If we look around, we will find that Facebook is right now the most used social networking platform. It had now become one of an integral part of life and we use it frequently to communicate with others. If you have been using Facebook for a while, then we are pretty sure that you might […]
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Twitter is rolling out its spam and abuse filter for Direct Messages, a month and a half after the company announced it had started testing the feature. The filter will be available on Twitter’s iOS, Android and Web apps.
The filter adds a new view to the Additional Messages inbox, where DMs from people you don’t follow go. If you click on it, messages that potentially contain offensive content also have their previews hidden, with an option to delete the message without opening it first.
We tested, and turns out filters help you cut through the noise to find gems. Who knew. So we’re rolling out this filter to everyone on iOS, Android, and web!
— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) September 30, 2019
The new DM filter is useful for people who want to keep their Twitter messages open, but (like most people) don’t want to see abusive content. The feature, however, feels long overdue considering that offensive messages are so common for users with open inboxes that third-party developers have launched their own filtering tools, including a recently-released plugin that detects and deletes dick pics.
Earlier this month, Twitter also released its Hide Replies feature in the U.S. and Canada after testing it in Canada. It gives users the option of picking replies to a tweet to hide, but does not delete them. Instead, they are still visible in a separate view that is linked to a button in the original tweet.
Now people prefer to watch movies online rather than downloading a full-length movie. Streaming movies also eliminate the need of downloading a full-length movie which takes hours to download. So, if you are also looking for watch movies online free streaming 2019, then this post might help you to pick the best site to watch […]
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The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 9am Pacific, you can subscribe here.
1. Not all is predictable on Facebook’s social Horizon
Last week, Facebook unveiled Horizon, a massively multiplayer VR world that’s scheduled to launch in 2020. This might seem to play to Facebook’s software strengths, but Lucas Matney argues that the social networking giant may not actually have much of an advantage against smaller game studios.
For example, the team at Against Gravity has already built a network inside VR called Rec Room that’s been maturing over the past few years, with rich environments and toolsets for multiplayer interactions. (Extra Crunch membership required.)
2. Spotify now lets you add podcasts to playlists
Users can create their own custom playlists of their favorite podcasts, or even those that combine music and audio — similar to Spotify’s newly launched playlist “Your Daily Drive.”
3. Kickstarter darling EcoFlow Delta battery generator is not what it seems
The EcoFlow Delta is a new battery generator available on Kickstarter with incredible features claimed. Most are true, some are not.
4. YouTube TV is now available on Fire TV devices
Earlier this year, Google and Amazon reached an agreement to bring their streaming video apps to each other’s platforms. The YouTube app launched on Fire TV in July, and now Google is adding its live TV streaming service.
5. Amboss, the knowledge platform for medical professionals, scores €30M Series B
Launched in 2014 as a study platform for medical students, Amboss has since evolved to offer what it claims is the “most comprehensive and technologically-advanced” knowledge platform for medical professionals.
6. Learn everything you can about mobility at Disrupt SF
We’re bringing some of the industry’s leaders onstage at Disrupt SF — including Bird founder and CEO Travis VanderZanden, Kitty Hawk CEO Sebastian Thrun and Zoox CEO Aicha Evans.
7. This week’s TechCrunch podcasts
The latest episode of Equity kicks off with the reemergence of the much-criticized startup Bodega, which is now known as Stockwell and has raised a total of $45 million in funding. Meanwhile, Original Content reviews “Between Two Ferns: The Movie” on Netflix.
Instagram deployed a new tool today that should help it continue to build a more viable alternative to YouTube for individual creators looking to try a different platform. It’s a dedicated account called @creators, which will deliver tips and tricks for people hoping to become more active on the platform.
Based on the pinned FAQ story that Instagram has posted to the account, and a brief explainer with some testimonials from actual creators using the platform. Some of the questions that Instagram answers include how to get Verified, which must be asked so incredibly frequently by this particular set of folks.
The grid posts of @creators include some helpful tips like pointing out that 60% of people listen to stories on the platform with the sound on. Clearly, the account is geared towards pushing video creation tips and tools, which makes sense given that’s an area of growth for the company, and a way for it to win over disaffected YouTubers and younger creators who are looking for their new home on the web.
This could be a huge potential opportunity for Instagram, in fact, and this account, while a small part of an overall approach to wooing creators, is a good one.
Since launching in the United States five years ago, SmartNews, the news aggregation app that recently hit unicorn status, has quietly built a reputation for presenting reliable information from a wide range of publishers. The company straddles two very different markets: the U.S. and its home country of Japan, where it is one of the leading news apps.
SmartNews wants readers to see it as a way to break out of their filter bubbles, says Jeannie Yang, its senior vice president of product, especially as the American presidential election heats up. For example, it recently launched a feature, called “News From All Sides,” that lets people see how media outlets from across the political spectrum are covering a specific topic.
The app is driven by machine-learning algorithms, but it also has an editorial team led by Rich Jaroslovsky, the first managing editor of WSJ.com and founder of the Online News Association. One of SmartNews’ goal is to surface news that its users might not seek out on their own, but it must balance that with audience retention in a market that is crowded with many ways to consume content online, including competing news aggregation apps, Facebook and Google Search.
In a wide-ranging interview with Extra Crunch, Yang talked about SmartNews’ place in the media ecosystem, creating recommendation algorithms that don’t reinforce biases, the difference between its Japanese and American users and the challenges of presenting political news in a highly polarized environment.
Catherine Shu: One of the reasons why SmartNews is interesting is because there are a lot of news aggregation apps in America, but there hasn’t been one huge breakout app like SmartNews is in Japan or Toutiao in China. But at the same time, there are obviously a lot of issues in the publishing and news industry in the United States that a good dominant news app might be able to help, ranging from monetization to fake news.
Jeannie Yang: I think that’s definitely a challenge for everybody in the U.S. With SmartNews, we really want to see how we can help create a healthier media ecosystem and actually have publishers thrive as well. SmartNews has such respect for the publishers and the industry and we want to be good partners, but also really understand the challenges of the business model, as well as the challenges for users and thinking of how we can create a healthier ecosystem.
Evernote is indeed a great note-taking, organizing and todo list app available out there. It’s available on almost every platform including Windows, Linux, Android, macOS, iOS, etc. Although the mobile app of Evernote still serves the free features, the company had made some big changes in its pricing. The free account is not limited to […]
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On Android, there are some stock apps that come pre-installed. As we all know, pre-installed apps or bloatware are almost useless, and it not just slows down the phone’s performance but also consumes lot’s of memory. However, you can’t just remove bloatware until and unless you have a rooted Android device. So, in this article, […]
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Well, if you are a tech fanatic then you will love watching TV shows which are based on hacking and technology. Here are 15 Best TV Series Based On Hacking & Technology 2019: Technology is rapidly becoming the key point in human lives. Here we have discussed top TV shows which have hacking as the […]
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Well, if you have been using Windows operating system for a while, then you might know about the Command Prompt or CMD. CMD or Command Prompt is one of the powerful tools in Windows which can do almost everything. We can’t simply explain the power of Command Prompt in a single article. CMD is the […]
The post How To Change Command Prompt Color In Windows 10 appeared first on Tech Viral.
Well, if we look around, we will find that Microsoft’s Windows is right now the most used desktop operating system. Compared to every other desktop operating system, Microsoft’s Windows provides users far more features and customization options. What’s more important is that Windows receives frequent updates in which it gets more new features. If you […]
The post How to Stop Microsoft Edge’s Pop-up Notifications appeared first on Tech Viral.
Microsoft’s Windows is definitely not one of the most stable operating systems out there. If you have been using Windows operating system for a while, then you might be well aware of the bugs on the platform. On regular usage, Windows users often face problems like device lagging, overheating, unusual behavior of PC components, etc. […]
The post How To Reset Windows 10 To Default Factory Settings appeared first on Tech Viral.
If you are one of those users who spend most of the time on computer or laptop, then you might have felt the problem of watery eyes or headaches. These health hazards happen due to the blue light cast by the bright screen of electronic devices such as Laptop, computers, smartphones, etc. The Blue light […]
The post Here’s How To Enable Blue Light Filter In Windows 10 appeared first on Tech Viral.
The app industry shows no signs of slowing down, with 194 billion downloads in 2018 and over $100 billion in consumer spending. People spend 90% of their mobile time in apps and more time using their mobile devices than watching TV. In other words, apps aren’t just a way to spend idle hours — they’re a big business. And one that often seems to change overnight. In this new Extra Crunch series, we’ll help you keep up with the latest news from the world of apps — including everything from the OS’s to the apps that run upon them, as well as the money that flows through it all.
This week, alternatives to the traditional app store is a big theme. Not only has a new, jailbreak-free iOS marketplace called AltStore just popped up, we’ve also got both Apple and Google ramping up their own subscription-based collections of premium apps and games.
Meanwhile, the way brands and publishers want to track their apps’ success is changing, too. And App Annie — the company that was the first to start selling pickaxes for the App Store gold rush — is responding with an acquisition that will help app publishers better understand the return on investment for their app businesses.
An interesting alternative app marketplace has appeared on the scene, allowing a way for developers to distribute iOS apps outside the official App Store, reports Engadget — without jailbreaking, which can be difficult and has various security implications. Instead, the new store works by tricking your device into thinking you’re a developer sideloading apps. And it uses a companion app on your Mac or PC to re-sign the apps every 7 days via iTunes WiFi syncing protocol. Already, it’s offering a Nintendo emulator and other games, says The Verge. And Apple is probably already working on a way to shut this down. For now, it’s live at Altstore.io.
Very excited to officially announce AltStore: an alternative app store for iOS — no jailbreak required. Launching this Saturday, September 28, but you can download the preview TODAY https://t.co/M7nULBV28p
— Riles
(@rileytestut) September 25, 2019
Does Google Play have a malicious app problem? That appears to be the case as Google has booted some 46 apps from major Chinese mobile developer iHandy out of its app store, BuzzFeed reported. And it isn’t saying why. The move follows Google’s ban of two other major Chinese app developers, DO Global and CooTek, who had 1 billion total downloads.
If we search for instant messaging apps on the Google Play Store, we will find tons of apps over there. However, if we have to pick any one of them, we will pick WhatsApp without any second thought. WhatsApp is one of the best and top-rated instant messaging app that’s available for both Android and […]
The post How To Enable Fingerprint Unlock Feature in WhatsApp For Android appeared first on Tech Viral.
When it comes to the mobile operating system, Android usually steals the show. Compared to every other mobile operating system, Android provides users far more customization options. Not only customization, but the app availability is also quite high on Android compared to any other mobile operating system. On average, Android users install almost 30-50 apps […]
The post How to Install Sony Stamina Mode On All Android Deivces appeared first on Tech Viral.
Well, if we look around, we will find that WhatsApp and Facebook is right now the most used instant messaging app. Compared to every other social networking and instant messaging app, these two apps provide users more features and controls. For those who don’t know, WhatsApp and Messenger both were backed by Facebook. Both Messenger […]
The post How To Stay Online All Time In WhatsApp and FB Messenger appeared first on Tech Viral.
I can easily recall the day when I have made my first video project for school using the Windows Movie Maker. For those who don’t know, Windows Movie Maker is one of the best and most simple video editing apps that comes built-in on Windows operating system. However, Microsoft has officially discontinued the development of […]
The post Top 10 Best Windows Movie Maker Alternatives 2019 appeared first on Tech Viral.
Here is the latest version of Spotify Premium APK 8.5.3 Free Download 2019. This app is available for almost all the android devices With the premium version of Spotify Android app, you can easily store or download more than one favorite song of that wins your heart. Spotify Premium APK v8.5 (No Root) Latest Free […]
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If you want to take full control over your WhatsApp, download and install the latest version of GBWhatsapp APK Free Download 2019 and get the best out of it, then you need to start using the gbwhatsapp app. Well, it’s actually a modded version of WhatsApp that boasts lots of amazing features. Out of many features, some […]
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Most of the people I spoke with at Facebook’s Oculus Connect see the proliferation of virtual reality as a foregone conclusion, one that’s just a matter of timing at this point. For Facebook, the conference’s “The Time is Now” catchphrase showcased that they feel their hardware is ready for everyone.
But despite the success, they feel like they’ve tapped into when it comes to hardware iterations, the company’s bread and butter social networking prowess feels like it’s barely improved in-headset in the past several years of VR experimentations.
“On the social side, looking back, it’s kind of embarrassing all of the stages we’ve gone through at Oculus,” Oculus CTO and veteran programmer John Carmack conceded onstage during his signature rambling annual keynote, noting that his own social APK was followed by Oculus Rooms, Oculus Venues, Facebook Spaces and now the company’s latest shiny pearl Facebook Horizon.
Horizon’s debut this year included a flashy trailer for what quickly seemed to be the company’s biggest gamble and first potential social hit, a massive multi-player online world. In introducing the software, Zuckerberg talked about people-centric software as Facebook’s “bread-and-butter,” noting, “We build a lot of the best social experiences for phones and computers, and we want to do this for virtual reality as well.”
But Facebook does not actually appear to hold that much of an advantage over much smaller game studios in terms of understanding how to make social virtual reality experience take off.
The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 9am Pacific, you can subscribe here.
1. Facebook tries hiding Like counts to fight envy
It looks like Facebook wants to end the terrible game of chasing Likes, and then the equally terrible feeling of failing.
The experiment starts today in Australia. A post’s author can still see the count, but everyone else will only be able to see who Liked a post, not how many Likes total it received.
2. DoorDash confirms data breach affected 4.9 million customers, workers and merchants
The breach happened on May 4, the company said, but added that customers who joined after April 5, 2018 are not affected. It’s not clear why it took almost five months for DoorDash to detect the breach.
3. My Galaxy Fold display is damaged after a day
Samsung’s new rebooted Galaxy arrives this week with one job: it just needs to not break. And yet …
4. 25+ launches from Uber’s big event
The company unveiled a slew of changes across all its products, designed to promote Eats and micromobility, make life easier for drivers, keep riders safe and make transportation more accessible. The big highlight? Two new visions for the future of Uber’s home screen.
5. ‘We are seeing volume and interest in Peloton explode,’ says company president on listing day
Despite dropping more than 10% in its first day of trading, the IPO was a bona fide success. Peloton, once denied (over and over again) by VC skeptics, now has hundreds of millions of dollars to take its business into a new era. (Extra Crunch membership required.)
6. Director Ang Lee explains why he built a digital Will Smith in ‘Gemini Man’
Lee made things even harder for himself by shooting the movie in 3D, at 120 frames per second. In that format, everything looks more clear and detailed than in traditional film, so an unconvincing effect would be even more obvious.
7. Tesla V10.0 car software update adds Smart Summon, Netflix/YouTube, Spotify, karaoke and more
The new “Smart Summon” feature will allow cars equipped with the optional full self-driving package to automatically drive themselves from a parking spot and collect you in a parking lot.
Every smartphone has a unique serial number which is assigned by the manufacturers. The serial number act as an identity of the smartphone that helps the manufacturer to recognize their device. It also has a few other uses. So, serial number on Android has great importance. The serial number is usually listed as an ‘S/N’ […]
The post How To Change Serial Number Of Your Android appeared first on Tech Viral.
These days people think that having a good pair of headphone or speaker is enough to get the best ever music experience. Up to some extent, it’s true, but having a well-tuned sound equalizer also plays important role in improving the music experience. Well, the audio equalizer is one of the most important things for […]
The post How to Add Sound Equalizer on Windows 10 (PC or Laptop) appeared first on Tech Viral.
Well, if you remember, previous year, the Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that the company would be creating a new feature that would allow users to delete the data that third-party websites and services share with Facebook. Now Facebook has released that feature which is called ‘Off-Facebook Activity’. With Off-Facebook activity feature, users can […]
The post How To Use Facebook’s New ‘Off-Facebook Activity’ Feature appeared first on Tech Viral.
If their post has lots of Likes, you feel jealous. If your post doesn’t get enough Likes, you feel embarrassed. And when you just chase Likes, you distort your life seeking moments that score them, or censor it fearing you won’t look popular without them.
That’s why Facebook is officially starting to hide Like counts on posts, first in Australia starting tomorrow, September 27th. A post’s author can still see the count, but it’s hidden from everyone else who will only be able to see who but now how many people gave a thumbs-up or other reaction.
The launch of the hidden Like counts test makes available what we reported Facebook was privately prototyping earlier this month, as spotted in its Android code by reverse engineering master Jane Manchun Wong. The test will run in parallel to Instagram’s own hidden Like count test we also scooped that first tested in Canada in April before expanding to six more countries in July.
“We are running a limited test where like, reaction, and video view counts are made private across Facebook” a Facebook spokesperson tells me. “We will gather feedback to understand whether this change will improve people’s experiences.” If the test improves people’s sense of well-being without tanking user engagement, it could expand to more countries or even roll out to everyone, but no further tests are currently scheduled.
Facebook’s goal here is to make people comfortable expressing themselves. It wants users to focus on the quality of what they share and how it connects them with people they care about, not just the number of people who hit the thumbs-up. The tests are being conducted by the News Feed team that falls under VP Fidji Simo’s jurisdiction over the main Facebook app.
As you can see, the Like button itself remains visible to everyone. Comment counts will still be displayed, as will the most common types of reactions left on a post plus the faces and names of some people who Liked it.
But without a big number on friends’ posts that could make users feel insignificant, or a low number on their own posts announcing their poor reception, users might feel more carefree on Facebook. The removal could also reduce herd mentality, encouraging users to decide for themselves if they enjoyed a post rather than just blindly clicking to concur with everyone else.
As I wrote about 2 years ago, a collection of studies identify the harm Facebook can do. They found that while chatting with friends and comment threads on Facebook made people feel better, passively scrolling and Liking could lead to envy spiraling and declines in perception of well-being. Users would compare their seemingly boring life to the well-Liked glamorous moments shared by friends or celebrities and conclude they were lesser.
For example, Krasanova et al discovered that 20% of the envy-inducing moments users experienced in life were on Facebook, and that “intensity of passive following is likely to reduce users’ life satisfaction in the long-run, as it triggers upward social comparison and invidious emotions.”
One concern is that Facebook Pages that have large followings and often get more Likes than individual users’ posts could miss out on extra engagement and reach without that herd mentality. Some Canadian influencers have complained about reduced reach since the hidden Likes test launched their on Instagram, but there’s been no conclusive data to prove that and Facebook will still use the number of Likes as part of its ranking algorithm.
If Facebook wants to build a social network people continue using for another 15 years, it has to put their well-being first — above brands, above engagement, and above ad dollars. It also needs better controls for notifications and warnings when you’ve been passively scrolling for too long. But if the Like hiding works and eventually becomes standard, it could help Facebook get back to the off-the-cuff sharing that made it a hit at colleges so long ago. No one wants to be in a life-long popularity contest.
New research by the Oxford Internet Institute has found that social media manipulation is getting worse, with rising numbers of governments and political parties making cynical use of social media algorithms, automation and big data to manipulate public opinion at scale — with hugely worrying implications for democracy.
The report found that computational propaganda and social media manipulation have proliferated massively in recently years — now prevalent in more than double the number of countries (70) vs two years ago (28). An increase of 150%.
The research suggests that the spreading of fake news and toxic narratives has become the dysfunctional new ‘normal’ for political actors across the globe, thanks to social media’s global reach.
“Although propaganda has always been a part of political discourse, the deep and wide-ranging scope of these campaigns raise critical public interest concerns,” the report warns.
The researchers go on to dub the global uptake of computational propaganda tools and techniques a “critical threat” to democracies.
“The use of computational propaganda to shape public attitudes via social media has become mainstream, extending far beyond the actions of a few bad actors,” they add. “In an information environment characterized by high volumes of information and limited levels of user attention and trust, the tools and techniques of computational propaganda are becoming a common – and arguably essential – part of digital campaigning and public diplomacy.”
Techniques the researchers found being deployed by governments and political parties to spread political propaganda include the use of bots to amplify hate speech or other forms of manipulated content; the illegal harvesting of data or micro-targeting; and the use of armies of ‘trolls’ to bully or harass political dissidents or journalists online.
The researchers looked at computational propaganda activity in 70 countries around the world — including the US, the UK, Germany, China, Russia, India, Pakistan, Kenya, Rwanda, South Africa, Argentina, Brazil and Australia (see the end of this article for the full list) — finding organized social media manipulation in all of them.
So next time Facebook puts out another press release detailing a bit of “coordinated inauthentic behavior” it claims to have found and removed from its platform, it’s important to put it in context of the bigger picture. And the picture painted by this report suggests that such small-scale, selective discloses of propaganda-quashing successes sum to misleading Facebook PR vs the sheer scale of the problem.
The problem is massive, global and largely taking place through Facebook’s funnel, per the report.
Facebook remains the platform of choice for social media manipulation — with researchers finding evidence of formally organised political disops campaigns on its platform taking place in 56 countries.
We reached out to Facebook for a response to the report and the company sent us a laundry list of steps it says it’s been taking to combat election interference and coordinated inauthentic activity — including in areas such as voter suppression, political ad transparency and industry-civil society partnerships.
But it did not offer any explanation why all this apparent effort (just its summary of what it’s been doing exceeds 1,600 words) has so spectacularly failed to stem the rising tide of political fakes being amplified via Facebook.
Instead it sent us this statement: “Helping show people accurate information and protecting against harm is a major priority for us. We’ve developed smarter tools, greater transparency, and stronger partnerships to better identify emerging threats, stop bad actors, and reduce the spread of misinformation on Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. We also know that this work is never finished and we can’t do this alone. That’s why we are working with policymakers, academics, and outside experts to make sure we continue to improve.”
We followed up to ask why all its efforts have so far failed to reduce fake activity on its platform and will update this report with any response.
Returning to the report, the researchers say China has entered the global disinformation fray in a big way — using social media platforms to target international audiences with disinformation, something the country has long directed at its domestic population of course.
The report describes China as “a major player in the global disinformation order”.
It also warns that the use of computational propaganda techniques combined with tech-enabled surveillance is providing authoritarian regimes around the world with the means to extend their control of citizens’ lives.
“The co-option of social media technologies provides authoritarian regimes with a powerful tool to shape public discussions and spread propaganda online, while simultaneously surveilling, censoring, and restricting digital public spaces,” the researchers write.
Other key findings from the report include that both democracies and authoritarian states are making (il)liberal use of computational propaganda tools and techniques.
Per the report:
The report also identifies seven “sophisticated state actors” — China, India, Iran, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela — using what it calls “cyber troops” (aka dedicated online workers whose job is to use computational propaganda tools to manipulate public opinion) to run foreign influence campaigns.
Foreign influence operations — which includes election interference — were found by the researchers to primarily be taking place on Facebook and Twitter.
We’ve reached out to Twitter for comment and will update this article with any response.
A year ago, when Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey was questioned by the Senate Intelligence Committee, he said it was considering labelling bot accounts on its platform — agreeing that “more context” around tweets and accounts would be a good thing, while also arguing that identifying automation that’s scripted to look like a human is difficult.
Instead of adding a ‘bot or not’ label, Twitter has just launched a ‘hide replies’ feature — which lets users screen individual replies to their tweets (requiring an affirmative action from viewers to unhide and be able to view any hidden replies). Twitter says this is intended at increasing civility on the platform. But there have been concerns the feature could be abused to help propaganda spreaders — i.e. by allowing them to suppress replies that debunk their junk.
The Oxford Internet Institute researchers found bot accounts are very widely used to spread political propaganda (80% of countries studied used them). However the use of human agents was even more prevalent (87% of countries).
Bot-human blended accounts, which combine automation with human curation in an attempt to fly under the BS detector radar, were much rarer: Identified in 11% of countries.
While hacked or stolen accounts were found being used in just 7% of countries.
In another key finding from the report, the researchers identified 25 countries working with private companies or strategic communications firms offering a computational propaganda as a service, noting that: “In some cases, like in Azerbaijan, Israel, Russia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, student or youth groups are hired by government agencies to use computational propaganda.”
Commenting on the report in a statement, professor Philip Howard, director of the Oxford Internet Institute, said: “The manipulation of public opinion over social media remains a critical threat to democracy, as computational propaganda becomes a pervasive part of everyday life. Government agencies and political parties around the world are using social media to spread disinformation and other forms of manipulated media. Although propaganda has always been a part of politics, the wide-ranging scope of these campaigns raises critical concerns for modern democracy.”
Samantha Bradshaw, researcher and lead author of the report, added: “The affordances of social networking technologies — algorithms, automation and big data — vastly changes the scale, scope, and precision of how information is transmitted in the digital age. Although social media was once heralded as a force for freedom and democracy, it has increasingly come under scrutiny for its role in amplifying disinformation, inciting violence, and lowering trust in the media and democratic institutions.”
Other findings from the report include that:
Which backs up the widespread sense in some Western democracies that political discourse has been getting less truthful and more toxic for a number of years — given tactics that amplify disinformation and target harassment at political opponents are indeed thriving on social media, per the report.
Despite finding an alarming rise in the number of government actors across the globe who are misappropriating powerful social media platforms and other tech tools to influence public attitudes and try to disrupt elections, Howard said the researchers remain optimistic that social media can be “a force for good” — by “creating a space for public deliberation and democracy to flourish”.
“A strong democracy requires access to high quality information and an ability for citizens to come together to debate, discuss, deliberate, empathise and make concessions,” he said.
Clearly, though, there’s a stark risk of high quality information being drowned out by the tsunami of BS that’s being paid for by self-interested political actors. It’s also of course much cheaper to produce BS political propaganda than carry out investigative journalism.
Democracy needs a free press to function but the press itself is also under assault from online ad giants that have disrupted its business model by being able to spread and monetize any old junk content. If you want a perfect storm hammering democracy this most certainly is it.
It’s therefore imperative for democratic states to arm their citizens with education and awareness to enable them to think critically about the junk being pushed at them online. But as we’ve said before, there are no shortcuts to universal education.
Meanwhile regulation of social media platforms and/or the use of powerful computational tools and techniques for political purposes simply isn’t there. So there’s no hard check on voter manipulation.
Lawmakers have failed to keep up with the tech-fuelled times. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given how many political parties have their own hands in the data and ad-targeting cookie jar, as well as pushing fakes. (Concerned citizens are advised to practise good digital privacy hygiene to fight back against undemocratic attempts to hack public opinion. More privacy tips here.)
The researchers say their 2019 report, which is based on research work carried out between 2018 and 2019, draws upon a four-step methodology to identify evidence of globally organised manipulation campaigns — including a systematic content analysis of news articles on cyber troop activity and a secondary literature review of public archives and scientific reports, generating country specific case studies and expert consultations.
Here’s the full list of countries studied:
Angola, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Brazil, Cambodia, China, Colombia, Croatia, Cuba, Czech Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Honduras, Guatemala, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, Italy, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Macedonia, Malaysia, Malta, Mexico, Moldova, Myanmar, Netherlands, Nigeria, North Korea, Pakistan, Philippines, Poland, Qatar, Russia, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Syria, Taiwan, Tajikistan, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Uzbekistan, Venezuela, Vietnam, and Zimbabwe.
Many different services across the internet require the users to first verify their new accounts by phone numbers. This thing not only helps to prevent spam, but it also helps to confirm the identity of the user. Social media services like Facebook, Gmail, Twitter, and Instagram, etc all are now using this function. Other services […]
The post 10 Best Virtual Phone Number Apps For Account Verifications appeared first on Tech Viral.
Chromecast is indeed a great media streaming device from Google which allows users to use their smartphone, computer as a remote control. The media streaming adapter simply plugs into your TV and grants easy access to a wide range of streaming services like YouTube, NetFlix, Google Play. It can even stream video content right from […]
The post Chromecast Not Working? Here are the 5 Best Methods To Fix It appeared first on Tech Viral.
Let’s just admit, there are times when we all are crazy about reading the comics. I can easily recall the days where I used to read comic books in spare time. Comics book used to be a great source of entertainment until 2005, but things sharted to change after the arrival of smartphones. Nowadays, people […]
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Facebook today announced it’s building its own Ready Player One Oasis. Facebook Horizon is a virtual reality sandbox universe where you can build your own environments and games, play and socialize with friends, or just explore the user generated landscapes. This is Facebook’s take on Second Life.
Launching in early 2020 in closed beta, Facebook Horizon will allow users to design their own diverse avatars and hop between virtual locales through portals called Telepods, watch movies and consume other media with friends, and play multiplayer games together like Wing Strikers. It will also include human guides, known as Horizon Locals, who can give users assistance and protect their safety in the VR world so trolls can’t run rampant.
Users interested in early access can apply for the beta here.
As part of the launch, Facebook will shut down its existing social VR experiences Facebook Spaces and Oculus Rooms on October 25th, leaving a bit of a gap until Horizon launches. Oculus Rooms debuted in 2016 as your decoratable private VR apartment, while Spaces first launched in 2017 to let users chat, watch movies, and take VR selfies with friends. But both felt more like lobby waiting rooms with a few social features that were merely meant as a preamble to full-fledged VR games. In contrast, Horizon is designed to be a destination not a novelty, where users could spend tons of time.
Facebook Horizon will start centralized around a town square. Before people step in, they can choose how they look and what they wear from an expansive and inclusive set of avatar tools. From inside VR, users will be able to use the Horizon World Builder to create gaming arenas, vacation chillspots, and activities to fill them without the need to know how to code.
Facebook Horizon lets you build objects from scratch
You could design a tropical island, then invite friends to hang out with you on your virtual private beach. A object creator akin to the Oculus Medium sculpting feature lets you make anything, even a custom t-shirt your avatar could wear. Visual scripting tools let more serious developers create interactive and reactive experiences.
Facebook details is Horizon safety features on its “Citizenship” page that explains that “As citizens of Facebook Horizon, it is all of our responsibility to create a culture that’s respectful and comfortable . . . A Horizon citizen is friendly, inclusive, and curious.” Horizon Locals will wander the VR landscapes to answer questions or aid users if they’re having technical or safety issues. They seem poised to be part customer support, part in-world police.
Facebook Horizon will include human Locals who provide safety and technical support
If things get overwhelming, you can tap a shield button to pause and dip into a private space parallel to Horizon. Users can define their personal space boundaries so no one can get in their face or appear to touch them. And traditional tools like muting, blocking, and reporting will all be available. It’s smart that Facebook outlined the community tone and defined these protections.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced Horizon today at the Oculus Connect 6 conference in San Jose. He discussed how “Horizon is going to have this property where it just expands and gets better” as Facebook and the community build more experiences for the VR sandbox.
Facebook lets you build your own islands and other locales in Horizon
Horizon makes perfect sense for a business obsessed with facilitating social interaction while monetized through ad views based on time-spent. It’s easy to imagine Horizon including virtual billboards for brands, Facebook-run shops for buying toys or home furnishings, third-party malls full of branded Nikes or Supreme shirts that score Zuckerberg a revenue cut, or subscriptions to access certain gaming worlds or premium planets to explore.
As Facebook starts to grow stale after 15 years on the market, users are looking for new ways to socialize. Many have already ditched the status updates and smarmy Life Events of Facebook for the pretty pictures of Instagram and silliness of Snapchat. Facebook risked being cast aside if it didn’t build its own VR successor. And by offering a world where users can escape their real lives instead of having to enviously compare them to their friends, Horizon could appeal to those bored or claustrophobic on Facebook.
“Make their metrics your metrics” is one of Flexport CEO Ryan Petersen’s mantras. Sometimes that means building free software for your clients. It can be frustrating aligning your fates with a fellow business if they operate on email, phone, and fax like much of the freight forwarding industry that gets pallets of good across the world from factories to retailer’s floors. So today the new Flexport Platform launches allowing brand clients, their factories, and their Flexport logistics reps to all team up to get stuff where it belongs on time.
The software could further stoke Flexport‘s growth by locking in customers to work with the shipping startup that was valued at $3.2 billion after raising $1 billion from SoftBank in February to bring it to $1.3 billion in funding. Flexport’s revenue was up 95% to $441 million in 2018, Forbes’s Alex Konrad reported. Yet there’s plenty of green field to conquer given even Flexport’s largest competitor Kuehne & Nagel only holds 2.5% market share while the whole freight forwarding industry grows 4% per year.
The Flexport Platform lets 10,000 clients like Bombas socks invite their suppliers to collaborate on managing shipments together. An integrated calendar makes shipping timelines clear. A map gives clients a god-view of their freight criss-crossing the globe. Pre-filled forms speed up compliance. Tagging lets users group shipments and filter or search their dashboards, and flag something for extra care — like a pallet of goods critical for a marketing launch event. Collaborators can also sync up via a Facebook Wall style feature, or direct message the team with threaded conversations much like Slack.
Flexport CEO Ryan Petersen
“There’s infinite demand for a job well done” Petersen says about his industry. “The hard part has always been doing a good job.” Taking the confusion out communication scattered across email chains means clients get shipping documentation filled out 50% faster with 4X more accurate data. Flexport is on the tip of the tongue as software eats the world, with antiquated sectors suddenly leveling up.
Petersen saw the inefficiency first-hand growing up running his own import/export and customs business. He part of a wave of entrepreneurs attacking unsexy businesses that the typical Silicon Valley enterprise exec might never stumble across. But three years after we profiled his scrappy company when it had raised just $26 million in funding and had 700 clients, Petersen tells me “We’re trying to retire the word startup.”
It turns out top global brands like Sonos and Klean Kanteen don’t like the second half of “move fast and break things” when those things are boats and planes full of their products. “They want a company that will help them grow, not the fly-by-night startup” Petersen explains. But with competitors trying to chase it and incumbents trying to adopt similar technologies, Flexport must maintain its agility to be subsumed by the pack.
As his company has grown to 1700 employees, he’s dedicated a ton of his time to keeping its culture in check — especially after a certain other logistics giant startup had some uber-painful troubles with workplace toxicity. “You either have too much bureaucracy or not enough process and no one knows what to do. The English language lacks a positive word for bureaucracy — just the right amount of process so people can move quickly”.
That’s meant a ton of personal growth too. Petersen is still enthusiastic, curious, and charmingly rough around the edges, but he carries it all with more dignity and gravity than a few years back. “The only way I get to stay in this role is if I learn faster than anybody else. Being the CEO of a 1700-person company is not something I knew how to do four to five years ago, or even last year” he tells me. “I’ve changed and become more self aware. It’s been really important to take care of myself — sleeping a lot, I quit drinking alcohol, I lost 30 pounds. I feel great.”
With plenty of cash in the bank, industry talent taking it seriously, and new businesses like Flexport Capital freight financing and its cargo insurance offered in partnership with Marsh, the company might not be a startup for long. It looks like a hot candidate for a coming season of IPOs.
And while this company has its own plane (the leading entry for the naming contest is ‘Weird Flex But OK’), it’s actually part of its shipping fleet.
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On average, a computer user opens 20 to 30 websites in a single browsing session. Well, if you have an unlimited internet connection, then you can open unlimited websites without worrying about anything, but there are times when certain websites fail to open. While browsing the web, we often came across a site that doesn’t […]
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We are pretty much sure that almost every gamer out there would probably know about the popular gaming service Discord. For those who don’t know, Discord is a cross-platform voice and text chat service which is widely used by the gamers. If you are a gamer or if you have seen the YouTube streams of […]
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In 2012, the emblematic podcast This American Life did a special on politics in Afghanistan. They noted that in order to be a politician in Afghanistan, one needs to command a personal armed militia. That’s how politics is practiced in a fragmented country with a long history of violence, and without a stable, credible centralized authority.
In the quaint and relatively peaceful Andean nation of Ecuador, snuggled between Colombia and Peru, a similar phenomenon takes place: politicians don’t require armed guards, but they do require their digital equivalent: Twitter troll centers, or businesses that sell online harassment as a service.
Indeed, much of the country’s public debate, or lack thereof, is now defined by the anonymous accounts that threaten, cajole and, ultimately, aim to silence voices of dissent. Though Ecuador may be too small to register on the Twitter executive team’s radar, under their noses the lucrative business of weaponizing the platform is already being exported to other countries in the region. The abuse of Twitter through troll centers not only threatens the company’s vision to become the world’s agora, it may also be putting lives at risk.
Imagine a populist president raging against his country’s elites, including the news media, as corrupt enemies of the people. Because of his innate distrust of journalists, he uses Twitter to speak divisive rhetoric directly to his digital faithful. At his disposal is an army of hardcore supporters ready to do his bidding, echo his message and attack anyone who dares disagree. If you recognize the character in this story, it’s probably because you’re familiar with Rafael Correa (56), the populist former president of Ecuador (January 2007- May 2017).
Correa now lives in Belgium and cannot return to Ecuador without facing trial for having ordered the kidnapping of a political opponent. The opponent in question fled Ecuador to neighboring Colombia in 2012, where he was trailed by members of Ecuador’s secret police and briefly kidnapped. Witnesses from the state security apparatus have since come forward to point the finger at Correa as the intellectual author of the crime.
The staunchest defenders of concentrated power are those who hold that power.
Correa denies the charges and claims they are merely politically motivated theater orchestrated by his former mentee and now sworn enemy, current Ecuadorian president, LenÃn Moreno. But even if that were the case, Correa still has a number of other uncomfortable questions to answer to the Ecuadorian people. Since 2013, Latin America has been rocked by a corruption scandal called Lava Jato(the car wash) in which the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht paid bribes to politicians across the region to win public works projects (the Netflix series O Mecanismo, or The Mechanism in English, dramatizes the unfolding of the case in Brazil). In total, Odebrecht is said to have paid $788 million U.S. dollars in bribes in 12 countries in exchange for government contracts.
As a result of Lava Jato, former presidents in Brazil and Panama are in jail. In Peru, two former presidents are incarcerated, one is being held prior to an extradition hearing in California and, in April of this year, one dramatically committed suicide when police came to escort him to prison.
Ecuador’s government was no exception to the Brazil construction firm’s corruption: Rafael Correa’s former vice president and preferred successor, Jorge Glas, was convicted in December of 2017 of having directed multi-million-dollar contracts to the Brazilian firm in exchange for massive payoffs hidden through a series of offshore accounts. Indeed, Glas’s poor approval rating was the cause for Correa asking Moreno to come out of retirement and run for president.
Were Lava Jato not enough to spark wide-scale public outrage, a new scandal called Arroz Verde (green rice), revealed in May of 2019, exposed how the Correa election campaigns had government contractors cover expenses in order to flaunt spending restrictions. Numerous former ministers from the Correa government are currently either in jail or awaiting trial, under house arrest or have fled the country. Correa’s legacy as a tough yet modernizing progressive president is currently threatened by corruption scandals of previously unimaginable proportions.
It wasn’t supposed to be that way. When Rafael Correa was elected in 2007, Ecuador was emerging from a period of political, social and economic instability. In 2000, the country’s banks failed and the following economic collapse lead to Ecuador adopting the U.S. dollar as its official currency. Two years prior, a war with neighboring Peru resulted in the loss of a significant portion of Ecuador’s claim to the Amazon rain forest. In the early 2000s, close to 10% of the population, more than a million Ecuadorians, migrated to Spain and the United States in search of work. Three democratically elected presidents in a row were overthrown by street protests, including one colorful actor who was disposed after only six months in office. He was officially declared to have abandoned his role due to mental incapacity.
A relatively obscure leftist economics professor, Correa had a short stint as the country’s finance minister in 2005 during a transitional government. He left his post after a public spat with the International Monetary Fund. The IMF demanded Ecuador use its oil revenues to pay off its staggering external debt. Correa insisted that the country’s first priority should be its social debt and that the monies should be invested in health and education.
The fight vaulted Correa into the public eye and he was able to ride the momentum all the way to the presidency, defeating the country’s richest man in a run-off vote. Through his bombastic rhetoric, Correa took aim at the country’s business, political and media elites and fingered them as the origin of the country’s problems. He captured the populations’ unrest through the campaign slogan Dale Correa, which means both “Go Correa” and “Give ‘Em the Belt!”
Once in office, Rafael Correa set about an aggressive reform agenda. He rewrote the Constitution, the country’s 20th, and re-organized the state apparatus. Fueled by record high oil prices, Correa invested massively in highways, schools, hospitals and much-needed infrastructure like hydroelectric dams.
Shunning the country’s traditional alliance with the United States, Correa turned instead to China, a decision that, as The New York Times has documented, ended in billions of dollars being misspent on Chinese-built hydroelectric dams that don’t actually work at full capacity. In addition, China sold Ecuador technology which, though promoted as a 911 public safety tool, was used by the Correa government to keep tabs on and harass political opponents.
When Americans talk about Donald Trump’s latest scandals, Latin Americans mostly roll their eyes. After all, Latin Americans have seen the Donald Trump character interpreted by numerous strongmen, or caudillos, throughout the region’s history. They have even seen how it plays out on Twitter. Both Venezuela’s late President Hugo Chávez and Rafael Correa saw in Twitter an opportunity to go around their countries’ respective traditional media and speak directly to the citizens, a benefit of social media President Trump has also touted.
Correa would regularly engage in banter with citizens and do the work of government through tweets. His famous expression Favor Atender (please see to this) followed by a mention of a high-level minister or official was his calling card to government to get directly involved in resolving citizen complaints brought to his attention through Twitter. Correa went so far as to host lunches in the presidential palace for the Twitter users who most supported and defended him. The novelty of the hands-on approach soon revealed its dark side.
What happened next is the stuff of Benghazi-like conspiracy theories.
Many historians point to the 30th of September 2010 as the date when Rafael Correa started breaking bad. The day began as any other in the perpetually sunny capital of Quito. As mountain climbers will note, people at high altitudes sometimes make bad decisions due to the thin air, and Ecuador’s capital Quito stands at 9,350 feet. On this day, the National Police declared to the news media they were going on strike to protest a restructuring of their compensation packages. A group of police officers took a regiment and Rafael Correa decided that the best course of action was to go in person and confront them. Surrounded by his handlers and sustaining himself with a cane after a recent knee operation, Correa berated the police officers, ripped his shirt open like a tropical hulk and dared the officers to shoot him in the chest. “Here I am and if you want to kill me, go ahead and kill me!” he cried.
What happened next is the stuff of Benghazi-like conspiracy theories. Depending on who you believe, Correa was either kidnapped and taken to a police hospital or went there voluntarily. The army eventually responded and a shoot-out ensued between the police and the army in the streets of Quito. Five people were killed, including three police officers, a soldier and a citizen. The president was eventually rescued by the military and restored to his functions about 12 hours after the debacle began. In a country used to coups and presidential turnover, democracy seemed to have won.
From the beginning of his time in office, Rafael Correa was determined not to suffer the fate of his overthrown predecessors. Having experienced the potential for that fate up-close, Rafael Correa reacted by removing his tyrannical constraints. Correa became increasingly belligerent on and off Twitter. Notoriously thin-skinned, Correa made a habit of throwing people in jail for flipping him off. He even stopped his motorcade to personally stick his finger in the nose of an irreverent teenager who Correa later had thrown in jail (the young man was eventually freed after apologizing).
Correa continued his crusade against journalists who wrote things about him with which he didn’t agree. Sometimes he insulted and threatened them; other times he hit them with multi-million-dollar lawsuits, which friendly judges were more than willing to oblige with speedy trials and favorable outcomes for the president.
The Ecuadorian government, it was leaked, spent millions on the Italian firm Hacking Team to spy on its citizens. On his weekly traveling Saturday Show, broadcast across radio, television and the internet, Correa would read tweets from people who insulted him and then reveal their true identities and addresses and call for retaliation. Whilst on the world stage, Correa portrayed himself as a defender of free speech by famously receiving Julian Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy in London; on the homefront, Correa hunted down dissenters and used the entire state apparatus to punish whistleblowers.
The Correa government’s harassment wasn’t only digital: as Gimlet’s Reply All podcast documented in their story Favor Atender, one of Correa’s most fervent Twitter adversaries, Gabriel González, received death threats in February 2015 after making memes that poked fun at things like the government’s sometimes absurdly inefficient healthcare system. Worried for his safety, Gabriel left Quito. Then, at his hideout hundreds of miles away, he received a Sopranos-like wreath of flowers along with pictures of his wife and child (Disclosure: Gabriel briefly freelanced for me as a contractor before the aforementioned events took place), stating it would be a shame if anything were to happen to them. When the price of oil started to decline and Correa’s spending power was curtailed, his popularity began to waver. After this, the president’s digital antics only worsened.
Whenever anyone tweeted something unpleasant to the president, they immediately faced a barrage of incoming attacks and insults.
Carlos Andrés Vera is one journalist for whom online harassment become offline harassment. A documentary filmmaker, publicist and former editor of the Ecuadorian edition of Soho Magazine, Carlos Andrés drew the ire of the Correa government by being highly critical of the administration, including its management of the Ecuadorian Amazon and its mishandling of the safety of the uncontacted tribes that are currently threatened by oil exploitation in and around the Yasunà National Park.
A prolific tweeter, Carlos Andrés frequently engaged his trolls, as well as numerous government ministers and operators. He first felt threatened when a troll account published a photo of his son that was on his phone but that he hadn’t published anywhere. The troll account suggested making a pornographic movie with Carlos Andres’s underaged son.
On more than one occasion he was threatened on the street by individuals who made reference to his digital activism. Then, in 2015, Carlos Andrés was the victim of a secuestro express, or express kidnapping. Usually victims of secuestro express are roughed up and then driven from bank machine to bank machine to empty their account, and then set free. In his case, Carlos Andrés was held and beaten for a number of hours, but the perpetrators never drove him to a bank machine nor did they even take his wallet. The event occurred at a time when Carlos Andrés was involved in fierce and aggressive Twitter debates with high-level government authorities. Carlos Andrés is convinced the incident was coordinated by the government and meant to intimidate him into digital silence. According to Carlos Andrés, “no government, not even Russia or Venezuela, was as advanced as the Correa government in weaponizing Twitter against its citizens.”
Out for a run on a recent Saturday, I noticed a particularly dirty street close to an official billboard declaring that “Quito is once again great.” In May of this year a new mayor had taken office after a surprise victory, slipping his way through a crowded group of 18 candidates and crowning himself mayor despite winning less than 30% of the popular vote (in Ecuador voting is mandatory, and though run-off elections are held at the presidential level, they are not used for municipal elections).
The new mayor, Jorge Yunda, was a former Correa collaborator who had since distanced himself from the now out of favor ex-president. The owner of a number of radio stations whose frequencies were granted in a process many consider to be less than transparent and fair, Yunda shamelessly copied Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan and adopted it to Quito. Unlike Trump, Yunda resisted the temptation to name and shame a public enemy.
Despite the candidate’s poor showing in the popular vote, Yunda’s team brazenly plastered Quito with “Quito is now great again” billboards, despite having yet to accomplish anything. Angry with the juxtaposition of a government declaring victory whilst having a major garbage management crisis on its hands, I took a picture and trolled the mayor.
.@lorohomero, explain to me once again, this time slowly, how is it that Quito is great again?
By the time I finished my run I had regretted my tweet. The tweet wasn’t going to accomplish anything and Twitter doesn’t need more angry voices shouting into deep internet space. I thought about deleting it, and when I arrived home and I opened my phone it took me by surprise to see that in 10 minutes the tweet had received 134 responses, including one from the mayor asking me for more time to get his house in order.
The volume of responses was surprising because it was early on a Saturday morning, so I dug a little further and quickly picked up on a familiar pattern: many of the accounts of the respondents had less than 50 followers and they only followed a handful of people. Their usernames were often combinations of names plus a string of numbers. Most were saying more or less the same thing in response to my tweet. Soon thereafter, Twitter began automatically deleting some of the responses as if in recognition that the pattern of behavior was malicious.
I say the behavior was familiar because I had seen it before. I was a vocal critic of the outgoing municipal administration (May 2014-May 2019) lead by Mauricio Rodas (44). The mayor then reached out through a mutual friend and offered me a job, which I turned down.
Dear Matt, Thank you for your email. I’m sorry you won’t be able to join the team. I would have liked you to but I understand your reasons. I’m really enthusiastic about the idea that you might be able to collaborate with us through a consulting gig. Let’s please set this up through Carolina so we can do this immediately. A hug, Mauricio.
Though my relationship with the mayor was cordial, I continued to offer my critique of his administration’s work. After some time I began to receive messages that attacked me and used personal information, including a number of tweets that attacked my and my wife’s fertility.
@ecuamatt poor guy, by the way is your wife (Michelle) pregnant yet? Can you not yet get it up? Hahaha
Aside from its crudeness, what was surprising was that the then-mayor (2014-2019), Mauricio Rodas, had been elected to counter the increasingly overbearing influence of Rafael Correa. Promising to stand up to the president, Rodas declared that it was time for a new form of politics without the tricks and dirty games popularized by the Correa government. Yet here was Mauricio Rodas using the same means by which Correa attacked and silenced his critics.
A company close to Rafael Correa was the first in Ecuador to begin to monetize the practice of Twitter trolling.
I researched my trolls and noticed a number of patterns between their accounts and a number of accounts of certain high-level municipal officials who appeared to be outsourcing the management of their twitter profiles, including who they followed and which images they used in their profiles and their posts. I then prepared a dossier that pointed to the intellectual authors behind the fake accounts and, in good faith, asked the mayor and two of his advisors to look into the kind of behavior that was being undertaken on his administration’s behalf. I asked them to consider the impact on democratic culture and public debate should politicians like him replicate the behavior of silencing critics through intimidation tactics. I received no reply, though the tweets and most of the accounts that attacked me were deleted. The trolling of the mayor’s critics, however, continued. One of the recipients of my dossier, Rodas’ communication secretary, later became a communications advisor to the incoming Yunda administration.
A company close to Rafael Correa was the first in Ecuador to begin to monetize the practice of Twitter trolling, and Twitter itself was uncomfortably close to this company. Ximah Digital was started by young businessmen from the port city of Guayaquil whose main asset was their close connections to the government. When Twitter began selling ads in Latin America in 2012, it hired the region-wide firm Internet Media Services (IMS) to re-sell its advertising products in the region. Twitter then hired me in 2013 to manage its relationship with IMS (because I worked from a country in which Twitter had no office and am not an American citizen, I was technically hired as a foreign contractor). IMS, an accomplished digital re-seller with operations in much of Latin America, did not have an office of its own Ecuador and thus used Ximah Digital as its official national re-seller.
IMS choosing Ximah as its re-seller was a strange decision, as the small digital agency did not have established relationships amongst the country’s largest brands. Ximah did, however, have high-level government connections, and the government quickly became Twitter’s largest client in Ecuador.
During my time managing the relationship between Twitter and IMS, numerous individuals came to me with accusations that Ximah was managing troll centers whilst acting as the country’s exclusive Twitter sales channel, but I initially didn’t take the threats seriously. The accusations mostly came from individuals aligned with the opposition and, in that moment, I naively thought they were politically motivated. I went so far as to unwittingly take Ximah representatives to meetings with political actors Ximah was allegedly trolling and I defended Ximah publicly. I also don’t recall raising the issue with IMS before I left Twitter in May of 2014.
Ximah then lost plausible deniability on the 5th of September 2014 when a video circulated on social media showing that a number of well-known troll accounts were controlled by Ximah Digital employees. IMS responded to the controversy by firing Ximah Digital and opening its own office. Afterwards, Ximah went quiet for some time, then re-launched itself as a digital consultancy focused on political marketing.
When it worked defending Rafael Correa, the troll centers were easy to detect. Usually the troll accounts tweeted the exact same message as every other troll account in an attempt to control trending topics. The government also used its large number of verified accounts, which hold an extra weight in Twitter’s trending topic algorithm, to control the day’s conversation. The troll accounts could be brutal: Whenever anyone tweeted something unpleasant to the president, they immediately faced a barrage of incoming attacks and insults.
So how does one pay for trolling services? According to past reporting and confirmed by past and current employees, the government would often disguise contracts as general social media management RFPs (request-for-projects), then ensure their provider won the contract. In other instances companies were overpaid to provide legitimate services and there would be an agreement beforehand to provide trolling services in addition to the legitimate services.
Tracking the contracts can be tricky: As the investigative journalists at the leak-publishing site Milhojas have reported, a network of over 16 agencies, some of whom listed unaware farm-workers as their general managers on official documents, earned hundreds of thousands of dollars in government contracts. Many of these agencies shared a single official address, the same address as Ximah Digital.
According to company insiders, Ximah has since sophisticated its operation and now exports its services to other countries in Latin America. Whereas reverse image searches used to reveal the origin of their fake profile pictures, Ximah now scours the Ecuadorian coastal provinces and takes pictures of digital exiles to use their unique pictures as profile images. Ximah has also invested in technology, including AI, to enable automatic responses that are no longer copy-paste and therefore harder to detect. Ximah also trains other digital agencies to be trolls: Former employees from Ximah and employees from other local agencies, including agencies that manage major international clients in industries such as telecommunications, confirmed that Ximah trained their staff how to troll.
If companies like Ximah were founded because of an ideological conviction and affinity with Rafael Correa, they no longer have any qualms about who they work for. One morning I received a WhatsApp message alerting me to a corruption scandal involving a politician that used to be aligned with Rafael Correa and who was running for mayor of Guayaquil, Ecuador’s largest city. The sender’s number came from Cambodia, which was strange. The language and the aesthetics of the “leaks” page was reminiscent of past work I knew to be from Ximah: an anonymous source then confirmed that Ximah had been hired to manage the slanderous campaign on behalf of Cynthia Viteri, the eventual winning candidate of Guayaquil’s municipal elections. That fact was also confirmed by a political operative close to the Viteri campaign. Viteri’s political party was meant to be the sworn enemy of Rafael Correa. Viteri herself was the victim of Ximah trolling. In numerous campaigns throughout the years, Viteri promised a break from the Correa-era demagoguery… and yet.
Rafael Correa eventually made a career defining miscalculation. Though prior to leaving office Correa reformed the constitution he authored in order to remove the term limits he once insisted upon, he left power temporarily in the hands of his first vice president, the one not in jail for corruption charges, LenÃn Moreno.
Tensions between the out-going and in-coming presidents started to show in the campaign, but no-one anticipated the complete 180 that would happen when the wheelchair bound Moreno would assume office. Throwing his predecessor and former mentor under the bus, Moreno promised to investigate and prosecute corruption “caiga quién caiga,” or regardless of who falls. Correa went berserk. Moreno, true to his promise, lost his first and second vice presidents to corruption charges. Moreno also held a referendum to reinstate term limits.
Correa spends his days tweeting hate from an attic in Belgium to his weakened but still dangerous troll army. He, the man who once wielded the power of a state against his enemies, now wallows in his own victimhood. So belligerent were his posts that Facebook closed his account. Twitter hasn’t censored him. Correa talks about returning to Ecuador as a vice-presidential candidate in two years. Ecuador’s weak institutions and strong journalists tremble at the thought.
In his drawn-out interview with Joe Rogan, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey speaks sincerely about the desire to have Twitter become the world’s discussion form. When Twitter works well it can foster debate and generate otherwise impossible interactions between people from all walks of life. It is clear that Jack firmly believes in this mission.
At the same time, Jack is notoriously tone-deaf, as was put on display when he tweeted about the benefits of vacationing in Myanmar without so much as a thought for the victims of the Mynmar government’s ongoing genocidal campaign against its Muslim population. As a former insider and as a close watcher of Twitter’s growth and evolution, I am not convinced Twitter really feels the urgency to make its platform a safer space for healthy debate and accurate information.
Twitter’s indifference is Latin America’s loss. For much of the history of Latin America, media ownership has been concentrated in the hands of a few who generally held sway over public opinion. Media outlets often belonged to prominent businessmen from important industries. The concentration of power in the hands of a few brokers from business, media and politics represented a Petri dish for corruption.
Twitter is raw, open and immediate, allowing the crowd to determine relevance.
Twitter blew up in Latin America because it represented a true opportunity to break from the aforementioned traditional power structure. Unlike Facebook, which tries to curate the world’s information to increase our engagement, Twitter is raw, open and immediate, allowing the crowd to determine relevance. All of a sudden voices that were excluded from national conversations can now be heard, and they can determine and influence debates, much like the #BlackLivesMatter (2013) and #MeToo (2017) movements in the United States.
Information that used to be suppressed now achieves its goal of being free. It is no coincidence that the rise of Twitter coincides with the unraveling of a corruption scandal that compares in size and scope only to the corruption inherent in the European colonization of the Americas. In the digital age it is harder to hide information. Corruption, the region’s chief operating system, leaves an Exxon Valdez-sized oil-slick of a paper trail. Those who benefit from corruption are, for the first time, vulnerable.
If information is power, that means that when information is democratized, power is democratized. But the expression of that power, meaning the systems through which that power is exercised, do not necessarily democratize. Indeed, maybe our greatest democratic gap of the modern era is found in the fact that humans can produce a big bang of information every day, but our democracy, as the Argentine democratic hacktivist Santiago Siri has stated, can only process one bit of information per citizen roughly every four years. We have sophisticated users trying to stuff their sophisticated thoughts, expressions and identities into a system with wildly outdated hardware and software that appears to be infected with a powerful firmware virus called corruption.
And not everyone has an interest in upgrading the software. In the same way that a small number of powerful Bitcoin miners can prevent Bitcoin from increasing the block size, there are powerful actors who benefit from preventing an upgrade to democracy. Principally, those actors who have figured out how to hack and monopolize the old system will seek to ensure the new system does not threaten their concentrated hold on power. Even if they started out as rebels in the old system, as Rafael Correa once did, the rebels eventually learn how to be successful in the old model and hence become its strongest defenders.
Indeed, the staunchest defenders of concentrated power are those who hold that power. Increasingly desperate to stay at the helm, the holders-on employ mafia-like tactics to defend their mafia-like organizations, all in the name of their good intentions and sacred causes wrapped in a bow of “for the people.” In this world, however, there is only one truth, and that truth weaves a thread between all Latin American governments, be they dictatorial or democratic, left or right, loved or despaired: that idea is that the ends always justifies the means.
Twitter threatens the concentration of power of the old system, which is why Twitter becomes the battleground between tyranny and democracy. The winners in the old system, as discussed here, are fighting back, and that fight is coming to a democracy near you. By not taking sides, Twitter is ultimately taking a side. By siding with the trolls in the name of free speech, Twitter is standing against everyone else’s free speech. Twitter’s troll centers in Latin America aren’t an unfortunate minor externality or a regional nuance: they’re a business model that threatens to take away any value that the platform might create. The stakes are unimaginably high.
