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Emily Baker-White
@ebakerwhite
tech reporter
@Forbes
. Formerly
@BuzzFeedNews
, policy for
@Facebook
,
@Spotify
before that. ebakerwhite@forbes.com, emilybakerwhite@protonmail.com, DM for Signal
San Francisco, CAJoined November 2016
681 Following
2,986 Followers

Emily Baker-White’s Tweets

Emily Baker-White
@ebakerwhite
What an entirely lovely thread.
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Keri Blakinger
@keribla
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THREAD: I spent the long weekend in a house full of formerly incarcerated TikTokers Between us, we did ~70 years & have >5 million followers. A few years ago none of us would have thought this possible Here’s a 🧵w/some of the cool things my friends are doing with their freedom
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Emily Baker-White
@ebakerwhite
In a dramatic reversal, Cloudflare has dropped KiwiFarms. CF insists its policy is still the same and that it was still wrong to drop 8chan & the Daily Stormer (!), but says KF is different because it’s causing a unique, imminent threat to human life.
blog.cloudflare.com
Blocking Kiwifarms
We have blocked Kiwifarms. Visitors to any of the Kiwifarms sites that use any of Cloudflare's services will see a Cloudflare block page and a link to this post.
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Emily Baker-White
@ebakerwhite
Interesting that Biden might want an EO, in addition to the to-be-finalized CFIUS contract, to be part of the picture. Obviously the devil will be in the details, though: will a video taken by an Indian citizen of their US citizen friends while on vacation in Europe be in scope?
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Emily Baker-White
@ebakerwhite
Biden is reportedly considering an executive order that would limit data collection about American citizens by Chinese-owned companies. Sounds like a real headache for the companies, given that users hardly declare their citizenship when they sign up for an app.
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Ryan Mac 🙃
@RMac18
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Interesting scoop from @ReedAlbergotti (and lol of course @semaforben would scoop his own launch) medium.com/semafor-media/
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Emily Baker-White
@ebakerwhite
I highly recommend this
@brittanheller
talk about the data companies might use to create realistic VR experiences. Do we really want to trust big tech companies with these unique physical indicators just so they can ...build us cooler videogames?
youtube.com
Watching androids dream of electric sheep immersive technology,...
The collection and use of information in virtual and augmented reality is a dangerously unregulated space—essentially a “like button on steroids.” When the i...
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Emily Baker-White
@ebakerwhite
Looks like ByteDance's latest VR headset, like Meta's, will track users' eyes and facial movements. Companies use our biometrics to make VR experiences more convincing. But should we really trust them with personal info like what raises our heart rate or makes our eyes dilate?
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Matt Navarra
@MattNavarra
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New details about ByteDance’s next Pico VR headset emerge ...Including Mixed Reality features protocol.com/bulletins/pico
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Emily Baker-White
@ebakerwhite
It then says: "We don't and won't talk about these efforts publicly because we don't do them for marketing purposes; we do them because they are aligned with what we believe is morally correct." Ok, but, uh, it's it in your company blog post.
blog.cloudflare.com
Cloudflare's abuse policies & approach
Cloudflare launched nearly twelve years ago. Over that time, our set of services has become much more complicated. With that complexity we have developed policies around how we handle abuse of...
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Emily Baker-White
@ebakerwhite
In a blog post, Cloudflare says it was wrong to drop 8chan and The Daily Stormer as customers. When it provides services to morally abhorrent orgs, the company says it will show its values by donating to groups that oppose those abhorrent orgs, sort of like a carbon offset.
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Emily Baker-White
@ebakerwhite
This has been a common theme worldwide with government bodies seeking to rein in big tech. Regulators have gotten much more sophisticated in a short period of time. But "Senator, we run ads" was just 4 years ago. youtube.com/watch?v=n2H8wx
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Graham Webster
@gwbstr
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ByteDance went to CAC to discuss their algorithm filings, WSJ reports. “officials at the agency displayed little understanding of the technical details and [they] had to rely on a mix of metaphors and simplified language to explain how the recommendation algorithm worked” twitter.com/_KarenHao/stat…
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Emily Baker-White
@ebakerwhite
This is a big reason why ByteDance and TikTok are trying to separate their algos. But one thing I learned listening to all those Project Texas recordings: whether an algo belongs to BD or TT is messy at best. And many TT engineers are BD employees reporting to BD leadership!!
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Karen Hao 郝珂灵
@_KarenHao
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Governments around the world are grappling with how to stamp out misinfo & toxicity on the internet. China is first to advance its solution: an unprecedented plan to control platforms' underlying algorithms. But there's a problem. It may be impossible. wsj.com/articles/china
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Emily Baker-White
@ebakerwhite
It, er, says a lot about a candidate's dedication to transparency when they block their public campaign website from being archived.
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z3dster
@z3dster
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Replying to @KFILE @Bencjacobs and @katherinemiller
He requested his site blocked by @internetarchive twitter.com/z3dster/status
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Emily Baker-White
@ebakerwhite
CatDossier.docx!!! Hoping Luisa is safe and happy wherever she is now.
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Christo Grozev
@christogrozev
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But what about the cat, many ask. What was Luisa's role? Was that even her real name? Well, built a full-fledged cat dossier for Luisa. Our hope was to find her owner's identity via her cat - "the only stable thing in her life".
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Emily Baker-White
@ebakerwhite
ByteDance has launched a search engine in China. The "stickying" of propaganda at the top of the new app sounds very similar to what former employees described ByteDance doing with pro-China content at its former US news app, TopBuzz. buzzfeednews.com/article/emilyb
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Matt Navarra
@MattNavarra
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TikTok owner ByteDance has quietly launched a search app in China ... where Google is banned scmp.com/tech/big-tech/
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Emily Baker-White
@ebakerwhite
Ranking changes (boosts, demotions) are moderation. Recs policies too. Relevancy determinations too. They’re all choices about what to show you, and how much of it, and in what order, made by companies trying to maximize profit (and avoid regulation that will impede that profit).
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Tarleton Gillespie
@TarletonG
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Excited to share my newest article, in @SocialMedia_Soc. “Do not recommend? Reduction as a form of content moderation”. I’ve been yakking away about this for a while now, so let me just say what I think really matters here: journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.11 A 🧵:
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Emily Baker-White
@ebakerwhite
seems fine
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Alex Konrad
@alexrkonrad
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In 2020, ex-WeWork CEO Adam Neumann invested in a women-led startup called Alfred. Less than two years later, his new company Flow – backed by $350 million – sounds strikingly similar. @_IainMartin and I spoke to 8 sources to investigate for @Forbes: forbes.com/sites/iainmart
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Emily Baker-White
@ebakerwhite
San Francisco: read. this. piece.
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Albert Samaha
@AlbertSamaha
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“If the rising fears among property owners are reflective of anything, it’s the rising desperation among the dwindling pool of locals holding on to a city that continues to drive out its most marginalized communities.”Wrote abt San Francisco’s crime panic: buzzfeednews.com/article/albert
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Emily Baker-White
@ebakerwhite
Deleted a tweet about TikTok’s in-app browser that might’ve been misleading. The browser contains code that *can collect* all a user’s keystrokes, including passwords and other sensitive info. But the company says they’re not currently using it – at least not that way.
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Richard Nieva
@richardjnieva
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NEW: TikTok's in-app browser injects code that could let the company monitor a user's keystrokes and taps on outside websites, according to research by @KrauseFx forbes.com/sites/richardn
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Emily Baker-White Retweeted
David Jeans
@DavidJeans2
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Alexandra S. Levine
@Ali_Lev
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NEW: Following a @Forbes investigation, bipartisan Senate leaders are demanding answers from TikTok and its outside content moderator, Teleperformance, on their handling of child sexual abuse material. forbes.com/sites/alexandr
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Emily Baker-White
@ebakerwhite
An easy fix: expand the ad library to show all ads, current and former. This would enable us to track other shady advertisers — scammers, etc. — better, too! And then if I want to see Dinesh's total spend, I'll know it's right and includes even the ads that avoided detection.
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Emily Baker-White
@ebakerwhite
Anyway: ad libraries are good, more platforms should have them, and they should focus on more than political ads! But: when your transparency tool only shows things you categorize as X, and your categorization is, er, error-prone, that might not be a great transparency tool.
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Emily Baker-White
@ebakerwhite
This ad wouldn't have stayed in the Ad Library past its live run, and wouldn't have factored into other Ad Library tools (like its new Spending Tracker), if we hadn't asked FB about it. There are a lot of others like it, enough that I start to worry those tools aren't reliable!
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Emily Baker-White
@ebakerwhite
So, unfortunately, it appears advertisers *are* avoiding disclaimers by making their ads about merch. Here's one from noted conservative provocateur Dinesh D'Souza. We shared it and some others w/FB, which is no longer letting it run without a disclaimer.
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Emily Baker-White
@ebakerwhite
FB uses a 'primary purpose' test to determine whether an ad is political. This is good for edge cases; advertisers can't avoid disclaimers by just, say, slapping their text on a piece of merch. But you can't teach an ML model a 'primary purpose' test. It scales *horrendously.*
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Emily Baker-White
@ebakerwhite
FB's Ad Library is a big part of their transparency strategy, but it doesn't treat all ads equally. It shows all *current* ads, and then keeps *certain* other ads (incl political ones) after they've run. When FB errs in categorizing ads, the Ad Library's reliability suffers.
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Emily Baker-White Retweeted
David Jeans
@DavidJeans2
Update: After this story was published, Flow's job board disappeared from the website. Adam Neumann's company had been seeking web3 engineers who will help “redefine the economic experience of renters” by “leveraging new technology.”
forbes.com
Former WeWork CEO Adam Neumann's New Real Estate Company Is Planning A Digital Wallet That Stores...
A16z-backed Flow said cryptocurrency stored in the wallet cannot be used to pay rent on Flow-managed housing.
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