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YouTube sellers found touting bogus coronavirus vaccines and masks

YouTube has been criticized for continuing to host coronavirus disinformation on its video sharing platform during a global health emergency.

Two US advocacy groups which campaign for online safety undertook an 18-day investigation of the video sharing platform in March — finding what they say were “dozens” of examples of dubious videos, including videos touting bogus vaccines the sellers claimed would protect buyers from COVID-19.

They also found videos advertising medical masks of unknown quality for sale.

There have been concerns about shortages of masks for front-line medical staff, as well as the risk of online scammers hawking a low grade kit that does not offered the claimed protection against the virus.

Google said last month that it would temporarily take down ads for masks from its ad network but sellers looking to exploit the coronavirus crisis appear to be circumventing the ban by using YouTube’s video sharing platform as an alternative digital shop window to lure buyers.

Researchers working for the Digital Citizens Alliance (DCA) and the Coalition for a Safer Web (CSW) initiated conversations with sellers they found touting dodgy coronavirus wares on YouTube — and were offered useless ‘vaccines’ for purchase and hundreds of masks of unknown quality.

“There was ample reason to believe the offers for masks were dubious as well [as the vaccines], as highlighted by interactions with representatives from some of the sellers,” they said.

Their report includes screen grabs of some of the interactions with the sellers. In one a seller tells the researchers they don’t accept credit cards — but they do accept CashApp, PayPal, Google or Amazon gift cards and Bitcoin.

The same seller offered the researchers vaccines priced at $135 each, and suggested they purchase MMR/Varicella when asked which one is “the best”. Such a vaccine, even if it functioned for MMR/Varicella, would obviously offer no protection against COVID-19.

Another seller was found to be hawking “COVID-19 drugs” using a YouTube account name “Real ID Card Fake Passport Producer.”

“How does a guy calling himself ‘Real ID Card Fake Passport Producer’ even get a page on YouTube?” said Eric Feinberg, lead researcher for CSW, in a statement accompanying the report. “It’s all too easy to get ahold of these guys. We called some of them. Once you contact them, they are relentless. They’ll call you back at all hours and hound you until you buy something. They’ll call you in the middle of the night. They are predators looking to capitalize on our fear.”

A spokesman for the DCA told us the researchers compiled the report based on content from around 60 videos they identified hawking coronavirus-related ‘cures’ or kit between March 6-24.

“There are too many to count. Everyday, I find more,” added Feinberg.

The groups are also critical of how YouTube’s platform risks lending credibility to coronavirus disinformation because the platform now displays official CDC-branded banners under any COVID-19 related material — including the dubious videos their report highlights.

“YouTube also mixes trusted resources with sites that shouldn’t be trusted and that could confuse consumers — especially when they are scared and desperate,” said DCA executive director, Tom Galvin, in a statement. “It’s hard enough to tell who’s legitimate and who’s not on YouTube.”

The DCA and CSW have written letters to the US Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission laying out their findings and calling for “swift action” to hold bad actors accountable.

“YouTube, and its parent company Google, are shirking their formal policy that prohibits content that capitalizes off sensitive events,” they write in a letter to attorney general Barr.

“Digital Citizens is sharing this information in the hopes your Justice Department will act swiftly to hold bad actors, who take advantage of the coronavirus, accountable. In this crisis, strong action will deter others from engaging in criminal or illicit acts that harm consumers or add to confusion and anxiety,” they add.

Responding to the groups’ findings a YouTube spokesperson said some of the videos the researchers had identified had not received many views.

After we contacted the company about the content YouTube told us it had removed three channels identified by the researchers in the report for violating its Community Guidelines.

In a statement YouTube added:

Our thoughts are with everyone affected by the coronavirus around the world. We’re committed to providing helpful information at this critical time, including raising authoritative content, reducing the spread of harmful misinformation and showing information panels, using WHO / CDC data, to help combat misinformation. To date, there have been over 5B impressions on our information panels for coronavirus related videos and searches. We also have clear policies against COVID-19 misinformation and we quickly remove videos violating these policies when flagged to us.

The DCA and CSW also recently undertook a similar review of Facebook’s platform — finding sellers touting masks for sale despite the tech giant’s claimed ban on such content. “Facebook promised CNN when they did a story on our report about them that the masks would be gone a week ago, but the researchers from CSW are still finding the masks now,” their spokesman told us.

Earlier this week the Tech Transparency Project also reported still being able to find masks for sale on Facebook’s platform. It found examples of masks showing up in Google’s targeted ads too.

Read more: https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/01/youtube-sellers-found-touting-bogus-coronavirus-vaccines-and-masks/

telecommunications

US cell carriers team up to combat robocalls but no deadline set

Twelve cell carriers, including the four largest — AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon — have promised to make efforts to prevent spoofed and automated robocalls.

Announced Thursday, the pledge comes after 51 U.S. attorneys general brokered a deal that would see the telecom giants roll out anti-robocalling technologies, including a way of cryptographically signing callers to wipe out phone number spoofing. Known as STIR/SHAKEN, the system relies on every customer phone number having a unique digital signature which, when checked against the cell networks, validates that a caller is real. The carrier near-instantly invisibly approves the call and patches it through to the recipient.

Robocalls are illegal, but are a billion-dollar industry. Many of these automated, robot-dialed calls imitate a cell number area code to convince unsuspecting victims into picking up the phone. Often robocalls try to sell products they don’t need — or worse, try to con victims out of cash.

The hope is that STIR/SHAKEN would weed out most robocalls. The system would verify real callers while the billions of illegal or spoofed robocalls made every year would fail.

So far to date, AT&T and Comcast have tested the new anti-robocalling system, and AT&T and T-Mobile have also teamed up to use the technology to fight robocalls. But the system works best when every carrier uses the technology, allowing calls to be checked even as they traverse between networks. By getting Verizon (which owns TechCrunch), Sprint and the other cell giants on board, the attorneys general hope the cooperation will vastly reduce the number of robocalls each year.

CenturyLink, Charter and U.S. Cellular have also signed up to the pledge.

There’s a catch: No deadline was set, allowing the carriers to take as long as necessary to roll out the technology. That may not be good news for those seeking immediate relief. Although all of the major networks have already made some progress in testing the new anti-robocalling system, few have said exactly when their service will be ready to roll out to consumers across the country.

The Washington Post first reported the news ahead of Thursday’s announcement.

The pledge comes just weeks after the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department took coordinated action against close to a hundred individuals and companies accused of making more than a billion illegal robocalls.

How to stop robocalls spamming your phone

Read more: https://techcrunch.com/2019/08/22/us-cell-carriers-team-up-to-combat-robocalls-but-no-deadline-set/

telecommunications

T-Mobile quietly reported a sharp rise in police demands for cell tower data

T-Mobile has reported a small decline in the number of government data requests it receives, according to its latest transparency report, quietly published this week.

The third-largest cell giant in the U.S. reported 459,989 requests during 2018, down by a little over 1% on the year earlier. That includes an overall drop in subpoenas, court orders and pen registers and trap and trace devices used to record the incoming and outgoing callers; however, the number of search warrants issued went up by 27% and wiretaps increased by almost 3%.

The company rejected 85,201 requests, an increase of 7% on the year prior.

But the number of requests for historical call detail records and cell site information, which can be used to infer a subscriber’s location, has risen significantly.

For 2018, the company received 70,224 demands for historical call data, up by more than 9% on the year earlier.

Historical cell site location data allows law enforcement to understand which cell towers carried a call, text message or data, and therefore a subscriber’s historical real-time location at any given particular time. Last year the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that this data was protected and required a warrant before a company is forced to turn it over. The so-called “Carpenter” decision was expected to result in a fall in the number of requests made because the bar to obtaining the records is far higher.

T-Mobile did not immediately respond to a request asking what caused the increase.

Screen

Call records requests by police. (2017 above, 2018 below). Source: T-Mobile.

The cell giant also reported that the number of tower dumps went up from 4,855 requests in 2017 to 6,184 requests in 2018, an increase of 27%.

Tower dumps are particularly controversial because these include information for all subscribers whose calls, messages and data went through a cell tower at any given time. That can include the data of hundreds or thousands of innocent subscribers at any time.

Although T-Mobile says it requires a court order or a search warrant, the Carpenter decision does not affect police accessing data obtained from tower dumps.

T-Mobile currently has 81.3 million customers as of its last earnings call. The company is currently in the middle of a merger with Sprint for $26.5 billion. The Justice Department is reviewing the bid, but several states are looking to block the deal entirely.

States are looking to jam T-Mobile and Sprint’s proposed $26.5 billion merger

Read more: https://techcrunch.com/2019/07/12/t-mobile-cell-tower-government-demands/