Techmeme
December 29, 2019, 6:00 PM

Top News

Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
IoT device vendor Wyze says a server leak exposed data, including email addresses, camera user IDs, and WiFi SSIDs, of ~2.4M customers from Dec. 4 to Dec. 26  —  Details for 2.4 million users were exposed online for 22 days.  —  Wyze, a company that sells smart devices like security cameras …
Sarah J. Jackson / New York Times:
In 2010s, Twitter enabled young and marginalized people to be heard, held news organizations accountable, and pushed largely ignored issues into the mainstream  —  It's impossible to avoid news about how harmful social media can be.  The Cambridge Analytica scandal.  The ubiquitous Russian bots.
Mark Ledwich:
A new study finds that YouTube's late 2019 algorithm actively discourages users from watching radicalizing content, directing them to more mainstream videos  —  In 2018, Kevin Roose published a piece in the New York Times in which Caleb Cain, a liberal college dropout, described his experience …
Yahoo News:
Internal Pentagon memo warns service members against using consumer DNA testing kits from 23andMe and others, citing security risks  —  WASHINGTON — The Pentagon is advising members of the military not to use consumer DNA kits, saying the information collected by private companies could pose …
David Porter / 8tracks blog:
As 8tracks prepares to shut down on December 31, its co-founder shares a post-mortem of what went wrong with the once-promising music streaming startup  —  8tracks has had a long run and its day in the sun.  We're sad to announce, however, that the company and its streaming service will wind …
Nicholas Vinocur / Politico:
Since GDPR became law in May 2018, the only substantial privacy-related action against a major tech company happened in the US, where Facebook was fined $5B  —  The world's toughest privacy law proves toothless in the eyes of many critics.  —  More than 18 months after the European Union began implementing …
Constance Grady / Vox:
With print books often cheaper than ebooks, whose sales stabilized at ~20% of total book sales, a look at the aftermath of Apple's ebook price fixing lawsuit  —  Publishing spent the 2010s fighting tooth and nail against ebooks.  There were unintended consequences.

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Jay Mazoomdaar / The Indian Express:

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