The Blog Experiment | Technology Nonsense and Internet Tripe

Dateline: New York, 2nd November 2023.Well, this is ironic (and not just merely annoying, like rain on your wedding day). Marianna Spring, the BBC’s first disinformation correspondent, has been called out for embellishing the truth on her resume while applying for a job few years ago.  Is that really disinformation though? I mean, come on, we’ve all jazzed up our capabilities on a resume haven’t we? It’s the normal course of human affairs, candidates lying to their prospective employer just like hiring managers lying to the candidates that they are interviewing. Maybe that’s about to end though, as continuous real-time online reputation management becomes the norm and the provenance of people (as well as things) becomes public, unforgeable and immutable.SharePeople And ProvenanceGiven that candidate fraud has pretty much doubled since the pandemic (and that a fifth of job hunters cheat on tests), recruitment clearly has some challenges. Since it’s been years since I actually interviewed a candidate, I can’t say what the modern approach to this sort of thing is. If I were hiring someone tomorrow, I’d probably look at their LinkedIn profile rather than their resume, since I would have thought it much more difficult and risky to adjust your LinkedIn profile to show your years as Elon Musk’s right-hand man than to add a bit of embellishment to your Google Docs resume. Although it seems there’s a lot of tweaking there too. While LinkedIn estimates that only 15-20% of candidates are dishonest in the way they present themselves, which I am sure must be…People, Parts, Provenance

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If you’re tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The Global Preparedness Monitoring Board (GPMG) – a body set up by the UN’s World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Bank – has released its annual report for 2023. WHO’s Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus offered his reaction to it, the key takeaway from both the report and his remarks being that work on the proposed pandemic accord/agreement/treaty is progressing too slowly. Related: UN Publishes Final Draft of Declaration That Targets “Misinformation” Backs WHO Pandemic Treaty The WHO has a great interest in this treaty coming into force as soon as possible and wants UN member-states to speed things up, as it would give WHO new, not only health-related but also essentially political powers – such as targeting what it designates as “misinformation,” all the way to surveillance. The way the WHO head is selling the need for the document to be completed and adopted ASAP is, naturally, different: Tedros says it has to do solely with preparedness and response to health emergencies. And he is using Covid as proof and justification that this treaty is needed. As Ghebreyesus put it in urging countries to hurry up finalizing the document, “Another pandemic or global health emergency could come at any time, just as it did in 2019.” And he is “concerned that negotiations are progressing too slowly, and that the agreement may not be ready in time for the World Health Assembly next year.” GPMB,…WHO Director-General Tedros Complains of Slow Progress on Pandemic Treaty, Giving the WHO Powers to Target “Misinformation” and “Infodemics”

If you’re tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) has published a new draft of its troubled pandemic agreement/accord/treaty – which the agency has complained is taking too long to finalize. The latest draft of the negotiating text, released by the Bureau of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB) on Monday must be considered until the INB session scheduled for November 6-10, when it should be formalized. Some of the commitments contained in this version of the document have to do with combating “false, misleading, misinformation or disinformation, including through effective international collaboration and cooperation” – which skeptics might easily dub, “cross-border censorship.” And then there’s surveillance, too: something called One Health approach for pandemic prevention, preparedness and response, which the draft wants to see promoted and implemented. Meanwhile, One Health is a surveillance tool that is supposed to create new methods of disease control. Yet another point from the proposal is to “develop and strengthen pandemic prevention and public health surveillance capacities.” Critics have many concerns and misgivings about all of this, including WHO setting up what’s known as a conference of the parties – an international convention’s top governing body – around the pandemic accord. The fear here is that it would be one more instrument taking agency and consent away from national governments and people and transferring the decision-making processes, in this case related to health, to the world organization, specifically, WHO. However, the…WHO Publishes Latest Draft of Pandemic Treaty To Combat “Misinformation”

Author Stephen King is once again heckling Elon Musk. This time it is over the Twitter name change to “X.”Stephen King calls on Elon Musk to change 'X' back to Twitter

Rachel Lau and Kennedy Patlan work with leading public interest foundations and nonprofits on technology policy issues at Freedman Consulting, LLC. Associate J.J. Tolentino and Hunter Maskin, a Freedman Consulting Phillip Bevington policy & research intern, also contributed to this article. US President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris at the signing of an executive order on artificial intelligence, October 30, 2023. Source With a government shutdown narrowly averted and a new House speaker finally assuming the role, October saw many significant technology policy developments in the United States. The month marked the one-year anniversary of the White House Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights, an executive effort to establish five principles to govern the United States’ use of AI, and President Joe Biden issued a landmark executive order on artificial intelligence, with other actions coming shortly after in early November. Continue reading for more details on the executive order, major litigation against Meta, and other domestic tech policy news.  In October, federal agencies engaged on issues ranging from AI and antitrust to net neutrality and semiconductors. As 2024 approaches, the Department of Justice continues to focus on the reauthorization of the controversial Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which allows the government to collect communications of “non-U.S. persons outside the United States” but has been subject to substantial abuse. The FCC voted 3-2 to move forward with Chair Jessica Rosenworcel’s proposal to reinstate net neutrality. In addition, the agency released tentative rules for equitable deployment and…October 2023 U.S. Tech Policy Roundup

Rachel Lau and Kennedy Patlan work with leading public interest foundations and nonprofits on technology policy issues at Freedman Consulting, LLC. Associate J.J. Tolentino and Hunter Maskin, a Freedman Consulting Phillip Bevington policy & research intern, also contributed to this article. US President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris at the signing of an executive order on artificial intelligence, October 30, 2023. Source With a government shutdown narrowly averted and a new House speaker finally assuming the role, October saw many significant technology policy developments in the United States. The month marked the one-year anniversary of the White House Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights, an executive effort to establish five principles to govern the United States’ use of AI, and President Joe Biden issued a landmark executive order on artificial intelligence, with other actions coming shortly after in early November. Continue reading for more details on the executive order, major litigation against Meta, and other domestic tech policy news.  In October, federal agencies engaged on issues ranging from AI and antitrust to net neutrality and semiconductors. As 2024 approaches, the Department of Justice continues to focus on the reauthorization of the controversial Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which allows the government to collect communications of “non-U.S. persons outside the United States” but has been subject to substantial abuse. The FCC voted 3-2 to move forward with Chair Jessica Rosenworcel’s proposal to reinstate net neutrality. In addition, the agency released tentative rules for equitable deployment and…October 2023 U.S. Tech Policy Roundup

If you’re tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The arrest of a British man expressing discontent regarding the display of Palestinian flags on Bethnal Green Road in London has ignited fresh concerns about the lack of free speech in the United Kingdom, a nation swerving towards even more limits on civil liberties. On Tuesday, October 31, the unnamed individual was apprehended by Metropolitan Police officers, who were subsequently captured on film escorting him to a police vehicle. Display content from Twitter Click here to display content from Twitter. Learn more in Twitter’s privacy policy. Always display content from Twitter Open content directly var _oembed_95ebfb572828f0c359f507f96b637001 = ‘{“embed”:”<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">This man has been arrested for saying “why are they over here etc… we let them into our country etc” when making a video about Palestinian flags flying in London. <br><br>But no action was taken against repeated calls for Jihad on our streets.<br><br>This cannot carry on <a href="https:\/\/twitter.com\/SuellaBraverman?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@SuellaBraverman<\/a>. <a href="https:\/\/t.co\/cXCdRpq7ra">https:\/\/t.co\/cXCdRpq7ra<\/a><\/p>&mdash; Nigel Farage (@Nigel_Farage) <a href="https:\/\/twitter.com\/Nigel_Farage\/status\/1719778595101372481?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 1, 2023<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src="https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"><\/script>”}’; .embed-twitter .embed-privacy-logo { background-image: url(https://reclaimthenet.org/wp-content/plugins/embed-privacy/assets/images/embed-twitter.png?v=1.8.1); } The incident followed a video post on social media in which the man appears critical of the abundant Palestinian flags hung from lampposts and road signs in his east London neighborhood. Shortly before 10 p.m., local law enforcement responded to the video, arresting the man under suspicion of a racially aggravated Section 5 public order offense. The Metropolitan Police later confirmed the arrest, stating: “We are…London Man Arrested After Facebook Video Criticizing Palestinian Flags on UK Street

If you’re tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. US Vice President (VP) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) Czar Kamala Harris railed against “AI-enabled mis- and disinformation” and pushed for protections against “potential harm” during a speech at the US Embassy in London, one day before she’s due to represent the US at the UK’s AI Safety Summit. “President Biden and I believe that all leaders from government, civil society, and the private sector have a moral, ethical, and societal duty to make sure that AI is adopted and advanced in a way that protects the public from potential harm and that ensures that everyone is able to enjoy its benefits,” Harris said. https://video.reclaimthenet.org/articles/kamala-harris-ai-disinformation-existential-threat-1.mp4 She continued by suggesting that “AI-enabled mis- and disinformation” is an existential threat to democracy and urging stakeholders to “consider and address the full spectrum of AI risk” to “make sure that AI is truly safe.” https://video.reclaimthenet.org/articles/kamala-harris-ai-disinformation-existential-threat-2.mp4 Harris also noted that the Biden-Harris White House has been working closely with large artificial intelligence companies to “establish a minimum baseline of responsible AI practices.” She described these practices as “an initial step toward a safer AI future with more to come” and pushed for new AI legislation. https://video.reclaimthenet.org/articles/kamala-harris-ai-disinformation-existential-threat-3.mp4 Harris’s comments come days after the Biden White House issued an executive order on “Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence,” which aims to give the federal government more control over AI. The executive order requires developers of certain AI systems to share data…VP Kamala Harris Suggests “AI-Enabled Mis- and Disinformation” Is an “Existential” Threat to Democracy

Vice President Harris on Wednesday unveiled several steps the Biden administration is taking to curb the risks posed by artificial intelligence (AI), building on the sweeping executive order President Biden issued earlier this week. The announcement from London, where Harris is also scheduled to appear at the Global Summit for AI Safety, comes amid a larger push by the administration to establish the U.S. as a global leader in the rapidly advancing frontier of technology. “President Biden and I reject the false choice that suggests we can either protect the public or advance innovation,” Harris said Wednesday at the U.S. Embassy. “We can and we must do both. The actions we take today will lay the groundwork for how AI will be used in the years to come.” Harris announced that the administration will launch a new AI Safety Institute within the Department of Commerce focused on creating standards to test the safety of AI models and will release draft policy guidance for the U.S. government’s use of the technology. She also touted the 30 countries that have endorsed America’s declaration on the responsible use of military AI capabilities, as well as the $200 million that the administration has secured in philanthropic funding for initiatives to advance AI in the “public interest.” While the summit in the U.K. this week is largely focused on the “catastrophic” risks posed by AI, Harris on Wednesday also emphasized the importance of addressing the “full spectrum” of threats, including those that are “currently causing…Harris unveils steps to curb AI risks