1. Good Monday Morning

We’re back. What a busy week ahead. Don’t forget that Lent starts Wednesday. Take solace in Easter being six weeks away if the weather is too cold where you are. 

Today’s Spotlight is 1,329 words — about a 5 minute read.

2. News To Know Now

Quoted:“This was a poor choice of imagery for an NFT. It has not and will not be put up for auction.“— Associated Press spokesperson Lauren Easton after the famous news organization canceled a planned NFT auction showing a boat overcrowded with refugees in the Mediterranean. It was not even the weirdest NFT story lately. Keep reading. We unpack some strange ones in Spotlight Explainer.

a) Facebook and YouTube will no longer allow Russian state media organizations to receive advertising money on their platforms in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Both companies continue to receive withering criticism about what is allowed to be monetized. One of the most recent was this post from Harvard’s Neiman Lab about Facebook allowing climate change denial content.

b) Walmart may be in their boat one day soon. The retail giant announced during its quarterly earnings call that it generated $2.1 billion in advertising revenue last year. Walmart is jumping into the deep end of the digital pool with augmented reality, gamification of retail, and yes, NFTs. 

c) What seems to be a coding shortcut made the Mecklenburg County (NC) Registrar of Deeds the target of some highly virulent memes. Counties in the state are responsible for making birth, marriage, land, and death records available online. As part of the same online order flow, people requesting birth certificates or marriage license records were asked if they were named in the record or if it was for someone else. Unfortunately, that code was left in place (although grayed out) for visitors who wanted to purchase death certificates.

3. Search Engine News — Google Acknowledges Cutting Traffic To Pirate Sites & Faces Conspiracy Theories

Google reported this month that a website that receives too many copyright violation notices can expect to experience their search visitor traffic to decrease an average of 89% after Google demotes the website. The data came from a Google report to the U.S. Copyright Office.

Google received an editorial recommendation from The New York Times last week after the newspaper analyzed search results from Google, Bing, and DuckDuckGo. The analysis was conducted after conservative commentators including Ben Shapiro and Joe Rogan told audiences to use non-Google search engines. The Times says that “Bing and DuckDuckGo surfaced more untrustworthy websites than Google…” while saying that some untrustworthy sites showed in Google results, but less prominently.

4. Spotlight Explainer — NFT Marketplaces Go Bonkers

NFTs Defined

Our first in-depth issue about NFTs was one year ago this week so it was serendipitous to see seemingly the entire NFT marketplace go off the deep end in February.

An NFT is rich content (think image, audio, or video) that has been placed on the same blockchain used by cryptocurrency like Bitcoin. Think of them as numbered items sold to collectors. They’re not exclusive and may be already well known in other areas.

For example, the NBA helped pioneer video clips of famous basketball plays that it sold to collectors. The buyer doesn’t own the rights to anything except that copy of that highlight. They’re often compared to buying a baseball card or record album. You own your copy, which you can sell, but you have no rights to the content and pay premium prices.

Yes, really.

The Associated Press Steps In and Jumps Out

The AP watched rights holders making serious money and decided to wade into the NFT waters given their deep news libraries. On Thursday (yes, the day Russia invaded Ukraine), the AP tweeted that it would be minting a new NFT the next day. In their own words, that NFT would be a video “of migrants drifting in an overcrowded boat in the Mediterranean.”

Despite the smell of money in the air, the AP hastily canceled their plans after the backlash they should have seen coming.

Sotheby’s and the CryptoPunks

The AP’s egregious behavior happened one day after posh auction house Sotheby’s reported that a sale of 104 CryptoPunks NFTs had been withdrawn only 25 minutes before its start. That collection was created by one of the NFT’s pioneering design firms. The entire collection is 10,000 pieces, and many have sold for more than $1 million each.

People Are Really Buying These?

Yep. Lots.

• Chick’nCone, a 24 restaurant chain based in Florida, is selling 933 NFTs of their logos in different US markets for $14,500 each. If a buyer then franchises the chain, they get $22,500 off the fee.
  
• Brands selling NFTs now include McDonald’s, Estee Lauder, Coca-Cola (and right after, Pepsi), and Budweiser.
  
• In typical Nike fashion, they’re not just selling NFTs. They bought one of the top design studios.

Missteps And Weirdness Are Common in this Land Rush

Like every bubble from tulips to Beanie Babies, this crazy NFT marketplace has all the makings of a greater fool’s market that requires new buyers to keep coming in and elevate prices. Former first lady Melania Trump has sold three NFT collections although the latest sold for $170,000 to what appears to be herself. Experts say that shill bidding is common, and no one is really quite sure who is buying what since the sales are in typically anonymous cryptocurrency.

Meanwhile, Snoop Dogg just closed his acquisition of pioneering hip-hop record label Death Row Records. He says that the new company will be NFT-focused. He then sold $44 million worth of NFTs in five days.

5. Did That Really Happen? — 10 Photos and Videos That Are Not From the Russian Invasion

Amazing stories sprung from the first few days of the resistance of Ukraine to Russia’s invasion. This is the first streaming war we’ve experienced, and while disinformation and propaganda are long-used tactics, the tools used to create realistic hoaxes are better than ever. Here is a gallery of videos and images falsely attributed to the invasion.

6. Following Up — COVID Algorithm at the Pentagon

We’ve written a lot about different predictive algorithms that can be used to detect COVID-19. Now the Pentagon has announced that it has awarded a contract for work to continue on a project that uses trackers in a watch and ring to monitor personnel. An algorithm then receives the data from the trackers and predicts COVID-19 two days before the person shows symptoms.

7. Protip — Uber Driver Ratings for Passengers

Today some of you learned that Uber drivers rate passengers. Some of you already knew that you could see your average rating. Hopefully more of you are now learning that you can see how many ratings you’ve received at each level. Here’s how.

8. Screening Room — Drew Barrymore & Her Chicken

 9. Science Fiction World — DNA Sequencing Cut to 5 Hours

A Stanford lab has shaved hours from the time needed to sequence a genome. They’re being feted now for shattering a Guinness World Record by shrinking the time from 14 hours to 5 hours. Team leader Dr. Euan Ashley offered even better news, “I think we can halve it again. If we’re able to do that, we’re talking about being able to get an answer before the end of a hospital ward round. That’s a dramatic jump.”

10. Coffee Break — World Photography Winners & Shortlisted Photos

Who doesn’t like to look at stunning photos? Now you’ve got access to this year’s winners and shortlisted photos plus galleries from the past ten years to occupy many coffee breaks.

11. Sign of the Times

1. Good Monday Morning

Thanks for being Spotlight’s Valentine today.  Quick housekeeping note: we’re off next week for President’s Day and then we’ll be with you every Monday straight to Memorial Day.

Today’s Spotlight is 1,310 words — about a 5 minute read.

2. News To Know Now

Quoted:“If you receive calls, emails, or other communications claiming to be from the Treasury Department and offering COVID-19 related grants or stimulus payments in exchange for personal financial information, or an advance fee, or charge of any kind, including the purchase of gift cards, please do not respond. These are scams. Please contact the FBI at www.ic3.gov so that the scammers can be tracked and stopped.“— Treasury Department instructions as COVID-19 fraud and scams continue. Keep reading for more on this issue in Spotlight Explainer below.

a) The IRS rescinded its policy that people use their private contractor’s facial recognition program to retrieve personal data online. One day later, the contractor made facial recognition optional for all of its government programs. The company also said that people who had submitted their face images could opt to delete them.

b)   Amazon Care, the company’s telehealth service offering, has now rolled out nationally ahead of Amazon launching in-person care in 20 U.S. cities this year. 

c) Social media sharing could become more difficult in the future. Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Cynthia Loomis (R-WY) have introduced legislation that direct the National Science Foundation and National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine to create content-neutral ways to slow down sharing. One example already in place: a Twitter prompt that lets someone know if they’re sharing an article they haven’t read yet. 

3. Search Engine News — Original Photos for Reviews

Using manufacturer images to accompany product reviews is convenient, but Google suggests using unique images. The search company also said that enhancing the stock photo isn’t enough to make it unique. And as a good analysis from Search Engine Journal points out, original images will be a big benefit for your  site when it is manually reviewed by the Google Quality Rater team.

Not every website is manually reviewed by a quality rater, but with 10,000 of them throughout the world, the chances are good that it can happen. We’ve published info about that group’s guidelines before, but you can access the 172 page document at will.

4. Spotlight Explainer — COVID Fraud Online

The Situation

The U.S. government has prosecuted more than 100 people for fraud related to the Paycheck Protection Program and seized over $75 million in cash. There were new warnings last week that COVID fraud would continue to be a Justice Department priority. Those cases have received most of the media coverage, but the pandemic has created other opportunities for online fraud.

Print Your Own Vaccine Card

I keep asking business leaders how they’re verifying vaccination cards for employees or customers. No one has a good answer yet, and that’s because they’re handwritten records on easily available paper stock.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also made an odd choice counter to their own recommendations by providing a link to printable vaccine cards. Grid News broke that story after following up on their previous reporting. 

This is the simplest form of COVID fraud and yet people continue paying for fake cards. In one very public case that came to light several weeks ago two nurses were charged with selling forged vaccination cards and entering fake records into New York’s database. Their prices ranged from $85 for a child to $220 for an adult.

Selling Vaccine Misinformation

Nearly every publisher and online platform contains vaccine misinformation. Spotify’s issues with Joe Rogan are the well known ones, but hardly unique. Think about the anti-vaccination misinformation monetized on YouTube and other platforms while Amazon sells books by vaccine skeptics. 

One well known skeptic who has been deplatformed elsewhere is Joseph Mercola, an osteopath who has generated more than $2.2 million selling anti-vaccination newsletters on Substack. The Substack platform allows creators to keep up to 90% of revenue.

Ongoing PPP Fallout

The latest big COVID fraud case to make national news is the search for Tamara Dadyan, a California real estate broker who along with family members formed a group of eight who filed 150 fake PPP applications that netted them $18 million. Dadyan’s ten year prison sentence was due to begin two weeks ago, but she and two others have escaped.

Fake Tests & Surveys

The Department of Health and Human Services is warning that COVID fraud and scams are increasing online. These include surveys, sales of fake tests, and identity theft. The agency warns that you could be on the hook if someone gains your personal information and bills Medicare or Medicaid for unauthorized tests or procedures. Here’s their warning video.

 5. Did That Really Happen? — The Government is Not Distributing Crack Pipes

Comedian Robert Wuhl’s classic bit about printing the legend that is more interesting than the boring truth continues flourishing with pundit claims and opinion hosts posing as newscasters.

The Washington Free Beacon, whose costs are underwritten by a hedge fund billionaire, poses as a conservative news website. They posted an article citing anonymous sources that falsely stated the Biden administration was giving drug-smoking pipes to millions of people. 

Without checking to find out it was true, multiple outlets and Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Marco Rubio (R-FL) commented on and criticized the program that did not exist. Instead, the so-called safer smoking part of the kit includes alcohol swabs, lip balm, and other materials to help reduce disease transmission.

USA Today has the fact-checked details.

 6. Following Up — Missouri Prosecutor Won’t Charge Reporter

We’ve been writing about the case of reporter Josh Renaud who privately warned the Missouri government that Social Security Numbers and other personal information about teachers could be accessed by the public on a state website. Renaud promised not to publish the news until the state fixed the flaw, but Gov. Mike Parson targeted Renaud and referred to him on multiple occasions as a criminal.

Renaud didn’t commit a crime. He pressed the button on his browser that allowed him to see the website code. Parson has held fast to the criminal narrative for months, but the county prosecutor confirmed last Friday that he will not press charges.

7. Protip — Using Air Tags for Stalking Is A No-No

I wasn’t sure how to feel when my wife sent me Kashmir Hill’s great piece on tracking her husband’s movements using Air Tags and other trackers. (Hill, maybe the best general circulation privacy reporter around, had her husband’s permission.)

But I am almost 100% certain that Apple’s statements about abusing Air Tags for stalking came directly as a result of Hill’s piece. And you should read this because Apple says they will work with law enforcement to help them prosecute those cases.

8. Screening Room — Super Bowl Free

We’ve all seen enough TV commercials these past few days so let’s revisit this fantastic tweet from Adidas. The message posted last Wednesday morning featured images of 25 pairs of bare breasts as Adidas promoted their sports bra line in one of the most inclusive and body positive ways possible.

9. Science Fiction World — DARPA’s Autonomous Helicopter For the U.S. Military

You do too know about DARPA. They started a project back in 1966 that became ARPANET, which became the internet. And they do other cool stuff. Now there’s news that the agency tested a 30 minute autonomous Black Hawk helicopter flight around Fort Campbell two weeks ago.

 10. Coffee Break — Tom Cruise Deepfake (A New One)

We’ve shown you deepfakes for years. Many feature Tom Cruise, but the state-of-the-art is reaching a point where lay people can’t detect the video manipulation.

Here’s a short video of Paris Hilton from last week with what appears to be a much younger Tom Cruise. It’s really Miles Fisher, who resembles the actor in the same way a nightclub impersonator might present as a singer. But a little computer magic makes that resemblance become identical.

 11. Sign of The Times

1. Good Monday Morning

It’s February 7th, which means that National Pizza Day is on Wednesday. The Today Show helpfully published a list of national chain discounts, including delivery app Slice, which represents local shops.

Today’s Spotlight is 1,521 words — about a 5 1/2 minute read.

2. News To Know Now

Quoted:“We now have evidence from law enforcement that the previously peaceful demonstration has become an occupation, with police reports of violence and other unlawful activity.“— A GoFundMe announcement last Friday that the company would refund individual donors instead of disbursing funds to COVID-19 protesters in Ottawa. The Ottawa government declared a state of emergency late last night.

a)  The Crisis Text Line, a suicide prevention hotline, has stopped sharing “anonymized data” with a for-profit partner after data ethicists were horrified to learn that they had been doing so. Politico points out that they’re not alone–even the Trevor Project allows targeted advertising. The company halted the agreement after that story made national headlines and drew questions from Congress, philanthropists, and its own volunteers.

b) NewsCorp announced last Friday that its networks had been breached and journalists targeted. The company owns The Wall Street Journal, New York Post, and Smart Money magazine and has linked the attack to China.

c) Tech earnings season wrapped up last week with Facebook posting the largest one day stock loss in history and Amazon posting the largest one day gain. Highlights:

• Alphabet — Google’s parent posted a 32% YOY increase in quarterly revenue and finished 2021 with $76 billion in net profit. 
  
• Snap — The Snapchat parent company posted its first ever quarterly profit after quarterly sales grew to $1.3 billion.
  
• Pinterest —A 20% YOY increase in quarterly revenue offset news that its monthly active U.S. user count declined.
  
• Facebook — Two storylines that drove Facebook stock down more than 21% last week need context. The company lost users for the first time, but it decreased from 1.93 billion daily users to 1.92 billion. The other is the $10 billion that it invested in its Reality Labs division, which includes its metaverse strategy. Even with that investment, Facebook posted a quarterly profit of $10.3 billion vs. an expected $10.9 billion. Most Facebook metrics are up even as Apple’s privacy initiatives hurt the company’s core advertising business.
  
• Amazon — The Everything Company nearly doubled profit and was rewarded with a $190 billion market cap bump in only one day. Amazon also disclosed that it now owns 18% of EV maker Rivian, 5% of self-driving tech company Aurora, and 95 planes in its fleet. On top of all that news, Amazon is also reportedly exploring a deal to acquire Peloton and announced a Prime dues increase of $20 per year. It’s the second Prime increase after a four year interval. 
  
  Despite the flood of great Amazon news, the company had a setback after a Washington Attorney General order permanently shut the retailer’s “Sold by Amazon” program. As part of that agreement, Amazon will pay a fine of $2.25 million.
  
  Meanwhile, founder Jeff Bezos will pay the city of Rotterdam to temporarily dismantle a 95-year-old bridge so that his new 417 foot yacht can pass through when it launches from a shipyard there this summer. 

3. Search Engine News — Google Often Changing Titles Websites Submit 

We’ve told you before how Google has been changing the titles of webpages that it shows in its search results. The search giant says that its machine language systems will change the title of a webpage in its displays if the software calculates that it’s appropriate and closer to the user’s intent.

Search marketers were not happy about this, but the company has held fast to its decision.

Now a study conducted by search software firm Zyppy has found that Google changed those titles more than 61% of the time. Zyppy CEO Cyrus Shepherd, a well respected digital marketer, reported:

• When titles were only 5 characters or less, they were rewritten by software 96% of the time.
• Titles up 20 characters still had a better than 50% chance of being rewritten.
• But titles exceeding 60 characters were also getting rewritten too often.
• In fact, anything over 70 characters was almost always (99.9%) rewritten.

Google has also demonstrated a clear favorite in the way marketers separate phrases in titles. For years, that was a brand preference issue, but Zyppy’s data from thousands of sites shows that Google removes dashes 20% of the time and pipes (the | character) more than 40% of the time.

Part of your website’s strategy in 2022: analyze how often this is happening to your site and whether Google’s changes are helping. If they are, perhaps more than the title should change.

4. Spotlight Explainer — Algorithm Bias & Housing Discrimination

The Situation

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau director Rohit Chopra has put mortgage lenders on notice that the agency considers algorithmic lending a path to digital redlining and robo discrimination. Chopra recently testified to Congress that the agency believes that “matching consumer records solely by name” is an unreasonable standard because of algorithm bias.

He’s reacting to reports and studies from The Markup last summer that showed nonwhite homebuyers were more likely to be rejected for mortgages that white borrowers received. When nonwhites were approved for those mortgages, they also paid higher rates.

Explaining Redlining

Generally used today to describe a discriminatory practice of denying or marking up services in a specific area, the term redlining comes from color-coded maps that the U.S. government used in the 1930s. Neighborhoods with the highest risks for mortgage lenders were outlined in red and invariably contained most of a city’s African American homeowners. Redlining created an inequitable race wealth gap in the U.S. economy that McKinsey estimates at more than $1 trillion.

Breakdowns by Racial Group

The Associated Press worked with The Markup and analyzed 17 factors across more than 2 million mortgage applications. Nationally, the rates at which nonwhites were rejected when whites were approved ranged 40% more often for Latinos to 80% for Black applicants. The AP cautioned that final decisions are made by humans, but “largely driven” by software recommendations.

What’s Next for Algorithm Bias

The Department of Justice and Comptroller of the Currency have joined the CPFB in a new effort to identify and stop algorithm bias that is often codifying systemic bias created by generations of legal discrimination against women and nonwhites.

Democrats in Congress have also announced that they will introduce an updated version of the Algorithmic Accountability Act that was first proposed in 2019. That legislation would require transparent audits of AI used in finance, health care, housing, and education.

5. Did That Really Happen? — Johns Hopkins Lockdown Paper Not Peer-Reviewed

Last week conservative media outlets began touting a paper by Johns Hopkins professors that reportedly found that “lockdowns” did not mitigate the COVID-19 death toll to date.

Snopes dug in and found that the document was a working paper by three economists, not epidemiologists or medical scientists. This working paper has not been peer-reviewed and cannot be labeled a JHU study. Finally, instead of the traditional definition, these economists defined a lockdown as “the imposition of at least one compulsory, non-pharmaceutical intervention (NPI).” That means that requiring masks counts for these professors as a “lockdown.”

6. Following Up — No Movement on IRS Facial Recognition, Apple Improves Face ID

After a flurry of complaints about the IRS’ plans to require facial recognition via a third party for taxpayers who want to receive personal data online, the Treasury Department said that it would re-evaluate the idea. And as the second week of tax season closed, there was no movement on that issue, but Apple announced last Thursday that its Face ID now works when the person is wearing a face mask.

7. Protip — Import a PDF into Excel

Importing a PDF with words, numbers, or both into Excel is easier than you might think. And since tax season has begun in earnest, here is a walkthrough for you.

8. Screening Room — Matthew McConaughey’s Space

9. Science Fiction World — Google’s DeepMind Says Its System Can Code Competitively

I still think that it’s cool when my robo vacuum plugs itself back in to recharge, but DeepMind, a Google AI lab in London, says that its new AlphaCode software can write programs at a competitive level. The company says that the software ranked in the top 54% against human competitors in problems on the Codeforces platform.

10. Coffee Break — McMansion Hell

Kate Wagner’s blog is the place to go for some of the funniest annotated pictures of the dreaded McMansions. Bring a large coffee. She writes well and often.

11. Sign of the Times