Avril, why do you have to go and make cybersecurity so complicated?
At a lithe 5’2”, former pop-punk icon Avril Lavigne may appear harmless, but there’s a good chance she can knockout your computer with one ill-advised search.
The “Sk8er Boi” singer was just dubbed the “most dangerous celebrity” on the internet by cybersecurity firm McAfee (remember those annoying security updates on your PC?); Lavigne supplanted 2016 “winner” Amy Schumer as the celeb most likely to bog down your computer, with 14.5 percent of her internet searches leading to sites with malware or viruses.
And for those still shunning Apple Music and Spotify, searching for Lavigne became even more dicey, with 22 percent of MP3 searches threatening to have viruses.
Lavigne easily lapped more current female stars on the danger scale, with Carly Rae Jepsen coming in at No. 3, Celine Dion at No. 5, Katy Perry at No. 9, and Beyonce barely making the list at No. 10. Bruno Mars was the second most likely celeb to get your computer in hot water this year.
Despite not releasing an album since 2013, McAfee pointed to a few reasons the 32-year-old Canadian performer has seen an increase in toxic web searches. She was at the center of an internet death conspiracy last year (she’s alive), and rumors have been swirling about her dropping an album in the near future.
If you’re constantly typing her name into Google waiting for news on the album, be sure to get your computer checked out.
6 Tech Giants Shaking Up News, From Jeff Bezos to Laurene Powell Jobs (Photos)
Tech leaders are increasingly intertwined with the news business. While some want to support old properties, one set out to destroy a new one. Here they are.
Jeff Bezos – Washington Post
The Amazon founder purchased the Washington Post in 2013 for $250 million in cash. President Trump has called the paper the “Amazon Washington Post.”
The Facebook co-founder purchased The New Republic in 2012, becoming executive chairman and publisher. However, he sold the venerable political magazine to Win McCormack in 2016, saying he "underestimated the difficulty of transitioning an old and traditional institution into a digital media company in today’s quickly evolving climate."
The eBay founder is a well-known philanthropist who created First Look Media, a journalism venture behind The Intercept. Inspired by Edward Snowden's leaks. Omidyar teamed up with journalists Glenn Greenwald, Jeremy Scahill and Laura Poitras to launch the website “dedicated to the kind of reporting those disclosures required: fearless, adversarial journalism.”
The PayPal co-founder doesn’t own a news organization, but he makes this list because he essentially ended one -- Gawker -- proving once again the power of an angry billionaire. Thiel secretly bankrolled Hulk Hogan’s sex-tape lawsuit against Gawker Media because he was upset that the website once outed him as gay. Hogan won the defamation lawsuit against the site that sent its parent company into bankruptcy, and Gawker.com is no longer operating.
OK, so Facebook isn’t technically a news organization… yet. However, the company is preparing to launch its much-anticipated lineup of original content later this summer, and there are also signs that it's on the verge of becoming an even bigger media platform.
Campbell Brown, Head of News Partnerships at Facebook, confirmed last week it’s developing a subscription service for publishers willing to post articles directly to Facebook Instant Articles, rather than their native websites.
Tech is increasingly intertwined with news, for better or worse
Tech leaders are increasingly intertwined with the news business. While some want to support old properties, one set out to destroy a new one. Here they are.