It's complicated — #76

Hi!

First of all, welcome all new readers. I hope you'll like these Sunday updates — if you ever have feedback, just reply to one of these emails.

This week, I've been thinking a lot about the power of being human. Since we begin to use AI for more of the rational, we will likely find that the real power of being human is our ability to connect, relate and feel.

Still, I've written about how we have fewer fulfilling friendships today than 30 years ago. Isn't that an interesting paradox?

Maybe the best way to prepare for the future would be to practice our relationship skills and abilities to feel … how much time are you spending on that?

Enjoy your reading!

Anna

Online pharmacies share data with Google and Meta—helping Police investigate illegal abortions

PRIVACY / ABORTION / UNITED STATES

Online pharmacies selling abortion pills use web analytics tools that share sensitive data with Google and other third parties. While the intention is probably not to rat out their customers, that is what is happening. Warrants for digital data are routine in police investigations, which makes sense, given how much time we spend online.

The investigative journalism non-profit ProPublica ran checks on 11 online pharmacies that sell abortion medication to reveal what web tracking technology they use. At the end of last year, and in early January, they found web trackers on the sites of at least nine online pharmacies that provide pills by mail. This practice is turning Google into a goldmine for law enforcement looking to prosecute individuals who end their pregnancies.

These third-party trackers, including Google Analytics, allow these companies to personalise ads. Consequently, they collect numerous user details and feed them to Google and other third parties, such as the chat provider LiveChat. The information included visited web addresses, all the clicks, search terms used to find a website, the previous site visited, the user's general location and information about the devices they used, such as whether they were on a computer or phone.

We already know that our digital traces are part of police investigations connected to abortion. For example, last year, Police in Nebraska charged the mother of a 17-year-old girl for providing an abortion for her daughter. The Police discovered this crime in connection to another investigation when they obtained a warrant requiring Meta to hand over the Facebook Messenger conversations between the mother and daughter. The unencrypted Facebook messages showed the two had discussed getting and using abortion pills.

TikTok's "heating" button lets their employees hand-pick videos to boost in users’ feeds

TIKTOK

For years, TikTok talked about the power of its algorithmic and personalised feed—predicting your interests based on behaviour in the app. However, that is not the whole story.

According to current and former employees at TikTok and its parent company ByteDance, as well as internal documents and communication, staff at TikTok and ByteDance secretly hand-pick videos and supercharge their distribution, using a practice known internally as "heating."

The total video views of "heated" videos account for a large portion of the daily total video views on the TikTok platform, around 1-2%.

In the United States, politicians and lawmakers are already concerned about Byte Dance's close connections to the Chinese Government. The Biden Administration is currently investigating a TikTok ban, and the fact that there is a button for Bejing to push whenever they want to get a message out in front of 1.5+ billion users across the globe will surely not benefit TikTok's case.

Also, TikTok has allegedly used the heating function to woo influencers and brands, tempting them into partnerships by inflating their videos' view count. This practice suggests that videos in your TikTok feed aren't purely there because TikTok thinks you'll like them but rather - at times - because it wants a particular brand or creator to get more views. And without labels, like those used for ads and sponsored content, a user can't tell if so is true. I'm curious about what current advertising regulations say about this.

TikTok employees have also abused heating privileges. For example, employees have been known to heat their own or spouses' accounts, violating company policy. According to one document, a heating incident of this type led to an account receiving more than three million views.

Memphis police killing of a young Black man sparks protests across the United States

UNITED STATES / BLACK LIVES MATTER

Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old Black driver, was pulled over on January 7 for what police said was reckless driving. After attempting to flee on foot, newly released police videos show how police aggressively beat Nichols. Three days later, he died in the hospital.

After releasing body camera footage to the public late Friday, there have been mostly peaceful protests against police brutality across the United States. Five former police officers were fired, indicted and jailed in connection to Nichols’ death, and they each face several charges, including second-degree murder.

Memphis is a city of 628,000, where nearly two-thirds of residents are Black. And compared to earlier police brutality against young Black American men, in this case, all police officers involved are Black, as is Memphis Police Chief Cerelyn Davis, who, on Wednesday, released a video statement discussing “the horrific circumstances” of Nichols’ death. She called it a professional failing and said, “The incident was heinous, reckless and inhumane.”

The fact that the fired police officers are Black has added a complicated layer of pain in the black community, and the recent protests focus on police brutality rather than race. While the hashtag #tyrenichols has been trending on Twitter during the weekend, #blacklivesmatter is again part of the online conversation. Additionally, the Black Lives Matter movement tends to kindle counteractions from American alt-right groups, making the situation all the more complex and polarising.

Double-check the headlines

Just making sure you didn't miss any major world events this week.

• Germany finally said yes to sending Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine.

• Japan and the Netherlands are joining the United States in restricting chip equipment exports to China.

• Meta says it will restore Donald Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts.

• Ticketing industry executives testified in the United States Senate after monopoly allegations against Ticketmaster after Taylor Swift fiasco.

• Violence has been increasing in Israel and Palestine. Seven people were killed by a Palestinian shooter outside a Jerusalem synagogue one day after an Israeli military raid in the West Bank left nine dead.

• The FBI successfully disrupted Hive, a notorious ransomware group, and prevented $130 million worth of ransom campaigns.

• Right-wing Quran burning in Sweden created a rage in Turkey, further complicating the NATO application of Sweden and Finland.

• Microsoft invests billions of dollars in ChatGPT maker Open AI, announced $52.7 billion in Q2 revenue, and plans to lay off 10,000 workers.

• More big-tech companies announced layoffs - about 6-8 % of workers - just ahead of their earnings calls.

• The retired general and “pro-west” candidate Petr Pavel seems to have a landslide victory in the Czech election, beating the billionaire and former prime minister Andrej Babis.

Five short

1. Learn

We all know a smooth sea doesn't make a skilled sailor. But did you know that the use of the word "navigate" more than doubled in the second quarter of 2020 compared to a year earlier? All of a sudden, business captains around the world were trying to keep their sinking ships afloat.

We might need some training on how to use a compass, however. Since the use of the word is still double compared to before the pandemic.

2. Listen

Seinabo Sey just released her latest single, Suzuki. “You shine like the love you bring.”

(I choose to see the title as an hommage to my fellow #violinkids).

3. Remember

In his book Atomic Habits, James Clear writes:

“Simple is nearly always better. But if it’s going to be complicated, then make sure the problem is worth the complexity. A great deal of time is wasted creating complex solutions to relatively unimportant problems.”

I don’t want to sound dramatic, but this quote changed my life.

4. Change

Are you structuring your to-do lists or reminders per project? I struggled for years, trying to get that system to work — constantly looking for the tool to help me. Then, I began to structure my to-dos by when they needed to be done instead, and it all started working beautifully.

Today, my to-do list lives in the native iPhone app Reminders and consists of five categories: 1. Today, 2. This Week, 3. Next Week, 4. Next Month, 5. Long Term and On Hold. I drag and drop the tasks to move them across the categories over time. So simple it works.

5. Try

Do you have teenagers in your proximity? Professor Laurie Santos at Yale University just launched a version of their free online course, The Science of Wellbeing for Teens.

Almost 2 in 5 teens are reporting they have poor mental health. So, to give them skills to live more fulfilling lives is a lifelong investment — the course takes about 12 hours to complete, and you could do it together as a family.

(I’ve recommended the adult version in this newsletter before, so if you do not consider yourself a teen, here’s the link to that one).

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