TikTok Is Turning the Publishing World Into Fast Fashion (Bloomberg)
BY JESSICA KARL
Before you grab a copy of Rebecca Yarros’ Iron Flame, recognize that its success is being driven by a problematic hype machine.
A publisher shouldn’t be comfortable with having an author so openly take inspiration from a subject matter they’re not intimately familiar with. But social media has shifted things. Mentions of Yarros and her books alone have racked up more than a billion views on TikTok, where a subset called BookTok has boosted the popularity of the “romantasy” genre.
Fiction novels may be an escape for some, but they are often rooted in somebody else’s culture or origin story. When publishers and authors fail to handle those stories with care, it’s more than disheartening. It’s a reality check for fantasy land.
How millennials learned to dread motherhood (Vox)
BY RACHEL M. COHEN
To our generation, being a mom looks thankless, exhausting, and lonely. Can we change the story?
Uncertainty is normal. Becoming a parent is a life-changing decision, after all. But this moment is unlike any women have faced before. Today, the question of whether to have kids generates anxiety far more intense than your garden-variety ambivalence. For too many, it inspires dread.
I know some women who have decided to forgo motherhood altogether — not out of an empowered certainty that they want to remain child-free, but because the alternative seems impossibly daunting. Others are still choosing motherhood, but with profound apprehension that it will require them to sacrifice everything that brings them pleasure.
Meanwhile, the very idea of becoming a parent has grown more politically fraught. Republican politicians are doubling down on explicit endorsements of childbearing, the kind that Democrats increasingly see as at odds with reproductive freedom and valuing families of all kinds.
Global fertility has collapsed, with profound economic consequences (The Economist)
What might change the world’s dire demographic trajectory?
Whatever some environmentalists say, a shrinking population creates problems. The world is not close to full and the economic difficulties resulting from fewer young people are many. The obvious one is that it is getting harder to support the world’s pensioners. Retired folk draw on the output of the working-aged, either through the state, which levies taxes on workers to pay public pensions, or by cashing in savings to buy goods and services or because relatives provide care unpaid. But whereas the rich world currently has around three people between 20 and 64 years old for everyone over 65, by 2050 it will have less than two. The implications are higher taxes, later retirements, lower real returns for savers and, possibly, government budget crises.
LEXISNEXIS SOLD POWERFUL SPY TOOLS TO U.S. CUSTOMS AND BORDER PROTECTION (The Intercept_)
BY SAM BIDDLE
The data brokerage giant sold face recognition, phone tracking, and other surveillance technology to the border guards, say government documents.
“This contract is mass surveillance in hyperdrive,” Julie Mao, an attorney and co-founder of Just Futures Law, told The Intercept. “It’s frightening that a rogue agency such as CBP has access to so many powerful technologies at the click of the button. Unfortunately, this is what LexisNexis appears now to be selling to thousands of police forces across the country. It’s now become a one-stop shop for accessing a range of invasive surveillance tools.”
Among other tools, the contract shows LexisNexis is providing CBP with social media surveillance, access to jail booking data, face recognition and “geolocation analysis & geographic mapping” of cellphones. All this data can be queried in “large volume online batching,” allowing CBP investigators to target broad groups of people and discern “connections among individuals, incidents, activities, and locations,” handily visualized through Google Maps.
23andMe tells victims it’s their fault that their data was breached (TechCrunch)
BY Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai
“This finger pointing is nonsensical. 23andMe knew or should have known that many consumers use recycled passwords and thus that 23andMe should have implemented some of the many safeguards available to protect against credential stuffing — especially considering that 23andMe stores personal identifying information, health information, and genetic information on its platform,” Zavareei said in an email.
“The breach impacted millions of consumers whose data was exposed through the DNA Relatives feature on 23andMe’s platform, not because they used recycled passwords. Of those millions, only a few thousand accounts were compromised due to credential stuffing. 23andMe’s attempt to shirk responsibility by blaming its customers does nothing for these millions of consumers whose data was compromised through no fault of their own whatsoever,” said Zavareei.
He Wanted Privacy. His College Gave Him None (The Markup)
BY Tara García Mathewson
A Markup examination of a typical college shows how students are subject to a vast and growing array of watchful tech, including homework trackers, test-taking software, and even license plate readers
Few institutions collect as much data about the people inside of them as colleges and universities do. Residential campuses, in particular, mean students not only interact with their schools for academics, but for housing, home internet, dining, health care, fitness, and socialization. Still, whether living on campus or off, taking classes in person or remotely, students simply cannot opt out of most data collection and still pursue a degree.
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