The Social Media App Everyone’s Flocking To: Reddit’s Astonishing Rise in User Engagement!

According to Comscore Mobile Metrix, Reddit is surpassing many social media apps in terms of engagements. Reddit has experienced a rise in average time spent monthly, from 215.3 minutes to 243.0 minutes between June 2023 and June 2024. The reason why Reddit is getting so many engagements is because it is providing a niche community for all types of discussions. Users are liking how they can read and discuss all types of topics on the app. Emarketer predicts that an 11% increase in average time spent is expected by Reddit this year.

There are also some other factors which are making Reddit better than other apps. In addition to the content that appeals to all types of audience which has contributed to 50% increase in daily active users YoY in Q2, the company is also focusing on its ad offering. Reddit has expanded its agency partnerships which has boosted its ad revenues to 41% in Q2 of 2024. Reddit is going to expand further in the upcoming days because of its search capabilities with AI driven search enhancements.

Among US adults, 7.8% of their daily time is spent on Reddit while it generates 0.9% of the social ad spend. This means that it has much room to grow. On the other hand, Facebook has the most monthly time spent per user but is seeing some decline, right along with Instagram. Meta’s Messenger app saw some increase in the monthly time spent. It went from 171.8 minutes in June 2023 to 203.0 minutes in June 2024.

TikTok also saw some decrease, growing from 429.2 minutes in June 2023 to 406.4 minutes in June 2024. WhatsApp, X and Snapchat haven’t seen any prominent rise or decline in average monthly time spent by users. Overall, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok are still taking most of the users’ time but Reddit has seen some nice growth.

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by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World

Bombshell Leak Reveals Facebook’s Marketing Partners Listen To Users’ Smartphone Microphones

A concerning new leak has Facebook’s marketing partners discussing a shocking situation. This includes eavesdropping on users’ conversations.

The reason is simple. They’re using it to grasp users’ needs and wants and then target them specifically with ads related to that. But the question on our minds is if that’s even legal as we’re not aware of entering into any such agreement.

The news comes to us thanks to 404 Media who put the matter into the spotlight. Based on documents rolled out to reporters, the leaks come from news and radio giant Cox Media Group. They’re heard bragging about a software dubbed Active Listening that makes use of AI to capture real-time data by listening to chats.

Advertisers are pairing the voice data with behavioral data to better approach the market.

We also hear about CMG adding some more bombshell names from the tech world that make use of similar practices. Common examples include Google, Facebook, as well as Amazon. These are all clients that become a part of the Active Listening service.

When 404 reached out for more details and to confirm if the matter was even true, Google’s response was a shocker. It removed the media house from its list of partner programs. This further led to Meta admitting that it was in the process of carrying out a review to see if any violations were made to its Terms of Service.

Moving on to Amazon, it blatantly denied the allegations and spoke about how CMG never worked with the company and would like to keep it that way for the near future. Still, if any marketing partners were found guilty of the act, they would be brought to justice for violations.

The latest revelations mark this as three time in a row that we’ve seen 404 media reports on the shady behavior of using voice service to target clients. In the past year, the independent news website put the marketing firm on blast for promoting creepy technology through a podcast. Knowing that this listening feature does exist is so sad.

Combined with the new update, the stories are giving rise to a lot of suspicions related to advertisers using phones to listen to users without consent. It’s like privacy has gone out of the window.

The question on people’s minds is whether or not this behavior is legal or not. The answer is that it’s legal for devices to listen to you because when you make downloads or updates for apps, it’s mentioned in fine print somewhere about this. You’ll see Active Listening as a part of this list.

CMG failed to acknowledge how it took on the voice data. It just identified those who were ready to purchase and hence made targeted lists for those individuals depending on what their interests were.

They are charging up to $100 each day and $200 if you’re a little further from reach like the 20-mile radius. The fact that CMG is not replying to many media outlets who are bombarding them with common questions like how is this possible and what techniques it uses to carry out active listening is questionable.

If you cannot reply, then don’t give hope to others that it’s still very possible. And if you are standing by your claims, please be strong enough to support them. Active listening is very creepy and really puts a big question mark on users’ safety and privacy in the world of advancing tech.

Image: DIW-Aigen

Read next: Apple’s Hypocrisy Unraveled: The Company Spends Millions To Lobby Against Child Safety Mandates
by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World

Apple’s Hypocrisy Unraveled: The Company Spends Millions To Lobby Against Child Safety Mandates

At first glance, it might appear that tech giant Apple is adding new ways to reduce the addiction that comes with smartphone usage. However, a new report is shedding light on another concerning finding.

At one end of the spectrum, we have Apple spending millions to lobby against child safety mandates. This means killing bills promoting the safety of minors.

Thanks to the Wall Street Journal, we saw reports related to several American states trying to control smartphone usage by teenagers. To be more specific, one report details about Louisiana. Issues had to do with a bill requiring Apple to include age restrictions via the App Store. This way, individual apps would no longer be in charge of age limits.

Meta also found that an appealing decision and sided with the discussion as there would be a single place for parents to control social media rather than run around different apps for the same ordeal. Apple was included in this legislation and within no time, many from Apple made it clear that this was not the right call.

Many Apple lobbyists referred to this as the poison pill from Meta, a way to deflect attention from different challenges linked to child safety that the company was facing.

The rep added Apple was providing parental controls and outlining age details with various third-party platforms and hence sharing age-related information would be their privacy violation.

This means the bill might get into a lot of trouble and the state might be in even more trouble as the company could face legal action for getting on board with App Store requirements.

In the end, no requirement was included in the bill to include Apple’s App Store and it crossed the Senate with ease. We are yet to hear from Apple’s lobbyists about the matter but those who did come across the news simply mentioned that other states didn’t want it either.

In reality, Apple’s parental controls don’t stand where they should be. While the iPhone maker wishes to spend less in terms of lobbying as compared to Meta and Amazon, it’s still spending millions. Today, lobbyists are going as far as to offer investments in state education. The price is dropping legislations linked to the App Store.

Image: DIW-Aigen

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by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World

Apple Tops the List of Ten Best Selling Smartphones in Q2 of 2024

As Q2 2024 is over, the smartphone market has seen some rise in its global shipment. There’s a list of top ten best selling smartphones, according to Global Smartphone Model Sales Tracker. Even though Samsung is dominating the top ten list, iPhone is still at the top in Q2 2024. Apple’s iPhone 15 was the best selling smartphone in Q2 2024. Overall, Apple secured 4 spots in the top ten list, while Samsung secured 5 spots.

Most of iPhone 15’s sales were seen in regions like LATAM and APAC, while iPhone 15 Pro Max moved down to the second spot in Q2. iPhone 15 Pro was the third most sold smartphone in Q2 2024. It was the third best selling smartphone in Q1 of 2024 too.

Samsung’s A15 5G was the fourth best selling smartphone in Q2, while A15 4G was the fifth best selling. Samsung’s GenAI capabilities of S24 series made the smartphone popular among users, plus the availability of Samsung in wider regions also made Samsung models best selling. Samsung A05 was the eighth best selling smartphone in Q2. Samsung’s affordable prices also contributed to the sales.

Xiaomi made it to the top ten best selling list after a year. Its Redmi 13C model was the seventh best selling smartphone in Q2 of 2024. It was easily accessible to many regions and MEA and LATAM saw an increase in its sales. Out of ten smartphones, six smartphones which were best selling in Q2 of 2024 belong to the premium price band. This shows that many users prefer using premium smartphones.

Read next: How Smart Home Apps Are Compromising User Privacy with Excessive Data Collection
by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World

What’s Behind the 43% Rise in Crypto Scams? “Pig Butchering” Takes Center Stage!

According to a new report by Chainalysis, a blockchain analysis company, a scam known as "pig butchering" is on the rise. In this scam, victims are often lured into fake romantic relationships, where they are persuaded to make large investments. Once the money is invested, the scammers disappear. This year alone, scammers based in Myanmar have stolen $101.22 million using this tactic. Other scams, like address poisoning, drainers, and work-from-home schemes, are also becoming more common.

Scammers typically attract their victims through social media and dating apps like Tinder, Facebook, and Match.com. The report shows a 43% increase in these types of scams this year, with most of the stolen funds being transferred to wallets that were newly created in 2024. By comparison, only 30% of stolen funds went to wallets opened in 2022.

The duration of these scams is also changing. As technology advances, the lifespan of a typical scam is getting shorter, dropping from an average of 271 days to just 42 days. This reduction may be due to increased enforcement and stablecoin issuers blacklisting scam addresses.

Data from Immunefi supports the idea that criminal activity in the crypto market is decreasing, with losses dropping nearly twenty-fold in August compared to previous months. This decline is partly because no significant hacks have been reported in August so far. However, there was a notable exception in July, when the crypto exchange WazirX was hacked, resulting in a loss of $230 million.

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by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World

How Smart Home Apps Are Compromising User Privacy with Excessive Data Collection

In a world dominated by technology, the idea of privacy has quietly slipped away. Surfshark's Research Hub talks about "Smart Home Privacy," which reveals how many home security apps disregard user privacy and often collect too much personal data without consent. The study shows that a security camera app can be one of the biggest collectors of user data.

Surfshark reveals that an outdoor security camera apps can gather your phone numbers, email addresses, location and payment information. Many other smart home apps can also do the same thing. But an outdoor security camera app can collect your information 50% more than any other smart home apps. The outdoor security camera apps which were analyzed took 7 out of 12 data points to the users’ identity.

The indoor security camera apps can also collect your data but less than outdoor security camera apps. On average, they collect 9 data points, out of which 6 are linked to the user's identity. These data points include email addresses, user IDs, purchase histories, audio data and phone numbers. These indoor and outdoor security camera apps also gather names, physical addresses and other contact information of users which can be used to contact users outside the app.

There are some outdoor apps which gather the most user information like LOREX and Deep Sentinel. These two apps collect 18 out of 32 data points which link to the user's identity. The indoor security app, Nest Lab, gathers 17 data points linked to users, followed by Ring and Arlo Apps. Both of these apps collect 15 data points. If no regulations and standards are implemented on these data apps, they can pose a lot of risks and threats to users including cyber attacks, data breaches and physical harm. After collecting the data, these apps give that data to data brokers or third party companies which can bring a lot of harm to users.

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by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World

The Fate Of Twitter’s Investors: Wealth Destruction Worth Billions Thanks To Elon Musk

Purchasing a tech platform like Twitter was a lot of work for Elon Musk. In case you did not know, he didn’t do it singlehandedly.

Mush purchased the app and renamed it X. While he did use a huge amount of his wealth to cover the massive $44B costs in 2022, a list of investors and bank loans went a long way to achieve the financial objectives.

During that era, many were in awe of Musk who managed to attract dozens of leading investors worldwide. Musk was given two thumbs up regarding his leadership skills and many praised him for his confidence in taking on this decision. However, it appears that they might have spoken too soon.

Some might be still happy with the investment while others feel the deal was a huge mistake to begin with. Investors are not happy with the way things have turned out for Twitter, now X. The company’s valuation is nowhere near what it used to be, and clearly, things went downhill quickly.

The end result is investors losing out on billions. Thanks to a new analysis by The Washington Post, the eight top investments reported by the US are today worth a staggering $5B less than what they were at the time.

It would not be wrong to mention that Musk’s intervention to make Twitter better with his ideology of X failed. Many experts now agree that Twitter should have never been in the hands of Elon Musk, to begin with.

The company’s main means of generating revenue was advertising. After seeing Musk’s controversial decision-making skills and opinionated beliefs, most advertisers fled. Hence, the goal for Musk and executives right now is to make monetization a top priority.

It’s hard to get a clear financial picture of where the company stands today as it’s a private firm. But there are a few things that are now crystal clear: the current stance of some of the biggest investors and how much they differ from that seen in the past.

Let’s begin with the tech billionaire himself, Elon Musk. He began with $33.5B which came from his own personal wealth combined with Tesla’s shares. Today, it’s worth $9.38B so it’s a drop of $24.1B.

Next, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal from the Kingdom Holding Co. invested $1.8B, and today the valuation is $529M. The losses incurred are close to $1.36B. Out of all the investors, he’s the most optimistic as he continues to see X prosper in the future.

Jack Dorsey who was Twitter’s co-founder and the ex-CEO invested $1B and today that’s worth just $280M. The losses incurred are close to $720M. In case you’re still wondering, he regrets Musk's decision to purchase Twitter.

Larry Ellison who is Oracle’s co-founder and chairman of the board invested $1B which is today worth $280M. Losses incurred are roughly $720M, again not a great decision. Meanwhile, Sequoia Capital’s investment was $800M and that stands at $224M today. The losses incurred are $576M.

Moving on to Vy Capital, investments included $700 which are today worth just $196M. Losses incurred are $504 million. While Binance was excited to invest $500M and bring Elon Musk’s vision to life, they stand at just $140M with losses hitting $360M.

Andreessen Horowitz invested $400M in the company but incurred $288M worth of losses as their valuation stands at $112M today. Last but not least, the Qatar Investment Authority invested $375M whose value has declined by $270M to reach just $105M. While the company’s head showed support for Musk in 2023, we’re not quite sure if he will be too happy with the current stance of the firm.

With the majority, if not all investors underwater, this is not the picture that Musk would have liked to show the world. The reality is Elon Musk’s uptake of Twitter has caused a huge amount of wealth destruction.

Image: DIW-Aigen

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by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World