Long-time Slashdot reader heretic108 writes: Following its “go early and go hard” lockdown regime, New Zealand’s active COVID-19 case count has now reached zero. Stringent border quarantine rules remain in place, however, and New Zealand is just now starting to count the economic cost. New Zealand has now marked 17 days in a row without a new case, according to the…
Tag: Rules
Could corporations control territory in space? Under new US rules, it might be possible
Last weekend, NASA launched US astronauts to the International Space Station for the first time in a decade, in a rocket designed by Elon Musk’s SpaceX. Source: https://phys.org/news/2020-06-corporations-territory-space.html…
Facebook Employees Publicly Criticize Zuckerberg’s Inaction Over Trump
Senior Facebook employees took to Twitter over the weekend to express their dismay at Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg’s decision not to take action on incendiary comments posted to the social network by U.S. President Donald Trump. From a report: After the president tweeted a message with the words “when the looting starts, the shooting starts” in response to protests over…
Dutch Restaurant Will Re-Open With Robot Waiters
When Dutch restaurants open tomorrow, one will be using two shiny white-and-red robot waiters, reports the Associated Press: “Hello and welcome,” the robots say — in a voice best described as pre-programmed. Their duties will include greeting customers, serving drinks and dishes and returning used glasses and crockery. It’s unclear whether diners will be expected to tip. One thing the robots…
Amazon Sellers Are Marking Products As ‘Collectible’ To Get Around Price Gouging Rules
Amazon has suspended thousands of third-party sellers for price gouging during the COVID-19 pandemic, but sellers have found a loophole to avoid detection when raising prices: labeling their products as “collectibles,” even if there’s no conceivable way they could be. The Verge reports: Take this Bowflex dumbbell set, which my colleague Casey Newton encountered while browsing Amazon. Before it sold out…
Twitter Flags Trump Tweet About Minneapolis Protests for ‘Glorifying Violence’
Twitter placed a notice on a tweet from President Trump, shielding it from view for breaking what the company said are its rules about glorifying violence [Editor’s note: the link may be paywalled; alternative source]. From a report: Mr. Trump’s tweet was a comment on the violent protests in Minnesota. The post can now only be seen after users click a…
Trump Signs Executive Order Targeting Protections For Social Media Platforms
President Trump signed an executive order on Thursday designed to limit the legal protections that shield social media companies from liability for the content users post on their platforms. Axios reports: “Currently, social media giants like Twitter received unprecedented viability shield based on the theory that they are a neutral platform, which they are not,” Trump said in the Oval Office….
Salvagers may cut open the Titanic and pull out its ‘voice’, judge rules
RMS Titanic Inc., an official salvager of the Titanic shipwreck, will now be allowed to cut open the ship and remove its telegraph. Source: https://www.livescience.com/titanic-telegraph-salvage-mission-approved.html
Anti-Porn Filters Stop Dominic Cummings Trending On Twitter
The Guardian reports that Twitter’s anti-porn filters have blocked Dominic Cummings’ name from trending on the platform, despite Boris Johnson’s chief adviser dominating British political news for almost a week. From the report: As a result of the filtering, trending topics over the past five days have instead included a variety of misspellings of his name, including #cummnings, #dominiccummigs and #sackcummimgs,…