The Media: Examples of Good AND Bad Journalism

[Neven]

The simultaneous action against Trump on social media reminds me strongly of the simultaneous action against Occupy across US metros. The latter was in "real space" as opposed to "internet space;" both resulted in silencing of ... unwanted ... voices.

But now it's going to be formalized and codified, both online and offline. Trump plays an elemental role in this entire 'bi'-partisan charade. His function is to create a consensus around this codification into law, so that something like Occupy can never come about again. This is why they let the 'coup' happen. They instigated it, spurred it on, let it happen, and now any popular insurgence can be suppressed, not just the ones by marginal groups on some fringe, but more importantly, the big ones that are supported by a majority of the people.

Everyone who doesn't conform to the system, is now a conspiracy terrorist. That's what Trump was for. They could only get this result through him. COVID also helps, of course.

[sidd]

Astore on war stories in a review of Megan Slack:

Astore:

"all Americans tell themselves war stories ... America is a good and decent country, our troops are heroes, that we wage wars reluctantly and for noble causes ...  we need to fight them over there else we’ll have to fight them right here."

Slack:

---
"countries, like people, have collective consciences and memories and souls, and the violence we deliver in the name of our nation is pooled like sickly tar at the bottom of who we are"

"action amounts to identity.  We become what we do ... you can’t leave your actions over there … All of that poison seeps back into our soil"

"it makes us lie to ourselves, precisely because we want to believe that we are good …it is too hard to admit that evil is already in our own hearts and blood is on our hands."
---

Astore:

"We humans are great storytellers but we’re not smart ones ... our collective war stories will likely be the death of us."

https://bracingviews.com/2021/01/11/telling-war-stories/

sidd

[sidd]

Now this is interesting: Gab undeletes Trump twitter, all tweets reproduced

https://gab.com/realDonaldTrump

internet never forgets

sidd

[sidd]

Colour me unsurprised: google and facebook collude on ads

Wakabayashi and Tsu at nytimes:

"Google and Facebook accounted for more than half of all digital advertising spending in 2019"

"In the milliseconds between a user clicking on a link to a web page and the page’s ads loading, bids for available ad space are placed behind the scenes in marketplaces known as exchanges, with the winning bid passed to an ad server. Because Google’s ad exchange and ad server were both dominant, it often directed the business to its own exchange."

"A method called header bidding emerged, in part as a workaround to reduce reliance on Google’s ad platforms."

"Google developed an alternative called Open Bidding"

"Facebook disclosed that it had joined Google’s program in one line in a Dec. 2018 blog post. But it did not reveal that Google, according to the draft complaint, provided Facebook with special information and speed advantages to help the company succeed in the auctions that it did not offer to other partners — even including a guaranteed “win rate.”

"Facebook had 300 milliseconds to bid for ads, according to court documents. But the executives at Google’s partner companies said they usually had just 160 milliseconds or less "

"Facebook had yet another advantage: Direct billing relationships with the sites where ads would appear"

"Google agreed to help Facebook have a better understanding of who would be shown the ads by helping the company identify 80 percent of mobile users and 60 percent of web users"

"Facebook also demanded that data about its bids not be used by Google to manipulate auctions in its own favor"

“Unbeknown to other market participants, no matter how high others might bid, the parties have agreed that the gavel will come down in Facebook’s favor a set number of times,”

"they included a clause in the agreement that requires the parties to “cooperate and assist” each other if they are investigated for competition concerns over the partnership."

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/17/technology/google-facebook-ad-deal-antitrust.html

I happen to have watched some of this happen, the adexchanges and bidding platforms get set up, and i still have friends in that biz. It don't really surprise that goo and face were colluding, we kinda assumed it anyway and you could see it in the timings for ad auctions. But i dunno whether to laff or to cry at this:

"Facebook also demanded that data about its bids not be used by Google to manipulate auctions in its own favor"
 
Dude, when you gotta put a clause in a contract that sez dont cheat on this contract, mebbe you shouldnt be signing the contract to start with. And i cant believe Zuckerburg thought google would actually abide by any contract, they screwed everyone else.

sidd