WeChat: From Medium to Mediator

WeChat: From Medium to Mediator

China’s omnipresent app regulates much of society. Will it be a blueprint or cautionary tale?

By Chris Neels | January 22, 2020 | Culture, Economics, Government, Media, Policing, Privacy, Society | Beijing, Cashless, Censorship, China, Cybernetics, Dissent, Economics, Free Speech, Freedom, Information, Mediation, Metadata, News, QR Codes, Ride Hailing, surveillance, Tracking, Virtualization, WeChat

Carpenter v. US: A Rare Win for Privacy Rights

The Supreme Court finally taps the brakes on the unrestrained collection of digital data by law enforcement.

By Warren Christopher Freiberg | August 31, 2018 | Law, Policing, Privacy | Carpenter v. US, Cell Towers, Cell-Site Data, Crime, Data, FISA, Fourth Amendment, John Roberts, License Plate Readers, Neil Gorsuch, Police, PRISM, Privacy, Robbery, Smartphones, Supreme Court, surveillance, Tracking, Warrant

Geofencing: Corporate Surveillance in the Real World

Geofencing is the way corporations and advertisers track your every move–literally.

By Isabel Sterne | August 8, 2018 | Advertising, Economics, Privacy | Advertising, Android, Apps, Geofencing, iOS, Location Tracking, Marketing, Privacy, Smartphones, surveillance, Tracking, Urban Outfitters

Worried About Internet Privacy? Visit Your Local Librarian

Librarians have historically taken strong stances on protecting the privacy of patrons. Now, some of them are becoming valuable assets in the fight against online surveillance.

By Lucy Uprichard | May 24, 2017 | Education, Knowledge, Privacy, Society | Abuse of Power, ALA, Alison Macrina, Counter-terrorism, CUNY Graduate Center, Data Collection, Information, ISPs, Law Enforcement, Librarians, Libraries, Library Freedom Project, NSA, Privacy, Security, Social Media, surveillance, Tracking, World War II

Now Following You on Twitter: The Police

Social media monitoring tools let local law enforcement scoop up and sift through everyone’s posts, regardless of suspicion.

By Warren Christopher Freiberg | March 29, 2017 | Law, Media, Policing, Privacy, Security | ACLU, Alex Marthews, Babel Street, Baltimore, Boston, Brennan Center for Justice, California, CIA, Civil Rights, Dataminr, Department of Homeland Security, Facebook, FBI, First Amendment, Florida, Fourth Amendment, Freddie Gray, Geofeedia, Instagram, Law Enforcement, Media Sonar, Michigan, Monitoring, Police, Protests, Restore the Fourth, Snaptrends, Social Media, Social Media Monitoring, surveillance, Texas, Tracking, Twitter

FCC to ISPs: Stop Spying

The Internet just got a lot more private for the average user thanks to a recent Federal Communications Commission ruling. [...]

By Warren Christopher Freiberg | December 14, 2016 | Advertising, Ethics, Law, Media, Privacy | Advertising, AT&T, Comcast, Donald Trump, Facebook, FCC, Google, ISPs, Monitoring, Rulemaking, Tracking

Algorithm is Gonna Get You

What prevents us from gaining knowledge? For centuries, our instinctive answer has been: paucity of information. Our search for knowledge [...]

By David A. J. Reynolds | January 21, 2016 | Automation, Posts, Privacy | Black Box Society, Eli Pariser, Filter Bubble, Frank Pasquale, Google, Hummingbird, Knowledge, Personalization, Robert Epstein, Search, Tracking