 |
|
|
|||||
Bruce Springsteen said it best: “Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town.” While the rest of us are wrapping up work, Santa Claus is in the midst of his busiest day of the year, flying across the globe, distributing wrapped-up Christmas gifts to hundreds of million of kids. Want to know where Santa is, and when he’s coming to your town? For real-time tracking of Santa and his reindeer, NORAD, the North American Aerospace Defense Command, is providing a live feed all day on Christmas Eve, Wednesday, December 24, which started with Santa’s departure from the North Pole this morning at 6 a.m. ET. Eager kidsand let’s face it, just-as-excited adultscan “see” where Santa is from moment to moment (at the time of this writing: Russia) over at NORADs website by clicking on View Santas route on a 2D map and Santa’s big red hat. At last look, Santa hit some snow over Russia on his way down to the Indian Ocean, and has been delivering a lot of packages: 2,026,550,394 to be exact, at last glance at the gift tracker in the upper right corner. What is Santa’s route? NORAD has been tracking Santa’s route for the past 70 years, which traditionally takes him from the North Pole, down the International Date Line to the Pacific Ocean, through the South Pacific, New Zealand, and Australia. Then, he typically heads west through Asia, Africa, and Europe, before crossing the Atlantic Ocean to Canada, then here to the U.S., before heading south to Mexico, Central America, then South America. However, keep in mind that due to weather, Santa’s route can change. How to track Santa on social media In addition to NORAD’s live map, the Command center is also posting updates on the NORAD Tracks Santa app, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, and X; and precocious kids everywhere can speak to Santa by calling 1-877-HI-NORAD (1-877-446-6723).
Category:
E-Commerce
A pro-Russian hacking group claimed responsibility for a major cyberattack that halted package deliveries by France’s national postal service just days before Christmas, prosecutors said Wednesday.After the claim by the cybercrime group known as Noname057, French intelligence agency DGSI took over the investigation into the hacking attack, the Paris prosecutor’s office said in a statement to The Associated Press.The group has been accused of other cyberattacks in Europe, including around a NATO summit in the Netherlands and French government sites. It was the target of a big European police operation earlier this year.Central computer systems at French national postal service La Poste were knocked offline Monday in a distributed denial of service, or DDoS, cyberattack that still wasn’t fully resolved by Wednesday morning, the company said.Postal workers couldn’t track package deliveries, and online payments at the company’s banking arm were also disrupted. It was a major blow to La Poste, which delivered 2.6 billion packages last year and employs more than 200,000 people, during the busiest season of the year.France and other European allies of Ukraine allege that Russia is waging a campaign of “hybrid warfare” to sow division in Western societies and undermine their support for Ukraine. The AP has tracked more than 145 incidents including sabotage, assassinations, cyberattacks, disinformation and other hostile acts that are increasingly draining police resources. Associated Press
Category:
E-Commerce
Chinese tech giant ByteDance has signed an agreement to sell a majority stake in its video platform TikTok to a group of U.S. investors. President Donald Trump announced a preliminary agreement for the sale on Sept. 19, 2025, following his negotiation with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew told employees in a memo obtained by news organizations that the company is working to close the deal by Jan. 22, 2026. Chinese and U.S. authorities will also need to approve the deal. The deal creates a new U.S.-only version of the app, bringing it into compliance with a law signed by President Joe Biden on April 23, 2024, and upheld by the Supreme Court on Jan. 17, 2025. Specifics of the deal remain to be hammered out, but some details are emerging. These include what will happen to the video-sharing apps core algorithmand what that means for TikToks millions of U.S. users. The Chinese government has indicated it will not permit ByteDance to sell the algorithm, because it is classified as a controlled technology export, per Chinese law. Meanwhile, U.S. tech industry executives and some lawmakers say compliance with the law requires the algorithm to be under American control. The deal as proposed includes licensing the algorithm so that it remains Chinese intellectual property while the U.S. version of the app continues to use the technology. TikToks For You page algorithm is widely considered the most important part of the app. As one analyst put it: Buying TikTok without the algorithm would be like buying a Ferrari without the engine. The algorithms value lies in its uncanny capacity to anticipate users content preferences. Many users claim it knows them better than they know themselvesa sentiment that has evolved into a curious mix of spiritual belief and conspiracy theorizing, as my colleagues and I have documented. Other scholars have similarly noted that users feel more intimately seen and known by TikToks algorithm than those powering other popular platforms. I have studied social media algorithms for nearly a decade, exploring how our relationships with them have evolved as they become increasingly entwined with daily life. As both a social media scholar and TikTok devotee, I want to shed some light on how the algorithm works and how the app is likely to change in the wake of its sale. How the TikTok algorithm works In some ways, the TikTok algorithm does not differ significantly from other social media algorithms. At their core, algorithms are merely a series of steps used to accomplish a specific goal. They perform mathematical computations to optimize output in service of that goal. There are two layers to the TikTok algorithm. First, there is the abstract layer that defines the outcome developers wish to accomplish. An internal document shared with The New York Times specified that TikToks algorithm optimizes for four goals: user value, long-term user value, creator value and platform value. But how do you turn these goals into math? What does an abstract concept like user value even mean? Its not practical to ask users whether they value their experience every time they visit the site. Instead, TikTok relies on proxy signals that translate abstract outcomes into quantifiable measuresspecifically, likes, comments, shares, follows, time spent on a given video, and other user-behavior data. These signals then become part of an equation to predict two key concrete outcomes: retention, or the likelihood that a user will return to the site, and time spent on the app. The TikTok For You page algorithm relies on machine learning for predicting retention and time spent. Machine learning is a computational process in which an algorithm learns patterns in a dataset, with little or no human guidance, to produce the best equation to predict an outcome. Through learning patterns, the algorithm determines how much individual data signals matter for coming up with a precise prediction. A Wall Street Journal investigation found that the amount of time users spend watching each video plays a large role in how the algorithm chooses videos it suggests to users. Using the equation it has generated to predict retention and time spent, the algorithm assigns a score to each video and ranks possible videos that could be shown to the user by this score. The higher the score for an individual user, the more likely the video will appear in their feed. Of course, content characteristics and other users additionally inform recommendations, and there are other subprocesses folded into the equation. This step is where algorithmic moderation usually comes in. If a video looks like engagement bait or has excessive gore, for example, the contents score will be penalized. Here are the basics of how TikToks algorithm works. Whats likely to change for US users The sale has not been finalized, but the algorithms fate is coming into focus. According to reports, the United States-only version of the algorithm will be retrained on only U.S. users data. Users wont need to download a new version of the app for the changed algorithm to work. Even though the algorithm itself is the same as before, its fairly certain that TikTok will change. I see two key reasons for change. First, the proposed apps U.S.-only user population will alter the makeup of the underlying dataset informing algorithmic recommendations on an ongoing basis. As the kinds of content come to reflect American cultural preferences, values and behaviors, the algorithm may be slightly different as it learns new patterns. Though users are more likely to stick with the app because they dont need to download a new version, not all users will choose to, especially if it is seen as under the control of Trumps allies. Under the current deal, Oracle Corp. and the U.S. government would oversee the algorithms retraining. This arrangement suggests that the U.S. government may have significant influence over how the app works. The deal would give an 80% share to U.S. investors, including 50% to new investors Oracle, Silver Lake and Andreessen Horowitz. These investors have connections to Trump, and an apparent provision of the deal allows the U.S. government to select one board member. These influences raise the possibility of a boycott from left-leaning users and creators similar to earlier boycotts of Target for rolling back DEI measures and Disney after the since-reversed suspension of Jimmy Kimmel. This may result in a user populationand datareflective of a narrower realm of interests and ideologies. Second, its possible that the majority shareowners of the new app will decide to adjust the algorithm, particularly when it comes to content moderation. The new owners may wish to modify TikToks Community Guidelines according to their view of acceptable and unacceptable speech. For example, TikToks current Community Guidelines prohibit misinformation and work with independent fact-checkers to assess the accuracy of content. While Meta used to follow a similar approach for Instagram and Facebook, in January 2025 Meta announced that it would end its relationships with independent fact-checkers and loosen content restrictions. YouTube has similarly relaxed its content moderation this year. With reports that the U.S. government would oversee retraining the algorithm, theres a possibility that not only the new investors but also the government itself could influence how content is prioritized and moderated. The bottom line is algorithms are highly sensitive to context. They reflect the interests, values, and worldviews of the people who build them, the preferences and behaviors of people whose data informs their models, and the legal and economic contexts they operate within. This means that while its difficult to predict exactly what a U.S.-only TikTok will be like, its safe to assume it will not be a perfect mirror image of the current app. This story was updated on Dec. 19, 2025, to include new details about TikToks sale. Kelley Cotter is an assistant professor of information sciences and technology at Penn State. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Category:
E-Commerce
All news |
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||