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In the case of dissecting the myriad methods every of us is tracked and profiled utilizing know-how, the media is itself compromised. Working example: an Australian researcher printed an interesting paper earlier this yr that Australia’s mainstream media in all probability wasn’t too eager on masking.
UNSW Dr Katharine Kemp introduced “The best way to Monitor Customers Who Don’t Need to be Tracked: Examples from Australia’s Largest Media Corporations and their Suppliers” on the ACCC’s Nationwide Shopper Congress. It’s a brief, accessible paper that lays out how Australia’s greatest media firms discuss out of either side of their mouth relating to gathering knowledge on their viewers.
On one hand, Dr Kemp writes, firms like 9, Information Corp and Seven West Media downplay how they observe and profile their audiences when talking to them, as a result of surveillance isn’t a very widespread idea. Alternatively, the identical firms brag about simply how highly effective and wide-reaching their knowledge operations are in commerce publications — having created tens of hundreds of thousands of profiles of customers between them. Dr Kemp goes as far as to recommend that these firms could also be breaching shopper regulation with how they use knowledge they glean from their audiences. All three firms denied to Mi3 that their practices have damaged any legal guidelines.
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It could be simple for me, a author for an impartial media outlet, to have a bit kick on the Lame Stream Media and go away it at that — Crikey doesn’t have the identical expansive advert arm — however we’re not utterly harmless both.
When the information media bargaining code negotiations have been occurring, Crikey’s father or mother firm, Personal Media, was one of many early Australian media firms who signed offers with Google and Meta (then Fb). Let’s not even point out the deep, bitter dependency that media firms nonetheless have on these tech platforms as a manner of reaching and observing audiences. (The Markup created a enjoyable device referred to as Blacklight that reveals what user-tracking applied sciences are getting used on any web site — strive it in your favorite on-line publication!)
I’m not penning this to assert all media is hopelessly biased. Personally, the actual fact Meta and Google are underwriting no less than a part of my wage instantly has by no means stopped me from criticising them; plus there’s an countless provide of sharp tech reporting from others in related positions. Nor am I parroting the We Ought to Enhance Society Considerably meme to say that this involvement with surveillance capitalism disqualifies media from prosecuting the case in opposition to its harms. Nearly everyone seems to be helplessly entangled with these firms, so excluding them can be self-defeating.
However the eggheads in Silicon Valley aren’t the one people who find themselves build up expansive monitoring operations. Additionally they aren’t doing it on their very own, both. If we’re to look at and even push again in opposition to the ever-present and normalised knowledge assortment practices, maybe we must always begin by wanting first at dwelling.
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Proper-wing commentator Avi Yemini denied entry to New Zealand over home abuse conviction
Yemini’s schtick entails creating battle between himself and establishments by portray himself as persecuted. On this case, Yemini claims he was rejected from New Zealand due to an article that referred to as him a conspiracy commentator — and instantaneously started fundraising off the again of this — however Immigration New Zealand mentioned it’s due to his prison file. (Crikey)
OnlyFans and TikTok star Anna Paul lastly speaks out about cancelled Perth meet-and-greet
Some individuals will scoff however that is 2022’s Beatlemania. (PerthNow)
American comic mocks Uluru brothers in viral TikTok
That is truly fairly a heartwarming story of individuals rejecting some muppet’s dumb TikTok. (SBS)
Google scores main win in Excessive Court docket defamation battle
This resolution looks as if a reasonably affordable one which displays how few of us perceive search engines like google and yahoo. (SMH)
This Australian agency says its AI product can predict suicide makes an attempt in jail
Synthetic intelligence is being spruiked as an answer to a variety of issues. The query is: how nicely does it work? And what occurs if it doesn’t? (Crikey)
Content material Nook
Expensive dad and mom, I write with troubling information. TikTok-crazed teenagers are throwing raucous events, destroying property, and even consuming medication and alcohol. In case you are planning on leaving your baby alone for a weekend away, remember! Regards, your pleasant narc journalist.
I child! Teenagers aren’t throwing events — no less than but. Australian TikTok accounts have popped up selling “Mission X” events, named after the 2012 movie that reveals a few children throwing a home occasion that grows uncontrolled. These accounts usually publish movies utilizing audio from the film, together with movies displaying somebody zooming in on an space of Google Maps to indicate both the placement of a celebration or the place they want to host one.
So far as I can inform, none of those events promised within the current wave of this development have truly occurred. However the hype round one thing occurring is sufficient to encourage increasingly. I’ve seen movies with 1000’s of interactions which might be ostensibly for organising occasions from locations as huge as Sydney to as area of interest as Innisfail, Queensland.
I’ve suspicions why a ten-year-old film is effervescent up now as a TikTok development. The unique film simply got here again to Netflix at the beginning of this month. One of many movie’s actors, Miles Teller, has simply co-starred with Tom Cruise in one of many greatest movies of 2022, High Gun: Maverick. Additionally, “Mission X” occasion developments appear to simply pop up each from time to time.
From flash mobs and planking to Adrian’s Kickback and attending Minions showings in fits, web developments have at all times intruded into the bodily world. It’s becoming that the “Mission X” events revive an outdated piece of tradition for the most recent iteration of this phenomenon.
Crikey is information for readers who can deal with the reality.
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Peter Fray
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