Wednesday, August 21, 2019

Why Aren’t We Talking About LinkedIn?

What keeps earth air breathable? Not oxygen alone. The earth is a freer place to breathe in, every time you love without calculating a return -- every time you make your drudgeries and routines still more inefficient by stopping to experience the shock of beauty wherever it unpredictably flickers.
— Peter Viereck, born  in 1916

I like the condition of being an outsider, just passing through
— Barry Unsworth, born on this date in 1930


Thanks for a great job: RBA staff left bemused

'Dark art PR': Amazon uses Twitter army of workers to fight criticismVia Jonah Engel Bromwich



Wired – Facebook says it will extend its fact-checking program to Instagram. But the system is already overwhelmed and may not be able to handle more information. “Facebook announced on Thursday that it would expand a fact-checking program to its Instagram image-sharing service. Instagram users in the US can now report content they believe is false, but it’s not clear that the system, which is already overwhelmed, can handle more suspect information




Warden of Manhattan jail where Jeffrey Epstein died is reassigned, 2 guards placed on leave NBC (furzy). Notice the construction: “Lawmakers and administration officials alike are furious that Epstein could have possibly killed himself under the noses of jailers.”
Wealth of Jeffrey Epstein’s Brother Is Also a Mystery Gretchen Morgenson, Wall Street Journal




JUDITH WHITE. Arts vandalised in NSW

Buoyed by the re-election of the NSW Berejiklian Government in March, Minister for the Arts Don Harwin is ploughing ahead with the controversial move of the Powerhouse Museum from Ultimo to Parramatta. He has at last responded to the painstaking, long-running Upper House Inquiry into Museums and Galleries, which focused on the affair. His response is to disregard the findings of the Inquiry and the highly experienced professionals who gave detailed evidence to Continue reading 

JUDITH WHITE. Arts vandalised in NSW

Buoyed by the re-election of the NSW Berejiklian Government in March, Minister for the Arts Don Harwin is ploughing ahead with the controversial move of the Powerhouse Museum from Ultimo to Parramatta. He has at last responded to the painstaking, long-running Upper House Inquiry into Museums and Galleries, which focused on the affair. His response is to disregard the findings of the Inquiry and the highly experienced professionals who gave detailed evidence to it.

on JUDITH WHITE. Arts vandalised in NSW

MASSIMO FAGGIOLI. Reform or Dismantle? Why We Need to Keep the Institutions that Keep Us.

One of the effects of the sex-abuse crisis is the current moment of institutional iconoclasm—the temptation to get rid of the institutional element of the Catholic Church. The failures of the church’s institutions are now on full display, even more so than after the revelations of the Spotlight investigation. It is hypocritical, however, to interpret the abuse crisis as a clerical abuse crisis rather than a Catholic abuse crisis. Obviously, the clergy had a unique role in the crisis, but the moral and legal responsibilities do not belong exclusively to those wearing a Roman collar. We are still reluctant to acknowledge the systemic nature of this crisis as something that affected the entire Catholic world and not just its ordained ministers. We would like to contain it neatly within the hierarchy so as to exempt ourselves from the burden of critical self-reflection.

MASSIMO FAGGIOLI. Reform or Dismantle? Why We Need to Keep the Institutions that Keep Us.

One of the effects of the sex-abuse crisis is the current moment of institutional iconoclasm—the temptation to get rid of the institutional element of the Catholic Church. The failures of the church’s institutions are now on full display, even more so than after the revelations of the Spotlight investigation. It is hypocritical, however, to interpret the abuse crisis as a clerical abuse crisis rather than a Catholic abuse crisis. Obviously, the clergy had a unique role in the crisis, but the moral and legal responsibilities do not belong exclusively to those wearing a Roman collar. We are still reluctant to acknowledge the systemic nature of this crisis as something that affected the entire Catholic world and not just its ordained ministers. We would like to contain it neatly within the hierarchy so as to exempt ourselves from the burden of critical self-reflection.


The New York Times – As Facebook and Twitter face scrutiny, the site for job seekers remains a controversy-free zone. Is the office the future of social media? ” Twitter helps the powerful discover their worst selves and leaves everyone else vulnerable. Facebook brings people together only to subject them to marketing and manipulation. Our social feeds aren’t ready for the 2020 election. None of them are even ready for today. In recent months, they have faced serious scrutiny from Democratic and Republican lawmakers alike. Except one. Is there anything the rest of the internet can learn from LinkedIn?


  • A buzzy San Francisco startup has been secretly saving what appears to be millions of Instagram users’ stories and tracking their locations.
  • The marketing firm Hyp3r has been scraping huge quantities of data off the Facebook-owned app and using it to build up detailed profiles of people’s movements and interests.
  • The situation highlights how Facebook is still struggling to protect users’ data and oversee developers accessing its platform, more than a year after the Cambridge Analyticascandal revealed important privacy lapses.
  • Instagram has now issued Hyp3r a cease and desist, kicked it off its platform, and made changes to its platform to protect user data.
  • EDITOR’S NOTE: This story would normally be exclusive to BI Prime members. However, because of the public interest in this reporting, we’re making this story free to read for a limited time…”

Bloomberg Businessweek – Joel Stein – Avoiding digital snoops takes more than throwing money at the problem, but that part can be really fun – “…It isn’t going to be easy. I useGoogleFacebookAmazonLyftUberNetflixHulu, and Spotify. I have two Amazon Echos, a Google Home, an iPhone, a MacBook Air, a Nest thermostat, a Fitbit, and a Roku. I shared the secrets of my genetic makeup by spitting in one vial for 23andMe, another for an ancestry site affiliated with National Geographic, and a third to test my athletic potential. A few months ago, I was leaving my house in Los Angeles for a hike when I heard my Ring speaker say, “Where are you going, Joel?” in my wife’s voice. She was at a pottery class, but the smart doorbell sent her an alert when it detected me heading outside.

Ryan Calo, an assistant law professor at the University of Washington and an affiliate scholar at Stanford’s Center for Internet and Society, says that what my wife knows about my whereabouts is trivial compared with what most of the companies named above know. “In the early days of Nest, some of the employees would try to figure out where another employee was, and they’d look at the network to see if that person was home or not,” he says. Google, which now owns Nest, declined to comment.

If I wanted to regain my privacy, I had only one choice as an American: I needed gadgets to combat my gadgets. But I didn’t want Silicon Valley companies to know I was buying privacy gear. So I decided to get it only from companies headquartered outside the Bay Area. And to hide my purchases from Big Tech…”How to stay employed in the future?