Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced Monday that the tech giant would be expanding its hate speech policies to ban any content that “denies or distorts the Holocaust.” From a report: Zuckerberg was caught flat-footed in a 2018 interview with Kara Swisher, then host of the Recode Decode podcast, when he said that he didn’t believe Facebook should take down Holocaust denial…
Tag: hate
He Called it a ‘Scamdemic’ – Then Saw His Family Getting Sick
A remarkable first-person story in today’s Washington Post: I used to call it the “scamdemic.” I thought it was an overblown media hoax. I made fun of people for wearing masks. I went all the way down the rabbit hole and fell hard on my own sword, so if you want to hate me or blame me, that’s fine. I’m doing…
EU Lawmakers Ask Jeff Bezos Whether Amazon Spies on Politicians
A cross-party group of MEPs has written to Amazon’s chief executive, Jeff Bezos, demanding information on the online retailer’s monitoring of trade union activists and politicians in response to deleted job postings that described unions as “threats.” From a report: The letter, from 37 members of the European parliament, said they were concerned Amazon deliberately targeted workers seeking to organise, and…
Most Zoombombing is not done by external hackers – they’re inside jobs
Zoombombing, a kind of virtual gatecrashing that has been used to spread harassment and hate speech, has become a serious problem during the pandemic. An analysis of this behaviour shows the majority of Zoombombers get access from insiders rather than hacking in Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2255550-most-zoombombing-is-not-done-by-external-hackers-theyre-inside-jobs/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…
While Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube Announce Hate Speech Action, Some Advertisers Remain Skeptical
“Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter have agreed on first steps to curb harmful content online, big advertisers announced on Wednesday, following boycotts of social media platforms accused of tolerating hate speech,” Reuters reports: Under the deal, announced by the World Federation of Advertisers, common definitions would be adopted for forms of harmful content such as hate speech and bullying, and platforms would…
Facebook Critics Take on Its Oversight Board
A group of high-profile Facebook critics on Friday announced the launch of what they are calling the “Real Facebook Oversight Board,” an effort that aims to counter an independent board established by Facebook last year to oversee its decisions on content moderation. From a report: The opposing effort represents how political the fight between Facebook and its critics has become in…
Hate Speech on Facebook Is Pushing Ethiopia Dangerously Close To a Genocide
Ethnic violence set off by the assassination of a popular singer has been supercharged by hate speech and incitements shared widely on the platform. From a report: Throughout his life, Ethiopian singer Hachalu Hundessa sang about love, unity, and raising the marginalized voices of his Oromo ethnic group. He had always tried to keep his work and politics separate, saying, “Art…
Cory Doctorow Crowdfunds His New Audiobook to Protest Amazon/Audible DRM
Science fiction writer Cory Doctorow (also a former EFF staffer and activist) explains why he’s crowdfunding his new audiobook online. Despite the large publishers for his print editions, “I can’t get anyone to do my audiobooks. Amazon and its subsidiary Audible, which controls 90% of the audiobook sales, won’t carry any of my audiobooks because I won’t let them put any…
Intel Defends AVX-512 Against Critics Who Hope It ‘Dies a Painful Death’
“I hope AVX512 dies a painful death,” Linus Torvalds said last month, “and that Intel starts fixing real problems instead of trying to create magic instructions to then create benchmarks that they can look good on.” Friday PC World published some reactions from Intel:
Torvalds wasn’t the only person to kick AVX-512 in the shins either. Former Intel engineer Francois Piednoel also…
What Makes Some Programming Languages the ‘Most Dreaded’?
O’Reilly media’s Vice President of Content Strategy (also the coauthor of Unix Power Tools) recently explored why several popular programming languages wound up on the “most dreaded” list in StackOverflow’s annual developer survey: There’s no surprise that VBA is #1 disliked language. I’ll admit to complete ignorance on Objective C (#2), which I’ve never had any reason to play with. Although…