Douglas Rushkoff - Users for Sale: Has Digital Illiteracy Turned Us Into Social Commodities?

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Mashable have a great interview with the always-thought-provoking Douglas Rushkoff in which he dismantles the idea that the "users" of social media are its customers, pointing out that we are, in fact the product being sold:

"The easiest way to figure out who the customer is in an online space is to figure out who is paying for the thing. Usually, the people paying are the customers. So on Facebook, the people paying are marketers. That makes them the customers. And it means we are the product being delivered to those customers."

Facebook have (very quietly) enabled their facial recognition technology for all accounts

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Facebook have turned on their new facial recognition feature for all accounts (it's been active in the United States since last year). This means that when you upload a new picture to Facebook, it is automatically scanned by Facebook's facial recognition software to try and match and faces in the picture with people already tagged in existing pictures on Facebook. If it thinks it finds a match, it will prompt the user uploading the picture to tag it accordingly. The feature is 'on' by default. To find out more, including how to turn off the feature, check out this article at The Register.

Worried your child might access harmful religious material online? GodBlock has the answer!

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You owe it to your children to keep them safe online. Predatory religions have quickly learned to exploit the internet, spreading their 'message' like a virus across the whole web - often hidden in apparently harmless websites and posing a hidden threat to your child. That is where GodBlock can help:

"GodBlock is a web filter that blocks religious content. It is targeted at parents and schools who wish to protect their kids from the often violent, sexual, and psychologically harmful material in many holy texts, and from being indoctrinated into any religion before they are of the age to make such decisions. When installed properly, GodBlock will test each page that your child visits before it is loaded, looking for passages from holy texts, names of religious figures, and other signs of religious propaganda. If none are found, then your child is allowed to browse freely."

Find out more and download GodBlock at www.godblock.com.

BT and TalkTalk challenge Digital Economy Act

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BBC News are reporting that two UK ISPs, BT and TalkTalk are seeking a judicial review of the Digital Economy Act which was rushed into law without any substantial debate in the dying days of the Labour government. Poorly-drafted and many believe unworkable, the Digital Economy Act was widely opposed by campaigners for digital rights such as Open Rights Group.