In 2017 Target bought a same-day home-delivery company called Shipt for $550 million. Shipt now services half of Target’s stores, reports Motherboard, and employs more than 100,000 gig workers. Unfortunately, they’re working for a company that “has a track record of censoring and retaliating against workers for asking basic questions about their working conditions or expressing dissent,” reports Motherboard. For example,…
Tag: Facebook groups
Facebook, Twitter Shutter Pro-Trump Network That Used AI To Create Fake People and Push Conspiracies
On Friday, Facebook and Twitter shut down a network of fake accounts that pushed pro-Trump messages all while “masquerading” as Americans with AI-generated faces as profile photos. The Verge reports: In a blog post, Facebook said that it connected the accounts to a US-based media company called The BL that, it claims, has ties to Epoch Media Group. In August, NBC…
Wikipedia’s Co-Founder Takes On Facebook With Ad-Free Social Network
Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales has launched a social network called WT:Social. It has no financial association with Wikipedia and operates on donations, not advertising. The Next Web reports: WT:Social went live last month and is currently nearing 50,000 users. The company is rolling out access slowly; when I signed up, I was approximately number 28,000 on the waitlist. Alternatively, you can…
Black Salve Is A Dangerous Fake Cancer Cure, But It Continues To Flourish In Facebook Groups
Even as Facebook has cracked down on anti-vaxxers and peddlers of snake oil cure-alls, a particularly grotesque form of fake cancer treatment has flourished in private groups on Facebook. From a report: Black salve, a caustic black paste that eats through flesh, is enthusiastically recommended in dedicated groups as a cure for skin and breast cancer — and for other types…
Facebook Shuts Down New Accounts From Iran and Russia Spreading Disinformation
Facebook on Monday removed nearly 200 newly discovered fake accounts linked separately to Iran and to Russia’s Internet Research Agency. The takedowns demonstrate that foreign influence operations are already targeting the 2020 election, but provide evidence that Russia’s notorious troll farm is struggling to regain anything close to the influence in held in 2016. The Daily Beast reports: The new wave…
Facebook Removes Hundreds of Propaganda Accounts Targeting Iran and Qatar
According to BuzzFeed News, a network of websites and accounts have been using Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other social platforms to sow propaganda targeting Iran and Qatar. “The accounts, which have now been taken down, appear to have been professionally run by PR firms based in the Middle East and Africa,” the report says. From the report: In August, Facebook announced…
When Online Teachers See Child Abuse
Rick Zeman (Slashdot reader #15,628) shares “a thought-provoking article on when online English teachers see child abuse at the other end of their cameras.” Of the 24 online teachers interviewed, about two thirds told “harrowing” stories, EdSurge reports, and within the teachers’ Facebook groups new reports “surface nearly every week.” The teachers post in these private Facebook groups because they aren’t…
Some Americans Have Fled The Country To Escape Student Loan Debt
“Some student loan borrowers are packing their bags and fleeing from the U.S. to other countries, where the cost of living is often lower and debt collectors wield less power over them,” reports CNBC: Chad Haag considered living in a cave to escape his student debt. He had a friend doing it. But after some plotting, he settled on what he…