Mediaboss Marketing

SIGN UP FOR OUR NEWSLETTER

Thats the lowkey Orwellian message that greets visitors to the website of Perspective, Googles new AI system for detecting (and potentially deleting, hiding, or burying) toxic comments on the web.

SIGN UP FOR OUR NEWSLETTER

Perspective is still in early days of development, but in the future, you may have to adjust your speech in order to satisfy the lofty standards of Google. Otherwise, the companys faceless AI might just have to improve you. Wheres Sarah Connor when you need her?

The good news is that, for now at least, Perspective is about as effective as C-3PO with a lisp. Software engineer and columnist David Auerbach has found the program woefully inept at sorting toxic comments from ordinary ones. Because the AI currently focuses on words rather than meanings, inoffensive comments like, Rape is a horrible crime, or, few Muslims are a terrorist threat, were assigned toxicity ratings of over 75 percent.

Of course, even if Perspective could successfully sort toxic comments from innocuous ones, that doesnt necessarily mean theyre going to be deleted or buried. According to the projects homepage, the systemperforms no function other than detection.

But statements from the projects developers make it clear that censorship is the end goal. Indeed, the system seems to have been developed to augment the lefts ongoing war on comments sections.The software was initially made available just to organizations that are part of Googles Digital News Initiative, including the BBC, The Financial Times, andThe Guardian,whichpromptly began testing the software to moderate their comments sections.

News organizations want to encourage engagement and discussion around their content, but find that sorting through millions of comments to find those that are trolling or abusive takes a lot of money, labour and time, says Jared Cohen, president of Jigsaw, the Google social incubator that built the tool. As a result, many sites have shut down comments altogether. But they tell us that isnt the solution they want.

Google couldnt be clearer: its a censorship bot. And just because its currently limited to news sites and comments sections doesnt mean it wont be rolled out to social networks and the rest of the web. Twitter, which just introduced yet another system to punish users whohurt celebrities feelings,would probably love to get their hands on a working version of Perspective.

Twitter already has a tremendous depth of data on its users, including gender, location, and personal interests. Imagine that data, combined with an AI tool designed to pinpoint inconvenient content, in the hands of a CEO who has done little to conceal his political biases.

The idea of an all-powerful Google robot watching over us all, making sure our speech is improved, has greatly excited mainstream media. Google, says the BBC, is going to make talk less toxic. According to WIRED, Perspective will put a stop to abusive comments that silence vulnerable voices. New York magazine portrays Perspsective as a friendly a robot, a kind of Clippy for the comments section.Our robot overlords are certainly getting a warm welcome

The left are likely to be disappointed though. If Auerbachs early research on Perspective is any guide, the system is designed to filter out impoliteness, not political disagreement. Googles censorbot might turn the comments section and perhaps the web into a grey, sanitized dystopia scrubbed of strong emotions and trollish humor, but it wont get rid of facts.

In other words, myths about gender wage gaps, police racism, and moderate Islam are still going to get debunked. Even Skynet cant keep some things quiet.

You can follow Allum Bokhari on Twitterandadd him on Facebook.Email tips and suggestions to abokhari@breitbart.com.

Continue reading here:
War on Comments: Google Built an AI To Censor The Web, And The Media Is Celebrating - Breitbart News

Well, not quite. The assumption that students share the political views of their officers forgets that SUs and their overlord - the NUS - are entirely unrepresentative of the people they claim to represent. In UCLs union elections last year, only 12% of the study body bothered to vote. In 2015 at the University of Manchester, turnout reached a national record of around 25%. Hardly a resounding victory for democracy.

Indeed, contrary to the claim that students spend their time printing off topless calendars of Jeremy Corbyn, research carried out by the Universities of Southampton and Sheffield revealed that todays young people are more right-wing and authoritarian than any generation in recent history.

And even if students did support their student unions, the increasingly warped regard for genuine left-wing politics by union officers makes it hard to label their cause as truly left-wing. In an attempt to demonstrate their leftie credentials, working class officers have been created at Manchester, Soas, King's College London, and St Hildas, Oxford to ensure working class students dont feel marginalised.

This demonstrates just how far todays student Left has wandered from the barricades manned by its predecessors. Back in Paris in 1968, student activists took to the streets in a genuine attempt to overthrow capitalism. Todays self-labelled lefties are more concerned with fighting for Meat Free Mondays. Rather than uphold the power of the proletariat, student union officers view their working class peers as vulnerable creatures who need protecting. Marxs claim that workingmen have nothing to lose but their chains no longer resonates. Todays campus warriors just want to make the chains are a bit more comfortable.

Read the original post:
We can't just blame the Left for student censorship every side is at it now - Telegraph.co.uk

Another day, another leftist attempt at censorship. The target is, once again, University of Toronto professor and psychologist Jordan Peterson.

It should come as no surprise given the myriad prior attempts by left-wing activists to prevent Peterson from speaking about gender pronouns or free speech itself. But this time, theyre trying to stop him from giving a lecture about the psychology of creativity, his actual field of research.

Peterson is recognized internationally on the subject, hence the invitation by the National Gallery of Canada on March 9.

Cara Tierney, a former gallery employee who demands people refer to her as they, said to CBC, Peterson shouldnt be allowed to speak on his research because of his views on gender.

If there was a known anti-Semite who also perhaps had something interesting to say about psychology or creativity, I dont imagine that we would be inviting this individual to come and talk, Tierney said.

Another Ottawa activist said that Peterson threatens the reality that art itself has always been, historically, a safe space.

The comment is laughably tone deaf, given that art has always been the bastion of controversyartists just want that controversy on their terms, rather than anyone elses.

No one who has attempted to block Peterson from speaking at the gallery has disputed his credentials, nor his message. This is why the censorship efforts are so chilling: because he disagrees with them on something else, he shouldnt be entitled to speak about anything, in their view.

The goal is nothing short of 100 per cent conformity, lest you find yourself on the receiving end of boycotts.

The National Gallery is a public institution, which means cancelling this event would be an effort by government to block certain viewpoints. So far, theyre holding the line.

Lets hope it stays that way.

See original here:
Left's demands for National Gallery to ban Prof Peterson cross dangerous censorship line - The Rebel

Despite the proliferation of media devices in North Korea as well as increased access to information, the North Korean government has been able to adapt in an attempt maintain tight control, according to a new report published on Wednesday.

The report, conducted by Intermedia, draws on a survey of 350 North Korean defectors and travelers as well as investigations into the technical makeup of North Korean devices and software.

In recent years North Korea has experienced a limited digital revolution with the proliferation of mobile phones and devices, coupled with government promoted intranet uses and applications.

While this provides the potential for further exposure to information and a challenge to North Korean authorities attempting to maintain total control, the DPRK government is using a combination of existing measures and newtechnology to implemented a system of pervasive surveillance and censorship.

More North Koreans have greater access to a larger variety of media content and communication devices. However, it is equally clear the North Korean state is determined to regain control of how and what information its citizens access, the reports conclusion reads.

Rather than attempting to recreate the information blockade and national sequestration of the Kim Il Sung era, the states recent technological innovations strongly suggest it is moving toward a new, but no less heavily controlled information environment, it added.

This extensive control of information, according to the report, occurs at the network, device specific and human levels.

Across these levels the North Korean government seeks to censor content, survey usage and maintain integrity over provided information, the report says.

The DPRKs network is a closed intranet system that is not connected to the external internet, ensuring that North Koreans are only accessing content allowed by the authorities.

According to the report, the network usage is monitored closely by North Korean authorities despite the growth of users.

The digital devices themselves provided by the North Korean government contain mandatory software that only permits approved content and software, which is able to delete unsanctioned files that do not have government code signature to prevent sharing.

Via software, the North Korean authorities are also able to log the device usage and export the data if it is obtained by security personnel.

The reports authors additionally found that in some instances unsanctioned content is not wholly deleted but is instead tracked, collecting personal device signatures that allow authorities to identify social networks and usersthat have shared or viewed prohibited content.

North Korean authorities have also implemented tamper-resistant software within their modern devices to ensure that citizens cannot circumvent software controls, the report says.

On the human level, North Koreas ability to control its people has persevered with the report citing an increase of crackdowns.

North Korean security forces have responded to the increased use of digital media and micro-storage devices with an increased number of crackdowns, the report reads.

This includes raids on homes, confiscation of devices, the use of informants and the technology to track the use of unsanctioned mobile devices.Security forces are now starting to be aided by the increased use of technology such as triangulation of domestic and Chinese cell phones to help them locate targets, the report reads.

While many of the technology adaptations by the North Korean government involve the use of technology and software on approved devices, maintaining information flow control mechanisms is also affecting the perceived security of users acquiring information via unsanctioned methods.

This includes via traditional modes of information consumption enjoyed by North Koreans through the use of radios, DVDs, CDs and other methods to consume foreign news broadcasts and entertainment.

The report states that 64 percent of those surveyed believe it has become more dangerous to watch foreign dramas since Kim Jong Un took power and zero percent saying it is less dangerous.

Punishments for listening to foreign radio under Kims tenure have also become more severe, according to 77 percent of respondents, again with zero percent saying it has waned.

According to the survey, however, corruption has been able to mitigate some of these impacts with 184 of the 350 surveyed respondents saying they have been able to bribe officials to avoid punishment.

INFORMATION TRENDS

Despite the proliferation of new technologies used in North Korea, the survey shows the top source of information for North Koreans is still word of mouth communication, with 71 percent of those surveyed choosing this option.

The use of foreign radio is second at 11 percent, with domestic TV and South Korean TV at 3 percent each, Chinese TV at 2 percent and Party Circulars at 1 percent.

But the survey also indicates that North Koreans use their devices for increasingly varied reasons.

The development and diversification of the media environment in North Korea is powerfully underscored by the wide range of media devices that a substantial proportion of North Koreans can now access, the report reads.

This includes DVD players, MP3 players, USB flash drives, SD cards, Micro-SD cards, tablets, computers, a variety of radios, television and for a very small minority, the internet. This has also resulted in an increase of media access since 2010.

Although the survey is non-representative and limited to defectors and travelers, it could indicate the proliferation of mobile devices is relatively widespread.

The range of uses of these mobile devices is also varied, with North Koreans using the phones to send and receive text messages, take, send and receive photos and videos as well as sending or receiving other files.

This has resulted in North Koreans being connected and able to communicate more often.

The country is transforming from an environment in which the state attempted to actively prevent horizontal person-to-person connection to one in which legal cell phones are greatly expanding the range and accelerating the speed of such connections, the report reads.

The emerging trends from those surveyed, while in the shadow of the state, may have larger impacts in the future, the report says.

While the state continues to maintain a huge power imbalance over its own people, these negotiations are likely to gradually make North Korea look less like an autarkic global outlier, the report read. It even suggests the possibility for the emergence of something resembling civil society.

Despite the proliferation of media devices in North Korea as well as increased access to information, the North Korean government has been able to adapt in an attempt maintain tight control, according to a new report published on Wednesday. The report, conducted by Intermedia, draws on a survey of 350 North Korean defectors and travelers

The rest is here:
As N. Koreans access more media, government adapts controls: Report - NK News

If ever a guy reinvented himself, it was George Smith, whose funeral service is Thursday.

Growing up in a blue-collar, factory-working family on Ashley Street near the Fairgrounds, he was befriended by then-University of Dayton basketball coach Tom Blackburn, who ran Madden Golf Course in the summers.

Smith worked in the pro shop, did other jobs around the West Dayton course and, along the way, learned not only how to play golf, but how to hustle.

Blackburn had a lot of stories how hed bring George along to some of his golf games, Don Donoher, who followed Blackburn as Flyers coach and was Smiths pal for some 65 years, said with a laugh. George was his ringer.

Smiths golf was so good at Stivers High School that hed end up in the schools Athletic Hall of Fame and get a scholarship to Ohio State.

He lettered three years for the Buckeyes, was the team captain and, as a senior, led OSU to a 22-stroke victory for the Big Ten title.

By the time he graduated, Smith was considered one of the best amateur golfers in the nation, a fact he underscored at the Ohio Amateur championship in 1954 when he was the medalist of the 36-hole qualifier, topping the likes of Arnold Palmer, who had won the tournament the year before when he was stationed in Ohio with the Coast Guard and then had gone on to Wake Forest, and Jack Nicklaus, then a highly-touted prep player at Upper Arlington High outside Columbus.

But then came the match play and, well, the partying from the night before took old Smith down, laughed Donoher. George said his first tee time happened to coincide with just about the time he got in and he missed his first match.

Soon after that Smith suffered a devastating blow that would have forever ended the party for someone with less of a backbone.

Donohers wife-to-be, Sonia, had graduated with George at Stivers and she introduced her high school pal and her beau, who would become great friends.

We were both in ROTC and after college I ended up in Germany and George went to Fort Sill (Oklahoma), Donoher said. Thats where he contacted polio just weeks before the Salk vaccine was released.

Smith lost the ability to walk on his own and from then on was relegated to crutches and cumbersome leg braces and mostly a wheel chair.

He still had that competitive edge and he soon found another sport in which he could channel it. He had been introduced to thoroughbred racing by his college golf coach, Bob Kepler, who was from Dayton and loved to go to the track, and then was further immersed in racing by one of his polio doctors.

He bought his first race horse with George Zimmerman (in 1956), Donoher said. It was called Pineapples. He didnt like the name, he inherited that, but he sure did like the sport.

In 1970 Smith and his friend, local dentist Dr. Wilbur Johnston, bought 110 acres on Nutt Road in Centerville and formed Woodburn Farm.

It would become one of the most prominent thoroughbred farms in the Midwest, producing numerous stakes winners, state champions and graded stakes winners horses like Spoken Fur, Extended Applause, which ran fourth in the Breeders Cup, and Sweet Audrey, which won the Fall City Handicap in Louisville. Soon horses Smith and Johnston owned or bred were ending up in the Winners Circle in places like Hialeah Park, Gulfstream, Churchill Downs, Saratoga, Arlington Park and, of course, nearby River Downs.

Through it all George just kept plugging along, Donoher said:

He lived to be 84 and Ill tell you 84 and polio just dont go together. People marveled at his longevity. But he never complained. Never . He was as tough as nails, right to the end.

That end came last week when he was headed with longtime pal and former UD basketball player Terry Bockhorn and Terrys son to the Miami Valley Raceway in Lebanon. He suffered what Terry believes was a massive heart attack.

Smiths memorial service is at 11 a.m. at St. Georges Episcopal Church (5520 Far Hills Ave.).

The family George is survived by Norma, his wife of 54 years, daughters Audrey Nichols and Amy Sauk and son Austin Kep Smith (another son, Grantland, died in 1999) and five grandchildren will receive friends an hour before the service.

In lieu of flowers, contributions can be made in Smiths memory to Old Friends Farm, a thoroughbred retirement home at 1841 Paynes Depot Road, Georgetown, Ky., 40324.

Loved the sport

Terry Bockhorn remembered the first time he met George:

I was with my brother Arlen (Bucky) and we went to the old Park Row (supper club) after a UD game. We met George and Mick (Don Donoher) there and they said they were going to River Downs the next day.

I said, You guys mind if I tag along?

That was over 40 years ago and Terry tagged along with George ever since.

They used to go to South Florida in the winter when Smith had horses running there, and then they would frequent tracks all over the Midwest.

In the mid-1970s, Smith served as president of the Ohio Thoroughbred Breeders and Owners Association and he later was a governors appointee on the Thoroughbred Advisory Racing Board.

One of his most noteworthy feats was pulling together the competing thoroughbred and harness industries in Ohio to help bring simulcast racing to the state.

He said he was coming back from Turfway Park in Kentucky where he had watched a simulcast of one of his horses running in Florida and happened to pass the old Lebanon Raceway where he said there were about two cars in the parking lot.

I thought, Why are we dumping all our money in Kentucky? We should have simulcasting at tracks up here.

He met with Lebanon racing kingpin Corwin Nixon and his partner, Lou Carlo, and hammered out a plan they both could live with and then presented it to the Ohio legislature.

A skeptical Carlo told him if he could pull that off hed build him a special room to watch races at the Lebanon track.

The proposal passed and sure enough Lebanon soon had the George Smith VIP room.

It was like a glorified closet, but it was carpeted, had air conditioning, a refrigerator, a desk, a TV and betting machine.

It became a sort of clubhouse for watching the races for Smith and his pals, including Donoher, Bockhorn, Dr. James Gabel, the longtime vet of note and a former Ohio racing commissioner and horse owner, and Jim Morgan, the Stivers and University of Louisville basketball standout, who gave up the NBA to coach at Stebbins High and became the winningest stakes trainer in Ohio thoroughbred history.

Along the way Smith named horses for some of them and others in the community. Donher had Mickey Baskets and Gabel got Commissioner Gabe. Longtime Dayton Daily News sports columnist Si Burick has a horse by the same name and also Simon Punster.

A little over a decade ago Smith named a grey colt later gelded Tom Archdeacon and he had a few nice wins, including the 2007 Awad Stakes at Arlington Park.

Smith said he named the horse for me because he knew I loved the sport. It was the same for the other guys.

And, most of all, it was the same for him.

He loved the sport as much as anyone Ive ever known, Morgan said Wednesday from Florida. He had a great passion for it. George just loved being around racing.

Bockhorn agreed:

That last day we were headed to the track. Like always, he was looking forward to it. George was a gamer right to the end.

More here:
Tom Archdeacon: Celebrating George Smith, local racing legend - MyDaytonDailyNews