Google’s larger mission to make the world’s information “universally accessible and useful.
“I want to use the best technology we have at our disposal to begin to take on trolling and other nefarious tactics that give hostile voices disproportionate weight,” says Jigsaw founder and president Jared Cohen. “To do everything we can to level the playing field.”
Google’s effort, Jigsaw is the new name for what used to be called Google Ideas. At first glance, their mission seems all sweet and wonderful. They want to stop the “bad” things in social media. An enlightened censorship for the common good.
It’s scary when the elites come up with a plan to censor speech that they and they alone determine is “harmful”. Let’s remember for a second that they are a for-profit corporation. They don’t do things to be nice. They obviously are creating a product that is for sale, and for sale to the highest bidder.
Even if trolling and other harassment on the internet is harmful, does the prior censorship of it make our country better? Does eliminating this harmful internet speech eliminate the real harmful thoughts? Encouraging discourse of any type is almost always better.
As an aside, this kind of smells of some sort of “new world order” operation. Meddling in foreign affairs by a corporate entity won’t come out well in the end and is against every National and International law that exists. But I guess it’s ok if you are well-intentioned.…
I’ve shared these thoughts with friends and on this blog for a long time. Stop thinking that Facebook, Google, Twitter and all of the other social media outlets are somehow some sort of good guys who exist only for the furthering of an educated and intelligent populous.
They are a business. A business that wants to make a lot of money for it’s stockholders. Whatever they do or don’t do is designed to maximize profits.
It’s kind of like CNN that everyone seems to hate. Well, everyone except the viewers that they have and the advertisers that want to influence the buying decisions of their viewers.
We need to drop the notion that they are something special who somehow ascribe to some sort of code of ethics that makes them do socially responsible things. People are quick to organize to hold other corporations ethically responsible. It’s time to recognize the social media for what it is.…
Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) is the authority under which the US Government routinely collect and searches the online communications of innocent Americans with a warrant.
It expires at the end of this year.
As you might expect, the deep state doesn’t want it to just go away. Congress is taking up the issue. The USA Liberty Act has been introduced to fix it before it expires. It falls far short of addressing the worst abuses of the NSA’s Internet surveillance.
The actual bill is posted below as a link.
Contact your representatives to demand real changes and real protections. It’s time to reel in the surveillance state.…
Online censorship is a contentious subject for most people. Many very mistakenly make the argument that it’s an attack on the 1st Amendment. The 1st Amendment of course is a restriction on the Government, not on businesses. Businesses can and do censor speech and actions every day and should have every right to do so. It’s their business and their corporate reputation.
Obviously this censorship only applies to the workplace and folks who publicly identify with the corporation. A UPS driver can’t wear a Trump Hat or a Bernie sticker on their uniform or truck for example. A company can censor you from sending emails from a corporate account to a planned parenthood fundraiser. Most folks are ok with this.
Amazingly, when it comes to social media, people have very different ideas regarding your “right” to post something. Makes no sense to me. You get to use a company’s product for free but then complain if you don’t get to post something that the company has decided doesn’t fit their corporate model or what they perceive to be their corporate reputation.
For the social media companies, they are in the middle of a big dilemma. On the one hand, they built their companies on the notion of being a totally wide open opportunity for people to communicate and share ideas. Then they run into stock holders that want to pursue a social agenda. Then they have the “socially responsible” folks who want them to censor things that they find offensive (on both sides of the political spectrum). Then governments want them to censor things that governments find “dangerous”.
In an attempt to accomplish all of this, many have come up with a computer program that identifies “key phrases” of sorts that might fit all of these categories. It would impossible to review every post manually. Facebook alone sees over 300 MILLION pictures a day being posted. The computer solution is a good alternative. Of course sometimes the computer is wrong.
We all get excited and angry when something we like gets booted by the computer. The “boot” gets lots of attention. What gets little attention is when the computer ruling is overturned and the post being put up again. These companies have a very good system of allowing for appeals and posts get put back up regularly.
This site has lots of examples and shows how to appeal.…
As a general rule in America, if you have a blog/website that allows people to comment or otherwise post something, you can’t be sued for what they post. Makes sense in a way. If someone who owns a copywrited picture contacts you and proves that someone posted a copywrited picture on your site, you are supposed to take it down. Everyone is happy.
Well, the courts have just added a new dimension to this. If you are irresponsible and let anyone post anything without you moderating it, you are still in the clear. If you try to be responsible and moderate posts, the courts decided that you can be sued.
I’m completely in support of copy write law. People ought to be able to enjoy the fruits of their labor. It would be difficult to enforce a copy write if you had to search every web site everyday to search for copy write violations.
With that said, what is the harm of an innocent post, particularly where the standard is that once you are notified, you take it down? We own a small business and understand the law regarding copy writes. One of the standards of enforcement is that you have to mark your product in some way to inform people that your item is protected by a registered copy write.
If there is no making on a picture being used on your blog, it seems to me that the owner of the picture has no expectation that his picture won’t be used on someone’s blog.
This ruling seems like an attempt to hamper the free exchange of ideas on the web.
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Phishing. Phishing is the attempt to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords, and credit card details (and sometimes, indirectly, money), often for malicious reasons, by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication.
We’ve all heard about it and sadly some of us fall for it every day. Well, there is a new way in which phishing is being used. For the most part phishing works in a random way. They send out a lot of posts and hope someone responds. Now they are targeting specific people and specific groups in an attempt to damage them.
In a somewhat humorous gesture, the computer geeks call this new method spearphishing and they are targeting internet freedom groups. The phishermen are incredibly persistent and clever, changing tactics and being creative in their tactics.
Clickbait is one of the more popular phishing methods and the headlines are tailored to what they believe you might be interested in. Political headlines that will please the left or the right are popular. If they think you hate Trump, you might see something like, “Porn star Jessica Drake claims Donald Trump offered her $10G, use of his private jet for sex,” If you love sensationalism, you might get, “Reality show mom wants to hire a hooker for her autistic son.”
So far, it’s not that difficult to prevent. The lesson here is that hackers are using their techniques to target specific groups and ideas. Learn and use readily available security measures as spelled out in this article.
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DHS is collecting information on the social media history of immigrants. It’s hard to get worked up about extra security, particularly when it’s related to publicly available information. And that includes US citizens who communicate with the immigrants. The comments on this article raise some interesting points. …
Disclaimer: I haven’t tried this system personally. I’m not sure that there is anything out there that isn’t “crackable” by our government overlords. The fact that it was used by Greenwald and Snowden for so long lends credence that it did work. Even if they can’t crack it, doesn’t mean that they can’t recognize that you are using it. It might draw attention to you because they can’t read it. …
This is a great case of knowledge would be good if people were really aware of the problem and the solution. We all want security on the internet. A solution has been created. Some internet providers haven’t updated to the new security protocols, so now there is a hold on starting the new security. If we were aware of who hasn’t, we could vote with our wallets.…
Patents are an important part of freedom. Being able to keep the fruits of your labor is a sign of a healthy economy. Now folks have figured out a way to “game” the system.…
