Social Media’s Youngest Fans: The Platforms Kids Can’t Stay Away From

TikTok is the most used social media platform among users of all ages, and a new study published in Academic Pediatrics also found that it is the most popular platform among underage users too. There are many age restrictions for children under the age of 13 on platforms like Snapchat, Instagram and TikTok, but children are still using them. The study says that many 11-15 years old in America have at least one social media account, while 6.3% of young children also have secret accounts their parents do not know about. Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act was made to protect children from harmful content on social media but a lot of children somehow bypass age restrictions on the apps and get exposed to problematic content. It also affects their mental as well as physical health.

The study used data from Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study which researched about 11,000 children in the US to know about their cognitive development. All the participants in the study were from diverse ethnic groups, demographics, socioeconomic, geographical and racial backgrounds. The researchers of this study analyzed a dataset of 10,092 participants between the ages of 11-15, between the years 2019 to 2021. Participants were given surveys about their social media usage, and there were questions about how much they use social media, what are their platform preferences and whether they have a secret account or not. Social Media Addiction Questionnaire was also added in the survey to measure the harmful effects of prolonged social media usage in children.

The results of the survey showed that 69.5% of the participants of the survey had at least one social media account, even though most of the platforms require users to be 13 years or older. 63.8% of children under 13 also admitted having at least one social media account and TikTok was the most popular network among them. 68.2% of social media users under 13 used TikTok, while 62.9% used YouTube. Instagram (57.3%) and Snapchat (55.2%) was also some most used platforms among children under 13 years.

Social Media Addiction Questionnaire*	Never	Very Rarely	Rarely	Sometimes	Often	Very Often
I spend a lot of time thinking about social media apps or planning my use of social media apps.	31.0%	22.9%	20.7%	18.8%	4.7%	1.8%
I feel the need to use social media apps more and more.	43.2%	19.1%	22.8%	10.9%	3.0%	0.9%
I use social media apps so I can forget about my problems.	47.9%	14.2%	12.7%	16.7%	5.6%	2.9%
I've tried to use my social media apps less but I can’t.	52.9%	15.1%	14.9%	11.2%	4.0%	1.8%
I've become stressed or upset if I am not allowed to use my social media apps.	58.0%	15.0%	12.1%	10.0%	3.3%	1.5%
I use social media apps so much that it has had a bad effect on my schoolwork or job.	66.6%	13.3%	9.3%	7.6%	2.3%	0.9%

It is not surprising that a lot of underage children are using social media, because there are no solid age verification systems on these platforms. Children can easily enter an older date of birth and access social media app. The study also found that under 13 children also had an average 3.38 accounts on social networks. Adolescents were more inclined to have a secret account hidden from their parents than under 13 children. There was also a gender difference in social media usage among under-age children. Girls were more likely to use platforms like Snapchat, TikTok and Pinterest while Boys were more likely to use Reddit and YouTube. Girls were also likely to become emotionally dependent on social media and spend significant time there. The researchers also noted that social media usage among under-age kids increased during Covid-19 as they became highly dependent on digital communication. The study sheds light on how social media usage among under-age children can have serious consequences if social media platforms do not take any measures to have strict age requirements.

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by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World

What Are AI Companies Hiding? New Report Exposes Transparency Gaps in Top Models

There are a lot of AI models right now, but are AI companies really transparent about the "technical underpinnings" of their large language models (LLMs)? According to a new report from Americans for Responsible Innovation (ARI), the organization which advocates for AI regulation, many AI startups are not really open and transparent about the technical details of their AI models as compared to tech giants. Tech giants are also not very open, but they still have some transparency as compared to closed models. The company made this conclusion after analyzing different AI models from Anthropic, xAI, OpenAI, Google, Meta and 21 other companies.

The policy analyst of ARI, David Robusto, said that there are a lot of factors why many companies do not tend to be open and transparent about each AI update. To make detailed documentation about every update, it takes a lot of time, effort and resources. There is always also a chance that company rivals try to reverse-engineer the work based on details on the documents. When companies are secretive about the technical details of their models or other tech devices, it gives them a competitive advantage over other companies. That's why they do not find it necessary to give all the details about updates.

The report says that third parties and policy makers need technical details to understand how the models work, especially in defense and healthcare areas. As some big foundation models are not transparent, it makes the decision making process difficult. There should be some regulations and industry-wide standards for the issues regarding transparency of AI models. There should be some mandatory details that companies should have to disclose no matter what. If we do not know the details about LLMs, we cannot make comparisons between the models even despite the industry benchmarks.

According to the report, LLama 3.2 is the most transparent, with detailed information about training procedures, model architecture and computational requirements. GPT-4o and Gemini 1.5 were also somewhat transparent. The model with least transparency was Grok-2. The area where AI models were the least transparent was in technical transparency. The report also found that user-facing documentation was the best scoring category, with an average score of 3.19 out of 4.0. In systematic risk evaluations, almost all models scored good except Grok-2. All the models scored low on security, as many of the companies didn't provide much information about how they are protecting the systems.

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by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World

Downloading Cracked Software? Beware of the Hidden Malware Stealing Your Info

There are a lot of people who do not want to pay big amounts on software and tools like Lightroom, Photoshop, AutoCAD and many others, so they just use cracked versions from the internet. Even though the crack versions do not cost any money apparently, they come with a bigger price like malware and stealing your sensitive information. Researchers from Trend Micro, a security firm, found that attackers spread fake installers on the internet and social media platforms like YouTube, but they have malware that steals your sensitive information but cannot be detected.

There are a lot of YouTube videos that give you cracked links of software you want but as soon as the user clicks on the link, it takes you to reputable file hosting sites like Mega.nz and Mediafire. But most of the time, the legitimate-looking software installer has malware in it and gets into the user’s system when they hit download. This malware is called infostealer which is designed to steal sensitive information from the system which has been infected. All types of sensitive information like your back accounts, personal data, credentials and other private information becomes easily accessible to attackers due to the malware and they can exploit your data for fraud and identity theft.

The researchers gave an example of software Autodesk Keygen which generates serial numbers. When a user searches for it on the web, many legitimate websites like OpenSea appear with a shortened link which directs the user to the malicious link.

Now the question arises how these malwares do not get detected. The answer is that many threat actors use reputable file hosting services that hide the origin of malware and many anti-virus programs are unable to detect it. Many malicious links are also 900MB or more in size with a password protection so the malware is unable to get detected.

Image: Trendmicro

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by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World

Meta CEO Says Apple’s Success Is Restricted to the iPhone While Calling It Out For Limited Innovation

Mark Zuckerberg’s recent podcast appearance is causing a stir online, especially after his comments on Apple.

The Meta CEO did not shy away from speaking his mind on yesterday’s Joe Rogan podcast. This is where he was asked to comment on an array of different topics including the upcoming Trump administration and content moderation. However, what really got people’s attention was the discussion on Apple.

Zuckerberg is no fan of Apple’s stringent policies and we’re all quite aware of this. In his latest interview, the Meta CEO shared how 15 to 30% of all the fees that the iPhone maker charges for its App Store is a means to disguise the massive sales it makes for iPhones. If that was not brutal enough, Zuckerberg also limited the Cupertino firm’s success to just iPhones with limited innovation in terms of any new product.

Apple made use of this device to help place several rules on what it feels is arbitrary. They don’t think they’ve really created anything in a long time. It’s almost similar to the likes of Steve Jobs who devised the iPhone and now they are sitting on its success for the past two decades.

Zuckerberg also shared how he was not aware if they were doing great in the iPhone department either as he suspected sales to be on the declining end of the spectrum. Every generation you do get a device but that does not mean it’s better than the one launched previously, he continued. Therefore, so many users don’t feel the need to undergo the upgrade, he continued.

When asked what his perspective was about the company making more money each year, the logic put out by Zuckerberg here was interesting. He mentioned that this might be linked to hiring more people as developers and taking a 30% tax from them.

Another leading issue that seemed to be on his mind was AirPods and how the company refused to give the Facebook parent firm access to iPhones linked to the Meta Ray-Ban glasses.

While AirPods were called out as a great product, what’s the purpose when you cannot enable another archrival to build another great product that links to this device in the same manner.

So AirPods have exclusive capabilities to get linked to iPhones only so only they connect and no one else. It’s like a very seamless connection that gets enabled but not anyone else can use this kind of protocol. If they tried, there would be a lot of great people competing with AirPods in the end.

Meta has been trying long and hard to get Apple to give it some access to better its connectivity for the Meta Ray-Ban glasses but clearly it’s a big no. Apple does not allow this and feels it violates user privacy and safety. Zuckerberg blamed the creators at Apple for the poor design of the device that compromises user safety and therefore blames others for it.

In the end, Zuckerberg showed great optimism about Apple being dethroned from its top position soon because their game in regards to innovation is certainly not top-notch for now.

The next topic of discussion was Google and RCS for iPhones and how Apple failed to approve both security and encryption for messaging instead of designing its own. The RCS Universal Profile is yet to be adopted but they do hope that it’s coming soon.

When asked about the VisionPro, he said Apple failed miserably in that department. A product that pricey had no chance of competing with Meta’s Quest version that came at $300 or $400. He feels that the second and third generations will hopefully be better than the first but only time can tell because right now, it’s just not working.

Image: DIW-Aigen

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by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World

Marketing Salaries Surge as AI Skills Drive Demand in Creative and Strategic Roles

According to a report from Robert Half research, the median annual salary of a corporate chief marketing officer in the US is $200,250. Nowadays marketing professionals with AI experience are much needed as using AI tools can boost work efficiency and lessen the workload. Because of this new added skill, there's an increase in salaries in marketing professionals. Professionals from marketing, content and PR professionals also have flexibility to work in remote and hybrid environments.

The report also talked about different salaries by profession in the US. The average salary for a creative director with advanced qualifications and skills is $163,500 while employees at starting positions get $101,750 median salary of $101,750. The creative services manager new to their role gets a $76,500 median salary while a professional gets a salary of $113,250.

69% of the marketers agree that advancements in AI are reshaping the skill sets needed in some roles. When managers were asked where they use contract talent the most, 42% said digital marketing, 41% said traditional marketing and 33% said that they use contract talent for content strategy, development and management. 57% of the marketers say that their top priority is a hybrid work arrangement, with managers saying that their ideal working plan is 4 days on-site for staff.

There are some specific skills that need to increase in salaries in marketing and creative fields. The most potential for a salary increase is in creative development and art direction (37%), UX and UI design (34%) and content strategy (26%). 52% of the managers said that they bridge the skill gap through upskilling, 50% pay for professional certifications and 45% reskill employees for new skills to bridge their skill gap. The most sought-after marketing and creative jobs right now are copywriter, digital marketing manager, digital project manager and graphic designer.

When managers were asked how they use AI, 47% use it for data analysis and reporting, 45% use it for customer service and 44% use AI for email marketing. The emerging AI marketing roles are prompt engineer, AI graphic designer and AI trainer.

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by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World

Meta CEO Accused of Permitting Training of AI Models on Copyright Material Without Consent

The number of copyright lawsuits against tech giant Meta is growing. A new legal case has sprung up that happens to be one of many speaking about Meta’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg permitting the team to use copyright content for training its AI Llama models.

The case in question Kadrey Vs Meta really opened many people’s eyes to Zuckerberg’s actions without fearing the repercussions that this could have. On most occasions, Meta keeps speaking about how it’s shielded from enjoining in pirated activities despite the American doctrine speaking otherwise.

It states how companies only have the right to use copyrighted material to produce new products that are accurately transformed. Plenty of creators reject this argument and feel the tech giant is using its mighty power to rid people of their copyrights and hard work without consent and compensation.

The new files that were sent to the District Court in Northern California add how the plaintiffs entail some big names from the world of journalism. They recounted the exact moment when Meta’s CEO showed up to approve a dataset for AI training of LLama.

This provided the company access to copyright material from various publishers such as Cengage Learning and Pearson Education, amongst so many more. Moreover, LibGen was sued on several different occasions and even forced to undergo a shutdown. Let’s not forget the growing number of fines worth tens of millions for matters like infringing copyright laws.

As per the testimony, Zuckerberg cleared the company of using content online that was protected by copyrights for Llama models. He gave the green signal even though several top AI executives felt that this was not the right way to go about training AI models.

This eyebrow-raising filing quoted how Meta’s workers were well aware of their actions entailing pirating material. They even flagged that using it could undermine its negotiating power with different regulators.

The case also brings into light a memo sent to top decision makers at Meta where the matter got escalated to Zuckerberg and how it was approved to use LibGen. So all details in this filing line up to the case published by the New York Times that says Meta did everything and anything in its power to produce book summaries and consider purchasing Simon & Schuster. In this case, executives felt it might take a long time to come to a deal for licensing. They even tried to find solid reasons in defense of the illegal actions.

Image: DIW-Aigen

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by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World

PayPal Phishing Scam Tricks Users with Authentic Emails: Are You at Risk?

Fortinet’s head of security, Carl Windsor, says that cybercriminals have created a new phishing attack using PayPal. It is a latest PayPal linked social engineering scam in which the attackers use an email address and URL which seems exactly like PayPal’s. Most people know to not check emails from unknown senders and some also check if a link is legitimate or not before clicking on it. Cybersecurity experts also recommend people to never open links if they are in emails sent from unknown companies or brands. If they want to check if the link is legitimate, just copy and paste the link in the browser.

Now the new PayPal phishing attempt isn't like traditional phishing attacks. Everything that the scammers are using, from URLs to the emails, are completely valid. So how is it possible? Windsor says that attackers are requesting money using a genuine PayPal address by circumventing the system. It is being said that scammers registered a MS365 domain and then created a distribution email with emails of victims. After that, the attackers went to Request Money from Anyone portal on PayPal and pasted all the email addresses from the distribution list. These emails then do not get flagged as malicious as they pass through all the authentication tools.

Inside the email, there is a PayPal link that seems legitimate and when users click on it, it takes them to the sign-in page of PayPal. Most of the time, users get panicked after receiving an email from PayPal and log in to their accounts to check their money. When the user logins their account, that's when the attackers link their accounts too. It is a neat trick by which scammers can easily take over a victim's account without them having a clue.

Fortinet CISO says that users should become a Human Firewall and get themselves trained that they should never open an unsolicited email no matter how real it looks. Even though some people cannot become Human Firewalls, they should still be suspicious of every email that comes your way.

Image: DIW-AIgen

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by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World