Online
-
Backpage CEO Pleads Guilty And The Website Will Be Permanently Shut Down
The CEO of Backpage, a classified ads website, pleaded guilty on Thursday to conspiracy, money laundering, and facilitating prostitution. Carl Ferrer will face up to five years in prison. His plea agreement requires that he permanently shut the website down immediately, according to a statement from the Justice Department, as well offer “technical assistance” to…
-
Cops Acquire iPhone-Cracking Tools, Proving FBI’s Effort To ‘Backdoor’ Encryption Is Dumber Than Ever
For more than a decade now, FBI directors have been ranting about investigators being cut off from prized intelligence sources thanks to the widespread adoption of digitally encrypted communications. The truth, of course, is that humanity’s ever-increasing reliance on the internet has given today’s Federal Bureau of Investigation access to more data than its disreputable…
-
Homeland Security Wants To Build An Online ‘Media Influence Database’ To Track Journalists
The Department of Homeland Security announced a public bid for third-party companies to build a “media influence database” capable of tracking more than 290,000 news sources across the globe. First spotted by Bloomberg Law, the public bid would also track journalists and bloggers, compiling their personal information and the publications for which they write.
-
YouTube Kids Will Finally Offer A Mode Where Actual Humans Actually Bother To Vet The Videos
After months of harsh coverage of the malicious or inappropriate content that keeps popping up on YouTube Kids, ranging from videos of Peppa Pig drinking bleach to David Icke conspiracy rants, Google seems to have partially conceded and is planning on rolling out a human-curated version of the app.