Amaya Toman Although Google does not adhere to the privacy of its users as intensively as Apple, it likes to let itself be heard that it cares about this segment. However, the latest news shows that things may actually be quite different. Recently released court documents reveal that Google has most likely made it more difficult for at least Pixel smartphone owners to manage their location sharing. In addition to this topic, our article will talk about Instagram, which is changing its algorithm in connection with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
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Instagram is changing its algorithm
Management of the Instagram social network announced, that it will change its algorithm. The decision came after Instagram was accused of censoring pro-Palestinian content. In response to this accusation, Instagram said that it will now rate original and reshared content equally. The aforementioned complaints reportedly came directly from Instagram employees, who said that during the Gaza conflict, pro-Palestinian content was not as visible. Up until now, Instagram has prioritized displaying original content, with reshared content usually coming later. The new algorithm is thus supposed to ensure equality for both types of content.
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Among other things, the aforementioned employees said that certain types of content were also being removed due to Instagram's automatic moderation. However, the aforementioned employees believe that these were not deliberate actions. A spokesperson for Facebook, under which Instagram falls, confirmed the same in an e-mail message. Instagram is not the only social network that has had to face criticism in this regard – Twitter, for example, also got into trouble, due to the fact that it restricted the account of one of the Palestinian authors.
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Google made it impossible for users to protect their privacy
Google often states that it really cares about the privacy and security of its users, and at its Google I/O conference this year, it also presented several innovations related to this area. But everything may not be as it seems at first glance. Court documents, which recently became public, suggest that Google may not care much about letting its users know what options they have when it comes to protecting their own privacy. This time it was the Android operating system, in which Google allegedly deliberately made it harder for users to find some customization and privacy settings.
While these settings were relatively easy to find in the versions of the Android operating system that Google tested internally, this was no longer the case for some smartphones with the release version. The reports specifically talk about Pixel phones, where Google has removed the location sharing option from the quick settings menu. Server Android Authority in addition, it states that the editor's Pixel 4 phone running the beta version of the Android operating system was completely missing the location sharing switch. According to some reports, even some of the employees of Google itself have expressed their negative opinion about the practically absent possibility to customize location sharing. In turn, former Google Maps executive Jack Menzel recently pointed out that the only way to prevent Google from learning the location of users' home and work was to simply falsify that location and set other data.
