Sorry, might writing and editing isn't great sometimes, I see I left some incomplete statements in my post, and it was a particularly relevant one, so I will complete it now. > important information, the argument is that if the tech (*companies) and social media 'did it on their own', they are not 'required' to give 'free > speech' on their platforms, and so supposedly the only reason there is even a free speech/ censorship debate for this kind of abusive stuff > happening, is supposedly *because in some cases, the usa gov or other governments 'told or encouraged' it to happen, and the first amendment in the USA does apply to that,* so because of that, it does make it a free speech issue, but for instance, facebook has for a long while been blocking any mention of 'cambridge analytica' posts I would try to make, or even private messages to other people that included those words directly, would not be allowed to be sent... that has recently changed, but I imagine, depending on the outcome of the censorship case missouri vs Biden, things could change again, but the implications of the cambridge analytica type revelations, and putting restrictions/limitations on that kind of power, and profiling all its users, and selling that data in order that other interests can better 'mind control' and manipulate' people into things, including acts against goverment, extremism, or misinforming people about the true sources of abuses and corruption and the reasons behind these, including 'dark money', one might imagine it is often project mockingbird related usa gov type sources that are blaming 'everything' on foreign sources, when the matt taibbi twitter files are -proving- a lot of 'propaganda' knowingly propaganda by the government behind the scenes sources pulling the strings for organizations doing it, and while there is real foreign influence in a lot of things, that is the scape goat justification being used in a lot of cases as well, to conceal the government and tech and other corporate interests own influences and agendas. A good documentary I found on some issues of... some of the problems of social media and other interests manipulating users through their media, was one called 'the social dillema' which was on Canadian Netflix for awhile. There used to be a lot of good articles and discussion on things like youtube, I haven't looked recently, I don't know how much shows up in searches now, or how much is available. Another thing that has been happening recently, for instance with youtube, is blocking things by 'region', so like maybe not available to watch in Canada, or other countries, etc, so for instance a free usa pbs public broadcasting station documentary that was put by pbs on their own youtube channel, called 'Dark Money' (corporations basically paying for and running of elections of people who will basically do their bidding on important issues once in office, so they basically run the campaigns very well and fund them and get the people put into office, the documentary is a case study of this happening somewhere in the usa) was being blocked ... wait, no, I downloaded it onto a usb (from youtube using a youtube downloading site or something) to show other people at some point while at a library, and it mysteriously disappeared off the usb, sorry I'm not sure I can remember other good examples of region blocked content right now. Michael Goguen On Tue, Aug 1, 2023 at 3:21 PM Dianne Skoll <dianne [ at ] skoll [ dot ] ca> wrote: > On Tue, 1 Aug 2023 13:56:18 -0400 (EDT) > alayne [ at ] twobikes [ dot ] ottawa [ dot ] on [ dot ] ca wrote: > > > See also https://www.michaelgeist.ca/2023/02/billc18reality/ > > Geist argues instead for "a fund model with mandated contributions > > that would support actual journalism without getting into issues such > > link payments or copyright law." > > That would probably be better, and it wouldn't let Google / Meta / > etc. wriggle out of paying by simply not linking to news stories. > It's one thing to stop linking to news sites, but quite another to > choose between paying into a fund and ceasing to operate at all in > Canada. > > > It's very clear that Google, Meta, etc. have taken over most of what > > used to be newspaper/TV advertising, especially since 2010. The drop > > in ad revenue looks like it's going over a cliff. > > It's very clear to me that Google, Meta, etc. are a far higher threat to > our freedom than the Canadian government is. They need to be broken up. > > This proposal from Google is particularly evil: > > https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/07/googles-web-integrity-api-sounds-like-drm-for-the-web/ > > > But in terms of alternatives to newspaper display ads or TV ads, I > > suspect that the "social media" companies are not providing what they > > promise. How many of us block all online ads? > > See Google's proposal above. They want a world like that Black Mirror > episode, where your TV watches you and ensures you consume ads. > > [...] > > > But what would be even more effective is for more governments to stop > > advertising on "social", as the federal government recently has, and > > divert that money to Canadian media. Unfortunately, Ottawa City > > Council recently voted down a motion to do that -- the city spends 20 > > percent of its ad budget on "social". > > I am shocked that our municpal goverment would do this. Shocked, > I say! 🙄 > > I am very cynical about the whole situation. The Internet was an > ambitious project that was pretty nice for a while, but it has now > turned into a tool for greed, control and suppression of democracy. > It's a net loss for humanity. > > Regards, > > Dianne. > > To unsubscribe send a blank message to linux+unsubscribe [ at ] linux-ottawa [ dot ] org > To get help send a blank message to linux+help [ at ] linux-ottawa [ dot ] org > To visit the archives: https://lists.linux-ottawa.org > >