More Americans are getting news on TikTok, bucking the trend seen on most other social media sites; Pew Research Center, November 15, 2023

KATERINA EVA MATSA, Pew Research Center; More Americans are getting news on TikTok, bucking the trend seen on most other social media sites

[Kip Currier: This November 2023 Pew Research Center article about news consumption by Americans--particularly increasing numbers of teens--who use TikTok should be concerning to anyone who has an interest in democratic principles, informed citizenries, accuracy of information, national security, and public health.

It's not going to be easy, though, to stem access to dis- and misinformation and instill more guardrails against conspiracy theories and hate speech (--looking at you too, Elon/Twitter-cum-X) for Big Tech platforms like TikTok (though states like Montana are trying to provide bulwarks) that are well-documented for-profit purveyors of disinformation and misinformation.

One step in raising awareness of social media platform concerns is to get more informed about TikTok's meteoric rise from new-kid-on-the-social-media-block just a few years ago to prodigious social media sensation/Trojan horse threat today: the Washington Post's May 2023 "How TikTok went from teen sensation to political pariah" provides an informative timeline of TikTok's onset and vitality.

A significant concern of TikTok usage and market penetration is public health-related: Social media companies like TikTok and Meta utilize known (and unknown "trade secret-shielded") design features that foster addictive consumption of their content, which, in part, is having documented negative impacts on mental health. Bloomberg's April 2023 article "TikTok’s Algorithm Keeps Pushing Suicide to Vulnerable Kids" is one example.

Ongoing concerns about TikTok's threats to U.S. national security and cybersecurity have also prompted the Biden administration to speak out forcefully in March 2023.

The burden of addressing the "information threats" these sites present is going to be on schools and public libraries: to advance "social media information literacy" and critical thinking skills in young people, as well as persons of all ages. Unfortunately, libraries are, in many instances, jumping pell-mell on the TikTok bandwagon: rhapsodically promoting the platform, both tacitly and overtly, without commensurately weighing the substantive downsides of its use for community engagement and messaging that, admittedly, can have positive upshots, like combatting rising rates of book challenges and bans.

Notice, too, on television the increased Public Relations/Crisis Management "feel-good ad" campaigning that TikTok--like Meta/Facebook--has been engaging in the past few years to counter reporting about the burgeoning amounts of disinformation and misinformation on these sites, as well as other real concerns highlighted above. These ads employ folksy, "nothing-to-worry-about-on-here" messages in attempts to downplay the genuine dangers that they represent to individuals and democratic societies. The reality, however, is that there is bonafide "stuff" to worry about regarding TikTok and its ilk -- and ample evidence of these intersectional problems to vindicate taking affirmative steps now to mitigate and push back against their negative impacts.

Are you listening, U.S. Congress and state legislatures?]

"A small but growing share of U.S. adults say they regularly get news on TikTok. This is in contrast with many other social media sites, where news consumption has either declined or stayed about the same in recent years.

In just three years, the share of U.S. adults who say they regularly get news from TikTok has more than quadrupled, from 3% in 2020 to 14% in 2023.

TikTok, primarily known for short-form video sharing, has become especially popular among teens – two-thirds of whom report ever using the platform – as well as young adults."

Whistleblower says Facebook is a US 'national security issue'; Fox News, October 5, 2021

Caitlin McFall |, Fox News; Whistleblower says Facebook is a US 'national security issue'

"Haugen said her testimony was not an attempt to shut down Facebook, but rather to push Congress to dive into the complex arena of regulating social media giants.

Democrats and Republicans applauded her testimony and in rare bipartisan fashion agreed more is needed to be done to address growing concerns surrounding the social media network." 

Ransomware is a national security threat and a big business — and it’s wreaking havoc; The Washington Post, May 15, 2021

 

Ellen Nakashima and Rachel Lerman, The Washington Post; Ransomware is a national security threat and a big business — and it’s wreaking havoc

 

"But many of the actors are in countries outside the reach of U.S. and allied authorities. DarkSide, for example, is believed to be based in Russia and many of its communications are in Russian. 

 

“They’ve become the 21st century equivalent of countries that sheltered pirates,” said Daniel, the Obama White House cyber coordinator. “We have to impose diplomatic and economic consequences so they don’t see it as in their interest to harbor those criminals.”"

Department of Defense discusses the ethics of AI use at Carnegie Mellon; Pittsburgh Business Times, March 15, 2019

Julia Mericle, Pittsburgh Business Times;

Department of Defense discusses the ethics of AI use at Carnegie Mellon

"As artificial intelligence looms closer and closer to inevitable integration into nearly every aspect of national security, the U.S. Department of Defense tasked the Defense Innovation Board with drafting a set of guiding principles for the ethical use of AI in such cases. 

That DIB wants to know what the public thinks.

The DIB’s subcommittee on science and technology hosted a public listening session Thursday at Carnegie Mellon University focused on “The Ethical and Responsible Use of Artificial Intelligence for the Department of Defense.” 

It’s one of three DIB listening sessions scheduled for across the U.S. to collect public thoughts and concerns. Using the ideas collected, the DIB will put together its guidelines in the coming months and announce a full recommendation for the DoD later this year."

Apple Was Slow to Act on FaceTime Bug That Allows Spying on iPhones; The New York Times, January 29, 2019

Nicole Perlroth, The New York Times; Apple Was Slow to Act on FaceTime Bug That Allows Spying on iPhones


"A bug this easy to exploit is every company’s worst security nightmare and every spy agency, cybercriminal and stalker’s dream. In emails to Apple’s product security team, Ms. Thompson noted that she and her son were just everyday citizens who believed they had uncovered a flaw that could undermine national security." 

“My fear is that this flaw could be used for nefarious purposes,” she wrote in a letter provided to The New York Times. “Although this certainly raises privacy and security issues for private individuals, there is the potential that this could impact national security if, for example, government members were to fall victim to this eavesdropping flaw."

Drone Scare Near New York City Shows Hazard Posed to Air Travel; The New York Times, January 23, 2019

Patrick McGeehan and Cade Metz, The New York Times; Drone Scare Near New York City Shows Hazard Posed to Air Travel

"The disruption was all the more alarming because it came just one month after reported drone sightings caused the shutdown of Gatwick Airport in London, one of the busiest in Europe.

The upheaval at Newark illustrated how vulnerable the air-travel system is to the proliferation of inexpensive drones that can weigh as much as 50 pounds and are capable of flying high and fast enough to get in the path of commercial jets, experts on aviation safety and drone technology said. It also raised questions about whether airports are prepared enough to identify drones and prevent them from paralyzing travel and leaving passengers stranded.

“This is a really disturbing trend,” said John Halinski, former deputy administrator of the federal Transportation Security Administration. “It is a real problem because drones are multiplying every day. They really pose a threat in a number of ways to civil aviation.”"

EU Members Push For Private Censorship Of Terrorist Content On The Internet; Intellectual Property Watch, December 6, 2018

Monika Ermert, Intellectual Property Watch; EU Members Push For Private Censorship Of Terrorist Content On The Internet

"According to the planned regulation on preventing-terrorist-content-online hosters, cloud providers and all sorts of internet platform providers must delete terrorist content upon receiving orders from Europol or relevant member state law enforcement agencies in just one hour.

But they would also have to make their own assessments about the terrorist nature of content upon referrals by the authorities and even take proactive steps for “detecting, identifying, and expeditiously removing or disabling access to terrorist content” (see paragraph 6 of the draft text)."

Navy Official: Concerns About Intellectual Property Rights Becoming More 'Acute'; National Defense, NDIA's Business & Technology Magazine, November 29, 2018

Connie Lee, National Defense, NDIA's Business & Technology Magazine;

Navy Official: Concerns About Intellectual Property Rights Becoming More 'Acute'

"Capt. Samuel Pennington, major program manager for surface training systems, said the fear of losing data rights can sometimes make companies reluctant to work with the government.
“We get feedback sometimes where they’re not willing to bid on a contract where we have full data rights,” he said. “Industry [is] not going to do that because they have their secret sauce and they don’t want to release it.”
Pennington said having IP rights would allow the Defense Department to more easily modernize and sustain equipment.
“Our initiative is to get as much data rights, or buy a new product that has open architecture to the point where [the] data rights that we do have are sufficient, where we can recompete that down the road,” he said. This would prevent the Navy from relying on the original manufacturer for future work on the system, he noted.
The issue is also being discussed on Capitol Hill, Merritt added. The fiscal year 2018 National Defense Authorization Act requires the Pentagon to develop policy on the acquisition or licensing of intellectual property. Additionally, the NDAA requires the department to negotiate a price for technical data rights of major weapon systems."

From Mountain of CCTV Footage, Pay Dirt: 2 Russians Are Named in Spy Poisoning; The New York Times, September 5, 2018

Ellen Barry, The New York Times;

From Mountain of CCTV Footage, Pay Dirt: 2 Russians Are Named in Spy Poisoning

[Kip Currier: Fascinating example of good old-fashioned, "methodical, plodding" detective work, combined with 21st century technologies of mass surveillance and facial recognition by machines and gifted humans.

As I think about the chapters on privacy and surveillance in the ethics textbook I'm writing, this story is a good reminder of the socially-positive aspects of new technologies, amid often legitimate concerns about their demonstrated and potential downsides. In the vein of prior stories I've posted on this blog about the use, for example, of drones for animal conservation and monitoring efforts, the identification of the two Russian operatives in the Salisbury, UK poisoning case highlights how the uses and applications of digital age technologies like mass surveillance frequently fall outside the lines of "all bad" or "all good".]

"“It’s almost impossible in this country to hide, almost impossible,” said John Bayliss, who retired from the Government Communications Headquarters, Britain’s electronic intelligence agency, in 2010. “And with the new software they have, you can tell the person by the way they walk, or a ring they wear, or a watch they wear. It becomes even harder.”

The investigation into the Skripal poisoning, known as Operation Wedana, will stand as a high-profile test of an investigative technique Britain has pioneered: accumulating mounds of visual data and sifting through it...

Ceri Hurford-Jones, the managing director of Salisbury’s local radio station, saluted investigators for their “sheer skill in getting a grip on this, and finding out who these people were.”

It may not have been the stuff of action films, but Mr. Hurford-Jones did see something impressive about the whole thing.

“It’s methodical, plodding,” he said. “But, you know, that’s the only way you can do these things. There is a bit of Englishness in it.”"

AI Ethics: Silicon Valley Should Take A Seat At The DoD Table; Breaking Defense, August 29, 2018

Jonathan D. Moreno, Breaking Defense;

AI Ethics: Silicon Valley Should Take A Seat At The DoD Table 

 

"As well as their role in the work, scientists and engineers need to consider the consequences of their deliberate absence from a conversation. If they don’t insist on building acceptable and verifiable safeguards for their work into a system someone else will, and not necessarily in a form they would endorse. To have a voice at the table, you need to have a seat at the table."

Can Facebook, or Anybody, Solve the Internet’s Misinformation Problem?; The New York Times, August 22, 2018

Farhad Manjoo, The New York Times;Can Facebook, or Anybody, Solve the Internet’s Misinformation Problem?

"Alex Stamos, who until recently was Facebook’s chief security officer, has a dimmer view. 

In an article published on Wednesday on Lawfare, a news site that covers national security, Mr. Stamos wrote that the string of attacks revealed by Facebook, Microsoft and others were evidence that “America’s adversaries believe that it is still both safe and effective to attack U.S. democracy using American technologies and the freedoms we cherish.”

The government’s failure to address these threats have left the United States “unprepared to protect the 2018 elections,” Mr. Stamos said. He outlined a set of legislative, regulatory and law enforcement steps Americans might take to secure their digital house.

If we move fast, he said, we might be able to salvage 2020."

The disinformation factory threatening national security; Washington Post, February 16, 2018

David Von Drehle, Washington Post; The disinformation factory threatening national security

"“Falsehood flies, and the truth comes limping after it,” wrote Jonathan Swift more than 300 years ago. What would he have said in the age of Twitter?

A sobering paper published in the winter edition of Strategic Studies Quarterly — the strategy journal of the U.S. Air Force — explains how propagandists manipulate social media in their cyberwars against the United States. Hostile forces, employing automated bots, leverage the blind spots and biases of unwitting Americans to help them send falsehoods flying to spread division and demoralization.

Figuring out how to fight back, in a free society of open communication, is the most urgent national security challenge we face. Friday’s indictments by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III of a Russian trolling operation is a welcome sign that we are joining the battle. But so far, we are losing. And should we fail, the future will belong to authoritarian states that protect their virtual borders by controlling Internet access."

They Are Watching You—and Everything Else on the Planet; National Geographic, February 2018

Robert Draper, National Geographic; They Are Watching You—and Everything Else on the Planet

"University of Texas American studies professor Randolph Lewis writes in his new book, Under Surveillance: Being Watched in Modern America, “Surveillance is often exhausting to those who really feel its undertow: it overwhelms with its constant badgering, its omnipresent mysteries, its endless tabulations of movements, purchases, potentialities.”

The desire for privacy, Acquisti says, “is a universal trait among humans, across cultures and across time. You find evidence of it in ancient Rome, ancient Greece, in the Bible, in the Quran. What’s worrisome is that if all of us at an individual level suffer from the loss of privacy, society as a whole may realize its value only after we’ve lost it for good.”

Is a looming state of Orwellian bleakness already a fait accompli? Or is there a more hopeful outlook, one in which a world under watch in many ways might be better off? Consider the 463 infrared camera traps the World Wildlife Fund uses in China to monitor the movements of the threatened giant panda. Or the thermal imaging devices that rangers deploy at night to detect poachers in Kenya’s Masai Mara National Reserve. Or the sound-activated underwater camera system developed by UC San Diego researchers that tracks the nearly extinct vaquita porpoise in the Sea of Cortez. Or the “forest watcher” cameras installed to help protect the shrinking timberlands of Sri Lanka."

With Closed-Circuit TV, Satellites And Phones, Millions Of Cameras Are Watching; Fresh Air, NPR, February 8, 2018

Terry Gross, Fresh Air, NPR; With Closed-Circuit TV, Satellites And Phones, Millions Of Cameras Are Watching

""Journalist Robert Draper writes in National Geographic that the proliferation of cameras focused on the public has led "to the point where we're expecting to be voyeur and exhibitionist 24/7."

"TERRY GROSS, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. My guest Robert Draper says one of the greatest threats to our democracy is gerrymandering, in which the party in power in a state redraws the map of election districts to give the advantage to that party's candidates. Since districts are redrawn only every 10 years following the census, gerrymandering can almost guarantee that the majority party will stay in power. There are a couple of gerrymandering cases currently before the Supreme Court. Draper has reported on gerrymandering, and we'll talk about that a little later.

First, we're going to talk about his new article "They Are Watching You - And Everything Else On The Planet" published in this month's National Geographic. It's about state-of-the-art surveillance from closed-circuit TV to drones and satellites and the questions these surveillance technologies raise about privacy. As part of his research, he spent time in surveillance control rooms in London. And he went to a tech company in San Francisco whose mission is to image the entire Earth every day. Draper is a contributing writer for National Geographic and a writer at large for The New York Times Magazine.

Robert Draper, welcome back to FRESH AIR. So let's start with surveillance. Why did you choose England as the place to report on surveillance?"

What It’s Like to Live in a Surveillance State; New York Times, February 3, 2018

James A. Millward, New York Times; What It’s Like to Live in a Surveillance State

"Will the big-data police state engulf the rest of China? The rest of the world?

As China’s profile grows on the international stage, everyone would do well to ask if what happens in Xinjiang will stay in Xinjiang."

Airlines Are Giving Your Face to Homeland Security; Daily Beast, August 9, 2017

Aliya Sternstein, Daily Beast; Airlines Are Giving Your Face to Homeland Security

"The agency admits there are many privacy issues surrounding this “partner process” that need some resolving (PDF). As CBP’s own June privacy impact assessment states, there remains “a risk that commercial air carriers will use the photographs for purposes beyond departure verification” because “commercial air carriers are not collecting photographs on CBP’s behalf or under CBP authorities.”

Delta and JetBlue said they do not store or directly access passenger biometric data...

To Jeramie Scott, national security counsel at the Electronic Privacy Council, her vision of a planet blanketed by interconnected security cameras and computers seemed all too plausible.

“I don’t think that’s a crazy world. It’s just a scary world for us,” Scott said. “The mission creep possibility is a real, real thing.”

ACLU senior policy analyst Jay Stanley said it would be convenient to walk through checkpoints where you have to stop and show papers today, but would you want to take out your passport and show it to authorities every 10 feet?

“If your face is your passport you’re doing the same thing—we end up with a checkpoint society where people are being tracked,” Stanley said."

We Lose Privacy If We Believe This Fiction; Forbes, July 25, 2017

Frank Miniter, Forbes; We Lose Privacy If We Believe This Fiction

"In this speeding blur of an age we are losing our private lives to a narrative telling us to give up privacy for perceived security. All around are foreshadows of the world Ray Bradbury described in Fahrenheit 451 and that George Orwell warned us of in 1984, but too many of us are having a hard time seeing beyond a false narrative that many in the Washington establishment, from much of the political class to the intelligence agencies, are peddling to empower themselves."

The ethics issue: Should we abandon privacy online?; New Scientist, July 5, 2017

Douglas Heaven, New Scientist; The ethics issue: Should we abandon privacy online?

"In an age where fear of terrorism is high in the public consciousness, governments are likely to err on the side of safety. Over the past decade, the authorities have been pushing for – and getting – greater powers of surveillance than they have ever had, all in the name of national security.

The downsides are not immediately obvious. After all, you might think you have nothing to hide. But most of us have perfectly legal secrets we’d rather someone else didn’t see. And although the chances of the authorities turning up to take you away in a black SUV on the basis of your WhatsApp messages are small in free societies, the chances of insurance companies raising your premiums are not."

EU seeks to outlaw 'backdoors' in new data privacy proposals; Guardian, June 19, 2017

Samuel Gibbs, Guardian; EU seeks to outlaw 'backdoors' in new data privacy proposals

"The ePrivacy directive change proposals seek to bring the 2002 law in line with the newer GDPR and attempt to keep pace with technological development. They also cover the tracking of users for advertising, the collection of metadata and behavioural data, an the explicit consent required to do so.

The amendments will have to journey through a multi-stage process including approval by the European parliament and European council before becoming law, but they were welcomed by privacy and security experts."

Making Google the Censor; New York Times, June 12, 2017

Daphne Keller, New York Times; Making Google the Censor

"Prime Minister Theresa May’s political fortunes may be waning in Britain, but her push to make internet companies police their users’ speech is alive and well. In the aftermath of the recent London attacks, Ms. May called platforms like Google and Facebook breeding grounds for terrorism. She has demanded that they build tools to identify and remove extremist content. Leaders of the Group of 7 countries recently suggested the same thing. Germany wants to fine platforms up to 50 million euros if they don’t quickly take down illegal content. And a European Union draft law would make YouTube and other video hosts responsible for ensuring that users never share violent speech.

The fears and frustrations behind these proposals are understandable. But making private companies curtail user expression in important public forums — which is what platforms like Twitter and Facebook have become — is dangerous. The proposed laws would harm free expression and information access for journalists, political dissidents and ordinary users. Policy makers should be candid about these consequences and not pretend that Silicon Valley has silver-bullet technology that can purge the internet of extremist content without taking down important legal speech with it."