The 74th Block: An economy built on personal data to feed the rich
Eat the rich, the kids echo Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
This week…
Google reinvents search—again—to include ‘context’ (Dieter Bohn, The Verge), TikTok hits 1 billion active monthly users (Echo Wong, Reuters), Facebook really, really wants to target tweens (Georgia Wells and Jeff Horwitz, WSJ $), and YouTube bans vaccine misinformation (Dan Milmo, The Guardian).
Did the people who coined the buzzwords ‘digital economy’ and ‘online marketplace,’ have any idea how it would look like? Did they know that the main commodity is personal data; that the buying and selling revolve around that?
Right-wing health care providers make millions off hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin
Micah Lee for The Intercept:
America’s Frontline Doctors, a right-wing group founded last year to promote pro-Trump doctors during the coronavirus pandemic, is working in tandem with a small network of health care companies to sow distrust in the Covid-19 vaccine, dupe tens of thousands of people into seeking ineffective treatments for the disease, and then sell consultations and millions of dollars’ worth of those medications. The data indicate patients spent at least $15 million — and potentially much more — on consultations and medications combined.
Surprise! 🙃
Half of unvaccinated workers say they’d rather quit than get a shot – but real-world data suggest few are following through
Jack J. Barry, Ann Christiano and Annie Neimand for The Conversation:
Past vaccine mandates, such as for the flu, have led to similar outcomes: Few people actually quit their jobs over them.
And our research suggests in public communications there are a few things employers can do to minimize the number of workers who quit over the policy.
It starts with building trust with employees. Companies should also make it as easy as possible to get vaccinated – such as by providing on-site vaccine drives, paid time off to get the shot and deal with side effects, and support for child care or transportation.
Finally, research shows it helps if companies engage trusted messengers including doctors, colleagues and family to share information on the vaccine.
In other words, vaccine mandates are unlikely to result in a wave of resignations – but they are likely to lead to a boost in vaccination rates.
Facebook grew Marketplace to 1 billion users. Now scammers use it to target people around the world
Craig Silverman, A.C. Thompson and Peter Elkind for ProPublica:
As a backstop to its automated systems, Facebook Marketplace relies upon roughly 400 workers employed by consulting firm Accenture to respond to user complaints and to review listings flagged by the software. Until recently, Facebook Marketplace allowed these low-paid contract workers to police its site by giving them largely unfettered access to Facebook Messenger inboxes, ProPublica has learned. This broad access resulted in workers spying on romantic partners and other privacy violations, according to current and former Accenture employees. The employees said the efforts they made were rarely successful in preventing fraud.
In Malay, we say, harapkan pegar, pegar makan padi.
What I read, watch and listen to…
I’m reading a cheat sheet to all of the antitrust cases against Big Tech in 2021 by Nicolás Rivero for Quartz.
I’m also reading ICIJ’s Pandora Papers investigations.
I’m watching with second-hand embarrassment 🤡:
I’m listening to how games teach AI to learn for itself on MIT Tech Review’s In Machine We Trust.
Chart of the week
This diagram from this excerpt by Owain Evans et al. about how truthful GPT-3 is (Answer: Not very) is amusing enough that you will want to read the whole paper. Skip to the appendix for more examples.