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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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Interesting article on inner-sanctum Facebook wrangling over transparency.
Article in NYT wrote: | "One of the main reasons that I left Facebook is that the most senior leadership in the company does not want to invest in understanding the impact of its core products,” Mr. Boland said, in his first interview since departing. “And it doesn’t want to make the data available for others to do the hard work and hold them accountable. |
You knew this already, but it's little wonder they aren't keen on letting anyone analyse their data: the platform is a veritable far-right lunacy accelerator.
Tweet from June 2021 quoted in article wrote: | The top-performing link posts by U.S. Facebook pages in the last 24 hours are from:
1. Ben Shapiro
2. Ben Shapiro
3. Sean Hannity
4. Dan Bongino
5. Ben Shapiro
6. Go Awesome Animals
7. Ben Shapiro
8. The Daily Caller
9. Dan Bongino
10. Sean Hannity
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Tweet from Sep 2020 quoted in article wrote: | The top-performing link posts by U.S. Facebook pages in the last 24 hours are from:
1. Fox News
2. Donald J. Trump
3. Ben Shapiro
4. Dan Bongino
5. Blue Lives Matter
6. Fox News
7. Ben Shapiro
8. Sean Hannity
9. Franklin Graham
10. Dan Bongino
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https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/14/technology/facebook-data.html _________________ In the end the rain comes down, washes clean the streets of a blue sky town.
Help Nick's: http://www.magpies.net/nick/bb/fundraising.htm |
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stui magpie
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005 Location: In flagrante delicto
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Without reading the article is that just the appetite from people?
Facebook to me is a lot less political than Twitter and Twitter seems to attract more Left than right types _________________ Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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^The simple test is to look at those top tens and look at the electorate. What that tells you is that Facebook is turbocharging the crazies and enabling them to weigh on public information to an absurd extent. This is not 'the will of the people'; instead, it's the weaponising of the motivation of fanatics, religious crazies and anyone with money.
The difference with, say, the university student protests of old, is that unless you were in their path you could ignore them. But Facebook's content surfacing is the equivalent of connecting all those protests across capital cities and taking them city-wide, including to your home street, rather than them simply annoying everyone affected by traffic on Spring Street.
The answer? Show us your algorithms and let the electorate — the people with one vote each — determine whether they like the role you're playing as a mediator of information. People rely on their curation because they want and emotionally need the process to be mindless. FB knows this, which is why they're happy to add pages of controls. They're essentially hacking the rational brain and putting it to sleep; the automaticity, sense of the random and spontaneous, and extremes of emotion such as rage or adoration are highly addictive.
What have they got to fear if the game they're playing is merely one of satisfying democratic appetite and those extremists in the top ten represent people's preferred sources of information?
Regarding Facebook and Twitter, I'm guessing they're both as political. I only use them for business purposes, though, so a heavy personal user would know more. _________________ In the end the rain comes down, washes clean the streets of a blue sky town.
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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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Facebook's counter-PR tactic: incite partisan loyalty as needed. It has the data and electoral access needed to do this with bite, too, as if to underscore the original problem.
The problem's not social media; it's a lack of visibility, accountability, research access and competition. You can't hold more information on society than governments and not be accountable to electorates.
Quote: | Facebook Inc. expanded on its pushback to President Joe Biden’s comment that social media networks enabled the spread of misinformation about vaccines, saying that it won’t take the blame for the administration missing its target to get 70% of Americans inoculated by July 4.
Biden said Friday that social media networks are “killing people” by allowing the spread of misinformation about coronavirus vaccines, saying that “the only pandemic we have is among the unvaccinated” after he was asked about his message for tech companies. |
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-18/facebook-extends-pushback-on-biden-criticism-of-social-networks-kr8iyqcz _________________ In the end the rain comes down, washes clean the streets of a blue sky town.
Help Nick's: http://www.magpies.net/nick/bb/fundraising.htm |
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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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It's freaking endless, isn't it?
Quote: | Amazon shifts up to £8.2bn of UK revenues to low-tax Luxembourg, report finds
Governments are subsidising the growth of a monopoly by allowing ecommerce giant to legally report billions of pounds of sales in a tax haven, argues report commissioned by Unite union
The report, commissioned by Unite, found that Amazon had reported €57bn of revenue in Luxembourg in 2019. If the amount had related to sales made in Luxembourg, it would mean Amazon had sold an average of €92,000 of goods and services to every resident of the tiny Grand Duchy. |
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/amazon-tax-avoidance-luxembourg-proft-shifting-b1898781.html _________________ In the end the rain comes down, washes clean the streets of a blue sky town.
Help Nick's: http://www.magpies.net/nick/bb/fundraising.htm |
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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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Australia as climate pariah:
Quote: | The U.K. and U.S. are increasing pressure on Australia to strengthen its emissions-reduction targets in the lead up to the Glasgow climate summit, as the nation’s key allies and trading partners decarbonize.
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The call comes as Australia, the world’s third-biggest per-capita emitter given its resource-based economy, falls behind other developed nations when it comes to climate change. It scrapped a price on carbon in 2013, and hasn’t set a net-zero emissions target.
Australia has only pledged to cut greenhouse gases by as much as 28% by 2030, trailing the U.S. with its 50% reduction bid and the 40% to 45% cut pledged by Canada, another commodity-driven economy.
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“I would submit Australia could be much more aggressive,” Pershing said. “It would be really helpful to see Australia step forward with a more ambitious effort.” |
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-19/australia-s-partners-call-for-stronger-targets-to-cut-emissions _________________ In the end the rain comes down, washes clean the streets of a blue sky town.
Help Nick's: http://www.magpies.net/nick/bb/fundraising.htm |
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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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This is a horror show if the data is correct. Ignore the source and assume the data is good for a moment.
Quote: | The shocking racial wealth gap between families, and its impact on Black and Hispanic kids, is revealed in groundbreaking new research by scholars on US inequality. It shows that the basic wealth levels of families from different racial and ethnic backgrounds have diverged to such a stark degree in the past three decades that the future prospects of children from lower-wealth groups are likely to be grossly compromised.
In 2019, the median wealth level for a white family with children in the US was $63,838. The same statistic for a Black family with children was $808.
Hispanic families with kids fare little better. They have a median wealth of $3,175, which equates to 5 cents for every dollar of wealth in an equivalent white household.
“A relatively small group of parents – mostly white – control the lion’s share of the wealth available to children,” the authors conclude.
Wealth is calculated by aggregating a family’s assets and subtracting from it their debts. The median for white families largely consists of the value of the homes they own minus mortgages, with additional wealth coming from savings and inheritance. |
https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2021/sep/02/us-wealth-inequality-black-hispanic-children[/quote] _________________ In the end the rain comes down, washes clean the streets of a blue sky town.
Help Nick's: http://www.magpies.net/nick/bb/fundraising.htm |
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stui magpie
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005 Location: In flagrante delicto
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Dark Beanie
Joined: 06 Feb 2004 Location: A galaxy far, far away.
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Snap.
I just posted the comedy wildlife one under the What made me laugh today thread. _________________ If you are foolish enough to be contented, don't show it, but just grumble with the rest. - Jerome K Jerome |
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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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I hadn't realised US withdrawal from Afghanistan also meant the Taliban get control of Texas, too. That said, they were virtually already in control, so it doesn't surprise.
Now Christian extremists have instituted the Texas Tali-abortion-ban, what's next on their anti-Western theocratic agenda? _________________ In the end the rain comes down, washes clean the streets of a blue sky town.
Help Nick's: http://www.magpies.net/nick/bb/fundraising.htm |
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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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The rich might be getting richer, but the dim are also getting dimmer, thanks to the proliferation of cult-like lunacy. This won't surprise:
Quote: | One of the most consistent findings from the past 20 years of public opinion research is that each new president is more divisive than the last. George W. Bush was more divisive than Bill Clinton; Barack Obama was more divisive than Bush; Donald Trump was more divisive than Obama; and Biden may well end up more divisive than Trump, at least in terms of approval rating by partisan affiliation. Some of this reflects circumstances, some of it reflects the individuals, but most of it is a function of partisan and ideological polarization. Modern presidents have a high floor for public opinion but a low ceiling. |
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/04/opinion/biden-job-approval-rating.html _________________ In the end the rain comes down, washes clean the streets of a blue sky town.
Help Nick's: http://www.magpies.net/nick/bb/fundraising.htm |
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stui magpie
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005 Location: In flagrante delicto
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stui magpie
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005 Location: In flagrante delicto
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Post subject: | |
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So, we've got a new alliance with the USA and UK and we're getting Nuclear submarines.
Quote: | Australia is embarking on its most significant change of defence and strategic direction in decades, aiming to make the Navy's next submarine fleet nuclear-powered.
"The relatively benign environment we have enjoyed in many decades in our region is behind us," he said.
"We have entered, no doubt, a new era."
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said a new alliance had been formed with the UK and US that was the most significant security development for Australia since the ANZUS Treaty.
In the deal announced by US President Joe Biden, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Prime Minister Scott Morrison, the US will share secret nuclear technology to help Australia in the switch to nuclear-powered boats.
Key points:
Australia, the UK and US have formed a new security partnership named AUKUS
As a first initiative, AUKUS will build nuclear submarines for Australia's fleet
The new partnership is designed to counter threats in the Indo-Pacific
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https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-09-16/australia-nuclear-submarine-partnership-us-uk/100465814
We're only the second country the USA has shared thier Nuclear propulsion system with, the other being the UK. _________________ Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
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