Weekend Edition 34: Holmes, Amazon, Elon, and Social Media, Oh My!

WE 34.1 – What’s New with Ms. Holmes?
Elizabeth Holmes’ legal team managed to postpone her requirement to report to prison by pointing out errors in the judge’s ruling, which automatically put off her reporting date until the judge can weigh the new claims, it bought her co-conspirator an extra month, but she is hoping that it will buy her more time than that. We will see. If you recall, Ms. Holmes was the CEO of Theranos, a medical testing start-up which was found to be fraudulent, and was also a darling of Silicon Valley and the media, who hailed her as the “next Steve Jobs”. She is a one-time paper billionairess, but not anymore.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65406910
#elizabethholmes #Theranos #fraud #payingthepiper #techfreedom #weekendedition #TechFreedom

WE 34.2 – Amazon UK Unionizing?
Amazon workers may shortly win the right to unionize in Amazon’s fulfillment centers. If you recall a couple of weeks ago, I covered a similar story from the US, specifically in one of the fulfillment centers in NY state. Which technically has the legal right to exist, but Amazon ignores them. It is a similar situation in the UK. The UK seems to have stronger supports for unions than we do, which is not a terrible surprise to me, as the UK is a commonwealth, and is much further along the path toward socialism than we are, though we aren’t as far from that as we would like to think.
Things are so bad that the workers say that their restroom breaks are timed and they are penalized if they go over the time limit, in light of the productivity demands placed on them by Amazon. Thus, the 700 members of the GMB union at the Coventry facility are on strike, not only until they are recognized by the government but until pay and conditions are improved.

#amazon #unions #UK #TechFreedom #weekendedition
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-65340522

WE 34.3 – Snapchat MyAI Rolls Out
Last week, we talked about this implementation of ChatGPT. Now it has been forced upon Snap’s entire userbase. Some have appreciated it, but many have not, particularly not here in the US. They’ve been review bombed in the App Store, specifically, with a glut of 1 star reviews since MyAI got pinned to the top of everyone’s feed on Monday. The feature bills itself as being able to do a number of things that are similar to ChatGPT (makes sense, as it is based on that tool), but does add caveats that it may not give entirely accurate answers and that users should not take these things as gospel, but perhaps as starting points for ideas. That is a balanced approach, but then Snap also knows that they need to be very careful with AI right now, and not completely oversell it, as that would leave them open to lawsuits that they cannot really afford at this point. It will be interesting to see how long this forced feature for free users will last. I forgot to mention that the premium, paid accounts can disable it if they desire to do so. Ironic, if you ask me.
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-65388258
#snapchat #MyAI #youdecide #socialmedia #weekendedition #FOSSNews #TechFreedom

WE 34.4 – Facebook Sued by Bevy of Former Content Moderators
Ooooh boy, this one is gonna rock Meta to the core. They have depended on men like this South African to do very traumatizing work to protect the rest of us from harmful content. I seem to recall mentioning something about this perhaps 6 months ago. The things that these men and women had to see in order to legitimately filter genuinely harmful content off of the platform are an atrocity. I will not joke about these. the reality is that they have been exposed to some extremely dark things in the course of their employment that no person should be forced to consume. True, on one hand, they were doing the jobs that they were hired to do, but at the same time, no one should be creating content like that, much less should anyone be subjected to watching it day in, day out, just for a paycheck. No matter how good that paycheck is. That will desensitize and dehumanize a person. One gentleman claims that he feels that a part of his humanity died, that he can no longer respond appropriately to death because he saw so much in the course of his duties. These were not your “fact checkers” or woke-ist politiburo members in the West. These are African men and women who faced depictions of real deaths, tortures, and suicides every day. I can’t imagine that job.
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-65346062
#facebook #contentmoderators #evil #TechFreedom #FOSSNews #weekendedition

WE 34.5 - Is Elon in Trouble?
Gee whiz, he can do wrong, after all. /sarc/ The MSM and woke mob is congealing in their REEEEEE at him for the choices he made since buying the platform in late October. News organizations are leaving, celebrities and governments are pissed at his removing of their blue checks on the platform, and many do not want to pay for it, so they leave. This has led to a sharp decline in advertising revenue, but with the fact that it is no longer publicly traded, Elon rightly claims that he doesn’t have to disclose anything to the public about the state of his company. I feel like he is intentionally burning it to the ground now because he realized that much more just how broken and corrupt it is. I sense that he will rebuild it from the ashes, but entirely open sourced. That should make me salivate, but it isn’t, because I do not trust him any further than I can throw him. I think that he is a creature of the deep state swamp. I see him as a creation of the US military industrial complex and the surveillance state. Feel free to differ and tell me about it in the comments.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/27/tech/elon-musk-twitter-six-months/index.html
#weekendedition #elon #twitter #reputation #wtf #TechFreedom #FOSSNews

WE 34.6 – Should the Government Get Involved with Kids and Social Media?
If you know me, you’re probably expecting an emphatic, “Hell No!” However, I find myself questioning the validity of that strongly held belief, since parents seem incapable of helping their kids to make good, life-affirming choices, such as staying the hell off of social media until they are at least in college. Human brains cannot handle that level of dopamine release as they are developing heavily. Kids are not being raised to be competent adults, but wards of the Nanny State. True, life is hard. That is why we need to step up for the upcoming generations, not forfeit our future to the State which has more interest in killing and controlling the masses than allowing people to stand up, think for themselves, and thrive. Is this necessary? Only if parents allow their kids to run the house. Does it seem necessary in the moment? Probably. Do I see GIANT red flags all over this? Absofragginglutely. This feels like creeping destruction of the freedom of speech, and to a lesser extent the freedom of the right to public assembly. Parents, step up. Break free from social media and general tech addiction. Show your kids how to handle tech, rather than showing them how it handles you. Parents, I know it is hard right now, but you can set up DNS filtering to block all social media on your home networks, as well as for individual devices. It isn’t that hard. Yes, you will have angry kids, for about a month, but then they will thank you for helping them to be whole and free people. You will see their grades go up. You will see their attitudes improve, not to mention self-esteem. Do what is best for your family. Cut it off. Nobody needs it that much, at home. Take control for yourself. Make governmental overreach like this unnecessary. Shoot, if you break your own addiction, you will almost certainly start to feel better about yourself as well.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/26/tech/senators-social-media-kids-wellness/index.html
#weekendedition #socialmedia #biggov #overreach #parents #parentyourkids #TechFreedom #FOSSNews