Ever Heard of Editorial Policy?
March 16, 2022
I have been working through the digital baloney that is tossed in my face each morning. Mashable reveals that Substack is losing writers due to censorship. The story “Why Substack Creators Are Leaving the Platform, Again” explains how Substack’s management fell on its sword. TikTok’s problems with content moderation in Russia are explained by the “real” news outfit owned by the estimable Rupert Murdoch. “TikTok Struggles to Find Footing in Wartime” explains that figuring out how to deal with what Mr. Putin perceives as untoward content. Amazon Twitch faces similar challenges. And there is YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook.
The issue is that none of these high tech outfits attended to the value of what I call “editorial policy.” The idea is that there are guidelines developed by professionals working in an information generating operation develop. These are discussed, debated, and written down. Once they have been written down, the guidelines are reviewed, presented when new employees are hired, summarized in user documentation, described in training sessions, and mentioned (briefly or in detail) in conference posters or presentations.
The main idea is to demonstrate a set of guidelines that the information generation outfit followed. I have delivered briefings to start ups, venture funds, and professional groups for more than 50 years. I can say, based on my experience, that once the Internet made everyone into an expert, very few found editorial policies particularly relevant.
Now the zippy types are figuring it out. The problem is that effort is needed. Disciplined thinking is necessary. Staff training and continuity are important. Management commitment is important.
I am not sure retroactive editorial policies will be possible. Let’s just go with the flow. How is that working out for you?
Stephen E Arnold, March 16, 2022
Gannett: Allegedly Manipulating Online Advertising for Gain
March 16, 2022
What? Online advertising subject to manipulation? I thought this was impossible. The players have the highest ethical standards. The online services make the leaders of a half dozen major religions look like moral slackers.
“Doman Spoofing on Gannett Sites” suggests that one of the brightest lights in the galaxy of highly regarded “real news” outfits may have been putting its thumb on the grocer’s scale. The write up asserts:
Domain spoofing — where ad inventory is misrepresented as being from a different site — is often talked about as a solved problem by adtech insiders. Despite this, USA Today and hundreds of local newspapers owned by Gannett were sending spoofed bid requests to multiple ad exchanges for over 9 months.
The write up marshals evidence which will be impenetrable to those who are not familiar with Web coding and advertising mechanisms. Nevertheless, the main point is that Gannett is in the center of something that looks to the author (braedon.dev_) suspicious.
The write up adds:
This is unlikely to be the only case of this kind of authorized spoofing in the wild. Exchanges, DSPs, and anti-fraud vendors need to take a good look at why it seemingly went undetected for so long, and where else it might be happening.
My goodness, is domain spoofing and digital bait and switch widespread? Of course not. Ad sales are infused with the integrity of the MBA and coders who do what seems like fun.
Stephen E Arnold, March 16. 2022
Dashworks Promises To Be The Best Enterprise Search System
March 16, 2022
Search not only remains a fundamental component of working environments, but also daily life. Quickly locating information is essential, but if a search engine low quality results it clogs up routines. TechCrunch dives into the background of a robust enterprise search system: “Dashworks Is A Search Engine For Your Company’s Sprawling Internal Knowledge.”
Dashworks promises to be a comprehensive search system that scours everything from Slack threads to Dropbox files. It wants to be an organization’s one stop search solution for internal knowledge through one centralized hub. While its homepage is helpful with FAQs and bookmarks, its cross-tool search is the real selling feature:
“More impressive, though, is its cross-tool search. With backgrounds in natural language processing at companies like Facebook and Cresta, co-founders Prasad Kawthekar and Praty Sharma are building a tool that allows you to ask Dashworks questions and have them answered from the knowledge it’s gathered across all of those aforementioned Slack threads, or Jira tickets, or Dropbox files. It’ll give you a search results page of relevant files across the services you’ve hooked in — but if it thinks it knows the answer to your question, it’ll just bubble that answer right to the top of the page, Google Snippets style.”
Dashworks is compatible with over thirty popular services and more are being added all the time. Dashworks does require access to all the services, devices, and applications within an organization, which might be alarming but necessary for cross-tool search.
Dashworks is an excellent idea, but if an employee uses their own device will it engage with platforms that should remain personal? But a promise? Hmmm.
Whitney Grace, March 16, 2022
Zuckbook Meta: A First of Note
March 15, 2022
I have been working for more than 50 years. I cannot recall an American company finding itself in legal tangles which transcend the routine “Let’s sue ‘em in Texas.”
First, Facebook and the lovable Googzilla find themselves the focus of fresh-as-a-daisy antitrust probes in the European Union and the ever-organized United Kingdom. You can read about this matter in “Jedi Blue Ad Deal between Google and Facebook Sparks New Antitrust Probes in EU and UK.”
Second, Facebook faces a legal action for collecting facial recognition data. This is a Texas action which adds to the baker’s dozen of US state attorneys general thinking hard about the social media company devoted to bringing people together. You can read about the facial recognition matter in “Texas Sues Meta for Collecting Facial Recognition Data.”
Now the third legal hassle. The exceptionally cheerful country called Russia wants its judicial system to slap “extremist” on the cheerful blue logo. The main idea is that those positive and prosperous Russian bureaucrats want to crackdown on the social media company. Facebook is permitting its data producers to use such phrases as “death to the Russian invaders.” A vacation in Sochi for the Zuck team may not be a very good idea in my opinion. You can read more in “Russia Asks Court to Label Facebook, Instagram as Extremist.”
So what special about this series of legal matters?
- US officials want to take action against Facebook
- UK officials want to take action against Facebook
- Russia (a country engaged in freeing Ukraine) wants to take action against Facebook.
That’s a trifecta for the Zuck. Few admitted to Harvard achieve such heights. Losing billions in a day and now funding legal eagles across half the globe — achievements to note.
Stephen E Arnold, March 15, 2022
The Companies That Would Be Countries: Intimidated?
March 15, 2022
I don’t know if this PC Magazine (the super better online version from the print one that once was stuffed with ads) hit a home run with this story or not. Titled “Report: Russia Intimidated Google, Apple into Removing Smart Voting App” makes it clear that having more money that a real-life nation state does not mean that countries are useless.
The write up states:
Russia’s intelligence service, the FSB, reportedly intimidated Google and Apple into removing the Smart Voting app from their platforms because of its affiliation with Alexei Navalny.
The origin of the write up is the “trust us” real news outfit Thomson Reuters. Okay, let’s trust ‘em.
If accurate, companies that want to be countries can generate big bucks, but some countries can intimidate unlike a basic Congressional hearing.
Stephen E Arnold, March 15, 2022
Cyber Security Mumbo Jumbo: Whatever Sells to MBAs Is Good
March 15, 2022
Malware analysis is an important business function, but companies are confused about how it helps. Venture Beat examines how many companies have trouble with malware analysis in the article: “Report: 93% Of Orgs Challenged By Malware Analysis.” OPSWAT released a startling report about how companies respond to malware analysis. The results that 93% do not know what to do or lack effective and efficient operations is not good.
The biggest challenges companies face when handling a potential threat are lack of automation, lack of integration, and lack of employee experience with tools. These slow down response time to attacks and could potentially create bottlenecks.
This is even more disturbing because only 3% of companies resolve malware attacks, while 22% resolve less than half. Advanced persistent threats (APTs), targeted attacks, and ransomware bad actors are increasing and malware analysis is a way to prevent them.
“Malware analysis is a time-consuming manual process, made all the more complex by tools that are not integrated. Such monotonous workflows can become the source of employee burnout, or introduce human error into the process, making the demand for high-performance and accurate solutions a premium. The technical limitations of malware analysis and the struggle to find experienced malware analysts are two sides of the same coin, and if malware analysis is to continue maturing as a business function, then organizations need to be aware of their current limitations and begin investing in more automated, integrated, and accurate solutions — resulting in a stronger security posture and higher performing staff.”
Companies should be aware of malware attacks and take preventive measures, such as those outlined in malware analysis reports. Is investing in malware analysis well spent, though, if companies do not do anything? Maybe it would be better to teach employees how to recognize potential threats or investing in decent cyber security.
Whitney Grace, March 15, 2022
Google Cloud: A Marketing Challenge
March 15, 2022
I read a report which I think is assembled by a human or two working with smart software. What’s interesting is the observation about Google Cloud expressed in “Google-cloud Is About to Get More Expensive.” [Note: Links to content on Dailyhunt often result in 404s. There’s not much I can do about this run-and-gun news source, folks.]
I noted this passage:
At present, Google – and Google Cloud particularly – suffers from the perception that it will close down services randomly, despite the fact that its users rely upon them. Now, add to that the insight that it will arbitrarily raise its costs and its sales team will probably need to work overtime to satisfy the aggressive development objectives the company has surely set for itself.
There’s been some additional chatter about Google modifying the cloud storage deals for certain academic institutions.
Is this a PR challenge or clever management of the users who make the Google system hum like a well fed Googzilla?
Stephen E Arnold, March 15, 2022
Oh, Oh, Criticism of a Cabal Fave: Deep Learning Daubed with Doo Doo
March 14, 2022
Ask Dr. Timnit Gebru, “How’s that push back on a certain big outfit’s approach to smart software working out?” Then there are the assertions that entire conferences exclude certain information about smart software driving off the information superhighway. Finally, listen and you will hear rumblings about a cabal in smart software.
If any of these “trivial” points resonate, you may find “Deep Learning Is Hitting a Wall” interesting. I prefer the idea of a golfer stumbling into deep doo doo, but you can choose the metaphor that speaks to you.
The write up is lengthy. I will highlight briefly the points with which the essay ends:
- Computational effort to learn what can be expressed symbolically is not smart (sort of the opposite of smart software, right?)
- One-trick ponies struggle when asked to do another trick
- Alternatives like symbolic methods work well for certain situations, particularly those where deep learning goes off the rails and into the doo doo
- Black boxes mean that outsiders have no idea what’s going on, particularly when applied to ad matching.
Does this sound like flaws in a certain alleged monopoly’s method?
Stephen E Arnold, March 14, 2022
Technology Conferences: What Does Sponsorship Money Buy?
March 14, 2022
I have attended a number of conferences in my 50 year work career. Here’s what I learned:
- Giving a conference organizer money can provide access to the attendee list with phone number and email addresses
- Paying for a cocktail, breakfast, or some other gathering within the conference can include a speaking slot
- Supporting the conference with a payment can result in one of those logo-bedecked bags provided to each and every attendee whether the attendee wants the useless pouch or not
- Offering cash may allow a special information channel; for example, a contributor being able to provide a video commercial into each attendee’s hotel room. (Yep, I remember, the Chemical Abstracts’ video in London a decade ago)
- Coughing up money results in slots on the program and these talks are not on the last day of the conference at the tail end of the program day. Nope. These slots are keynotes or hour long masterpieces of PowerPointery.
Now you get the idea.
“The Tech Industry Controls CS Conference Funding. What Are the Dangers?” explains a more interesting and somewhat more conceptual approach to paying conference organizers big money or small money over, under, or on the table.
The write up points out that a role in selecting the topics and who can talk. That’s the nifty part. The attendee perceives the conference lectures as neutral. Often a panel of “experts” reviews the abstracts and interacts with the speakers. Some conferences offer helpful guidelines. Do conference funding sources manipulate the knobs and dials of the program itself? Yep, conference organizers love to play ball, have favorites (Isn’t Google special?), and their own industry biases (How about quantum computing for intelligence professionals?)
I noted this statement in the cited article:
Relying on large companies and the resources they control can create significant limitations for the kinds of CS research that are proposed, funded and published. The tech industry plays a large hand in deciding what is and isn’t worthy of examination, or how issues are framed. For instance, a tech company might have a very different definition of privacy from that which is used by consumer rights advocates. But if the company is determining the parameters for the kinds of research it wishes to sponsor, it can choose to fund proposals that align with or uphold its own interpretation.
Let’s imagine a hypothetical conference about smart software. The funding entities are part of the Stanford AI Lab persuasion. What happens when Dr. Timnit Gebru and her fellow travelers propose a paper? In an objective, academic, Ivory Tower world, the papers are picked based on some arbitrary set of PhD-infused criteria? What happens if an IBM- or Google-type outfit funds the conference? Forget that Ivory Tower handwaving. The idea will be to advance the agenda. Snorkel, cognitive computing, whatever.
What happens when a history major with an MBA attends the conference looking for something in which to invest his financial firm’s hard earned assets? Is this MBA able to differentiate the goose feathers from the giblets? In my opinion, the MBA will select from the knowledge buffet. Think about a boxed conference lunch sponsored by the keynote speaker’s company? Do you want cheese with your chicken or do you want cheese? See there is a choice. In reality, one takes what is served.
Even “research” has been converted into information warfare. Objective and exciting, right?
Is the conference organizer complicit? Yep.
Stephen E Arnold March 14, 2022
Amazon: Does the Online Bookstore Sell Petards?
March 14, 2022
What happens when an Amazon wizard says something that allows a real news outfit to write:
In 2020, Jeff Bezos, then the company’s CEO, told the committee Amazon doesn’t allow staff to use data from individual sellers to make competing products, but couldn’t guarantee “that policy has never been violated.” Executives also said in testimony that the company doesn’t use seller data to copy products and then promote its versions in search results, despite reports to the contrary. Source: “DOJ Asked to Investigate Amazon over Possible Obstruction of Congress”?
What’s a petard? A search of Amazon reveals that it thinks it is a way to find a book in French which seems like to inflame Tennessee local school board officials. See “Peanut Butter: The Journal de Molly Fredickson”.
The petard of which I am thinking is “hoist by your own petard.” It means, according to the Free Dictionary:
Injured, ruined, or defeated by one’s own action, device, or plot that was intended to harm another; having fallen victim to one’s own trap or schemes. (“Hoist” in this instance is the past participle of the archaic verb “hoist,” meaning to be raised or lifted up. A “petard” was a bell-shaped explosive used to breach walls, doors, and so on.)
Saying one thing under oath and having elected officials learn facts that suggest otherwise is not a credibility booster.
Would senior wizards for the online bookstore dissemble?
Yep, just like some other executives when they say, “Senator, thank you for that question. I don’t know, but I will get back to you.”
Stephen E Arnold, March 14, 2022
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