EdTechSR Ep 218 Facebook’s Doom Looms

Welcome to episode 218 (“Facebook’s Doom Looms”) of the EdTech Situation Room from May 5, 2021, where technology news meets educational analysis. This week Jason Neiffer (@techsavvyteach) and Wesley Fryer (@wfryer) discussed the decision of the Facebook Oversight Board to maintain (for now) Donald Trump’s ban on the platform, Section 230 and possible tech company regulation by the US Congress, and “the normalization of deviance” on Facebook. Twitter’s AI bot flagging ‘mean tweets,’ Facebook’s plea to users to allow life tracking on iOS 14.5, Signal’s jarring (and revealing) advertisement campaign on Facebook, and China’s efforts to dominate the global electric car market were also discussed. A new CRISPR-challenger for gene editing, a decade old Dell security flaw, AirTags and privacy, and news from the ongoing Apple vs. Epic lawsuit were topics rounding out the show. Geeks of the Week included some recommended Star Wars videos on YouTube and Hacker News. Please see our shownotes for links to all these articles and resources! Our show was live streamed and archived simultaneously on YouTube Live as well as our Facebook Live page via StreamYard.com, and compressed to a smaller video version (about 100MB) on AmazonS3 using Handbrake software. Please follow us on Twitter @edtechSR for updates, and join us LIVE on Wednesday nights (normally) if you can at 10 pm Eastern / 9 pm Central / 8 pm Mountain / 7 pm Pacific or 3 am UTC. All shownotes are available on http://edtechSR.com/links.

Shownotes

  1. EdTech Situation Room Listener Survey: wfryer.me/edtechsr
  2. Follow @edtechSR on Twitter!
  3. Audio podcast feed (Subscribe with iTunes or Stitcher)
  4. Video version on YouTube
  5. Check out our video podcast feed and subscribe to our YouTube Channel (episodes also in this YouTube playlist)
  6. Jason Neiffer (@techsavvyteach) – blog: blog.ncce.org
  7. Wes Fryer (@wfryer) – wesfryer.com/after
  8. Facebook ban on Trump upheld by Facebook Oversight Board, but decision opens door to his possible return (USA Today, 5 May 2021)
  9. Trump ban: Republicans threaten to break up Facebook after Oversight Board decision (Fox News, 5 May 2021)
  10. Video: ‘Nightmare situation for Facebook’: What the Trump ruling means (CNN, 5 May 2021)
  11. Good Riddance, Donald Trump? (OpEd by Kara Swisher, NYT, 5 May 2021) – via @pgeorge
  12. Section 230 (English WikiPedia)
  13. Facebook and the Normalization of Deviance (New Yorker, 2 May 2021)
  14. Twitter begins to show prompts before people send ‘mean’ replies (NBC News, 5 May 2021)
  15. Donald Trump’s ‘social media platform’ has launched and it’s just a blog (The Verge; 4 May 2021)
  16. Facebook encourages iOS 14.5 users to enable tracking so its apps remain ‘free of charge’ (9 to 5 Mac; 2 May 2021)
  17. Signal Tries to Run the Most Honest Facebook Ad Campaign Ever, Immediately Gets Banned (Gizmodo; 4 May 2021)
  18. As Cars Go Electric, China Builds a Big Lead in Factories (NY Times, 4 May 2021)
  19. Harvard scientists create gene-editing tool that could rival CRISPR (Engadget, 1 May 2021)
  20. Dell security flaw from 2009 affects ‘hundreds of millions’ of PCs: How to fix it (PC Magazine; 5 May 2021)
  21. How to Set Up Every iOS 14.5 Feature Worth Knowing About (LifeHacker; 5 May 2021)
  22. AirTag review: An easy-to-use item tracker empowered by a network of a billion iPhone users (9 to 5 Mac; 4 May 2021)
  23. I tracked my kid with Apple’s Airtags to test its privacy features (CNN; 5 May 2021)
  24. The Epic vs. Apple Hearing Is Already a Disaster (Gizmodo, 3 May 2021)
  25. As Epic case begins, senior Google engineer undermines one of Apple’s arguments (9 to 5 Mac; 3 May 2021)
  26. Wes’ Geeks of the Week: Celebrating May the 4th in a Galaxy Far, Far Away and Star Wars 1978 Remix (Lubbock, Texas)
  27. Jason’s Geek of the Week: Hacker News

EdTech Situation Room Episode 123

Welcome to episode 123 of the EdTech Situation Room from January 30, 2019, where technology news meets educational analysis. This week Jason Neiffer (@techsavvyteach) and Wesley Fryer (@wfryer) discussed the advance of YouTube’s local video content, Google’s attempt to address conspiracy / outlier content on YouTube, and the new Gmail app for Android and iOS. The global decline in smartphone sales, the expectation smartphones are going to “get weird” to boost sales, Google’s efforts to address website validity confusion by consumers, and companies attempting to turn surveillance capitalism’s economic model upside down were also discussed. On the security front, recent comparison studies of paid versus free antivirus software suites, Facebook’s apps and campaigns to wiretap teenage behavior and pay teens for their data, and Apple’s privacy Facetime snafu were also explored. Companies (like Square) pushing Chromebooks across their enterprise as primary computers for employees (even designers!), the Pinebook Linux laptop, and an extraordinary claim from Israeli scientists that genomics will cure cancer worldwide within 12 months rounded up this week’s show topics. Geeks of the week included YouTube TV, Dell Command Update, video editing software ClipChamp, and Digi.me. Please follow us on Twitter @edtechSR for updates, and join us LIVE on Wednesday nights if you can (normally) at 10 pm Eastern / 9 pm Central / 8 pm Mountain / 7 pm Pacific or 3 am UTC. All shownotes are available on http://edtechSR.com/links.

Shownotes:

  1. EdTech Situation Room Listener Survey: wfryer.me/edtechsr
  2. Follow @edtechSR on Twitter!
  3. Audio podcast feed (Subscribe with iTunes or Stitcher)
  4. Video version on YouTube
  5. Check out our video podcast feed and subscribe to our YouTube Channel (episodes also in this YouTube playlist)
  6. Jason Neiffer (@techsavvyteach) – blog: blog.ncce.org
  7. Wes Fryer (@wfryer) – blog: speedofcreativity.org
  8. Multi-channel YouTube network Defy Media left 50 creators out of $1.7 million after closing (9 to 5 Google; 29 January 2019)
  9. YouTube says it will stop recommending conspiracy videos that harmfully ‘misinform’ users (9to5Mac, 25 Jan 2019)
  10. Hands-on with the new Gmail for Android (and iOS) (ArsTechnica, 30 Jan 2019)
  11. 2018 Was the ‘Worst Year Ever’ for Smartphone Shipments (PC Magazine; 30 January 2019)
  12. Have Phones Become Boring? Well, They’re About To Get Weird (Wired; 23 January 2019)
  13. Google Takes Its First Steps Toward Killing the URL (Wired, 29 Jan 2019)
  14. Meet the data guardians taking on the tech giants (BBC, 29 Jan 2019)
  15. Facebook Moves to Block Ad Transparency Tools — Including Ours (ProPublica, 28 Jan 2019)
  16. Recent Antivirus Tests Are Bad News for Paid Security Suites (PC World, 30 Jan 2019)
  17. Facebook paid teens $20 a month to access their browsing history and DMs (CNet; 30 January 2019)
  18. Lawmakers are furious with Facebook: ‘wiretapping teens is not research’ (The Verge; 30 January 2019)
  19. Google’s data-gathering app may have also violated Apple’s policies (CNet; 30 January 2019)
  20. Apple’s FaceTime bug was discovered by a teen playing Fortnite (CNet; 29 January 2019)
  21. Apple Was Slow to Act on FaceTime Bug That Allows Spying on iPhones (29 January 2019)
  22. Square offering Pixelbooks to employees, trialing with designers as MacBook alternative (9 to 5 Google; 30 January 2019)
  23. The New Pinebook Pro Will Challenge Google Chromebooks For $199 (Forbes, 30 Jan 2019)
  24. Scientists say they’ll have complete cancer cure within a year (Local 10 News Miami, 29 Jan 2019)
  25. Jason’s Geek of the Week: YouTube TV
  26. Wes: Dell Command Update and ClipChamp and Digi.me