MBW 993: An Orifice for Ads

TWiT Shows MacBreak Weekly
21

A lot of what they wanted removed wasn’t misinformation. It was things that didn’t fit their narrative. That’s a big problem. I liked how Alex brought up how the previous administration pressured social media to take down the posts they didn’t like and Andy’s strong reaction about this not being the same thing, and Leo then saying what Alex said wasn’t true. Clearly, he’s not paying attention. There’s plenty of released documentation saying exactly that. Mark Zuckerberg has publicly admitted it.

The issue I have with ICEBlock is it’s a slippery slope I’d rather not go down. What’s to stop someone for creating something called CopBlock, which would let burglars, robbers, etc., know there are no police in the area, so they can safely rob a business or home? Yes, I understand people are doing essentially the same thing with pointing out where police might be running radar on the highway. I admit I’m being slightly hypocritical here, like most people on political issues. I was having online conversations with friends of mine who lean Left when the Jimmy Kimmel issue was going on and they were flying the free speech flag. I asked if they had supported Gina Carano when she lost her job for something she said. None of them answered, which was an answer. We’re all hypocrites to some extent.

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Hmm - reminds me of Waze, which alerts me when there’s a police car ahead on the highway I’m driving. And does so because people using Waze can add alerts that others see. Not sure I see any difference between Waze and ICEBlock in that regard.

It’s also important to keep in mind that the warrants ICE is serving are not judicial - they’re administrative. So, they are not at all like policemen or other law enforcement. They can issue administrative warrants for wearing white after Labor Day or having red wine with fish instead of white. Let not pretend that the way in which the current administration is pursuing the goal is anything other than retaliation cloaked in the thin veneer of immigration enforcement.

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23

Gina Carano claimed that conservatives were the equivalent of Holocaust victims because people on the internet pushed back on her political views, which is at best a massive false balance.

Jimmy Kimmel was forced off the air after the federal government implied they’d go after ABC/Disney for his comments pointing out how MAGA was spinning out because at the time, it was possible that Charlie Kirk may have been offed by one of their own.

These two are not even close to being equal. The Carano incident was a non-government employer firing an employee who embarrassed the sh*t out of them.

The Kimmel incident is the federal government threatening a company with retribution for speech they didn’t like.

But hey, “both sides”, amirite?

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24

Lets talk tech - These political discussions don’t bring a lot to the party except to initiate feuds :oncoming_fist:

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Agreed. @mattand08 and I won’t agree on the topic at hand, which is fine by me. Let’s get back to wondering when Apple will actually have Siri doing what it’s supposed to do!

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26

If there was no interaction between politics and tech, then I’d agree with you. But the decisions these companies make and why they make them and how they make them are tied into the current political environment whether we like it or not.

If Apple removed ICEBlock because of pressure from a political figure, that’s important to know. If Apple is giving money or ‘awards’ to said political figure as an attempt to ward off sanctions for what would otherwise be illegal behavior - that’s important to know to.

We are long past the point where we can admire tech for its own sake. It no longer exists in a vacuum. And today’s technologist needs to be aware of how their favorite tech company is affected by political choices and pressure, including how products are designed and how developers and their apps are impacted either by the politics or by the company’s response to that politics. To me it seems foolish to think otherwise.

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27

I honestly don’t care what a company’s politics are as long as they don’t involve killing innocent people for no reason!! I care how good the products are and whether they are a good value to me and they are safe. If that was not the case I would not buy anything, because no company is perfect - They are CORPORATIONS, first and foremost! We have differing opinions on this but I celebrate yours, I just don’t agree with it. My honest feelings on the subject :vulcan_salute:

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28

truer words were never spoken :slightly_smiling_face:

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But the companies are literally being forced to change the way their products work because of politics.

If they were reporting about Meta implementing user age, or Android and iOS now having to ask for the age of the child when setting up the device and passing that on to apps and websites, without any reason being given, there would be uproar against those companies, but they aren’t doing it in a vacuum, idiotic governments around the world are forcing this on them, because many parents are failing to parent, as has been the case for a long while now.

When I was at school, it was a relatively peaceful time, but each subsequent year behind me was more unruly, violent and, generally, obnoxious. Not everyone, naturally, and my year wasn’t perfect, but with each following year the numbers of teenagers “acting out” grew in each year and they grew up into the workplace and it became more hostile and toxic, in general, in many places I visited.

“Luckily”, I worked in an industry that required more knowledge than, say a production line, so the people working in it were generally not school drop-outs, so my environment wasn’t as bad, but I saw the worsening culture around me, when I went out drinking with friends or had to visit said production lines.

Eventually, I moved to Germany, which seems more aligned with the UK of my youth, in many respects, there was still a lot of respect for family and elders, but each year now seems to be bringing more unrest among the younger generation.

So, a lot of what politicians around the world are doing is trying to put more controls on the individual and especially the youth, but, because they don’t have a clue what they are talking about most of the time, they have no idea about how tech works and they just give a goal without even looking to see if there is collateral damage (age verification) or isn’t even achievable (backdoors in encryption).

On the other side, we have the decades of government sitting back and ignoring illegal monopolies, which have led to many of the current problems we have with toxic tracking, overreaching advertising, insane payment fees for app stores, lack of interoperability between platforms etc.

So, like it or not, politics is a big part of how the tech industry works or is broken.

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