Linked List: December 16, 2020

Wednesday, 16 December 2020

Facebook Takes Out Full-Page Newspaper Ads to Attack Apple’s Changes Strengthening iOS Privacy ★

Hartley Charlton, writing for MacRumors:

The ads are running in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post, feature the headline “We’re standing up to Apple for small businesses everywhere.”

Earlier this year, Apple introduced a number of privacy changes that curb the ability of companies like Facebook to gather data on users and target adverts. In iOS 14, Apple has made the “Identifier for Advertisers,” used by Facebook and its advertising partners for ad targeting, an opt-in feature, providing more transparency for users who would prefer not to be tracked in apps and on websites. The update simply asks users if they want to agree to ad tracking or prevent cross-app and cross-site tracking to provide targeted ads.

iOS 14 also has a prominent “Tracking” section in the Privacy portion of the Settings app, where users can disable the option for apps to track them altogether. Even if this feature is toggled off, apps must still ask permission to track users across apps and websites owned by other companies, which is a blow to the silent ad-related tracking that has been going on behind the scenes.

And people say Facebook has hurt the newspaper advertising industry. They’re helping!

A full-page newspaper print ad for issue messaging has always had a weird target audience. Most full-page newspaper ads are trying to reach most of the people who read the paper. Full-page issue messaging ads are about reaching very specific demographics in a conspicuous way. But in today’s world, it’s kind of transparent whom Facebook is targeting here: old white politicians.

I think it’s pretty clear what Facebook wants: they want mobile app privacy to go back to the Wild West days of a decade ago, when apps could get away with whatever was technically possible, with all data hoovering invisible to users. They can get that on iOS only two ways: (a) if Apple changes its mind, or (b) if governments around the world force Apple’s hand, by declaring that Apple’s actions in the name of privacy are in fact the abuse of some made-up monopoly. Option (a) is not going to happen, so Facebook is going all-in on (b).

Here’s the thing. Apple isn’t blocking the ability for Facebook to personalize ads, in any way. Apple is just providing users with control over their own privacy. Users can easily choose to keep providing Facebook (and anyone else) with all the information they want. Or they can choose not to.

Facebook sees Apple providing users with awareness of and control over their online privacy as Apple taking away from Facebook access to something that they believe they rightfully should have free and unfettered access to. This is no different than telemarketers feeling like you’re doing them wrong when you add your phone number to a do-not-call list.

I’ll repeat what I wrote in September:

Just because there is now a multi-billion-dollar industry based on the abject betrayal of our privacy doesn’t mean the sociopaths who built it have any right whatsoever to continue getting away with it. They talk in circles but their argument boils down to entitlement: they think our privacy is theirs for the taking because they’ve been getting away with taking it without our knowledge, and it is valuable. No action Apple can take against the tracking industry is too strong.

Also worth pointing out: the apostrophe in the Facebook newspaper ad’s headline is wrong. A big old dumb quote mark.

App Privacy Details on the App Store ★

Apple’s “Privacy Nutrition Labels” launched this week on the App Store. Apple’s own developer information about these disclosures is plainly written and explains what information they’re requiring from developers, and why. It’s worth going right to the source to know what Apple is requiring here, because the companies who are coming out of this looking bad are attempting to misdirect attention.

To see them in action, just go to any app’s listing and scroll down a bit, and you can’t miss them. View the details for apps that respect your privacy and you’ll see a concise listing. View the details for apps that don’t — like, say, Instagram or Facebook — and you’ll get screen after screen showing just how much information about you they collect. Instagram and Facebook’s app privacy listings look like those crazy-long receipts from CVS. Seriously, that’s not an exaggeration — a single screenshot can’t capture it, you need to make a movie to see how long you have to scroll to see it all.

Most apps I’ve checked have already provided the necessary information. But some haven’t — they’ll be required to upon next submitting an app update, though. Among the apps with no information yet provided: the “Official Trump 2020 App” — an app that was exposed earlier this year as so privacy invasive that MIT Technology Review described it as “a voter surveillance tool of extraordinary power”.

Also with no information yet provided: any of Google’s apps. Not a good look.

‘COVID-19 and the Failure of Swedish Exceptionalism’ ★

John Gustavsson, writing for The Dispatch:

While Sweden’s death numbers compare favorably to the U.S., they stand in stark negative contrast to our Scandinavian neighbors who introduced lockdown measures: Per capita, we have nearly five times as many deaths as Denmark, nine times as many as Finland, and more than ten times as many as Norway. In total, as of this writing, 7,514 Swedes have lost their lives to Covid-19, which works out to a death rate of 742 per 1 million citizens. The equivalent numbers for the other Scandinavian countries are 164 per million (Denmark), 83 per million (Finland) and 72 per million (Norway). There is, in other words, no doubt that Sweden’s approach has led to excessive deaths.

Why did Sweden adopt this approach, and why was it not rapidly abandoned in April when it was clear that our neighbors were doing far better than we were?

While there are many reasons, I believe a significant part of the answer lies in Swedish exceptionalism. Whereas American exceptionalism is about America’s unique place in the world, Swedish exceptionalism is about being immune to any disasters that may happen in the rest of the world.

‘We Want Them Infected’: Leaked Emails Reveal Trump Appointee Demanded ‘Herd Immunity’ Strategy ★

Dan Diamond, reporting for Politico:

A top Trump appointee repeatedly urged top health officials to adopt a “herd immunity” approach to Covid-19 and allow millions of Americans to be infected by the virus, according to internal emails obtained by a House watchdog and shared with POLITICO.

“There is no other way, we need to establish herd, and it only comes about allowing the non-high risk groups expose themselves to the virus. PERIOD,” then-science adviser Paul Alexander wrote on July 4 to his boss, Health and Human Services assistant secretary for public affairs Michael Caputo, and six other senior officials. “Infants, kids, teens, young people, young adults, middle aged with no conditions etc. have zero to little risk….so we use them to develop herd…we want them infected…” Alexander added.

“[I]t may be that it will be best if we open up and flood the zone and let the kids and young folk get infected” in order to get “natural immunity… natural exposure,” Alexander wrote on July 24 to Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Stephen Hahn, Caputo and eight other senior officials.

They put in writing what seemed obvious — yet unbelievable — all along. There was no plan. Just let everyone get sick and watch hundreds of thousands die needlessly.

MSNBC host Chris Hayes took heat in July for his flat statement that “Trump is objectively pro-virus” because it was a terrible thing to say about the President of the United States. But it was the plain truth.

Trump Appointees Describe the Crushing of the C.D.C. ★

Noah Weiland, reporting for The New York Times:

“Everyone wants to describe the day that the light switch flipped and the C.D.C. was sidelined. It didn’t happen that way,” Mr. McGowan said. “It was more of like a hand grasping something, and it slowly closes, closes, closes, closes until you realize that, middle of the summer, it has a complete grasp on everything at the C.D.C.”

Last week, the editor in chief of the C.D.C.’s flagship weekly disease outbreak reports — once considered untouchable — told House Democrats investigating political interference in the agency’s work that she was ordered to destroy an email showing Trump appointees attempting to meddle with their publication. […]

Often, Mr. McGowan and Ms. Campbell mediated between Dr. Redfield and agency scientists when the White House’s guidance requests and dictates would arrive: edits from Mr. Vought and Kellyanne Conway, the former White House adviser, on choirs and communion in faith communities, or suggestions from Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter and aide, on schools.

“Every time that the science clashed with the messaging, messaging won,” Mr. McGowan said.

Edits on CDC guidance from Kellyanne Conway and Ivanka Trump. Truly, a kakistocracy, in power for the outbreak of the worst crisis our nation has faced in generations.

Comparing COVID Surges, the U.S. Stands Alone ★

David Leonhardt, writing for The New York Times:

The U.S. was not alone in suffering a resurgence this fall. Much of the world did. But many other countries responded to that surge with targeted new restrictions and, in a few cases, with an increase in rapid-result testing. Those measures seem to be working. Worldwide, the number of new cases has fallen over the past week.

In some countries, the declines are large: more than 50 percent over the past month in Belgium, France, Italy, Kenya and Saudi Arabia; more than 40 percent in Argentina and Morocco; more than 30 percent in India and Norway.

And in the U.S.? The number of new cases has risen 51 percent over the past month.

On the one side, Americans who insist the threat is not real. On the other, the rest of us, who find the other side’s obstinate, belligerent ignorance unreal.

Biden’s Branding ★

Hunter Schwarz, writing for AIGA’s Eye on Design:

The campaign also updated its typefaces in time for Vice President-elect Kamala Harris to join as Biden’s running mate, after Biden senior creative advisor Robyn Kanner reached out to type designer and Hoefler&Co. founder Jonathan Hoefler. “The first message I sent to Jonathan was, ‘talk me out of Gotham,’” Kanner said. “He called me, and we had a three-hour conversation about it and we went through the weeds of type.”

Kanner ultimately chose Decimal, a sans serif inspired by vintage watch lettering that was released last year and featured in the Netflix series “Abstract,” as the primary typeface, with the serif Mercury as a secondary typeface. Kanner, who talks about design in musical terms, likened the two typefaces to major and minor chords that could be used to arrange text in a graphic like notes of a song. They were both chosen in part for their connections to truth, Kanner said. Decimal was “true as time,” while Mercury held the “truth of the written word” because it had been used by publications like The Atlantic.

A neat trick they’ve pulled is that for the post-election transition, they’ve switched the two typefaces, with Mercury doing primary work and Decimal doing secondary accents. They work together both ways, but they work differently. With Decimal singing lead vocals, the work felt like advertising — which it was. A campaign is selling voters on a candidate. With Mercury in the lead, it feels more like the voice of serious people getting to work. They’re not selling anything now — we bought it — and this is the brand they’re using as they begin to deliver. Just flipping the roles of Decimal and Mercury shows the magic of deft typography — it’s the same brand with a different tone.