One of Mark Zuckerberg’s earliest allies in Silicon Valley says the Facebook CEO’s recent privacy manifesto is little more than a PR stunt that won’t solve the company’s most serious problems.

Speaking at SXSW, Roger McNamee, an early Facebook investor and and onetime advisor to Zuckerberg, called the CEO’s recent promise to rebuild Facebook as a “privacy-focused” platform “a very effective public relations move that once again is deflecting us away from the core problem.”

McNamee, who once counseled Zuckerberg not to sell Facebook to Yahoo, and to hire Sheryl Sandberg as COO, has become a vocal critic of the social network in recent years. (He’s currently promoting his book, Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe, in which he says Zuckerberg and Sandberg ignored his warnings about Russian activity on Facebook in 2016.) 

SEE ALSO: Why we should all be skeptical of Mark Zuckerberg’s new commitment to privacy

Now, McNamee says Zuckerberg’s supposed commitment to encryption and privacy is much more self-interested than he has let on. 

“I’m a big believer in end-to-end encryption, but I think we all need to understand that encrypting your messages, and encrypting your posts addresses about one 1 percent of the problem,” he said.

“It has a convenient byproduct, which makes me think there must be something bad coming, maybe it’s the FTC… maybe it’s something else. But they’re doing something that they would do anyway. If you end-to-end encrypt, your moderation problem goes away. So from Facebook’s point of view, what they’re trying to do is get credit for something like it’s noble but doesn’t address the problem.”

The biggest problem, according to McNamee, is that Facebook’s business model relies on tracking an enormous amount of data about what its users do when they aren’t even on Facebook. 

At the end of he day, the thing that really worries me, and this so-called manifesto doesn’t touch that, is that the value, and the problems, really are associated with metadata and data collecting outside of Facebook, neither of which are covered by this manifesto. 

Zuck made very clear… that they’re not getting out of the tracking business. My problem with Facebook is not whether it’s end-to end-encrypted… it’s what are they doing with the tracking, what are they doing to invade my private spaces. I don’t want then buying my credit card history, I do not want them doing business with health and wellness apps, I do not want them buying my location data from my cellular carrier, I do not want them tracking me all around the web. 

McNamee also expressed support for Elizabeth Warren’s plan to break up big tech companies like Facebook, Google, and Apple. His appearance at SXSW comes just one day after Warren took the stage in Austin to discuss her plan for dismantling large tech companies she says are making it more difficult for smaller companies to innovate.

The Facebook investor, who noted that he still holds stock in the company, did have some positive words for the social network. He said if Zuckerberg follows though on his promise to not have data centers in authoritarian countries it would be a “righteous” move, and that he doesn’t think Zuckerberg or Sandberg should step away from Facebook.

“I don’t think this is about the people, and I believe that this is about the business model. Mark and Sheryl at Facebook have the moral authority to change the business model. They can do 100 times as much good by reforming their companies than they could possibly do with a foundation.”

Donald Trump supporters are turning to a Yelp-like restaurant review app in search of safe spaces.

Dubbing the society-wide repulsion to the president’s signature red hats as “MAGAphobic,” Trump fans are using the app “63red Safe” as a guide to conservative-friendly restaurants. The Daily Beast reports that the app’s users rate businesses based on if the owners “make political social media posts” and if customers are allowed to carry weapons. 

SEE ALSO: A man threatened to sue a magazine for using his picture to show a generic hipster. But it wasn’t him.

63red Safe founder Scott Wallace told the Daily Beast that he’s “trying to position it as an everyday ‘where can I go to eat safely’ app” — similar to the Green Book that African American drivers used during the Jim Crow era to determine what establishments were safe, except it’s to protect people from name-calling and getting their hats taken, not keeping them safe from hate crimes. 

Instead of reviewing service and menu items, the app prompts its users to answer four questions, including “Does this business serve persons of every political belief?” and “Will this business protect its customers if they are attacked for political reasons?” 

Citing the 2020 election and conservative fears of anti-fascist activists, Wallace is stressed about “the rise of the socialist goon squad.” Instead of just looking for pro-Trump spaces, Wallace told the Daily Beast that the app seeks non-political spaces that won’t oppose conservative politics. 

(He didn’t acknowledge in the Daily Beast report how modern “conservative politics” often endorse the systemic racism and bigotry of Trump’s values, and why business owners would be opposed to them.)

Since its launch earlier in March, 63red has gained 5,000 reviews. It’s part of a series of apps named “63red” that includes a messenger service and a news aggregator. 

Wallace notes that 63red’s mission is “not yet another Trump dating cite,” considering the massive data leak immediately after Donald Date’s launch.

“This is not yet another social network,” Wallace explained.

As the Daily Beast points out, although viral videos show customers slapping drinks out of MAGA hat-wearers hands, “it’s not clear whether Trump supporters are really so targeted in public that they need an app to tell them where they’ll be safe.” It’s difficult to compare Sarah Huckabee Sanders being asked to leave a restaurant to actual hate crimes related to race, religion, sexual orientation and ethnicity, which have gone up since Trump’s inauguration. 

It’s especially baffling, considering the president’s toxic statements about women, people of color, immigrants, people with disabilities, and other marginalized groups, that 63red users would want to seek out businesses that are complicit in defending Trump. And considering how much conservatives love to harp on safe spaces, Wallace doesn’t seem to be particularly self aware about how ironic it is that his app is made to protect the feelings of people who defend someone who regularly mocks the concept. 

YouTubers have found a new way to make fun of TikToks without getting hit by copyright claims, and it makes cringeworthy videos actually funny.

Reaction video culture thrives off of making fun of TikTok. Since the app was Musical.ly, YouTubers garnered millions of views from curating bad lip syncs and pointing out how embarrassing they are, from the overtly sexual, sped-up dancing to the bizarre song selection. But thanks to copyright takedowns, YouTubers who make these videos ether risk losing a monetized video and dealing with hefty fines, or avoiding any coverage of viral TikToks that use copyrighted music. 

SEE ALSO: TikTok fined $5.7 million for collecting children’s data

But some trends are just too awful to not react to — which is why YouTubers like Kurtis Conner and Danny Gonzalez supplement copyrighted audio with hilariously terrible covers. 

In a video diving into the bizarre divorce trend (think YouTube’s breakup videos, but instead of heartfelt explanations of a broken relationship, it’s just a pop punk lip sync) Connor replaced copyrighted music with mostly in-tune a capella. The result: grown men fighting tears while dramatically tossing their wedding rings to what sounds like a particularly unfortunate American Idol audition from 2008. 

Gonzalez’s criticism of a TikTok mom took a deliciously weird turn when he replaced Linkin Park’s “In The End” with a monotone, beatboxed version of his own. Instead of a video of an angsty mother rejecting cigarettes and pills, it becomes a surreal depiction of a woman who can’t figure out how to eat vitamins while driving through an empty parking lot. 

There are two copyrights involved in TikTok videos that use songs like Travis Scott’s “Sicko Mode” or Falling In Reverse’s “Good Girls Bad Guys. Pitchfork explains it as one, “The right to public performance (the composition of the song, which is typically owned by the songwriter or their publisher)” and two, “the right to mechanical reproduction (the recording itself, usually owned by the label.” 

Because individual users can upload any audio clip in the massive sound bank, which can be accessed and used by anyone on the app, the legality gets hazy. The incredibly popular “Mia Khalifa” diss track, for example, was used hundreds of thousands of times without permission from the original artist. 

Criticizing TikToks technically falls under Fair Use laws, which dictate that copyrighted content can be used in certain scenarios including criticism, news reporting, teaching, and research, without the permission of the copyright holder. But like vlogger PayMoneyWubby’s saga with YouTube’s takedown of his video “What kids really do on Musical.ly” and the dozens of reaction videos to Billion Surprise Toys’ terrifying Johny Johny Yes Papa series, YouTube doesn’t mess with Fair Use laws. 

While some YouTubers have fought the takedowns — even making content off of their attempts — others just avoid TikToks with copyrighted music entirely. Memeulous, another reaction video creator, put out a call for TikToks without music and called the corresponding video “TIKTOK TRY NOT TO GET CLAIMED CHALLENGE.”

But there are few things funnier than replacing the audio of already-cringe inducing TikToks with shitty covers of emo songs. A cappella punk rock adds a surreal layer of humor that makes the videos seem beautifully meaningless, and turns awkward dancing into a work of modern art. 

It’s only a matter of time before the covers make their way to TikTok itself.

Nobody loves staring at a bright white screen all day, which is why dark versions of popular apps are useful for people whose eyes need a break. Workplace communication tool Slack has finally joined the ranks of apps that offer a dark mode — but there’s a catch. 

SEE ALSO: How to unlock Facebook Messenger’s hidden ‘Dark Mode’

Dark mode for iOS and Android Slack users is only available in beta for the present moment. If you’re not already in the Slack beta, it’s not hard to sign up — but there’s no telling when your tester availability will be approved. 

To sign up for the beta, open the Slack app and tap the three vertical dots in the right hand corner of the screen. When your profile appears, navigate to the bottom of the sidebar and select “Settings.” 

Once in Settings, the “Join Beta” option is at the bottom of the page. Entering your name and the email associated with your Slack account will put you on the list to join the beta. After that, it’s a waiting game for approval. 

Once you are approved (or if you already are), turn dark mode on by again navigating to Settings and toggling the mode on that page. The new option should appear underneath Advanced, in the column beginning with Accessibility. 

Screenshots on Twitter show what Slack’s dark mode looks on iOS devices, and it’s… well, it’s looking real dark. Quite dark indeed.

Whatever people might think of Saturday Night Live these days, it’s still a badge of honor for celebrities to host an episode of America’s most popular sketch comedy show. 

On March 30, Killing Eve‘s Sandra Oh will become the second Asian-American woman to host the show, after rapper/actor Awkwafina became the first in late 2018. 

SEE ALSO: Don Cheadle stood up for trans kids on ‘SNL’ and the internet took notice

Oh’s most recent gig is her SAG and Golden Globe–winning performance as Eve Polastri on Killing Eve, but she’s long been a part of the TV landscape with acclaimed roles in Grey’s Anatomy (for which she won another Screen Actor’s Guild and Golden Globe Award) and HBO’s Arliss.

The musical guest on the March 30 episode will be Tame Impala, which marks the first appearance on the show for the Australian rock band. The band scooped up two consecutive Rolling Stone’s Album of the Year awards in 2011 and 2012 and will also headline Coachella later in 2019.