NEW: Inside Pakistan's Amazon scam boom, and its ruinous impact on local sellers

For months, a screwed crop of scamsters outsmarted Amazon, & defrauded customers. When Amazon found out it banned 13000 seller accounts — @SiddiquiZuha & I report🧵

restofworld.org/2023/amazon-pa… In May 2021, Amazon fulfilled a long-standing demand of Pakistani businesses by allowing sellers from the country to list their wares on its platform.

Within a year, Pakistan ranked third among countries that registered the most number of sellers, behind only the U.S. and China

NEW: WhatsApp is now a spammers’ paradise in India

WhatsApp that was once a private & intimate space to chat with friends & family now feels like a busy main street crowded with hawkers

My latest for @restofworld is on the rise of WhatsApp corporate spam
restofworld.org/2022/india-wha… India's 550 million WhatsApp users are now flooded with boilerplate outreach from corporations, promoting products, deals, & discount coupons

The reason for corporate outreach becoming egregious over the past year can be traced back to a WhatsApp policy change in July 2020

NEW: Deepfake tech until now has suffered from association with unethical use in non-consensual celebrity porn. My latest talks about how deepfakes are now gaining a toehold in the corporate world 🧵

1/ Bollywood star @iHrithik wishing me on Rakhi

restofworld.org/2021/creating-… 2/ Deepfakes is becoming seductive for marketers: they’re cheap & easy to make

The video above is confectioner Cadbury using deepfakes to send personalized wishes from a Bollywood star. @Rephrase_AI is pioneering the commercial use of AI–generated avatars based on real people

SCOOP: How a tiny tweak to Zomato’s algorithm led to lost delivery riders, stolen bikes and missed wages in Bangalore🧵

restofworld.org/2021/how-a-sma… On Sept 26, Zomato had tweaked its algorithm to extend the riders’ delivery radius from one to four zones. All of a sudden riders found themselves being sent to pickups and drop-offs up to 40 km away. The blue areas on this map are an example of one rider’s extended zones

Turning Phones To Bricks

Indian lenders are cozying up to the idea of offering phones on loans to working-class people but remotely shut it down if they fall behind on payments

This method of "collateralizing smartphones" has unintended consequence 🧵

restofworld.org/2021/loans-tha… There are "nudges" for loan recollection

1. Send AV prompts in regional languages
2. Forcefully change cellphone wallpaper
3. If a prolific selfie-taker, send notification every time camera is opened
4. Block frequently used social apps Facebook and WhatsApp
5. Shutdown phone

1/8 If you are one of those interested in reading about how Chinese apps like TikTok, Bigo and Likee have shaped Indian communities and their identities, bookmark this thread and browse through 🧵

It includes some fantastic reporting from eminent friends and colleagues as well 2/6 The first one is about the thousands of hyperlocal stars who have emerged from the use of Chinese video apps and the dynamics of handling fame. Co-authored this piece with the inimitable @VarshaaBansal

restofworld.org/2020/india-vid…

The EC website publishes a list of registered voters and their personal details including gender and voter ID, both of which are considered sensitive personal information. How do we balance: Personal #privacy and Public accountability bit.ly/2ALpQTY @alokpi @pandayjyoti The ambiguity extends to other public databases such as land records, list of MGNREGA beneficiaries, First Information Reports, and court records, which are currently not in conformance with the draft #privacy bill by Justice Srikrishna Committee