Barbara Pocock, a senator with Australia's Greens party, referred to a "misdemeanor" at the firm, and said she was disappointed with the fine. "We've got a toothless system where con artists... get away with so much," she told a parliamentary committee last week.
Social media platforms are only as good as the people who run them
Readers respond to an article by Frances Ryan on whether it is ethical to use social media apps, given they can be rife with toxic rhetoric
Frances Ryan is right to point out the dangers of social media apps (Given the toxicity of social media, a moral question now faces all of us: is it still ethical to use it?, 14 February), but she also acknowledges how beneficial they can be. In my early days on Bluesky, I began questioning why I was spending time building a following. I wanted to promote my books because I believed that they had the potential to help many people, but book sales didn’t actually increase.
Still, I continued. I posted Arwa Mahdawi’s powerful column about the Save Act. I was able to let countless people know for the first time how dangerous this law would be. Then a researcher friend told me that he was having trouble getting people to complete a survey on gender-affirming care. With the help of others on the platform, we were able to get many participants for him.
The platform is only as good as the people who run it. When I first started on UpScrolled, an Australian platform, I wondered why the feed quickly ran out. Issam Hijazi designed the app to keep users from becoming addicted.
Social media, like any tool, can be used for good or evil. It is the moral values of the designers and the users that determine which.
Randy Fair
Wilton Manors, Florida,
KPMG partner in Oz turned to AI to pass an exam on... AI
Julian Barnes: ‘I’ve become more left-wing because the center has moved rightwards’
The 80-year-old British author has published ‘Departures,’ which he says will be his last book
It's just a complete coincidence that the DOJ has completely withheld all the Epstein documents immediately before, during, and after 9/11, right?
ICE operations increasingly resemble Israeli occupation. That’s no coincidence +972 Magazine
Epstein Flipped Israel’s Gaza-Tested Biometric Scanners Into Nigeria Ports Deal for UAE Drop Site
Files Showed Jeffrey Epstein Was a Guest at Conrad Black’s Lavish 60th Birthday Party for Barbara Amiel. The DOJ Just Deleted It. Dougald Lamont
After Noam Anti-Empire Project
Epstein Class: Making Money Killing People is A-OK Karl Sanchez
Westminster Book Awards
They've announced the winners of the Westminster Book Awards, with The Football Battalions, by Chris Evans winning for 'Best Fiction or Non-Fiction Book by a Parliamentarian'; see also the Bloomsbury publicity page.
At El Mundo Andrés Seoane profiles Slow Horses-author Mick Herron: 'Literature, like all art, begins with entertainment'.
