Who Is the Media Really For? ; 23 Android Apps Expose Over 100,000,000 Users’ Personal Data ; and More Picks 5/24
PICKS are stories from many sources, selected by our editors or recommended by our readers because they are important, surprising, troubling, enlightening, inspiring, or amusing. They appear on our site and in our daily newsletter. Please send suggested articles, videos, podcasts, etc. to picks@whowhatwhy.org.
Who Is the Media Really For? (Russ)
From Intelligencer: “Emily Wilder is a promising young journalist. After finishing a stint at the Arizona Republic, the recent Stanford graduate began a job with the Associated Press on May 3 as a news associate. Wilder could have built a career at the storied wire service or, with the experience she’d gained, leap to a major paper. Instead, the AP fired her two weeks in, days after the Stanford College Republicans pointed a right-wing mob in Wilder’s direction. Wilder, it turns out, has political opinions. … Contrast Wilder’s circumstances with those of Chris Cuomo. The star CNN anchor will keep his job even though he has flouted basic ethical standards that typically apply to other, less prominent journalists.”
More Oregon Counties Vote to Move Into Idaho, Part of Rural Effort to ‘Gain Political Refuge From Blue States’ (DonkeyHotey)
From the Oregonian: “Five eastern Oregon counties voted [last week] in favor of considering becoming part of Idaho. Baker, Grant, Lake, Malheur and Sherman counties join Union and Jefferson, which voted last year to require county officials to study or promote joining Idaho. … The grassroots group Move Oregon’s Border for a Greater Idaho wants to flip Oregon’s mostly rural eastern and southern counties — plus a few northern counties in California — into Idaho, believing they’d be better off in Idaho’s more conservative political environment.”
23 Android Apps Expose Over 100,000,000 Users’ Personal Data (Sean)
From the Hacker News: “Misconfigurations in multiple Android apps leaked sensitive data of more than 100 million users, potentially making them a lucrative target for malicious actors. ‘By not following best-practices when configuring and integrating third-party cloud-services into applications, millions of users’ private data was exposed,’ Check Point researchers said in an analysis published [last week] and shared with The Hacker News.”
DMV Workers Caught Taking Bribes From Drivers Who Skipped Tests (Reader Steve)
The author writes, “If a curb is painted white, is it OK to park? When is it legal to pass a slow-moving vehicle? To drive in California, these are the types of questions you need to answer when taking the state’s test to get a license. Unless, that is, you’re one of the aspiring motorists who have been bribing DMV employees to skip the test and get a license anyway. At state Department of Motor Vehicles offices in Torrance and Lincoln Park, workers have accepted tens of thousands of dollars in payoffs, federal prosecutors say.”
Everyone Is Awesome: Lego to Launch First LGBTQ+ Set (Nick)
The author writes, “In the ‘spraying room’ at Lego HQ, tiny figurines are layered with bright, glossy paint before being placed on a rainbow-esque arch. The result, a waterfall of colour with 11 brand new minifigures striding purposefully towards an imagined brighter future, is the Danish toymaker’s inaugural LGBTQIA+ set, titled Everyone Is Awesome. The colours of the stripes were chosen to reflect the original rainbow flag, along with pale blue, white and pink representing the trans community, and black and brown to acknowledge the diversity of skin tones and backgrounds within the LGBTQIA+ community.”
Has an Old Soviet Mystery at Last Been Solved? (Bethany)
The author writes, “In late 1958, [Igor] Dyatlov began planning a winter expedition that would exemplify the boldness and vigor of a new Soviet generation: an ambitious sixteen-day cross-country ski trip in the Urals, the north-south mountain range that divides western Russia from Siberia, and thus Europe from Asia. … Dyatlov’s group would ski two hundred miles, on a route that no Russian, as far as anyone knew, had taken before.”
Hundreds Line Up Outside Abandoned California Gas Station for Whiff of Rare, Smelly ‘Corpse Flower’ (Dana)
The author writes, “When the owner of a rare corpse flower hauled the plant to an abandoned gas station in the San Francisco Bay Area, hundreds of curious neighbors lined up to meet the really big — and really stinky plant. Amorphophallus titanum, also called corpse flowers, can grow up to 10 feet tall and stink like rotting flesh, though the smell is clearly not enough to keep crowds away.”
