COVID-19 Pandemic
Fig. 1. Cartoon by Peter Brookes, October 3, 2020, via the Times, fair use.
Recall that for white Christian nationalists, COVID-19 was a form of expression subject to First Amendment protection. They objected to lockdowns, social distancing, masking rules, and vaccines, in short, anything that would impede the spread of the life-threatening disease.
Fast forward to yesterday (July 4, 2023): Alleging a massive effort to restrict freedom of speech, a couple state attorneys general sued the Joe Biden administration over efforts to limit the spread of COVID-19 disinformation. The judge has granted them a broad preliminary injunction against communication with social media companies and with academics who monitor disinformation, and he appears likely to rule in their favor.[1]
Cat Zakrzewski, “Judge blocks U.S. officials from tech contacts in First Amendment case,” Washington Post, July 4, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/07/04/biden-social-lawsuit-missouri-louisiana/
Human Science
Inquiry
Quantitative
Artificial intelligence idiocy
I think we’re finding out the real story behind Elon Musk’s draconian restrictions on reading Twitter. You might recall, he explicitly complained about artificial idiots scraping the site.[2] “However, most [information technology] experts agreed the rate limiting was more likely a crisis response to technical problems born of mismanagement, incompetence, or both.”[3] We may now suspect the idiots in question belong to Google,[4] which, of course, is not Musk.
When you see anal retentive controls that seem senseless or even counterproductive, I would suspect an anal retentive person imposing controls.
Thomas Germain, “Google Says It’ll Scrape Everything You Post Online for AI,” Gizmodo, July 3, 2023, https://gizmodo.com/google-says-itll-scrape-everything-you-post-online-for-1850601486
- [1]Cat Zakrzewski, “Judge blocks U.S. officials from tech contacts in First Amendment case,” Washington Post, July 4, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/07/04/biden-social-lawsuit-missouri-louisiana/↩
- [2]Tamia Fowlkes and Julian Mark, “Elon Musk sets new daily Twitter limits for users,” Washington Post, July 1, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/07/01/elon-musk-new-twitter-user-limits/↩
- [3]Thomas Germain, “Google Says It’ll Scrape Everything You Post Online for AI,” Gizmodo, July 3, 2023, https://gizmodo.com/google-says-itll-scrape-everything-you-post-online-for-1850601486↩
- [4]Thomas Germain, “Google Says It’ll Scrape Everything You Post Online for AI,” Gizmodo, July 3, 2023, https://gizmodo.com/google-says-itll-scrape-everything-you-post-online-for-1850601486↩