1. Reddit could be the latest to jump on the audio room bandwagon
This is leaked, according to Mashable, but the idea seems to be that it could be part of the power-up program for some subreddits.
Voice chats, which is not an official name for the project, may be part of Reddit’s power-ups program, which was announced in August of 2020. The power-ups “experiment” involves releasing additional features for subreddits whose members purchase “a minimum threshold of power-up subscriptions.”
2. Facebook is coming up with new ways to encourage vaccination efforts
Looks like they’re basically expanding what they’ve already been doing.
When a state says the general public is eligible for a COVID-19 vaccine, we’ll show a notification to people in that state that connects them with their state health department or our Vaccine Finder.
They’ve also giving local authorities the ability to push out updated information:
To help reach people quickly with vaccine information, we expanded access to local alerts to even more municipal governments, state and local emergency response organizations and public health agencies. These groups now have the ability to push out timely, credible COVID-19 and vaccine information to their local communities.
3. LinkedIn and Facebook hacks are sparking even more privacy concerns
Two big breaches have people concerned again. First, Facebook. Wired did a great job of explaining everything and diving into Facebook’s vague response to the problem.
SINCE SATURDAY, A massive trove of Facebook data has circulated publicly, splashing information from roughly 533 million Facebook users across the internet. The data includes things like profile names, Facebook ID numbers, email addresses, and phone numbers. It’s all the kind of information that may already have been leaked or scraped from some other source, but it’s yet another resource that links all that data together—and ties it to each victim—presenting tidy profiles to scammers, phishers, and spammers on a silver platter.
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“At what point did Facebook say, ‘We had a bug in our system, and we added a fix, and therefore users might be affected’?” says former Federal Trade Commission chief technologist Ashkan Soltani. “I don’t remember ever seeing Facebook say that. And they’re kind of stuck now, because they apparently didn’t do any disclosure or notification.”
Go to Wired to read the rest.
When it comes to LinkedIn, things seem to be a little more straightforward. CyberNews has the details, so go there for the whole story.
An archive containing data purportedly scraped from 500 million LinkedIn profiles has been put for sale on a popular hacker forum, with another 2 million records leaked as a proof-of-concept sample by the post author.
The four leaked files contain information about the LinkedIn users whose data has been allegedly scraped by the threat actor, including their full names, email addresses, phone numbers, workplace information, and more.
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The leaked files appear to only contain LinkedIn profile information – we did not find any deeply sensitive data like credit card details or legal documents in the sample posted by the threat actor. With that said, even an email address can be enough for a competent cybercriminal to cause real damage.
You can check here to see if your info was a part of the breach.
4. Snap has acquired Screenshop as part of their ecommerce efforts
The Information has, well, the information.
Snap is planning a bigger push into online shopping with a new feature in the Snapchat app that will recommend clothes users can buy based on photos they upload to the messaging app, according to two people with knowledge of the matter. And last fall, the company secretly acquired a startup once associated with Kim Kardashian West to help make the effort possible.
5. TikTok has released some interesting info on how families use the platform
In what looks like an effort to package TikTok as a family friendly pastime, TikTok has released a bunch of data on how families are using the platform on a daily basis. Some interesting pieces:
- Millennial moms “like” or recommend products online, unsolicited, 10.4 times every month, according to one study.
- Parents are looking for toys and games that can keep their kids entertained, as 62% of parents say they allow their kids unsupervised playtime.
- During COVID, 20% of moms have been more frequently seeking content from influencers, and most remain committed to those influencers who they’ve already followed.
- Popular family hashtags:
- #family– 67B views
- #familytime– 8B views
- #parenting4B views
- #momsoftiktok– 44B views
- #dad– 25B views
- #momlife– 20B views
