Doctors, health experts and scientists battle COVID-19 misinformation on daily basis. Platforms like Facebook and Twitter have adopted policies in an effort to curtail rampant false claims, but some don’t have rules in place. A group of 270 doctors, nurses, scientists and educators have sent an open letter to Spotify following a recent episode of TheJoe Rogan Experience, calling for the streaming service to adopt a clear policy and to fulfill its “responsibility to mitigate the spread of misinformation.” 

On the December 31st episode of his podcast, Joe Rogan interviewed Dr. Robert Malone, a virologist who says he’s one of the creators of mRNA technology. It’s unclear whether that’s true. During the chat, Malone made baseless claims about COVID-19, including the idea that “mass formation psychosis” led people to believe the vaccines were effective and the notion that President Biden had withheld data that supported ivermectin as a valid treatment. The episode quickly went viral among both critics and fans as Rogan averages over 10 million listeners per episode. YouTube removed a video of the interview and Malone was recently banned from Twitter for violations of the platform’s COVID-19 misinformation policy.

“By allowing the propagation of false and societally harmful assertions, Spotify is enabling its hosted media to damage public trust in scientific research and sow doubt in the credibility of data-driven guidance offered by medical professionals,” the letter explains. “[The episode] is not the only transgression to occur on the Spotify platform, but a relevant example of the platform’s failure to mitigate the damage it is causing.”

In April, The Verge reported that Spotify was okay with a Rogan episode on which he encouraged 21-year-olds to not get vaccinated. A company source indicated the message wasn’t “outwardly anti-vaccine” and he didn’t “make a call to action,” The Verge’s Ashley Carman wrote at the time. Spotify has taken down more explicit examples of vaccine misinformation, including a song from musician Ian Brown and a podcast from Pete Evans. The company has said in the past that it “prohibits content on the platform which promotes dangerous false, deceptive, or misleading content about COVID-19 that may cause offline harm and/or pose a direct threat to public health.” And that when something violates those guidelines, it is removed.

However, as this open letter points out, Spotify doesn’t have an official misinformation policy like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and others. The group is asking for the platform to do just that, rather than to directly take action against Rogan or remove the episode in question. They want the company to create rules that would hold podcast creators accountable for the content of their shows.

Spotify paid a reported $100 million to lock down The Joe Rogan Experience as an exclusive podcast in 2020. The show was the most popular on the platform in 2021, both in the US and globally. When Rogan faced criticism over his choice of guests, including another example of pandemic misinformation in an episode with Alex Jones, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek said the platform didn’t have editorial responsibility over podcasts.

“We have a lot of really well-paid rappers on Spotify too, that make tens of millions of dollars, if not more, each year from Spotify.” Ek told Axios. “And we don’t dictate what they’re putting in their songs, either.” 

Spotify didn’t respond to Engadget’s request for comment on both the open letter and the company’s misinformation policies.

Source: Engadget – Doctors and scientists call on Spotify to create misinformation policy

Artists and technology companies are more determined than ever to use 360-degree audio as a hook to draw you in. J. Cole has made Apple Music the exclusive home for spatial audio mixes (in this case, Dolby Atmos) of his full catalog. You might need to switch services if you want to listen to 2014 Forest Hills Drive or The Off-Season with a more immersive soundstage.

The move doesn’t necessarily require new hardware. Dolby Atmos playback is automatic with recent AirPods and Beats earphones, but you can manually enable the format for Android or compatible third-party audio gear.

The deal comes just days after David Bowie’s estate made later albums available on a trio of services in Sony’s 360 Reality Audio format, and shows how spatial audio has become a significant battleground. Streaming providers clearly hope you’ll subscribe to hear your favorite stars in a new way, but Apple, Sony and others also benefit by spurring sales of earbuds and other hardware. Don’t be surprised if you see more (and possibly larger) exclusives surface in the near future.

Source: Engadget – You’ll need Apple Music to listen to J. Cole’s albums in spatial audio

Wyze has some of the best budget security cameras around. We recently highlighted the Wyze Cam V3 as our favorite overall home security camera, thanks to its low price and handy selection of features. Although a subscription isn’t totally necessary for the company’s cameras, it does offer extra utility. With that in mind, Wyze is opening up a new subscription tier to everyone.

The Cam Plus Lite plan includes AI-powered Person Detection (instead of motion detection) and 12-second event recordings. Here’s the twist: it’s a pay-what-you-want plan, so you’ll have access to those features without having to pay a monthly or annual fee.

The existing Cam Plus plan costs $2 per month or $15 per year. It supports back-to-back event recordings (instead of one every five minutes). Other features include full-length video recording for as long as motion is detected, and package, vehicle and pet detection.

Until now, Wyze cameras have captured 12-second clips as often as every five minutes when they detect an event, and those recordings are stored for up to 14 days. Wyze is moving that feature to its subscriptions, though, you’ll need to opt in to the Cam Plus or Cam Plus Lite plan to keep using cloud recordings.

Wyze says it’s pairing cloud recordings with the AI-powered Person Detection feature in the Cam Plus Lite plan to make them more useful and cut down on unnecessary notifications that might be triggered by a clip of, say, an insect flying in front of the camera. The company believes this approach will improve the overall experience, though it said it will incur significant cloud costs as a result. As such, while it won’t make users pay for those features, it’s hoping they’ll contribute what they can to help cover the costs for everyone.

If you don’t opt in to Cam Plus Lite, your cameras will store thumbnails of what they detect, rather than video. You’ll still be able to sign up for Cam Plus Lite at any time.

Wyze is making some changes to the local storage options too. It will support microSDXC cards with more than 32GB of storage. That feature’s available on Wyze Cam v3 now, and it’s coming to the company’s other cameras as part of their next firmware update. By the middle of February, Wyze will roll out 30-second rewind and skp forward buttons to help users zip through footage stored on a microSD card faster.

Source: Engadget – Wyze introduces a pay-what-you-want security camera plan

The Federal Communications Commission is the next US regulator hoping to hold companies more accountable for data breaches. Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel has shared a rulemaking proposal that would introduce stricter requirements for data breach reporting. Most notably, the new rules would require notifications for customers affected by “inadvertent” breaches — companies that leave data exposed would have to be just as communicative as victims of cyberattacks.

The requirements would also scrap a mandatory one-week waiting period for notifying customers. Carriers, meanwhile, would have to disclose reportable breaches to the FCC in addition to the FBI and Secret Service.

Rosenworcel argued the tougher rules were necessary to account for the “evolving nature” of breaches and the risks they posed to victims. People ought to be protected against larger and more frequent incidents, the FCC chair said — that is, regulations need to catch up with reality.

The FCC didn’t say when the proposal might come up for a vote, although the FCC’s next open meeting is slated for January 27th. There’s no guarantee the Commission will greenlight the new requirements. It won’t be surprising if the rulemaking moves forward, however. While companies are now more likely to disclose breaches, there have been multiple high-profile incidents where those firms took too long to alert customers or didn’t notify them at all. The new measures could cut that wait time, giving people a better chance of securing their data and preventing fraud.

Source: Engadget – FCC proposes stricter requirements for reporting data breaches