Obama Warns Against the Social Media Bubble
During David Letterman’s new Netflix show, My Guest Needs No Introduction with David Letterman, Obama warns against “getting all your information off algorithms being sent through a phone.” While Obama noted that he owes much political success to social media (read in our book Socialnomics here), he said, “I think that what we missed was the degree to which people who are in power… special interests, foreign governments, etc., can, in fact, manipulate that and propagandize.” In short, #FakeNews
We are seeing major players like Facebook and Apple starting to put dollars toward the problem. Read more about what Apple is doing here and why Zuckerberg is reducing the number of advertisements on Facebook here. There is even a cottage industry of #FakeNews consultants springing up to help governments and countries.
(Source: TechCrunch)
The FCC is Investigating False Emergency Alert that Terrified Hawaii
In the wake of Hawaii’s pleasant morning wake up call from a ballistic missile false alarm, the FCC announced it’s investigating the incident. In a statement, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said the false alarm and delay in a public reaction was “absolutely unacceptable,” and undermines “public confidence in the alerting system, thus reducing their effectiveness during real emergencies.”
(Source: The Verge)
New Bill Bans Chinese Huawei and ZTE phones in the U.S.
US lawmakers are worried about possible security risks that come with Chinese made phones. Such reasoning resonates with Texas Representative Mike Conaway as he introduced his bill last week, the Defending US Government Communications Act. This bill aims to ban US government agencies from using Chinese Huawei or ZTE products. While some may scream paranoia, according to the NY Times, pre-installed spyware has been discovered on another Chinese company, BLU.
(Sorce: The Verge) Disclosure: The owner of Socialnomics, Erik Qualman, has relationships with all major mobile carriers, including Huawei!
