Many genetic testing sites ‘fail to outline privacy implications’; The Irish Times, June 22, 2017

Elaine Edwards, The Irish Times; Many genetic testing sites ‘fail to outline privacy implications’

"Many websites offering genetic testing for commercial purposes fail to outline the privacy implications of such tests, Data Protection Commissioner Helen Dixon has said.

Speaking at the inaugural Data Summit in Dublin organised by the Department of the Taoiseach, Ms Dixon outlined the challenges to privacy from the so-called digital revolution, but also the opportunities she said new European Union legislation would bring.

The commissioner noted “fantastically positive examples” of what data-driven technology had given us, including better understanding of climate change, combating hospital infections and identifying genetic markers for cancer.

However, Ms Dixon said context was king in assessing the circumstances in which data was being processed." 

Facebook doesn't need to ban fake news to fight it; Guardian,11/25/16

Alex Hern, Guardian; Facebook doesn't need to ban fake news to fight it:

"Those examples are the obvious extreme of Facebook’s problem: straightforward hoaxes, mendaciously claiming to be sites that they aren’t. Dealing with them should be possible, and may even be something the social network can tackle algorithmically, as it prefers to do.

But they exist at the far end of a sliding scale, and there’s little agreement on where to draw the line. Open questions like this explain why many are wary of pushing Facebook to “take action” against fake news. “Do we really want Facebook exercising this sort of top-down power to determine what is true or false?” asks Politico’s Jack Shafer. “Wouldn’t we be revolted if one company owned all the newsstands and decided what was proper and improper reading fare?”

The thing is, Facebook isn’t like the newsstands. And it’s the differences between the two that are causing many of the problems we see today."