Author: Erin Elizabeth

This week, the Department of Homeland Security posted a contract request for “Media Monitoring Services.” If you think it sounds like they are looking for a firm who can “compile a database of hundreds of thousands of journalists, bloggers and ‘media influencers'” so the federal government can monitor them, you’d be correct. And if you think that’s a step too far, you’d be right about that too. But don’t worry, Big Brothers got you covered. After an outcry on social media, a spokesman from DHS tweeted:1 Despite what some reporters may suggest, this is nothing more than the standard practice...

Although Facebook certainly doesn’t need anymore scandals, yet another one has come to light: it’s been revealed that the social media giant asked “several major U.S. hospitals to share anonymized data about their patients, such as illnesses and prescription info,” 2 for a purported “research project.” Facebook says their intention was to help hospitals figure out which patients might need special care or treatment, based on the info they had collected, once they went home. But, given the Cambridge Analytica data leak scandal, the project never got past the planning phases and has now been put on pause. However,...