Setting aside the veracity of these specific accusations, or the propriety of the entire affair, it’s important that we remember the rest of the context of both military justice in general (which is great) and the machinations of Admirals.
In the Navy there are three groups (with overlap): the master at arms aboard a ship, the shore patrol (directly analogous to military police), and the Naval Criminal Investigative Services. Unlike the first two which form the day to day law enforcement teams (and will swap servicemen as their duty stations move - the difference is in the practicalities of the location - land or at sea - rather than the role or responsib8lities), the NCIS is more analogous to the FBI...... under J. Edgar Hoover.....
Within many groups the NCIS is referred to as the Admirals Gestapo, as it’s the group used extensively by one Admiral to spy out the peccadillos of another for political advantage. To give an example - and I’m not saying this happened in Gallagher’s case, just that we can’t tell them apart easily - the NCIS spent $75M in the 1980s investigating the founder of Seal Team Six for having exposed their base security as pitifully laughable - for example by “hijacking” nuclear submarines in port and gaining their nuclear launch codes, stealing tactical cruise missiles from naval bases, and leaving President Reagan a note on Air Force One - while he was in it - without the Secret Service detecting them. That was the teams explicit job - to act as smart adversaries to ferret out the weaknesses in military security, as as a result the NCIS spent $75M trying to find something wrong with their commander. He eventually was convicted of improperly paying $50k for services rendered by a company he was a part owner in (services no other company in the world offered at the time, since it was founded by a group of prior SEALs) and spent a year in Leavenworth for it. Keep in mind this was a person regularly carrying millions in unmarked cash all over the world, and he’s busted for essentially a $50k self dealing when no one else could have fulfilled such a bid.
So when I see that Gallagher was charged with a bunch, only convicted of an improper photo (which I agree does bring the military into disrepute..... but only if it’s publicized) I’m awefully suspicious that this was a reasonable prosecution rather than a hit job because he upset someone in the Annapolis fraternity.
All that said, I’d still rather be tried in a Courts Martial than a civilian court on just about anything. There’s comparatively a lot less railroading possible, and judges tend to let more exculpatory evidence in - not that I’d want to be bound by the UCMJ, just that I’d prefer to be tried under military rules.
And pedophiles who want to benefit from the demarginalization of those groups.
Just see the massive growth of MAP and NoMAP discussion on platforms such as Facebook.
Notes: MAP = Minor-Attracted Person. Growth = change in size, not absolute size.
More specifically, Yoo’s statement is based on disclosed facts - the very facts that Vindman attested to.
Yoo’s opinion (and ignoring the “some might say” part because it’s immaterial) is that based on what Vindman said he did, he committed espionage.
That’s not an allegation of fact (Vindman did X), but an opinion that an undisputed fact (X) met a particular definition (espionage). An opinion based on disclosed facts is always protected.
However, had Yoo said, “I’ve also heard from the intelligence community certain things about Vindman that would raise the espionage to treason” it would not be protected, because his opinion on treason would be based on an implied fact, so his statement implies a fact (Vindman did something that’s treasonous) in addition to his opinion.
Note: this is the law in the US, whether you think it’s the right law or not.
The solution to the bread problem at least is easy - liability, including criminal liability.
And if you think that some brand will just run up their reliability and then skimp out and start cramming in junk, then add a qui tam law like the False Claims Act has that allows private prosecutions by company employees. You work for a bakery that said they don’t use sawdust, but you have a memo saying to use it? Sue as a qui tam relator and take them to the bank.
The problem is where people fundamentally disagree, not on the desired outcomes, but on the predicates. Gun control is a good example: pro gun rights people think it protects the on the small scale (which is at least disprovable if false) but also on the macro scale - no government has ever massacred its population before seizing guns, so its a canary in a coal mine - if you still have strong gun rights you don’t need to be too worried about government tyranny. Anti gun proponents want fewer gun deaths (just like gun rights advocates do) but think guns won’t help the individual and that the government won’t massacre the people. When the argument stays revolving around “you have blood on your hands” no one can ever be persuaded because the argument being made isn’t one that could ever work - they’re not in disagreement on saving lives, they’re in disagreement on what methods will save lives - and in the gun example is unsolvable because we don’t know what has to be done to stop governmental mass murders.
It’s a sad commentary of what people think works that the cheap shots are taken when (essentially) anyone running for public office has literal skeletons in their metaphorical closet.
Trump, at least, is brazen about his vulgarities. It’s like when a bartender tells you he swapped out the top shelf for grain alcohol because at this point you can’t tell the difference. Is it more honest to be told to your face you’re being screwed, or to be screwed behind your back?
But this choice doesn’t minimize abuse, that’s the problem.
You may think that this specific set of abuse is better than another, but it’s not a minimum.
To see it, you have two choices. Two guys are walking up to you, if you pick Option A one of them will always punch you in the face (and the other may, or may not), if you choose Option B each of them might (and might not) punch your in the face. Choosing Option A always leads to more abuse because it is itself abusive.
The same with this: no politics. So you can’t run an add for your GoFundMe to pay for a lawyer to help get you out of a CIA torture center because that’s petitioning the government, and governmental action is inherently political. This is, of course, a really edge case (I hope!), but it illustrates that a no-politics rule will always harm the person who wants whatever the result of politics are. You could have said the same in 1964 - no ads arguing for why we needed the Civil Rights Act.
All that this sort of rule does is shift who is harmed, how they’re harmed, and how clearly we can see the harm. If you think you hold an objectively superior view then you should want all political ads because objective truth will overcome sophistry, unless you don’t believe in democracy (which is at least internally consistent, of course - oligopolies have a lot in their favor, if you’re an oligopolist).
There’s an angle that NTSB might be missing, and that I’d expect Bloomberg to miss - AIs aren’t programmed to take any specific action, they’re programmed to self optimize within constraints.
I’d honestly be surprised if anyone using AI for self driving is extensively programming scenarios (like: if (jaywalker) then (brake)), and not simply feeding in lots and lots of scenarios and constraints to have ten AI optimize the solution.
Do I know when it’s better to brake or swerve? In a specific car? With specific mass and moment of inertia that varies from load to load? Hell no, but I understand that it’s an optimization problem that can be easily solved (at least that that level of specificity, AI for healthcare fraud is my expertise).
So when Bloomberg says “they didn’t even program for it,” my reaction is so what, that’s the point of AI - you teach it the parameters under which to optimize and then use the optimums.
Now if they never fed it random external events like jaywalkers, shopping carts, pedestrians in parking lots, deer, etc, that’s on them. But I’d expect that they feed a bunch of type scenarios “stuff randomly popping out” rather than any specific one.
Though at the same time, I’m curious if the resolution is good enough to detect jaywalkers by their facial cues and body posture - something humans can readily do (when we can see them, at least). Not my field though, so if someone knows, please chime in.
This is the problem I see.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with facial recognition, nor even its use by cops.
Imagine, for example, if cops were more likely to identify someone they see as having a warrant for their arrest for (insert horrific crime), and because their Google Cop Glass v7 superimposed the warrant information around the person the cop could see that good arrests then became more common.
Further imagine that one cop sees another beating an innocent man, and the facial recognition ties that cop onto the video automatically, so no more cases of “sure he was beaten, but since he doesn’t know which of us beat him he can’t sue any of us.”
Of course, that’s not likely how it would be implemented, but it illustrates that it’s the implementation that matters, not the technology itself. And part of that implementation is teeth for violating the rules of implementation - so when the cops invariably violate this law, they’ll pay no consequences.
Mild necro-posting, but the difference to many is that Trump doesn’t hide his boarishness, so when he acts like a boar no one is surprised. President Obama presented himself as a better person, so when he acted like Trump does now it’s a cause to wonder why he’s doing so in that particular instance.
What some Trump opponents seem to miss is that many (and I think, most) Trump proponents realize just what a mess he is, and we’re willing to support him despite that, rather than that they think he acts appropriately.
The CIA isn’t shady. They’re honestly engaged in subterfuge.
No one expects a spy to tell you the truth, but when the FBI lies to you it feels much worse.
Just for fun (and because I can sleep).
CFRA - I think he meant to CFAA, the computer fraud and abuse act, which lays out the definitions of authorized vs unauthorized access to a computer systems.
In combination with the “form contract” he seems to be trying to say that Techdirt has written a contract of adhesion (a contract that’s not negotiated - a take it or leave it option) wherein any ambiguities are to be held against the drafter. Since he wins any ambiguity, and it’s not explicit in the contract of adhesion that he may be moderated, then techdirt is breaching the contract. Since the contract is what governs lawful access to the computer systems under the CFAA, that means that techdirt is unlawfully accessing a computer system in interstate commerce, committing a felony.
I always like things like this, as I think it’s really important to be able to see things from other peoples perspectives, even if they’re crazy. You just have to reconstruct reality so that their actions wouldn’t be crazy (or evil) to figure out where they’re off.
If only our politicians would try that.....
This annoys me - both the FCC, and the states trying to limit markets, because both of them are fighting the wrong problem.
The problem is monopolistic control of internet endpoints which leads to monopoly abuse.
But the reason there are local monopolies is because of local regulation itself, both local cable companies (with hard legislative monopolies) and through structural regulatory monopolies, like pole attachment.
What the FCC should have done was preempt all of those regulations as infringements on interstate commerce (which is easily within the federal power), rather than the open internet orders which left all of the structural monopolies in place but told them they couldn’t do certain kinds of abuses while leaving open other abuses.
But the states aren’t any better, because they could preempt their own anti-competitive monopoly regulations themselves, rather than trying to enforce the FCCs mis-aimed solution.
People keep talking about this like it’s a lack of access problem - its not.
Google, Internet Archive, or even Webo would assuredly do all of the technical work for free (just think about the data mining that could come of it), including writing the APIs and installing them on each court system so that when something is eFiled it automatically gets pushed to them.
The problem isn’t doing that, it’s that if it happened the cartels in power would lose some of their power, and some of their money, and empire builders always want to keep building their empires. That’s why they get into the racket in the first place.
A better way to do it is to return to a three verdict system like some of the colonies had, but with added meaning for the prosecuting entity.
Guilty: same as now
Not Proven: same effect as not guilty, but all prosecution expenses (including police investigations) are payable to the defense to ensure that the citizen is on even footing with the government, otherwise a dedicated prosecutor can just paper you to death like in civil litigation.
Not Guilty: Prosecution pays ALL defense expenses, including lost wages, costs to recover credit rating, etc.
This model negates the incentive to prosecute edge cases, as any failure to convict gets paid by the prosecutor, and if the jury thinks they’re totally wrong they get hit with effective damage awards.
There are campaign contribution limits, this would count as a “in kind” donation potentially, not sure how (or even if) anti-one person, but I don’t care who else wins would work for that.
The rest is social/political - from the right wing commentators I’ve seen, as well as from the YouTube Union, it’s not so much the support or hindrance, but the dishonesty in it. For example, if you go to a car dealer who advertises that they sell at cost and only make their profits from service you’d feel pretty good about working with them. But if you later learned they were lying about that, even if it wasn’t fraudulent under the law, you’d be pretty pissed.
As I understand the Right, it’s the dishonesty that particularly galling, with tech companies as well as the media. They all proclaim themselves neutral, when in practice they aren’t - they’re American left establishment, just like the DNC was when they cheated Bernie’s nomination in 2016. Or at least that’s their view. If anyone here is an actual American conservative who can correct that, feel free.
This article seems to be missing her underlying point (ignoring many of the details, which Mike as usual gets right).
Her point, as I read it, is that Google is acting out of malice, not out of incompetence. And to show that, she explains that Google lied about why it took the actions that it did. Under her own reasoning, if Google had told the truth as Mike sees it (and which I think is likely at least most of the truth) that they'd simply screwed up because in their experience changes in advertising patterns like they saw with her account were often caused by fraud, and so they've trained their models to find similar actions and prevent fraud, even though they know that sometimes they'll have a false positive, simply because getting it right most of the time (with a few false positives) is better than letting the majority of false negatives get through.
Her claim, then, is that this defense must not be true, because if it were, Google could have simply said so in the beginning. Since they said otherwise, their claim now is preempted by their prior defense.
Of course, what I think is just that Google screwed up in the initial trigger, and then BS'd their excuse, not expecting to have to substantiate it. I don't think it was intentionally told to mislead, but rather to just make her go away, because that's what Google usually does, and they almost always get away with it, so they've had no reason to learn otherwise.
Of course, we also need to consider the alternative, even if we choose to discard it: if Google really were trying to support the established American Left, but trying to do so surreptitiously, would it look any different than what Gabbard and many conservatives claim? If you think this is how it would look, how do you tell them apart?
Of course, what Google could do is publicly state that their anti-fraud (and similar) services are tuned to minimize the targeted event without massive false positives, rather than to catch whatever they can while minimizing false positives Google has made the decision that in their business it's better that some innocent people go to jail than let a guilty person go free, which our justice system is (at least theoretically) aligned the opposite way: that it's better that 10 guilty men go free than an innocent be imprisoned. We'd all be a lot better off if we (you, me, Google, candidates, the government) were open about where we each stand on this, as it can vary from topic to topic.
Hoping someones seen a study, but do we know which way the abuse causation runs?
a) Bad people want to be cops because it gives them more power
or
b) Dealing with the worst side of humanity makes people go bad
If it's (b), then who we hire won't really matter, since even the best will go bad. If it's (a), then it's just a matter of hiring the right people (which is hard itself).
Pretty sure it's actually a complicated answer, but has anyone seen a study showing what the split is?
Admirals Gestapo
Setting aside the veracity of these specific accusations, or the propriety of the entire affair, it’s important that we remember the rest of the context of both military justice in general (which is great) and the machinations of Admirals.
In the Navy there are three groups (with overlap): the master at arms aboard a ship, the shore patrol (directly analogous to military police), and the Naval Criminal Investigative Services. Unlike the first two which form the day to day law enforcement teams (and will swap servicemen as their duty stations move - the difference is in the practicalities of the location - land or at sea - rather than the role or responsib8lities), the NCIS is more analogous to the FBI...... under J. Edgar Hoover.....
Within many groups the NCIS is referred to as the Admirals Gestapo, as it’s the group used extensively by one Admiral to spy out the peccadillos of another for political advantage. To give an example - and I’m not saying this happened in Gallagher’s case, just that we can’t tell them apart easily - the NCIS spent $75M in the 1980s investigating the founder of Seal Team Six for having exposed their base security as pitifully laughable - for example by “hijacking” nuclear submarines in port and gaining their nuclear launch codes, stealing tactical cruise missiles from naval bases, and leaving President Reagan a note on Air Force One - while he was in it - without the Secret Service detecting them. That was the teams explicit job - to act as smart adversaries to ferret out the weaknesses in military security, as as a result the NCIS spent $75M trying to find something wrong with their commander. He eventually was convicted of improperly paying $50k for services rendered by a company he was a part owner in (services no other company in the world offered at the time, since it was founded by a group of prior SEALs) and spent a year in Leavenworth for it. Keep in mind this was a person regularly carrying millions in unmarked cash all over the world, and he’s busted for essentially a $50k self dealing when no one else could have fulfilled such a bid.
So when I see that Gallagher was charged with a bunch, only convicted of an improper photo (which I agree does bring the military into disrepute..... but only if it’s publicized) I’m awefully suspicious that this was a reasonable prosecution rather than a hit job because he upset someone in the Annapolis fraternity.
All that said, I’d still rather be tried in a Courts Martial than a civilian court on just about anything. There’s comparatively a lot less railroading possible, and judges tend to let more exculpatory evidence in - not that I’d want to be bound by the UCMJ, just that I’d prefer to be tried under military rules.
Re:
And pedophiles who want to benefit from the demarginalization of those groups. Just see the massive growth of MAP and NoMAP discussion on platforms such as Facebook. Notes: MAP = Minor-Attracted Person. Growth = change in size, not absolute size.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
More specifically, Yoo’s statement is based on disclosed facts - the very facts that Vindman attested to. Yoo’s opinion (and ignoring the “some might say” part because it’s immaterial) is that based on what Vindman said he did, he committed espionage. That’s not an allegation of fact (Vindman did X), but an opinion that an undisputed fact (X) met a particular definition (espionage). An opinion based on disclosed facts is always protected. However, had Yoo said, “I’ve also heard from the intelligence community certain things about Vindman that would raise the espionage to treason” it would not be protected, because his opinion on treason would be based on an implied fact, so his statement implies a fact (Vindman did something that’s treasonous) in addition to his opinion. Note: this is the law in the US, whether you think it’s the right law or not.
Re: Uber had disabled AI braking
Of course the driver was watching Netflix, that’s the whole point of self driving cars.
Re: The least bad easy solution.
The solution to the bread problem at least is easy - liability, including criminal liability.
And if you think that some brand will just run up their reliability and then skimp out and start cramming in junk, then add a qui tam law like the False Claims Act has that allows private prosecutions by company employees. You work for a bakery that said they don’t use sawdust, but you have a memo saying to use it? Sue as a qui tam relator and take them to the bank.
The problem is where people fundamentally disagree, not on the desired outcomes, but on the predicates. Gun control is a good example: pro gun rights people think it protects the on the small scale (which is at least disprovable if false) but also on the macro scale - no government has ever massacred its population before seizing guns, so its a canary in a coal mine - if you still have strong gun rights you don’t need to be too worried about government tyranny. Anti gun proponents want fewer gun deaths (just like gun rights advocates do) but think guns won’t help the individual and that the government won’t massacre the people. When the argument stays revolving around “you have blood on your hands” no one can ever be persuaded because the argument being made isn’t one that could ever work - they’re not in disagreement on saving lives, they’re in disagreement on what methods will save lives - and in the gun example is unsolvable because we don’t know what has to be done to stop governmental mass murders.
Re: Fake nativity
It’s a sad commentary of what people think works that the cheap shots are taken when (essentially) anyone running for public office has literal skeletons in their metaphorical closet.
Trump, at least, is brazen about his vulgarities. It’s like when a bartender tells you he swapped out the top shelf for grain alcohol because at this point you can’t tell the difference. Is it more honest to be told to your face you’re being screwed, or to be screwed behind your back?
Re:
But this choice doesn’t minimize abuse, that’s the problem.
You may think that this specific set of abuse is better than another, but it’s not a minimum.
To see it, you have two choices. Two guys are walking up to you, if you pick Option A one of them will always punch you in the face (and the other may, or may not), if you choose Option B each of them might (and might not) punch your in the face. Choosing Option A always leads to more abuse because it is itself abusive.
The same with this: no politics. So you can’t run an add for your GoFundMe to pay for a lawyer to help get you out of a CIA torture center because that’s petitioning the government, and governmental action is inherently political. This is, of course, a really edge case (I hope!), but it illustrates that a no-politics rule will always harm the person who wants whatever the result of politics are. You could have said the same in 1964 - no ads arguing for why we needed the Civil Rights Act.
All that this sort of rule does is shift who is harmed, how they’re harmed, and how clearly we can see the harm. If you think you hold an objectively superior view then you should want all political ads because objective truth will overcome sophistry, unless you don’t believe in democracy (which is at least internally consistent, of course - oligopolies have a lot in their favor, if you’re an oligopolist).
Don’t understand AI
There’s an angle that NTSB might be missing, and that I’d expect Bloomberg to miss - AIs aren’t programmed to take any specific action, they’re programmed to self optimize within constraints.
I’d honestly be surprised if anyone using AI for self driving is extensively programming scenarios (like: if (jaywalker) then (brake)), and not simply feeding in lots and lots of scenarios and constraints to have ten AI optimize the solution.
Do I know when it’s better to brake or swerve? In a specific car? With specific mass and moment of inertia that varies from load to load? Hell no, but I understand that it’s an optimization problem that can be easily solved (at least that that level of specificity, AI for healthcare fraud is my expertise).
So when Bloomberg says “they didn’t even program for it,” my reaction is so what, that’s the point of AI - you teach it the parameters under which to optimize and then use the optimums.
Now if they never fed it random external events like jaywalkers, shopping carts, pedestrians in parking lots, deer, etc, that’s on them. But I’d expect that they feed a bunch of type scenarios “stuff randomly popping out” rather than any specific one.
Though at the same time, I’m curious if the resolution is good enough to detect jaywalkers by their facial cues and body posture - something humans can readily do (when we can see them, at least). Not my field though, so if someone knows, please chime in.
Re:
This is the problem I see. There’s nothing inherently wrong with facial recognition, nor even its use by cops. Imagine, for example, if cops were more likely to identify someone they see as having a warrant for their arrest for (insert horrific crime), and because their Google Cop Glass v7 superimposed the warrant information around the person the cop could see that good arrests then became more common. Further imagine that one cop sees another beating an innocent man, and the facial recognition ties that cop onto the video automatically, so no more cases of “sure he was beaten, but since he doesn’t know which of us beat him he can’t sue any of us.” Of course, that’s not likely how it would be implemented, but it illustrates that it’s the implementation that matters, not the technology itself. And part of that implementation is teeth for violating the rules of implementation - so when the cops invariably violate this law, they’ll pay no consequences.
Re: Re: Re:
Mild necro-posting, but the difference to many is that Trump doesn’t hide his boarishness, so when he acts like a boar no one is surprised. President Obama presented himself as a better person, so when he acted like Trump does now it’s a cause to wonder why he’s doing so in that particular instance. What some Trump opponents seem to miss is that many (and I think, most) Trump proponents realize just what a mess he is, and we’re willing to support him despite that, rather than that they think he acts appropriately.
Re:
The CIA isn’t shady. They’re honestly engaged in subterfuge. No one expects a spy to tell you the truth, but when the FBI lies to you it feels much worse.
Re: WTF are you on, and can I have some?
Just for fun (and because I can sleep). CFRA - I think he meant to CFAA, the computer fraud and abuse act, which lays out the definitions of authorized vs unauthorized access to a computer systems. In combination with the “form contract” he seems to be trying to say that Techdirt has written a contract of adhesion (a contract that’s not negotiated - a take it or leave it option) wherein any ambiguities are to be held against the drafter. Since he wins any ambiguity, and it’s not explicit in the contract of adhesion that he may be moderated, then techdirt is breaching the contract. Since the contract is what governs lawful access to the computer systems under the CFAA, that means that techdirt is unlawfully accessing a computer system in interstate commerce, committing a felony. I always like things like this, as I think it’s really important to be able to see things from other peoples perspectives, even if they’re crazy. You just have to reconstruct reality so that their actions wouldn’t be crazy (or evil) to figure out where they’re off. If only our politicians would try that.....
The wrong problem
This annoys me - both the FCC, and the states trying to limit markets, because both of them are fighting the wrong problem.
The problem is monopolistic control of internet endpoints which leads to monopoly abuse.
But the reason there are local monopolies is because of local regulation itself, both local cable companies (with hard legislative monopolies) and through structural regulatory monopolies, like pole attachment.
What the FCC should have done was preempt all of those regulations as infringements on interstate commerce (which is easily within the federal power), rather than the open internet orders which left all of the structural monopolies in place but told them they couldn’t do certain kinds of abuses while leaving open other abuses.
But the states aren’t any better, because they could preempt their own anti-competitive monopoly regulations themselves, rather than trying to enforce the FCCs mis-aimed solution.
The wrong problem
People keep talking about this like it’s a lack of access problem - its not.
Google, Internet Archive, or even Webo would assuredly do all of the technical work for free (just think about the data mining that could come of it), including writing the APIs and installing them on each court system so that when something is eFiled it automatically gets pushed to them.
The problem isn’t doing that, it’s that if it happened the cartels in power would lose some of their power, and some of their money, and empire builders always want to keep building their empires. That’s why they get into the racket in the first place.
Re: better version of loser pays
A better way to do it is to return to a three verdict system like some of the colonies had, but with added meaning for the prosecuting entity. Guilty: same as now Not Proven: same effect as not guilty, but all prosecution expenses (including police investigations) are payable to the defense to ensure that the citizen is on even footing with the government, otherwise a dedicated prosecutor can just paper you to death like in civil litigation. Not Guilty: Prosecution pays ALL defense expenses, including lost wages, costs to recover credit rating, etc. This model negates the incentive to prosecute edge cases, as any failure to convict gets paid by the prosecutor, and if the jury thinks they’re totally wrong they get hit with effective damage awards.
Why the bigotry, Tim?
Why the bigotry, Tim?
Your own article indicates that his nice treatment was because he was recognized by one of the cops, not because he’s a “white male.”
Do you really think Michael Jordan wouldn’t get similar treatment? Or are you just trying to signal your moral superiority?
The problem with color in police encounters isn’t black vs white, it’s blue vs non-blue, and anyone who’s researched the issue knows it.
Amputations
“trying to cure it through censorship; is like curing an ingrown toenail with amputation”
Just for fun: for people with repeated ingrown toenails, the treatment really is a partial amputation and killing of the nailbed to prevent regrowth.
Just saying selective amputation sometimes really is the answer.
Re: Re: Wrong Point
There are campaign contribution limits, this would count as a “in kind” donation potentially, not sure how (or even if) anti-one person, but I don’t care who else wins would work for that. The rest is social/political - from the right wing commentators I’ve seen, as well as from the YouTube Union, it’s not so much the support or hindrance, but the dishonesty in it. For example, if you go to a car dealer who advertises that they sell at cost and only make their profits from service you’d feel pretty good about working with them. But if you later learned they were lying about that, even if it wasn’t fraudulent under the law, you’d be pretty pissed. As I understand the Right, it’s the dishonesty that particularly galling, with tech companies as well as the media. They all proclaim themselves neutral, when in practice they aren’t - they’re American left establishment, just like the DNC was when they cheated Bernie’s nomination in 2016. Or at least that’s their view. If anyone here is an actual American conservative who can correct that, feel free.
Wrong Point
This article seems to be missing her underlying point (ignoring many of the details, which Mike as usual gets right).
Her point, as I read it, is that Google is acting out of malice, not out of incompetence. And to show that, she explains that Google lied about why it took the actions that it did. Under her own reasoning, if Google had told the truth as Mike sees it (and which I think is likely at least most of the truth) that they'd simply screwed up because in their experience changes in advertising patterns like they saw with her account were often caused by fraud, and so they've trained their models to find similar actions and prevent fraud, even though they know that sometimes they'll have a false positive, simply because getting it right most of the time (with a few false positives) is better than letting the majority of false negatives get through.
Her claim, then, is that this defense must not be true, because if it were, Google could have simply said so in the beginning. Since they said otherwise, their claim now is preempted by their prior defense.
Of course, what I think is just that Google screwed up in the initial trigger, and then BS'd their excuse, not expecting to have to substantiate it. I don't think it was intentionally told to mislead, but rather to just make her go away, because that's what Google usually does, and they almost always get away with it, so they've had no reason to learn otherwise.
Of course, we also need to consider the alternative, even if we choose to discard it: if Google really were trying to support the established American Left, but trying to do so surreptitiously, would it look any different than what Gabbard and many conservatives claim? If you think this is how it would look, how do you tell them apart?
Of course, what Google could do is publicly state that their anti-fraud (and similar) services are tuned to minimize the targeted event without massive false positives, rather than to catch whatever they can while minimizing false positives Google has made the decision that in their business it's better that some innocent people go to jail than let a guilty person go free, which our justice system is (at least theoretically) aligned the opposite way: that it's better that 10 guilty men go free than an innocent be imprisoned. We'd all be a lot better off if we (you, me, Google, candidates, the government) were open about where we each stand on this, as it can vary from topic to topic.
Selection Bias
Hoping someones seen a study, but do we know which way the abuse causation runs?
a) Bad people want to be cops because it gives them more power
or
b) Dealing with the worst side of humanity makes people go bad
If it's (b), then who we hire won't really matter, since even the best will go bad. If it's (a), then it's just a matter of hiring the right people (which is hard itself).
Pretty sure it's actually a complicated answer, but has anyone seen a study showing what the split is?