Facebook fails its first civil rights audit, hackers are snooping around on decommissioned police body cameras, and a trending hashtag we just had to include.
It’s all the tech news that’s popular right now. Welcome to Hashtag Trending. It’s Thursday, July 9, and I’m your host, Baneet Braich.
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Facebook Just Failed its first-ever civil rights audit. Facebook’s failure to address hate speech and misinformation are leaving the upcoming presidential election wide open to interference according to a new report. It says Facebook’s failure, “to grasp the urgency” of the situation will have “direct and consequential implications“ on the U.S. presidential elections in November. Facebook agreed to get an audit after activist groups pressured it to share how civil rights issues such as hate speech, election interference, and misinformation are dealt with by the company. The audit ultimately concluded that Facebook also didn’t adequately address hate speech and misinformation targeting minorities and religious groups. Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg said in a blog post the social media giant will not implement every recommendation however, they will put more of their proposals into practice. She did not clarify which ones.
Hackers are buying decommissioned police body cameras online and finding video evidence after successfully extracting data from the cameras. Twitter user D0tslash told Vice that he did this by copying the raw disk image from an internal SD card from inside the device. Then he used Foremost which is an old U.S. Air Force forensics tool from the early 2000s. This tool successfully locates video files within unencrypted data. While some curious hackers will return the cameras to the authorities, others are purchasing the camera to snoop and see what they can find. Axon is the biggest company selling body cameras. They told the Arizona Mirror that they have launched an investigation looking into the matter and the company will also find better means to dispose of the cameras.
Lastly, we do not normally talk about video games here but we couldn’t help but include the #ThanksToVideoGames that went viral this week. Here are some pick me ups. One person tweeted Thanks to video games, “I automatically notice all the cameras and surveillance devices in any building I walk into.” Another one, thanks to video games, “I have become a very successful miner.” And one last one here, thanks to video games, ” I now know life is a big game with a point system called “money”. It’s worth noting that the video industry, as of 2018, generated sales of nearly $135 billion US annually worldwide.
That’s all the tech news that’s trending right now. Hashtag Trending is a part of the ITWC Podcast network. Add us to your Alexa Flash Briefing or your Google Home daily briefing. I’m Baneet Braich, thanks for listening