Archive for December 28, 2022

BREAKING: Twitter Appears To Be Having Issues…. Thanks Elon

Posted in Commentary with tags on December 28, 2022 by itnerd

Over the last hour I’ve been tracking reports of issues with Twitter. And DownDetector seems to confirm that there are issues at Twitter:

And users on DownDetector are saying stuff like this:

Not to mention people on Twitter who are using the hashtag #TwitterDown are saying the following:

https://twitter.com/CaptainCommie77/status/1608289429830901762

I’ve had some random issues in the last hour with Tweets not posting and being force logged out of Twitter. So this is absolutely happening. I guess that this is result of an ego driven billionaire (though his net worth is falling by the day) who has no clue what he’s doing who is simply trying stuff and hoping that it will work. Twitter might not die tonight (though I would not at all be surprised if it did), but I think you’re starting to witness the beginning of the end of Twitter.

Great job Elon!

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Guest Post: YouTube removed a record 5.8 million channels in Q3 2022

Posted in Commentary with tags on December 28, 2022 by itnerd

According to Atlas VPN analysis, Google’s video platform removed a record number of channels last quarter  — 5.8 million. 

Prior to Q3 2022, the highest volume of removed channels was recorded during the third quarter of 2021, at 4.8 million terminations. 

Over 91.2% of all removed channels last quarter were flagged as either misleading, participating in scams, or simply spamming.

The number of channels removed in Q3 2022 increased by 1.8 million compared to Q2, representing a growth of 46%. 

The figures were extracted from the YouTube Community Guidelines enforcement report. 

Another 194 thousand channels, or 3.3% of the total, were terminated due to breaking YouTube’s community guidelines by showcasing nude or sexual content.

An official statement by YouTube notes that the high volume of terminated channels might be due to the actions they have taken to preserve their workforce and cut in-office staffing in response to COVID-19. 

Most videos deleted in India

When YouTube deletes a channel, all of its videos are removed as well. Together with 5.8 million channels, due to channel-level suspension, more than 5.6 million videos were removed in the third quarter of 2022.

Surprisingly, one country stands above the rest in terms of the volume of recordings terminated. 

Throughout Q3 2022, as many as 1.7 million videos originating from India were deleted. The second country on the list — Indonesia, saw 629 thousand videos removed. 

The United States stands in third place, with 534 thousand removals. Brazil (276 thousand) and Russia (218 thousand) round up the top five countries in terms of deleted Youtube videos as a result of overstepping community guidelines. 

Interestingly, video and channel removal reasons differ completely.

While 91.2% of channels were removed due to spamming, misleading, and scams, only 3.9% of videos were removed based on these grounds. 

In contrast, the largest portion of videos were terminated due to child safety concerns, totaling 2 million videos deleted, comprising 36% of the total.

To see the full article, head over to: https://atlasvpn.com/blog/youtube-removed-a-record-5-8-million-channels-in-q3-2022

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TikTok Banned From US Government Devices

Posted in Commentary with tags on December 28, 2022 by itnerd

TikTok has long been a source of contention as it is seen as a Chinese app that at best is full of security issues, or at worst a data harvesting machine for the Chinese government. Well, it now seems that TikTok is back in the news again as Reuters is reporting that the app has been banned from US government devices. Meaning if you have the app, you need to delete it. And if you want to download it, you won’t be able to:

The popular Chinese video app TikTok has been banned from all U.S. House of Representatives-managed devices, according to the House’s administration arm, mimicking a law soon to go into effect banning the app from U.S. government devices.

The app is considered “high risk due to a number of security issues,” the House’s Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) said in a message sent to all lawmakers and staff on Tuesday, and must be deleted from all devices managed by the House.

The new rule follows a series of moves by U.S. state governments to ban TikTok, owned by Beijing-based ByteDance Ltd, from government devices. As of last week, 19 states have at least partially blocked the app from state-managed devices over concerns that the Chinese government could use the app to track Americans and censor content.

Given this sort of momentum, you have to wonder if there will be a move towards an outright ban where nobody can use TikTok in the US. Which will likely spread to other countries. I’ve argued that they should be banned for the following reasons:

Ban them. Ban them now. And get other countries to ban them. This discussion about if TikTok is a national security threat has been going on for years. And if you’re having this much discussion about a topic, and stuff keeps coming out that says that whatever it is that you’re talking about is bad, you should probably ban it. Because keeping TikTok around really doesn’t do anyone any good.

Thus it’s high time that countries stating with the US stop talking about banning them and get about actually doing it.

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