I realize that banning things can be a slippery slope and could not be more against any form of book banning or censorship for adults. That being said, the anti-semitism and other false information that is being pushed on our children is alarming. Watching all the pro-Trump stuff and conspiracy theories might be entertaining for a few laughs, but seeing otherwise intelligent college kids painting swasticas on dorm room doors and mobbing Jews is alarming on every level. TikTok is pushing all of that an more.
I won't comment on the GOP statements regarding TikTok, but there is little doubt that the Chinese are filling heads with seriously one-sided propaganda on a variety of fronts. The Israel/Hamas issue is the latest to come to mind, but their curated feed is full of mildly subversive stuff. At first, I thought it was ridiculous to talk about banning it, but after spending a lot of time there, I am convinced that it is worse than we thought.
I switched from Verizon to T-Mobile and have not experienced any issues relating to provider quality, and I am paying less now than I was before. That being said, the government has done a very poor job of preventing consolidation and mergers in every industry. The awful decisions by the FCC are not limited to cell phone providers. Every single entity that they have control over is having a field day merging and raising prices.
Jon Stewart is a flame-thrower with an enormous ego. I am surprised that Apple had agreed to give him a platform. Controversy is not their normal stock-in-trade so they either did not know what they were getting (hard to believe), or they thought he would change his stripes.(also hard to believe)
Under the guise of "Something must be done", special interest activists would happily destroy our right to privacy. Stand strong Apple. Your privacy standards are one of the major reasons that I have stuck with you for nearly 30 years.
What has happened to Verizon? Their customer service has gone south and it seems they are either oblivious to it or okay with it....neither of which is acceptable to customers. I am astonished to see what has happened.
NBC, like other content providers, want to sell you their product directly and force you into paying them a monthly fee. YouTube TV is an attractive alternative to cable unless you can no longer get full content. "Free" TV is gone, now the battle is to maximize what they can charge.
Pretty clearly a bald-faced attempt to monopolize the repair. The automakers of course are up to exactly the same thing only worse. They are collecting reams of data every day (15 GB worth) from your vehicle and uploading it to their servers where they can and are selling it for a lot of money. You cannot opt-out and they barely inform you that they are doing it. That fact is that they are. They claim that you don't own the data and have no rights to any of it. Good luck trying to get a vehicle fixed anywhere but a dealership in the very near future. Depending on your model, that future is already here. They spent 50 million dollars trying to defeat a bill in Massachusetts which would require them to open it up for independent shops. They lost about 75 to 25. The problem has also crept into parts, but they just lost a court challenge on embedded chips.
Hmmm. I live in a somewhat rural area and we have several co-ops that provided telephone and internet. I am a customer of one of them. In every case, they are more innovative and quicker to offer improved technologies.....at a lower price than the big guys. The ONLY way to lower prices is to increase competition from smaller players who cannot be gobbled up by the big guys, and co-ops are the way to go because they are owned by the subscribers.
Yes. Fact-checkers are biased in clever ways and tell all kinds of lies under the guise of setting the record straight. They are not to be trusted any more than any other opinions and you should always do your own research if possible. That being said, there is no honest or legal way for government to regulate them. The government should stay out of the news and opinion business altogether and trust that people are not so stupid that they can't figure it out.
Most people get upset at the thought of a tracking device in their vaccine but give little or no thought to how much their smart tv or motor vehicle are tracking their every move. Cars might be the worst, but yet few people even know that they are providing tons of free data that the car companies are selling. You don't need the internet to be tracked in your car.
Hmmmm. I wonder what the car companies will have to say on this subject. They "sell" you a vehicle, but you don't own the digital content that it produces. They don't even have to disclose what content they are gathering or who they are selling it to. You cannot opt out.
Slightly different, but somewhat comparable.
We believe what we want to believe and filter out most of the information that could be considered to change our minds. This is a spot-on example of how the viewpoint of the New York Times is as likely to be distorted as my own.
The auto industry has been very aggressive in developing their ability to grab as much consumer data as they can because they can monetize it. They are interested in safety only as far as it meets their needs, but data....the more they get, the better they like it.
I doubt this will see light of day because it looks like TechDirt has the ability to filter out anything they don't like. I made a valid comment and a couple commenters were able to take a swipe at me, but TechDirt does not run my reply. Nice.
The more I read about the Foxconn deal from biased reporters, the more I distrust everything I read. First of all, it was the Governor (Scott Walker) and his economic development agency who initiated this deal and made the agreement. Had it worked, it would have been a home run, but in the changing sands of high-tech, it was perhaps inevitable that it would fail. Trump and Ryan were eye candy in this deal, but I get the reasons for wanting to hang it on them. Taxpayers have paid ZERO of the incentive because parameters were not met. A couple hundred million was spent on site development and construction in a booming area and the odds that it will end up working are pretty good. The obituary on the Foxconn deal was written on day 1 and has been used continually as a hammer to pound on Trump, Ryan and Walker. In fact, it helped push Walker out of office in favor of a guy who is soon to be recalled based on incompetence. Give this story another year and it will look a lot different, but we won't hear apologies from Bode or any of the other ill-informed parrots.
TikTok
I realize that banning things can be a slippery slope and could not be more against any form of book banning or censorship for adults. That being said, the anti-semitism and other false information that is being pushed on our children is alarming. Watching all the pro-Trump stuff and conspiracy theories might be entertaining for a few laughs, but seeing otherwise intelligent college kids painting swasticas on dorm room doors and mobbing Jews is alarming on every level. TikTok is pushing all of that an more.
TikTok
I won't comment on the GOP statements regarding TikTok, but there is little doubt that the Chinese are filling heads with seriously one-sided propaganda on a variety of fronts. The Israel/Hamas issue is the latest to come to mind, but their curated feed is full of mildly subversive stuff. At first, I thought it was ridiculous to talk about banning it, but after spending a lot of time there, I am convinced that it is worse than we thought.
T-Mobile
I switched from Verizon to T-Mobile and have not experienced any issues relating to provider quality, and I am paying less now than I was before. That being said, the government has done a very poor job of preventing consolidation and mergers in every industry. The awful decisions by the FCC are not limited to cell phone providers. Every single entity that they have control over is having a field day merging and raising prices.
Take a hike
Don’t you have something better to do, like cleaning your cat liter box?
Not A Shock
Jon Stewart is a flame-thrower with an enormous ego. I am surprised that Apple had agreed to give him a platform. Controversy is not their normal stock-in-trade so they either did not know what they were getting (hard to believe), or they thought he would change his stripes.(also hard to believe)
Happy For Their Courage
Under the guise of "Something must be done", special interest activists would happily destroy our right to privacy. Stand strong Apple. Your privacy standards are one of the major reasons that I have stuck with you for nearly 30 years.
What has happened
What has happened to Verizon? Their customer service has gone south and it seems they are either oblivious to it or okay with it....neither of which is acceptable to customers. I am astonished to see what has happened.
Dispute
NBC, like other content providers, want to sell you their product directly and force you into paying them a monthly fee. YouTube TV is an attractive alternative to cable unless you can no longer get full content. "Free" TV is gone, now the battle is to maximize what they can charge.
Pretty clearly a bald-faced attempt to monopolize the repair. The automakers of course are up to exactly the same thing only worse. They are collecting reams of data every day (15 GB worth) from your vehicle and uploading it to their servers where they can and are selling it for a lot of money. You cannot opt-out and they barely inform you that they are doing it. That fact is that they are. They claim that you don't own the data and have no rights to any of it. Good luck trying to get a vehicle fixed anywhere but a dealership in the very near future. Depending on your model, that future is already here. They spent 50 million dollars trying to defeat a bill in Massachusetts which would require them to open it up for independent shops. They lost about 75 to 25. The problem has also crept into parts, but they just lost a court challenge on embedded chips.
Hmmm. I live in a somewhat rural area and we have several co-ops that provided telephone and internet. I am a customer of one of them. In every case, they are more innovative and quicker to offer improved technologies.....at a lower price than the big guys. The ONLY way to lower prices is to increase competition from smaller players who cannot be gobbled up by the big guys, and co-ops are the way to go because they are owned by the subscribers.
Fact-checkers are biased
Yes. Fact-checkers are biased in clever ways and tell all kinds of lies under the guise of setting the record straight. They are not to be trusted any more than any other opinions and you should always do your own research if possible. That being said, there is no honest or legal way for government to regulate them. The government should stay out of the news and opinion business altogether and trust that people are not so stupid that they can't figure it out.
Tip Of The Iceberg
Most people get upset at the thought of a tracking device in their vaccine but give little or no thought to how much their smart tv or motor vehicle are tracking their every move. Cars might be the worst, but yet few people even know that they are providing tons of free data that the car companies are selling. You don't need the internet to be tracked in your car.
This could have consequences beyond Apple. How about Netflix? Do we "buy" HBO?
Hmmmm. I wonder what the car companies will have to say on this subject. They "sell" you a vehicle, but you don't own the digital content that it produces. They don't even have to disclose what content they are gathering or who they are selling it to. You cannot opt out.
Slightly different, but somewhat comparable.
Perspective
We believe what we want to believe and filter out most of the information that could be considered to change our minds. This is a spot-on example of how the viewpoint of the New York Times is as likely to be distorted as my own.
Data Grab
The auto industry has been very aggressive in developing their ability to grab as much consumer data as they can because they can monetize it. They are interested in safety only as far as it meets their needs, but data....the more they get, the better they like it.
Censoring Comments
I doubt this will see light of day because it looks like TechDirt has the ability to filter out anything they don't like. I made a valid comment and a couple commenters were able to take a swipe at me, but TechDirt does not run my reply. Nice.
Re: Re: This is sloppy work
Are you under the illusion that I am a Trump supporter?
Re: Re: This is sloppy work
I think I know a tad more about this deal than you do so maybe you should have read my comments.
This is sloppy work
The more I read about the Foxconn deal from biased reporters, the more I distrust everything I read. First of all, it was the Governor (Scott Walker) and his economic development agency who initiated this deal and made the agreement. Had it worked, it would have been a home run, but in the changing sands of high-tech, it was perhaps inevitable that it would fail. Trump and Ryan were eye candy in this deal, but I get the reasons for wanting to hang it on them. Taxpayers have paid ZERO of the incentive because parameters were not met. A couple hundred million was spent on site development and construction in a booming area and the odds that it will end up working are pretty good. The obituary on the Foxconn deal was written on day 1 and has been used continually as a hammer to pound on Trump, Ryan and Walker. In fact, it helped push Walker out of office in favor of a guy who is soon to be recalled based on incompetence. Give this story another year and it will look a lot different, but we won't hear apologies from Bode or any of the other ill-informed parrots.