WERU 89.9 FM Blue Hill, Maine Local News and Public Affairs Archives
Audio archives of spoken word broadcasts from Community Radio WERU 89.9 FM Blue Hill (weru.org)
A weekly feature on electronic technology as it affects everyday life with Jim Campbell. Broadcast on WERU 89.9 FM Blue Hill, ME every Thursday at 7:30 AM.
Producer/Host: Jim Campbell
Online Privacy Policies
Have you noticed emails showing up in your mailbox in which companies whose services you use like Google, or Twitter, or AirBnB are trumpeting their new privacy policies? There’s a reason for those messages but it’s probably not what you think. Here’s the story.
Producer/Host: Jim Campbell
Technology can be a wonderful thing but it does not exist in a vacuum. Government policy can have a very big effect on how digital technology operates, and does all over the world, including here in the US. Two current issues point that out very clearly – the effort to overturn the FCC’s order to repeal of Net Neutrality regulations, and the 2018 Statistical Transparency Report of the Office of the Director of National Security Here’s what’s happening.
Producer/Host: Jim Campbell
May 3 is World Press Freedom Day
So how is press freedom doing these days in our increasingly digital world. According to the annual Press Freedom Index from Reporters Without Borders, not so great. Here’s why.
Producer/Host: Jim Campbell
Online Privacy
The hits just keep on coming with regard to how companies, often without our knowledge,are collecting personal information about our activities on the Web. Since government at present seems uninterested in helping us to protect out privacy, it is up to us as individuals to do what we can to at least partially exert control over what we do while on the web. Here are some other ways we can try to do that.
Producer/Host: Jim Campbell
The media show surrounding Congress people questioning Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg about Facebook’s privacy policies is blessedly over but the problem of what we can do as individuals to protect our personal information online goes on. Here are a few more ideas.
Here is a link to an article that may offer users of Facebook and Google a bit of a surprise: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/11/technology/personaltech/i-downloaded-the-information-that-facebook-has-on-me-yikes.html
Producer/Host: Jim Campbell
Is there any way we can preserve some personal privacy online in our digital world?
Facebook has been much in the news lately since Cambridge Analytica scraped data on 87 million American Facebook users and used that information to try to influence voters in the last national election. But, of course, using people’s personal information to profile them is nothing new – it goes on all the time for all sorts of purposes. That’s the bargain we users make. We use free online services like Facebook, and those services sell our information to others who will pay for it. Is there any way we can preserve some personal privacy online in our digital world? Here is a first suggestion.
Producer/Host: Jim Campbell
Psychographic Profiling
Recent disclosures about how Cambridge Analytica mined data on 50 million Facebook users to conduct psychographic profiles of Americans to use in the last election have surprised and shocked many people. Those people have not been regular listeners to Notes from the Electronic Cottage since we have been pointing out such efforts for years. As a refresher, here’s an episode from October — of 2015!
Producer/Host: Jim Campbell
Stop Enabling Sex Trafficking Act (SESTA)
Congress just passed, with much righteous posturing and by overwhelming majorities, the Stop Enabling Sex Trafficking Act, or SESTA. While the Act’s intent is noble, the likelihood of it accomplishing its goal is small, even according to the Department of Justice, while the possibility of the unintended consequence of reducing free speech online is significant. Here’s why.