For the most part, net neutrality died on Monday, April 23rd. It’s death warrant was signed a couple of months earlier when the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted on party lines to end the Obama era rule that prohibited internet service providers from discriminating against or in favor of content, based on business considerations.  MORE

Read the full post at Forbes.com

Reposted with permission from ConnectSafely.org

A strong password is your first line of defense against intruders and imposters. Scroll down for a video based on these tips.

Never give out your password to anyone.* Never give it to friends, even if they’re really good friends. A friend can – maybe even accidentally – pass your password along to others or even become an ex-friend and abuse it.

Don’t just use one password. It’s possible that someone working at a site where you use that password could pass it on or use it to break into your accounts at other sites.

Create passwords that are easy to remember but hard for others to guess. One possibility is a phrase such as “I started 7th grade at Lincoln Middle School in 2010” and use the initial of each word like this: “Is7gaLMSi#2010.” And make them at least a little different (by adding a couple of unique letters) for each site. On some sites you might even be able to type in the entire phrase.

Newest advice: Use a pass phrase

Security experts are now recommending a  “pass phrase” rather than simply a password. Such a phrase should be relatively long – perhaps 20 characters or so and consist of seemingly random words strung together along with numbers, symbols and upper and lower case letters. Think of something that you can remember but others couldn’t guess such as YellowChocolate#56CadillacFi$h. that’s relatively long – perhaps 20 characters or so — using seemingly random words strung together along with numbers, symbols and upper and lower case letters. Think of something that you can remember but others couldn’t guess such as YellowChocolate#56CadillacFi$h.  Avoid using famous quotations that might be easy to guess.

Make the password at least 12 characters long. The longer the better. Longer passwords are harder for thieves to crack.

Include numbers, capital letters and symbols. Consider using a $ instead of an S or a 1 instead of an L, or including an & or % – but note that $1ngle is NOT a good password. Password thieves are onto this. But Mf$J1ravng (short for “My friend Sam Jones is really a very nice guy) is an excellent password.

Don’t use dictionary words.  If it’s in the dictionary, there is a chance someone will guess it. There’s even software that criminals use that can guess words used in dictionaries.

Don’t post it in plain sight. This might seem obvious but studies have found that a lot of people post their password on their monitor with a sticky note. Bad idea. If you must write it down, hide the note somewhere where no one can find it.

Consider using a password manager. Programs or web services like RoboForm (Windows only) or Lastpass (Windows and Mac) let you create a different very strong password for each of your sites. But you only have to remember the one password to access the program or secure site that stores your passwords for you.

Consider using multi-factor authentication. Many services offer an option to verify your identity if someone logs on to your account from an unrecognized device. The typical method is to send a text or other type of message to a mobile device registered to you with a code you need to type in to verity it’s really you. In most cases, you will not be required to use this code when logging on from a known device such as your own computer, tablet or phone.

Don’t fall for “phishing” attacks. Be very careful before clicking on a link (even if it appears to be from a legitimate site) asking you to log in, change your password or provide any other personal information. It might be legit or it might be a “phishing” scam where the information you enter goes to a hacker. When in doubt, log on manually by typing what you know to be the site’s URL into your browser window.

Make sure your devices are secure. The best password in the world might not do you any good if someone is looking over your shoulder while you type or if you forget to log out on a cybercafe computer. Malicious software, including “keyboard loggers” that record all of your keystrokes, has been used to steal passwords and other information. To increase security, make sure you’re using up-to-date anti-malware software and that your operating system is up-to-date.

Use a “password” or fingerprints for your phone too. Most phones can be locked so that the only way to use them is to type in a code, typically a string of numbers or maybe a pattern you draw on the screen. Some new phones allow you to register fingerprints, which are quite secure. Sometimes when people with bad intentions find unlocked phones, they use them to steal the owners’ information, make a lot of calls, or send texts that look like they’re coming from the owner. Someone posing as you could send texts that make it look like you’re bullying or harassing someone in your address book with inappropriate images or words.

* Some parents ask their kids to share their passwords with them. This might be OK with young children, but you might want to respect your teen’s privacy and not ask. Also, if you do ask your children for their passwords, make sure they understand that this is a rare exception to the “do not share password” rule.

If you’d like to print these tips out, here’s a PDF of these tips. Please contact admin@connectsafely.org for permission to reprint or post.

by Larry Magid

This post first appeared in the San Jose Mercury News

Amazon is going after the little-kids’ market, and I think that’s just fine. The company has long offered a children’s version of its popular Fire Tablet and now  offers Alexa content aimed at young users.

Amazon recently beefed up its parental controls for its FreeTime children’s content service giving parents access to activity reports on their kids’ internet use. It also allows parents to set time limits and educational goals and shares tips on how to talk to children about the content they access.

On Wednesday, Amazon announced that it’s bringing its FreeTime service to Alexa and will soon start selling an Echo Dot Kids Edition, which combines an Echo Dot voice activated speaker, FreeTime features and a year’s subscription to FreeTime Unlimited.  The Unlimited service offers premium content from Disney, Nickelodeon, Sesame Street, PBS Kids and Cartoon Network.

Amazon calls Alexa “a kid-friendly DJ, comedian, and storyteller.” I know several parents whose kids love Alexa not only for her ability to play music but to tell jokes (often pretty bad ones) and stories and turn lights and devices on and off. Someday kids might think of light switches the way today’s young adults think about rotary phones.

A few weeks ago Amazon loaned me a $99 Fire 7 Kids Edition Tablet so I could try out the FreeTime parental controls. I don’t have a young child, so I made one up called “Junior Magid.”

I set up the types of controls a parent might want to enforce on a young user, such as what content Junior could access and daily time limits. I also arranged to have two Fire Kids tablets sent to Kerry Gallagher, a digital learning specialist at St. John’s Prep in Danvers, Massachusetts, and director of K-12 Education at ConnectSafely.org, the nonprofit internet safety organization that I run.

Gallagher set up the devices for her 6- and 9-year-old daughters with rules that allowed them to view videos or play games only after they had spent at least a half hour reading. Gallagher said she liked the content information and suggested questions on the parent dashboard because “they will help parents get a better sense of what types of games, books, and videos their children prefer to engage with and spark important conversations about how that media is making their children think.”

As with any tech-based parental controls, these are supplements to actual parenting and not a replacement for sitting with your kids, talking about appropriate tech use and discussing what they’re doing with their technology. Good tech parenting also requires being a good role model; how parents use their own tech influences children.

In February, ConnectSafely sponsored a family night in Austin, Texas, during Safer Internet Day. The biggest complaint from the elementary school-age children was that their parents were spending too much time with their devices. It made me wonder who is more mature — the kids or the parents? For more of my thoughts about parental controls, visit connectsafely.org/parental-controls.

Speaking of parental controls, Google just announced that it’s allowing parents of kids who use the YouTube Kids app, aimed at children under 13, to limit their child’s videos to those whose channels have been reviewed by humans rather than algorithms. The YouTube Kids app has been criticized for allowing content that’s not suited for young viewers. By having human reviewers, it’s a lot less likely for an inappropriate video to slip through the cracks.

Starting May 9, Amazon will offer both a free and paid version of its FreeTime service specifically for Alexa. The free version will bring “parental controls and family-focused features” to any of Amazon’s Echo devices. The Amazon FreeTime Unlimited on Alexa service will offer kid-friendly content and skills and audio books at no additional charge for FreeTime Unlimited members or starting at $2.99 a month or free for Amazon Prime members who don’t subscribe to the Unlimited service.

Like the controls on Amazon’s tablets, the new Alexa for kids will allow parents to set time limits and bedtime curfews. Parents will also be able to control services and “skills.” A skill is like an app, which can come from third parties.

I started out by saying “Amazon is going after the little-kids’ market,” which I’m sure raises some concern among adults. To me, the issue — whether it’s Amazon, Google, Facebook, Disney or any other company — is whether parents are truly in control and whether the company is doing a good job making sure the content is age-appropriate. There are some who object to any products aimed at kids, but the fact is that kids love to use technology, love story-telling and media and benefit from learning tools. To me, the question isn’t whether products such as Alexa for Kids should exist, but whether they are carefully crafted to serve the needs of families without taking unfair advantage of children.

There are ways to accomplish the goals of a standing desk without having to buy one. Read the full post at Forbes.com

Click above to listen to Larry’s 50 second CBS News Radio segment about this story

A report from the office of New  York City Comptroller Scott Stringer claims that NYC residents paid an additional $616 million in 2016 due to Airbnb.  The report said that “Tenants in Murray Hill, Gramercy, Stuyvesant Town, Williamsburg, and Greenpoint pay an average of more than $100 per month in additional rent due to Airbnb listings.”

“For years, New Yorkers have felt the burden of rents that go nowhere but up, and Air

The report claims:

• Airbnb listings were heavily concentrated in parts of Manhattan and Brooklyn and had a greater impact on these neighborhoods. Approximately 20% of the increase in rental rates was due to Airbnb listings in midtown and lower Manhattan, including neighborhoods such as Chelsea, Clinton, and Midtown Business District; Murray Hill, Gramercy, and Stuyvesant Town; Chinatown and Lower East Side; Battery Park City, Greenwich Village, and Soho.
• In aggregate, New York City renters had to pay an additional $616 million in 2016 due to price pressures created by Airbnb, with half of the increase concentrated in the neighborhoods highlighted above;
• For each one percent of all residential units in a neighborhood listed on Airbnb, rental rates in that neighborhood went up by 1.58 percent.
• Between 2009 and 2016, approximately 9.2 percent of the citywide increase in rental rates can be attributed to Airbnb

“For years, New Yorkers have felt the burden of rents that go nowhere but up, and Airbnb is one reason why. From Bushwick to Chinatown and in so many neighborhoods in-between, affordable apartments that should be available to rent never hit the market, because they are making a profit for Airbnb,” said New York City Comptroller Scott M. Stringer. “Airbnb has grown exponentially at the expense of New Yorkers who face rising rents and the risk of being pushed out of communities they helped build. If we’re going to preserve the character of our neighborhoods and expand our middle class, we have to put people before profits. It’s that simple.”

Airbnb denies claims

Airbnb posted its own statement denying the charge, claiming:

• The majority of our hosts are sharing the home in which they live, not removing permanent housing from the market. In fact, as NYU researchers recently found, in order for someone to make as much money from an Airbnb guest as from a long-term tenant, they would have to share a home for 216 nights a year in New York City — more than triple the number of nights that a typical listing is shared.
• Blaming rent increases on everyday New Yorkers who are sharing their home on Airbnb defies logic. After all, anyone who lives in New York knows that the City has had a declared housing emergency since the end of World War II and that prices have been rising for decades. In fact, home prices in New York City were soaring long before Airbnb was even founded, increasing by 124% from 1996 to 2006 alone.
• Rents in many neighborhoods are also now falling, in part due to a long-awaited increase in the housing supply after years of post-recession stagnation. Manhattan rents fell 3.8% in March — the most since 2011 — and Brooklyn rents are down for four straight months, with concessions offered in 48 percent of new leases — a record high.

Airbnb said that  “It is home sharing that has empowered these tens of thousands of New Yorkers with more than $6,700 in extra income each year — all without spending a single taxpayer dollar.”

CNET news has more on this story.

In a statement, Twitter urged users to change their passwords after disclosing “Due to a bug, passwords were written to an internal log before completing the hashing process.” Hashing replaces the actual password with a version that can’t be read by a human being. The company said that it has “fixed the bug, and our investigation shows no indication of breach or misuse by anyone.”

The company offers the following password advice

1. Change your password on Twitter and on any other service where you may have used the same password.
2. Use a strong password that you don’t reuse on other websites.
3. Enable login verification, also known as two factor authentication. This is the single best action you can take to increase your account security.
4. Use a password manager to make sure you’re using strong, unique passwords everywhere.

You’ll find more advice at ConnectSafely’s Tips for Strong, Secure Passwords & Other Authentication Tools

This post first appeared in the San Jose Mercury News

Also see my Forbes post “After Testing Both New Standalone VR Headsets I’m Still Not Sold On VR.”

Did you ever experience the Circle Vision 360 theater at Disneyland? As a child, I marveled at the America the Beautiful experience where I stood in the middle of a room surrounded by nine screens and enjoyed a 360-degree tour of America. Well, that’s nothing compared with what you can do with a virtual reality headset that allows you to look all around as you fly, drive, walk or just sit and watch — all while never moving more than a foot or two from where you started.

One common experience is to tour a building and look at the walls, floors and ceiling. Another is to enjoy a bird’s eye view as you fly over a city. One of the scariest experiences in VR is to stand on the top of a virtual building and look over the side. It’s easy to forget that you’re not actually risking your life. VR is ideal for immersive gaming.

Until now, if you wanted to experience virtual reality, the headsets on the market would only work if connected to a smartphone or a PC.  Now there are two standalone VR headsets, the $399 Mirage Solo with Daydream from Lenovo and the $199 Oculus Go from Oculus, a division of Facebook. Both Lenovo and Oculus provided me with units to test. Lenovo also loaned me its new $300 camera that lets you take your own 180 degree VR pictures and videos.

Oculus Go headset from Facebook

If VR is ever to go from niche to mainstream, moderately priced standalone headsets will make it happen. Until now, your options were to spend $600 or more on a headset that you had to tether to a high-end PC or get a product like Samsung Gear VR or Google Daydream that required you to insert a smartphone.

Having a standalone VR system makes a lot more sense. Once it’s configured, it’s easier to use. For the Oculus and Lenovo units, you simply connect to WiFi. Once a VR program is loaded into the headset, you even can use them when you’re not online.

The Lenovo Mirage and Oculus Go are both slightly uncomfortable, but that’s true with all VR headsets. In both cases, images and videos can sometimes be grainy and slightly out of focus. You adjust the focus by repositioning the headset by tightening or loosening on your head. Neither has a dedicated focus controller, but with a little practice, both allow you to get pretty good resolution. The Lenovo Mirage, at 23 ounces, is considerably heavier than the 17-ounce Oculus Go. In both cases, you don’t need your phone each time you use the headset, but you do need one to set it up.

Lenovo Mirage Solo

Because it’s $200 cheaper, I suspect the Oculus Go will do better than the Lenovo Mirage. Still, there are things Lenovo buyers get for that extra money including a newer version of the Snapdragon processor, 64 GB vs. 32 GB storage on the base model (an extra $50 buys you 64 GB storage on the Oculus Go) and sensors that track your motion so you don’t bump into something or fall down a staircase. Unlike the Oculus, the Lenovo headset has a MicroSD card slot for additional storage.

It also knows the position of your head relative to what you’re experiencing, so if you lean toward an object, it will appear closer. Lean back, and it appears farther away.

The Lenovo is better built. You can adjust the fit by tightening a large knob at the back. You loosen or tighten the fit on the Oculus Go with Velcro straps.

Both headsets have a standard headphone jack for audio, but the Oculus Go has small built-in speakers. Lenovo’s product comes with earbuds, which are required to hear audio. Both devices come with a handheld controller.

They also both allow you to stream video, such as Netflix, Hulu and YouTube. In theory, streaming through a VR headset gives you a theater-like experience because the screen appears to be enormous – like a movie theater.  Having said that, it sometimes also looks grainy, and even if it’s not grainy, it’s a bit uncomfortable.

There are already a lot of available apps for both because The Oculus Go, as you’d expect, runs many of the same apps as the high-end Oculus Rift and the lower priced Samsung Galaxy VR, which also uses Oculus software. The Lenovo Solo Mirage operates on Google’s Daydream platform, which powers Google’s Daydream headset and there is overlap with Google’s super-inexpensive “Cardboard” VR headset.

Both these devices are a good introduction to the world of VR, but that begs the question of whether you really want to own a VR headset. It’s something you should experience at least once, but, so far, I haven’t come across anything compelling enough to keep me coming back. People who love immersive video games would enjoy it more than I do, and I can certainly see how VR can enhance education.

Personally, I’m more excited about Augmented Reality where, instead of glasses that take over your entire field of vision, you’re looking through translucent glasses that superimpose computer images over the real world. And I’m kind of fond of the real world all by itself.

Imagine if you worked at a hair salon or a restaurant and got a call from a very friendly person seeking a reservation. You’d ask all the usual questions and book a table or appointment and perhaps exchange pleasantries before you hang up. But what if the person who called wasn’t really a person? It could be the new Google Assistant Duplex feature that was announced at the Google I/O developers conference on Tuesday.

As this video from CNET shows, the interaction can be quite nature and lifelike. You can read more about it on CNET

This post first appeared in the San Jose Mercury News

The common expression “too much of a good thing” can apply to almost everything that we enjoy, including the internet and mobile devices. My grandparents understood that, but apparently, many of my contemporaries don’t when it comes to tech. I’m guilty as well. I can think of many occasions when I’ve sat down at my computer or started gazing at my mobile phone, only to realize hours later that I’ve just wasted the better part of an evening.

Of course, the companies that make those “good things,” want you to use them as much as possible, but — whether because of pressure or because of a newfound awareness, Google has gotten the message and soon will offer Android users tools to check how much time they’re spending in apps, how often they’re unlocking their phones and how many notifications they receive. Android users will also get a more robust “do not disturb” feature, including a “shush” gesture that automatically puts the phone into do-not-disturb mode when you turn it over.

Android also gets a “wind down” feature that “gets the phone ready for bed,” by either activating a nightlight that reduces blue light, which is said to interfere with sleep, or go into grayscale to get rid of all colors. That not only eliminates blue light but also makes the phone less appealing to use.

These features will appear in the upcoming “Android P” operating system that will be available for compatible Android phones.

YouTube controls

The move is part of Google’s “Digital Well Being” initiative that it launched at its Google I/O developers conference Tuesday, and it’s not limited to Android. The company is also adding features to encourage YouTube viewers to take more breaks. This includes a “take a break reminder” that will appear after a specified period of time and a dashboard that summarizes how long you’ve been on the site. And, by default, your phone won’t beep between 10 p.m. and 8:00 a.m. if you receive a notification from YouTube. You can also limit those notifications to once a day.

The YouTube notification system is a good start, but on my Android phone, I’ve gone through the time-consuming exercise of turning off notifications for all but essential apps such as texting, phone calls and alerts from my home security system. I don’t need to be interrupted every time I get an email message or someone mentions me in a tweet or even when my favorite news sites post something they think is urgent.

One thing Google could do to improve my well-being would be to make it easier to turn off notifications — perhaps by letting you control all apps from a single screen or having notifications off by default with the exception of essential apps.

Google has  launched a new digital well-being page (wellbeing.google/) that describes all of its new initiatives including ways to reduce clutter in photos and minimize distractions while driving. There are also links to services for kids and families like YouTube Kids and Family Link, essentially a parent-controlled smartphone for kids.

Last month YouTube Kids was updated to allow parents to limit their children to age-appropriate “trusted channels” that have been vetted by humans along with the ability for parents to approve only the videos they want their kids to see. The app had been criticized for allowing commercial content that some considered to be inappropriate for young children.

Not just Google

Google, of course, isn’t the only company that has apps that can be enjoyed a bit too often. Facebook has been repeatedly criticized for doing all it can to keep people online and coming back. Like Google, the company says that it’s working on ways to empower users to take more control over how much time they spend on the service and what they do while online.

Last year 60 Minutes ran a segment on “brain hacking,” featuring former Google design ethicist Tristan Harris, that compared smartphones with slot machines. “Everytime I check my phone I’m playing the slot machine to see what did I get. This is one way to hijack people’s minds and form a habit.” These little rewards include likes, comments and retweets that keep us coming back to see how people are responding to us on social media.

In the interview, Harris pointed to Snapchat “Snapstreaks,” which “shows the number of days in a row you’ve sent a message back and forth to someone.” On its website, Snapchat says,  “To keep a Snapstreak going, both Snapchatters must send a Snap (not Chat) back and forth to each other within a 24 hour window.”

Harris, who founded the Center for Humane Technology, has been pressuring companies to create “humane design standards, policy, and business models that more deeply align with our humanity and how we want to live.”

There have been some who compare Facebook, Google and other tech companies to big tobacco. But, as a speaker at a recent conference I attended quipped, they may be more like chocolate companies. Unlike cigarettes, dark chocolate, in moderation, may be good for you.

Although I applaud companies for acknowledging potential overuse or misuse of their products, I also appreciate the limitations of what they can accomplish. Just as with chocolate, alcohol or my drug of choice — coffee — it’s up to each of us to decide whether to use these products and how much and how often. Just as with restaurants posting nutritional information, there are things that internet companies can do to help us use their products more responsibly, but it’s still up to us to control just how much Google, Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter and other media we consume.

Disclosure: Larry Magid is CEO of ConnectSafely.org, a nonprofit internet safety organization that receives support from companies mentioned in this article. 

Inorder to get a $40 a month unlimited line from any of the major cell phone carriers, you’ll need to sign up for a family plan with at least four lines, which isn’t a bad idea even if you’re single assuming you have friends that you treat like family,

But now there’s a new company on the block offering a $40 unlimited service and that includes all fees and taxes. It’s called Visible and it’s funded, ironically, by Verizon. My guess is that they’re going after a younger (and singler) crowd and trying to compete with T-Mobile and Sprint which have some pretty attractive plans right now.

There are some limitations with Visible. Right now it only works with iPhones and you need to request an invitation. One journalist said that he got his invitation pretty quickly after signing up.

It doesn’t allow for tethering a PC to your phone, there is no international roaming and you’re limited to 5 Mbps, which is probably fast enough but not as fast as what Verizon or AT&T deliver under peak conditions. Streaming is only 480p, which is fine for watching on a phone.

The good news is that it uses the Verizon network, which means good coverage in most parts of the US. Other companies with lower-c0st plans typically use either Sprint or T-Mobile whose coverage — while getting better — is spotty in some places.

If you want to see how Visible’s plans compare with the big guys, check out CNET’s comparison guide but be aware that there are other smaller companies out there with good deals such as Mint Mobile, which offers plans starting at $15 a month with unlimited talk and text and various data plans.

Read the full post on Forbes.com

Click here to read the full post on Medium

by Larry Magid

This post first appeared in the Mercury News

I’m about to report on some interesting numbers from Facebook regarding inappropriate material it deleted from its service, but first I’d like to warn users about the types of materials you may be providing not just to Facebook but to third-party developers.

Beware of apps bearing ‘insight’

You have undoubtedly heard about the scandal where data from tens of millions of Facebook users were collected by a researcher, via a personal quiz called “thisisyourdigitallife” and turned over to Cambridge Analytica for the benefit of the Trump campaign. And now, according to New Scientist, another personality quiz app called myPersonality exposed personal data of 3 million Facebook users, including “the results of psychological tests.”

I’ll give you the same advice that I give my friends and family. Don’t take these tests and quizzes, regardless of whether you find them on Facebook, in the Apple or Android app store or on the web. It may be fun to find out what type of animal you resemble or who among your friends is a true soulmate, but there is a reason that developers of these apps have invested in something they’re letting people use for free. Facebook has suspended both of these apps from its platform and has tightened its practices regarding data collection, but I’m still wary of these types of apps.

That isn’t to say there aren’t legitimate uses for personality profiles. Dating sites such as eHarmony  ask users to fill out profiles, but it’s clear why they are doing so. Still, I recommend checking the privacy policies and reputation of anyone who is asking you to provide them with this type of  information.

“Misbehaving apps” wasn’t one of the categories included in the Community Standards Enforcement Preliminary Report that Facebook released Tuesday. Instead, the company revealed numbers on its takedowns of graphic violence, adult nudity and sexual activity, terrorist propaganda (ISIS, al-Qaeda and affiliates), hate speech, spam and fake accounts.

Bad content by the numbers

First the numbers.

• Facebook took action on 583 million fake accounts in the first quarter (Q1) of 2018, down from 649 million in the fourth quarter (Q4) of 2017.
• Action on graphic violence increased to 3.4 million pieces of content in Q1 2018 from 1.2 million in Q4 2017.
• The company took action on 21 million “adult nudity and sexual activity” posts, images or videos each of these quarters and dealt with 1.9 million items of terrorist propaganda in Q1 2018 up from 1.1 million in Q4 2017.
• Action on hate speech content rose to 2.5 million items in Q1 2018 from 1.6 million in Q4 2017. Facebook dealt with 836 million pieces of spam in Q1 2018, up from 727 million in the final quarter of 2017.

With the exception of fake accounts and sexual material, all the numbers went up, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that the problems were getting worse. In its report, Facebook said that much of the increase was due to better detection methods. In the graphic violence section, for example, the company said it used photo-matching “to cover with warnings photos that matched ones we previously marked as disturbing. These actions were responsible for around 70% of the increase in Q1.”

AI to the rescue

What I found most interesting was Facebook’s reporting on how many items it finds before users report them. Thanks to artificial intelligence and other software enhancements, Facebook is now able to detect a great deal of this content automatically. For example, the company said that 99.5 percent of the terrorist propaganda acted on in Q1 this year was “flagged by Facebook before users reported it.” That was also true for 85.6 percent of graphic violence, 95.8 percent of nudity and sexual content, 99.7 percent of spam and 98.5 percent of fake accounts.

The only exception was hate speech, where only 38 percent was flagged by Facebook before a user in Q1 of this year. The company said that hate speech content often requires “detailed scrutiny by our trained reviewers to understand context and decide whether the material violates standards.”

But please don’t use this as an excuse to not report bad content or behavior. Just as with hate speech, there are categories of bad content that are difficult for AI to detect, like many instances of cyberbullying and harassment. So please do use the reporting mechanisms on Facebook and the other platforms you use.

More to be done

This level of transparency is a good start, but there is still much for Facebook to clean up on its platform. Fake news remains a problem and is likely to get worse during upcoming elections. Unfortunately, it’s not easy for AI software to know the difference between what’s real and fake, so the service has to figure ways to enhance its software with human moderation.

How people treat each other on the service is also hard to control via software. It’s probably not a good idea for algorithms to police human behavior, and it’s not even something that moderators can do well, especially between adults who don’t know where to draw the line between spirited debate and demeaning comments.

Facebook also needs to make good on its promise to increase the number of well-trained human moderators who can make the right judgment calls when deciding whether to remove content or suspend users. Even knowing the difference between a legal name and a stage or professional name can be challenging for both humans and software. Life is nuanced, and Facebook’s arbiters of proper behavior have the difficult job of honoring those nuances while prohibiting harm.

Disclosure: Larry Magid is CEO of ConnectSafely.org, a nonprofit internet safety organization that receives financial support from Facebook and other tech companies.

By Larry Magid

This post first appeared in the San Jose Mercury News

Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) kicked in on Friday, May 25th, and its impact will be felt not just in Europe but around the world — especially in Silicon Valley, where many tech companies are based. That’s because the GDPR’s rules affect any company that touches data from European citizens, which is pretty much every tech company. It could also have a negative impact on some European teenagers.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told European lawmakers last week that his company will be in compliance, but a study by Poneman Institute revealed that nearly half the companies it surveyed won’t meet the deadline.

Like most sweeping laws, the text of the GDPR is long and complex, but Microsoft Trust Center has published an excellent summary of its key components, which include:

• Giving individuals the right to access their personal data,
• Allowing users to correct errors in their personal data
• Requiring sites to erase users personal data on demand
• Allowing people to object to processing of their personal data
• Letting users export personal data
• Allowing users to turn face recognition on or off

Organizations that collect data from people living in Europe will need to “protect data using appropriate security, notify authorities of personal data breaches, obtain appropriate consents for processing data and keep records detailing data processing,” according to Microsoft’s summary.

A European Union website with extensive information about GDPR further states that European citizens may object to the processing of personal data for marketing purposes or on grounds relating to your particular situation and request the restriction of the processing of personal data in specific cases.

Microsoft is one of many companies that not only had to scramble to make sure it’s in compliance, but also provide advice for its own clients and customers. The GDPR has created a cottage industry of advisers to help businesses large and small figure out how to obey the new laws without having to abandon their core mission. Michael Priem, founder and CEO of Modern Impact, a technology and advertising firm based in Minneapolis, said by email that GDPR is “a good thing because it will help restore trust.” Instead of impeding progress, GDPR and other consumer protection regulations “reset the balance between advertiser and audience by giving consumers more control, directing technology be employed for more noble uses, and compelling marketers to interact with consumers in more meaningful ways that create positive sentiment and ultimately restore trust,” Priem said.

While not everyone in the technology and advertising worlds are as optimistic as Priem, any companies with the resources to comply are of course doing what they must. And, while the task for the behemoths like Microsoft, Google, Facebook and Amazon might be enormous, they have both the will and the resources to make it work. What I always worry about when new regulations come into play is how they will impact small companies as well as startups that may never be able to open their doors due to the burden of the regulations. That’s not to say I don’t think regulations are important, but just to point out that they can have unintended consequences.

Negative consequences

For example, when the U.S. Congress passed the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) in 1998, its intention was to protect the privacy rights of children under 13 by not allowing companies to collect their personal information without verified parental consent. Large children’s programming companies like Disney invested in the mechanisms to comply, but I heard stories from a lot of smaller companies that couldn’t afford the expensive processes for obtaining consent, including some startups that never launched products because of the regulation. Even large companies like Facebook and Google chose to restrict their services to people over 13 and it wasn’t until very recently that Google launched its YouTube Kids and Family Link and Facebook launched Messenger Kids, both aimed at pre-teens with both companies going to great effort to make sure they are COPPA compliant.

GDPR will ban some teens from social media

And speaking of COPPA, Europe’s new GDPR rule has similar provisions, only — unless overridden by legislation in individual countries — they kick in at 16. This provision could have a devastating impact on teens’ use of social media because it requires parental information before they can provide any type of personal information – which is essentially everything one does on social media.

Janice Richardson, an international adviser with the European educational empowerment organization Insight, argues that this provision in GDPR “will have a big impact on the use of the internet on schools, especially for children from different cultural backgrounds who won’t be able to get permission.” She called it “another step to widen the digital divide.” Richardson is properly concerned about parents who, for a variety of reasons including language, immigration status and lack of technical know-how, may not be able or willing to give their children permission to access social media even if they have no strong objections to their doing so. And as I wrote in an op-ed for the Guardian when the rule was being debated in 2015,  it’s essentially in violation of articles 13 and 15 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which was ratified by every European nation. The convention guarantees “the right to freedom of expression,” including the “freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print.” And there is nothing in that convention that requires parents to sign off on those rights.

But don’t take my word for why this is an issue; instead, listen to the kids. Richardson has helped edit a scrapbook that not only explains the issue but showcases youth voices around why this provision does more harm than good when it comes to youth engagement, activism and free speech.

On a government website, the FBI recommends “any owner of small office and home office routers power cycle (reboot) the devices.” It’s in response to a malware threat called VPNFiler that can render routers inoperable and potentially steal information, according to the bureau. There is also the risk of your home or business network infecting other networks.

Turn your router off and back on

If your router is infected, turning it off for about a minute and then back on may clear the malicious software from its memory. The router is a box of sorts that’s typically connected to your cable modem or whatever other device that your internet service provider installed to bring internet into your home or business. Sometimes a router is combined with the modem with only one box. It probably has ethernet cables plugged into it and it’s also the device that configures your WiFi. There is also a power cord so all you need to do is unplug the power, wait about a minute and plug it back in. Your network (and all devices attached to it by wire or WiFi) will be down for a few minutes while the router goes through its start-up process but everything should be back to normal with in a few minutes. Symantec has additional advice and a good explanation of the vulnerability, including situations where it may be necessary to take the further step of resetting your modem to factory defaults (if you do that make sure you get help or know how to re-configure it so you can restore your internet connection).

Following the rest of the FBI’s advice can be tricky

The FBI is also suggesting the people should “consider disabling remote management settings on devices and secure with strong passwords and encryption when enabled. Network devices should be upgraded to the latest available versions of firmware.” For some this may be easier said than done. While it’s not that difficult or time consuming to follow this advice, many people don’t know how to access their router’s control panel and may not even know their username or password.

If you’re in this situation, start by rebooting — anyone can do that and it will likely clear out any malware. But if you don’t know how to update the firmware or change the password, you can start by calling your internet service provider. If they provided the router, they can definitely help you. If it’s your own router (or your not sure) you’ll need to give them some information from the labels on the device.

You can also find help by searching for the name and model number of your router, which you can usually find on the bottom of the device. The router maker will probably instruct you to go to an IP address such as http://192.168.1.1 (which is used by Linksys and other router makers) and then follow onscreen instructions to update firmware and change the password.

Known vulnerable routers

According to Symantec, the following routers are known to be capable of being infected but it’s possible that others could also be vulnerable:

• Linksys E1200
• Linksys E2500
• Linksys WRVS4400N
• Mikrotik RouterOS for Cloud Core Routers: Versions 1016, 1036, and 1072
• Netgear DGN2200
• Netgear R6400
• Netgear R7000
• Netgear R8000
• Netgear WNR1000
• Netgear WNR2000
• QNAP TS251
• QNAP TS439 Pro
• Other QNAP NAS devices running QTS software
• TP-Link R600VPN

By Larry Magid

This post first appeared in the San Jose Mercury News

Listen to Larry Magid’s CBS News Radio interview with the study’s lead author, Monica Anderson

A new survey from Pew Research found that Snapchat is now the social media app that teens use most often, followed closely by YouTube. A slight majority (51 percent) still uses Facebook, but that’s down from 71 percent compared with Pew’s 2014-2015 survey. That’s probably no surprise but what I find amazing is that nearly half (45 percent) of teens say they are online “almost constantly.” When you add in the 24 percent that say they go online “several times a day,” the survey reveals that 89 percent are heavy users. Girls are more likely (50 percent) to be online constantly compared with boys (39 percent) and the report said “Hispanic teens are more likely than whites to report using the internet almost constantly (54 percent vs. 41 percent).

The report, Teens, Social Media & Technology 2018 is based on a nationally representative sample of 1,058 parents and 743 teens.

Instagram growing

Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, is growing among teens. It’s now used by 72 percent, up from 52 percent in 2015. Nearly seven in 10 (69 percent) of teens use Snapchat, up from 41 percent in 2015.

But the more interesting statistics aren’t so much the number of users of each service but the number of teens who use them most often.  Facebook was once the dominant platform for young Americans, but that honor now goes to Snapchat, which 35 percent of teens say they use most often. It’s followed by YouTube, which is the most commonly used app by 32 percent of teens followed by Instagram (15 percent) with Facebook at 10 percent and Twitter a distant 3 percent.

Although many teens post content to YouTube, most just use it to consume videos while other platforms are used by people who frequently post as well as consume content.

What I find interesting about these numbers is that the two most popular interactive services — Snapchat and Instagram — are different from Facebook in three important ways.

First, they are based around pictures and videos rather than words. Sure, you add text to your Snapchat and Instagram posts but the text is essentially a photo caption or an adjunct to a video.

The second is that users post to these apps almost exclusively from smartphones while Facebook can be fully accessed from either computer or a phone.

Finally, Snapchat and Instagram are more ephemeral than Facebook. Snapchat posts, by default, disappear shortly after they’re viewed, and an increasing number of Instagram users are taking advantage of its optional-stories posts which disappear after 24 hours. Although Facebook posts can be deleted, the default is for them to stay around forever.

Nearly all teens have smartphones

Another big reveal is that smartphone use among American teens is nearly ubiquitous, with 95 percent reporting they have or have access to a smartphone. That compares with 88 percent who say they have access to a computer at home. Unlike smartphone penetration, which is nearly universal, computer access correlates with income with 96 percent of teens from households with incomes of $75,000 or more a year having access to PCs compared with 75 percent of those in households with incomes below $30,000.

I don’t think this is just about affordability. You can purchase a low-end laptop for less than the cost of most smartphones and, unlike smartphones, you don’t need an expensive cellular plan to use them. Getting access to the internet only via smartphone has an impact on how it’s used, according to the 2016 report, Digital Equity: Technology and Learning in the Lives of Lower-Income Families. “Low- and moderate-income parents who only have Internet access via mobile phones are less likely to shop online (36% vs. 66% of those with home access), use online banking or bill-paying (49% vs 74%), apply for jobs or services online (42% vs. 56%), or follow local news online (70% vs. 82%). The same is true for their children, who are significantly less likely to look up information online about things they are interested in (35% vs. 52% with home access), or to use the internet daily (31% to 51%).”

The survey also found that most kids are gamers. According to the report, “84 percent of teens say they have access to a game console at home and 90% say they play video games of any kind,” whether on a computer, a phone or a console. Games are popular with both boys and girls, although 92 percent of boys have a console at home compared with 75 percent of girls. Income isn’t much of a barrier when it comes to games with 85 percent of teens with households earning less than $30,000 a year having access to a console at home.

Mixed impact on lives

The report points out that “teens have mixed views on the impact of social media on their lives.” Just under a third (31 percent) of teens say that social media has a mostly positive impact on their lives while nearly a fourth (24 percent) say its effect is mostly negative.

A bit under half (45 percent) say it has neither a positive nor negative impact. When asked to explain their views, a 14 year-old girl said, “I think social media has a positive effect because it lets you talk to family members far away.”

A 15-year-old girl said that she feels “social media can make people my age feel less lonely or alone. It creates a space where you can interact with people.”

Another 15-year-old girl said “It has given many kids my age an outlet to express their opinions and emotions, and connect with people who feel the same way.”

Yet, there were those who expressed negative thoughts such as a 13 year-old boy who commented, that it “gives people a bigger audience to speak and teach hate and belittle each other,” and a 15-year-old boy who said “People can say whatever they want with anonymity, and I think that has a negative impact.”

While almost all teens are users of connected technology, what this survey shows is that there is variance in both the types of social media they use and their attitudes toward it. As with all demographic groups, one size does not fit all, and not all teens speak with one voice when it comes to how social media is affecting them.

Larry Magid is CEO of ConnectSafely.org, a nonprofit internet safety organization that receives financial support from Facebook, Snapchat and other tech companies.

There are plenty of tools that allow parents to limit their kids’ use of devices, but Apple has gone one better. The new controls it’s launching with iOS 12 are designed for both adults and kids.

It’s built around a feature called Screen Time, which gives you a detailed report of what you’re doing with your device and how long you’re using each app. It also has a feature called Down Time that lets you set limits so you’ll be warned when you have only 5 minutes left to use an app and then told to take a break if you try to use it after that. Of course, you can extend your time if you want.

You can track your usages by day, week or month and can sync these features across devices in case you try to sneak a peek at your Instagram account on your iPad after reaching the limit on your phone.

Kids controls similar to parents

Kids devices have similar controls but the main difference is that the kids’ reports also go to the parents device. Also, the parents can use their devices to impose limits on their kids not only in terms of the amount of time they can spend in a given app, but the apps or websites they can use. Parents have the option of allowing unlimited use of certain apps, like the phone or educational apps.

The new iOS will give all users control over their notifications, to reduce interruptions during the day or at night.  You can send notifications directly to the notification center (and not see the on your lock screen) or turn them off completely. And you can do that easily as a notification pops up. Siri may even make a recommendation to turn off notifications for apps you don’t use that often.

Report shows how much you’re using your device and apps

As the founder of SafeKids.com and co-founder of ConnectSafely.org, I’ve written volumes about parental controls that help parents limit what their kids can do online or with mobile devices. Apple already offers optional parental controls for iPhones and iPads, but with the upcoming release of its new mobile operating system, iOS 12, the company is enhancing those controls and — more interesting — extending them to adult users.

Don’t worry grown-ups, you still have control over what you can do with your devices, but with a new feature called Screen Time along with updates to notifications and Do Not Disturb, the company is doing a lot more to encourage breaks and help users understand how much they are using their devices and apps.

Google also offers parental controls on its Android phones and, in May, introduced its own set of “wind down” features for adults.

What sets Apple apart is that the tools for parents and children are similar to the ones for adults. The main difference is that the parental version allows parents to monitor and limit their kids’ usage.

I applaud Google and Apple for helping us put a bit more thought into how much we use our devices, but I’m especially pleased by Apple’s approach of creating similar tools for both kids and adults. I say that mostly because it makes taking breaks and getting usage reports a family affair.

I hope these tools encourage families to review reports together — and by that, I mean let the kids see and discuss the parents’ report.

It’s known that parents are concerned about their kids’ use of tech, but what may come as a surprise is that a lot of kids are concerned about their parents’ use.

In February at the Safer Internet Day event in Austin, Texas, a group of elementary school students told ConnectSafely’s education director Kerry Gallagher that they’re concerned about how much time their parents spend with devices. One child said that when her parents do a search or check an email, they wind up spending far too much time looking at the screen instead of interacting with family. I wonder if some of these kids would be interested in installing controls on their parents devices, putting kids in charge of setting parental limits.

To me, the parental controls are less about setting limits and more about setting reminders and developing good habits that can last a lifetime. For more of my advice on this topic, see “What parents should think about when using or considering parental controls,” at connectsafely.org/parental-controls.

Screen Time for adults and kids

Apple’s Screen Time feature gives you a detailed report of what you or your kids are doing with your devices and how long you’re using each app. You can track your usage by day, week or month and can sync these features across devices in case you try to sneak a peek at your Instagram account on your iPad after reaching the limit on your phone.

There is an option that lets you set limits, which you can override, on how much time you spend using specific apps. The Downtime feature allows parents to control when their kids can use their devices. They also can exempt certain apps from limitations, such as the ability to make phone calls or apps that help with  homework.

Updates to Apple’s notification management tools provide new ways to limit those pesky beeps or even onscreen notices that interrupt us during the day and, sometimes, even when we sleep.

One of the things that annoys me about notifications in both iOS and Android is how hard it is to shut them down. With iOS 12 you’ll be able to manage notifications from the lock screen by sending a specific app’s notifications to the Notification Center or turning it off completely. I have an Android phone and have spent a considerable amount of time in the Apps and Notifications setting area, painstakingly reviewing and adjusting the setting for each of my many apps. Apple said that Siri, on iOS 12, will make “intelligent suggestions about your alerts based on how you interact with them.”

Apple is improving its Do Not Disturb function to allow you to turn it on while you’re in a meeting or at a location and have it automatically turn off when the event ends or when you leave that location.

A new Do Not Disturb at bedtime setting will basically turn the phone into a clock while you’re in bed with a screen that’s free of notification and app icons that might otherwise tempt you to interact with the phone rather than with your pillow.

Some find it ironic that some tech companies are starting to encourage us to use their products less, but I think it’s good business and good politics at a time when our country is going through a bit of a tech backlash in the wake of all sorts of revelations about how tech — as great as it is — can have some unintended consequences.

Larry Magid is CEO of ConnectSafely.org, a nonprofit internet safety organization that receives financial support from Facebook, Snapchat and other tech companies.