Leftovers

• [Repeat] Tedium ☛ Friday Night Death Slot History: A Broadcasting No-Man’s Land

  Judy Lynn Benjamin, the editor of Galaxy magazine, a science-fiction title, was one of the first to make this association between Friday evenings and low ratings among the public on January 28, 1968, in an interview with The Kansas City Star. The subject? Star Trek, the most infamous example of a television show treated poorly by its network. She suggested that the reason the show was performing poorly was because it aired on Friday evenings in its second season. She described the reason for this as such:

  "Friday night is a bad night and the time period is a very bad hour. Most of the audience is made up of teenagers and young adults and when do they go out? Friday night!"

  Hard to argue with that. But it didn’t help that, in its third season, the network pushed the show to the 10 p.m. Friday hour, an hour that ensured that the kids that generally watched the show were probably already in bed.

• Education

  • Hindustan Times ☛ Donald Trump shares plan to shutdown Education Department in US, Kamala Harris campaign responds

    The Harris campaign swiftly responded to former President Donald Trump’s remarks about shutting down the Education Department in United States, amplifying the clip across social media. This move aligns with the campaign’s broader strategy to connect Trump’s proposal to the conservative policy agenda outlined in Project 2025.

  • Hazel Russman ☛ The end of reason

    But as the meeting continued, I felt more and more that I had fallen down some sort of rabbit hole into a lost world, one that had once been very familiar but which now seemed strange and haunted by an almost unbearable nostalgia. Everyone present simply took it for granted that there was such a thing as truth, not “my truth” but the truth. And everyone took it for granted that rational argument was the way to find that truth, and that you could identify and challenge weaknesses in an opponent’s argument without having to impugn his motives. No one pointed out snidely that Dawkins was a white cis male or that one of his ancestors might have been involved in administering some part of the British Empire. In fact most of those present would have considered an ad hominem attack of that sort as unacceptable in a civilised debate.

    Now I am not suggesting that people were arguing in that objective way simply because they were Christians. It would be nice to believe that, but I’m pretty sure that if Professor Dawkins had been present, he would have been arguing his case against us in precisely the same way as we argued against him. He too belongs to that same lost world, because the world that we are increasingly forced to live in is alien to Christians and traditional atheists alike. I can conclude this with some confidence because I have recently heard Dawkins vigorously defending (or attempting to defend) the claims of science and rationality against opponents who clearly did not get the point. They thought that being women or having some kind of non-white background gave them access to an alternative version of reality that automatically trumped his.

    The problem is that most of the younger generation accept this kind of arrant nonsense as totally valid. A lot of them pick it up at university, since it appears to be common in academic circles. It is also widespread on the BBC and in other mainstream media, and of course online. Anyone who dares to challenge it is liable to be deluged with hate, often expressed in a complex Orwellian jargon in which everything means the opposite of what it says. I have complained about this sort of wokery in some of my other blogs and I think there is little to be gained by repeating the accusations. Everyone knows by now that we are in the midst of a full-blown culture war, one that reason seems to be losing by the day.

  • Matthias Endler ☛ How To Sell To Developers

    One of the hardest challenges I know is how to sell to developers.

    This is NOT an article for developers. Today, I want to write for non-developers whose job it is to sell to developers. My goal is to help you understand how they think.

• Hardware

  • Hackaday ☛ A Simple Portable PS4 Build

    Building a portable console is hard, right? You have to do lots of wiring, maybe trim a few PCBs, and learn all about the finer points of high-end motherboard design! Or, you could keep it simple. That’s just what [Francesco6n] did when he built this portable PS4.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-08-05 [Older] Novartis, Viatris Face New Lawsuit Over 'HeLa' Cell Misuse Claims

  • “Lab leak” is now very much like antivax in its harms to public health

    “Lab leak,” or the hypothesis that SARS-CoV-2 (the coronavirus that causes COVID-19) arose and escaped from a virology lab, has been a frequent topic on SBM since very early in the pandemic (January 2020, actually), for obvious reasons. After all,  every outbreak or pandemic of a new pathogen over the last several decades had spawned conspiracy theories that the pathogen was a “bioweapon” that had escaped (or been intentionally released from) a laboratory, a list that included HIV/AIDS, Ebola, and H1N1. For instance, there was a major conspiracy theory about HIV/AIDS that involved its creation at Fort Detrick when scientists supposedly spliced together two other viruses, Visna and HTLV-1 and then tested on prison inmates. (Interestingly, this turned out to be a Russian propaganda operation codename Operation INFEKTION designed to blame the AIDS pandemic on the US biological warfare program.) So it was completely predictable that similar conspiracy theories would emerge about COVID-19. Despite the paucity of scientific evidence in support of lab leak in the virology community, it has emerged as the most popular explanation for COVID-19 on social media and even in the mainstream press, particularly in, but nowhere near limited to, right wing sources. In the context of that history, I was very interested to come across a commentary in the Journal of Virology by James Alwine and 40 other authors entitled The harms of promoting the lab leak hypothesis for SARS-CoV-2 origins without evidence. In the lay press, there was also an article in STAT news by John P. Moore, one of the co-authors of the Journal of Virology commentary, entitled The coronavirus lab leak hypothesis is damaging science.

  • The Walrus ☛ The Walrus Talks at Home: Teens and Screens

    Recently, the ubiquity of social media and tech in the lives of young people has been coming under intense scrutiny. Youth mental health indicators have been in sharp decline at the same time as children, adolescents, and young adults have increasingly become hooked on devices.

• Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)

  • TechEconomy.ng ☛ TikTok Reportedly Cuts Jobs in Africa

    TikTok has reportedly laid off employees across its African divisions in its quest for global restructuring, leading to a downsizing initiative.

  • Matt Cool ☛ Running Llamafile on RP5

    I wanted to see if I could run llamafile, which lets you distribute and run LLMs with a single file, on a Raspberry Pi 5. I hope I can use my own custom front-end to interact with the model in different ways. I have a few ideas but want to see if I can get it running first.

  • Drew Breunig ☛ How to Build a Bigger Bubble

    Last week, on the heels of both Elliott and Goldman Sachs suggesting AI is likely a bubble, Casey Newton wrote a nice piece listing arguments why AI is (or may not be!) a bubble.

    This recent vibe shift has many strong arguments for why AI might be a bubble, but none adequately address the how.

    On its own, AI would have generated significant froth. ChatGPT’s stunning arrival on the scene woke up the general public and investors to the potential of LLMs, triggering major investments. But there’s another dynamic, which I haven’t seen written up explicitly, that I suspect is amplifying the size of this bubble.

    But first: I’m not a financial expert, this article isn’t financial advice, and I could be wrong! If you think so, please tell me why.

    With that out of the way, here’s my recipe for creating a supersized AI bubble:

  • NYOB ☛ Twitter’s AI plans hit with 9 more GDPR complaints

    Recently, Twitter International (now re-branded as “X”) began unlawfully using the personal data of more than 60 million users in the EU/EEA to train its AI technologies (like "Grok") without their consent. Unlike Meta (which recently also had to stop AI training in the EU), Twitter did not even inform its users in advance. This went too far even for the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC): Last week, it launched court proceedings against Twitter to stop the illegal processing, but the Irish DPC seems to have stopped short of fully enforcing the GDPR. noyb now follows up with nine complaints.

• Security

  • Integrity/Availability/Authenticity

    • IT Wire ☛ Who knew? Domain hijacking is so easy

      In a Sitting Ducks attack, the actor hijacks a currently registered domain at an authoritative DNS service or web hosting provider without accessing the true owner’s account at either the DNS provider or registrar. Once the actor has control of the domain, they can conduct any form of malicious activity under the guise of the legitimate owner. This includes malware delivery, phishing campaigns, brand impersonation and data exfiltration. Exploitable domains are not rare; we estimate that over a million domains are exploitable on any given day and we have identified multiple methods to identify vulnerable domains.

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • Techdirt ☛ UN Delegates Cheer As They Vote To Approve Increased Surveillance Via Russia-Backed Cybercrime Treaty

      For years now, the UN has been trying to strike a deal on a “Cybercrime Treaty.” As with nearly every attempt by the UN to craft treaties around internet regulation, it’s been a total mess. The concept, enabling countries to have agreed upon standards to fight cybercrime, may seem laudable. But when it’s driven by countries that have extremely different definitions of “crime,” it becomes problematic. Especially if part of the treaty is enabling one country to demand another reveal private information about someone they accuse of engaging in a very, very broadly defined “cybercrime.”

      The UN structure means that the final decision-makers are nation-states, and other stakeholders have way less say in the process.

      And, on Thursday, those nation-states unanimously approved it, ignoring the concerns of many stakeholders.

    • Security Week ☛ The UN Is Moving to Fight Cybercrime but Privacy Groups Say Human Rights Will Be Violated

      A global deal on the criminal use of computer technology is moving ahead despite worries it will let governments around the world violate human rights by probing electronic communications and bypassing privacy safeguards.

    • NYOB ☛ noyb takes Swedish DPA to court for refusing to properly deal with complaints

      Contrary to EU law, the Swedish Data Protection Authority (IMY) regularly refuses to properly handle complaints from data subjects. Even after a ruling by the Supreme Administrative Court of Sweden, the IMY frequently just forwards a complaint to the company that illegally processes personal data - and then immediately closes the case without investigating. However, the GDPR clearly stipulates that authorities must not only process each and every complaint, but also remedy the situation. noyb is now taking the IMY to court to ensure that it finally complies with its obligations.

    • Privacy International ☛ PI delivers oral intervention to UN Committee on the impact of the use of data & tech on the rights of persons with disabilities.

      On 11 August 2024, PI delivered an oral statement during the 31st Session of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities on the impact of the use of data and technology on the rights of persons with disabilities. We highlighted concerns about three key issues:

• Defence/Aggression

  • France24 ☛ More than 700 migrants cross the Channel to Britain in a single day

    More than 700 migrants crossed the Channel to Britain in small boats on Sunday, the highest number arriving on a single day since Prime Minister Keir Starmer took power vowing to tackle people-smugglers.

  • TMZ ☛ Taylor Swift Wembley Concerts Using Counterterrorism Security Forces

    We're told the private security force will also be deployed because of ongoing London riots that are placing a major strain on local police.

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-08-05 [Older] German court finds teen guilty in school shooting

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-08-05 [Older] Indonesia: Separatists murder New Zealand pilot in Papua

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-08-09 [Older] US to Lift Ban on Offensive Weapons Sales to Saudi Arabia

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-08-05 [Older] Jordan Says It Foiled Drug Smuggling Attempt From Syria

  • Pro Publica ☛ Rural Tennessee County Takes New Approach to Domestic Violence Cases

    Before rural Scott County remade itself into a model for managing domestic violence, Jade Peters didn’t know where to turn for help. Her ex-boyfriend was stalking her and threatened to kill other men who talked to her.

    She knew he had a gun, but so did many people in Scott County, and she didn’t think the justice system would take her seriously.

  • Site36 ☛ Mannheim officer pressures solidarity group to remain silent about fatal police violence

    Ante P. died in the German city of Mannheim under the knee of a police officer, whose colleague looked on.

• Transparency/Investigative Reporting

  • Jacobin Magazine ☛ How Two Leftist Scholars Saved Nietzsche’s Archive

    This story is the focus Felsch’s book — and it’s also one of the more baffling episodes in the history of philosophy. We only have access to the full archive of Nietzsche’s writing thanks to the work of two Italian scholars, Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari. Both were committed to uncovering the “real” Nietzsche, against his reputation in postwar Europe as an intellectual proto-Nazi whose thinking was believed to lead straight to the gas chambers. They possessed almost no qualification for the task, and neither was an archivist. However, both were committed anti-fascists, and Montinari was a communist.

  • El País ☛ It’s not just you who’s seeing too many Elon Musk tweets

    Elon Musk calls himself a “free speech absolutist.” But it is not true that X is now more neutral: some posts are amplified to huge audiences (Musk’s, for one) and others are not. Everything is less transparent than ever, because Musk has prevented academic researchers from accessing the platform’s data, as they were able to before. The entrepreneur did not hesitate to block the accounts of serious journalists who reported on the company and, in particular, on the flight of major advertisers, a phenomenon that has meant that X users now mostly see advertisements for financial scams or cryptocurrencies.

• Environment

  • Modern Diplomacy ☛ 2024-08-04 [Older] Global Solidarity and Cosmopolitanism in the Climate Crisis: Insights from Fridays for Future Germany

  • Bridge Michigan ☛ 2024-08-05 [Older] Opinion | Michigan's climate lawsuit will backfire

  • Vox ☛ 2024-08-05 [Older] The crucial first step in preparing for a climate disaster

  • Gizmodo ☛ 2024-08-05 [Older] What Americans Knew About Climate Change in the 1960s Will Shock You

  • NL Times ☛ 2024-08-06 [Older] Scientists worldwide very worried about climate change, Amsterdam study shows

  • CBC ☛ 2024-08-06 [Older] Nova Scotia's rivers still suffer from acid rain. Restoring them could also help the climate

  • The Revelator ☛ Seattle’s Sustainability Director on Successes, Failures, and Lessons for Other Cities

  • EcoWatch ☛ Researchers Develop Method to Track Forever Chemicals to Their Source

    Although the molecular bonds are strong enough to remain in the environment long-term, they are difficult to trace through conventional methods that rely on breaking molecules apart with a mass spectrometer.

    In response, researchers developed a different chemical fingerprinting method for forever chemicals, in part using a method known as nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, to find the isotopes in a compound without breaking apart the strong covalent bonds. They published their findings in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.

  • Energy/Transportation

    • Meduza ☛ Moscow and Kyiv blame each other after fire breaks out at Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant — Meduza

    • DeSmog ☛ Meta and Koch Industries to Sponsor Event Featuring Climate Denier Barry Cooper

    • Pro Publica ☛ Badger Mountain Project Paused Amid Concern About Native Cultural Sites

      A company developing an industrial-scale solar panel array on Badger Mountain in Eastern Washington has paused permitting activities on the project amid concerns about impacts to Indigenous cultural sites.

      The decision comes on the heels of an investigation by High Country News and ProPublica this year, which found that a land survey funded by the developer, Avangrid Renewables, had omitted more than a dozen sites of archaeological or cultural significance on the public parcel included in the project area. This survey is required by the state before it can permit the project so construction can begin.

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-08-06 [Older] The Small Business Administration Expands Clean Energy Loan Program

    • Counter Punch ☛ 2024-08-09 [Older] The 20 Best Energy Films: From Gritty Carbon-Spewing Potboilers to Nuclear Reactor Catastrophes

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-08-07 [Older] New England's Largest Energy Storage Facility to Be Built on Former Mill Site in Maine

    • TruthOut ☛ 2024-08-11 [Older] In Rural Hawaii, Community Solar Project Offers Path to Energy Sovereignty

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-08-10 [Older] New President Reinstates Eslami as Head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation, State Media Says

    • Energy Mix Productions Inc ☛ Wind and Solar Overtake Fossil Fuels in ‘Historic Shift’ for EU

      Fossil fuels generated 17% less in the first half of 2024 compared to the same period in 2023, Ember writes. Coal fell by a quarter and gas by 14, even as demand rebounded by 0.7% after two years of decline.

      Meanwhile, “wind and solar overtook EU fossil generation for the first time.” Together, the two renewable sources generated 30% of the EU’s electricity in the first half of 2024, compared to 27% from fossil fuels.

      “We are witnessing a historic shift and it is happening rapidly,” Rosslowe added. “If [EU] Member States can keep up momentum on wind and solar deployment, then freedom from fossil power reliance will truly start to come into view.”

    • PC World ☛ The Energy Star rating for laptops, explained

      You can read the fine print for yourself in version 8.0 of the Computer Energy Star specifications, which explains that any product that sports the Energy Star rating must be tested at an approved EPA-recognized laboratory and must adhere to strict standards of hazardous material usage (including but not limited to maximum thresholds for mercury, cadmium, and lead, among other materials). The Energy Star rating also demands that a product be more readily recyclable, with ease of disassembly being paramount.

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • BIA Net ☛ 2024-08-07 [Older] Allegations of mass dog killings in Turkey's Niğde following new stray dog law

    • VOA News ☛ Conservationists say large-tusked elephants on Kenya-Tanzania border are endangered

      "This is bigger than Kenya, this is bigger than Tanzania. It's actually a global issue because elephants cannot speak for themselves. We as the people of the world have to speak for these elephants. They cannot go to court; they cannot go to the east African court," she said.

      In March, Tanzanian authorities issued controversial hunting permits for the large-tusked elephants, known as “super tuskers,” in the greater Amboseli-West Kilimanjaro border area.

    • EcoWatch ☛ This World Elephant Day, Conservationists Ask Tanzania to Stop Allowing Trophy Hunting

      Today is World Elephant Day, and conservationists have petitioned Tanzania to stop issuing permits for the trophy hunting of the gentle and intelligent pachyderms.

      Wild African elephants — including the “super-tuskers” who are hunted for their ivory tusks — roam freely across the border into Tanzania from Kenya’s Amboseli National Park, where their vast herds are protected from poachers.

    • Smithsonian Magazine ☛ 15 Playful and Powerful Photos to Celebrate World Elephant Day

      August 12 is World Elephant Day, which has been celebrated since 2012 as a time to support elephant conservation and raise awareness about their plight. Some of the world’s most recognizable animals, with their distinct ears, protruding tusks and large trunks, wild elephants are most often found in the savannas and deserts of Africa and Asia. However, climate change and the ivory trade have threatened their homelands and decreased their numbers.

    • Deccan Chronicle ☛ Surekha Calls for Elephant Habitat Protection to Reduce Conflict

      In her address at the International Conference on Human Elephant Conflict Management in Bengaluru on Monday, World Elephant Day, Surekha said pressure on habitat was forcing the animals into areas outside of their natural forest homes in search of food and water. Steps should be taken to ensure both are available within forests for the elephants, she said.

  • Overpopulation

    • Truthdig ☛ Happy 'Earth Overshoot Day'

      Since the early 2000s, the nonprofit Global Footprint Network has calculated what it calls “Earth Overshoot Day,” the date on which we outstrip our resources each year. At present, human society consumes resources at a rate that would take 1.75 Earths to sustain. So, from Aug. 1 of this year onward, everything we consume adds to our collective debt. In the language of ecological economists: We’re in overshoot.

• Finance/Fraud

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-08-09 [Older] US Charges Former Syria Prison Chief With Immigration Fraud

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-08-05 [Older] Vietnam: Billionaire tycoon gets 21-year sentence for fraud

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-08-05 [Older] Japan's Nikkei sees biggest tumble since 1987 crash

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • The Independent UK ☛ Trump wanted Elon Musk to give him a reset — he didn’t get one

    It was not the first time Trump exhibited difficulties with his speech. There were numerous supercuts of verbal miscues and slurred words compiled by late-night comedians during his time in the White House, but this was no transitory episode.

    He spent the entire conversation with Musk speaking in a voice that sounded like Sylvester, the lisping cartoon cat of Looney Tunes fame.

  • The Guardian UK ☛ Labour MPs begin quitting X over ‘hate and disinformation’

    Two Labour MPs are known to have told colleagues they were leaving the platform. One of them, Noah Law, has disabled his account. Other MPs who still use X have begun examining alternatives, including Threads, which is owned by Facebook’s parent company, Meta, and the open-source [sic] platform Bluesky.

  • The Washington Post ☛ Trump, Elon Musk talk about Harris, climate change in X interview

    Musk billed the conversation with Trump as “unscripted with no limits on subject matter.” But during much of the discussion, he focused on comfortable topics for Trump, such as undocumented immigration. He also allowed the former president to deliver his preferred talking points and a stream of false statements, giving the chat some of the hallmarks of Trump’s signature campaign rallies.

  • The Hill ☛ EU sends warning letter to Elon Musk ahead of Donald Trump interview

    The European Union sent a warning letter to X owner Elon Musk on Monday reminding him of the bloc’s rules against promoting “harmful content” ahead of the billionaire tech mogul’s interview with former President Trump on the social platform.

  • The Washington Post ☛ Musk using X feed as megaphone for his far-right politics

    To quantify the shift in Musk’s X feed, The Post analyzed tweets that contained at least seven words and were not reposts. The analysis classified the posts as related to politics, Tesla, Twitter (now X) or SpaceX based on keywords, but did not categorize as politics some of Musk’s posts that relate obliquely to the topic. The analysis found that his posts about Tesla, Twitter and SpaceX taken together dropped from 31 percent of his feed in 2021 to 21 percent this year. His posts about Twitter increased from 1 percent in 2021 before he purchased the company to 8 percent so far this year, while Tesla and SpaceX posts together dropped from 30 percent to 13 percent during that time.

  • The Hill ☛ Elon Musk's political posts jump to 17% of his X feed this year: WaPo

    Musk is the most followed user on X, with more than 193 million followers. X has controversially served his posts to users algorithmically, garnering complaints from those attempting to avoid posts by the site’s owner.

  • European Commission ☛ European Digital Identity Wallets – integrity and core functionalities

    Feedback period: 12 August 2024 - 09 September 2024 [...]

    This is one of four initiatives on the main set-up of the European Digital Identity Wallets. It aims to lay down rules to ensure that Member States provide wallets that are interoperable and can be used for all their intended purposes.

    For example, the wallets should enable:

    secure online cross-border identification for a wide range of public and private services;
    • sharing of electronic attestations; and
    • issuance of electronic signatures.

  • European Commission ☛ European Digital Identity Wallets – person identification data and electronic attestations of attributes

    Feedback period: 12 August 2024 - 09 September 2024 [...]

    This initiative is one of four initiatives on the main set-up of the European Digital Identity Wallets.

    It aims to ensure the smooth lifecycle management of both personal identification data and electronic attestations, covering issuance, verification, revocation and suspension. This guarantees that users’ personal identification data and electronic attestations are issued to the wallet and can be disclosed to relevant parties.

  • European Commission ☛ European Digital Identity Wallets – protocols and interfaces to be supported

    Feedback period: 12 August 2024 - 09 September 2024 [...]

    This is one of four initiatives on the main set-up of the European Digital Identity Wallets. It aims to ensure the proper implementation of protocols and interfaces crucial for the effective operation of the wallets.

    By supporting common protocols and interfaces, the wallets can guarantee:

    • successful issuance and presentation of identification data and electronic attestations;
    • successful data sharing between wallet units; and
    • efficient communication with relevant parties.

  • European Commission ☛ European Digital Identity Wallets – certification

    Feedback period: 12 August 2024 - 09 September 2024 [...]

    This initiative aims to lay down the requirements for certification of the conformity of European Digital Identity Wallets. Where Member States cannot use European cybersecurity certification schemes based on Regulation (EU) 2019/881 or if such schemes are not sufficient, they must establish national certification schemes to supplement them. These schemes must, for instance, specify the competence requirements and an evaluation process.

  • European Commission ☛ European Digital Identity Wallets – trust framework

    Feedback period: 12 August 2024 - 09 September 2024 [...]

    This initiative is one of four initiatives on the main set-up of the European Digital Identity Wallets.

    It aims to ensure that the electronic notification system established by the European Commission acts as a secure and transparent communication channel for exchanging information between the Commission and the Member States.

  • The Register UK ☛ Cisco plans to slash 4,000 more jobs this week

    The official announcement could come as soon as Wednesday when Cisco is due to share its fourth-quarter results, sources told the news wire.

  • ANF News ☛ 2024-08-08 [Older] Gössner: Türkey disregards rulings of the European Court of Human Rights

  • Project Censored ☛ 2024-08-08 [Older] The Corporate Press (Finally) Sounds the Alarm on Project 2025

  • Modern Diplomacy ☛ 2024-08-10 [Older] Canada’s Aid is Failing to Reform Human Rights’ Violations in the Americas

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-08-07 [Older] Hate speech targets Kamala Harris on social media

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-08-08 [Older] Spain: Police launch manhunt after defiant Puigdemont speech

  • Bridge Michigan ☛ 2024-08-07 [Older] Vance says he would deport ‘violent criminals’ first in Michigan speech

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • New York Times ☛ Opinion | The Chaos in Britain Has Been Coming

      Disinformation is at the heart of the riots. In the aftermath of the killings in Southport, users on X posted and shared false claims, stating that the alleged attacker was an asylum seeker who arrived in Britain by boat — when he was in fact born and raised in Wales. On TikTok, far-right users went live and called on one another to gather in protest. Their reach was wide. Thanks to the platform’s aggressively personalized For You page, it is not difficult to get videos in front of users who have already engaged with far-right or anti-migrant content.

    • NPR ☛ 162 lies and distortions in a news conference. NPR fact-checks former President Trump

      But there was so much more. A team of NPR reporters and editors reviewed the transcript of his news conference and found at least 162 misstatements, exaggerations and outright lies in 64 minutes. That’s more than two a minute. It’s a stunning number for anyone – and even more problematic for a person running to lead the free world.

      Politicians spin. They fib. They misspeak. They make honest mistakes like the rest of us. And, yes, they even sometimes exaggerate their biographies.

      The expectation, though, is that they will treat the truth as something important and correct any errors.

      But what former President Trump did this past Thursday went well beyond the bounds of what most politicians would do.

    • Rolling Stone ☛ Insecure Trump Lies, Claims Harris Crowd Was Manipulated With AI

      Trump is lying. Multiple news channels broadcast the event via live stream, where the crowd is clearly visible. Photographers from the Associated Press and many other national and international outlets captured the attendees. Local news reported that “about 15,000 people filled the hangar” and the crowd was “spilling out onto the tarmac and cheering as Air Force Two arrived.”

    • India Times ☛ AI: The problem is not AI. It's the disbelief created by Donald Trump.

      Fake AI imagery is a challenging problem, and not simply because it looks realistic. The key issue is that these images muddy the waters of credibility for everyone, while providing a handy excuse for political operatives willing to lie to their supporters already eager to believe the lie.

    • New York Times ☛ Opinion | Trump’s Big Lie About Harris’s Crowds

      One way to read this post is that Trump is delusional. He can’t cope with Harris besting him on the metric he’s long valued the most — the size of his audience — and so is denying reality and having a tantrum. But however disordered Trump’s mind might be, I suspect there’s also a sort of strategy at work here. He is helping his supporters build a rationale for rejecting the election results if Harris wins.

    • The Atlantic ☛ Trump’s Latest False Claim Is a Huge Tell

      The turnout at Harris events is entirely real, and political analysts suspect that the crowds she has attracted are making Trump jealous and nervous. But the AI lie is about more than Trump’s size anxiety—it portends a dark and desperate chapter in this already distressing presidential-election season.

    • US News And World Report ☛ Trump Falsely Claims a Crowd Photo From Harris' Campaign Rally in Detroit Was Created Using AI

      Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has been spreading false claims that an image of thousands of people waiting at Detroit's airport as Democrat Kamala Harris arrived for a campaign rally was fabricated with the help of artificial intelligence.

    • [Old] CFI ☛ Carl Sagan’s Baloney Detection Kit | Center for Inquiry

      Clement, Hume, Paine, and Huxley were all talking about religion. But much of what they wrote has more general applications — for example to the pervasive background importunings of our commercial civilization: There is a class of aspirin commercials in which actors pretending to be doctors reveal the competing product to have only so much of the painkilling ingredient that doctors recommend most — they don’t tell you what the mysterious ingredient is. Whereas their product has a dramatically larger amount (1.2 to 2 times more per tablet). So buy their product. But why not just take two of the competing tablets? Or consider the analgesic that works better than the “regular-strength” product of the competition. Why not then take the “extra-strength” competitive product? And of course they do not tell us of the more than a thousand deaths each year in the United States from the use of aspirin, or the roughly 5000 annual cases of kidney failure from the use of acetaminophen, chiefly Tylenol. Or who cares which breakfast cereal has more vitamins when we can take a vitamin pill with breakfast? Likewise, why should it matter whether an antacid contains calcium if the calcium is for nutrition and irrelevant for gastritis? Commercial culture is full of similar misdirections and evasions at the expense of the consumer. You’re not supposed to ask. Don’t think. Buy.

      Paid product endorsements, especially by real or purported experts, constitute a steady rainfall of deception. They betray contempt for the intelligence of their customers. They introduce an insidious corruption of popular attitudes about scientific objectivity. Today there are even commercials in which real scientists, some of considerable distinction, shill for corporations. They teach that scientists too will lie for money. As Tom Paine warned, inuring us to lies lays the groundwork for many other evils.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • Scheerpost ☛ 2024-08-06 [Older] The KOSA Internet Censorship Bill Just Passed The Senate—It’s Our Last Chance To Stop It

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-08-09 [Older] Meta Beats Censorship Lawsuit by RFK Jr's Anti-Vaccine Group

  • ANF News ☛ 2024-08-11 [Older] Instagram freely accessible again in Turkey

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-08-10 [Older] Turkey Restores Access to Instagram After 9-Day Block

  • ANF News ☛ 2024-08-10 [Older] HRW and İFÖD: Turkey’s arbitrary decision to block access to Instagram is a violation of rights

  • ANF News ☛ 2024-08-07 [Older] Access to 953,415 websites and domains blocked in Turkey in 2023

  • CBC ☛ 2024-08-08 [Older] Jordan Peterson agrees to social media coaching after Supreme Court declines free speech case

  • Jacobin Magazine ☛ 2024-08-08 [Older] The ACLU Fired One of Its Workers for Criticizing Management

  • India Times ☛ Russia blocks messaging app Signal as authorities tighten control over information

    Russia's communications watchdog, Roskomnadzor, blocked the Signal messaging app, citing violation of local laws. This action is part of ongoing efforts to control information during the Ukraine conflict. The authorities have previously restricted access to several independent media and online platforms, including Twitter and YouTube, to curb opposition views.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • ANF News ☛ Iran sentences two female journalists to prison

    Niloufer Hamedi's lawyers stated that their client's case was related to the protests that started after the murder of Kurdish woman Jina Mahsa Amini in Tehran in October 2022.

  • VOA News ☛ Media crackdown continues 4 years after contested Belarus election

    A court in the city of Mogilev sentenced freelance reporter Ales Sabaleuski to four years in prison and cameraman Yauhen Hlushkou to three years on extremism-related charges. Both were also ordered to pay fines of $2,450, according to media watchdogs.

  • The Dissenter ☛ NYPD Weaponizes Hate Crimes Law Against A Journalist

    New York police raided the Brooklyn home of local journalist Samuel Seligson—twice—and charged him with a “hate crime” for covering an action by activists opposed to Israel's war on Gaza that involved spray-painting the homes of Brooklyn Museum directors.

    Press freedom and First Amendment groups immediately condemned this extraordinary attack on journalism by New York authorities, which was clearly intended to discourage coverage of more militant acts of protest.

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-08-05 [Older] Corporate values: Why do companies bother saying 'sorry'?

  • EFF ☛ Federal Appeals Court Finds Geofence Warrants Are “Categorically” Unconstitutional

    The new Fifth Circuit case, United States v. Smith, involved an armed robbery and assault of a US Postal Service worker at a post office in Mississippi in 2018. After several months of investigation, police had no identifiable suspects, so they obtained a geofence warrant covering a large geographic area around the post office for the hour surrounding the crime. Google responded to the warrant with information on several devices, ultimately leading police to the two defendants.

    On appeal, the Fifth Circuit reached several important holdings.

    First, it determined that under the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in Carpenter v. United States, individuals have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the location data implicated by geofence warrants. As a result, the court broke from the Fourth Circuit’s deeply flawed decision last month in United States v. Chatrie, noting that although geofence warrants can be more “limited temporally” than the data sought in Carpenter, geofence location data is still highly invasive because it can expose sensitive information about a person’s associations and allow police to “follow” them into private spaces.

  • CBC ☛ Travel-nurse company turned my life upside down, health worker says

    He is still officially an employee of the company but has not been paid since June 19.

    The company also terminated the lease for the house in Edmundston where he's been living with his family and reneged on a promise to pay to ship his belongings back to France, Siviniant said.

• Digital Restrictions (DRM)

  • Techdirt ☛ Logitech’s ‘Forever Mouse’ Idea Pulled Back After Backlash

    Narrator: consumers perceived those to be very different. From both the public and tech journalists alike, the idea of a subscription-based optical mouse was lampooned viciously. And for good reason. The fatigue in the public for subscription sprawl is very, very real. As is the public’s ability to suss out when they’re being scammed. The idea that a peripheral like a mouse should come with a monthly subscription is obviously absurd on its face. I need my mouse to point and click at things and then, hey, maybe a couple of other features. I don’t need it to change. I don’t need it to download anything beyond any updates that will keep it working with my operating system. Point. And then click.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-08-05 [Older] US court rules Google is monopoly in antitrust case

• IP Kat ☛ 2024-08-04 [Older] Plant variety rights for 'Sugraone' grapes invalidated in Italy

• Digital Music News ☛ The Apple Tax Hits Patreon—New Payment Options for iOS

  Apple is requiring Patreon to switch to their in-app payment system for all iOS transactions or be kicked out of the App Store. Patreon says Apple’s in-app purchase system is not built with its “creator-first flexibility,” which will result in some changes to the experience for people who subscribe to creators through iOS. Patreon is required to switch over by November 2024 with some pretty serious consequences for creators who use the platform.

• The Register UK ☛ Patreon warns content makers that Apple wants to be paid

  Patreon today said Apple will soon take a 30 percent cut of new subscriptions bought via its iOS app.

  This is because, according to Patreon, the app maker is being strong-armed by Apple into dropping third-party billing options from its iOS application, and instead must use the iPhone giant's own in-app purchasing system. It's either do what Cupertino says, or risk having the software booted out of the iOS App Store, we're told.

• Macworld ☛ Patreon warns creators: Get ready to pay Apple's 30% tax

  Patreon says “most” creators use subscription billing and will require all creators to use subscription billing by November 2025. Of note, the change doesn’t apply to existing memberships, only new sign-ups. It goes into effect beginning November 1.

• MacRumors ☛ Apple Requiring Patreon to Use In-App Purchase and Pay 30% Fee for Memberships

  In January 2024, Patreon started using in-app purchases and paying Apple a 30 percent fee on digital products, but beginning in November, new Patreon memberships will also need to be done through in-app purchase and will be subject to the fee as well. Right now, when you subscribe to a creator through Patreon, Patreon directs you to a purchase flow that skirts built-in ‌App Store‌ payments, and Apple does not take a 30 percent cut.

  To account for the 30 percent fee that Apple will collect, Patreon will give creators the option to either increase their prices just in the iOS app, or absorb the fee themselves, keeping prices the same across platforms. The changes to Patreon payments will only affect new memberships purchased through an iPhone or iPad from November onwards, and not existing subscribers.

• The Verge ☛ Patreon adds Apple tax to avoid getting kicked out of the App Store

  Patreon memberships sold on the iOS app will soon be subject to Apple’s 30 percent commission on in-app purchases. In a post on Monday, Patreon says Apple is forcing the platform to use the company’s in-app payment system starting in November or “risk being kicked out of the App Store.”

• Patreon ☛ Apple’s requirements to hit creators and fans on Patreon

  Apple is requiring that Patreon switch to their iOS in-app purchase system starting this November, or risk being removed from the App Store. Here’s what’s coming, and what you can do about it.

• Matthias Endler ☛ The Dying Web

  Now, the world's largest websites are owned by the same company, which also owns the world's most popular browser and search engine. Coincidentally, they are also the world's largest advertising company. And people are wondering why they can't block ads on YouTube anymore.

  We gave it all away for nothing.

• Patents

  • IP Kat ☛ 2024-08-04 [Older] New USPTO Guidance on the use of AI in precision medicine [Ed: Using meaningless Microsoft-promoted buzzwords to write laws/rules when the USPTO Director is former Microsoft lawyer]

  • Kangaroo Courts

    • IP Kat ☛ 2024-08-07 [Older] [UPCKat] Revisiting lessons from the first ex parte UPC preliminary injunction in myStromer v Revolt [Ed: UPC is totally illegal, but Team UPC continues to try to legitimise its illegal processes]

    • IP Kat ☛ 2024-08-06 [Older] Fishy evidence: Do we have the right sufficiency standard for therapeutic use?(T 1057/22) [Ed: Another kangaroo court of the EPO]

• Trademarks

  • IP Kat ☛ 2024-08-05 [Older] AG Campos Sánchez-Bordona opines that the Commission may disagree with national authorities on GI applications (C‑579/23 P)

• Copyrights

  • [Old] CNET ☛ Brazil's minister of culture calls for free digital society

    This same philosophy applies to realm of software. He noted special effects producers in Hollywood have used open-source software because of the flexibility it gives them.

    "Open source as an instrument is more flexible and contributing to knowledge, ideas and possibilities," he said. "Of course we are going to face problems of guaranteeing property and renumeration of property on one side and the public interest on the other side."

    What's needed, he said, is more discussion of the proper balance in the political realm.

    Since being Minister of Culture, he has worked with the Creative Commons group to allow musicians to permit others to take their creations and use them in various forms.

  • Torrent Freak ☛ RuTube Embraces Piracy Then Vanishes From Apple's App Store & Google Play

    On Russia's answer to YouTube, traffic has doubled in the last 12 months. RuTube is currently awash with pirated copies of Hollywood movies and, during the summer, RuTube used imagery from Barbie and Oppenheimer to advertise the fact. Last week, Russian telecoms operators gave RuTube another boost by massively throttling YouTube. On Friday, RuTube's apps were suddenly removed from Apple's App Store and Google Play.

  • Torrent Freak ☛ 'MagisTV' Piracy Blocking Efforts in Ecuador Expand, Trademark Application Denied

    Ecuador's top football league, LigaPro, continues to fight the availability of pirate streaming services. Dozens of 'unauthorized' platforms are active, but MagisTV is seen as the main adversary. To combat this threat, dozens of new IP-addresses were blocked by Internet providers. Meanwhile, rightsholders caught a ball out of left field, successfully opposing a trademark application by MagisTV.