New app that can actually read your emotions comes under heavy fire

A coalition of privacy organizations and allies are urging a leading digital media company to stop the development of a new technology that purportedly can listen to a person and identify his or her emotional state.

Article by Bob Unruh from WND.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center and more than 100 recording artists, 69 non-profit groups and many prominent individuals are urging Spotify to close down its research.

It’s because Spotify obtained a new patent that would “allow the company to identify individuals’ ’emotional state, gender, age, or accent’ to recommend music.”

But there are significant concerns that aren’t being addressed, the critics said in a letter.

EPIC cites multiple threats of “emotional manipulation, discrimination, massive privacy violations and increased inequality within the music industry.”

While Spotify argued its technology has not been implemented, and it claimed it has “no plans” to do so, EPIC said concerns remain.

The letter, dated this week, is to Daniel Ek, co-founder of the company, in Sweden.

“We write to you as a group of concerned musicians and human rights organizations from across the globe who are deeply alarmed by Spotify’s recently approved speech-recognition patent,” the groups said.

“Spotify claims that the technology can detect, among other things, ’emotional state, gender, age, or accent’ to recommend music. This recommendation technology is dangerous, a violation of privacy and other human rights, and should not be implemented by Spotify or any other company.”

The letter explained the danger: “Monitoring emotional state, and making recommendations based on it, puts the entity that deploys the tech in a dangerous position of power in relation to a user.”

The discrimination would be unavoidable, the letter said.

“It is impossible to infer gender without discriminating against trans and non-binary people, and others who do not fit gender stereotypes. It is also impossible to infer someone’s music taste based on accent, without assuming there’s a ‘normal’ way of speaking or falling into racist stereotypes.”

The threat to privacy is obvious, because the program would have to monitor “everything.”

“While we are pleased to hear that Spotify has no current plans to deploy the technology, it begs the question: why are you exploring its use? We call on your company to make a public commitment to never use, license, sell, or monetize the recommendation technology.”

Signers include Amnesty International, the Center for Digital Democracy, Heartland Initiative,  Mozilla Foundation and Public Citizen.

Image by Mystic Art Design from Pixabay

‘The Purge’ by Big Tech targets conservatives, including us

Just when we thought the Covid-19 lockdowns were ending and our ability to stay afloat was improving, censorship reared its ugly head.

For the last few months, NOQ Report, Conservative Playbook, and the American Conservative Movement have appealed to our readers for assistance in staying afloat through Covid-19 lockdowns. The downturn in the economy has limited our ability to generate proper ad revenue just as our traffic was skyrocketing. We had our first sustained stretch of three months with over a million visitors in November, December, and January, but February saw a dip.

It wasn’t just the shortened month. We expected that. We also expected the continuation of dropping traffic from “woke” Big Tech companies like Google, Facebook, and Twitter, but it has actually been much worse than anticipated. Our Twitter account was banned. Both of our YouTube accounts were banned. Facebook “fact-checks” everything we post. Spotify canceled us. Medium canceled us. Apple canceled us. Why? Because we believe in the truth prevailing, and that means we will continue to discuss “taboo” topics.

The 2020 presidential election was stolen. You can’t say that on Big Tech platforms without risking cancellation, but we’d rather get cancelled for telling the truth rather than staying around to repeat mainstream media’s lies. They have been covering it up since before the election and they’ve convinced the vast majority of conservative news outlets that they will be harmed if they continue to discuss voter fraud. We refuse to back down. The truth is the truth.

The lies associated with Covid-19 are only slightly more prevalent than the suppression of valid scientific information that runs counter to the prescribed narrative. We should be allowed to ask questions about the vaccines, for example, as there is ample evidence for concern. One does not have to be an “anti-vaxxer” in order to want answers about vaccines that are still considered experimental and that have a track record in a short period of time of having side-effects, including death. One of our stories about the Johnson & Johnson “vaccine” causing blood clots was “fact-checked” and removed one day before the government hit the brakes on it. These questions and news items are not allowed on Big Tech which is just another reason we are getting canceled.

There are more topics that they refuse to allow. In turn, we refuse to stop discussing them. This is why we desperately need your help. The best way NOQ, CP, and ACM readers can help is to donate. Our Giving Fuel page makes it easy to donate one-time or monthly. Alternatively, you can donate through PayPal as well. We are on track to be short by about $4100 per month in order to maintain operations.

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During that four-month stretch, Twitter and Facebook accounted for about 20% of our traffic. We are actively working on operating as if that traffic is zero, replacing it with platforms that operate more freely such as Gab, Parler, and others. While we were never as dependent on Big Tech as most conservative sites, we’d like to be completely free from them. That doesn’t mean we will block them, but we refuse to be beholden to companies that absolutely despise us simply because of our political ideology.

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