Tech News: Meta Says No News is Good News

North Carolina. So over the weekend, someone caused damage to these two substations and they knocked out power to around forty five thousand people. That's more than half the population of More County where the attacks occurred. The act has brought increased attention to the United States vulnerable power grid, something that lots of folks have been calling out for

quite some time in the past. The Wall Street Journal published pieces that cited unnamed US security officials who said that Russian and Chinese hackers, possibly acting with state backing, that is, the government's funding these hacking groups, had injected malware into the US power grid system. That's an accusation

that China said was completely baseless. But in this particular case, the attacks were physical rather than computerized, and it highlights the fact that many electrical substations are located in remote areas with limited protection. These attacks came about a week after the Department of Homeland Security reissued a warning that power grid infrastructure could be attempting target for domestic extremists.

So that's about all we know right now. I'm sure I will follow up on this story as more information becomes available. Late last week, Meta published a policy paper that argues against lawmakers regulating the metaverse. So the paper lays out a case that says laws already in existence will apply to the metaverse, meaning there's not really any need to draft new legislation specifically regarding the mataverse because

that kind of regulation could potentially inhibit innovation. And this is a pretty standard argument we see from companies that any attempts to regulate an industry will reduce innovation and

inhibit development. We've heard it in the cable industry, We've heard it in software, We've heard it pretty much everywhere, And from a certain perspective, you can understand that right, particularly in a world where the government's understanding of technology, specifically the US government in this case, tends to lag well behind the technology itself, so then you end up with laws that are often drafted on misconceptions, misunderstanding that

kind of thing, and things get messy. But on the other hand, we've also seen countless examples of big tech companies enacting policies that were at times at least harmful to users, either directly or indirectly, and there's definitely no reason to believe that things will be any different with

the development of the metaverse. Of course, you could argue that regulating the metaverse right now would be premature anyway, because we're years away from anything we would call an actual metaverse implementation, and there are a lot of people, including myself, who question if folks will really participate in the metaverse to an appreciable extent. But then there's the problem that development of the metaverse is going to happen gradually.

There'll be a lot of little steps. It might be one of those things where only in retrospect when we say, ah, this is what I would point to as the birth of the metaverse, and at the time it may be harder to see, and if laws lag behind, we could have a lot of problems until the law finally catches up.

So this is a complicated issue. I will say that Meta clearly has a vested interest in being able to pursue the company's vision of what the metaverse will be with as few limitations as possible, So it's not like it's coming from this from an objective background. And certainly investors don't want to see more obstacles put in the way because Meta is already spending billions of dollars each year trying to develop this thing that won't manifest for

several more years. So yeah, complicated issue. In other Meta political news, the company is threatening to remove news from Facebook should a piece of legislation make it through US Congress. Now, this is very similar to a situation that happened in

Australia last year. So at the heart of the matter is the fact that news outlets want a share of Facebook's revenue that is generated from users engaging with the outlets content on Facebook, and the law would make it easier for these various forms of news media to negotiate

collectively with companies like Google and Meta. Meta does not like that idea one bit and essentially said, hey, if you let these companies negotiate collectively, we're just going to remove news articles from Facebook News will not be allowed on Facebook anymore. Andy Stone, spokesperson for Meta, says that the company provides a valuable tool for news outlets because they get benefits and added traffic and subscriptions from Facebook users.

But the News Media Alliance argues that some publishers, such as local newspapers, are having their content posted to Meta and they're not receiving any revenue in return, and that's driving more and more of these smaller companies out of business now. As I mentioned, last year, we saw a similar situation in Australia, and there too, Facebook threatened to pull all news feeds, and for a while it did

shut down news feeds to Facebook. But since then things have entered into a more stable environment with media outlets able to negotiate with Meta. So I guess the world didn't come to an end after all. A subset of recently laid off Meta employees say they're not getting the severance package that they had been promised. These employees were part of what is called the Sorcer Development Program. So this hires on employees, typically employees from what the company

calls diverse backgrounds for a short term. It's like a twelve year term with the potential of moving into a career position at the company by the end of the apprenticeship. So they are not contract employees. They are instead short term employees who received the same sort of benefits as a full time employee would. It's just that their continued

employment isn't guaranteed at the conclusion of that twelve month program. Anyway, people in the program were among the eleven thousand recently laid off at Meta, and they believe that they are entitled to the same severance package as full time employees are, since otherwise they get the exact same benefits as full time employees. But they say instead they're receiving much less. Instead of sixteen weeks of base pay and health care for six months, they say they're receiving eight weeks of

base pay and three months of COBRA. The group has sent a letter to Meta executives, and I have to say it's a very polite letter. It suggests that maybe this was just like a clerical error instead of something that was being done on purpose. Back in March, I had a representative from Meta's oversight board joined the show to talk about what that group does, and one thing it does is issue recommendations on how Meta can draft and enforce policies in a responsible, accountable, and equitable way.

And this week, the Oversight Board is recommending that Meta overhaul its policy regarding v I P accounts on Facebook and Instagram because Meta seems to follow a kind of George orwell animal farm approach. You know, all accounts are equal, but some accounts are more equal than others. So what I'm saying is that Meta treats accounts that belonged to important people or important businesses differently than the accounts that belong to the rest of us. These important accounts are

given a lot more leeway. They can bend or break Meta's rules without Meta responding to the situation, and yeah, that is inherently unfair. It actually has an official name within Meta. The policy is called cross check. If someone is thought to be of commercial value to Meta, that being their presence on Meta drives revenue to the company, they get a longer leash than the average user does. The Oversight Board recommends that Meta change this to make

the program more equitable and transparent. The board actually made thirty two recommendations in total. Now here's the thing. Meta is in no way required to adopt any or all of those recommendations. That can ignore every single one if they want. They have no obligations to take on these recommendations. However, they are obligated to make a formal response to these recommendations within sixty days, although Meta has already asked for

and received an extension, so it'll be ninety days. In this case, I am not holding my breath that we're gonna see any massive changes, even though this policy is a real bad look for the company. The Communication Workers of America or c m A say that Microsoft has chosen to recognize voluntarily a union of around three video game testers with Zinimax Studios. That's the parent company of Bethesda, among other companies. Bethesda's responsible for the Fallout and Elder

Scrolls video game series you know, Skyrim. Anyway, when employees vote to unionize, companies can either recognize the union and thus begin to work together on things like employee negotiations and such, or companies might resist until some larger authority

like the US National Labor Relations Board gets involved. And while Microsoft is currently engaged in acquiring Activision Blizzard, which is a company that has resist employee attempts to organize multiple times in the past, Microsoft has gone a different route in this case. I find it a little surprising because Microsoft is also a company that, at least traditionally has not been super keen on employee organization efforts. But

this is good news for testers at Zimax Studios. Okay, we've got some more news to go through before we get to that, let's take a quick break. We're back. The Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company or t s MC, has long been a major player in the semiconductor fabrication industry, but political pressures have an impact on the company's business, with the U S imposing sanctions against China that sometimes also affect Taiwan. T SMC has been building a fabrication

facility here in the United States. It's not yet open, it's still being built out, but now Nicka Asia reports that companies Apple and Nvidia have already signed up to be customers to buy chips produced from this facility. Moving more semiconductor fabrication to the US has been a big priority for the Biden administration, and many have pointed to an increased domestic production as a huge step towards ensuring

national security and productivity. Business Insider reports that Amazon is launching an ad verification program as part of its Shopper Panel, that is, Amazon's invitation only panel of Amazon customers, who, in return for sharing information about themselves and their purchases, received small incentives, typically around ten bucks a month for

their participation. The new ad verification element will invite shop Panel members to earn two additional bucks per month, and in return, the users consent to Amazon monitoring their traffic data to see stuff like what time of day they're browsing the web, how much time they're spending there, what

ads are they seeing, where did they see them. The program covers not just Amazon's ads, but i'll a third party ads, And personally, I think privacy is worth more than two or even twelve bucks a month, but it's up to each person in the program to decide whether or not it's worthwhile. I think there are some privacy concerns that folks should take into account before they make any sort of decision. Wired James Jackson has a great article. It is titled Tesla's Berlin Hub can't hire enough people

or keep them. It's a great read, but I want to give you some key points that are made in the article. One is that Tesla's reputation in Germany, at least among engineers and workers, isn't exactly stellar. The piece explains that Tesla's compensation packages are below the industry standard in Germany and that lots of employees will leave Tesla in order to go work somewhere else that has better

compensation and benefits. There's also a general shortage of talent in the auto industry in Germany, and there's no shortage of job openings, so it's difficult for pretty much anyone to reach a fully staffed status, let alone a company that is getting a reputation for not compensating its employees,

as well as others in the area. Making matters more difficult is that testless facility requirement that employees be fluent in German, because this discourages otherwise qualified individuals from other

parts of Europe, namely Poland, from seeking employment there. Former employees also say that they experienced sudden and dramatic changes to their job descriptions, requiring them to put in more hours at different times of the day throughout the week, and such changes were overly disruptive and it kind of sounds like this Tesla facility is experiencing issues very similar to other Elon Musk operations, and this is one place where that kind of thing really just isn't going over

very well. Recently, I covered how Neuralink, another Elon Musk company, was aiming to implant a brain computer interface or b c I into a human brain within the next six months. Now the US government is investigating Neuralink for animal well welfare violations. UH. Some employees have indicated that at least in some cases, rushed tests have resulted in needless animal

suffering and death. That while animal testing maybe a necessary step to develop b c I chips to make them safe for humans, the pressure to carry out tests quickly has led to mistakes, and those mistakes have had cruel effects on animal tests subjects, and it also necessitates that those tests have to be then repeated, because a mistake means you can't rely upon any data that was generated by the test, so you've got to scrap it and

do it again, which influs more harm on animals. So Reuter's reports that the company has killed around fift animals since two thousand eighteen, which includes like monkeys and pigs and sheep, but Reuter's also says that's merely an estimate because neuralalink doesn't actually document the number of animals that

are killed in tests. Finally, the U. S Secret Service says that hackers, potentially with the backing of the Chinese government, stole at least twenty million dollars in tentaiver COVID relief benefits. Hacker group called APT forty one is responsible. It's a known hacker group with ties to the Chinese government, and it effectively took US taxpayer dollars that were intended to help people who were impacted by COVID in the United States,

particularly those who became unemployed. And it's possible that this problem extends well beyond APT forty one, and that foreign backed pandemic fraud operations could be pretty darn common. The Secret Service has only gone so far as to say it is pursuing more than one thousand ongoing investigations relating to fraud and public benefits programs. So that's not specifically COVID. That could be lots of other stuff, but it just

shows that this is of a wide ranging issue. It actually sounds like the fraud might not have been too hard to pull off. According to the Labor Department Office of Inspector General, four states in the United States, remember we got fifty of them. Four states saw more than fort of pandemic benefits paid out improperly. Like at that point, you're getting pretty close to a coin flip situation as to whether or not the tax money is actually going to the people who need it or not. And that

is unthinkable. It's a really bad situation because the US employees a mishmash of different computer systems, and having one computer system compromise can be enough to cause massive problems because you do still have some interconnectivity between different systems throughout the United States. And the solution typically is, well, you kind of gotta take everything down and rebuild it with a new system, which is a huge undertaking. Only that,

but you have to get approval and funding. It's just the sort of thing that is not likely to happen because it is such a huge job to do, right, You've got a lot of inertia built up in existing systems, and so it's not likely that state and federal governments are going to be able to do that. And meanwhile, we know that many of these systems have been compromised, so it is a really bad situation. Okay, well, that's

it for the news for Tuesday, December six two. I'll be back later this week to give new news update. Hopefully there'll be some fun good news in there, because you know, I don't like being all doom and gloom either. I just report on what's breaking. That's kind of it's it's up to the world to be a little bit of a better place, I guess. But yeah, well we're gonna look for some good news earlier this week anyway.

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