It had been widely presumed that Reddit, a hub for campaigning, activism and often extreme views, would be a logical target for any manipulation.

It has yet to publish its own investigation into Russian activity.

Now news site the Daily Beast says it has obtained files showing a Russian troll farm was active on Reddit.

The Daily Beast says it has obtained leaked documents from within Russia’s Internet Research Agency (IRA), the country’s most prominent troll-factory.

The US government has already charged 13 Russians, linked to the agency, with attempting to manipulate American voters using social media.

The Russian organisation is alleged to have had a budget of more than a million dollars, which the US claims was used to buy advertising on sites such as Twitter and Facebook.

So far, Reddit has not been included in the US Senate’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

But some reports have suggested that could soon change.

Influence

The documents discovered by the Daily Beast are said to detail the Internet Research Agency’s efforts on Reddit.

The site says the agency employed “online agitators” to help posts from its own propaganda websites rise to the top of Reddit.

It says the organisation used proxy servers to mask the location of its work.

Also targeted were the Yahoo-owned blogging platform Tumblr, and the viral joke site 9gag.

The Daily Beast said the documents – which the BBC has not seen – included the names of US-based activists who the Russians were trying to contact.

The publication said its reporters contacted several of these people and confirmed online conversations had taken place.

As has been a pattern with Russian efforts discovered to date, there is no outright support of any particular candidate or viewpoint.

Instead it seems Russia’s aim was to provoke and divide Americans on the internet and, as a result, in the physical world too.

‘Not provided evidence’

The Daily Beast said it had given Reddit the opportunity to comment on the story, but that repeated requests were ignored.

Reddit replied on Friday, telling the BBC: “Reddit was not provided evidence of accounts or other data that would enable us to identify misuse or manipulation of the platform by users.”

Reddit has gained a reputation as being something of a haven for some of the more extreme views that have been pushed off other platforms like YouTube and Twitter.

The site consists of many user-generated sections, known as subreddits, that focus on a particular topic or place, such as r/football or r/SanFrancisco.

Submissions are up- or down-voted by other users, with the most popular rising to the top of each respective section.

Posts that are wildly popular make their way to the front page and thus an audience of several million around the world every day.

One particular subreddit, r/The_Donald, is arguably the most powerful and coordinated pro-Donald Trump community on the internet, endorsed by the President himself who, while campaigning, used the forum to answer questions posted by users.

Reddit has taken several steps to limit r/The_Donald’s impact, including blocking popular submissions from appearing on Reddit’s front page.

In a move he later apologised for, Reddit co-founder and chief executive Steve Huffman admitted personally editing comments posted on r/The_Donald.

Trump supporters on the site accuse Reddit of censorship and bias, but other users accuse Reddit of doing too little, pointing to many instances in which posts on r/The_Donald have gone against Reddit’s policies.

Mr Huffman acknowledged that some users on r/The_Donald did break the site’s rules, but said the volunteer moderators on the section were proactive in removing such material.

‘Disturbing’

Aside from information involving Reddit, the Daily Beast said the leaked documents included “at least 21” accounts on Tumblr, the blogging site acquired by Yahoo in 2013.

Oath, the Verizon company that now owns Yahoo, said the findings were “deeply disturbing”.

“We’re committed to creating platforms consumers can trust, and any abuse of our services is deeply concerning to us,” it said.

Like Reddit, Oath has not been called upon to provide evidence to the various committees looking into the issue of Russian influence online.

Facebook, Twitter and YouTube-owner Google have all appeared in front of US politicians on several occasions to explain their investigations and subsequent efforts to prevent similar activity from Russia – or other countries – in the future.

Yet unlike its competitors, which have workforces in the tens of thousands, Reddit is a comparatively tiny company.

As of July last year, the company had just 230 employees, yet it is ranked the sixth most popular website on the internet by traffic monitoring service Alexa.

It has a so-called “anti evil” team to combat abuse, described in job postings as “small and scrappy”.

–

Source: BBC

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Chrissy Chambers became a leading “revenge porn” campaigner after she was alerted to the clips.

The High Court in London heard that the accused – who cannot be named for legal reasons – had accepted liability for his unlawful activity.

He also agreed to pay an undisclosed sum as well as to cover legal costs.

Ms Chambers’ lawyers have described the sum as “substantial”.

“[This] should serve as a severe warning to those who seek to extort and harm with revenge porn: you cannot do this with impunity, and you will be held accountable for your actions,” said Ms Chambers following the case.

“To every victim of this insidious kind of attack, I am here to say: You cam fight back, and win. You will heal and move on – and you will not have to take those steps alone.”

The singer and comedian celebrated her successful civil claim by proposing to her girlfriend and YouTube co-star, Bria Kam, on the steps of the court.

Ms Kam said yes.

England and Wales made “revenge porn” a criminal offence in 2015, but Ms Chambers said she had been unable to take advantage of this as the law does not apply retrospectively.

The court had heard that the accused had filmed the sexual activity in December 2011 and January 2012 and subsequently uploaded six videos to a free-to-watch pornographic site.

Some of the clips contained Ms Chambers’ name and her age at the time, which was 18.

Ms Chambers, who is now 26, said that she had not been aware that she was being filmed at the time, and only learned of the videos’ existence in June 2013, 19 months after they had been posted.

Since the accused owned the copyright to the clips, Ms Chambers said she was unable to force the site to remove them. She said they had been copied and shared to dozens more sites since.

She initially attempted to pursue criminal charges, but when this failed she crowdfunded $36,900 (£26,750) to file the civil case.

Ms Chambers’s lawyer told the court that some of the singer’s YouTube followers had mistakenly believed she had intentionally been involved in making pornography and had posted messages saying that they no longer wanted to follow her.

The lawyer added that the YouTuber had been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and continued to have flashbacks and nightmares.

As part of the settlement, the accused has agreed to destroy any remaining images of Ms Chambers in his possession and has handed over copyright to the uploaded films.

This means Ms Chambers can now demand that the sites hosting the material delete it.

–

Source: BBC

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Paul’s channels were removed from YouTube’s Google Preferred programme, where brands sell ads on the platform’s top 5% of content creators.

YouTube also said it had put on hold original projects with the US vlogger.

Paul posted the video with a man’s body on 31 December, triggering widespread criticism.

What is YouTube punishing Logan Paul for?
The video showed Paul and his friends at the Aokigahara forest at the base of Mount Fuji, known to be a frequent site of suicides.

Going in to film the “haunted” forest, they come across a man’s body and are shocked but also make jokes.

The identity of the deceased man is not known. Online comments have called the Japan video, which garnered millions of views on YouTube before it was taken down, “disrespectful” and “disgusting”.

Paul later posted an apology on Twitter, saying he had been “misguided by shock and awe”.

He also uploaded a video apology, and said: “I should have never posted the video. I should have put the cameras down and stopped recording what we were going through.”

“I’m ashamed of myself,” he added. “I’m disappointed in myself.”

How much is this likely to cost Paul?
It’s hard to calculate exactly. YouTube’s move will cost him financially as his videos will no longer earn top-tier cash per click – but as he hasn’t been completely kicked off the platform, he will still earn money from views.

Google Preferred allows brands to publish ads on the accounts that are most popular among 18-34 year-olds in the US.

YouTube’s own wording calls it a way for companies to “share their messages alongside some of the most engaging and brand safe content on YouTube”.

Aside from his videos, Paul makes money from sponsored social media posts and merchandise – and it’s worth noting that his apology video has racked up nearly 40 million views.

How big a star is Logan Paul?
With more than 15 million subscribers and counting, he’s huge.

Last year, Forbes magazine estimated he made $12.5m (£9.3m), making him the fourth highest-paid YouTube star in 2016.

Why are people upset with YouTube?
Some people are frustrated that it took YouTube 10 days to respond to the controversy. The company acknowledged this, saying: “You’re right to be [frustrated]. You deserve to know what’s going on.”

The Japan video itself was not taken down by YouTube; Paul himself took it down, leading some to complain that the platform should have acted more decisively.

What is Aokigahara forest?
Japan has one of the highest rates of suicide in the developed world.

Aokigahara forest has a reputation in Japan and internationally as a destination for people who want to kill themselves.

Data on the number of suicides there each year is not made public, to avoid publicising the site. Signs are posted in the forest urging people to seek medical help rather than take their lives.

–

Source: BBC

The post YouTube punishes Logan Paul over Japan suicide video appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

Paul’s channels were removed from YouTube’s Google Preferred programme, where brands sell ads on the platform’s top 5% of content creators.

YouTube also said it had put on hold original projects with the US vlogger.

Paul posted the video with a man’s body on 31 December, triggering widespread criticism.

The video showed him and his friends at the Aokigahara forest at the base of Mount Fuji, known to be a frequent site of suicides.

Going in to film the “haunted” forest, they come across a man’s body and are shocked but also make jokes.

The identity of the deceased man is not known.

YouTube’s move will cost Paul financially as his videos will no longer earn top-tier cash per click.

Google Preferred allows brands to publish ads on the accounts that are most popular among 18-34 year-olds in the US.

YouTube’s own wording calls it a way for companies to “share their messages alongside some of the most engaging and brand safe content on YouTube”.

It is not clear exactly how much Paul will lose out on due to the move. Last year, Forbes magazine estimated he made $12.5m (£9.3m), making him the fourth highest-paid YouTube star in 2016. Aside from his videos, he makes money from sponsored social media posts and merchandise.

Online comments have called the Japan video, which garnered millions of views on YouTube before it was taken down, “disrespectful” and “disgusting”.

Paul, who has more than 15 million subscribers on YouTube, later posted an apology on Twitter, saying he had been “misguided by shock and awe”.

He also uploaded a video apology, and said: “I should have never posted the video. I should have put the cameras down and stopped recording what we were going through.”

“I’m ashamed of myself,” he added. “I’m disappointed in myself.”

Japan has one of the highest rates of suicide in the developed world.

Aokigahara has a reputation in Japan and internationally as a destination for people who want to kill themselves.

Data on the number of suicides there each year is not made public, to avoid publicising the site. Signs are posted in the forest urging people to seek medical help rather than take their lives.

–

Source: BBC

The post YouTube punishes Logan Paul over Japan suicide video appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

Sebastian Tomczak, who is based in Australia, said he made the video in 2015 and uploaded it to YouTube.

The claimants accusing him of infringement include publishers of white noise intended for sleep therapy.

“I will be disputing these claims,” he told the BBC.

In this case, those accusing Mr Tomczak are not demanding the video’s removal, but instead the reward of any revenue made from advertising associated with it.

Without the claims, Mr Tomczak would receive such revenue himself.

“I am intrigued and perplexed that YouTube’s automated content ID system will pattern-match white noise with multiple claims,” he said.

His video was originally made along with other 10-hour recordings – including one of a continuous electronic tone.

The claims relate to specific portions of similarly lengthy videos of white noise also posted on the site.

‘Spurious’ claims

Mr Tomczak said the “spurious” claims won’t have a significant impact on him, though he finds them “frustrating”.

“If I were making substantial money from YouTube content, such a broken system may prove to be unusable,” he said.

Similar cases have occurred before. In 2012, one YouTube user reported that he faced copyright claims over birdsong captured in the background of one of his videos.

On that occasion, a spokesman for the claimant in question said the claim was indeed made by YouTube’s automated system.

The claim was soon removed.

“Copyright does not protect the idea, but the expression of the idea,” explained intellectual property lawyer Iain Connor at UK law firm Pinsent Masons.

“If I record background white noise or if I have a random white noise generator and I record that, with me being the first person to fix that recording, then I am the owner of its copyright.”

Although there may occasionally be spurious claims, Mr Connor said he thought the YouTube system offered reasonable protections to both content creators and copyright claimants.

“The only other option is to go through the courts so I think on balance it’s probably as good as it can be,” he said.

The BBC has contacted Google, which owns YouTube, for comment.

–

Source: BBC Sport

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The video showed Logan Paul and friends at the Aokigahara forest at the base of Mt Fuji, known to be a frequent site of suicides.

Going in to film the “haunted” forest, they come across a dead body and are shocked, but also make jokes.

Online comments have called the video “disrespectful” and “disgusting”.

The video was uploaded on Sunday and had millions of views on Youtube before it was taken down.

Logan Paul, who has more than 15 million subscribers on Youtube, has since posted an apology on Twitter, saying he had been “misguided by shock and awe”.

The post Outrage over YouTuber’s dead body video appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

Fire TV devices now encourage people to use the YouTube website in a web browser instead.

Google had warned it would remove the YouTube app from Fire TV devices on 1 January.

It said the two companies had not reached an agreement to provide access to each other’s services.

Earlier in December, Google said: “Amazon doesn’t carry Google products like Chromecast and Google Home, doesn’t make Prime Video available for Google Cast users, and last month stopped selling some of Nest’s latest products.

“Given this lack of reciprocity, we are no longer supporting YouTube on Echo Show and Fire TV. We hope we can reach an agreement to resolve these issues soon.”

On Friday, Amazon said in a statement: “YouTube and millions of other websites are accessible by using a web browser like Firefox or Silk on Fire TV.”

–

Source: BBC

The post YouTube app removed from Amazon Fire TV kit early appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

They say there could be up to 100,000 predatory accounts leaving indecent comments on videos.

A BBC Trending investigation has discovered a flaw in a tool that enables the public to report abuse.

But YouTube says it reviews the “vast majority” of reports within 24 hours.

It says it has no technical problems in its reporting mechanism and that it takes child abuse extremely seriously. On Wednesday, the company announced new measures to protect children on the site.

User reports
YouTube is the world’s largest video-sharing site. In addition to algorithms that can automatically block illegal and exploitative videos, it relies on users to report illegal behaviour or content that goes against its rules. The company says it has a zero-tolerance policy against any form of grooming or child endangerment.

Users can use an online form to report potentially predatory accounts, and they are then asked to include links to relevant videos and comments. The reports then go to moderators – YouTube employees who review the material and have the power to delete it.

However, sources told Trending that after members of the public submitted information on the form, the associated links might be missing from the report. YouTube employees could see that a particular account had been reported, but had no way of knowing which specific comments were being flagged.

BBC Trending was informed of the issue by members of YouTube’s Trusted Flagger programme – a group that includes individuals, as well as some charities and law enforcement agencies. The programme began in 2012, and those involved have special tools to alert YouTube to potential violations.

The company says reports of violations by Trusted Flaggers are accurate more than 90% of the time. The volunteers are not paid by YouTube, but do receive some perks such as invitations to conferences.

With the help of a small group of Trusted Flaggers, Trending identified 28 comments directed at children that were clearly against the site’s guidelines.

The comments are shocking. Some of them are extremely sexually explicit. Others include the phone numbers of adults, or requests for videos to fulfil sexual fetishes.

They were left on YouTube videos posted by young children and they are exactly the kind of material that should be immediately removed under YouTube’s own rules – and in many cases reported to the authorities.

The children in the videos appeared to be younger than 13 years old, the minimum age for registering an account on YouTube. The videos themselves did not have sexual themes, but showed children emulating their favourite YouTube stars by, for instance, reviewing toys or showing their “outfit of the day”.

The explicit comments on these videos were passed on to the company using its form to report child endangerment – the same form that is available to general users.

Over a period of several weeks, five of the comments were deleted, but no action was taken against the remaining 23 until Trending contacted the company and provided a full list. All of the predatory accounts were then deleted within 24 hours.

Members of the Trusted Flaggers programme told Trending that they felt their efforts in taking down such accounts and comments were not being fully supported by the company. They spoke, as a group, on condition of anonymity because of the nature of the work they do.

“We don’t have access to the tools, technologies and resources a company like YouTube has or could potentially deploy,” members of the programme told Trending. “So for example any tools we need, we create ourselves.”

“There are loads of things YouTube could be doing to reduce this sort of activity, fixing the reporting system to start with. But for example, we can’t prevent predators from creating another account and have no indication when they do, so we can take action.”

New measures
YouTube has come under pressure recently because of the persistence of inappropriate and potentially illegal videos and other content on its site.

BBC Trending previously reported on spoofs of popular cartoons which contain disturbing and inappropriate content not suitable for children. The site recently announced new restrictions on the “creepy” videos.

Recent reports by The Times, Buzzfeed and other outlets have also highlighted disturbing videos both featuring children and targeted towards young people. And in August, Trending revealed a huge backlog of child endangerment reports made by the Trusted Flaggers themselves.

Since then, the Trusted Flaggers who spoke to Trending say more attention is paid to their reports and that most of their reports are being dealt with in days. But in part because of the shortcomings in the public reporting system, the group estimates that there are “between 50,000 to 100,000 active predatory accounts still on the platform”.

Earlier in October, YouTube announced additional measures to crack down on disturbing videos and to protect children.
“In recent months, we’ve noticed a growing trend around content on YouTube that attempts to pass as family-friendly, but is clearly not,” the company said in a blog post.

The measures include increasing enforcement, terminating channels that might endanger children, and removing ads from some videos.

The company also announced that starting this week it will disable commenting on videos of children that have attracted sexual or predatory comments.

–

Source: BBC

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Dr. Mensah, while working for American company, Corning Glass Works, was able to help improve and commercialize a fiber optic technology the company had been working on for 15 years without success.

Prior to the invention, copper wires were used as a major channel for data transmission and networking workstations.

Recounting his exploits on the Citi Breakfast Show on Tuesday, Dr. Thomas said while working for Corning, he was given a task to improve the fiber optics project which he did tirelessly to birth the technology which he described as “the most important invention in the 21^st century.”

“I didn’t know that the impact was going to be big like this. All I knew was that there were four inventors, three whites and me. And they said, Dr. Mensah, we’ve come all the way with the glass part, but we think you are the only one who can do the part that will move us to the industrial stage. That was the challenge I had, and I worked on it for every day. I was so focused on solving that problem, and what I did was to use the technology I had applied somewhere else whereby when you melt the glass and you are pulling it like toffee to be glass strand, you have to put a coating on it immediately to protect. So the ability to put a coating on it while you are pulling it was their limitation. They couldn’t pull it more than 2 meters per second. So for 15 years it stayed in the lab till I got there and the problem was handed over to me.”

“The question was how do we move this from the laboratory into factories, manufacturing, so that we can move into the global market? That was the problem I solved. It was a global problem. Until then, fiber optics were available in the lab, and they were making it in two meters per second. So the lasers that are transmitted along this fiber is sending the Facebook pictures, Instagram, the entire social media experience is going through this laser base fiber optics. This is really what goes through the world,” he added.

He said when people are “sending Facebook pictures, YouTube videos, your emails, tweets; everything is going down this [fiber optic] glass and it travels at milliseconds. In other words, you can sit here to upload Youtube videos, someone is viewing in the US or China in few seconds because of that technology.”

The inventor said, although he did not envision the huge impact the fiber optic project will make in the technology space and the world at large, he said most of his inventions and ideas he espoused in books he’s authored have been adopted by multi-million dollar technology giants to expand.

“…I have four books on innovation. The first one is fiber optic engineering, it’s used all over the world. So those are sold and you get money out of it. My latest book is called nanotechnology commercialization.”

About Dr. Thomas Mensah

Dr. Thomas had his secondary and tertiary education in Ghana, and managed to secure a scholarship to further his education abroad.

Dr. Mensah’s works relates to the development of fiber optics and nanotechnology.

He has 14 patents, 7 of which were awarded within a period of six years, and he was inducted into the US National Academy of Inventors in 2015.

He served as Editor-in-Chief of the international textbook Nanotechnology Commercialization published by AIChE and John Wiley & Sons. The book is aimed at moving Nanotechnology from the laboratory environment to the global marketplace.

He currently has developed a smart watch which he calls “Hug Watch.” According to him, Hug Watch can change TV stations by serving as a remote control, also makes and receives calls.

Dr. Thomas Mensah granted the interview on the back of a series of lectures he is expected to deliver at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) from November 22 to 25, 2017 dubbed RP Baffour Lectures.

He will also be receiving an Honorary Doctorate, (D.Sc Honoraris Causa) from the university after the lectures.

Click below for the full interview on the Citi Breakfast Show:

–

By: Godwin Akweiteh Allotey/citifmonline.com/Ghana
Follow @AlloteyGodwin

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“To everyone I’ve hurt… I’m so sorry,” said the former What Culture employee in a statement on Wednesday.
He apologised to those women he repeatedly messaged and encouraged to “send me images of themselves”.

Eleven minutes after the statement was released, an individual alleged Blampied asked her to “send him nudes”.

Blampied presented videos for What Culture on YouTube until September 2017, when he parted company with the organisation. His new employers, Cultaholic, told the BBC he is unable to be reached for comment.

Peter Willis, Director of What Culture Limited, told the BBC Blampied’s departure “was not linked to the series of Twitter messages that were published [on Wednesday], nor were we aware of any of the events within those tweets until reading Adam’s own statement.

“What Culture categorically condemns all sexual harassment, predatory behaviour and abuses of position and power.”

‘In the end, I relented’
Shortly after Blampied’s statement, an individual – @SRbackwards – alleged on Twitter the YouTuber asked her for nude images, calling him “a manipulative sexual predator”.

“Knowing that I was 19, drunk, sexually inexperienced and had moral objections to sending him nudes, he continued to try to persuade me,” they posted.
“In the end, I relented.

“He was charming, he was the face of a YouTube channel and I’d been a fan of him for a while.”

Using strong language, she added: “He made me feel so good about myself for about six hours, then he made me feel like utter shit for months.”

Blampied has since made a string of comments on Twitter, urging his followers on Thursday: “Please don’t attack the women for speaking out.

“They have been hurt, by me.
“Please don’t publicly leap to my defence on this. My behaviour doesn’t warrant it.

“The purpose of this was not to excuse myself, but because it’s what the women deserve, for the wider public to see my behaviour.
“Please be kind and understanding to the women. More than I was.”

–

Source: BBC

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