Culture Archives - American Inspectors Insight

Culture , Life

New Facebook’s WhatsApp Privacy Policy Violations

By Jennifer Lipovski January 8, 2021

New violation that you agreed to and did not read .. WhatsApp will delete your account if you do not share your data with Facebook

If you use the WhatsApp application, you may have noticed a pop-up window while using the application in your phone at some point during the past two days, asking you to agree to update the privacy policy of the application, and of course you immediately clicked on the button at the bottom to continue.

But did you read the new terms and know what they mean to you?

If you read closely, you will know that users will have until February 8, 2021 to read and agree to the new terms, and if users do not accept the new privacy terms that appear on their screens, their WhatsApp account will be deleted as of that date.

It is possible that you are not the only one to agree to the new terms without reading them, however the changes to the privacy policy of the WhatsApp application – which has more than two billion users now – are important and you must be aware of them, and they include the following: Integrate better with a group Other Facebook products, giving space to better interact with businesses, and collecting users’ financial data.

What data does WhatsApp share with Facebook?

The WhatsApp application collects a lot of data related to the account such as: phone number, your account picture, your usage patterns that include the features you use, the groups you joined, how you interact with others within the application, and other information such as the use of the status feature, device data, and much more.

Most of this data has been restructured in different sections in the old versions of the privacy policy, but in the new update of the privacy policy, the company added a new section called Transaction and Payments Data that includes the users’ financial data that is collected.

It is a step aimed at improving and developing various payment services on Facebook to allow you to pay for various goods. This leads us to the integrations that Facebook makes between its various services and products to improve ad targeting.

The updated policy states that WhatsApp will share the data it collects about you with other Facebook companies, and it includes your account registration information such as your phone number, transaction data, service-related information, information about how you interact with others, including companies, and your private IP address. It may include other information specified in the privacy policy section entitled “Information collected” or “obtained upon notice to you or on your consent.”

Advertising

The updated policy also suggests that it may send you marketing materials about the Facebook Companies. In addition, the company will use your data collected from the app and other Facebook services to provide content suggestions, person recommendations, and ads along with service improvements.

Interact with business activities

Many businesses depend on WhatsApp to communicate with their customers and customers, so the company has launched a version of the application dedicated to commercial activities called WhatsApp Business, which allows merchants to communicate with users of the application through additional commercial features.

This version has grown significantly over the past few years, and the number of its users has reached more than 50 million. To increase this number, WhatsApp will allow companies to integrate other services in the application.

Facebook says it “works with businesses that use Facebook or any other party to help store and better manage their communications with you on WhatsApp.” As part of this, third-party apps may be able to read your communications on behalf of the business you interact with.

Moreover, the third-party services that you use within WhatsApp may be able to obtain some of your information. For example, the in-app video player might know your IP address.

These new WhatsApp changes come on the heels of a controversy that indicates that the app collects much more data than the iMessage app from Apple.

After the lawsuit filed by 10 states against Google in the last period, the American Wall Street Journal reported that Facebook and Google had agreed to cooperate and assist each other against antitrust measures in the event of an investigation into their agreement to work together in online advertising.

You can read the updated privacy policy for WhatsApp through this link

Culture , Politics

The Chaos in the United States Could be Peacefully Quelled

By Steven White June 1, 2020

Law enforcement departments need to show soliarity with protestors protesting the senseless death of George Floyd at the hands of a police officer. It’s natural that people should be angry about the racism and policy brutality that has been an ongoing problem in the United States. It’s ,however, not inevitable that property be destroyed.
I have seen two articles about law enforcement leaders who went out and talked to the protestors in a friendly way and joined them. One was a sheriff in Michigan. Another was the police chief police chief of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. These officials did the right thing. They showed solidarity with the protestors defusing tense situations that could have turned violent.

Right now, protestors are justifiably angry about police brutality. It is up to police to demonstrate that they are on the people’s side – not against them. The initiative for peace needs to come from the police. That’s what we are seeing in the acts of these two law enforcement leaders. The sheriff in Michigan told protestors, “these cops love you!”
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I would like to see police everywhere in the United States rise up and declare that they understand and sympathize with the anger of protestors and want to make sure things like George Floyd’s murder don’t occur again. It needs to become a nationwide movement. Anger hatred, and violence never cure anger, hatred, and violence. They only make it worse. Using force to put down the riots is not the answer. The division and conflict between police and the people needs to be healed.

To me, it’s an encouraging sign to see law enforcement leaders stepping up and doing the right thing. What’s needed is people who can get beyond the oppositions and polarization and see that both sides in the conflict have valid points and deserve to be heard. The sheriff in Michigan told the protestors that he understood that they wanted to be heard. When people are truly heard, their anger dissipates. Just notice how the sheriff in Michigan defused all the tension in one to two minutes.

Yes, there’s a big problem in the United States with racism. It’s not just a problem in the United States. It’s just perhaps more obvious in the United States because of the difference of color. I have seen it in Turkey as well where a lot of Turkish people hate Kurds, Arabs, and perhaps Greeks. Racism still exists in Germany with skinheads and Neo-Nazi’s.

The essence of racism is the belief that my race is good and other races are bad. I identify with my race and I project all the evil onto other races. It’s a case of collective projection. I believe that my race is all-good and other races are all-bad. Unfortunately, a large number of people are completely caught up in this sort of polarization and projection.

I think it is unhelpful to point at others and condemn their racism without looking into myself to see where I am racist. Collective healing isn’t going to take place through external action. It can come only through each person looking into themselves and owning their own demons. Yes, I’m talking to you! Other people and the external world are never the real problem. All the ills of the world are in our minds first and then they become externalized. So we have to address them from the root.

Culture , Life

Benefits of the Coronavirus Lockdowns

By Steven White May 20, 2020

The coronavirus lockdowns have disrupted most people’s routines and way of life. The ways and methods of doing business and operating have changed in important and fundamental ways, even in “essential” occupations.

With the basic structure of our lives thus revamped we are in a position to look at the form our lives took before the changes. Much that was forming and informing our lives was unconscious and automatic – taken for granted when we were caught up in our former lives Now that things are different, we can look back at the way our lives were and evaluate them in ways that weren’t possible for us when we were caught up in them.

One of the big things that happened for most of us is that things got a lot quieter. The traffic noise went way down. Most people had probably become inured to the noise and tuned it out. Have you realized, now that it is gone, how intrusive it was before? It’s as if somebody said, “let’s turn it off for a while!” Have you realized how much easier it is to relax without all that hustle and bustle?

We now have time and space to reflect on what we have been doing and why and to decide where we want to go from here as individuals and collectively. The way things were before was, I believe, engineered to keep us busy running here and there so we wouldn’t have the time to talk to each other deeply and to question the form our collective lives were taking and the purpose, or rather, lack of purpose of it all.

I think we were brainwashed to believe that things had to be the way they were. Yet now, with the coronavirus crisis, many of those things which were considered unquestionable before have changed. One prime example is that many businesses would not allow people to work from home before, but now …. If you look around you can see many examples of formerly “unquestionable” practices which have now changed, which means they were never as unchangeable as we had been led to believe.

I think probably, at this point, many people don’t want things to go back to the way they were, even if that were possible. For instance, I’m guessing many people realize now the value of spending time at home with family rather than working sixteen hour days.

It may be too that many are having a hard time with all this new-found free time. It was possible to avoid facing ourselves and our lives while the rat-race was in full swing. In fact, I would say that the avoidance of facing ourselves was the driving force behind the rat-race. While it may be difficult to turn around and take a good look at ourselves, it’s very necessary. I don’t believe we could have gone on much longer in the way we were going before.

Something had to come along and force us, from the outside, to stop what we were doing long enough for there to be a gap so that we could wake up out of the collective madness that has been plunging our world toward destruction. I believe such things come from an intelligence that is far beyond our comprehension. You don’t have to call it God. You could just as well call it Life or the Great Tao or whatever name you choose. The bottom-line is that this virus is perfectly suited to our situation in every possible way. Yes, it brings suffering and loss, but no transformation worthy of the name ever comes while people are in their comfort-zones. As hard as it may be to hear, we are in need of a good dose of suffering to wake us up and get us to pay attention to our real needs and the needs of the planet.

(to be continued)

Culture , Politics

Facebook appoints ex Israeli official to oversee content

By Mark Curtis May 12, 2020

Facebook
has appointed Emi Palmor, the former Israeli Justice Ministry
director-general, to its Oversight Board which will be tasked with content
moderation on Facebook and Instagram.

The Oversight Board, first announced by Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg in November 2018 following the 2016 U.S. presidential elections, is expected respond to growing criticism regarding a lack of transparency and consistency in the platform’s decision-making processes regarding freedom of expression.

The move is likely to cause concern among pro-Palestine activists who already feel that the social media giant is censoring them.

Palmor, who is a lecturer in the Israeli Defense Forces, is one of 20 members selected from around the world from a wide range of professional and cultural backgrounds to be appointed to the independent board.

Their recruitment was led by Facebook, with the co-chairs then leading the selection of the rest of the members which include Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Yemeni activist Tawakkol Karman and former Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger.

The Oversight Board will review content that both by users and Facebook refer to it. All decisions will be posted on the board’s website and Facebook will be required to respond publicly to them.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg with Benjamin Netanyahu

The board will also publish an annual report evaluating its work and the extent to which Facebook is meeting its commitments.

“I have been a civil servant for 24 years in Israel, dedicating my life to increasing access to justice and putting the citizen at the centre,” said Palmor. “For me, serving on the Oversight Board is an opportunity to do this for people around the world. I have a reputation for not being afraid of difficult issues and am dedicated to holding Facebook accountable by improving how content decisions are made and increasing the fairness and transparency around why they are made.”

Facebook has previously confirmed that the board will be funded by a $130 million trust, established by Facebook but which the board says is independent of the social network.

Mr Rusbridger said it had taken too long to create such a system for moderating content, but was pleased such a body was now in place.

“We are living in a world of information chaos and standing on the precipice of darkness,” he said. “Societies can’t function unless their citizens can agree on what constitutes evidence, fact and truth.

“It’s perhaps taken us too long to realize this. The Oversight Board seems to be the first imaginative and bold step by one of the biggest players to find a way of reconciling the need to start imposing some kind of judgment and standards on what is published, while still maintaining the things that are wonderful about social media, and necessary for free speech.”