MBW 716: Not Constrained by Time and Space

Beep boop - this is a robot. A new show has been posted to TWiT…

What are your thoughts about today’s show? We’d love to hear from you!

If you’re triggered by discussion of politics on this network you might want to skip the first 26 minutes.

Leo keep down talking contact tracing apps, insinuating that it’s either contact tracing apps or humans. The apps are not meant to function alone. It is meant to assist human contact tracers. If done manually, contact tracing could take days. Apps are meant to assist humans to cut that time down as time is of essence. Contact tracing apps can also assist logging in-transit contact. Yes Google/Apple solution lacks location data for privacy reasons, but some sort of exposure notification is better than nothing. From what I’ve read, there should not be any false positive as the tracing needs to be activated Using a code from your health provided once a positive COVID-19 result is confirmed.

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Mark Zuckerberg Facebook Post “We’re going to review our policies allowing discussion and threats of state use of force to see if there are any amendments we should adopt”. Now see, just look at how much weight Andy’s disappointment has :slight_smile:

I enjoy the political discussion on TWIT shows - not because I necessarily like politics, but because the hosts are human and what’s going on affects them as much as it does us, and hearing their perspective on events helps me in turn have a more informed perspective on events.

All of the hosts, really (with the limited except of Alex, which I’ll address) moved me with their points of view on what is happening today in the world.

The problem I have with Alex’s point of view, and which made me stop and almost made me angry, is that his perspective of needing 3 or more independent sources that corroborate a news story is very hard to do for a typical person in America today.

I live in rural Illinois, where many families and heads of household have to work multiple minimum wage jobs in order to pay the bills and put food on the table. I myself am fortunate enough to work in government, where I have a decent salary and my family’s income is twice that of the median for Illinois. But many people don’t have that good fortune, and because technology and fact checking are not at the top of their list of priorities (because they are too busy working or raising their family or trying to make ends meet) - they do not have the luxury of listening or reading multiple news sources like Al Jazerra and the New York Times and the BBC and CNN.

Alex is a good person, I believe, but from my perspective - he is in a self-selected group where people have the financial wherewithal to keep abreast on current events, form critical opinions, and has a group of equally competent friends of similar background that enable him the luxury of an informed opinion.

My best friend is a single father trying to keep his home, support his step-father because his mother passed away this past February - and keep a roof over his daughter’s head. He works in a slaughterhouse, which he just got hired on at in April (with all the fun COVID stuff going on) and works nights because that what they had an opening for. Telling him he needs to find 3 competing news sources so he can vet the news and form independent opinion when he’s exhausted from the day’s work is ridiculous on its face. And he’s not stupid - he just doesn’t have the skills and education for a higher paying job that would afford him that opportunity.

If we truly want our citizenry to be educated and have the luxury of informed opinions and vigorous discourse - we must do more than just put hashtags in our Facebook posts or change our profile pic.

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I’m relistening to this episode, and they’re talking about automated takedowns of content.

@Leo, when some company is using automation to do takedowns (I guess because it saves them time & money), shouldn’t they have to pay for it when those takedowns are unjustified? If they cause someone undue loss of income, shouldn’t they have to pay that money back?

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It seems like there should be some system of redress, but that would probably require the kind of manual intervention and oversight that Google, Facebook, etc. are trying to avoid in the first place with all of these automated systems.

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I believe there absolutely should be. However, because automated take downs can issue many thousands at a time against an individual - and because each individual notice must be challenged - it often becomes too onerous for the individual or small business to deal with.

In my opinion - automated take downs should be prohibited until the process is equally automated so that the issued party can challenge. Barring that - no take down should take effect until the issued party can respond. Again, in my opinion.

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I like the idea @MacPhyle but we’re totally at the mercy of YouTube on this. And they, I suspect, feel their hands are tied by the DMCA. Honestly, copyright in practice is nothing like the letter of the law, nor the spirit. It’s just something we have to live with as much as I dislike it.

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That is such a damned shame! I can’t count the number of times you’ve discussed something and were going to show us, but then the old “oh YouTube will take us down, sorry!” hits…:face_with_raised_eyebrow::roll_eyes:

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Auto takedown posts…
Someone said these systems could take down thousands against an individual? Would that not mean there are thousands of posts? The only time an individual would be posting in large volumes would be when a “bot” is involved. This has been seen as spreading false information.

My issue with Facebook is that their takedown process is not applied consistently. When the same text is a post is made and taken down but then Trump posts the same text is left untouched and not flagged.

Apple Memory…
Funny thing about Apple ram is that it’s all made by Hynex and has been at least since 2010 (it also came with Hynex memory).

On the issue of micro USB…
When I was working for a cell phone company a number of people fried devices because they plugged USBC cables into MicroUSB ports without realizing it. Also a lot of cables on Amazon that come in “Apple” packaging are gray market (fake products) goes to show you get what you pay for. IE: A real deal isn’t a deal at all.

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