Planet Rugby Forum

Seneca of the Night wrote:This is damning, and must be very concerning to them (and twitter too). This is essentially a green light for the Trump admin to take a massive axe to these companies, as Soros is the left-flank of any defensive strategy they could have.

The next three years could be very interesting for social media.

Facebook and Google have become “obstacles to innovation” and are a “menace” to society whose “days are numbered”, said billionaire investor and philanthropist George Soros at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Thursday.

“Mining and oil companies exploit the physical environment; social media companies exploit the social environment,” said the Hungarian-American businessman, according to a transcript of his speech.

“This is particularly nefarious because social media companies influence how people think and behave without them even being aware of it. This has far-reaching adverse consequences on the functioning of democracy, particularly on the integrity of elections.”

In addition to skewing democracy, social media companies “deceive their users by manipulating their attention and directing it towards their own commercial purposes” and “deliberately engineer addiction to the services they provide”. The latter, he said, “can be very harmful, particularly for adolescents”.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... to-society

Farva wrote:Social media does manipulate peoples position.
But print media did that before.
I doubt Mark Zuckerburg is losing sleep.

Duff Paddy wrote:Yesterday at Davos we had a comedy style Italian hedge fund manager try to label Ireland’s corporation tax rate as “a joke”. Stiglitz had a go too. These two goons somehow think Ireland is stealing tax revenue from the rest of Europe. Our inept minister was unable to put them straight. There is a very damaging narrative emerging about Ireland that has literally no basis in fact.

Spoiler: show

Seneca of the Night wrote:

Duff Paddy wrote:Yesterday at Davos we had a comedy style Italian hedge fund manager try to label Ireland’s corporation tax rate as “a joke”. Stiglitz had a go too. These two goons somehow think Ireland is stealing tax revenue from the rest of Europe. Our inept minister was unable to put them straight. There is a very damaging narrative emerging about Ireland that has literally no basis in fact.

Pedro has kicked the bucket now too, so who's going in to bat for you.

Duff Paddy wrote:Yesterday at Davos we had a comedy style Italian hedge fund manager try to label Ireland’s corporation tax rate as “a joke”. Stiglitz had a go too. These two goons somehow think Ireland is stealing tax revenue from the rest of Europe. Our inept minister was unable to put them straight. There is a very damaging narrative emerging about Ireland that has literally no basis in fact.

MungoMan wrote: Fuggem

San Francisco cocksuckers!!!!!!!!

julian wrote:From a guy who built an empire on the manipulation of commercial interests wordlwide it's a bit cheeky.

Maybe FB and Google days are numbered because he has a better platform.

MungoMan wrote:

Farva wrote:Social media does manipulate peoples position.
But print media did that before.
I doubt Mark Zuckerburg is losing sleep.

Pity.

I might just about pay decent money to watch someone cut his head off and shit down his windpipe.

Flyin Ryan wrote:

Duff Paddy wrote:Yesterday at Davos we had a comedy style Italian hedge fund manager try to label Ireland’s corporation tax rate as “a joke”. Stiglitz had a go too. These two goons somehow think Ireland is stealing tax revenue from the rest of Europe. Our inept minister was unable to put them straight. There is a very damaging narrative emerging about Ireland that has literally no basis in fact.

Well your country gave away your fiscal sovereignty to join the euro long ago. Sorry, but that means German and Italian technocrats the Irish did not elect have influence on the country's fiscal affairs now.

As far as Soros, he's not saying anything new.

openclashXX wrote:

julian wrote:From a guy who built an empire on the manipulation of commercial interests wordlwide it's a bit cheeky.

Maybe FB and Google days are numbered because he has a better platform.

his biggest fund held nearly half a million shares of Facebook until about two months ago - it wouldn't be at all surprising if he's gone into 2018 with a short position on Facebook and Google and needs to spark up a conversation on regulating them to affect their share price

SASP wrote:

Duff Paddy wrote:Yesterday at Davos we had a comedy style Italian hedge fund manager try to label Ireland’s corporation tax rate as “a joke”. Stiglitz had a go too. These two goons somehow think Ireland is stealing tax revenue from the rest of Europe. Our inept minister was unable to put them straight. There is a very damaging narrative emerging about Ireland that has literally no basis in fact.

I believe this is the correct response:

Spoiler: show

Flyin Ryan wrote:

Duff Paddy wrote:Yesterday at Davos we had a comedy style Italian hedge fund manager try to label Ireland’s corporation tax rate as “a joke”. Stiglitz had a go too. These two goons somehow think Ireland is stealing tax revenue from the rest of Europe. Our inept minister was unable to put them straight. There is a very damaging narrative emerging about Ireland that has literally no basis in fact.

Well your country gave away your fiscal sovereignty to join the euro long ago. Sorry, but that means German and Italian technocrats the Irish did not elect have influence on the country's fiscal affairs now.

As far as Soros, he's not saying anything new.

Flyin Ryan wrote:

Duff Paddy wrote:Yesterday at Davos we had a comedy style Italian hedge fund manager try to label Ireland’s corporation tax rate as “a joke”. Stiglitz had a go too. These two goons somehow think Ireland is stealing tax revenue from the rest of Europe. Our inept minister was unable to put them straight. There is a very damaging narrative emerging about Ireland that has literally no basis in fact.

Well your country gave away your fiscal sovereignty to join the euro long ago. Sorry, but that means German and Italian technocrats the Irish did not elect have influence on the country's fiscal affairs now.

As far as Soros, he's not saying anything new.

Gavin Duffy wrote:Who cares what a piss-drenched 87 year old has to say.

Demilich wrote:

Gavin Duffy wrote:Who cares what a piss-drenched 87 year old has to say.

I don't think SotN is quite that old. Is he?

Sandstorm wrote:Meh, the US Govt said the same thing about Microsoft on the late 90s. Spent about 6 months trying to break it up, then went off to do something else much easier.

Farva wrote:Social media does manipulate peoples position.
But print media did that before.
I doubt Mark Zuckerburg is losing sleep.

sorCrer wrote:

Demilich wrote:

Gavin Duffy wrote:Who cares what a piss-drenched 87 year old has to say.

I don't think SotN is quite that old. Is he?

Imagine an earnest public servant, State Rep. Homer Simpson, R-Importantville, showing up to his Statehouse office on a gray, wintry Monday morning. A cluster of reporters is gathered at his office door. There is a new YouTube video revealing him engaged in a sex act with someone named Sydney Mink. Would he have a comment? Or is he entering the scurrilous 21st Century twilight zone, his career teetering on oblivion?

Of course, Sen. Simpson didn’t have sex with someone other than his wife (and not that often). But in Donald Trump’s era of “fake news” we awake to the notion of what Axios describes as bot-spread fake tweets, fake oppo research, and AI-generated fake porn, featuring the guy or gal you’ve had it out for over the years. These are times when a mere allegation can jettison a career. Axios notes: “In a potential oppo nightmare for 2020, machine-learning algorithms can generate convincing audio and video of fake events.” The New York Times Nick Confessore reported on the“Follower Factory” of millions of fake Twitter accounts and the Florida-based Devumi who sells an estimated 3.5 million automated tweeters. CBS reports that in 2016, Russia-linked accounts shared Donald Trump's tweets 470,000 times in the run-up to Election Day. And The Economist warns of a "new battlefield between falsehood and veracity,” noting, “Images and sound recordings retain for many an inherent trustworthiness." That was then. This is now. It comes at a time when many news investigative teams are in contraction. Y.I.K.E.S. Yikes!

It's time for @twitter to confirm a real name and real person behind every account, and for @facebook to get far more stringent on the same. I don't care what the user name is. But there needs to be a single human behind every individual account.

Flyin Ryan wrote:

Imagine an earnest public servant, State Rep. Homer Simpson, R-Importantville, showing up to his Statehouse office on a gray, wintry Monday morning. A cluster of reporters is gathered at his office door. There is a new YouTube video revealing him engaged in a sex act with someone named Sydney Mink. Would he have a comment? Or is he entering the scurrilous 21st Century twilight zone, his career teetering on oblivion?

Of course, Sen. Simpson didn’t have sex with someone other than his wife (and not that often). But in Donald Trump’s era of “fake news” we awake to the notion of what Axios describes as bot-spread fake tweets, fake oppo research, and AI-generated fake porn, featuring the guy or gal you’ve had it out for over the years. These are times when a mere allegation can jettison a career. Axios notes: “In a potential oppo nightmare for 2020, machine-learning algorithms can generate convincing audio and video of fake events.” The New York Times Nick Confessore reported on the“Follower Factory” of millions of fake Twitter accounts and the Florida-based Devumi who sells an estimated 3.5 million automated tweeters. CBS reports that in 2016, Russia-linked accounts shared Donald Trump's tweets 470,000 times in the run-up to Election Day. And The Economist warns of a "new battlefield between falsehood and veracity,” noting, “Images and sound recordings retain for many an inherent trustworthiness." That was then. This is now. It comes at a time when many news investigative teams are in contraction. Y.I.K.E.S. Yikes!

Mark Cuban tweeting:

It's time for @twitter to confirm a real name and real person behind every account, and for @facebook to get far more stringent on the same. I don't care what the user name is. But there needs to be a single human behind every individual account.

JM2K6 wrote:

Farva wrote:Social media does manipulate peoples position.
But print media did that before.
I doubt Mark Zuckerburg is losing sleep.

I think that's a little facile. Social media is affecting people in really weird and insidious ways, stuff we've not really seen before and they're only just starting to scratch the surface of the impact it has.

Santa wrote:

Flyin Ryan wrote:

Imagine an earnest public servant, State Rep. Homer Simpson, R-Importantville, showing up to his Statehouse office on a gray, wintry Monday morning. A cluster of reporters is gathered at his office door. There is a new YouTube video revealing him engaged in a sex act with someone named Sydney Mink. Would he have a comment? Or is he entering the scurrilous 21st Century twilight zone, his career teetering on oblivion?

Of course, Sen. Simpson didn’t have sex with someone other than his wife (and not that often). But in Donald Trump’s era of “fake news” we awake to the notion of what Axios describes as bot-spread fake tweets, fake oppo research, and AI-generated fake porn, featuring the guy or gal you’ve had it out for over the years. These are times when a mere allegation can jettison a career. Axios notes: “In a potential oppo nightmare for 2020, machine-learning algorithms can generate convincing audio and video of fake events.” The New York Times Nick Confessore reported on the“Follower Factory” of millions of fake Twitter accounts and the Florida-based Devumi who sells an estimated 3.5 million automated tweeters. CBS reports that in 2016, Russia-linked accounts shared Donald Trump's tweets 470,000 times in the run-up to Election Day. And The Economist warns of a "new battlefield between falsehood and veracity,” noting, “Images and sound recordings retain for many an inherent trustworthiness." That was then. This is now. It comes at a time when many news investigative teams are in contraction. Y.I.K.E.S. Yikes!

Mark Cuban tweeting:

It's time for @twitter to confirm a real name and real person behind every account, and for @facebook to get far more stringent on the same. I don't care what the user name is. But there needs to be a single human behind every individual account.

Hmmm. That approach looks ripe for a clash with data privacy laws.

Bowens wrote:Twitter should ban bots/buying fake followers. Would it be that hard? I know a few unscrupulous people in the US rugby community have accounts with thousands of fake followers they've purchased.

paddyor wrote:

Bowens wrote:Twitter should ban bots/buying fake followers. Would it be that hard? I know a few unscrupulous people in the US rugby community have accounts with thousands of fake followers they've purchased.

Probably not. Facebook argued for years it couldn't possibly do anything to edit the reams of content that got uploaded and distributed by its platform.....and then when they realised what was happening higher a cpl of 1000 people to do exactly that. I can't see twitterdoing it unless they are compelled to do so though.