Goolag, FB, Youtube, Amazon, Twitter, Gov censorship/propaganda via Tech Octopus

[DougMacG]

https://pjmedia.com/trending/facebook-demands-drivers-license-social-security-number-for-anti-obama-book-ad/?utm_source=PJMCoffeeBreak&utm_medium=email&utm_term=May2018

Facebook won't mis-use your private data.  They are gathering it for re-sale purposes only.

[Crafty_Dog]

    Not all EU member states have enacted national laws on data protection, and many will have difficulty shouldering the costs of doing so.
    The second half of 2018 will provide early indicators of how much the European Union can influence large technology companies to address the privacy concerns of EU citizens.
    Uncertainty regarding the severity of national enforcement could influence the regional development of technology, especially in terms of small and medium-sized enterprises.

 
The Big Picture

In preparation for Stratfor's upcoming 2018 Third-Quarter Forecast, we are releasing a series of supporting analyses, focusing on critical topics, regions and sectors. These assessments have been designed specifically to contextualize and augment the upcoming quarterly global forecast.

 

Data privacy and protection regulations have become increasingly critical elements of corporate strategy, especially as more sectors integrate artificial intelligence (AI). Just before the start of the third quarter of 2018, the European Union will begin enforcing sweeping modifications to its personal data privacy protections, giving the first indications regarding the enforcement of the policy across the Continent and how companies and member states will approach implementation.
See 2018 Annual Forecast

The Details of the GDPR

In an effort to allay the privacy concerns of EU citizens and make data privacy laws consistent across members' borders, the European Union began enforcing its General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) on May 25. For two years, companies worldwide have been preparing for the changes, which will be widespread and significantly impact their day-to-day operations.

The new regulations deepen data protection for European citizens in several ways. First, they expand the scope of the definition of personal data and provide avenues to enforce greater transparency at all stages of data collection and use. The regulations emphasize informed consent (through simple, understandable language) and grant more control to the individual, including the right to be forgotten and the right to access all collected data. The regulations also lay out strict data storage requirements and set a time limit (72 hours) for the issue of  breach notifications. Finally, the GDPR includes language that makes the reuse of data by third parties difficult, while also stipulating severe fines for violations.

How Will Countries Implement the GDPR?

Though the GDPR standardizes data protection policies across the European Union, each individual member state must place its own language into national law, leaving the door open for countries to interpret and implement the regulations in different ways. This process is meant to streamline the regulation and legislation of data privacy, making the country in question the single authority on the matter within its borders. But in practice, this means countries across the European Union can all monitor and fine businesses in different ways.

The regulatory and financial limitations of EU member states will be the primary factors determining how each proceeds in implementing the GDPR. Several countries did not even pass national GDPR bills before May 25, and according to a Reuters survey, a majority of the participants don't believe they'll have the funding or power to enforce the legislation they do eventually establish.

A map of Europe's GDPR enforcement across various countries

Portuguese authorities have been vocal about their inability to afford the costs of enforcing the data privacy regulations, and authorities from France and the Netherlands have already indicated that they will be lenient in the initial months after the GDPR goes into effect. Traditionally, Berlin has had stricter data privacy protection legislation. Germany was among the first countries to implement national laws with regards to GDPR and will likely continue to be on the stricter end of the spectrum in terms of enforcement.

How Will Companies Handle the GDPR?

For businesses, simply bringing their security measures and customer interfaces up to the new standards of the GDPR will be an expensive task. Companies of all size are reportedly behind schedule on implementing the necessary changes, and starting in the third quarter, it will be important to keep an eye on how countries levy fines against companies based on size, region of operation and the location of their headquarters.

Smaller companies will face the biggest challenge, as they will have a larger per employee cost of implementation, though the record-processing requirements are somewhat relaxed for companies employing fewer than 250 people. For companies small enough that they operate in a single country, the European Union's country-by-country implementation strategy will have a massive impact. Nations with looser enforcement and more forgiving penalties will offer potential areas where smaller technology companies in Europe can still thrive.

Large, international companies, meanwhile, will be obliged to keep track of the different legislation throughout the European Union. But they will also have the money both to implement the new changes fairly easily and to fight any eventual fines in court.

The GDPR is likely to hit the middle tier of companies in the European technology sector the hardest. These businesses are large enough that they operate across multiple borders, but they don't have the financial heft to fight the legislation long term.

The GDPR's Impact on AI Development

The European Union recently released a road map plotting the future of artificial intelligence (AI) in the bloc. France is leading the charge, as well as promoting a start-up culture within the country itself. But an extensive study from the Center of Data Innovation indicates that the GDPR has the potential to delay or disrupt AI development in Europe. Data – corporate, personal and more – fuels AI, and the more the GDPR limits the sharing repurposing and reusing of data, the higher the cost will be for various AI applications.

The criteria that European countries develop to enforce data privacy will be a good indicator of whether the Continent prioritizes the GDPR or the somewhat incongruent goals of AI development. France, in particular, will be important to watch closely due to the stated goals of President Emmanuel Macron's government. The same goes for Germany, given that it has traditionally functioned as a strict enforcer of data privacy and protection.

Implications Beyond the European Union

How massive international tech companies handle the new regulations will indicate the degree to which the GDPR impacts the global market and the European Union's place within it. If companies such as Apple, Google and Facebook begin separating their European market from others by applying the privacy standards on the Continent alone, that would spell trouble for the European Union's ability to develop AI and keep pace with North American and Asian competitors. However, if these big corporations begin applying the privacy standards of the GDPR more broadly (Facebook already plans to offer EU safeguards to users globally), the European Union will be able to set the tone for future data privacy discussions and regulations on an international level.

[ccp]

anyone else notice that when I try to view a story from Drudge or other online source that I often can not see it for the following message:

video is restricted - must log into Google accounts.   ?

This is happening more and more lately
I resent this from one of the masters of the universe

[G M]

anyone else notice that when I try to view a story from Drudge or other online source that I often can not see it for the following message:

video is restricted - must log into Google accounts.   ?

This is happening more and more lately
I resent this from one of the masters of the universe

What browser are you using?

[Crafty_Dog]

Smells of an anti-trust violation.  You're not supposed to leverage a (quasi) monopoly in one market (e.g. search engine) for competitive advantage in a distinct market.

[ccp]

Google Chrome
or Safari

I haven't thought if it different from one to another.  I will try to figure that out.

[G M]

Google Chrome
or Safari

I haven't thought if it different from one to another.  I will try to figure that out.

Brave.com

Try that.

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/06/03/technology/facebook-device-partners-users-friends-data.html?nl=top-stories&nlid=49641193ries&ref=cta

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.wsj.com/articles/techs-titans-tiptoe-toward-monopoly-1527783845

[DougMacG]

https://www.wsj.com/articles/techs-titans-tiptoe-toward-monopoly-1527783845

When I wrote I wasn't worried about Facebook, they will someday fall to competition, but I forgot our braindead government already allowed them to eat up all their competitors.  Yes, there is something wrong with that.

From the article:
"Imagine a not-too-distant future in which trustbusters force Facebook to sell off Instagram and WhatsApp."

[Crafty_Dog]

Working from memory from my FTC days, using market dominance in one market to achieve advantage in another market is anti-competitive.

[Crafty_Dog]

second post

by Michael LaForgia and Gabriel J.X. Dance

    June 5, 2018

Facebook has data-sharing partnerships with at least four Chinese electronics companies, including a manufacturing giant that has a close relationship with China’s government, the social media company said on Tuesday.

The agreements, which date to at least 2010, gave private access to some user data to Huawei, a telecommunications equipment company that has been flagged by American intelligence officials as a national security threat, as well as to Lenovo, Oppo and TCL.

The four partnerships remain in effect, but Facebook officials said in an interview that the company would wind down the Huawei deal by the end of the week.

Facebook gave access to the Chinese device makers along with other manufacturers — including Amazon, Apple, BlackBerry and Samsung — whose agreements were disclosed by The New York Times on Sunday.

The deals were part of an effort to push more mobile users onto the social network starting in 2007, before stand-alone Facebook apps worked well on phones. The agreements allowed device makers to offer some Facebook features, such as address books, “like” buttons and status updates.

Facebook officials said the agreements with the Chinese companies allowed them access similar to what was offered to BlackBerry, which could retrieve detailed information on both device users and all of their friends — including work and education history, relationship status and likes.

Huawei used its private access to feed a “social phone” app that let users view messages and social media accounts in one place, according to the officials.

Facebook representatives said the data shared with Huawei stayed on its phones, not the company’s servers.

Senator John Thune, the South Dakota Republican who leads the Commerce Committee, has demanded that Facebook provide Congress with details about its data partnerships. “Facebook is learning hard lessons that meaningful transparency is a high standard to meet,” Mr. Thune said.

His committee also oversees the Federal Trade Commission, which is investigating Facebook to determine whether the company’s data policies violate a 2011 consent decree with the commission.

Senator Mark Warner of Virginia pointed out that concerns about Huawei were not new, citing a 2012 congressional report on the “close relationships between the Chinese Communist Party and equipment makers like Huawei.”

“I look forward to learning more about how Facebook ensured that information about their users was not sent to Chinese servers,” said Mr. Warner, the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee.

“All Facebook’s integrations with Huawei, Lenovo, Oppo and TCL were controlled from the get-go — and Facebook approved everything that was built,” said Francisco Varela, a Facebook vice president. “Given the interest from Congress, we wanted to make clear that all the information from these integrations with Huawei was stored on the device, not on Huawei’s servers.”

Banned in China since 2009, Facebook in recent years has quietly sought to re-establish itself there. The company’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, has tried to cultivate a relationship with China’s president, Xi Jinping, and put in an appearance at one of the country’s top universities.

Last year, Facebook released a photo-sharing app in China that was a near replica of its Moments app, but did not put its name on it. And the company has worked on a tool that allowed targeted censorship, prompting some employees to quit over the project.

Still, Facebook has struggled to gain momentum, and in January an executive in charge of courting China’s government left after spending three years on a charm campaign to get the social media service back in the country.

None of the Chinese device makers who have partnerships with Facebook responded to requests for comment on Tuesday.

Huawei, one of the largest smartphone manufacturers in the world, is a point of national pride for China and is at the vanguard of the country’s efforts to expand its influence abroad. The company was the recipient of billions of dollars in lines of credit from China’s state-owned policy banks, helping to fuel its overseas expansion in Africa, Europe and Latin America. Its founder, Ren Zhengfei, is a former engineer in the People’s Liberation Army.

The United States government has long regarded the company with suspicion, and lawmakers have recommended that American carriers avoid buying the network gear it makes. In January, AT&T walked away from a deal to sell a new Huawei smartphone, the Mate 10.

United States officials are investigating whether Huawei broke American trade controls by dealing with Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria. The Trump administration has taken aim at Huawei and its rival ZTE in recent weeks, and in April the Federal Communications Commission advanced a plan to bar federally subsidized telecom companies from using suppliers that are considered national security threats.

Facebook has not entered into a data-sharing agreement with ZTE, officials at the social network said.

TCL, a consumer electronics firm, has accused the Trump administration of bias against Chinese companies and last June dropped a bid to buy a San Diego-based company that makes routers and other hardware.

Lenovo, a maker of computers and other devices, recently shelved ambitions to acquire BlackBerry after the Canadian government signaled that such a deal could compromise national security.

[DougMacG]

Working from memory from my FTC days, using market dominance in one market to achieve advantage in another market is anti-competitive.

Yes, and it is a subjective, unevenly applied area of law.  Insert the word unfair in the above and what you describe very likely can be.

News article 2012: 
https://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/04/09/facebook-buys-instagram-for-1-billion/?mtrref=www.google.com&gwh=438B1C8F85FF12B13DDCF23828F172AF&gwt=pay

Who was President then?  This was approved WHY?  No one could see in 2012 that there might be a future monopolistic problem with Facebook?  Entering other markets is one thing but being allowed to eat up your competitors and potential competitors is the most anti-competitive business practice of all.

What about google then?  Dominant in search engines, should not have been allowed to enter email or develop an operating system for smartphones, buy and build cell phones, compete with Skype.  Oops, Microsoft bought SKype in 2011:  https://www.wired.com/2011/05/microsoft-buys-skype-2/
MICROSOFT BUYS SKYPE FOR $8.5 BILLION.

Which administration let THAT happen?  The party of government, make that crony government.  The party who thinks there is a role for government to regulate runaway capitalism was AWOL when it came to regulating their elitist buddies of massive powers.  And people wonder why Silicon Valley is Democrat?
----------------------
Back a few decades, it was widely rumored that Pitney Bowes propped up its competitors to avoid achieving 100% market share and being broken up in in the permanent and forever essential business of postage meters.  Times change.  Now we have young adults who have never mailed a letter.

[Crafty_Dog]

Back when I worked in the Anti-Trust division of the FTC (second summer law school) my primary case concerned the FTC looking to UNDO a merger-- i.e. to compel divestiture-- a really stupid idea in this case, asserting anti-competitive effects having to do with dominance in car batteries and windshield wipers if I remember correctly.

The relevant precedent (working from memory here) was a SCOTUS decision in a case in which Dupont had bought a paint company and the government sought to impose divestiture. A key question presented was whether the passage (DECADES in this case!!!)  of a lot of time estopped the government from seeking divestiture.  The answer was that it did not because "laches does not run against the government" with the government's right to seek divestiture being  based upon Section 7 of the Clayton Act.

Assuming this remains valid case law, the fact that the mergers/acquisitions in question went through does not block the government from subsequently insisting upon divestiture.

[DougMacG]

Back when I worked in the Anti-Trust division of the FTC (second summer law school) my primary case concerned the FTC looking to UNDO a merger-- i.e. to compel divestiture-- a really stupid idea in this case, asserting anti-competitive effects having to do with dominance in car batteries and windshield wipers if I remember correctly.

The relevant precedent (working from memory here) was a SCOTUS decision in a case in which Dupont had bought a paint company and the government sought to impose divestiture. A key question presented was whether the passage (DECADES in this case!!!)  of a lot of time estopped the government from seeking divestiture.  The answer was that it did not because "laches does not run against the government" with the government's right to seek divestiture being  based upon Section 7 of the Clayton Act.

Assuming this remains valid case law, the fact that the mergers/acquisitions in question went through does not block the government from subsequently insisting upon divestiture.

Very interesting.  I'm not sure if breaking up FB with Instagram in this case would have any real effect on the FB monopoly, but the business practice of eating up your potential competitors is anti-competitive by definition.  I can see a proper role for government here, with plenty of danger of going too far or making things worse.

In my tech background circles, people made hundreds of millions investing in start-up networking technology companies that got bought up by the giants, Cisco in one case, to not have the new technology brought to market.

[ccp]

"Back when I worked in the Anti-Trust division of the FTC "

A cousin of mine who would be about your age worked for the FTC as an attorney I think in the early 90's was based I think in Miami.

Would you have known someone in Miami?

[Crafty_Dog]

Summer of 1980 IIRC in Washington DC for me.

[Crafty_Dog]

http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2018/06/09/brownells-youtube-terminated/
http://www.recoilweb.com/brownells-youtube-channel-terminated-138180.html
https://www.dailywire.com/news/31698/youtube-shuts-down-firearms-parts-dealers-channel-james-barrett
http://www.breachbangclear.com/google-shuts-down-brownells-video-channel/
http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/20...publicity-youtube-restores-brownells-channel/
https://www.ammoland.com/2018/06/yo...minate-brownells-video-account/#axzz5IVtoaJKE
https://www.desmoinesregister.com/s...mporarily-blocks-gun-video-channel/690347002/
https://www.dailywire.com/news/31698/youtube-shuts-down-firearms-parts-dealers-channel-james-barrett

https://www.facebook.com/BrownellsI....128761.48772207991/10155675556837992/?type=3
https://www.facebook.com/BrownellsI...3741844.48772207991/10155678459977992/?type=3

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/06/tech-companies-antitrust-regulation-not-best-way-to-foster-competition/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NR%20Daily%20Monday%20through%20Friday%202018-06-11&utm_term=NR5PM%20Actives

[ccp]

https://pjmedia.com/trending/eric-holders-law-firm-launches-investigation-into-facebooks-anti-conservative-bias/

Ok Holder maybe not involved but who could trust this.

And Holder will not leak any findings or influence is some way?
He is one of the most political lawyers in the country

ONly Repubs could be so stupid ..........

[Crafty_Dog]

Hat tip GM

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/08/vdh-for-elizabeth-heng.php

[Crafty_Dog]

Second post

https://mailchi.mp/prageru/ji95s4o01m-449289?e=24192a6e80

[G M]

http://www.thediplomad.com/2018/08/conspiracies.html


Wednesday, August 8, 2018
Conspiracies!

I don't think I have ever read anything written by Alex Jones or listened to any of his broadcasts/podcasts. One of my sons finds him entertaining, and has on occasion told me about some one or another of Jones's "conspiracy" theories, e.g., the Sandy Hook shooting being a hoax--I ain't buying it. So, if Jones quietly had disappeared from our public discourse, I would have been among the last to realize it. But, of course, he has not just quietly disappeared. He has been "disappeared" by the combined might of Apple, Google, Twitter, YouTube, etc. Why? Well, it seems these massive American corporations, each of them with a net worth more than that of most nations' GDP, "suddenly" decided that Jones was spewing hate and unfounded conspiracy, so we, the world's public, had to be protected from that. What rubbish. What toxic rubbish.

The Jones ban forms part of a well-coordinated progressive assault on "unpopular" speech, in other words, one the first amendment of or Constitution. The ACLU, once the sterling knight who rode to the defense of the First Amendment, is rather muted about it all, only making a tepid remark. A conspiracy?

We hear progs throwing back in conservative faces the line, "Well, they are private companies, so . . . " Yes, they are indeed private companies . . . I wonder if that prog pro-property argument would hold if these tech giants also owned bakeries and refused to bake a cake for a gay wedding? Or refused to allow Muslims, blacks or hispanics access to their platforms? You know the answer.

I think we need some clever conservative lawyers to revisit the whole public accommodation argument that's been used to open up hotels, restaurants, etc., and expand the definition of a "public accommodation." I wonder if the progs would support that expansion of government power at the expense of the private sector?

Speaking of hateful conspiracies, the single most active one is the whole Russia Collusion narrative. Maybe it's time to shut down anybody pushing that factless nonsense? CNN, you're off the air!

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/02/opinion/the-expensive-education-of-mark-zuckerberg-and-silicon-valley.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fopinion&action=click&contentCollection=opinion&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=sectionfront

[ccp]

 "Here’s how I see it: Facebook, as well as Twitter and Google’s YouTube, have become the digital arms dealers of the modern age."

you mean when Obama used FB data to game the 2012 election ?

only now it needs to be front and center to delegitimize Trump.


"They have weaponized social media. They have weaponized the First Amendment. They have weaponized civic discourse. And they have weaponized, most of all, politics."

weaponize the first amendment?  you mean like the MSM does every day?

"I certainly did not see it coming, either, when I first met him, in the fall of 2005, although in hindsight the signs that he would get it really wrong were right there in front of me."

We on the Forum have been pointing this out for many years but since Z is a lib you didn't care.

[Crafty_Dog]

http://www.speroforum.com/a/ZKBQYSMIBE52/83824-YouTube-uses-WikiPedia-factchecks-to-overrule-climate-change-skeptics?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=HKFTYZDGVG4&utm_content=ZKBQYSMIBE52&utm_source=news&utm_term=YouTube+uses+WikiPedia+factchecks+to+overrule+climate+change+skeptics#.W2234nrcB2A

[ccp]

“Wikipedia can be edited by anyone at any moment.”

Yes and so who is going to factcheck Wikipedia?

I thought we were heading into the Golden Age of information .

Instead there is more and more propaganda and it is hard to discern who is telling the truth.  And those claiming to tell the truth
are like cons telling you they are honest. 

Saying one is honest doesn't make em so.

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2018/08/conservative-journalists-receive-warning-from-twitter-after-publishing-damning-articles-on-feinstein-and-crooked-hillary/

Note well the reference to the possible use of bots to trigger the review.  This may well be the coming tactic , ,  ,

[ccp]

"Apparently this triggered the left-wing attack machine, possibly with the help of bots to mass report his tweet."

I just looked up wikipedia for "bots" and this could refer to endless types with all different goals from getting into a computer to spying to altering ones data and many more functions.

Is there any oversight of this?

Who is monitoring and does ANYone know what exactly these bots are doing?

I suppose we are at the mercy of the companies.

With a known left winger at the helm we cannot trust this.

More from wikipedia:


"Detecting non-human Twitter users has been of interest to academics.[7][30] Indiana University has developed a free service called Botometer[31] (formerly BotOrNot), which scores Twitter handles based on their likelihood of being a Twitterbot.[32][33][34] One significant academic study estimated that up to 15% of Twitter users were automated bot accounts.[35][36] The prevalence of Twitter bots coupled with the ability of some bots to give seemingly human responses has enabled these non-human accounts to garner widespread influence.[37][38][39][40]
Political[edit]
A subset of Twitter bots programmed to complete social tasks played an important role in the United States 2016 Presidential Election.[41] Researchers estimated that pro-Trump bots generated four tweets for every pro-Clinton automated account and out-tweeted pro-Clinton bots 7:1 on relevant hashtags during the final debate. Deceiving Twitter bots fooled candidates and campaign staffers into retweeting misappropriated quotes and accounts affiliated with incendiary ideals.[42][43][44] Concerns about political Twitter bots include the promulgation of malicious content, increased polarization, and the spreading of fake news.[45][46] In the last few months of the 2016 election, Twitter bots operated by Russian agents retweeted Trump an estimated half a million times.[47]"

Ok so some academics are looking at this.  Of course since they are 90 % libs I am discouraged again as to the objectiveness of the above - notice it is all about the Russian thing.

I will try to search more when I have time to find out more about bots .

[ccp]

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/11/technology/youtube-fake-view-sellers.html

[G M]

https://pjmedia.com/vodkapundit/ap-report-google-knows-where-you-are-even-if-you-disable-tracking/

VODKAPUNDIT
AP Report: Google Knows Where You Are, Even If You Disable Tracking

 BY STEPHEN GREEN AUGUST 13, 2018

Private detective capturing a photo suspiciously from around a corner while using a retro camera

Don't be evil or whatevs.

In an exclusive report this morning, the AP says, "Google tracks your movements, like it or not." Their investigation found that "many Google services on Android devices and iPhones store your location data even if you’ve used privacy settings that say they will prevent it from doing so," and their findings were confirmed by computer-science researchers at Princeton.

According to the story, Google claims smartphone users can "pause" location tracking, or even "turn off Location History at any time," which promises that "the places you go are no longer stored."

AP says quite boldly "that isn't true," because even with Location History paused, "some Google apps automatically store time-stamped location data without asking." And of course all that data goes back to the Mothership in Menlo Park, CA. From there, your data goes... well, I suppose to goes to wherever Google chooses to send it -- your metadata is their data, bub.

None of which should surprise you in the least.

Google and Apple got into a tiff a while back, when Apple allowed iPhone and iPad owners to disable web tracking, but then Google started inserting browser code to do so anyway without the user's permission -- or knowledge.

Privacy should matter to you, even if you aren't planning on murdering anyone in Raleigh.

Let me explain, as briefly as I can.

Remember when we still went to the mall to shop? Picture yourself on a Saturday trip to the local mall -- one of the half-day trips where you start at the big anchor store on one end of the mall and slowly work your way down to the other anchor store on the other end.

While you're there you run into a helpful fellow named Java Script. It's a weird name and he's a weird guy. And when I say he's helpful, I don't mean he's helpful to you -- he's there at the behest of every store in the mall.

And what Java does is follow you around, and loudly announce to every employee what you look at, what you put in your shopping bag, what you put back, what you buy, how much you spent, and how long you spent on each activity. Sometimes he gets in your way to bother you with information about other stores at the mall, and what they're selling, and for how much. And you can't get rid of the guy. He shouts out everything you do, and stays so on top of you that a two-hour trip takes closer to three.

Maybe he waits outside the bathroom when you stop to pee -- maybe. If Mr. Script is working for Google, he probably follows you in there, too. Taking notes.

I told you he was weird.

Probably you haven't bought anything less innocuous than a couple of sport shirts, lunch at the food court, and a gift card for someone's birthday. But Java has been on your heels the whole time, telling everyone exactly what you're up to. Just how long did you linger in front of Victoria's Secret, anyway? All Vicky has to do is ask Java Script.

Actually she doesn't even need to ask.

Eventually, if you're a red-blooded American, you're going to want to punch him in the mouth.

You would never go shopping anywhere that had Mr. Java Script badgering you, yet that's exactly what shopping on the web is like. That's exactly what doing much of anything on the web is like: Constantly followed, tracked, your most personal information shared with every impersonal corporation. And with the government, too.

Everybody does it, but Google probably does it more, it certainly does it the most effectively, and as the AP reported today, Google doesn't give a damn about your feeble little efforts to enable privacy features.

Your phone is the ultimate spy because it's on your person almost all of the time, and it has GPS tracking built in. If you're an iPhone user, you don't have to install any Google apps. If you're an Android owner, the Google spyware is baked in.

About two years ago I swore off of all Google products. No Google or Google-owned apps on my phone, and no Google search or services like Gmail on my computers. Giving up Waze, the navigation app, was really hard -- like a lot of Google's products and services, it's the best in its class. But Google gave up on the whole "Don't be evil" thing before they even started, and it's also abundantly clear that the company's culture despises people who think like I do, and probably nearly every reader of PJMedia, too. So I'm happy to return the favor.

You should, too.

[Crafty_Dog]

So what do I do to keep my Iphone from spying on me?

PS:  Didn't GM start a thread about this sort of thing?

[G M]

So what do I do to keep my Iphone from spying on me?

PS:  Didn't GM start a thread about this sort of thing?

I sure did!

[Crafty_Dog]

Feel free to remind us of its name 

[ccp]

break the A -  F -  G stranglehold on the world's information ?

https://www.westernjournal.com/facebook-challenger-something-zuckerberg-offer-freedom/

[Crafty_Dog]

VERY intriguing!

What happens next with this?  What to look for?  How to take advantage of it/support it?

[ccp]

I don' t totally understand it but it seems like its growth is through referral and "token" rewards

intriguing (too good to be true) but it would sure be nice to break the "bare naked choke hold" the titans have on everyone in the world.  I am sick of them already . 
I resent them and they cannot be trusted with such power.  No one really can:

https://www.minds.com/

[G M]

Feel free to remind us of its name 

G M's guide to online privacy !

 

[DougMacG]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2018/08/16/google-staff-demand-transparency-censored-search-engine-plans/

[Crafty_Dog]

Opinion Commentary
A Better Way to Regulate Social Media
A multistakeholder ‘content congress’ could take account of everyone’s concerns.
By Danielle Tomson and
David Morar
Aug. 19, 2018 3:45 p.m. ET

You don’t have to be a fan of conspiracy theories to worry about the precedent Apple , YouTube and Facebook set by banning Alex Jones and Infowars.com. Mr. Jones complained that it was like “something out of ‘1984,’ ” as he does not know how to rebut Facebook’s decision. The company does not divulge how it makes these decisions, for fear that users would deliberately push boundaries.

Mr. Jones isn’t alone in being concerned with the seemingly authoritarian power of tech giants to decide what gets removed in an opaque content-moderation process. As de facto arbiters of speech and access to audiences, companies with such consolidated publishing power have unique responsibilities to be transparent with the public.

Instead of making decisions in private isolation, companies would do better by engaging one another and their users to shape content-moderation policies in a more transparent and consistent way. We propose a deliberative body, a “content congress,” where stakeholders—including companies, civil-society groups and even constituencies of end-users—could hash out best practices, air grievances, and offer rebuttals.

How would it work? Multistakeholder initiatives take varied forms, and we aren’t advocating for a specific one. We offer multistakeholderism because simple calls for government regulation or self-regulation are not enough—the public wants input. Such a body should not be a legally binding authority but an arena for transparent coordination, public representation and human engagement in an industry dominated by algorithms and machines. Companies want feedback; government wants more insight into decision-making; and people want to be heard.

The content congress should have issue-based working groups, which would proactively or reactively address complicated use cases. For instance, how do you address videos depicting unjust violence or death? Facebook faced backlash for censoring videos of police brutality that resulted in on-camera death posted by social-justice groups. How do you curb pornography, without censoring images of female breasts in instances of breastfeeding or health advocacy?

And what should the protocol be when social media stars inspire violent trolls among their followings? A content congress could facilitate a transparent process in handling Mr. Jones, whose fans harassed parents of Sandy Hook victims, or Milo Yiannopoulos, whose followers hacked actress Leslie Jones’s website and harassed her until she left Twitter . Given the public nature of a content congress, Messrs. Jones and Yiannpoulos would probably have a say too.

For private companies to be part of such a loose organization might sound strange, but there is a precedent. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, a nonprofit governance body, maintains the functions of the Domain Name System through multistakeholder decision-making. Early Internet advocates rejected direct government control and sought a more open and inclusive way to make policy; Icann, with its sometimes-slow or complex decision-making, was the answer. Stakeholders include businesses, nonprofits, activists and governments.

Another example is the Global Network Initiative, an international nonprofit dedicated to internet freedom and privacy rights. Drawing from the expertise of stakeholders ranging from the Harvard Berkman-Klein Center to the Committee to Protect Journalists, it helps companies like Facebook and Vodafone resist government requests to surveil or censor users and their communications.

Beyond tech, there are similar examples in the finance industry’s coordination to fix systemic issues and avoid disaster. Algorithmically enhanced trading once posed a threat to healthy financial markets in creating volatile high-frequency trading. Proactive self-regulation through the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority brought together industry stakeholders to come up with solutions, staving off disaster and more government regulation.

Multistakeholder initiatives can be complex or slow, but they are preferable to the current slew of black-box content-moderation practices, or to heavy-handed government regulation. Many communities online—left, right and center—have experienced the arbitrary decision-making of powerful content platforms. These frustrated communities are starting to call their representatives to demand government action.

Companies would do well to be proactive by engaging each other and stakeholders in solution-making before government or courts step in. Recently, key industry players have expressed willingness to collectively discuss their content moderation practices in a more open forum. This participation is a signal of goodwill and an opportunity to create a sustainable, innovative multistakeholder body within the industry.

Ms. Tomson is director of the Personal Democracy Forum. Mr. Morar recently received his doctorate from George Mason University’s Schar School.

[G M]

http://ace.mu.nu/archives/376849.php

August 31, 2018
Lee Smith: FaceBook, Google, and Twitter are Not Platforms But Publishers and Should, Therefore, Not Have the Special Protections for Neutral Platforms in the Communications Decency Act
His article was recently flagged by FaceBook as "spam," as so many articles written by conservative-leaning journalists are these days.

And he has some thoughts.


View image on Twitter
View image on Twitter

Lee Smith
@LeeSmithDC
 Can you see it ⁦@ragipsoylu⁩ ?

11:51 AM - Aug 31, 2018
33
39 people are talking about this
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Lee Smith
@LeeSmithDC
 I'll say something about social media & publishing. I don't believe FB or Twitter or any platform is obliged to let me post. But if they're making editorial decisions, then they should not enjoy exemptions of CDA Section 230 but rather face same liabilties as publishers 1/

Lee Smith
@LeeSmithDC
Can you see it ⁦@ragipsoylu⁩ ?

View image on Twitter
12:07 PM - Aug 31, 2018
271
165 people are talking about this
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Lee Smith
@LeeSmithDC
 Right now they are disguising their roles as publishers by employing euphemisms like "community standards," rather than being forced to acknowledge they are in fact making editorial decisions. 2/

Lee Smith
@LeeSmithDC
I'll say something about social media & publishing. I don't believe FB or Twitter or any platform is obliged to let me post. But if they're making editorial decisions, then they should not enjoy exemptions of CDA Section 230 but rather face same liabilties as publishers 1/ https://twitter.com/LeeSmithDC/status/1035601032146046976 …

12:09 PM - Aug 31, 2018
159
111 people are talking about this
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Lee Smith
@LeeSmithDC
 They are immensely powerful publishers—with FN worth roughly 100x more than @nytimes, and swallowed up digital ads that were supposed to keep legacy media whole. Result is prestige media brands, like NYT etc, are nothing more than blogs published on FB etc. 3/

Lee Smith
@LeeSmithDC
Right now they are disguising their roles as publishers by employing euphemisms like "community standards," rather than being forced to acknowledge they are in fact making editorial decisions. 2/ https://twitter.com/LeeSmithDC/status/1035604888582012929 …

12:12 PM - Aug 31, 2018
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By "FN" he meant "FB," or FaceBook, of course.


Lee Smith
@LeeSmithDC
 Financial collapse of press led to its ethical & professional collapse as well. Two generations of media experience & expertise wiped out since rise of internet is a major reason why media is so reckless now—not enough people to say, eg., "Hey kids, Russiagate is a hoax." 4/

Lee Smith
@LeeSmithDC
They are immensely powerful publishers—with FN worth roughly 100x more than @nytimes, and swallowed up digital ads that were supposed to keep legacy media whole. Result is prestige media brands, like NYT etc, are nothing more than blogs published on FB etc. 3/ https://twitter.com/LeeSmithDC/status/1035605575059628033 …

12:16 PM - Aug 31, 2018
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Lee Smith
@LeeSmithDC
 This is why it's bizarre to see journalists of all people defend 'deplatforming' when it is only by making social media platforms accountable like all other publishers that there is any chance at all to protect a vital American institution—our free press. 5/

Lee Smith
@LeeSmithDC
Financial collapse of press led to its ethical & professional collapse as well. Two generations of media experience & expertise wiped out since rise of internet is a major reason why media is so reckless now—not enough people to say, eg., "Hey kids, Russiagate is a hoax." 4/ https://twitter.com/LeeSmithDC/status/1035606261541298177 …

12:20 PM - Aug 31, 2018
32
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Lee Smith
@LeeSmithDC
 That journalists are not "resisting" dangers of social media exemptions & demanding laws written during days of dialup connex but are rather vying to become courtiers in tech oligarch's retinues is evidence of profound cynicsm. That's partly where Russiagate hoax comes from END

Lee Smith
@LeeSmithDC
This is why it's bizarre to see journalists of all people defend 'deplatforming' when it is only by making social media platforms accountable like all other publishers that there is any chance at all to protect a vital American institution—our free press. 5/ https://twitter.com/LeeSmithDC/status/1035607396863959040 …

12:25 PM - Aug 31, 2018
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Meanwhile, someone posted a clearly threatening meme on Twitter -- a picture of someone pointing a gun at a grieving Meghan McCain, with the caption "This one's for you" -- and it took more than a day of lobbying by her husband to convince Twitter to overrule its leftwing SJW low-level Censorship Squads and categorize it correctly as threatening.

View image on Twitter
View image on Twitter

MediaResearchCenter
✔
@theMRC
 Users Blast Twitter For Not Addressing Photoshopped Image of a Gun Aimed at Meghan McCain http://ow.ly/hdvd101evP2

8:15 AM - Aug 31, 2018
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That also just happened with Dana Loesch, of course.

Given that Twitter and FaceBook have a hair-trigger response to anything said by someone on the right, but permit leftwingers to threaten to kill people and their children as well, how can these billion dollar corporations claim that they are neutral platforms rather than biased publishers picking and choosing what appears on their media sites?

And how can they claim to the protections of s. 230 of the Communications Decency Act which only provides safe harbor for disinterested platforms, not interested-and-opinionated publishers?

Dana Loesch and Meghan McCain should have the right to sue Twitter for being a willing, knowing facilitator of threats and intentional emotional distress. They are choosing to allow threats against conservatives because they like such threats.

Therefore, they should not have the immunity a neutral platform does.

Don't expect any help from this from the Corporate Republican Political Class, however, as almost all of them are bought off and have already decided to sell your ass down the river to keep the Big Tech "lobbying" (bribe) money coming.

Meanwhile, the Corporate Owned NeverTrump, Inc. faction wonders why people actually support Trump:

View image on Twitter
View image on Twitter

Fox News
✔
@FoxNews
 .@POTUS: "We will not let large corporations silence conservative voices."

6:29 PM - Aug 30, 2018
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Trump: Google, FaceBook, and Amazon in a "very antitrust situation."

President Donald Trump warned Google, Facebook, and Amazon that they are in a "very antitrust situation" in an interview Thursday, stopping short of saying he'd break them up.
...

Trump added that "conservatives have been treated very unfairly" by Google, which is owned by Alphabet. "I tell you there are some moments where we say, 'Wow that really is bad, what they’re doing.'"

The president has been stepping up his attacks on tech giants like Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Twitter the past few weeks for their censorship of conservatives, saying Aug. 20 that it's "very dangerous".

[DougMacG]

WSJ weekend interview is George Gilder:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/sage-against-the-machine-1535747443

[Crafty_Dog]

Tucker Carlson tonight was a special episode dedicated to the Goolag.

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/08/social-media-companies-made-mistakes-censorship-wont-fix/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NR%20Daily%20Saturday%202018-08-25&utm_term=NR5PM%20Actives

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.bloombergquint.com/business/2018/08/30/google-and-mastercard-cut-a-secret-ad-deal-to-track-retail-sales#gs.geGQ0vM

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=5&v=f9_o42QaVnA

[Crafty_Dog]

second post

http://thehill.com/policy/technology/405177-justice-to-convene-meeting-on-whether-social-media-companies-are?userid=188403

[Crafty_Dog]

Big Tech in the Dock
The companies are tempting government intervention.
128 Comments
By The Editorial Board
Sept. 5, 2018 7:44 p.m. ET


Twitter and Facebook executives were grilled on Capitol Hill Wednesday, amid the growing debate over political bias in social media and search. The tech giants say they don’t intentionally suppress conservatives, and perhaps that’s true. But their nonchalance risks alienating users—and government intervention.

Complaints about anti-conservative bias by tech platforms have been growing for some time. While the evidence is mostly anecdotal, the seemingly synchronized and vaguely justified decisions by Apple , Facebook and Google to ban right-wing fabulist Alex Jones’s Infowars in August for “hate speech” raised more doubts about their purported neutrality.

President Trump belly-flopped in as usual on Twitter. “They have it RIGGED,” he tweeted last week. “Google & others are suppressing voices of Conservatives and hiding information and news that is good. They are controlling what we can & cannot see. This is a very serious situation-will be addressed!” Mr. Trump warned later at the White House that tech companies are “treading on very, very troubling territory” and had “better be careful.”

White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow then said the Administration will investigate the tech giants, and on Wednesday The Journal reported the Justice Department will examine whether the social-media giants are “intentionally stifling” certain viewpoints.
***

Consider conservative radio host Dennis Prager, whose “PragerU” educational videos on topics such as “Did Bush Lie About Iraq?” and “Is America Racist?” have been restricted by Google’s YouTube unit. None of the 50 or so censored videos included violent, sexually explicit or hateful content that violated Google’s Community Guidelines.

YouTube’s algorithms and “community” of users can flag videos as objectionable, but Google guidelines require an internal review team to remove them. So Google employees ostensibly had to have agreed. PragerU has sued Google and claims in its lawsuit that YouTube “declined to provide any explanation for why the videos were restricted or demonetized because they purportedly ‘can’t share more details about our review process, as doing so could benefit channels that do not play by the rules (those who game the system).’”

Conservative Doug Wead recently complained on The Federalist website that Google barred him from buying an ad to promote a Fox Business interview. He says a Google employee told him the crawler along the bottom of the video, which quoted Mr. Trump calling the Mueller investigation a “witch hunt,” was hate speech.

Google has a serious problem if its employees can’t distinguish news and opinion from hate speech. Infowars may have deserved to be banned, but the ill-defined justifications offered by the tech companies have unsettled even many conservatives who disdain Mr. Jones but worry that they could be next. This has allowed Mr. Jones to pose as a free-speech martyr, which he isn’t.

Some conservatives also say their content is being discriminated against in Google News and search. Google says its algorithms aren’t politically biased and incorporate dozens of variables, some of which are based on location and may change by the hour. Thus it would be difficult to prove its algorithms discriminate since each user’s experience is unique.

Most discrimination is also likely to be incidental—for instance, favoring sites with the most clicks and links, which may be liberal outlets that don’t charge for content. But this underscores the bigger problem, which is that social media and search platforms wield significant influence over public debate, yet their editorial judgments are opaque and often arbitrary.

Google controls 90% of all search. When accused of bias, it hides behind automated and non-transparent algorithms. Look, Ma, no hands! All the while its employees exercise significant control over what users see and don’t see. According to the PragerU lawsuit, human reviewers appear to enjoy carte blanche to block flagged content.

Facebook and Google also control 60% of digital ad revenues, and both have used their market dominance to undercut competitors. Facebook has blocked publishers from promoting their content on its news stream by tagging the ads as political.
***

In 2012 Federal Trade Commission staff issued a report recommending a lawsuit against Google for anti-competitive conduct. The commission led by Obama appointee Jon Leibowitz voted against a lawsuit, but Google’s competitors have continued to grouse about predatory practices.

Meantime, fury on the political left and right is converging and amplifying demands for government action. Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley last year launched an investigation into Google’s business practices, and other states may follow. Democratic Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia has proposed stripping platforms of some of their legal protection for user-generated content under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Senator Ted Cruz has said the predicate for Section 230 immunity is “you’re a neutral public forum.”

The Trump FTC has said it will reopen the agency’s probe of Big Tech. The commission could hamstring the monopolists with regulation—perhaps appointing government monitors to oversee content reviews—and watch out if Elizabeth Warren is elected President.

Then there’s the private litigation threat. PragerU’s charge that Google violated its free-speech rights is unlikely to prevail in court because Google isn’t the government and can choose to exclude certain content under the law. But claims that Google engaged in unfair business practices by violating its own terms and conditions are stronger.

Count us among the skeptics that government has an answer to this, and we don’t need an Internet version of the Fairness Doctrine (1949-1987). But history shows that Americans will eventually ask politicians to rein in businesses that appear to be unaccountable. The lords of Big Tech will pay a price if they create the perception that they are the censorship arm of the political left.

[ccp]

Google 90% donate to crats

https://www.spartareport.com/2018/09/shock-overwhelming-majority-of-google-employees-donate-to-democrats/

ethnic make up :

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/37-percent-of-silicon-valley-foreign-born

foreigners in Silicon Vallery:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/311810/google-employee-ethnicity-us/

[ccp]

https://www.conservativebookclub.com/book/life-after-google-blockchain-economy