trust

All these accounts belong to customers of an obscure American company named Devumi that has collected millions of dollars in a shadowy global marketplace for social media fraud. Devumi sells Twitter followers and retweets to celebrities, businesses and anyone who wants to appear more popular or exert influence online. Drawing on an estimated stock of at least 3.5 million automated accounts, each sold many times over, the company has provided customers with more than 200 million Twitter followers, a New York Times investigation found.

Source: The Follower Factory – The New York Times

SAN FRANCISCO — Facebook has begun to assign its users a reputation score, predicting their trustworthiness on a scale from zero to 1.

The previously unreported ratings system, which Facebook has developed over the past year, shows that the fight against the gaming of tech systems has evolved to include measuring the credibility of users to help identify malicious actors.

Facebook developed its reputation assessments as part of its effort against fake news, Tessa Lyons, the product manager who is in charge of fighting misinformation, said in an interview. The company, like others in tech, has long relied on its users to report problematic content — but as Facebook has given people more options, some users began falsely reporting items as untrue, a new twist on information warfare for which it had to account.

It’s “not uncommon for people to tell us something is false simply because they disagree with the premise of a story or they’re intentionally trying to target a particular publisher,” Lyons said.

A user’s trustworthiness score isn’t meant to be an absolute indicator of a person’s credibility, Lyons said, nor is there is a single unified reputation score that users are assigned. Rather, the score is one measurement among thousands of new behavioral clues that Facebook now takes into account as it seeks to understand risk. Facebook is also monitoring which users have a propensity to flag content published by others as problematic and which publishers are considered trustworthy by users.

Facebook’s fight against fake news has gone global. In Mexico, just a handful of vetters are on the front lines.

It is unclear what other criteria Facebook measures to determine a user’s score, whether all users have a score and in what ways the scores are used.

The reputation assessments come as Silicon Valley, faced with Russian interference, fake news and ideological actors who abuse the company’s policies, is recalibrating its approach to risk — and is finding untested, algorithmically driven ways to understand who poses a threat. Twitter, for example, now factors in the behavior of other accounts in a person’s network as a risk factor in judging whether a person’s tweets should be spread.

Source: Facebook is rating the trustworthiness of its users on a scale from zero to 1 – The Washington Post

WhatsApp has become the standard tool for international negotiations. As early as 2016, the Guardian talked about the „rise and rise of diplomacy by WhatsApp“.

WhatsApp’s popularity with diplomats comes from the fact that it is encrypted and has a large base of users, says Corneliu Bjola. „Almost everyone has a WhatsApp account“, he notes.

Bjola teaches Diplomatic Studies at the University of Oxford. He also advises officials on digital diplomacy. Bjola says WhatsApp is used in multilateral settings such as the UN, as well as within foreign ministries.

Tricky security questions

Yet high-profile hacking cases and apparent security flaws have raised uncomfortable questions about the app.

WhatsApp’s popularity among diplomats could take a serious hit after the Cryptoleaks scandal. Investigative journalists revealed that German and US intelligence used faulty encryption to spy on allies across the globe.

US spying has caused trouble for WhatsApp’s parent company Facebook since revelations by whistle-blower Edward Snowden about the NSA in 2013.

The widespread use of surveillance casts doubts on whether free services by US firms can guarantee adequate protection for their users.

Europe has to ask itself – is WhatsApp safe enough for its diplomats?

Source: Hacks and spying – Is WhatsApp safe for diplomats?

If you have a voice assistant in your home or on your phone, have you ever been concerned that someone from the company could listen to your voice recordings?

Recent news coverage confirms that suspicion.

At the end of July, The Guardian reported that people at Apple were regularly listening to recordings of deeply personal events such as conversations with doctors, sexual encounters, and other moments. While the effort was designed as a quality control measure, users likely had no idea that some of their utterances were being recorded and reviewed by humans.

Since then, Apple has temporarily suspended its human review program. Google has been forced to pause its own review program in the EU and Amazon is now giving users the ability to opt-out.

Mozilla has put together a guide for you to change your privacy settings on voice assistants.

Source: Mozilla Foundation – How to opt out of human review of your voice assistant recordings

The dating app Tinder has faced increasing scrutiny over abusive interactions on the service. In November 2019, an Auckland man was convicted of murdering British woman Grace Millane after they met on Tinder. Incidents such as these have brought attention to the potential for serious violence facilitated by dating apps.

Amid ongoing pressure to better protect its users, Tinder recently unveiled some new safety features.

The US version of the app added a panic button which alerts law enforcement to provide emergency assistance, in partnership with the safety app Noonlight. There is also a photo verification feature that will allow users to verify images they upload to their profiles, in an effort to prevent catfishing.

“Does This Bother You?” is another new feature, which automatically detects offensive messages in the app’s instant messaging service, and asks the user whether they’d like to report it. Finally, a Safety Center will give users a more visible space to see resources and tools that can keep them safe on the app.

The dating app Tinder has faced increasing scrutiny over abusive interactions on the service. In November 2019, an Auckland man was convicted of murdering British woman Grace Millane after they met on Tinder. Incidents such as these have brought attention to the potential for serious violence facilitated by dating apps.Amid ongoing pressure to better protect its users, Tinder recently unveiled some new safety features.The US version of the app added a panic button which alerts law enforcement to provide emergency assistance, in partnership with the safety app Noonlight. There is also a photo verification feature that will allow users to verify images they upload to their profiles, in an effort to prevent catfishing.“Does This Bother You?” is another new feature, which automatically detects offensive messages in the app’s instant messaging service, and asks the user whether they’d like to report it. Finally, a Safety Center will give users a more visible space to see resources and tools that can keep them safe on the app.

Source: Tinder’s new safety features won’t prevent all types of abuse

Millions of Amazon customers are at risk of being duped by unscrupulous sellers gaming the Amazon’s Choice endorsement, new research from Which? reveals.

Our exclusive investigation shows the Amazon’s Choice badge recommends potentially poor quality products that appear to have been artificially boosted by incentivised and fake reviews.

We believe Amazon’s recommendation system is inherently flawed and easily gamed by unscrupulous sellers, despite evidence suggesting that many consumers trust the Amazon’s Choice badge as a mark of quality.

Find out more about our fake reviews campaign, and find out how to spot a fake review.

Video: why you shouldn’t trust Amazon’s Choice

We ask members of the public how they view Amazon’s Choice, and reveal the key details of our investigation.

Is Amazon’s Choice a ‘mark of quality’?

Shoppers use Amazon’s Choice to help them make decisions. New Which? research found four in ten (44%) Amazon customers – people who have been on the website in the last six months and have spotted an Amazon’s Choice logo – believe it means a product has been quality checked by Amazon, and a third (35%) believe it means it has been checked for safety.

And when people notice the logo, 45% of shoppers said they were more likely to purchase a product from Amazon with the badge than without.

Amazon’s Choice suspicious reviews

Which? looked at five popular product categories on Amazon.co.uk and found dozens of Amazon’s Choice-recommended products with the hallmarks of suspicious reviews.

Amazon’s Choice recommends ‘highly rated, well-priced products available to dispatch immediately’ and it is trusted by nearly half of all Amazon shoppers.

But our investigation suggests online sellers are secretly incentivising customers to leave five star reviews – potentially boosting their rankings on the website and making them more likely to be attributed the Amazon’s Choice badge.

Amazon’s Choice and unknown brands

We looked at the top 50 bestselling items on Amazon.co.uk in five popular product categories – dash cameras, action cameras, headphones/earphones, surveillance video equipment and smart watches.

While we found the Amazon’s Choice recommendation used for household names such as Apple, Panasonic and Sony; we also found it commonly used to recommend unknown brands brands – those our experts had never heard of outside of Amazon’s listings. This happened in nearly two thirds (63%) of cases.

Amazon’s ‘best-sellers’ list for five popular tech categories

The chart below shows the proportion of known and unknown brand products on the Amazon top 50 best-sellers page for five popular tech categories.

In nearly a quarter (23%) of cases, these unknown tech brands with Amazon’s Choice recommendations didn’t even appear to have a website. Not only surprising for an electronics website in 2020, but potentially leaves customers with limited or no product support if they have issues.

Products with evidence of incentivised reviews

All of the suspicious or fake review activity we found in the course of this investigation was on product listings from unknown brands.

Among these ‘bestselling’ Amazon’s Choice products we found:

• The AKASO EK7000 4K Sport action camera. It had 3,968 reviews – more than any other of the top 50 action cameras on Amazon – and an average rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars. But several people claimed they had been incentivised to write good reviews, with one sharing a photo of a leaflet offering free accessories in exchange for reviews underneath a big image of five stars.

One said: “The camera quality is awful on every setting, as is the audio. In the package came a leaflet… it explains that if you leave a five star review you can get free accessories. So the chances are that most of these five star reviews are not genuine. Don’t be fooled.”

Another said: “The reason for the high review ratings is because they offer you free accessories if you leave a favourable review! So how can you trust the reviews to be sincere and genuine?… The whole thing stinks! Disappointed in Amazon.”

• The Victure 1080P FHD WiFi IP Camera baby monitor. Again this jointly had the most reviews for any of the top 50 bestselling surveillance video equipment products on Amazon and an average 4.4 star rating.

 

One reviewer criticised its wi-fi connection, playback and viewing capabilities. He said: “After seeing my review [someone] from Victure contacted me directly via email (ie outside of the Amazon messaging system) and asked me to change to five stars in exchange for a new free camera. I declined.”

Another added he was sent a card offering a new camera for a five-star review and wrote: “They know their product is faulty already so they lure customers to write good reviews and rate them five stars.”

• An ANCwear fitness tracker with an average 4.2 star rating. One reviewer actually posted a photo of the card used to offer the incentive, and wrote: “Don’t believe the five star reviews, the watch looks and feels very cheap… only reason it is getting good reviews is the £15 bribe.”

Browse all the best baby monitors and best smartwatches from our tests.

Other suspicious products

It wasn’t just Amazon’s bestselling items where we found Amazon’s Choice logos used to promote products that appeared to be suspicious. During the course of the investigation, each of the following items had an Amazon’s Choice logo:

A 2TB USB flash drive for just £18. Legitimate flash drives this size are rare, and cost over £1,000. Multiple users commented that the drive didn’t work or was a fake.

A pair of AMYEA wireless headphones with close to 2,000 reviews, the majority of which were about completely different products, including Acne cream, a ceiling light shade, prescription goggles and even razor blades.

A security camera by Elite Security, which we reported to Amazon in November 2019 after it failed our security tests, was still listed as an Amazon’s Choice product.

Amazon removes Amazon’s Choice badges

Amazon told us it had removed the Amazon’s Choice logo from a number of products and taken action against some sellers following our investigation.

A spokesman said: “We know that customer trust is hard to earn and easy to lose, so we strive to protect customer trust in products Amazon’s Choice highlights. We don’t tolerate Amazon policy violations, such as review abuse, incentivised reviews, counterfeits or unsafe products. When deciding to badge a product as Amazon’s Choice, we proactively incorporate a number of factors that are designed to protect customers from those policy violations. When we identify a product that may not meet our high bar for products we highlight for customers, we remove the badge.”

He added that Amazon used advanced technology, coupled with regular human audits, to make sure Amazon’s Choice products were a high standard.

ANCWear told Which?: “Only those who are satisfied with our products and are willing to leave feedback will [get] a coupon.” None of the other brands responded when we asked them for comment.

Amazon “must be more transparent”

Which? believes that Amazon must carefully scrutinise the use of its Amazon’s Choice branding to ensure that it is an effective tool for recommending products. It must also be more transparent about how such endorsements are attributed, so that consumers can make informed decisions on purchases that don’t involve assumptions or guesswork.

Which? is calling on the CMA to investigate the way in which fake reviews and endorsements awarded by online platforms are potentially misleading people. Sign our petition to stop fake reviews to demand action. We’re also interested in your stories. If you’ve seen evidence of fake or incentivised reviews, or if you have any other experience with endorsements on other websites then email fakereviews@which.co.uk.

Do you trust Amazon’s Choice recommendations? Have your say now.

*Which? surveyed 2,042 GB adults between 21 and 22 January 2020; 896 had seen the Amazon’s Choice logo on a visit to the website in the previous six months. Fieldwork was carried out online by YouGov and data have been weighted to be representative of the GB population (aged 18+).

Source: Amazon ‘betraying trust’ of millions of consumers with flawed Amazon’s Choice endorsement – Which? News

Facebook on Tuesday unveiled more details about the likely workings of a new independent board that’ll oversee content-moderation decisions, outlining a new appeals process users would go through to request an additional review of takedowns. Users of Facebook and its Instagram photo service can ask the board to review their case after appealing to the social network first. You’ll have 15 days to fill out a form on the board’s website after Facebook’s decision.

Requesting a review by the board doesn’t mean the body will automatically hear your case. You’ll have to explain why you think Facebook made the wrong call and why the board should weigh in. You’ll also have to spell out why you posted the content and explain why Facebook’s decision could affect other users.

Facebook will also get to refer cases to the board. Users will receive a notice explaining whether the board decided to review a given case. The company explained this process in proposed bylaws that still need to be approved by the board.

The creation of the independent content-moderation board could help clarify how Facebook decides what posts it leaves up or pulls down and lead to policy changes. The additional appeals process might also help Facebook fend off critics, some of whom have alleged the company censors speech from conservatives and other groups. Facebook also faces criticism for allowing politicians to spread false information in political ads.

“This board we’re creating is a means to hold ourselves accountable and provide for oversight on whether or not we’re making decisions that are principled according to the set of standards and values that we’ve set out,” Brent Harris, Facebook’s director of governance and global affairs, said during a conference call Tuesday.

The social network has rules about barring content, including hate speech, nudity and human trafficking. But users sometimes disagree with how those rules are applied. Facebook has reversed some of its decisions in the past, especially amid public scrutiny. In 2016, the company removed an iconic Vietnam War photo of a girl fleeing a napalm attack because it violated the social network’s rules on nudity. It reinstated the image amid an outcry, citing the image’s historical importance.

Facebook users typically receive a notification that includes an option to appeal when the company removes their content. If the appeal isn’t successful, users will now be able to ask the new board to review their case. Facebook will be required to reinstate removed content If the board sides with the user.

Users who submit an appeal will receive a reference identification number if their content is eligible for review by the board. Eligible content includes Facebook and Instagram posts, videos, photos and comments that the company took down. The process will eventually be expanded to groups, ads, events and other content, including information rated “false” by fact-checkers and content left up on the platform. Facebook didn’t specify when this would happen.

Facebook expects the board to make a decision and for the company to take action on the ruling in roughly 90 days.

Harris said he expects the board to initially review dozens of cases every year but noted that the decisions could impact Facebook’s 2.4 billion users, especially if the social network ends up changing its policies.

Users will also be able to choose if they want to include details that could identify them in the board’s final decision. On Tuesday, Ranking Digital Rights, a nonprofit that promotes freedom of expression and privacy, called on Facebook to provide more clarity, including how it’ll protect the privacy of users who don’t consent to releasing identifiable information. The board’s decision will be published on its website if approved for release.

Fay Johnson, a Facebook product manager who focuses on transparency and oversight, said the company is trying to make it clear to users that the board’s decisions will be public. “There really will be a value added to what the board speaks to, even if the specific information about the person who’s posting the content is not included in the draft decision,” she said.

Facebook also named Thomas Hughes, former executive director at Article 19, a nonprofit focused on freedom of expression and digital rights, to lead the board’s administrative staff. When Hughes led Article 19 in 2018, he called on Facebook to be more transparent about the content it removed and improve the appeals process for users.

“This is, as it goes without saying, an enormous undertaking and it will take us a few months before we are ready,” Hughes said.

The board is expected to be made up of 40 members and will likely start hearing cases this summer. Facebook announced in 2018 its plans to create a content oversight board

Source: Facebook’s oversight board will offer you another way to appeal content removals – CNET

An Avast antivirus subsidiary sells ‘Every search. Every click. Every buy. On every site.’ Its clients have included Home Depot, Google, Microsoft, Pepsi, and McKinsey.

Source: Leaked Documents Expose the Secretive Market for Your Web Browsing Data – VICE