Normally, I'd shy away doing form letters, but I looked at the FCC site and decided that might work better. Plus, this doesn't seem to be entirely a formal letter, since one is allowed to tailor it a bit. I suggest, anyone that works in an industry, such as myself, that relies heavily on the internet. Should make a point of really hammering that out. These assholes don't give a shit about open access, since they are either greedy ass fuckers, authoritarian jackasses or both. So really hit on how this will mean higher business operating costs, which means it will likely kill jobs.
I also made a point of mentioning how our infrastructure is inferior to the rest of the developed world and that I view the Republican members of the FCC boards as being at fault, since their party has allowed our country to be kind of a joke when it comes to internet infrastructure.
That's the second article with a title like that (other one being a Reuters article) and it appears to be misleading as none of the quotes from the FCC actually mention Oliver.
To be clear I wholeheartedly support Net Neutrality, and what Oliver said (and his actions in helping direct people to comment after the FCC made it so you had to go through a million steps to do so).
Edit: I'm also not saying that they aren't completely full of shit in blaming a DDoS.
The FCC’s comments site went down in 2014 after the first time Oliver rallied his audience in support of net neutrality. In that case, it was widely believed the site went down because of the amount of traffic generated in the wake of Oliver’s show.
But [FCC chief information officer David] Bray on Monday said that this recent instance was caused by a cyberattack and not a flood of people trying to give input.
"These actors were not attempting to file comments themselves; rather they made it difficult for legitimate commenters to access and file with the FCC,” he said.
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If John Oliver made his show about filing comments with the FCC wouldn't it be more likely that someone who wants the opposite would be responsible for bringing the site down?
If John Oliver made his show about filing comments with the FCC wouldn't it be more likely that someone who wants the opposite would be responsible for bringing the site down?
Nah. Odds are just as good if not better that someone watching the show got mad and decided this was the way to express that anger.
If John Oliver made his show about filing comments with the FCC wouldn't it be more likely that someone who wants the opposite would be responsible for bringing the site down?
Nah. Odds are just as good if not better that someone watching the show got mad and decided this was the way to express that anger.
Regardless, what probably happened is just that their site couldn't handle the traffic.
If John Oliver made his show about filing comments with the FCC wouldn't it be more likely that someone who wants the opposite would be responsible for bringing the site down?
Nah. Odds are just as good if not better that someone watching the show got mad and decided this was the way to express that anger.
Regardless, what probably happened is just that their site couldn't handle the traffic.
Example: the Australian online census (don't hire IBM).
One document trains content reviewers on how to apply the company’s global hate speech algorithm. The slide identifies three groups: female drivers, black children and white men. It asks: Which group is protected from hate speech? The correct answer: white men.
The reason is that Facebook deletes curses, slurs, calls for violence and several other types of attacks only when they are directed at “protected categories”—based on race, sex, gender identity, religious affiliation, national origin, ethnicity, sexual orientation and serious disability/disease. It gives users broader latitude when they write about “subsets” of protected categories. White men are considered a group because both traits are protected, while female drivers and black children, like radicalized Muslims, are subsets, because one of their characteristics is not protected.
If you've wondered why Facebook struggles with hate speech, this is a big part of why.
One document trains content reviewers on how to apply the company’s global hate speech algorithm. The slide identifies three groups: female drivers, black children and white men. It asks: Which group is protected from hate speech? The correct answer: white men.
The reason is that Facebook deletes curses, slurs, calls for violence and several other types of attacks only when they are directed at “protected categories”—based on race, sex, gender identity, religious affiliation, national origin, ethnicity, sexual orientation and serious disability/disease. It gives users broader latitude when they write about “subsets” of protected categories. White men are considered a group because both traits are protected, while female drivers and black children, like radicalized Muslims, are subsets, because one of their characteristics is not protected.
If you've wondered why Facebook struggles with hate speech, this is a big part of why.
Why would the non-protected characteristic matter? "Black presidents" would be an allowable group for hate speech in this instance because it's a one person subset of all black people. But if you are adding the protected class (race in this case) as a qualifier isn't that the overriding factor at play? Otherwise you just would have said you hated democrat presidents, or tall presidents, or just presidents in general.
If you're really going to pursue this logic, then it seems like you would also have to evaluate the non-protected characteristic to see if it was something beyond the persons control. Children have no control over their lack of age, so it doesn't make any sense that hate speech against them would be any more acceptable than against other protected classes. You could maybe make a case for hate speech against other groups like extremists because membership in that subgroup is based on actions within the person's control, but again why are you only railing against <protected class> extremists and not all extremists?
One document trains content reviewers on how to apply the company’s global hate speech algorithm. The slide identifies three groups: female drivers, black children and white men. It asks: Which group is protected from hate speech? The correct answer: white men.
The reason is that Facebook deletes curses, slurs, calls for violence and several other types of attacks only when they are directed at “protected categories”—based on race, sex, gender identity, religious affiliation, national origin, ethnicity, sexual orientation and serious disability/disease. It gives users broader latitude when they write about “subsets” of protected categories. White men are considered a group because both traits are protected, while female drivers and black children, like radicalized Muslims, are subsets, because one of their characteristics is not protected.
If you've wondered why Facebook struggles with hate speech, this is a big part of why.
Why would the non-protected characteristic matter? "Black presidents" would be an allowable group for hate speech in this instance because it's a one person subset of all black people. But if you are adding the protected class (race in this case) as a qualifier isn't that the overriding factor at play? Otherwise you just would have said you hated democrat presidents, or tall presidents, or just presidents in general.
If you're really going to pursue this logic, then it seems like you would also have to evaluate the non-protected characteristic to see if it was something beyond the persons control. Children have no control over their lack of age, so it doesn't make any sense that hate speech against them would be any more acceptable than against other protected classes. You could maybe make a case for hate speech against other groups like extremists because membership in that subgroup is based on actions within the person's control.
Congratulations. You put more thought into this than Facebook did.
One document trains content reviewers on how to apply the company’s global hate speech algorithm. The slide identifies three groups: female drivers, black children and white men. It asks: Which group is protected from hate speech? The correct answer: white men.
The reason is that Facebook deletes curses, slurs, calls for violence and several other types of attacks only when they are directed at “protected categories”—based on race, sex, gender identity, religious affiliation, national origin, ethnicity, sexual orientation and serious disability/disease. It gives users broader latitude when they write about “subsets” of protected categories. White men are considered a group because both traits are protected, while female drivers and black children, like radicalized Muslims, are subsets, because one of their characteristics is not protected.
If you've wondered why Facebook struggles with hate speech, this is a big part of why.
Why would the non-protected characteristic matter? "Black presidents" would be an allowable group for hate speech in this instance because it's a one person subset of all black people. But if you are adding the protected class (race in this case) as a qualifier isn't that the overriding factor at play? Otherwise you just would have said you hated democrat presidents, or tall presidents, or just presidents in general.
If you're really going to pursue this logic, then it seems like you would also have to evaluate the non-protected characteristic to see if it was something beyond the persons control. Children have no control over their lack of age, so it doesn't make any sense that hate speech against them would be any more acceptable than against other protected classes. You could maybe make a case for hate speech against other groups like extremists because membership in that subgroup is based on actions within the person's control.
Congratulations. You put more thought into this than Facebook did.
5 whole minutes of thought. I'm really curious how they arrived at this conclusion. With all the negative publicity involved, they had to have spent more time than that debating criteria.
One document trains content reviewers on how to apply the company’s global hate speech algorithm. The slide identifies three groups: female drivers, black children and white men. It asks: Which group is protected from hate speech? The correct answer: white men.
The reason is that Facebook deletes curses, slurs, calls for violence and several other types of attacks only when they are directed at “protected categories”—based on race, sex, gender identity, religious affiliation, national origin, ethnicity, sexual orientation and serious disability/disease. It gives users broader latitude when they write about “subsets” of protected categories. White men are considered a group because both traits are protected, while female drivers and black children, like radicalized Muslims, are subsets, because one of their characteristics is not protected.
If you've wondered why Facebook struggles with hate speech, this is a big part of why.
Why would the non-protected characteristic matter? "Black presidents" would be an allowable group for hate speech in this instance because it's a one person subset of all black people. But if you are adding the protected class (race in this case) as a qualifier isn't that the overriding factor at play? Otherwise you just would have said you hated democrat presidents, or tall presidents, or just presidents in general.
If you're really going to pursue this logic, then it seems like you would also have to evaluate the non-protected characteristic to see if it was something beyond the persons control. Children have no control over their lack of age, so it doesn't make any sense that hate speech against them would be any more acceptable than against other protected classes. You could maybe make a case for hate speech against other groups like extremists because membership in that subgroup is based on actions within the person's control.
Congratulations. You put more thought into this than Facebook did.
5 whole minutes of thought. I'm really curious how they arrived at this conclusion. With all the negative publicity involved, they had to have spent more time than that debating criteria.
It's engineer's disease. They wanted a rubric they could apply equally and fairly to a manifestly unequal and unfair society.
One document trains content reviewers on how to apply the company’s global hate speech algorithm. The slide identifies three groups: female drivers, black children and white men. It asks: Which group is protected from hate speech? The correct answer: white men.
The reason is that Facebook deletes curses, slurs, calls for violence and several other types of attacks only when they are directed at “protected categories”—based on race, sex, gender identity, religious affiliation, national origin, ethnicity, sexual orientation and serious disability/disease. It gives users broader latitude when they write about “subsets” of protected categories. White men are considered a group because both traits are protected, while female drivers and black children, like radicalized Muslims, are subsets, because one of their characteristics is not protected.
If you've wondered why Facebook struggles with hate speech, this is a big part of why.
Why would the non-protected characteristic matter? "Black presidents" would be an allowable group for hate speech in this instance because it's a one person subset of all black people. But if you are adding the protected class (race in this case) as a qualifier isn't that the overriding factor at play? Otherwise you just would have said you hated democrat presidents, or tall presidents, or just presidents in general.
If you're really going to pursue this logic, then it seems like you would also have to evaluate the non-protected characteristic to see if it was something beyond the persons control. Children have no control over their lack of age, so it doesn't make any sense that hate speech against them would be any more acceptable than against other protected classes. You could maybe make a case for hate speech against other groups like extremists because membership in that subgroup is based on actions within the person's control.
Congratulations. You put more thought into this than Facebook did.
5 whole minutes of thought. I'm really curious how they arrived at this conclusion. With all the negative publicity involved, they had to have spent more time than that debating criteria.
It's engineer's disease. They wanted a rubric they could apply equally and fairly to a manifestly unequal and unfair society.
Honestly, given the description of the system, it's not engineer's disease. It's more that they wanted a specific conclusion, so they designed a system to blame for the conclusion.
Because the only way someone would come up with a system with those characteristic is if they wanted to ignore some attacks.
In other words, those responsible for this system were not acting as engineers, they were acting as prejudiced gooses who wanted to create a safe space for their prejudiced beliefs.
What if I said, fuck all white men except Steve? That's a subset, right? (Or if using the specific wording is too blatant, imagine I find some other way of implying it.)
What if I said, fuck all white men except Steve? That's a subset, right? (Or if using the specific wording is too blatant, imagine I find some other way of implying it.)
No, no it's still the full set of all white men except Steve, so that count. It's also an attack towards Steve.
I can faintly see the logic they're trying to use. "White men" is a large, all encompassing group that can mean anybody, while say "White male radical terrorist bombers" or "White male nazi sympathizers" are hyper specific subsets.
But those aren't the examples they used. They used "female drivers" and "black children". And... yeah... that logic totally doesn't work now.
"The sausage of Green Earth explodes with flavor like the cannon of culinary delight."
So, researcher at Google-funded think tank posts support of decision critical of Google, gets dismissed for them:
In the hours after European antitrust regulators levied a record $2.7 billion fine against Google in late June, an influential Washington think tank learned what can happen when a tech giant that shapes public policy debates with its enormous wealth is criticized.
The New America Foundation has received more than $21 million from Google; its parent company’s executive chairman, Eric Schmidt; and his family’s foundation since the think tank’s founding in 1999. That money helped to establish New America as an elite voice in policy debates on the American left.
But not long after one of New America’s scholars posted a statement on the think tank’s website praising the European Union’s penalty against Google, Mr. Schmidt, who had chaired New America until 2016, communicated his displeasure with the statement to the group’s president, Anne-Marie Slaughter, according to the scholar.
The statement disappeared from New America’s website, only to be reposted without explanation a few hours later. But word of Mr. Schmidt’s displeasure rippled through New America, which employs more than 200 people, including dozens of researchers, writers and scholars, most of whom work in sleek Washington offices where the main conference room is called the “Eric Schmidt Ideas Lab.” The episode left some people concerned that Google intended to discontinue funding, while others worried whether the think tank could truly be independent if it had to worry about offending its donors.
This pretty much confirms something that people have been thinking - Google money comes with strings, most notably to not rock the regulation boat too hard.
Statement to be attributed to Anne-Marie Slaughter, CEO of New America:
Today’s New York Times story alleges that Google lobbied New America to expel the Open Markets program because of this press release. I want to be clear: this claim is absolutely false.
After more than 10 years of doing strong policy work at New America, Open Markets’ position is not news to Google.
New America is an intellectually diverse organization. We have always encouraged many different viewpoints and our funders are aware of and support this philosophy.
And we will continue to do work on open markets. For example, one of our other programs - Future Tense - will be hosting several events later this year on the dangers of monopolies.
For the past two months, we have been working with Barry Lynn to spin out Open Markets as an independent program, as we have done with other programs, to preserve his leadership, keep the program together, and maintain a strong relationship with New America. As I reiterated to him in June, his repeated refusal to adhere to New America’s standards of openness and institutional collegiality meant that we could no longer work together as part of the same institution. I continued, however, to seek a cooperative solution with Barry; unfortunately, I have been unsuccessful.
Today, we made the difficult decision to terminate Barry Lynn. However, we are proud of the work Open Markets has done under his leadership and with the contributions of many others. We remain committed to continuing work on an open and competitive economy.
New America holds itself to high standards of transparency, diversity, and independence. We are proud of the work we do and the values we uphold.
It's offended while not really denying anything said in the piece.
Statement to be attributed to Anne-Marie Slaughter, CEO of New America:
Today’s New York Times story alleges that Google lobbied New America to expel the Open Markets program because of this press release. I want to be clear: this claim is absolutely false.
After more than 10 years of doing strong policy work at New America, Open Markets’ position is not news to Google.
New America is an intellectually diverse organization. We have always encouraged many different viewpoints and our funders are aware of and support this philosophy.
And we will continue to do work on open markets. For example, one of our other programs - Future Tense - will be hosting several events later this year on the dangers of monopolies.
For the past two months, we have been working with Barry Lynn to spin out Open Markets as an independent program, as we have done with other programs, to preserve his leadership, keep the program together, and maintain a strong relationship with New America. As I reiterated to him in June, his repeated refusal to adhere to New America’s standards of openness and institutional collegiality meant that we could no longer work together as part of the same institution. I continued, however, to seek a cooperative solution with Barry; unfortunately, I have been unsuccessful.
Today, we made the difficult decision to terminate Barry Lynn. However, we are proud of the work Open Markets has done under his leadership and with the contributions of many others. We remain committed to continuing work on an open and competitive economy.
New America holds itself to high standards of transparency, diversity, and independence. We are proud of the work we do and the values we uphold.
It's offended while not really denying anything said in the piece.
It also leaves them looking like idiots even if it was true.
"Even though firing him today would totally look like quid pro quo with Google and nothing I could possibly say would fix that, I decided to fire him today for totally unrelated reasons and destroy staff morale because I had that on my calender for the day.
Statement to be attributed to Anne-Marie Slaughter, CEO of New America:
Today’s New York Times story alleges that Google lobbied New America to expel the Open Markets program because of this press release. I want to be clear: this claim is absolutely false.
After more than 10 years of doing strong policy work at New America, Open Markets’ position is not news to Google.
New America is an intellectually diverse organization. We have always encouraged many different viewpoints and our funders are aware of and support this philosophy.
And we will continue to do work on open markets. For example, one of our other programs - Future Tense - will be hosting several events later this year on the dangers of monopolies.
For the past two months, we have been working with Barry Lynn to spin out Open Markets as an independent program, as we have done with other programs, to preserve his leadership, keep the program together, and maintain a strong relationship with New America. As I reiterated to him in June, his repeated refusal to adhere to New America’s standards of openness and institutional collegiality meant that we could no longer work together as part of the same institution. I continued, however, to seek a cooperative solution with Barry; unfortunately, I have been unsuccessful.
Today, we made the difficult decision to terminate Barry Lynn. However, we are proud of the work Open Markets has done under his leadership and with the contributions of many others. We remain committed to continuing work on an open and competitive economy.
New America holds itself to high standards of transparency, diversity, and independence. We are proud of the work we do and the values we uphold.
It's offended while not really denying anything said in the piece.
It didn't deny any of the facts in the piece, but it did challenge the narrative and attempt to provide context that the Times article failed to include. And denied at least one allegation.
The emails (between Lynn and Slaughter) tacked on to the end of New America's response suggest that there's been conflict for over a year now, and stated that Lynn had a habit of "telling me one thing and doing another" (such as saying he would show her the press release before it went up, the implication being that he did not). Slaughter also says in the email that she had not been in contact with Google since the 26th (shortly before the press release went out), and that the issue wasn't his views but his behavior. That's a straight-up rebuttal of what Lynn is suggesting, that Google pressured New America to fire him.
The fishy part is when the response talks about Lynn's "repeated refusal to adhere to New America’s standards of openness and institutional collegiality". This sorta implies that stuff like talking bad about Google was causing a rift between him and the group's management. To be fair, it's not directly stated. But without further context, that is the implication.
Don't get me wrong, they could be lying. But they are denying that Google pressured them into firing the guy, and denying Lynn's allegation that Schmidt talked to Slaughter on the matter to voice his displeasure over the press release (unless that happened after July 07th, but at that point, the timeline for Lynn's departure had been set). At worse, the implication is that New America was afraid of funding being pulled without any input from Google.
Statement to be attributed to Anne-Marie Slaughter, CEO of New America:
Today’s New York Times story alleges that Google lobbied New America to expel the Open Markets program because of this press release. I want to be clear: this claim is absolutely false.
After more than 10 years of doing strong policy work at New America, Open Markets’ position is not news to Google.
New America is an intellectually diverse organization. We have always encouraged many different viewpoints and our funders are aware of and support this philosophy.
And we will continue to do work on open markets. For example, one of our other programs - Future Tense - will be hosting several events later this year on the dangers of monopolies.
For the past two months, we have been working with Barry Lynn to spin out Open Markets as an independent program, as we have done with other programs, to preserve his leadership, keep the program together, and maintain a strong relationship with New America. As I reiterated to him in June, his repeated refusal to adhere to New America’s standards of openness and institutional collegiality meant that we could no longer work together as part of the same institution. I continued, however, to seek a cooperative solution with Barry; unfortunately, I have been unsuccessful.
Today, we made the difficult decision to terminate Barry Lynn. However, we are proud of the work Open Markets has done under his leadership and with the contributions of many others. We remain committed to continuing work on an open and competitive economy.
New America holds itself to high standards of transparency, diversity, and independence. We are proud of the work we do and the values we uphold.
It's offended while not really denying anything said in the piece.
It didn't deny any of the facts in the piece, but it did challenge the narrative and attempt to provide context that the Times article failed to include. And denied at least one allegation.
The emails (between Lynn and Slaughter) tacked on to the end of New America's response suggest that there's been conflict for over a year now, and stated that Lynn had a habit of "telling me one thing and doing another" (such as saying he would show her the press release before it went up, the implication being that he did not). Slaughter also says in the email that she had not been in contact with Google since the 26th (shortly before the press release went out), and that the issue wasn't his views but his behavior. That's a straight-up rebuttal of what Lynn is suggesting, that Google pressured New America to fire him.
The fishy part is when the response talks about Lynn's "repeated refusal to adhere to New America’s standards of openness and institutional collegiality". This sorta implies that stuff like talking bad about Google was causing a rift between him and the group's management. To be fair, it's not directly stated. But without further context, that is the implication.
Don't get me wrong, they could be lying. But they are denying that Google pressured them into firing the guy, and denying Lynn's allegation that Schmidt talked to Slaughter on the matter to voice his displeasure over the press release (unless that happened after July 07th, but at that point, the timeline for Lynn's departure had been set). At worse, the implication is that New America was afraid of funding being pulled without any input from Google.
If the issue was his behavior, why did she fire his whole team, not just him? (And no, her argument still doesn't line up, because you don't praise someone for their leadership before saying that you're canning them because of their inability to work well with others. They're sort of mutually exclusive arguments.) All of what she said is a self serving attempt to push the blame away, because she made the stupid move of firing him after he made credible allegations that Schmidt was demanding his head over support for the EU ruling. It's a bad statement that nobody is buying, and will most like guarantee that she will be one of the next people leaving New America.
Statement to be attributed to Anne-Marie Slaughter, CEO of New America:
Today’s New York Times story alleges that Google lobbied New America to expel the Open Markets program because of this press release. I want to be clear: this claim is absolutely false.
After more than 10 years of doing strong policy work at New America, Open Markets’ position is not news to Google.
New America is an intellectually diverse organization. We have always encouraged many different viewpoints and our funders are aware of and support this philosophy.
And we will continue to do work on open markets. For example, one of our other programs - Future Tense - will be hosting several events later this year on the dangers of monopolies.
For the past two months, we have been working with Barry Lynn to spin out Open Markets as an independent program, as we have done with other programs, to preserve his leadership, keep the program together, and maintain a strong relationship with New America. As I reiterated to him in June, his repeated refusal to adhere to New America’s standards of openness and institutional collegiality meant that we could no longer work together as part of the same institution. I continued, however, to seek a cooperative solution with Barry; unfortunately, I have been unsuccessful.
Today, we made the difficult decision to terminate Barry Lynn. However, we are proud of the work Open Markets has done under his leadership and with the contributions of many others. We remain committed to continuing work on an open and competitive economy.
New America holds itself to high standards of transparency, diversity, and independence. We are proud of the work we do and the values we uphold.
It's offended while not really denying anything said in the piece.
It didn't deny any of the facts in the piece, but it did challenge the narrative and attempt to provide context that the Times article failed to include. And denied at least one allegation.
The emails (between Lynn and Slaughter) tacked on to the end of New America's response suggest that there's been conflict for over a year now, and stated that Lynn had a habit of "telling me one thing and doing another" (such as saying he would show her the press release before it went up, the implication being that he did not). Slaughter also says in the email that she had not been in contact with Google since the 26th (shortly before the press release went out), and that the issue wasn't his views but his behavior. That's a straight-up rebuttal of what Lynn is suggesting, that Google pressured New America to fire him.
The fishy part is when the response talks about Lynn's "repeated refusal to adhere to New America’s standards of openness and institutional collegiality". This sorta implies that stuff like talking bad about Google was causing a rift between him and the group's management. To be fair, it's not directly stated. But without further context, that is the implication.
Don't get me wrong, they could be lying. But they are denying that Google pressured them into firing the guy, and denying Lynn's allegation that Schmidt talked to Slaughter on the matter to voice his displeasure over the press release (unless that happened after July 07th, but at that point, the timeline for Lynn's departure had been set). At worse, the implication is that New America was afraid of funding being pulled without any input from Google.
If the issue was his behavior, why did she fire his whole team, not just him? (And no, her argument still doesn't line up, because you don't praise someone for their leadership before saying that you're canning them because of their inability to work well with others. They're sort of mutually exclusive arguments.) All of what she said is a self serving attempt to push the blame away, because she made the stupid move of firing him after he made credible allegations that Schmidt was demanding his head over support for the EU ruling. It's a bad statement that nobody is buying, and will most like guarantee that she will be one of the next people leaving New America.
In the emails, keeping the Open Market team with New America (sans Lynn) was an option that was given. So the answer to your question is, I assume Lynn or his team or some combination probably turned down that offer.
You can absolutely praise someone for their work and leadership while saying they don't work well with the greater organization's rules and structure. They are not exclusive. This is the PA forums, so I'll make a video game metaphor: imagine a guild officer who organizes and runs successful and fun raids, but has repeatedly violated the guild's conduct rules in guild chat and on the guild's forums.
And if Anne-Marie Slaughter did fire Barry Lynn because Eric Schmidt demanded it, then Slaughter is lying and has been consistently lying in her emails to Lynn since the press release first went out. If that's the case, then lines like "we have given you enough chances to change your ways, without sufficient results" in the emails would presumably be referring to fictional grievances of fabricated past transgressions. Which you would think the Times article would address, as the Times interviews Lynn and Lynn gave them access to those emails (presumably better access that we have received, since we only have the three emails sent to Lynn but none sent by him).
As it stands, it's currently a he said, she said situation. Personally, I think the bigger issue is the amount of passive influence that Alphabet has. I was listening to the Up First podcast this morning, and their tech reportor, Aarti Shahani, referenced talking to a professor (who was unnamed) who said he had thought about doing research about the Communications Decency Act, which protects companies like Google from being liable for fake news and slander, but the professor wasn't going to actually touch that matter because he receives funding from Google. Stuff like that underlines the point to me. When researchers already have trouble finding funding, it's understandable for them to be skittish about potentially jeopardizing that. Alphabet doesn't have to directly interfere for that concern and pressure to exist.
Statement to be attributed to Anne-Marie Slaughter, CEO of New America:
Today’s New York Times story alleges that Google lobbied New America to expel the Open Markets program because of this press release. I want to be clear: this claim is absolutely false.
After more than 10 years of doing strong policy work at New America, Open Markets’ position is not news to Google.
New America is an intellectually diverse organization. We have always encouraged many different viewpoints and our funders are aware of and support this philosophy.
And we will continue to do work on open markets. For example, one of our other programs - Future Tense - will be hosting several events later this year on the dangers of monopolies.
For the past two months, we have been working with Barry Lynn to spin out Open Markets as an independent program, as we have done with other programs, to preserve his leadership, keep the program together, and maintain a strong relationship with New America. As I reiterated to him in June, his repeated refusal to adhere to New America’s standards of openness and institutional collegiality meant that we could no longer work together as part of the same institution. I continued, however, to seek a cooperative solution with Barry; unfortunately, I have been unsuccessful.
Today, we made the difficult decision to terminate Barry Lynn. However, we are proud of the work Open Markets has done under his leadership and with the contributions of many others. We remain committed to continuing work on an open and competitive economy.
New America holds itself to high standards of transparency, diversity, and independence. We are proud of the work we do and the values we uphold.
It's offended while not really denying anything said in the piece.
It didn't deny any of the facts in the piece, but it did challenge the narrative and attempt to provide context that the Times article failed to include. And denied at least one allegation.
The emails (between Lynn and Slaughter) tacked on to the end of New America's response suggest that there's been conflict for over a year now, and stated that Lynn had a habit of "telling me one thing and doing another" (such as saying he would show her the press release before it went up, the implication being that he did not). Slaughter also says in the email that she had not been in contact with Google since the 26th (shortly before the press release went out), and that the issue wasn't his views but his behavior. That's a straight-up rebuttal of what Lynn is suggesting, that Google pressured New America to fire him.
The fishy part is when the response talks about Lynn's "repeated refusal to adhere to New America’s standards of openness and institutional collegiality". This sorta implies that stuff like talking bad about Google was causing a rift between him and the group's management. To be fair, it's not directly stated. But without further context, that is the implication.
Don't get me wrong, they could be lying. But they are denying that Google pressured them into firing the guy, and denying Lynn's allegation that Schmidt talked to Slaughter on the matter to voice his displeasure over the press release (unless that happened after July 07th, but at that point, the timeline for Lynn's departure had been set). At worse, the implication is that New America was afraid of funding being pulled without any input from Google.
If the issue was his behavior, why did she fire his whole team, not just him? (And no, her argument still doesn't line up, because you don't praise someone for their leadership before saying that you're canning them because of their inability to work well with others. They're sort of mutually exclusive arguments.) All of what she said is a self serving attempt to push the blame away, because she made the stupid move of firing him after he made credible allegations that Schmidt was demanding his head over support for the EU ruling. It's a bad statement that nobody is buying, and will most like guarantee that she will be one of the next people leaving New America.
In the emails, keeping the Open Market team with New America (sans Lynn) was an option that was given. So the answer to your question is, I assume Lynn or his team or some combination probably turned down that offer.
You can absolutely praise someone for their work and leadership while saying they don't work well with the greater organization's rules and structure. They are not exclusive. This is the PA forums, so I'll make a video game metaphor: imagine a guild officer who organizes and runs successful and fun raids, but has repeatedly violated the guild's conduct rules in guild chat and on the guild's forums.
And if Anne-Marie Slaughter did fire Barry Lynn because Eric Schmidt demanded it, then Slaughter is lying and has been consistently lying in her emails to Lynn since the press release first went out. If that's the case, then lines like "we have given you enough chances to change your ways, without sufficient results" in the emails would presumably be referring to fictional grievances of fabricated past transgressions. Which you would think the Times article would address, as the Times interviews Lynn and Lynn gave them access to those emails (presumably better access that we have received, since we only have the three emails sent to Lynn but none sent by him).
As it stands, it's currently a he said, she said situation. Personally, I think the bigger issue is the amount of passive influence that Alphabet has. I was listening to the Up First podcast this morning, and their tech reportor, Aarti Shahani, referenced talking to a professor (who was unnamed) who said he had thought about doing research about the Communications Decency Act, which protects companies like Google from being liable for fake news and slander, but the professor wasn't going to actually touch that matter because he receives funding from Google. Stuff like that underlines the point to me. When researchers already have trouble finding funding, it's understandable for them to be skittish about potentially jeopardizing that. Alphabet doesn't have to directly interfere for that concern and pressure to exist.
Apply Occam's Razor here and ask what's more likely - that the head of a think tank proceeded with a personnel action in the works even though the optics of doing so are absolutely horrid; or she got quietly squeezed by her funders to make a problem go away - something that happens way more routinely in the nonprofit think tank and PIRG world than it should. That's why people aren't treating it as "he said, she said", and instead see this as just further confirmation.
One version requires trusting Lynn's assertions, assuming that Slaugher is lying in her response about the reason Lynn was pushed out, and believing that the Slaughter had been establishing a false narrative within her emails for months, if not a year or more (to assume the former but not the latter simply does not make sense to me). The other version requires trusting Slaughter's account, assuming Lynn doesn't have any solid substance behind his accusations that Google contacted Slaughter, and assuming our preconceptions on the matter are wrong.
But an assumption is not needed for our preconceptions to be wrong, so that's three assumptions to two.
Want to market Nazi memorabilia, or recruit marchers for a far-right rally? Facebook’s self-service ad-buying platform had the right audience for you.
Until this week, when we asked Facebook about it, the world’s largest social network enabled advertisers to direct their pitches to the news feeds of almost 2,300 people who expressed interest in the topics of “Jew hater,” “How to burn jews,” or, “History of ‘why jews ruin the world.’”
To test if these ad categories were real, we paid $30 to target those groups with three “promoted posts” — in which a ProPublica article or post was displayed in their news feeds. Facebook approved all three ads within 15 minutes.
After we contacted Facebook, it removed the anti-Semitic categories — which were created by an algorithm rather than by people — and said it would explore ways to fix the problem, such as limiting the number of categories available or scrutinizing them before they are displayed to buyers.
“There are times where content is surfaced on our platform that violates our standards,” said Rob Leathern, product management director at Facebook. “In this case, we’ve removed the associated targeting fields in question. We know we have more work to do, so we’re also building new guardrails in our product and review processes to prevent other issues like this from happening in the future.
No, "an algorithm did it" is not a fucking excuse. If you can't be sure your computers aren't going to do something stupid without someone at the wheel, put someone at the fucking wheel.
I mean, isn't that just like a "if more than X number of people say they like Y, collect them together as a group and label it as such" kind of thing? Then I can log on, look for marketing terms I want to market to, find that "Jew hater" has a large number of likes, and buy that one. Them fixing it quickly when the problem is pointed out is good and it'd be better if it was never a problem, sure. But probably no one thought to add "jew hater" to the list of disallowed terms. But ideally, facebook fixed that after it was brought to their attention.
Scrutinizing the categories before making them available is probably a very good idea and would solve the issue, assuming they monitored the content closely. Letting it all be robot controlled is a recipe for exactly this sort of thing.
edit: to be clear, I agree that facebook sucks at this stuff, but the algorithm isn't an inherently bad idea, it's just the part where they didn't have someone double checking it before letting it go free that is an issue. Because Facebook clearly wouldn't care until someone made a stink, as long as they were making money.
Also I got an email back from a representative today about Net Neutrality where they told me the 2016 rules were the FCC overstepping their bounds into the FTC's territory and that the rules were really just an illusion of security anyway and it's much better to get rid of them like he voted to do in March. Sigh. I wrote back about how the only good reason to oppose net neutrality is greed, but I doubt he'll read it or care.
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it automates the FCC comment process.
steam | Dokkan: 868846562
Tried it, the FCC comment section for this specific policy measure wasn't connecting.
There appears to be a 1 month or more delay for non-US viewers now on the youtube clips
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Normally, I'd shy away doing form letters, but I looked at the FCC site and decided that might work better. Plus, this doesn't seem to be entirely a formal letter, since one is allowed to tailor it a bit. I suggest, anyone that works in an industry, such as myself, that relies heavily on the internet. Should make a point of really hammering that out. These assholes don't give a shit about open access, since they are either greedy ass fuckers, authoritarian jackasses or both. So really hit on how this will mean higher business operating costs, which means it will likely kill jobs.
I also made a point of mentioning how our infrastructure is inferior to the rest of the developed world and that I view the Republican members of the FCC boards as being at fault, since their party has allowed our country to be kind of a joke when it comes to internet infrastructure.
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Nice chart to figure out how honest a news source is.
I'd been wondering about that!
Hey John, how about getting that fixed next!
:-(
http://thehill.com/policy/technology/332414-fcc-says-it-was-victim-of-cyberattack-after-john-oliver-show
That's the second article with a title like that (other one being a Reuters article) and it appears to be misleading as none of the quotes from the FCC actually mention Oliver.
To be clear I wholeheartedly support Net Neutrality, and what Oliver said (and his actions in helping direct people to comment after the FCC made it so you had to go through a million steps to do so).
Edit: I'm also not saying that they aren't completely full of shit in blaming a DDoS.
The sad thing is that this is the least insane statement I've heard from them since Pai took over.
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They really didn't:
Nah. Odds are just as good if not better that someone watching the show got mad and decided this was the way to express that anger.
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Regardless, what probably happened is just that their site couldn't handle the traffic.
Example: the Australian online census (don't hire IBM).
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Automated search to look for your name with one of the bot strings, has contract info for the attorney general.
http://jeffreyfossett.com/2017/05/13/fcc-filings.html
Even with spam filings, the majority of submissions are pro net neutrality, when the spam ones are filtered, 96% of filings are pro net neutrality.
If you've wondered why Facebook struggles with hate speech, this is a big part of why.
Why would the non-protected characteristic matter? "Black presidents" would be an allowable group for hate speech in this instance because it's a one person subset of all black people. But if you are adding the protected class (race in this case) as a qualifier isn't that the overriding factor at play? Otherwise you just would have said you hated democrat presidents, or tall presidents, or just presidents in general.
If you're really going to pursue this logic, then it seems like you would also have to evaluate the non-protected characteristic to see if it was something beyond the persons control. Children have no control over their lack of age, so it doesn't make any sense that hate speech against them would be any more acceptable than against other protected classes. You could maybe make a case for hate speech against other groups like extremists because membership in that subgroup is based on actions within the person's control, but again why are you only railing against <protected class> extremists and not all extremists?
Congratulations. You put more thought into this than Facebook did.
5 whole minutes of thought. I'm really curious how they arrived at this conclusion. With all the negative publicity involved, they had to have spent more time than that debating criteria.
It's engineer's disease. They wanted a rubric they could apply equally and fairly to a manifestly unequal and unfair society.
Because the only way someone would come up with a system with those characteristic is if they wanted to ignore some attacks.
In other words, those responsible for this system were not acting as engineers, they were acting as prejudiced gooses who wanted to create a safe space for their prejudiced beliefs.
No, no it's still the full set of all white men except Steve, so that count. It's also an attack towards Steve.
But those aren't the examples they used. They used "female drivers" and "black children". And... yeah... that logic totally doesn't work now.
This pretty much confirms something that people have been thinking - Google money comes with strings, most notably to not rock the regulation boat too hard.
It's offended while not really denying anything said in the piece.
It also leaves them looking like idiots even if it was true.
"Even though firing him today would totally look like quid pro quo with Google and nothing I could possibly say would fix that, I decided to fire him today for totally unrelated reasons and destroy staff morale because I had that on my calender for the day.
It didn't deny any of the facts in the piece, but it did challenge the narrative and attempt to provide context that the Times article failed to include. And denied at least one allegation.
The emails (between Lynn and Slaughter) tacked on to the end of New America's response suggest that there's been conflict for over a year now, and stated that Lynn had a habit of "telling me one thing and doing another" (such as saying he would show her the press release before it went up, the implication being that he did not). Slaughter also says in the email that she had not been in contact with Google since the 26th (shortly before the press release went out), and that the issue wasn't his views but his behavior. That's a straight-up rebuttal of what Lynn is suggesting, that Google pressured New America to fire him.
The fishy part is when the response talks about Lynn's "repeated refusal to adhere to New America’s standards of openness and institutional collegiality". This sorta implies that stuff like talking bad about Google was causing a rift between him and the group's management. To be fair, it's not directly stated. But without further context, that is the implication.
Don't get me wrong, they could be lying. But they are denying that Google pressured them into firing the guy, and denying Lynn's allegation that Schmidt talked to Slaughter on the matter to voice his displeasure over the press release (unless that happened after July 07th, but at that point, the timeline for Lynn's departure had been set). At worse, the implication is that New America was afraid of funding being pulled without any input from Google.
If the issue was his behavior, why did she fire his whole team, not just him? (And no, her argument still doesn't line up, because you don't praise someone for their leadership before saying that you're canning them because of their inability to work well with others. They're sort of mutually exclusive arguments.) All of what she said is a self serving attempt to push the blame away, because she made the stupid move of firing him after he made credible allegations that Schmidt was demanding his head over support for the EU ruling. It's a bad statement that nobody is buying, and will most like guarantee that she will be one of the next people leaving New America.
This was revealed with the following document uploaded:
(Random tweet published by Ars in the linked story.)
In the emails, keeping the Open Market team with New America (sans Lynn) was an option that was given. So the answer to your question is, I assume Lynn or his team or some combination probably turned down that offer.
You can absolutely praise someone for their work and leadership while saying they don't work well with the greater organization's rules and structure. They are not exclusive. This is the PA forums, so I'll make a video game metaphor: imagine a guild officer who organizes and runs successful and fun raids, but has repeatedly violated the guild's conduct rules in guild chat and on the guild's forums.
And if Anne-Marie Slaughter did fire Barry Lynn because Eric Schmidt demanded it, then Slaughter is lying and has been consistently lying in her emails to Lynn since the press release first went out. If that's the case, then lines like "we have given you enough chances to change your ways, without sufficient results" in the emails would presumably be referring to fictional grievances of fabricated past transgressions. Which you would think the Times article would address, as the Times interviews Lynn and Lynn gave them access to those emails (presumably better access that we have received, since we only have the three emails sent to Lynn but none sent by him).
As it stands, it's currently a he said, she said situation. Personally, I think the bigger issue is the amount of passive influence that Alphabet has. I was listening to the Up First podcast this morning, and their tech reportor, Aarti Shahani, referenced talking to a professor (who was unnamed) who said he had thought about doing research about the Communications Decency Act, which protects companies like Google from being liable for fake news and slander, but the professor wasn't going to actually touch that matter because he receives funding from Google. Stuff like that underlines the point to me. When researchers already have trouble finding funding, it's understandable for them to be skittish about potentially jeopardizing that. Alphabet doesn't have to directly interfere for that concern and pressure to exist.
Apply Occam's Razor here and ask what's more likely - that the head of a think tank proceeded with a personnel action in the works even though the optics of doing so are absolutely horrid; or she got quietly squeezed by her funders to make a problem go away - something that happens way more routinely in the nonprofit think tank and PIRG world than it should. That's why people aren't treating it as "he said, she said", and instead see this as just further confirmation.
But an assumption is not needed for our preconceptions to be wrong, so that's three assumptions to two.
No, "an algorithm did it" is not a fucking excuse. If you can't be sure your computers aren't going to do something stupid without someone at the wheel, put someone at the fucking wheel.
Scrutinizing the categories before making them available is probably a very good idea and would solve the issue, assuming they monitored the content closely. Letting it all be robot controlled is a recipe for exactly this sort of thing.
edit: to be clear, I agree that facebook sucks at this stuff, but the algorithm isn't an inherently bad idea, it's just the part where they didn't have someone double checking it before letting it go free that is an issue. Because Facebook clearly wouldn't care until someone made a stink, as long as they were making money.
Also I got an email back from a representative today about Net Neutrality where they told me the 2016 rules were the FCC overstepping their bounds into the FTC's territory and that the rules were really just an illusion of security anyway and it's much better to get rid of them like he voted to do in March. Sigh. I wrote back about how the only good reason to oppose net neutrality is greed, but I doubt he'll read it or care.