This is something I've been expecting for a while, but not quite so suddenly and sharply: privacy is becoming enough of an issue that people are questioning its violation as a business model. washingtonpost.com/technology/201…
Interesting contrast: FB lost 19% of its value (!!!) after its earnings call, but Google jumped a percent after its call just a few days earlier. I think this means people are recognizing a difference in the two companies' approaches.
While people like to say "oh, they're all big companies, they're all after your data, they're all bad," there are profound differences between the companies' attitudes and business models.
Little thing I wish: that the EU would codify its directives and regulations the way the USC does. Having to read and reconcile a pile of individual laws is a lot of work for no benefit.
This tweet brought to you by reading directives 2000/78/EC, 2000/43/EC, and 2006/54/EC, and realizing they're almost verbatim identical and if they were codified would have amounted to trivial edits on a single shared piece of text.
On the up side: these are really thoughtful directives, well-drafted, and show a lot of signs of having studied what did and didn't work all over the world. (They're all about discrimination, especially in employment)
There's a really good interview here, where @karaswisher asks Zuckerberg all the right questions. I can't say that I'm satisfied with his answers, though. They feel superficial, not because he's dodging the question, but because he hasn't really grappled with it.
Good thought exercise: Imagine what Facebook would be like if its founder had been a Black woman from an otherwise similar background. How would its priorities have been different? What would "connecting people" have meant?
I think the deep flaw in Facebook's orientation comes down to this initial idea that its goal is to "connect people," as though that were a good in and of itself. It can sound that way if you're a certain person in a certain environment, but it very definitely Isn't Always True.
OK, unusual note tonight: this is for the people I know now or previously in the US intelligence community, and for the people I don't know there who have been doing their best under impossible circumstances.
You didn't get shit upon by your country today. You got shit upon by a Russian asset, whose job it is to shit on the US intelligence community.
It may hurt like hell to realize that your President is a Russian asset, and that every sane norm of what to do has been upended. But those are the breaks.
This thread captures something significant I hadn't noticed - and which is especially creepy as an Israeli, knowing what sorts of people use this language. Generally, they are the sort of people you want to encounter at a distance, and through a scope.
They tend to have a very *vivid* idea about Biblical prophecies and want to bring them about, typically via some kind of plot that involves killing a whole lot of people.
These people tend to love Israel, in much the way that fishermen love fish.
They come in all shapes and sizes - I've encountered Jewish, Christian, and Muslim versions, and I'm sure other religions have their versions as well. But this one smells particularly like a Christian version, and a Dominionist one in particular.
This is an incredibly bizarre statement, given that Cohen met with Kremlin agents in late August 2016 in Prague to arrange payment for the precise things listed in this indictment. (Steele 135, 136, 166.2)
And given that on 27 Jul 2016, the people indicted started to attack Clinton's email system within hours of being publicly asked to do so by Trump. (Indictment para 22)
And that in late September, they compromised DNC election analytics (Indictment para 34), and on 7 Oct started to release Clinton campaign emails (para 49), followed immediately by this: