MCMC: Beware of scammers trying to take over your WhatsApp account
MCMC issued a warning to alert the public to increasing reports of WhatsApp accounts being hijacked
MCMC said scammers often pose as friends or family members, using accounts that scammers had already successfully hacked into, to try to trick them into revealing their six-digit WhatsApp verification codes. — Bloomberg
The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) has issued a statement warning the public to be wary of increasingly inventive tactics employed by scammers trying to hijack a user’s WhatsApp account, due to increasing reports of fraud cases being committed through the app.
MCMC said scammers usually manage to take over victims’ WhatsApp accounts by tricking them into divulging their six-digit verification codes, which users will usually receive when there is an attempt to change the phone number associated to their account.
To do this, scammers have been known to contact potential victims while posing as a hapless individual or business claiming to have mistakenly keyed in the victim’s phone number while trying to complete an online transaction, explaining that as a result the authorisation code for the transaction had been sent to the victim’s phone and imploring them for help retrieving the code.
These appeals could even come from the victim’s family members or friends via accounts that scammers had already hijacked, said MCMC.
This tactic commonly misleads the victim into thinking they would be sending the scammer an unrelated TAC (transaction authorisation code) when in fact they would be handing over the six-digit verification code to the victim’s own WhatsApp account.
Those who have been duped into giving up their codes could end up having their accounts stolen by scammers, added MCMC.
MCMC said scammers have also impersonated WhatsApp employees to fool users into sharing their verification code, adding that there have also been instances where the scammer would deliberately fail at keying in the code several times in order to force an automated system by WhatsApp to call the user about their verification code.
In this instance, the scammer would also contact the user to ask for the code while pretending to be someone else. If the user did not answer the automated call by WhatsApp and it goes into the user’s voice mailbox, then the scammer would try to randomly guess at or ask for the user’s voice mailbox PIN code to access the recording, according to MCMC.
The regulatory body advised WhatsApp users to be suspicious of any attempts to procure their six-digit verification code, adding that it is absolutely imperative that users never reveal the code to anyone else to prevent their accounts from being hijacked.
It added that users should also enable two-factor verification on WhatsApp and utilise more complicated PIN numbers for their voice mailbox as additional security measures.
According to an FAQ by WhatsApp, a user may be sent the verification code via SMS – even when one wasn’t requested – for a number of reasons.
WhatsApp said this could happen due to someone mistyping their own number, or a hacker attempting to take over the person’s account.
Without the code, the hacker will not be able to complete the verification process, which would prevent the account from being hijacked.
If your account has been stolen, you will have to sign into WhatsApp with your phone number and verify your phone number by entering the six-digit code you receive via SMS.
Once you enter the six-digit SMS code, the individual using your account will be automatically logged out.
You might also be asked to provide a two-step verification code. If you don’t know this code, the hijacker using your account could have enabled two-step verification.
You must wait seven days before you can sign in without the two-step verification code, according to WhatsApp.
Regardless of whether you know this verification code, the other person will be logged out of your account once you entered the six-digit code received via SMS.
In a separate FAQ about stolen accounts, WhatsApp also advised the victim to inform family and friends if they suspect someone is impersonating them in chats.
Users whose WhatsApp accounts have been stolen are encouraged to file a complaint with MCMC or lodge a report at the nearest police station.
How to protect your online privacy in 2020 | Tutorial
https://youtu.be/jxeeKKfjb5o
Internet anonymity empowers people to speak without fear, and to be trolls
ONLINE anonymity is such a huge topic, often carrying a bad reputation because it appears to incite irresponsible behaviour.
Anyone can say something cruel or nasty, and no one will ever know it was him because he uses a made-up personality.
When you spend more time delving into the subject of Internet anonymity, you will find that it has its fair share of pros and cons.
It is a matter of debate among security researchers, politicians and policy analysts. There are those who say it affords everyone freedom of speech as there is less judgement levelled at an anonymous person who speaks his mind freely, and whistleblowers are able to unearth secrets and share information without fear of being accused of slander or ending up in jail.
It is important to note that freedom of speech doesn’t mean you have freedom to lie.
Online abuse is rampant, it’s easy for lies to be manufactured and spread, and news loses its credibility in the process.
Cloak of anonymity
Assoc Prof Dr Anasuya Jegathevi Jegathesa, programme director of Psychology at Taylor’s University, concurs that anonymity allows people to speak without fear.
“If you have to put your name to it, there may be consequences for speaking the truth, ” she said.
Dr Anasuya Jegathevi Jegathesan will be speaking at the Star Empowerment: Healing Hearts 2020, a forum on grieve management.Dr Anasuya Jegathevi Jegathesan will be speaking at the Star Empowerment: Healing Hearts 2020, a forum on grieve management.
“When you’re anonymous, you can avoid the consequences. The Internet and social media allow people to remain anonymous and there is a certain power in this.
“In certain situations, when you say your truth, you may be put in jail or you may be harassed and abused by other people because they don’t agree with you.
“In such situations, people choose to be anonymous because they need a voice and there’s no other outlet.
“Of course, even without the consequences, many still hide behind anonymity when they want to insult others or stir up disagreement. Online drama can be an interesting thing for some people!”
Digital culture expert Dr Niki Cheong of University of Nottingham feels that there are many strong arguments that can be made in defence of anonymity – victims and marginalised people and communities rely on the cloak of anonymity to speak truth to power.
“This is particularly so when they have been wronged or taken advantage of. This is also the case when it comes to larger institutions whereby acts like whistleblowing have shown to be a powerful tool.
“Journalism has for the longest time used anonymity for very good reasons – not just to protect the identity of sources speaking out against, among other things, corruption and misdeeds, but also to protect people who share important stories from being stigmatised or targeted.”
Cheong agrees that anonymity has emboldened many to engage in anti-social behaviour, both offline and online.
“We are seeing severe repercussions from an individual level with personal attacks and bullying, and at a more societal level with political suppression and information manipulation.”
Sharing stories
The advent of social media has also seen the rise of citizen journalism – which is the creation or collection, dissemination and analysis of information by the general public.
“It’s trendy to create news these days because when you have more likes, that translates to more interest in your channel, and that’s how you make more money.
“There is a financial reward for being popular – whether you’re a blogger, YouTuber or TikTok artist, ” Anasuya explains the psychology behind the obsession to create content and share it with the world.
“The other reward is an emotional reward. Research shows that when you see ‘likes’ and ‘comments’, there’s dopamine released in your system, and dopamine is a pleasure hormone that makes you feel good.
“So when people get more posts, or become more famous, they feel good about themselves.”
When it comes to sharing, she says that when “news” calls for attention and is fun or shocking, people naturally want to be the first to tell others.
“It’s a high, you get a good feeling when you are the first person to tell somebody some interesting or important.”
Because of this, people often make the mistake of not verifying information before hitting the forward button. Often a headline is enough to make someone share a post without even reading the story. Admit it, many of us have made that mistake, right?
Spreading rumours takes that scenario one step further, because a rumour usually has a negative tilt to it.
So why do certain people get off on spreading rumours? Anasuya says it’s because some people like to create flame wars.
“When you’re anonymous, after all, you don’t even have that platform where you can get popular, so why do people still share and spread rumours or false information? The dopamine is still there.
“They know they are in the midst of a drama unfolding, they are getting hits, creating issues and they enjoy this. They enjoy people ‘believing’ them.
“And sometimes they believe it themselves. Truth can be based on perception, after all, and there are lots of people who perceive truth in a different way from the norm. That doesn’t mean they are crazy, they just perceive truth differently, ” she says.
Cheong reckons that a lot of this boils down to the individual.
“Some people don’t always feel that there are real life consequences to their online actions.
“We’ve seen cases where trolls have been confronted by their victims and regret their actions once they get to know them better because they suddenly realise they are real people with real feelings and real family members feeling threatened.”
He cites the case of American writer/activist Lindy West who responded to the guy who stole her dead father’s identity to abuse her. West received an apology from the person who she had earlier billed her “cruellest troll”, and went on to talk to him which ended in forgiveness.
“There is also this culture on the Internet, from the early days, of doing things just for the sake of it, which may have partially influenced this disconnect, ” says Cheong, explaining the catchphrase
“I did it for the lulz” (IDIFTL) which serves as a description for any trolling you do or any Internet drama you cause. To explain further, “lulz” translates to “fun, laughter or amusement at another’s expense”.
“Increasingly we’re seeing in many cases around the world that there are few consequences for people’s actions especially when they favour those in power or are perceived as ‘public sentiment’, so people feel they can act with impunity, ” Cheong adds.
Check and balance
What can we do to prevent this situation from plunging?
“Censorship isn’t the answer, ” Anasuya offers. “Because then you will be going backwards, and people will find ways around it.
In journalism, anonymity protects sources who provide information, and victims from being targeted, says Cheong.In journalism, anonymity protects sources who provide information, and victims from being targeted, says Cheong.
“Instead we should be educating people about best practices: how to check on false media, how to verify news, how to spot fake accounts, ” she says, using the anti-vaxxer movement as an example of how things can go terribly wrong without proper check and balance in place.
In that case, research fraud – a study led by the now discredited physician-researcher Andrew Wakefield involving 12 children – suggested there was a link between the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine and autism.
This study was subsequently thoroughly debunked, and Wakefield was stripped of his medical licence. Yet, today there is still a growing number of parents who buy into the whole anti-vaxxer argument and refuse to vaccinate their children.
“Because of some fake research and false findings, this ‘correlation between vaccinations and autism’ went viral and people started posting scary stuff, so much so that even a few in the US Congress believe this false news!” says Anasuya.
“So why do people believe it? Because they need somebody to blame, they want to be able to point a finger and say this is why the world is going bad, this is why things are going wrong, this is why my child got sick. It’s not me, it’s something else.
“People feel power in thinking that they are not sheep being told what to do, when in fact that’s exactly what they are. They don’t check their news, they don’t check their facts.
“You have to educate people to recognise what is real news and what is false. And it has to be a repeated learning.
“The checks and balances do exist, if people know how to use websites like FactCheck, Snopes and Sebenarnya.my.
“There’s a huge bunch of very logical, very factual people in cyberspace who are constantly correcting false news but as a user you have to be able to use those channels.
“It is whether each individual who creates and receives news is willing to do all the checking required. And sadly this is not something that we teach our children in school.”
Cheong agrees that education is the best policy, but it needs to be a multi-pronged approach.
“We need better media literacy education at all levels, we need political will to ensure that any response to these actions is fair across the board, we need to pressure digital platforms to take a more proactive role in managing these sort of behaviour.
Still waiting: Some existing users are
exasperated as they have yet to enjoy the higher broadband speeds
promised by their service providers.
Broadband users also complain of not enjoying lower prices
PETALING JAYA: The telcos may have announced lower prices and faster Internet speeds, but many existing fixed broadband users are complaining that they have yet to enjoy these benefits.
On Sunday, the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) announced that Telekom Malaysia (TM), Maxis, Celcom and Time have introduced new entry-level plans below RM100 that are more than 30% cheaper.
But the price reduction and speed increase brought about by the Mandatory Standard on Access Pricing (MSAP), which was implemented on June 8, have yet to trickle down to consumers.
Communications and Multimedia Minister Gobind Singh Deo said in a statement he was aware that not all existing fixed broadband users are enjoying higher speeds and lower prices.
“I found that the packages do not lower the price of services to existing customers. This means that they cannot benefit from the new packages immediately,” said Gobind.
“I will meet with the telco representatives to discuss this matter in the near future. At the same time, I would also like to emphasise that telcos that have offered the new packages should ensure the services are actually implemented.”
Gobind said MCMC is required to monitor the implementation of the new plans and manage all complaints received and to take firm action where necessary to ensure that the services provided are in line with what was promised.
MaxisOne Home Fibre subscriber Leela Krishnan is disappointed that she has yet to receive any update from Maxis.
“No SMS, e-mail or call from the company to tell how MSAP would affect my monthly bill, or what new plans are available for me,” said the graphics designer, 44.
Maxis said the upgrade was not automatic for existing customers as they have to first pick one of two plans – 30Mbps at RM89 or 100Mbps at RM129 per month.
They can do so at the Maxis page, bit.ly/2gacJxB, but will be recontracted for 24 months. Also, customers who break the new contract will incur a RM500 penalty.
Maxis said recontracting is necessary as it is providing a new router which is capable of maximising the higher speed for WiFi, and at no cost to the consumer.
Astro IPTV customers have also been left hanging on the status of their packages as the company has yet to announce anything.
Idzla Hafiz, 34, who is using the Astro IPTV 10 package, said he is paying RM148 for a mere 10Mbps broadband speed, and he has not received any updates.
“I hope I won’t be paying the same amount next month because that means I will be spending RM59 more than Maxis users and still get a lower speed,” he said.
An Astro spokesman told The Star that the company is still in discussion with its broadband partners – Time and Maxis.
“Discussions are progressing well and we hope our broadband partners will extend the same benefits to our Astro IPTV customers,” the spokesman said, adding that it hopes to make an announcement soon.
Meanwhile, TM’s free upgrade for existing users, which started in August, is expected to go on until the first quarter of next year, as it says it has over 800,000 subscribers to upgrade.
Unifi Home 20Mbps or lower subscribers will be upgraded to 100Mbps, 30Mbps to 300Mbps, 50Mbps to 500Mbps and 100Mbps to 800Mbps.
Public relations consultant Daniel Yao, a Unifi customer of seven years, said it is “ridiculous” that Unifi introduced a cheaper plan for new users but long-time users are still stuck in the same plans.
He said Unifi informed him that the only way to opt for the cheaper and faster plan is to terminate his current package and sign up for a new one.
“That means I need to sign a new contract and redo the whole thing at a TM office,” he added.
TM’s Streamyx customers, especially in the outskirts, have also been complaining to MCMC on Twitter that they are still not being upgraded to Unifi and are being forced to pay more for lower speeds due to lack of infrastructure.
“I found out that there are no suggestions provided to address the issues faced by existing Streamyx users, therefore this is something I need to tackle immediately,” said Gobind.
As at press time, TM has yet to respond to queries from The Star.
Celcom, which offers its Home Fibre plans only in Sabah, said it has upgraded all existing customers to the higher speeds and lower prices since September without recontracting.
All its Home Fibre users, starting from 10Mbps, were upgraded to 100Mbps, and their bill reduced to RM120 per month.
The telco said those who have yet to receive their upgrades can contact its customer service line at 1-300-11-3282.
Time also claims that it has upgraded all its existing users and notified them via e-mail.
The 100Mbps plan (RM149) was upgraded to 500Mbps (RM139) while the 300Mbps (RM189) and 500Mbps (RM299) plans were both upgraded to 1Gbps (RM189).
However, the new subscription fees will only be reflected in bills that are issued from Oct 15 onwards.
If users are still facing slow speeds, it recommends that they restart their router and perform another speed test.
It is best done via a desktop or laptop connected to the router via an Ethernet cable, as users may not be able to get the full speed via WiFi.
If nothing works, users can get in touch with Time via 1800-18-1818 or cs@time.com.my.
Source: The Star by angelin yeoh, mei mei chu, and sharmila nair
Still waiting: Some existing users are exasperated as they have yet to enjoy the higher broadband speeds promised by their service providers.
Broadband users also complain of not enjoying lower prices
PETALING JAYA: The telcos may have announced lower prices and faster Internet speeds, but many existing fixed broadband users are complaining that they have yet to enjoy these benefits.
On Sunday, the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) announced that Telekom Malaysia (TM), Maxis, Celcom and Time have introduced new entry-level plans below RM100 that are more than 30% cheaper.
But the price reduction and speed increase brought about by the Mandatory Standard on Access Pricing (MSAP), which was implemented on June 8, have yet to trickle down to consumers.
Communications and Multimedia Minister Gobind Singh Deo said in a statement he was aware that not all existing fixed broadband users are enjoying higher speeds and lower prices.
“I found that the packages do not lower the price of services to existing customers. This means that they cannot benefit from the new packages immediately,” said Gobind.
“I will meet with the telco representatives to discuss this matter in the near future. At the same time, I would also like to emphasise that telcos that have offered the new packages should ensure the services are actually implemented.”
Gobind said MCMC is required to monitor the implementation of the new plans and manage all complaints received and to take firm action where necessary to ensure that the services provided are in line with what was promised.
MaxisOne Home Fibre subscriber Leela Krishnan is disappointed that she has yet to receive any update from Maxis.
“No SMS, e-mail or call from the company to tell how MSAP would affect my monthly bill, or what new plans are available for me,” said the graphics designer, 44.
Maxis said the upgrade was not automatic for existing customers as they have to first pick one of two plans – 30Mbps at RM89 or 100Mbps at RM129 per month.
They can do so at the Maxis page, bit.ly/2gacJxB, but will be recontracted for 24 months. Also, customers who break the new contract will incur a RM500 penalty.
Maxis said recontracting is necessary as it is providing a new router which is capable of maximising the higher speed for WiFi, and at no cost to the consumer.
Astro IPTV customers have also been left hanging on the status of their packages as the company has yet to announce anything.
Idzla Hafiz, 34, who is using the Astro IPTV 10 package, said he is paying RM148 for a mere 10Mbps broadband speed, and he has not received any updates.
“I hope I won’t be paying the same amount next month because that means I will be spending RM59 more than Maxis users and still get a lower speed,” he said.
An Astro spokesman told The Star that the company is still in discussion with its broadband partners – Time and Maxis.
“Discussions are progressing well and we hope our broadband partners will extend the same benefits to our Astro IPTV customers,” the spokesman said, adding that it hopes to make an announcement soon.
Meanwhile, TM’s free upgrade for existing users, which started in August, is expected to go on until the first quarter of next year, as it says it has over 800,000 subscribers to upgrade.
Unifi Home 20Mbps or lower subscribers will be upgraded to 100Mbps, 30Mbps to 300Mbps, 50Mbps to 500Mbps and 100Mbps to 800Mbps.
Public relations consultant Daniel Yao, a Unifi customer of seven years, said it is “ridiculous” that Unifi introduced a cheaper plan for new users but long-time users are still stuck in the same plans.
He said Unifi informed him that the only way to opt for the cheaper and faster plan is to terminate his current package and sign up for a new one.
“That means I need to sign a new contract and redo the whole thing at a TM office,” he added.
TM’s Streamyx customers, especially in the outskirts, have also been complaining to MCMC on Twitter that they are still not being upgraded to Unifi and are being forced to pay more for lower speeds due to lack of infrastructure.
“I found out that there are no suggestions provided to address the issues faced by existing Streamyx users, therefore this is something I need to tackle immediately,” said Gobind.
As at press time, TM has yet to respond to queries from The Star.
Celcom, which offers its Home Fibre plans only in Sabah, said it has upgraded all existing customers to the higher speeds and lower prices since September without recontracting.
All its Home Fibre users, starting from 10Mbps, were upgraded to 100Mbps, and their bill reduced to RM120 per month.
The telco said those who have yet to receive their upgrades can contact its customer service line at 1-300-11-3282.
Time also claims that it has upgraded all its existing users and notified them via e-mail.
The 100Mbps plan (RM149) was upgraded to 500Mbps (RM139) while the 300Mbps (RM189) and 500Mbps (RM299) plans were both upgraded to 1Gbps (RM189).
However, the new subscription fees will only be reflected in bills that are issued from Oct 15 onwards.
If users are still facing slow speeds, it recommends that they restart their router and perform another speed test.
It is best done via a desktop or laptop connected to the router via an Ethernet cable, as users may not be able to get the full speed via WiFi.
If nothing works, users can get in touch with Time via 1800-18-1818 or cs@time.com.my.
Source: The Star by angelin yeoh, mei mei chu, and sharmila nair
“FAKE NEWS” has seemingly, suddenly, become fashionable. In reality, the fake has proliferated for a decade or more, but the faux, the flawed and the fraudulent are now pressing issues because the full scale of the changes wrought upon the integrity of news and advertising by the digital duopoly — Google and Facebook — has become far more obvious.
Google’s commodification of content knowingly, wilfully undermined provenance for profit. That was followed by the Facebook stream, with its journalistic jetsam and fake flotsam. Together, the two most powerful news publishers in human history have created an ecosystem that is dysfunctional and socially destructive.
Both companies could have done far more to highlight that there is a hierarchy of content, but instead they have prospered mightily by peddling a flat-earth philosophy that doesn’t distinguish between the fake and the real because they make copious amounts of money from both.
Depending on which source you believe, they have close to two-thirds of the digital advertising market — and let me be clear that we compete with them for that share. The Interactive Advertising Bureau estimates they accounted for more than 90% of the incremental increase in digital advertising over the past year. The only cost of content for these companies has been lucrative contracts for lobbyists and lawyers, but the social cost of that strategy is far more profound.
It is beyond risible that Google and its subsidiary YouTube, which have earned many billions of dollars from other people’s content, should now be lamenting that they can’t possibly be held responsible for monitoring that content. Monetising yes, monitoring no — but it turns out that free money does come at a price.
We all have to work with these companies, and we are hoping, mostly against hope, that they will finally take meaningful action, not only to allow premium content models that fund premium journalism, but also to purge their sites of the rampant piracy that undermines creativity. Your business model can’t be simultaneously based on both intimate, granular details about users and no clue whatsoever about rather obvious pirate sites.
Another area that urgently needs much attention is the algorithms that Silicon Valley companies, and Amazon, routinely cite as a supposedly objective source of wisdom and insight. These algorithms are obviously set, tuned and repeatedly adjusted to suit their commercial needs. Yet they also blame autonomous, anarchic algorithms and not themselves when neofascist content surfaces or when a search leads to obviously biased results in favour of their own products.
Look at how Google games searches. A study reported in The Wall Street Journal found that in 25,000 random Google searches ads for Google products appeared in the most prominent slot 91% of the time. How is that not the unfair leveraging of search dominance and the abuse of algorithm? All 1,000 searches for “laptops” started with an ad for Google’s Chromebook — 100% of the time. Kim Jong Un would be envious of results like that at election time.
And then there are the recently launched Google snippets, which stylistically highlight search results as if they were written on stone tablets and carried down from the mountain. Their sheer visual physicality gives them apparent moral force. The word Orwellian is flagrantly abused, but when it comes to the all-powerful algorithms of Google, Amazon and Facebook, Orwellian is underused.
As for news, institutional neglect has left us perched on the edge of the slippery slope of censorship. There is no Silicon Valley tradition, as there is at great newspapers, of each day arguing over rights and wrongs, of fretful, thoughtful agonising over social responsibility and freedom of speech.
What we now have is a backlash with which these omnipotent companies are uniquely ill-equipped to cope. Their responses tend to be political and politically correct. Regardless of your own views, you should be concerned that we are entering an era in which these immensely influential publishers will routinely and selectively “unpublish” certain views and news.
We stumble into this egregious era at a moment when the political volume in many countries is turned to 10. The echo chamber has never been larger and the reverb room rarely more cacophonous. This is not an entirely new trend, but it has a compounding effect with the combination of “holier than thou” and “louder than thou.”
Curiously, this outcome is, in part, a result of the idealism of the Silicon Valley set, and there’s no doubt about the self-proclaimed ideals. They devoutly believe they are connecting people and informing them, which is true, even though some of the connections become conspiracies and much of the information is skimmed without concern to intellectual property rights.
Ideas aside, we were supposed to be in a magic age of metrics and data. Yet instead of perfect precision we have the cynical arbitraging of ambiguity — particularly in the world of audiences. Some advertising agencies are also clearly at fault because they, too, have been arbitraging and prospering from digital ambiguity as money in the ad business has shifted from actually making ads to aggregating digital audiences and ad tech, better known as fad tech.
And so, as the Times of London has reported, socially aware, image-conscious advertisers find themselves in extremely disreputable places — hardcore porn sites, neofascist sites, Islamist sites. The embarrassment for these advertisers juxtaposed with jaundice is understandable, but the situation is far more serious than mere loss of face.
If these sites are getting a cut of the commission, the advertisers are technically funding these nefarious activities. Depending on the type of advertising, it is estimated by the ad industry that a YouTube partner could earn about 55% of the revenue from a video. In recent years, how many millions of dollars have been channelled to organisations or individuals that are an existential threat to our societies?
Provenance is profound, and in this age of augmented reality and virtual reality, actual reality will surely make a comeback. Authenticated authenticity is an asset of increasing value in an age of the artificial — understanding the ebb and flow of humanity will not be based on fake news or ersatz empathy, but on real insight.
BY ROBERT THOMSON
Robert Thomson is the chief executive of News Corp, which owns The Australian and The Wall Street Journal. This is adapted from a speech he delivered on March 29 to the Asia Society in Hong Kong.
PETALING JAYA: The proliferation of fake news on social media has benefited publishers like Google and Facebook in terms of digital advertising market share at the expense of other media companies. News Corp chief executive Robert Thomson recently in his speech noted that Google and Facebook, for example, have close to two-thirds of the digital advertising market.
The Interactive Advertising Bureau estimates they accounted for more than 90% of the incremental increase in digital advertising over the past year, he said.
The only cost of content for these companies has been lucrative contracts for lobbyists and lawyers, he added, noting that the social cost of that strategy is far more profound.
Thomson said this during his speech to the Asia Society in Hong Kong on March 29.
News Corp is also the owner of The Australian and The Wall Street Journal. “Google’s commodification of content knowingly, wilfully undermined provenance for profit. That was followed by the Facebook stream, with its journalistic jetsam and fake flotsam.
Together, the two most powerful news publishers in human history have created an ecosystem that is dysfunctional and socially destructive,’’ he said.
Both companies, he said could have done far more to highlight that there is a hierarchy of content, but instead they have prospered mightily by peddling a flat-earth philosophy that doesn’t distinguish between the fake and the real because they make copious amounts of money from both.
“It is beyond risible that Google and its subsidiary YouTube, which have earned many billions of dollars from other people’s content, should now be lamenting that they can’t possibly be held responsible for monitoring that content. Monetising yes, monitoring no – but it turns out that free money does come at a price.
“We all have to work with these companies, and we are hoping, mostly against hope, that they will finally take meaningful action, not only to allow premium content models that fund premium journalism, but also to purge their sites of the rampant piracy that undermines creativity,” Thomson said.
In his speech, he also said although “fake news” has seemingly, suddenly, become fashionable but in reality, the fake has proliferated for a decade or more.
But the faux, the flawed and the fraudulent are now pressing issues because the full scale of the changes wrought upon the integrity of news and advertising by the digital duopoly — Google and Facebook — has become far more obvious, he said.
Thomson also highlighted on the urgency of algorithms. Another area, he said that urgently needs much attention is the algorithms that Silicon Valley companies, and Amazon, routinely cite as a supposedly objective source of wisdom and insight.
“These algorithms are obviously set, tuned and repeatedly adjusted to suit their commercial needs.
“Yet they also blame autonomous, anarchic algorithms and not themselves when neofascist content surfaces or when a search leads to obviously biased results in favour of their own products,’’ he said.
A study reported in The Wall Street Journal found that in 25,000 random Google searches ads for Google products appeared in the most prominent slot 91% of the time.
“How is that not the unfair leveraging of search dominance and the abuse of algorithm?” he asked. All 1,000 searches for “laptops” started with an ad for Google’s Chromebook – 100% of the time.
And then there are the recently launched Google snippets, which stylistically highlight search results as if they were written on stone tablets and carried down from the mountain. Their sheer visual physicality gives them apparent moral force, he said.
“The word Orwellian is flagrantly abused, but when it comes to the all-powerful algorithms of Google, Amazon and Facebook, Orwellian is underused,’’ he said.
Thomson said: “What we now have is a backlash with which these omnipotent companies are uniquely ill-equipped to cope. Their responses tend to be political and politically correct.
Regardless of your own views, you should be concerned that we are entering an era in which these immensely influential publishers will routinely and selectively “unpublish” certain views and news.
He also faulted ad agencies as they have been arbitraging and prospering from digital ambiguity as money in the ad business has shifted from actually making ads to aggregating digital audiences and ad tech, better known as fad tech.
“Provenance is profound, and in this age of augmented reality and virtual reality, actual reality will surely make a comeback. Authenticated authenticity is an asset of increasing value in an age of the artificial – understanding the ebb and flow of humanity will not be based on fake news or ersatz empathy, but on real insight,’’ he added.
“FAKE NEWS” has seemingly, suddenly, become fashionable. In reality, the fake has proliferated for a decade or more, but the faux, the flawed and the fraudulent are now pressing issues because the full scale of the changes wrought upon the integrity of news and advertising by the digital duopoly — Google and Facebook — has become far more obvious.
Google’s commodification of content knowingly, wilfully undermined provenance for profit. That was followed by the Facebook stream, with its journalistic jetsam and fake flotsam. Together, the two most powerful news publishers in human history have created an ecosystem that is dysfunctional and socially destructive.
Both companies could have done far more to highlight that there is a hierarchy of content, but instead they have prospered mightily by peddling a flat-earth philosophy that doesn’t distinguish between the fake and the real because they make copious amounts of money from both.
Depending on which source you believe, they have close to two-thirds of the digital advertising market — and let me be clear that we compete with them for that share. The Interactive Advertising Bureau estimates they accounted for more than 90% of the incremental increase in digital advertising over the past year. The only cost of content for these companies has been lucrative contracts for lobbyists and lawyers, but the social cost of that strategy is far more profound.
It is beyond risible that Google and its subsidiary YouTube, which have earned many billions of dollars from other people’s content, should now be lamenting that they can’t possibly be held responsible for monitoring that content. Monetising yes, monitoring no — but it turns out that free money does come at a price.
We all have to work with these companies, and we are hoping, mostly against hope, that they will finally take meaningful action, not only to allow premium content models that fund premium journalism, but also to purge their sites of the rampant piracy that undermines creativity. Your business model can’t be simultaneously based on both intimate, granular details about users and no clue whatsoever about rather obvious pirate sites.
Another area that urgently needs much attention is the algorithms that Silicon Valley companies, and Amazon, routinely cite as a supposedly objective source of wisdom and insight. These algorithms are obviously set, tuned and repeatedly adjusted to suit their commercial needs. Yet they also blame autonomous, anarchic algorithms and not themselves when neofascist content surfaces or when a search leads to obviously biased results in favour of their own products.
Look at how Google games searches. A study reported in The Wall Street Journal found that in 25,000 random Google searches ads for Google products appeared in the most prominent slot 91% of the time. How is that not the unfair leveraging of search dominance and the abuse of algorithm? All 1,000 searches for “laptops” started with an ad for Google’s Chromebook — 100% of the time. Kim Jong Un would be envious of results like that at election time.
And then there are the recently launched Google snippets, which stylistically highlight search results as if they were written on stone tablets and carried down from the mountain. Their sheer visual physicality gives them apparent moral force. The word Orwellian is flagrantly abused, but when it comes to the all-powerful algorithms of Google, Amazon and Facebook, Orwellian is underused.
As for news, institutional neglect has left us perched on the edge of the slippery slope of censorship. There is no Silicon Valley tradition, as there is at great newspapers, of each day arguing over rights and wrongs, of fretful, thoughtful agonising over social responsibility and freedom of speech.
What we now have is a backlash with which these omnipotent companies are uniquely ill-equipped to cope. Their responses tend to be political and politically correct. Regardless of your own views, you should be concerned that we are entering an era in which these immensely influential publishers will routinely and selectively “unpublish” certain views and news.
We stumble into this egregious era at a moment when the political volume in many countries is turned to 10. The echo chamber has never been larger and the reverb room rarely more cacophonous. This is not an entirely new trend, but it has a compounding effect with the combination of “holier than thou” and “louder than thou.”
Curiously, this outcome is, in part, a result of the idealism of the Silicon Valley set, and there’s no doubt about the self-proclaimed ideals. They devoutly believe they are connecting people and informing them, which is true, even though some of the connections become conspiracies and much of the information is skimmed without concern to intellectual property rights.
Ideas aside, we were supposed to be in a magic age of metrics and data. Yet instead of perfect precision we have the cynical arbitraging of ambiguity — particularly in the world of audiences. Some advertising agencies are also clearly at fault because they, too, have been arbitraging and prospering from digital ambiguity as money in the ad business has shifted from actually making ads to aggregating digital audiences and ad tech, better known as fad tech.
And so, as the Times of London has reported, socially aware, image-conscious advertisers find themselves in extremely disreputable places — hardcore porn sites, neofascist sites, Islamist sites. The embarrassment for these advertisers juxtaposed with jaundice is understandable, but the situation is far more serious than mere loss of face.
If these sites are getting a cut of the commission, the advertisers are technically funding these nefarious activities. Depending on the type of advertising, it is estimated by the ad industry that a YouTube partner could earn about 55% of the revenue from a video. In recent years, how many millions of dollars have been channelled to organisations or individuals that are an existential threat to our societies?
Provenance is profound, and in this age of augmented reality and virtual reality, actual reality will surely make a comeback. Authenticated authenticity is an asset of increasing value in an age of the artificial — understanding the ebb and flow of humanity will not be based on fake news or ersatz empathy, but on real insight.
BY ROBERT THOMSON
Robert Thomson is the chief executive of News Corp, which owns The Australian and The Wall Street Journal. This is adapted from a speech he delivered on March 29 to the Asia Society in Hong Kong.
PETALING JAYA: The proliferation of fake news on social media has benefited publishers like Google and Facebook in terms of digital advertising market share at the expense of other media companies. News Corp chief executive Robert Thomson recently in his speech noted that Google and Facebook, for example, have close to two-thirds of the digital advertising market.
The Interactive Advertising Bureau estimates they accounted for more than 90% of the incremental increase in digital advertising over the past year, he said.
The only cost of content for these companies has been lucrative contracts for lobbyists and lawyers, he added, noting that the social cost of that strategy is far more profound.
Thomson said this during his speech to the Asia Society in Hong Kong on March 29.
News Corp is also the owner of The Australian and The Wall Street Journal. “Google’s commodification of content knowingly, wilfully undermined provenance for profit. That was followed by the Facebook stream, with its journalistic jetsam and fake flotsam.
Together, the two most powerful news publishers in human history have created an ecosystem that is dysfunctional and socially destructive,’’ he said.
Both companies, he said could have done far more to highlight that there is a hierarchy of content, but instead they have prospered mightily by peddling a flat-earth philosophy that doesn’t distinguish between the fake and the real because they make copious amounts of money from both.
“It is beyond risible that Google and its subsidiary YouTube, which have earned many billions of dollars from other people’s content, should now be lamenting that they can’t possibly be held responsible for monitoring that content. Monetising yes, monitoring no – but it turns out that free money does come at a price.
“We all have to work with these companies, and we are hoping, mostly against hope, that they will finally take meaningful action, not only to allow premium content models that fund premium journalism, but also to purge their sites of the rampant piracy that undermines creativity,” Thomson said.
In his speech, he also said although “fake news” has seemingly, suddenly, become fashionable but in reality, the fake has proliferated for a decade or more.
But the faux, the flawed and the fraudulent are now pressing issues because the full scale of the changes wrought upon the integrity of news and advertising by the digital duopoly — Google and Facebook — has become far more obvious, he said.
Thomson also highlighted on the urgency of algorithms. Another area, he said that urgently needs much attention is the algorithms that Silicon Valley companies, and Amazon, routinely cite as a supposedly objective source of wisdom and insight.
“These algorithms are obviously set, tuned and repeatedly adjusted to suit their commercial needs.
“Yet they also blame autonomous, anarchic algorithms and not themselves when neofascist content surfaces or when a search leads to obviously biased results in favour of their own products,’’ he said.
A study reported in The Wall Street Journal found that in 25,000 random Google searches ads for Google products appeared in the most prominent slot 91% of the time.
“How is that not the unfair leveraging of search dominance and the abuse of algorithm?” he asked. All 1,000 searches for “laptops” started with an ad for Google’s Chromebook – 100% of the time.
And then there are the recently launched Google snippets, which stylistically highlight search results as if they were written on stone tablets and carried down from the mountain. Their sheer visual physicality gives them apparent moral force, he said.
“The word Orwellian is flagrantly abused, but when it comes to the all-powerful algorithms of Google, Amazon and Facebook, Orwellian is underused,’’ he said.
Thomson said: “What we now have is a backlash with which these omnipotent companies are uniquely ill-equipped to cope. Their responses tend to be political and politically correct.
Regardless of your own views, you should be concerned that we are entering an era in which these immensely influential publishers will routinely and selectively “unpublish” certain views and news.
He also faulted ad agencies as they have been arbitraging and prospering from digital ambiguity as money in the ad business has shifted from actually making ads to aggregating digital audiences and ad tech, better known as fad tech.
“Provenance is profound, and in this age of augmented reality and virtual reality, actual reality will surely make a comeback. Authenticated authenticity is an asset of increasing value in an age of the artificial – understanding the ebb and flow of humanity will not be based on fake news or ersatz empathy, but on real insight,’’ he added.
KUALA LUMPUR: Your office is swamped by phone calls from impatient customers, asking why they have yet to receive their free plane tickets as promised for having participated in a survey.
You find out later that they had completed the survey which was featured on a dubious website.
Or, when you come to work, you see a horde of unhappy customers waiting outside the building, demanding to know why they were not informed that they would have to pay a fee if they did not get their membership cards renewed by the month’s end.
Apparently, there had been a Facebook posting about the new fee ruling.
The above two incidents happened in Kuala Lumpur over the past year.
In the age of scams, fake news and “alternative facts”, such cases are getting more frequent.
A recent incident involved shoemaker Bata Primavera Sdn Bhd, which was accused of selling shoes with the Arabic word “Allah” formed in the pattern on the soles.
Bata ended up removing 70,000 pairs of the B-First school shoes from its 230 stores nationwide.
It was a step which cost them RM500,000 in losses.
The shoes were returned to the shelves only after Bata was cleared of the allegation by the Al-Quran Printing Control and Licensing Board of the Home Ministry on March 30.
In February, AirAsia came under unwanted attention when its brand name was used in a purported free ticket survey and fake ticket scam.
Back in 2014, the airline had also asked its customers to be wary of an online lottery scam which made use of its name to solicit personal information from them.
What is more astounding is that the e-mail highlighting the lottery had been circulating since 2011.
And in January last year, Public Bank saw a rush of customers crowding its branches to renew their debit cards.
A Facebook post that had gone viral claimed that they would be charged a RM12 fee if they did not renew it by Jan 31.
What are the dos and don’ts for companies under attack by fake news?
“A quick and concise response is the way to go,” said AirAsia’s head of communications Aziz Laikar.
“Be prepared. The more high profile the brand is, the quicker the response should be.”
The communications team have to be able to draw up a statement fast to deal with the issue head on before it grows to a full-blown crisis, Aziz said.
He listed out four steps that a company could take.
“Start by immediately responding with facts via a short statement to the media, as well as on social media platforms,” he said. Aziz also advised companies to lodge police reports and to make use of the chance to educate the public that they should always refer to announcements made via official platforms.
“Also, disseminate the information internally to your colleagues. Every employee should be a brand messenger.
“They are a powerful force to spread the correct message.
“The best way to effectively manage an issue is to make sure the entire company is aware of the situation and able to communicate it correctly,” he said. Ogilvy account director Clarissa Ng said that loyal clientele and employees were usually a company’s “first line of defence” and must be treated well.
Ng, who has handled the case of a client hit by rumours of exploding phones, preferred a “low profile” approach in dealing with such fake news.
She opted by focusing on promoting the phone’s safety features.
The campaign reassured consumers that the phone underwent rigorous testing in their laboratories in Shenzhen, China, and how its electrical current would be cut off automatically to prevent the gadget from exploding.
“Sometimes, the more you explain, the public will demand more answers. How we handled it was to remain low profile,” she said.
Source: By ADRIAN CHAN The Star
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