For more context, from: https://www.protocol.com/newsletters/policy/zuck-bucks-consp...
> He offered nearly half a billion dollars in grants to any election official who wanted one, as long as those officials spent it on what a lot of people would consider mundane essentials: ballot sorters, drop boxes, poll workers and — because it was 2020 — hand sanitizer.
> And when those election officials applied for more money than he originally offered, he kicked in another $119 million to satisfy the rest of the requests.
> At a time when Republicans are rapidly restricting access to the ballot box in states across the country, spending nearly half a billion dollars to do the exact opposite of that is tantamount to a partisan choice. Or, at least, it was bound to be viewed that way.
That it is represents a failure in whatever party seeks to restrict voting.
>On average, Biden counties received $2.85 per vote, compared to Trump counties that only received $0.89. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10090603/Mark-Zucke...
So long as every county could receive funds equally, the fact some received less isn’t at all damning.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/zuckerberg-funded-el...
This is an example of an extremely wealthy person influencing an election, plain and simple. It's odd to me that we're all just supposed to be ok with it.
What’s the argument as to what happened here?
E.g.
https://capitalresearch.org/article/shining-a-light-on-zuck-...
The parent to your comment is asking what caused CTCL to give more to Democratically aligned counties. Everyone agrees it happened - I am just unconvinced it has a strictly partisan explanation. They are asking for proof it’s malicious. Just stating there is a difference in funding isn’t proof the CTCL acted with partisanship.
There are many latent variables besides GOP/Dem, Urban/Rural that could cause the difference. For example when examining barriers to voting, time spent in line or number of polling places/capita are easy KPIs. Urban areas tend to score poorly on these metrics. If the funding was allocated by these metrics urban areas will win more funding.
There are many reasons a totally non partisan group would prioritize grants to urban areas. Chief among them might be that partisans have deliberately underfunded urban locations and sometimes been caught saying the reason was for their partisan gain.
Or the simplest explanation: a party that discourages voter turnout is in charge or rural areas. Officials in those counties are less likely to ask for funding that makes voting easier.
>Emails from the Office of the Pennsylvania Governor and the Pennsylvania Department of State show that former Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar and an official in Gov. Tom Wolf’s office knew about private 2020 election grants and invited Democratic-leaning counties to apply, appearing to aid the selective process at a time when other counties were unaware. No email shows any official in either office providing similar information or assistance to any of the commonwealth’s Republican-leaning counties. [2]
It appears that the grant process were overly influenced by politics both from an application, and an outcome perspective.
I'm against privitization of election processes.
[1] https://www.realclearpolicy.com/articles/2022/03/02/show_me_...
[2] https://broadandliberty.com/2021/10/19/former-sec-of-state-b...
You’d think that for all this is, there’d be a sob story somewhere of the Republican counties that wanted better access to voting and didn’t get it. So… what happened?
Even if they ended up donating more to areas likely to vote their way. More voting is good period. If GOTV funding is spread unevenly then more GOTV funding to neglected areas is the solution.
They seem to use their network of paparazzi/journalists to actually research facts on the ground. It is paid for by the fact that 95% of the content is indeed trash that sells.
But the 5% that isn't trash contains classic what/when/where/how style facts in great detail. For select topics like the trucker protests in Canada the Daily Mail is one of the best publications.
I even remember noticing they stole one of their uplifting weight-loss stories from another tabloid.
edit: they have lots of photos, though, which is the best thing about tabloids.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/zuckerberg-funded-el...
Looking past the raw number of grants to the total amount of money granted, however, from zucks form 990 IRS filing. CTCL awarded all larger grants – on both an absolute and per capita basis to deeply Democratic urban areas.
E.g.
https://capitalresearch.org/article/shining-a-light-on-zuck-...
>Much of Mr. Zuckerberg’s money is documented by CTCL’s tax filings. The January 2022 report shows grants of $860,000 to Kenosha, $1.2 million to both Green Bay and Madison, $1.7 million to Racine, and $3.4 million to Milwaukee. These five critical cities alone received about $8.5 million of the $10.1 million that flowed into Wisconsin from CTCL, and $5.1 million dollars of Mr. Zuckerberg’s money was spent in Arizona. Four difference-making counties — Maricopa, Pima, Apache and Coconino — were carried by President Biden and received nearly 76% of CTCL’s grants. This funding helped Biden grow his turnout by nearly 700,000 votes in funded counties over Hillary Clinton’s 2016 total. CTCL sent $45 million to Georgia — more than any other state in the country — and 94% of the funds went to jurisdictions carried by Mr. Biden. [1]
It is pretty clear that pushing extremely well-funded get out the vote operations in highly democrat areas in the most key swing states is enough to swing an election.
This is dangerously partisan.
[1] https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/apr/12/mark-zucker...
Maybe if you are from US, if you are not from US you have no rights, US gov can spy on you, or even kill you without any legal consequences because it will be legal from US POV
IMO this is just reality of mediating "strategic" foreign companies operating domestically, especially from "adversarial" countries. Set legal compliance onerously high and hope they leave. Western platforms left PRC because they couldn't stomach the filtering requriements that every PRC company has to shoulder. And when they finally adopted improve moderation due to requirements/pressure in their host country, they tried to get back into the PRC market. Meanwhile TikTok is sticking around US because Douyin survived burdens of PRC regulatory environment so what's another difficult market. Both markets are difficult, TikTok just better at playing ball in such enviroments. FB/Google can't even control their own employees from sabotaging their return to PRC.
Apple "chose" to agree to this deal with a gun to their head, the only other "option" being that they would be banned from the Chinese market. This isn't just because they have a data sovereignty requirement, but also because they have requirements regarding the sovereignty of a company's corporate governance structure.
>TikTok/Bytedance was one Trump EO away from being force sold to US companies (actual nationalization)
I'm not defending that idea, but a forced sale is categorically not nationalization. The whole impetus for the idea was that Trump's "eye for an eye" approach regarding what he saw as unfair practices against other US companies that tried to operate there. And in the end, Bytedance challenged it, and it never came to fruition.
There aren't any functional counterparts to these checks on power in China that would have been relevant to Apple/GBCD. There's no independent judiciary or alternative ruling party.
The reason you don’t see stories like this [0] in China, is because of this [1]
0: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/14/apple-refuses-barr-request-t...
once every blue moon?
> by design
that sounds much bigger than it is, a little like inteligent design.
> not even close to comparable with the legal environment in China.
So, you are literally saying that you are not in a position to compare them. Or at least you are saying it's so out of this world, it may be on another planet, a parallel universe even.
Really, I have discovered a legitimate branch of legal research is in constitutional comparation (or whatever it's called). Sounds more promissing than it likely will be, surely a small field, but damn I'm intrigued.
I do concede that this thread should focus on less whataboutism.
Yes
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/apr/19/us-immigrati...
https://www.wsj.com/articles/federal-agencies-use-cellphone-...
https://www.theverge.com/2022/5/10/23065080/ice-surveillance...
2. Not for imprisonment (although deportation is an ugly business no matter the context).
3. Not working with companies, working with shady third-party data brokers that companies themselves would like to see shut down.
The only way to make sure that it continues like this is if nobody can collect the data.
So no, the answer is no. And there are laws in place that prevent such a change from occurring.
> nobody can collect the data.
It's unrealistic to think no one will be scraping data. You just need laws around who can do it, can for what reasons. And enforcement. (all of these things only possible in non-autocratic countries)
Haven't you learned anything from Snowden?
> You just need laws around who can do it, can for what reasons.
You just make illegal to use personal data for any other thing that is not the service being directly provided to the customer.
Personalized ads? Tracking cookies? Ad bids? Make all these illegal and the collection of data will stop being profitable. Stop making it profitable, and companies will no longer be interested in doing.
Unless a new patriot act comes along, which is highly unlikely to pass in 2022.
Like all US billionaires, then?
> Meta may not be YOUR adversary, but that fact is not necessarily true of all (or even most) Americans
The US government and ruling class doesn't see Meta as their adversary, even if it this the adversary of some Americans.
Sheldon Adelson is the only other billionaire that comes to mind in recent times who is spending on this scale. In the 2020 cycle for Trump, he spent about 40% less than what Zuckerberg did this past cycle.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/oct/31/sheldson-ade...
Who's doing the collecting often matters much more than what is actually collected.
The important context here is we seem to be transitioning away from the era of kumbaya free market globalism into an era of tenser geopolitical rivalries and more conflict.
Correct, therefore far more attention ought be put to domestic corporate and government spying on the public because they have got a far stronger leverage over the public's mind than foreign companies whom do not
Also, wouldn't it just be funny if Meta had some internal deals to acquire Tiktoks data? Lastly, if memory serves Tiktok makes use of Oracle (approved US gov contractor) to handle US data, so this is already under scrutiny [1]
[1] https://www.reuters.com/technology/exclusive-tiktok-nears-de...
So it might seem that the powers that be, wants us to be attentive regarding this deal
>> The important context here is we seem to be transitioning away from the era of kumbaya free market globalism into an era of tenser geopolitical rivalries and more conflict.
> Correct, therefore far more attention ought be put to domestic corporate and government spying on the public because they have got a far stronger leverage over the public's mind than foreign companies whom do not
You're missing the point, so I quoted the context again for emphasis.
To make it more explicit: the fact that US has leverage over Facebook means it's far less likely that Facebook's data collection will be used to attack US interests. That's why TikTok's collection is different, from the perspective of the US and allied countries.
You can make a pretty close personal analogy: I don't care as much if a close family member collects real time location data of my movements, because I trust they don't have incentives to use it in particular ways that are very harmful to me. I care a lot more if a personal or business rival collects the same data, because their incentive is to use it in the context of their rivalry to harm me or prevent me from achieving some of my goals.
Sure, but it's also worth noting the interests of the "US Public" are more in alignment with "US (Gov) Interests" than they are "Chinese (Gov) Interests," at least when it comes to geopolitics and stuff like this. That's far more relevant to a discussion of TikTok, which this is.
And I am sure that you have got a citation for that, right, other than you know, your own personal assumptions
You ought read some of Xi Jinpings own writing, he alongside his aides published a small article last year
Unless something is actually done - then the actor and its properties are of utmost priority in discussion.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31852384
Why didn't the Italian government just ban data collection in this form? They want to promote EU / local companies to collect this data rather than international companies.
CCP has little power (or motive) to imprison me as long as I don't travel there.
- There will always be a ruler, and which ruler is killing, slaving, censoring and selling it's own people as meat tools for foreign companies?
- China will kill, torture it's own people and their families if they think they are a thread (even if remote) to their government party (CCP).
- China put on a HEAVY surveilance tool and actually forced people to behave like they want using social credit
- China is actively removing ANY historical filosophies, tales, traditions, religions that could be a thread to the CCP's beliefs.
- Have you ever seen a CCP convention? Their plan is to remove the worlds countries boundaries in order to rule over everything from culture to politics and economics. Australia is suffering a lot on their hands, they even sent spies to patronize elections.
To be sure, there are numerous areas in which the behavior of the Chinese government is concerning and unacceptable, but there is also an undeniable level of hysteria when it comes to China that is not applied to US Allies. (See: Saudi Arabia and the rest of the gulf states)
[0] https://www.wired.com/story/china-social-credit-score-system...
It's important to generalize in order to show that some people are having arguments about principles, and others hate China. Sometimes you mistake the latter for the former, and waste your time making principled arguments with someone who just wants to kill.
Is there any concrete action that you think people can do?
That's a fantasy that makes the perfect into an enemy of the good.
>> Or maybe we should just support and adopt open source alternatives...
> People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.
You misunderstood. I'm objecting to the either/or framing that implicitly says that something like Vine should not be brought back. If you want to create an open source alternative, go ahead and I hope you're successful. However, the chances of that succeeding are much smaller, therefore it's not a good choice to focus on to solve the particular problem at hand.
Users who are not willing to accept their data being mined. Who are not willing to be sold as eyeballs. Who are willing to pay a few bucks a year just to keep other smaller providers running.
The software exists. Unlike Vine, millions of people use it already.
The privacy of your data is more impacted by where it is and who controls it, not the copyright license of the software that moves it around
Of course the software license is not related directly with privacy and access control. But there is no way that a private company will be able to offer a global social network while keeping user privacy a priority. The moment that any single company becomes big enough, they will either exploit the data for their own benefit (like Google/Apple/Meta/Microsoft/Amazon) or they will be pushed into it by some government.
Our best alternative is to have not to trust any particular company, but to use federated/distributed services, and the easiest way to have that is by ensuring that we are supporting and adopting open standards and open source systems that can be hosted by many different players.
That’s why Meta is blocked in the PRC.
The west should do the same for TikTok.
Seemingly doing a lot of lifting here
The real threat from TikTok is not so much the collection of information (though that's a problem) - it's the way the CCP can leverage it to tune influence without users noticing (silencing Hong Kong or Uyghur related information for example).
It's disingenuous to assume their capabilities are the same.
"China bad" is a casual way of dismissing these crimes, which I find to be quite repulsive.
Douyin is the original TikTok. It operates exclusively in China and all it's data is in China.
And is still sent back to China.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/emilybakerwhite/tiktok-...
Where data is stored does not matter at all if it's still being accessed by undeclared third parties.
> Yet something odd happened when Borden and Prater were booked into jail: A computer program spat out a score predicting the likelihood of each committing a future crime. Borden — who is black — was rated a high risk. Prater — who is white — was rated a low risk.
> Two years later, we know the computer algorithm got it exactly backward. Borden has not been charged with any new crimes. Prater is serving an eight-year prison term for subsequently breaking into a warehouse and stealing thousands of dollars’ worth of electronics.
> Scores like this — known as risk assessments — are increasingly common in courtrooms across the nation. They are used to inform decisions about who can be set free at every stage of the criminal justice system, from assigning bond amounts — as is the case in Fort Lauderdale — to even more fundamental decisions about defendants’ freedom. In Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, Kentucky, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin, the results of such assessments are given to judges during criminal sentencing.
> ...
You mean, algorithms such as these above right? If so, then yeah, I feel for them, just like I feel for the black demographics living under such distopia right now in supposed democratic countries
https://www.propublica.org/article/machine-bias-risk-assessm... (2016)
Except for you know, the fact that these are not individual cases.... And that as you might know, courts indeed form part of "the government", if anything courts, be it tribal or others are the original form of government
Meta might still be a shitty company, but their incentives are not to gather intelligence against US citizens that could be used to conduct cyber attacks or plan for military operations.
https://s21.q4cdn.com/399680738/files/doc_financials/2022/q1...
Oh, so it's us vs them. Gotcha.
And before someone says Meta is an American company, not controlled by an adversary, let me recall that it’s controlled by Zuckerberg who spent $419 million to influence US election administration in a seemingly partisan way (“democracy hacking” as another commenter said). Meta may not be YOUR adversary, but that fact is not necessarily true of all (or even most) Americans