#TechAways: memers unite 💪🏽, cyber insurance, YouTube’s CEO & more

Is cyber insurance one big joke? [New York Times] 

If we asked you to make a bet on who was behind some of the recent biggest cyberattacks, chances are you’d name a state actor like Russia. But, most cyber insurances cover mostly costs tied to the loss of customer data. If you’re Mondelez International, a snack foods company, and a cyberattack left stockpiles of Oreo cookies and Ritz crackers unsold, leading to losses of more than $100 million, you’d hope to be covered, right? Think again. Because the attack was attributed to the Russia, Mondelez’s insurer said it would not cover the losses. Why? A common, but rarely used clause in insurance contracts called the “war exclusion,” which protects insurers from being saddled with costs related to damage from war. Are attacks from government-entities automatically considered war? Battles in courts are only just beginning. 

‘Gods of Silicon Valley’ under fire [TED] 

In a Ted Talk in Vancouver that has gone viral, the British journalist who broke the story of Cambridge Analytic/Facebook has taken on ‘the gods of Silicon Valley.’ Carole Cadwalldr, who writes for The Guardian and The Observer, pulled no punches in accusing Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg, Google’s Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and Twitter’s Jack Dorsey as culprits in undermining democracy. ‘This technology that you have invented has been amazing but now it’s a crime scene,’ she said, adding that ‘what the Brexit vote demonstrates is that liberal democracy is broken, and you broke it.’ Her passionate speech couldn’t be timelier as we head into one of the most hotly contested European Parliament elections ever. Let’s hope (against hope?) her words of warning are heeded and recent history doesn’t repeat itself. 

Opposites attract: Profile piece on YouTube’s CEO [The New York Times] 

You’ve probably never heard of Susan Wojcicki, current CEO of YouTube. She doesn’t have the eccentric appearance some Silicon Valley CEO’s have and wasn’t part of the initial group of executives that had to testify in front of Congress last year. Comparatively ‘normal’ or even ‘boring’ at first sight, she is a marketing genius who got pulled on board at YouTube in 2014 after an impressive track-record at Google. In 2019, she is finding herself dealing with challenges she ‘never though [she] would be handling’: from anti-vaccine ads to bestiality thumbnails next to children videos, it has been chaos trying to manage a platform that allows anyone and anything to be uploaded. While Susan Wojcicki may keep a low profile, her background is anything but boring. A recommended read over your Sunday morning Easter eggs. 

Content creators are king [The Atlantic] 

Those Instagram memes you scroll through on your morning commute? Many of those were created by individuals whose accounts are dedicated to content creation – namely memes. For some it’s a side gig, for others it’s their day job. They create content for the largest platforms in the world, generating the bulk of platforms’ income. To help protect themselves, ‘memers’ of Instagram have created a union to get a more transparent process for appealing account bans, and a better way to ensure that their content isn’t being monetised by others. Memers have more power than you think – when Vine’s top stars teamed up to negotiate a pay structure with the app in 2015, they couldn’t come to an agreement; the stars left Vine – which lost users and eventually was discontinued.  

In case you haven’t had enough… 

AI Robot paints its own moonscapes in traditional Chinese style [Reuters] 

Machine Learning Identifies Weapons in the Christchurch Attack Video. We Know, We Tried It [Motherboard]  

US facial recognition will cover 97 percent of departing airline passengers within four years [The Verge]  

EU lawmakers back wifi-based car standard in win for Volkswagen [Reuters] 

WhatsApp is a dark version of democracy [Financial Times]  

Families Use Apps to Track Relatives With Dementia [WSJ]  

‘Disastrous’ lack of diversity in AI industry perpetuates bias, study finds [The Guardian] 

Tracking Phones, Google Is a Dragnet for the Police [New York Times]  

Microsoft turned down facial-recognition sales on human rights concerns [Reuters]