most smartphones now do the job perfectly. Camera? Great. Speed? Absolutely fine. All they really need is the occasional new battery. There are more than 6bn smartphones in use worldwide; this suggests a replacement cycle on average longer than every five years.
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UK government seeks expanded use of AI-based facial recognition by police • Financial Times
Anna Gross and Madhumita Murgia:
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The move comes after privacy campaigners and independent academics criticised the technology for being inaccurate and biased, particularly against darker-skinned people. MPs have previously called for a moratorium on its use on the general population until clear laws are established by parliament.
The government is calling for submissions from companies for technologies that “can resolve identity using facial features and landmarks”, including for live facial recognition which involves screening the general public for specific individuals on police watch lists.
In particular, the Home Office is highlighting its interest in novel artificial intelligence technologies that could process facial data efficiently to identify individuals, and software that could be integrated with existing technologies deployed by the department and with CCTV cameras.
Facial recognition software has been used by South Wales Police and London’s Metropolitan Police over the past five years across multiple trials in public spaces including shopping centres, during events such as the Notting Hill Carnival and, more recently, during the coronation.
The Financial Times has previously revealed that the private owners of King’s Cross in London were using facial recognition on the general public, scanning for known troublemakers and sharing the data with the Metropolitan Police. They have since stopped using the technology.
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I’m presently reading (for a review in The Guardian) the new book by Kashmir Hill, the NYT reporter, about how she discovered the existence of Clearview AI, which scraped the web for billions of photos and set an algorithm loose on doing facial recognition. The point in the first paragraph above is the key one: if you aren’t white, these algorithms can do a poor job – and if the police are white, the result can be even worse.
But the scary point is that last extracted paragraph: people/organisations doing it for themselves. This toothpaste isn’t returning to the tube.
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The hidden link between ad blockers and better news consumption • AdGuard
Ekaterina Kachalova:
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About 37% of Internet users now use ad blockers for some or all of their online browsing. This implies that users are not entirely happy with the trade-off between ads and content.
One question that is often ignored is how ads affect the user experience in terms of engagement, specifically whether ads discourage users from returning to sites and following the news. Many publishers simply assume that users view ads as a necessary evil and will come back no matter what. But this assumption has never been tested, so a group of researchers took pains to do just that.
The 2022 study called “How does the Adoption of Ad Blockers Affect News Consumption?” compares the news consumption habits of ad blocking and non-ad blocking users, with some curious results. In particular, the researchers found that users who started blocking ads also started reading more articles and about more topics on a news site than those who browsed it without ad blockers.
They also found that, perhaps, surprisingly, ad blockers may be a boon for news media. They discovered that ad-blocking users were more likely to return to the site, become loyal readers and hence potential subscribers. This way they could generate more revenue for publishers in the long run if the latter decide to move to a subscription-based model.
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Obviously, AdGuard has an interest in boosting this article, but the research is by legitimate academics, and they don’t seem to have received funding from any makers of adblocking software.
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Autobahn speed limit would cut carbon and bring €1bn in benefits, study says • Carbon Brief
Molly Lempriere:
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Bringing in a speed limit of 130kph (80mph) across all of Germany’s motorways could result in nearly €1bn in “welfare” savings, a new study says, with “avoided warming” leading the benefits.
While more than 96% of German roads are subject to a permanent speed limit, just 30% of the 13,000km network of motorways – or autobahn – has permanent or temporary speed limits, according to the German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA).
Germany is one of the only major countries in the world not to have a nationwide speed limit, a topic which has garnered increasing attention as the country struggles to meet its transport decarbonisation targets.
But, according to a new paper published in the Ecological Economics journal, bringing in a 130kph speed limit on autobahns could bring about nearly €300m in welfare savings from avoided carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, along with a host of other benefits.
A speed limit enjoys majority public support and there is no “rational argument” against bringing it in, yet the measure is unlikely due to opposition from certain political parties, researchers tell Carbon Brief.
Calls for the introduction of an autobahn speed limit, on the basis of environmental benefits, have been growing since the introduction of the country’s first national climate law in 2019.
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To misquote Douglas Adams, people love speed limits – they make a wonderful whooshing sound as you go past them. It’s odd that the political will isn’t there, though, if it has public support. What would the speeders do – protest by having a go-slow? (As a reminder, in the 1976 oil crisis, when the world price of oil quadrupled in three months, Jimmy Carter instituted a 56mph (90km/h) speed limit on American motorways, producing enormous fuel efficiency benefits.
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| • Why do social networks drive us a little mad? • Why does angry content seem to dominate what we see? • How much of a role do algorithms play in affecting what we see and do online? • What can we do about it? • Did Facebook have any inkling of what was coming in Myanmar in 2016? Read Social Warming, my latest book, and find answers – and more. |
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The Overspill: when there's more that I want to say 