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A week ago, when Facebook announced Portal, I noted that its launch had been stymied by trust issues. The recent news of a data breach affecting millions of users had activated the press’ cynicism about Facebook — which is never far from the surface even on a good day — and so Portal’s reception was defined almost entirely by its potential for privacy violations.

On Tuesday, before Portal could even materialize in stores, privacy issues once again came to the fore. The issue is Facebook’s system for collecting data for advertising purposes. When first writing about Portal, Recode’s Kurt Wagner wrote: “No data collected through Portal — even call log data or app usage data, like the fact that you listened to Spotify — will be used to target users with ads on Facebook.” Wagner was told that by the Facebook executives demonstrating Portal for him.

But in a follow-up report, Wagner reported that those executives had unwittingly misled him:

Facebook has since reached out to change its answer: Portal doesn’t have ads, but data about who you call and data about which apps you use on Portal can be used to target you with ads on other Facebook-owned properties. “Portal voice calling is built on the Messenger infrastructure, so when you make a video call on Portal, we collect the same types of information (i.e. usage data such as length of calls, frequency of calls) that we collect on other Messenger-enabled devices. We may use this information to inform the ads we show you across our platforms. Other general usage data, such as aggregate usage of apps, etc., may also feed into the information that we use to serve ads,” a spokesperson said in an email to Recode.

The conclusion is inescapable, and would seemingly bode ill for Facebook’s home hardware line: Even when the company appears to be going out of its way to collect less data about you than usual, making a show of how the device is “private by design,” its own spokespeople can still struggle to articulate exactly what they are collecting, and how it might be used.

Incidentally, at least with respect to Portal’s use of Messenger infrastructure, I’m willing to bet the Portal team didn’t even know until recently that call data could be used to target ads at Facebook users. It’s entirely possible that the contours of the company’s data-collection operation are broader than most employees can even keep in their heads at any given time.

All of which might give you some pause before you pre-order your Portal.

In any case, Tuesday was an inopportune time for Facebook to announce even more plans for the living room, but Alex Heath did it for them anyway. He revealed the existence of a project codenamed Ripley: a camera that you plug into your TV to turn it into a big Portal:

The world’s largest social network is building a camera-equipped device that sits atop a TV and allows video calling along with entertainment services like Facebook’s YouTube competitor, according to people familiar with the matter. The project, internally codenamed “Ripley,” uses the same core technology as Facebook’s recently announced Portal video chat device for the home. Portal begins shipping next month and uses A.I. to automatically detect and follow people as they move throughout the frame during a video call.

Like Portal before it, Ripley represents a logical extension of Facebook’s bid to insert a social graph and camera into all of the screens in your life. And also like Portal, it drew mostly exasperated tweets.

You can get people to hate-read a story, but you can’t get them to hate-buy a video phone. Facebook’s case that Portal is “private by design” has fallen apart before it even shipped, and consumers who were on the fence about buying one may just have fallen off for good.

Democracy

What Is NPC, the Pro-Trump Internet’s New Favorite Insult?

Kevin Roose reports on a new influence operation found on Twitter, born of 4Chan, that takes the common video-game idea of a “nonplayable character” and turns it into an insult against liberals:

Last week, a trolling campaign organized by right-wing internet users spilled over onto Twitter. The campaign, which was born in the fever swamps of 4chan and Reddit message boards, involved creating hundreds of fictional personas with gray cartoon avatars, known as NPCs. These accounts posed as liberal activists and were used to spread — among other things — false information about November’s midterm elections. Over the weekend, Twitter responded by suspending about 1,500 accounts associated with the NPC trolling campaign. The accounts violated Twitter’s rules against “intentionally misleading election-related content,” according to a person familiar with the company’s enforcement process. The person, who would speak only anonymously, was not authorized to discuss the decision.

Google’s CEO Says Tests of Censored Chinese Search Engine Turned Out Great

After the newsletter went out yesterday, Google’s CEO took the stage to speak about Project Dragonfly in the most detail he has offered to date. He promoted the idea that Google will benefit the average Chinese citizen. TGIF should be interesting this week. Nitasha Tiku has the relevant quotes:

“It turns out we’ll be able to serve well over 99 percent of the queries,” that users request. What’s more, “There are many, many areas where we would provide information better than what’s available,” such as searching for cancer treatments, Pichai said. “Today people either get fake cancer treatments or they actually get useful information.”

Facebook cracks down on ‘dark ads’ by British political groups

Facebook’s political ads database, now live in the United States and Canada, is coming next to the United Kingdom. But there are important differences, Alex Hern and Jim Waterston report:

Unlike in the US, where the political transparency features were launched this year, the British iteration will not require adverts on political issues to be labelled and registered. Instead, the company is taking a narrow view, requiring registration for ads “that reference political figures, political parties, elections, legislation before Parliament and past referenda that are the subject of national debate”. This means that while adverts on topics such as Brexit will be made public in the ad archive, promotions on general topics such as immigration will not be covered.

I’m an Amazon Employee. My Company Shouldn’t Sell Facial Recognition Tech to Police.

A day after Medium published an open letter from Microsoft employees asking the company not to pursue a $10 billion Pentagon cloud-computing contract, an anonymous Amazon employee takes to Medium to criticize the company for selling facial recognition technology to law enforcement agencies:

A couple weeks ago, my co-workers delivered a letter to this effect, signed by over 450 employees, to Jeff Bezos and other executives. The letter also contained demands to kick Palantir, the software firm that powers much of ICE’s deportation and tracking program, off Amazon Web Services and to institute employee oversight for ethical decisions. We know Bezos is aware of these concerns and the industry-wide conversation happening right now. On stage, he acknowledged that big tech’s products might be misused, even exploited, by autocrats. But rather than meaningfully explain how Amazon will act to prevent the bad uses of its own technology, Bezos suggested we wait for society’s “immune response.” If Amazon waits, we think the harm will be difficult to undo.

Facebook hack affected 3 million in Europe, first big test for GDPR

The September Facebook breach affected 3 million European citizens, the Irish Data Protection Commission said Tuesday. Salvador Rodriguez — fun fact, my old roommate! — reports:

This security breach is expected to be the first major test of Europe’s new General Data Protection Regulation, and the number of European users affected could help determine the severity of any penalties against the company. Under GDPR, companies handling the personal data of Europeans must adhere to strict requirements for holding and securing that information, and must report breaches to authorities within 72 hours. Under the regulation, companies can face fines of up to 4 percent of their annual global revenue. For Facebook, which made more than $40.65 billion in revenue in 2017, that fine could be as much as $1.63 billion.

Expanding Our Policies on Voter Suppression

Jessica Leinwand clarifies recent changes that Facebook make to its policies around removing misinformation related to elections:

We already prohibit offers to buy or sell votes as well as misrepresentations about the dates, locations, times and qualifications for casting a ballot. We have been removing this type of content since 2016. Last month, we extended this policy further and are now banning misrepresentations about how to vote, such as claims that you can vote by text message, and statements about whether a vote will be counted. (e.g. “If you voted in the primary, your vote in the general election won’t count.”) We’ve also recently introduced a new reporting option on Facebook so that people can let us know if they see voting information that may be incorrect, and have set up dedicated reporting channels for state election authorities so that they can do the same.

The alt-right loves YouTube

Zack Beauchamp takes a look at two studies: one, from Bellingcat, which I included in yesterday’s newsletter; and a second, from a European researcher, that attempted to take a “census” of right-wing extremists on Twitter. Both point to YouTube as a powerful force for radicalization:

In short, these recent reports make it clear that YouTube’s design has made it a powerful tool for far-right recruiting. There’s a tremendous library of far-right content on the site, as one might expect on a largely unregulated video uploading service, and the alt-right spends significant effort spreading these videos on alternate platforms. What’s more, the videos appear to be effective at radicalizing people. A not-insignificant number of people exposed to these videos, either via YouTube’s algorithm or a link on another platform, finds them persuasive — and end up joining the alt-right or other far-right movements as a result.

Elsewhere

Black Man’s Fatal Encounter With Police Strikes Close to Home in Silicon Valley

Here is a heartbreaking story about Chinedu Valentine Okobi, an unarmed 36-year-old man who got into a struggle with police officers on October 3rd in the Bay Area. He died after being hit with a stun gun. His sister, Ebele Okobi, is Facebook’s public policy director for Africa. Company executives have stepped forward to share Okobi’s story and bring renewed attention to the the problem of police brutality:

In the wake of her brother’s killing, every senior leader at the company, including Mark Zuckerberg, has reached out to her to show support, she said. Current and former Facebook colleagues have used their connections to help spread her brother’s story among activists and the news media. Several Facebook executives are expected to attend Mr. Okobi’s memorial service. A memorial fund to make donations to the Equal Justice Initiative in his honor has been set up on Facebook.

Facebook’s big bet on telecom gear

Ina Fried catches us up on Facebooks’ Telecom Infra Project, which Facebook helps the telecom industry build networks at a lower cost, in the hopes that it will bring more Facebook users onto the internet:

At its TIP summit in London, Facebook announced Terragraph trials have started with its partners in Hungary, Malaysia and Indonesia. Terragraph uses the same components as a high-speed, high-frequency wireless protocol known as WiGig to deliver gigabit speeds to dense underserved urban areas at a fraction of the cost of fiber.

Facebook’s former security chief warns of tech’s ‘negative impacts’ — and has a plan to help solve them

Alex Stamos — whose Twitter account has gotten really good lately! — is launching an “institute” at Stanford University to bring techies, Washington policy types, and academics closer together. Craig Timberg and Elizabeth Dwoskin report:

“There aren’t processes to thoughtfully think through these trade-offs,” he said in an interview ahead of his talk at the university’s Center for International Security and Cooperation. “You end up with these for-profit, very powerful organizations that are not democratically accountable, making decisions that are in their best and often short-term interest … without there being a much more open and democratic discussion of what these issues are.” He hopes the new initiative, called the Stanford Internet Observatory, will help unite “sometimes warring factions” of academia, tech companies and Washington policymakers to work together to help solve “the negative impacts technology can have on society,” he said.

Advertisers Allege Facebook Failed to Disclose Key Metric Error for More Than a Year

Facebook knew about issues with how it measured viewership of video ads for more than a year before it told advertisers in 2016, according to a new lawsuit.

Instagram Has a Massive Harassment Problem

Last week Taylor Lorenz told us that teens are being bullied constantly on Instagram. Now she has talked to some people who work at Instagram about what they’re seeing:

“There’s an effort called ‘kindness,’ which is to reduce bullying and harassment, but there’s not that many people working on it,” said Alex, a current Instagram employee who asked to be referred to by a gender-neutral pseudonym. “Generally, what you’ll find is a lot of these efforts on harassment or bullying, or there’s a new feature to track how much time you spend—they’re mostly done for PR.” Another Instagram employee told me nearly the same thing: that Instagram’s anti-bullying rhetoric “doesn’t seem connected to what’s actually going on in the company.”

What’s Next for Instagram’s Kevin Systrom? Flying Lessons

Speaking of Instagram — if, like me, you’re obsessed with why the founders quit last month, you can now watch Kevin Systrom’s interview with Lauren Goode and analyze his body language and intonation for yourself.

Twitter spammed people’s phones with cryptic notifications

Hey, I wrote this! (The reason turned out to have something to do with “invisible notifications” sent to trigger badge icons.)

Twitter, the Bluth Company of Silicon Valley social networks, kicked off Tuesday by sending users incomprehensible text strings via push notifications. A wide range of Twitter users tweeted their notifications, which consisted of long strings of numbers and lowercase letters, followed by a colon and another number. Maybe it’s a random burst of data. Maybe Twitter has revealed the nuclear launch codes! Either way, it should be a fun afternoon.

Breaking WeChat’s Grip on China’s Social Networks ($)

Would you believe that there’s more competition among social networks in an authoritarian dictatorship than there is here in our capitalist paradise? Well there is! Juro Osawa and Yunan Zhang report:

Imagine if Facebook’s key lieutenants quit to launch a rival product. In China, something like that just happened. Two of the people who helped develop WeChat, the nearly universal chat app run by Tencent, recently created new social networks called Pop and Echo. It comes amid signs WeChat’s grip over social networking and media consumption in China may not be as total as it once was, leaving openings for newcomers and potentially a more fragmented market. While the new contenders are young, the amount of backing they are getting shows investors believe new social apps more narrowly focused on photo- and video-sharing, where WeChat is less dominant, could pay off.

How Short Video Created the World’s Most Valuable Startup

Peter Yang investigates why Chinese short-form video Douyin succeeded where Vine failed. I don’t think this is a complete explanation, but worth considering, at least:

Music as the inspiration: The vast majority of short videos on Douyin have a 5–15s music clip playing in the background. The song defines what creators do in the video and creators can click a song to see other videos and get inspired to create similar content. Create trends and copy them: Similarly, viewers can browse Douyin’s discover tab to see a frequent rotation of trending hashtags and contests to get inspired to create content. The Douyin team actively curates new trends in partnership with its top creators.

Donald Daters, a dating app for Trump supporters, leaked its users’ data

People who only want to date Trump supporters have enough problems in their life. And now this, from Zack Whittaker:

On its launch day alone, the app had a little over 1,600 users and counting. We know because a security researcher found issues with the app that made it possible to download the entire user database.

Launches

Pinterest is turning more of its window shoppers into buyers with newest features

Kate Clark has an update on what Pinterest is doing with its money-making shoppable pins:

The three new features include up-to-date pricing and stock information on all product pins, with links that take pinners to the retailer’s website, plus a new “Products like this” category under each fashion and home decor pin, which includes stylistically similar products that Pinterest thinks that user will like. It’s also added a new shopping shortcut within the app that connects users to similar products to a given pin. That new feature is accessible when users hold down on any home or style pin and click on the price tag logo (second image below).

Takes

Here’s a take from a former Google engineer who was once asked to participate in a company project related to censorship in China. He says he stood up to his bosses and encourages other Googlers to do the same:

1/ Google is working on a new search engine code-named "Dragonfly" that will aid China's effort to censor information from its citizenry.



As a former Google engineer I wanted to share some information on what it's like to be inside Google as these decisions are made pic.twitter.com/HAts5wXwsU — Vijay Boyapati (@real_vijay) October 15, 2018

And finally ...

New Social-Media User Guidelines

River Clegg has some satirical new rules for every social network, such as this one for Twitter.

All Twitter users must now check a box indicating whether they’re a white supremacist or a comedian. It will just be easier this way.

For the record, I’m a comedian.

Talk to me

Send me tips, comments, questions, and targeted ads: casey@theverge.com.