Bloomberg is spamming and MIT is damning, but first: a cartoon about brick and mortar algorithms. Here’s the news you need to know, in two minutes or less.
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Today’s News
The influencer election is here
If you’ve signed on to Instagram in the past 24 hours, you’ve probably seen a screenshot-looking ad featuring presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg in a quest to be “cool.” That’s because his campaign placed simultaneous ads with dozens of high-profile Instagram influencers to gain traction on social media. And while Bloomberg may have been the first to deploy this particular advertising tactic, he’s not the first candidate to use influencers to try to gain traction on the internet—and it’s a strategy we’re likely to see a whole lot more of as elections heat up.
Voting app flaws could have let hackers manipulate results
West Virginia and Oregon have recently deployed a voting app called Voatz to make absentee voting more convenient. But according to new research from MIT, bugs in the app could allow an attacker to reveal someone’s votes, block votes from being submitted, or even manipulate them. MIT researchers “suggest that any near-future plans to use this app for high-stakes elections be abandoned.” Voatz still hasn’t published any of its own audits but said in a statement that the MIT research was based on an outdated version of the Voatz Android app, though it is the current version available on Google Play.
Fast Fact: 646,152
That’s how many unique programs you could have watched on TV in 2019. No, seriously, someone counted. Only 9 percent of that number is exclusive to services like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon, and 16 percent were available on standard TV.
WIRED Recommends: Best Xbox One Games
Whether you love battle royale mayhem or just a co-op classic, we put together a list of the best games you can get for Xbox One right now.
News You Can Use
Here’s why you probably shouldn’t buy Motorola’s new Razr phone.
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