Tech News: Meta Ignores its Oversight Board

So the board's purpose is to make recommendations and also to review Meta's decisions to try and keep the company in line with its stated policies. So essentially, it's to make sure that Meta is obeying its own rules. But the thing is, Meta is not actually under any obligation

to follow whatever the oversight board recommends. So the board can make recommendations and urge Metta to make changes, but Metta doesn't actually have to do any of that at all, which might make you wonder what purpose does the board actually serve apart from optics. I don't have an answer to that anyway, The issue has cropped up again this week because the oversight board advised Meta to suspend the Facebook account belonging to Hun Sen, a politician, a leader

in Cambodia. Hun Sen has a pretty awful international reputation. He's dedicated a lot of effort to squashing independent press and critics and activists, as well as the fact that despite him being a democratically elected official, he wants to pass his position down to his son and make a

hereditary position, not an elected one anyway. Recently, Hunsen posted a video that contained many threatenings statements, including the promise to quote arrest a trader with sufficient evidence at midnight end quote, according to The Washington Post, and so the oversight board recommended to Meta that they suspend his Facebook

account instead. Meta Leadership has chosen to allow Hunsen to keep his Facebook profile, although they did remove the video in question after it had been up for half a year. As for the justification of allowing Hunsen to keep his profile, Meta said it's because that while Hunsen's video contains stuff that clearly violates Facebook policies, the video itself wasn't posted during a time of civil unrest, and apparently civil unrest is a prerequisite for Meta to suspend the accounts that

belong to public figures. The board states that hun Sen's post undermine democracy in Cambodia, and as such, Facebook shares responsibility for elevating Hunsen's platform, and therefore, you know, they should probably stop doing that because it's undermining the democratic process. Perhaps the threat of seeing Facebook access restricted in Cambodia, because that's something that Hunsen's administration was threatening, has also played a part in the company's decisions to dismiss the

board's opinion on this particular matter. Also, like I said, they left that video up for half a year. They only took it down when the Oversight Board started to bring their concerns forward to Meta officials, and it was clearly violating Facebook's policies, but it stayed up for half a year. Human rights advocates continue to criticize Meta for failing to show concern for user safety as well as the democratic process in general, and those, of course, are

charges that Meta representatives deny. That being said, Meta has reported that the company has removed more than seven seven hundred accounts on Facebook that they say have links to

a Chinese backed misinformation campaign. Further, according to Meta, this campaign hits a broad spectrum of social platforms, Beyond just the Meta ones like Facebook and Instagram, they include TikTok, Reddit, YouTube, and Twitter slash x. According to Meta, the main goal for this campaign was to control the narrative regarding China's

human rights record. Essentially, the campaign looked to redirect attention away from some truly horrific human rights violations, which is putting it lightly, and instead to proclaim China's actually, you know,

really valuing human rights. Actually. According to Meta, many of the profiles started out posting about stuff that didn't have anything to do with human rights or politics, and they were posting a lot of the same videos and pictures that were focusing on stuff like food and fashion, things that were not triggering as far as you know, saying oh,

this is a misinformation campaign. But gradually the accounts began to incorporate China messages and also heap criticism on the United States government as well as some other Western governments. And Meta has said that the people responsible for running the campaign they appear to be spread across China, but they're all pulling content from the same source, and that it's all likely connected to Chinese law enforcement. This is by no means the only coordinated state backed effort to

leverage social platforms in order to spread misinformation. Meta representatives noted that similar campaigns have originated out of places like Russia, Iran, and Turkey. The Verge reports that the Allen Institute for AI has released a new tool called Satlus. This tool can do something to satellite imagery that makes me think

of the old Hollywood trope of zoom in enhance. Like if you've ever seen any of those movies where someone's looking at camera footage and they want the operator to magically zoom in on one little corner of the footage and then enhance it so you can see who it was. You know that is mostly bogus as far as it goes, because you can't you can digitally punch in on an image. That's entirely possible. You know that, because I'm sure you've cropped videos and images before. But you can't really enhance

an image without inserting new information, right. You have to add information there. You can't just magically get access to information. It's not like the information was sitting there all along and you just had to zoom to see it. You have to add information to be able to quote unquote enhance That kind of is counter to identifying someone because you don't know if the information you're adding is accurate or not. But that's kind of what satlust is doing.

It sharpens satellite imagery by using deep learning to best fill in details to make those images less blurry and higher resolution. As for practical applications, the institute is focusing pun intended on getting information about, you know, tree cover and renewable energy projects that are going on around the world. That data can then be part of a larger picture

about climate change and conservation and renewable energy. So the hope is that by collecting information on a global scale, scientists and activists can have a more accurate picture of what's actually going on around the world where we could perhaps concentrate future efforts to have the biggest impact, and also to gain an idea of just how well or how poorly policymakers are progressing with various plans to combat

climate change. Are they actually following through on their promises or are the results antithetical to the goal of ending climate change? And it's nice to have a new piece about AI that's not a totally negative one, Like it's nice to have something about AI where you start to see, oh, this could be potentially really useful. However, I should point out that the researchers who are working on this tool have already noted that, just like other generative AI tools,

is not immune to hallucinations. That's when generative AI ends up making stuff up when it determines it doesn't have

enough information to provide a good answer. So in the case of SATLUS, sometimes that manifests as the tool drawing building details incorrectly, and that could possibly be due to things like the fact that architectural styles are not uniform around the world, so it may be drawing from its quote unquote knowledge of architecture in one part of the world and then just applying those principles to another to try and complete a picture, when in fact that just

ends up making it inaccurate. So it's by far a perfect tool, but it is an interesting application of generative artificial intelligence. The United States Federal Communications Commission, or FCC, has some bad news for Internet service providers that have been complaining that it's just too darn hard to list out every fee they charge their customers each month. And the bad news the FCC has is well tough because

he gotta. Five trade groups representing some of the biggest broadband providers in the United States petitioned the FCC to drop this requirement because, according to them, listing out all the fees creates quote unquote significant administrative burdens. I'm not sure how supplying essentially a bulleted list of various fees is an administrative burden, but charging customers those fees isn't. I mean, obviously the companies have to know what the

fees are. Otherwise how could they charge customers, Like, how could they do that? So shouldn't the customer know what fees they are having to pay? So they've said to the FCC, No, no, this would be too hard, don't make us do this. But the FCC has not budged and said that the rules will go into effect and that the broadband companies will not be getting any exceptions

or exemptions or anything like that. One FCC representative said, quote, every consumer needs transparent information when making decisions about what internet service offering makes the most sense for their family or household. No one wants to be hit with charges they didn't ask for or they did not expect end

quote to which I say, you're doggone right. I mean, I'm sure I'm not the only one who is just sick of the experience where you think you're going to pay one price for a product or a service, but then you find out that there were all these other extra fees that get added on at the very end of the transaction and it inflates the cost significantly. It's not just broadband that does this, obviously, I'm looking at you, ticket Master, your convenience fees convenient for whom? Okay, who

to whom? Is that convenient? Anyway? Why would broad band companies oppose listing out all these fees, Well, it's not because it's an administrative burden. It's likely because that there are some charges that the government man dates that these companies pay, and one of the things that will have to happen by detailing all these different fees is that the companies are going to have to show when and

how they pass those charges on to customers. So instead of it being that it's the company's burden to pay these fees, it's really the customer's burden to pay the fees, because the company just passes the charge straight on to them,

which might be a little off putting. Also, there are other fees that these companies add on that are not mandated by the government, and by showing those, the companies might be worried that they're going to really upset their customers, who are like, yeah, but why does this fee exist? And there may not be a good reason other than we want your money. So there are lots of reasons why companies could be opposing this, but so far, the

FCC hasn't budged that. Being said, the FCC, while it does technically have the authority to do this, the whole thing is still under review, so it's entirely possible that another department within the government will change things. Anyway, we just have to wait and see. Okay, I have a few more news stories before we wrap up, but first

let's take a quick break. We're back. So X, formerly known as Twitter, has asked a judge to dismiss a pending lawsuit against the company that accuses it of disproportionately laying off older workers once Elon Musk took over. So discriminating employees on the basis of age is absolutely against the law, and the lawsuit says that's essentially what happened during the massive layoffs at the company. So, according to this lawsuit, X laid off sixty percent of workers who

were fifty years of age or older. If they were over the age of sixty, the percentage was closer to seventy five percent, and younger employees saw layoff rates at around fifty four percent. So essentially, what the lawsuit is saying is that if age were not a factor, you should see this layoff percentage be pretty even across all age groups, but it's not. It's higher for people who were older. The judge has not dismissed the case. They

denied X's request to dismiss it. However, they did instruct the plaintiff that the lawsuit needs to be amended and have better evidence to support the claim that the company intentionally was laying off older workers or targeting over workers during the layoffs, because as of yet, the current lawsuit does not lay that out clearly enough, according to the judge, So we'll have to wait and see if this moves forward. Meanwhile,

X is rolling out some new features. First up, if you're a paid user on the X platform, you'll be able to hide your likes. That means that other users will not be able to pop onto your profile and click on the little likes tab and get a look at which posts you have liked in the past. They will be able to see if you've liked an individual post.

Right if you've happened to like a post and they see that post, they can see that you liked it, but they won't have that aggregated tab that they can check out to see if you're liking lots of stuff that maybe you'd prefer people not see. If you're going around liking a lot of folks who have very controversial opinions, you might not want folks to know that about you,

for example. Now, on top of that, Elon Musk posted earlier today, In fact, in the wee hours of the morning, he posted that quote, video and audio calls coming to X works on iOS, Android, Mac, and PC. No phone number needed. X is the effective global address book. That set of factors is unique. End quote. Now, he did not indicate when this feature might actually launch. We also don't know if it's going to be platform wide or if it's only going to be a to paid subscribers.

I'd be shocked if it's available to just the general populace of X. And I'm also wondering how it's gonna work because I'm hoping that this feature won't allow just anyone to make video or phone calls to anybody else who's on the platform. That seems like that's a terrible idea, So I imagine it's going to rely on something like both people have to follow one another first before you can make a call, Like you couldn't just call someone

you know, like cold call them or whatever. Otherwise people, especially like notable people, would have their phones blowing up all the time from phone calls and video call requests, and that just seems like it's a great way to drive people off your platform. So as much grief as I give Elan Musk and the companies he owns or runs, I don't think there's any way this feature is going out without some serious guardrails in place. I'll be shocked if he lets it go out without any restrictions at all.

So we'll see Back In October of twenty twenty one, Google introduced a new subscription service called pixel Pass, and the idea was that you would subscribe to this service and you would get certain features, including some discounts on other Google services, but you would also get a Pixel phone.

The type of phone you got would depend upon the level at which you subscribed, and then every two years you would get an upgrade to your phone as long as you were still subscribed to the service, so two years later you would get a brand new, state of

the art Pixel phone. It has been twenty two months since Google launched the program, which means were just two months out from the early adopters of that program getting their first phone upgrade, which they will not get because Google has scrapped the program just as those who had signed up were about to get their brand new phone. Google has decided the program is not working. They're canceling it,

which is kind of a bummer. They will continue to provide service throughout the rest of the term of the subscription, They're just not going to ship out any new phones to subscribers and they're not renewing any subscriptions. So the phone upgrade was a feature of this plan. It wasn't the only one, but still it is a big bummer to have the rug pulled out for the subscribers who were just about to get a brand new phone. So Google has altered the deal pray they do not alter

it further. A US science organization called noir Lab, which has the coolest name ever, it actually stands for the National Optical Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory, has said that hackers have been targeting its telescopes and has brought down those telescopes as well as the organization's website. The two big telescopes that hackers have attacked are in Hawaii and Chile.

The organization says it's working with cybersecurity experts to return the telescopes and the website to operational status as soon as possible. That was on August twenty fourth. The most recent reporting I could find doesn't have any information on who might be behind these attacks or what their motivations could be. That's not to say that the cybersecurity experts don't have suspicions, or maybe that they you know, they may already know who is responsible. They could just be

playing things close to the vest right now. We just don't know. Yikes and now heads up, PlayStation owners, if you subscribe to PlayStation Plus, expect your monthly bill to go up starting September sixth unless you take action soon. Sony is increasing the annual prices on each of the three tiers of PlayStation Plus. So the base level was sixty dollars per year, now it's going to be eighty

dollars per year. The Extra Plan went from one hundred bucks, it'll go to one hundred thirty five bucks a year, and the Premium plan is going from one hundred and twenty dollars a year to one hundred and sixty dollars a year. So, in other words, Tier one is increasing by twenty bucks per year, Tier two by thirty five five bucks per year, and Tier three forty bucks per year. So not only is everything getting more expensive, but the higher the tier, the more expensive it's getting. Now these

are the annual fee versions. If instead you're set up to pay monthly or quarterly, there's no word yet on whether those prices are going to change, but as it stands, if you do pay for a full year, no matter what the tier, it's still less expensive than subscribing monthly or quarterly. You would be paying more per year if you do it that way than if you do annually, even with these price hikes. So the thing I would alert you to is that you can actually stack years

onto your subscription. You can pre pay for years, so if you go in and pre pay for a year or two or three, you can actually extend your current subscription at the current prices before those price hikes go into effect. So just a little heads up for y'all. All right, that's it for the news. I hope you are all well, and I'll talk to you again really soon.

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