For your consideration.
… When we hear the term propaganda, it often
conjures images of manipulative politicians aiming to control us.
However, the origin of the term comes from the Catholic church, when
in 1622 they created the Congregatio de Propaganda Fide (or
Congregation for Propagating the Faith). Propaganda is a
means of spreading a message, but by its very nature it is trying to
influence you and is biased towards a particular viewpoint.
… The internet ... removed the prohibitive
cost barriers to entry that many would have faced when hoping to
spread their ideas. In effect, the internet gave everyone a
mouthpiece. Almost overnight, anyone could set up a Geocities page
and put their thoughts in writing for people across the world to read
instantaneously.
… In a world where the President of the United
States conducts his affairs via Twitter, it’s easy to see that the
digital has a real world impact. The last few Presidential elections
have been won not on front lawns but
online — through social media, and advertising alongside
traditional media. Grassroots campaigns and online activism have
also contributed to the politicisation of the internet. In 2010, the
Arab Spring demonstrated just how much impact the digital world could
have on politics.
(Related). A TED talk.
We're building an artificial intelligence-powered
dystopia, one click at a time, says technosociologist Zeynep Tufecki.
In an eye-opening talk, she details how the same algorithms
companies like Facebook, Google and Amazon use to get you to click on
ads are also used to organize your access to political and social
information. And the machines aren't even the real threat. What we
need to understand is how the powerful might use AI to control us --
and what we can do in response.
I’ve been recommending this for years!
San
Francisco, Seattle Planning To Launch Citywide Fiber Networks To Bury
Telecom Monopolies
When you think of the availability of high-speed
internet access in the United States, not many people have a wide
range of options to choose from. You might have one large cable
provider (i.e. Comcast,
Charter) to choose
from, and if you're lucky (if you can call it that) a second-tier
option like AT&T
DSL. Customers would like choice when it comes to internet service
providers, but big telecoms coupled with local and state governments
often get in the way of those aspirations.
Seattle mayoral candidate Cary Moon is pushing
hard for municipal internet as part of her campaign platform, and
she wants equal access for residents (treating it as another public
utility like power or water).
… “Municipal broadband is one of those
issues where we know the right thing to do and we keep not doing it
because of power and money,” Moon added
… Not surprisingly, telecom companies are not
thrilled about the potential for a kumbaya moment with respect to
municipal internet. In fact, telecom companies including Comcast and
CenturyLink
have funneled
$50,000 in campaign contributions to Moon's opponent, Jenny
Durkan, for the mayoral seat.
Any dynamic field could use this technique. Is
there also a way to automatically pull new information into an online
repository?
Surgeons
Are Using Social Media to Share and Learn New Skills
Government is becoming opaque. You don’t have
to explain, defend, discuss, or even pretend to know about things
that are not published?
The First
FBI Crime Report Issued Under Trump Is Missing A Ton Of Info
… according to an analysis
by FiveThirtyEight, the 2016
Crime in the United States report — the first released under
President Trump’s administration — contains close to 70 percent
fewer data tables1
than the 2015 version did, a removal that could affect analysts’
understanding of crime trends in the country.
Perspective.
The Verge
Tech Survey
… This survey, conducted
from September 28th to October 10th, included 1,520 people nationally
representative of the US, based on 2016 US Census estimates. The
margin of error is ±3 percent, with a confidence level of 95
percent.
The findings are fascinating:
respondents trusted Facebook less than Google, and “trust” was a
primary factor for individuals who abstained from using Facebook
overall. Respondents trusted Amazon almost as much as their own
bank. Of all the companies named in our survey, respondents were
most likely to recommend services from Amazon to their family and
friends. Twitter sits on the opposite side of the spectrum: a
quarter of respondents said they are probably, or not at all likely,
to recommend the service.
Perspective. Some interesting quotes…
What’s
Behind the Hype About Artificial Intelligence?
… now computers are able to transcribe human
speech better than humans.
… It is natural for people to project the
recent successes in specific domains into the future. Some are even
projecting the present into domains where deep learning has not been
very effective, and that creates a lot of misconception and also
hype. AI is still pretty bad in how it learns new concepts and
extending that learning to new contexts.
Suspicions confirmed.
Does
Investing in Cutting-edge Tech Attract Better Workers?
… One of the findings in that paper is that
firms on the frontier that are trying to attract developers who are
really interested in learning the newest technologies tend to compete
not just on wages but also on the kinds of technologies they offer
and allow these workers to work with. We know that workers come in,
work with these new technologies and learn something. That’s
valuable because they can go to their next job and take those skills
with them. So, firms that want to attract workers who really are on
the frontier of new technologies have to offer an environment and not
just a good job in the traditional sense in terms of benefits and
wages, but also a work context in which they can really learn about
new technologies and ramp up their skills.
An Infographic.
What
happens online in 60 seconds
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