In the early days of the pandemic, Tinder users, stuck at home, started teleporting themselves en masse into other countries to check out the dating pools, and maybe engage in some cross-border flirtation. They weren’t physically there, of course, but the app’s “Passport” feature allowed them to change their location and indulge in the fantasy.
Dating online in 2021 is a dizzying virtual buffet of ways to connect with someone. You can give your match a bouquet of digital roses that cost $29.99 to show them you really do care and didn’t just casually swipe on them while sitting on the toilet like you did with hundreds of others. You can immediately video chat your date to pre-screen them to confirm they’re not creepy. You can change the location on your app to find a lover in a different country and see what happens. You are also probably switching between three different apps to keep optimizing for your best chance of meeting someone special.
A precious metals dealer who sold overpriced gold and silver to older conservatives was sued by the US federal government and 30 states this week for alleged large-scale fraud.
Poland has planned its presidential election for May 10, with the ruling party forging ahead to go through with the vote at all costs, global pandemic or no. Experts say that’s not only logistically impossible, it’s unconstitutional, unlawful, undemocratic, and unsafe.
The 2020 US census was always going to be a tough task, even before the country fell victim to a global pandemic. As coronavirus outbreaks hit minority populations especially hard, experts and advocates worry that these traditionally undercounted populations will fare even worse.
A Southern California doctor is facing federal fraud charges after he allegedly told patients that the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine was a “magic bullet” that “cures” Covid-19.
Local newspapers are laying off their staffs across the US, hit by the economic impact of the coronavirus. Meanwhile, a new breed of deep-pocketed local publications such as UpNorthNews in Wisconsin and The Gander Newsroom in Michigan are filling the void.
Update: Quartz and its reporters have heard from many people who say they have been victims of scams on the Cash App platform. Unfortunately, we’re not able to help everyone directly. Please report these incidents to the company and to the social media sites involved, such as Twitter or Instagram.
There’s been an uptick of rhetoric blaming someone for the coronavirus outbreak. Specifically, China and the Chinese people.
Precious metals sellers never let a good crisis go to waste, using people’s fears of market turmoil to convince them to invest in an asset like gold or silver coins. These investments may seem safe, but some sellers price their coins at double their actual value, and that can leave the investor poorer.
I just shoved half a bag of popcorn in my mouth while stress-scrolling through Twitter, my eyes gobbling up every single coronavirus update possible. And then I caught myself: There are better ways to cope.
New York State attorney general Letitia James has ordered right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones to stop making misleading claims about supposed coronavirus cures sold on his website, InfoWars.
The coronavirus pandemic is affecting every possible aspect of life—and thus confronting Americans with ugly truths about the way US society functions.
Your timeline is a crowded social space full of updates, advice, cures, and warnings—and it’s causing a contagion of misinformation.
The Mike Bloomberg presidential campaign has tried to influence voters—presumably those on the younger side—through a deluge of paid-for memes on social platforms.
“There is an evil that’s against us,” the precious-metals salesman says to his elderly, conservative client on the phone. Later, he adds, “they want to see this country go down in flames.”
Facebook announced it would donate money to researchers studying misinformation on its platform. The thing is, the donation is teeny when compared to the scale of the problem and Facebook’s enormous coffers: $2 million, or 0.01% of its revenue just for the last quarter of 2019.
American voters are getting inundated with texts from political campaigns asking them to support their candidate. Many of those texts, however, are filled with errors: they address the recipient by the wrong name, assume they live in a different state, or mix up party affiliations. People get mistaken for their parents or complete strangers. Sometimes the results are comical.
A brazen Instagram scam came to an end this week.
New ads paid for by a dark-money group by Republicans critical of Donald Trump were shown to Facebook users in New Hampshire are trying to dissuade voters from voting for Bernie Sanders by scaring them with visions of socialism and the Soviet Union.
Everyone on Twitter is accusing each other of being a paid troll or bot. Some say the hashtag #AdamSchiffROCKS was made viral by bots paid for by conservatives’ favorite bogeyman George Soros. Others accused of actually being foreign puppets: supporters of Democrat Bernie Sanders, Republican senator Marsha Blackburn, anyone who makes spelling or grammatical errors, or simply those on the other side of any argument.
In the United States, a big question for 2020 is a simple one: who lives in the country? It’s also a fraught one. As the decennial census approaches, its organizers, demographers, and various advocacy groups are working to get everyone counted to ensure accurate representation in government, among other things. It could be a tough task.
Deepfake videos are definitely concerning, but a new viral video clip confirms once again that you don’t need sophisticated AI techniques to effectively spread disinformation.
A new paper claims that contrary to countless anecdotal examples and experiments, YouTube’s algorithm does not lead users down a path to far-right political radicalization.
