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September 3, 2018: Ali Latifi, journalist in Afghanistan

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This week: Ali Latifi, journalist based in Kabul, Afghanistan. "I don't think Facebook takes people here that seriously."

Pointers to Ali's work:

• @alibomaye on Twitter

• Provocative Social Media Overheats in Afghan Elections (by Ali, in Vice News, around the time of the 2014 elections... see also this Foreign Policy piece about the election)

• News & social media feeds Ali recommends: pajhwok.com, tolonews.com, and the Instagram accounts @alibomaye (Ali's own) and @mujmash @euamiri @EverydayKabul @EverydayKandahar.

Recent Tech News

• Google's data collection is hard to escape, study claims (CNN, Aug 21): "It's nearly impossible to do anything digitally without Google collecting data on you." Covers the report written by Digital Content Next, CEO of which, Jason Kint, we've talked about on the show. Google's response was to call it Google desperately tried to call it 'wildly misleading' without offering any real evidence.

• Review of George Gilder's new book "Life After Google" (WSJ, Aug 31): "Google makes him mad, as does Silicon Valley more broadly, and his ire is directed at the 'new catastrophe theory' which holds 'that artificial intelligence will make human minds obsolete, and that we’ll soon produce machine-learning tools and robotics that excel the capabilities of human brains.'"

• Michael Stipe Explains Why He’s Leaving Instagram: “I Think That We Deserve Better” (Spin, Sept 2), quoting his BBC intreview: "I don’t like being tracked and followed, I don’t like the idea that they’re keeping track of how I look at things and how much time I spend looking at things." (Thanks to listener Russ for the pointer!)

...meanwhile, Google proudly announces that they're keeping track of how much time you spend looking at things:

• YouTube expands its ‘digital wellbeing’ tools to track time spent watching videos (TechCrunch, Aug 27): "At Google, the company is now addressing digital wellbeing across its products, including Android, Gmail, Google Photos, YouTube and elsewhere. At its Google I/O developer conference earlier this year, it introduced a series of controls for YouTube viewers, including reminders to pause your viewing ('Take a Break') and those that would disable notification sounds for periods of time, and allow you to receive notifications as a digest."

• Facebook whistleblower: Social media giant should face new laws for 'failing to safeguard children' (Telegraph, Sep 3): "Sandy Parakilas, who was responsible for privacy and compliance at Facebook for two years, said the company flagrantly disregarded his warnings over other companies’ misuse of children’s data. He said content and product design was driven by algorithms that maximised the number of users, irrespective of the harm to people’s well-being through addiction or the promotion of inflammatory disturbing or threatening material."

...which reminds me of John Oliver's bit on Facebook from July 30.

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