Have you received an invitation to join Clubhouse, an invitation-only audio-based app that everyone seems to be talking about? Before deciding to join the Gift Kids Club, it's a good idea to consider who will meet you, even if you have taken all possible steps to keep your contacts private.
Although still in beta, Clubhouse is beginning to raise millions of user and privacy issues, both from the measures, the application has built to protect user privacy and the application itself, including recent incidents. The location to chat on the closed platform has been transferred to a third-party website.
Clubhouse allows users to create and participate in rooms to discuss all kinds of topics. You can attend a conference event or create your chat room. There are also amazing social factors. You follow people, people follow you, and Clubhouse strongly encourages these networks to take shape and grow. Also, as reported by Will Oremus of OneZero, this created certain privacy issues that some clubhouse users unexpectedly and couldn't avoid. This is due to the lack of information and privacy controls in the application.
The Clubhouse User Recommendations Engine chapter is based on access to contacts. If you do not agree, you cannot invite others to the platform. When you allow the application access to your contacts, Clubhouse will show you all who are in your contact list and who are also in your Clubhouse. We also recommend inviting non-guests. You will also be notified as soon as someone joins your contact so you can say hello. All this is fairly standard for applications looking to acquire new users.
But what if you didn't allow Clubhouse access to your contacts, especially if you didn't want anyone to know you were there? We're sorry, but we've been notified by Clubhouse and we encourage you to follow us. There is not much I can do. When I joined, I didn't allow Clubhouse access to my contacts. Only I can decide who will enter my clubhouse, as it has been my policy since childhood. But a few minutes later, I had a lot of followers for my contacts. To make matters worse, I got unrelated followers, but I was in their relationship.
It turns out that your privacy at Clubhouse depends not only on what you do but also on what the person who has your information in your contacts does.
Currently, you can only invite to Clubhouse with the phone number attached to your account, not delete it. Therefore, if someone has your phone number in contact and you allow Clubhouse access to those contacts, they are advised to be notified and followed when they join the application. The clubhouse also recommends linking your Twitter and Instagram accounts. This is another way to find someone (or who found you). The clubhouse did not respond to requests for comments on whether the application runs and how it runs, but it should be considered before linking social media accounts.
To be clear, Clubhouse isn't just an application that's too aggressive about connection recommendations. Many social media platforms use algorithms that take into account several factors such as personal information and contacts to suggest people to follow and make friends. These algorithms are very powerful, but not powerful enough to prevent whimsical recommendations. Remember all the stories about Facebook's "People You May Know" feature that psychiatrists recommend to patients and random people passing by? Facebook allows you to recommend people based on your contacts, even if they aren't on your contacts. However, Facebook isn't a best-practice brilliant beacon when it comes to privacy, but it has a set of settings and methods to keep your profile fairly locked as needed. Also, you don't need to link your phone number to your Facebook profile.
These privacy options do not currently exist in Clubhouse. While the application also has some fraud prevention measures, such as blocking users, keeping rooms private, and reporting incidents, Clubhouse allows for information dissemination, misrepresentation, and malicious representation. Moderation tools to do are criticized for being inadequate or inadequate. The company says it is working to improve it. In the meantime, you are currently unable to report potential violations of those terms without providing your email address.
Recently, other concerns about privacy and security have emerged.
Stanford Internet Astronomical Observatory connects users to chat rooms using a software development kit (SDK) created by Clubhouse's Shanghai-based company Agora, giving the Chinese government access to clubhouse user data. I confirmed that I would do it. And in which room, and "theoretically" to take advantage of the audio and record it over the Agora network. This does not mean that this has not happened or has not happened, it just means that it is possible. Clubhouse responded to this report by adding encryption to prevent Clubhouse user data from being sent from any server in China.
In another case, a Clubhouse user succeeded in streaming audio from a Clubhouse room to another website, according to a Bloomberg report. A clubhouse spokesman said he banned responsible users and introduced "safety precautions" to prevent a recurrence, but did not elaborate on what those cautions were.
At least in both cases, it needs to act as a warning to clubhouse users that their statements and actions on the platform are not private, even from people (or governments) who are not clubhouse users. there is. It's not clear why Clubhouse doesn't have better options for users to manage their privacy or more information for users on how to use or link data.
The company seems to work with a small staff, but has millions of users and millions of dollars from Silicon Valley's top venture capital firms, including Andreessen Horowitz and has a valuation of $ 1 billion. It's not the first well-funded social media application that pushes the boundaries of data privacy. But at least you would think the clubhouse would have learned from the unicorn that came before.
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