A News Blog Complains about Facebook Content Policies
January 20, 2022
Did you know that the BMJ (in 1840 known as the Provincial Medical and Surgical Journal and then after some organizational and administrative cartwheels emerged in 1857 as the British Medical Journal? Now the $64 question, “Did you know that Facebook appears to consider the BMJ as a Web log or blog?” Quite a surprise to me and probably to quite a few others who have worked in the snooty world of professional publishing.
The most recent summary of the dust up between the Meta Zuck outfit and the “news blog” BMJ appears in “Facebook Versus The BMJ: When Fact Checking Goes Wrong.” The write up contains a number of Meta gems, and a read of the “news blog” item is a good use of time.
I want to highlight one items from the write up:
Cochrane, the international provider of high quality systematic reviews of medical evidence, has experienced similar treatment by Instagram, which, like Facebook, is owned by the parent company Meta. A Cochrane spokesperson said that in October its Instagram account was “shadow banned” for two weeks, meaning that “when other users tried to tag Cochrane, a message popped up saying @cochraneorg had posted material that goes against ‘false content’ guidelines” (fig 1). Shadow banning may lead to posts, comments, or activities being hidden or obscured and stop appearing in searches. After Cochrane posted on Instagram and Twitter about the ban, its usual service was eventually restored, although it has not received an explanation for why it fell foul of the guidelines in the first place.
I like this shadow banning thing.
How did the Meta Zuck respond? According to the “news blog”:
Meta directed The BMJ to its advice page, which said that publishers can appeal a rating directly with the relevant fact checking organization within a week of being notified of it. “Fact checkers are responsible for reviewing content and applying ratings, and this process is independent from Meta,” it said. This means that, as in The BMJ’s case, if the fact checking organization declines to change a rating after an appeal from a publisher, the publisher has little recourse. The lack of an independent appeals process raises concerns, given that fact checking organizations have been accused of bias.
There are other interesting factoids in the “news blog’s” write up.
Quickly, several observations:
- Opaque actions plague the “news blog”, the British Medical Journal and other luminaries; for example, the plight of the esteemed performer Amouranth of the Inflate-a-Pool on Amazon Twitch. Double talking and fancy dancing from Meta- and Amazon-type outfits just call attention to the sophomoric and Ted Mack Amateur Hour approach to an important function of a publicly-traded organization with global influence.
- A failure of “self regulation” can cause airplanes to crash and financial disruption to occur. Now knowledge is the likely casualty of a lack of a backbone and an ethical compass. Right now I am thinking of a ethics free, shape shifting octopus like character with zero interest in other creatures except their function as money generators.
- A combination of “act now, apologize if necessary” has fundamentally altered the social contract among corporations, governments, and individuals.
So now the BMJ (founded in 1840) has been morphed into a “news blog” pitching cow doody?
Imposed change is warranted perhaps? Adulting is long overdue at a certain high-tech outfit and a number of others of this ilk.
Stephen E Arnold, January 20, 2022
Professional Publishing and Academic Standards: A Low Water Mark?
January 20, 2022
Ah, professional publishing in action. Retraction Watch reports, “‘This is Really Ridiculous’: An Author Admitted Plagiarism. His Supervisor Asked for a Retraction. The Publisher said, ‘nah.’” We wish we were surprised by an academic journal’s disinterest in veracity. The write-up largely consist of excerpts from emails between the submitting author, his supervising professor, the co-authors he admitted to plagiarizing from, and editors at the journal (IEEE Access). In setting up those quotations, the article explains:
“Behrouz Pourghebleh is perplexed. And also exasperated. Pourghebleh, of the Young Researchers and Elite Club at the Urmia branch of Islamic Azad University in Iran, noticed a paper published on December 15, 2020 in an IEEE journal that overlapped 80 percent with an article he’d co-authored the year before. Pourghebleh wrote to Zakirul Alam Bhuiyan, the associate editor who had handled the paper, on December 31, 2020, expressing concern. Bhuiyan responded the same day, saying the paper hadn’t been flagged in a similarity check, and that he would contact the authors for a response. The first author, Karim Alinani, wrote to Pourghebleh less than two weeks later, admitting the plagiarism but citing personal circumstances.”
Those personal circumstances are heartbreaking, to be sure, and the consequences editor Bhuiyan notes can befall those called out for plagiarism are indeed ruinous. Given the potential aftermath, Bhuiyan pleaded with Pourghebleh, can’t we just let this one slide? (That is a succinct paraphrase.) Both authors of the plagiarized paper strongly disagreed, but were willing to pursue a less disastrous route to retraction by appealing to Alinani’s postdoctoral supervisor. Even at the professor’s request, though, retraction was a no-go for the publication. The curious can navigate to the write-up for the details in that trail of email excerpts.
Despite our sympathy for Alinani, we think the time to consider consequences is before submitting a paper for publication. Or at least it should be. We agree with Pourghebleh when he called the journal’s outright refusal to retract the paper “really ridiculous.” Retraction Watch notes that the problematic paper has been cited at least once. We doubt that will be the last time.
Cynthia Murrell, January 20, 2021
Darktrace: He Said, She Said, and Probably They Said Too
January 20, 2022
The high flying cyber security sector suffered a headache when the SolarWinds’ misstep was disclosed. Since that time, the mass media have started paying attention to what a year or two ago was the content discussed at cyber security conferences and workshops. Now, everyone including most US government agencies, hundreds of start ups, and probably a grandmother or two in a Golden Years Long Term Care facility are talking about cyber security, ransomware, bad actors, the Dark Web, the Deep Web, bots, smart malware, and the equivalent of Crime as a Service or CaaS, the on demand resource for stealing financial data.
I read “Short Seller says Darktrace Targets Are a Pipe Dream”. The back and forth between the UK financial firm and the Darktrace cyber services firm is interesting.(Keep in mind that years ago I did some small project for Autonomy, but my experience was pretty good. Nevertheless, before some research-minded 20 something tweets about my consulting, you have been alerted.)
The write up hits three interesting points. I am not interested in Darktrace, however. I think these points apply to a large number of the companies closing deals, often for Palantir-scale invoices, for threat intelligence, cyber defenses, digital canaries, smart perimeters, yada yada.
What are those points?
- Projections are extremely optimistic. What cyber security firm thinks about running out of clients for six and seven figure license fees? Hint: Think of a number between minus one and one.
- Headcounts move around, change, and are disconnected from an old school GraybaR (circa 1869) organization chart
- Customers sign on and then bail out. Does this sound like a Theranos-type observation.
The write up states:
ShadowFall says Darktrace’s business is driven by “an aggressive, promotional, sales focus” and is unlikely to stand the test of time. British hedge fund ShadowFall has taken a short position against cybersecurity specialist Darktrace, calling its business “watery-thin”. The hedge fund is known in the City as the ‘dark destroyer’ for its practices of unpicking corporate reports and devaluing shares. While the fund paints its work as a public service, as a short seller its own business model relies on driving down the prices of companies it bets against.
What’s up here? I think Darktrace is like many cyber security vendors. Consequently, ShadowFall is probably getting the curling stone close to the scoring circle in the game of full body contact investment curling. However, the specific issues like the three I identified above are part of the Silicon Valley territory. I call this phenomenon of overstatement, misdirection, and management management magical misdirection part of the behavior I described a decade ago in my monograph “The Google Legacy.”
The cyber security sector is not doing a Tom Brady grade job protecting an organization’s data. Why? Breaches occur because careless or indifferent employees click on links which invite bad actors to come in and have a seat in the engineering meeting. Bad actors prowl message boards for an unhappy employee, pay that employee to insert a USB stick into a laptop, or exfiltrate log on credentials. Finally, giant companies don’t build software with security as Job One. Every day I learn about another flaw in either commercial software or open source libraries. Bad actors don’t have to worry too much. There are quite a few bright bad actors and an expanding pool of oligarchs responding to a business opportunity.
No cyber vendor can keep up. In fact, best of class outfits are selling to those outside of the cyber security National Honor Society and Phi Beta Kappa stratum. (Example: Recorded Future to a general service outfit.) There are too few top flight cyber security engineers to staff the companies building or needing these specialists. Yep, a people shortage exists.
The net net is that ShadowFall has diagnosed an industry wide problem. The write up, however, focuses on ShadowFall’s analysis of a single company. A more useful and fair analysis would take a good, hard look at other cyber security firms. A spectrum or league table of behaviors can be generated. Then a company in the cyber security business can be put into a performance context. I understand that in the UK Darktrace is news. That’s okay with me. There is a far more significant analysis job to do. Darktrace becomes a data point, and my experience suggests there are outfits which warrant a similar analysis and commercial enterprises for which there is more data available.
Where is this type of analysis? I have not seen one. The reason may be, “Who wants to kill the gold goose laying cyber threat eggs filled with money?”
Stephen E Arnold, January 20, 2022
Be More Like Elon, Bill, and Jeff: Read These Books
January 20, 2022
I read an amusing write up called “These Are the 25 books That Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and Bill Gates Think You Should Read to Get Smarter about Business and Leadership.” I would have suggested a little more tame headline; for example, “Did You Read These Books Yet?”
Why would I suggest a plain vanilla headline and a slightly less enthusiastic approach to a list of books?
Here are my reasons:
- Bill Gates has some interesting email accusations in his past, and there is the allegation that he found Jeffrey Epstein a person with whom time might be spent in a productive way. Elon Musk has the non-shipping self driving thing and the vapor cyber truck. Jeff — ah, the creator of the Bezos bulldozer which crushes that which is in its path — has the space cowboy thing going to complement some mobile pix.
- The books pour fuel on the ethos of the Silicon Valley vision. Do I need more Silicon Valley? Do I want to experience another Theranos moment complete with private text messages? Answer: Nah, I am okay.
- Equating making lots and lots of money with literary taste is similar to the Dallas Cowboys’ quarterback suggesting a play for the final seconds of a game. Amusing but unproductive.
Some of the books strike me as having value. However, the endorsement of three individuals with colorful personalities and — we must not forget — tons of money, interesting personal behaviors, and scintillating personalities does not enhance in my view.
Wow. Benjamin Franklin’s biography. Didn’t that esteemed American get booted from France as a result of some interaction with servants? Yep, super intelligent. Robots, seeing stones, and a book about companies built to last until the firms drop off the Fortune 1000 list.
Leadership. Business. Outstanding.
Stephen E Arnold, January 20, 2022
Microsoft and Games: A Different Take
January 19, 2022
I have been monitoring the breathless write ups about Microsoft responding like a good digital soldier in Call of Duty. The news hits the cash deal for more than $65 billion in cash. There are signals from the incredibly efficient government machinery that acquisitions will be subject to scrutiny, rules, and maybe more upfront testimony. I love these preambles: “Senator, thank you for the question.” Then the crystal clear responses. Thrilling.
What’s Microsoft itself say? Here’s one example: “Microsoft to Acquire Activation Blizzard to Bring the Joy and Community of Gaming to Everyone, Across Every Device.” The words that caught my eye were the names of the company. Those entities evoke thoughts of the antics of gamers in articles like “Activision Fires More People in Sexual Harassment Probe” and “California Sues Activision Blizzard, Alleging Culture of Sexual Harassment.” Perhaps these are allegations, but the message seems clear. Then there are strategic notions like this one from Inc. Magazine’s “1 Word Explains the Biggest Challenge Facing Microsoft’s $68.7 Billion Acquisition of Activision Blizzard”:
The goal is to feed the company’s Game Pass strategy, which has failed to gain traction among developers who aren’t particularly excited about handing over their flagship properties to a subscription service when they can easily command $50 or $60 apiece. Microsoft wants to let users pay $15 a month to play any game.
We have big money, sexual harassment matters, developers, gamers, and a reorganization.
My view is different.
Think back to late 2020 when news of the SolarWinds’ supply chain misstep circulated. FireEye (now part of Norton and renamed Trellix) reported the fact that a vaunted cyber security outfit (namely FireEye itself) was compromised. In short order, security professionals issued Emergency Directives like 21-02, tried to figure out what happened, and how many entities were compromised. Microsoft suggested that the issue was a result of 1,000 programmers beavering away in Eastern Europe. Rumors surfaced that the SolarWinds’ misstep had taken place months, possibly more than a year, before the FireEye announcement in December 2021. Public disclosures about breaches appear after lawyers and public relations professionals wordsmith. How long does this take? It varies in my experience. “Troubling Trend: It Takes Nine Months to Detect and Respond to a Cyberattack” makes clear that breaches have been implemented and performing the stipulated tasks for a considerable period of time.
Many pundits, consulting firms, investment outfits, and even SolarWinds itself realized that a certain large software company’s systems and methods were the surf board the bad actors were riding across the flows of digital data.
How do some individuals and companies respond when one subject — in this case, questionable engineering, insecure systems, and a snappy security breach that left US government agencies wondering who was pawing around in their allegedly secure servers — dominated the headlines.
My view was that a distraction was needed. What was that distraction? I interpreted the launch of what is known as Windows 11 was that distraction. Pundits took the red herring and gnawed. Familiar functions were suddenly unfamiliar. The October 2021 release of Windows 11 caught some people by surprise. Hello, Windows watchers working for Leo LaPorte and the TWIT TV operation.
My view was that Windows 11 was pushed out in order to create a point of discussion of some magnitude. My view is that chatter about Windows 11 would help mute the conversation about Microsoft security and its engineering practices.
Did it work? Sort of.
What’s up with the big news about the Activision Blizzard deal is that it looks to me like another distraction. Sure, one can make a business case about games, the metaverse, and the need for adult supervision of a gamer outfit. (This is interesting in light of Microsoft’s new found interest in alleged dalliances among the Softies.)
My take, which I admit is contrarian, is that Microsoft is using what looks like a major, super deal to focus attention on matters other than the security of Azure, Exchange, and even kicked to the kerb Word application.
Many arguments can be raised to point out that Microsoft’s senior management is not trying to distract anyone from anything. Windows 11 shipping without Android app functionality is just one of those things. Buying a game outfit saddled with some potentially costly legal allegations is just a bold move.
For me, Microsoft is using a magician’s method. Get the audience looking away from the nimble fingers palming a card or removing a divider so a rabbit can be pulled from a hat.
Why? My view is that the security issues remain is certain important Microsoft software systems. How did 2022 begin? “Microsoft Kicks Off 2022 With 96 Security Patches” explains that 89 of these were important. And what about virtual private network support? Oh, right, fixed now. And what about Windows Server vulnerabilities. There are fixes now for the issues created with those January patches. For details see “Microsoft Rolls Out Emergency Updates for Windows Server and VPN Bugs.”
But let’s talk about games, shall we? No, I would prefer to ask, “Why not apply those Microsoft billions toward addressing security issues?”
Stephen E Arnold, January 19, 2022
Fuzzifying Data: Yeah, Sure
January 19, 2022
Data are often alleged to be anonymous, but they may not be. Expert companies such as LexisNexis, Acxiom, and mobile phone providers argue that as long as personal identifiers, including names, address, etc., are removed from data it is rendered harmless. Unfortunately data can be re-anonymized without too much trouble. Wired posted Justin Sherman’s article, “Big Data May Not Know Your Name. But It Knows Everything Else.”
Despite humans having similar habits, there is some truth in the phrase “everyone is unique.” With a few white hat or black hat tactics, user data can be traced back to the originator. Data proves to be not only individualized based on a user’s unique identity, but there are also minute ways to gather personal information ranging from Internet search history, GPS logs, and IP address. Companies that want to sell you goods and services purchase the data, but also governments and law enforcement agencies do as well.
There are stringent privacy regulations in place, but in the face of the all mighty dollar and governments bypassing their own laws, it is like spitting in the wind. The scariest fact is that nothing is secret anymore:
“The irony that data brokers claim that their “anonymized” data is risk-free is absurd: Their entire business model and marketing pitch rests on the premise that they can intimately and highly selectively track, understand, and micro target individual people.
This argument isn’t just flawed; it’s also a distraction. Not only do these companies usually know your name anyway, but data simply does not need to have a name or social security number attached to cause harm. Predatory loan companies and health insurance providers can buy access to advertising networks and exploit vulnerable populations without first needing those people’s names. Foreign governments can run disinformation and propaganda campaigns on social media platforms, leveraging those companies’ intimate data on their users, without needing to see who those individuals are.”
Companies and organizations need to regulate themselves, while governments need to pass laws that protect their citizens from bad actors. Self-regulation in the face of dollar signs is like asking a person with sweet tooth to stop eating sugar. However, if governments concentrated on types of data and types of data collection and sharing to regulate rather than a blanket solution could protect users.
Let’s think about the implications. No, let’s not.
Whitney Grace January 19, 2022
Open Source How To: Hook Teams to Social Media
January 19, 2022
I read “Internal Facebook Note: Here Is A “Psychological Trick” To Target Teens.” Interesting stuff. One of the insightful items in the write up is that Facebook shut down the TBH operation. Well, that’s an assertion which a prudent person may want to verify. The write up also contains one of the Cambridge Analytica-type insights, a mini step by step guide to hooking a target sector.
Here’s the how to:
TBH noticed that teens often list their high school in their Instagram bio. So, using a private Instagram account of its own, the company would visit a school’s location page and follow all accounts that included the school’s name. TBH made sure its private account featured a mysterious call to action — something like “You’ve been invited to the new RHS app — stay tuned!” The startup would make one private account for each high school it wanted to target. The company found teens were naturally curious and would follow the private account back.
Helpful, particularly to bad actors without access to a pool of psychological tricks.
Stephen E Arnold, January 19, 2022
How about Chinese Infiltration: Subtle Sometimes?
January 19, 2022
I read “MI5 Warning about Influence Efforts of British Chinese Lawyer Marks Changed Tone.” Poor Brexit tangled Britain. France24, an outfit intimately familiar with hundreds of types of fromage, reported:
In a warning sent to all British parliamentarians, MI5 accused [Christine] Lee, 58, of acting covertly and in coordination with the United Front Work Department of the Chinese Communist Party, one of Beijing’s overseas propaganda organs, by facilitating financial donations to political parties, parliamentarians and those seeking political office in the UK. The rare alert “reflects the fact that the security services are pretty worried about what China is doing in this country, both in terms of traditional espionage, which this isn’t, but also in terms of modern forms of interference and influence,” Charles Parton, a fellow at the Royal United Services Institute think tank, told the Financial Times. MI5 says that Lee, a long-time resident of London, is suspected of attempting to buy the favor of prominent parliamentarians, both on the right and the left of the political spectrum.
Are the allegations true? Who knows? They do indicate that the stiff upper lip crowd is becoming more sensitive to the cracks and fissures foreign entities can use to influence certain aspects of British behavior. I wonder if Brexit was an example of foreign acupuncture? France24 is likely to provide more reports about British security “issues.”
Stephen E Arnold, January 19, 2022
Bad Culture: Signals Are Tough to Ignore
January 18, 2022
I have worked in a number of interesting jobs and on fascinating projects for more than 50 years. I have some time perspective. My first “real” consulting job was an analysis of the content in a number of magazines for a large New York publishing outfit. The person who supervised my work was the individual who coined the phrase “Photomat. Where your photo matters.” My recollection is that he was interested in the results, and he was up front about what he wanted to learn from the investigation. As I recall, he said, “I want to know how to increase renewals.”
That made zero sense to me because text analysis in 1970 had little to do with the real world. Indexing Latin and cranking out concordances, yes. But subscription renewal? I was clueless, but I did the work and reported results which made this big wheel spin with joy. I liked the person and I liked the company. As it turned out, I did consulting work for one of the other senior managers for over 45 years.
This early experience is different from what is described in “Young People Are Leaving Tech Because of Bad Culture.” This article explains:
Talent and skills provider Mthree found 59% of people between the ages of 18 and 24 said the company culture in their tech-based role made them so uncomfortable they had quit or at least thought about quitting. When it came to those from under-represented groups in UK tech, these figures were higher, with 64% of female respondents, 67% of those from a mixed-race background and 68% of young people who are bisexual saying they had either left or considered leaving a role because of a company’s culture.
Quite a contrast. I had a positive first consulting experience.
I think the issue with work today is broader than the technology sector in which I have worked for many years. Earlier in my career, I worked for a blue chip consulting firm and I have done projects for other big time blue chip outfits. I have avoided, for the most part, the mid tier operations. These struck me (perhaps incorrectly) as lacking the rigor associated with the blue chip outfits.
“McKinsey’s Leader Wants to Change the Firm” includes this statement:
McKinsey’s reputation also faced challenges. In February, the company said it had reached a $573 million settlement over its previous work advising OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma LP and other drug manufacturers to aggressively market opioid painkillers. McKinsey admitted no wrongdoing. The firm also drew scrutiny in recent years for its work with some foreign governments, including Saudi Arabia. [Emphasis added]
The idea that the downstream consequences of casual algorithmic tuning at Facebook-type companies and logic-driven business advice linked to drug addiction suggests a deeper issue. Is it the culture of the go go, Wolf of Wall Street thought processes or are these specific, observable symptoms of an ethical cancer? Are individuals operating flash mob snatch and run robberies unhappy with job opportunities or are these behaviors a loss of a strong social fabric?
Either way, people are making decisions which appear to be harmful to others. The impact of these types of behaviors are likely to accelerate the loss of technology and behavioral influence the US possessed when I began my work career half a century ago.
Change has been a long time coming, and I don’t think “speeding up decision making, rethinking performance evaluations, and avoiding future scandals” is going to retain tech talent or address certain behaviors that are genuinely harmful to others.
Stephen E Arnold, January 18, 2022
Google Identifies Smart Software Trends
January 18, 2022
Straight away the marketing document “Google Research: Themes from 2021 and Beyond” is more than 8,000 words. Anyone familiar with Google’s outputs may have observed that Google prefers short, mostly ambiguous phraseology. Here’s an example from Google support:
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When a Google document is long, it must be important. Furthermore, when that Google document is allegedly authored by Dr. Jeff Dean, a long time Googler, you know it is important. Another clue is the list of contributors which includes 32 contributors helpfully alphabetized by the individual’s first name. Hey, those traditional bibliographic conventions are not useful. Chicago Manual of Style? Balderdash it seems.
Okay, long. Lots of authors. What are the trends? Based on my humanoid processes, it appears that the major points are:
TREND 1: Machine learning is cranking out “more capable, general purpose machine learning models.” The idea, it seems, that the days of hand-crafting a collection of numerical recipes, assembling and testing training data, training the model, fixing issues in the model, and then applying the model are either history or going to be history soon. Why’s this important? Cheaper, faster, and allegedly better machine learning deployment. What happens if the model is off a bit or drifts, no worries. Machine learning methods which make use of a handful of human overseers will fix up the issues quickly, maybe in real time.,
TREND 2: There is more efficiency improvements in the works. The idea is the more efficiency is better, faster, and logical. One can look at the achievements of smart software in autonomous automobiles to see the evidence of these efficiencies. Sure, there are minor issues because smart software is sometimes outputting a zero when a one is needed. What’s a highway fatality in the total number of safe miles driven? Efficiency also means it is smarter to obtain machine learning, ready to roll models and data sets from large efficient, high technology outfits. One source could be Google. No kidding? Google?
TREND 3: “Machine learning is becoming more personally and communally beneficial.” Yep, machine learning helps the community. Now is the “community” the individual who works on deep dives into Google’s approach to machine learning or a method that sails in a different direction. Is the community the advertisers who rely on Google to match in an intelligent and efficient manner the sales’ messages to users human and system communities? Is the communally beneficial group the users of Google’s ad supported services? The main point is that Google and machine learning are doing good and will do better going forward. This is a theme Google management expresses each time it has an opportunity to address a concern in a hearing about the company’s activities in a hearing in Washington, DC.
TREND 4: Machine learning is going to have “growing impact” on science, health, and sustainability. This is a very big trend. It implicitly asserts that smart software will improve “science.” In the midst of the Covid issue, humans appear to have stumbled. The trend is that humans won’t make such mistakes going forward; for example, Theranos-type exaggeration, CDC contradictory information, or Google and the allegations of collusion with Facebook. Smart software will make these examples shrink in number. That sounds good, very good.
TREND 5: A notable trend is that there will be a “deeper and broader understanding of machine learning.” Okay, who is going to understand? Google-certified machine learning professionals, advertising intermediaries, search engine optimization experts, consumers of free Google Web search, Google itself, or some other cohort? Will the use of off the shelf, pre packaged machine learning data sets and models make it more difficult to figure out what is behind the walls of a black box? Anyway, this trend sounds a suitable do good, technology will improve the world that appears to promise a bright, sunny day even though a weathered fisherperson says, “A storm is a-coming.”
The write up includes art, charts, graphs, and pictures. These are indeed Googley. Some are animated. Links to YouTube videos enliven the essay.
The content is interesting, but I noted several omissions:
- No reference to making making decisions which do not allegedly contravene one or more regulations or just look like really dicey decisions. Example: “Executives Personally Signed Off on Facebook-Google Ad Collusion Plot, States Claim”
- No reference to the use of machine learning to avoid what appear to be ill-conceived and possibly dumb personnel decisions within the Google smart software group. Example: “Google Fired a Leading AI Scientist but Now She’s Founded Her Own Firm”
- No reference to anti trust issues. Example: “India Hits Google with Antitrust Investigation over Alleged Abuse in News Aggregation.”
Marketing information is often disconnected from the reality in which a company operates. Nevertheless, it is clear that the number of words, the effort invested in whizzy diagrams, and the over-wrought rhetoric are different from Google’s business-as-usual-approach.
What’s up or what’s covered up? Perhaps I will learn in 2022 and beyond?
Stephen E Arnold, January 18, 2022
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