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Facebook is terrifying
Facebook is terrifying Remember that last time you posted a picture on Facebook and it automatically suggested to tag other people on the photo? Nothing unusual. You’ve tagged these people before …
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Society, Policy & Culture
The most popular blog posts about society, policy & culture on Hacker News. 4,917 posts.
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Your smartphone, their rules: App stores enable corporate-government censorship
Big Tech Oligopoly helps the Trump Administration crack down on free speech
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The human genome is, at long last, complete
Results of automated DNA sequencing, displayed on the screen of a tablet computer. (Turtle Rock Scientific/Science Photo Library)
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Australia’s vague anti-encryption law sets a dangerous new precedent
The Assistance and Access (A&A) law requires tech companies to help law enforcement agencies break into individuals’ encrypted data.
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Mozilla Re-Files Suit Against FCC to Protect Net Neutrality
This morning, the Federal Communications Commission officially published its order overturning net neutrality rules in the Federal Register. We had origina
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Facebook says Apple is too powerful – they're right
In December, 2020, Apple did something insanely great. They changed how iOS, their mobile operating system, handled users’ privacy preferences, so that owners of iPhones and other iOS devices could indicate that they don’t want to be tracked by any of the apps on their devices. If they did, Apple...
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Signal Introduces Stories
If your favorite way to update your friends about life disappears in 24 hours, we’ve got some happy news for you. Stories are now available on Signal for Android and iOS, with Desktop coming soon!
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We all depend on open source. We will defend it together
An open letter from the technology industry, and the launch of Akrites - a coordinated effort to remediate vulnerabilities in the open source software the world runs on.
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With Windows 10, Microsoft Disregards User Choice and Privacy
Microsoft had an ambitious goal with the launch of Windows 10: a billion devices running the software by the end of 2018. In its quest to reach that goal, the company aggressively pushed Windows 10 on its users and went so far as to offer free upgrades for a whole year. However, the company’s...
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TikTok updated privacy policy to collect faceprints and voiceprints (2021)
TikTok has violated privacy regulations before, and they are in position to share millions of American users' data with the Chinese government.
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We can't have nice things because of AI scrapers
In the past few months the MetaBrainz team has been fighting a battle against unscrupulous AI companies ignoring common courtesies (such as robots.txt) and scraping the Internet in order to build up their AI models . Rather than downloading our dataset in one complete download, they insist on loading all of…
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The money spent on lotteries doesn’t go to the park
The $6-10 lottery application fee that Recreation.gov charges doesn’t go to the park, but into Recreation.gov’s pockets. In 2022, for 6 out of these 9 lotteries, Recreation.gov makes made more money than the park.
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The Internet of creation disappeared. Now we have surveillance and control
An interview with this specialist in human rights, technology and freedom of expression to discuss how today’s societies are advancing to the drumbeat of “digital colonialism”.
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CCC captures U.S. military biometrics database
The U.S. military used biometric devices en masse to capture people in Afghanistan. Some devices were left behind during the hasty withdrawal of NATO troops. CCC researchers found large amounts of...
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TPP Leak Confirms the Worst: US Still Trying to Trade Away Internet Freedoms
After years of secret trade negotiations over the future of intellectual property rights (and limits on those rights), the public gets a chance to looks at the results. For those of us who care about free speech and a balanced intellectual property system that encourages innovation, creativity, and...
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Open Letter to Google on Mandatory Developer Registration for App Distribution
Open Letter to Google Regarding Mandatory Developer Registration for Third-Party App Distribution
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Study: Some car models consuming around 50% more fuel than official results
New cars, including the Mercedes A, C and E class, BMW 5 series and Peugeot 308, are now swallowing around 50% more fuel than their lab test results, new…
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Introducing EFF's Stupid Patent of the Month
Here at EFF, we see a lot of stupid patents. There was the patent on “scan to email.” And the patent on “bilateral and multilateral decision making.” There are so many stupid patents that Mark Cuban endowed a chair at EFF dedicated to eliminating them. We wish we could catalog them all, but with...
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What Data Does Facebook Collect When I’m Not Using Facebook, and Why?
Explaining more about the information we get from other websites and apps; how we use the data they send to us; and the controls you have.
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We ran a phone check at a Y Combinator event in SF
*the full story is now on the official clearspace blog
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Ruling from USPTO Invalidates All Claims Used to Threaten Podcasters
San Francisco - The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) invalidated key claims in the so-called “podcasting patent” today after a petition for review from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)—a decision that significantly curtails the ability of a patent troll to threaten podcasters big...
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Gallup: 81% of Black Americans Want Police to Retain Local Presence
It's not so much the volume of interactions Black Americans have with the police that troubles them or differentiates them from other racial groups, but rather the quality of those interactions.
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Let's make quality the norm again
A more circular economy is not only important for the environment. It can also strengthen consumer rights and improve societal resilience. In this report, we show how consumer policy can make circular choices easier, safer and more attractive for consumers.
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Privacy doesn't mean anything anymore, anonymity does
Privacy is when they promise to protect your data. Anonymity is when they never had your data to begin with.
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The battle for the soul of digital freedom taking place inside your printer
Since its founding in the 1930s, Hewlett-Packard has been synonymous with innovation, and many's the engineer who had cause to praise its workhorse oscillators, minicomputers, servers, and PCs. But since the turn of this century, the company's changed its name to HP and its focus to sleazy ways to...
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What is happening in the Arctic is now beyond words, so here are the pictures
The climate emergency requires actions at emergency speed for a rapid transition to a post-carbon, safe-climate future.
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California Right to Repair Bill Dies in Senate Committee
The California Senate Appropriations committee failed to pass Sen. Susan Eggman’s (Stockton) Right to Repair bill, SB 983, Thursday, which would have significantly expanded Californians’ access to the parts, tools, and service information needed to fix consumer electronics and appliances.