Internet use could change as ‘net neutrality’ ends in the U.S.

Repeal of Obama-era protections for consumers came into effect Monday

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http://www.cbc.ca

The Associated Press

Posted: Jun 11, 2018

Demonstrators rally in support of net neutrality outside a Verizon store, in New York in December. The repeal of Obama-era consumer protections for internet users came into effect Monday. (Mary Altaffer/Associated Press)

In the United States, the ability to watch and use favourite apps and services could start to change — though not right away — with the official demise Monday of Obama-era internet protections.

Any changes are likely to happen slowly, as companies assess how much consumers will tolerate.

The repeal of “net neutrality” took effect six months after the Federal Communications Commission voted to undo the rules, which had barred broadband and cellphone companies from favouring their own services and discriminating against rivals such as Netflix.

Internet providers such as AT&T, Verizon and Comcast had to treat all traffic equally. They couldn’t slow down or block websites and apps of their choosing. Nor could they charge Netflix and other video services extra to reach viewers more smoothly. The rules also barred a broadband provider from, say, slowing down Amazon’s shopping site to extract business concessions.

Now all that is legal, as long as companies post their policies online.

• Analysis

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The change comes as broadband and cellphone providers expand their efforts to deliver video and other content to consumers.

Battle not entirely over

With net neutrality rules gone, AT&T and Verizon can give priority to their own movies and TV shows, while hurting rivals such as Amazon, YouTube and startups yet to be born.

The battle isn’t entirely over, though. Some states are moving to restore net neutrality, and lawsuits are pending. Also, the U.S. Senate voted to save net neutrality, though that effort isn’t likely to become law.

For now, broadband providers insist they won’t do anything that would harm the “internet experience” for consumers. Most currently have service terms that specify they won’t give preferential treatment to certain websites and services, including their own.

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Posthumanist GRIN (Genetics, Robotics, Intelligence, Nanotech)

Real News with David Knight

Published on Jun 8, 2018

New fields of technology are advancing at an unbelievable pace. But they’re being driven by an ancient impulse & agenda that society is unaware of.

 

‘World’s first psychopath AI’ bot trained by viewing Reddit

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Rt.com

7 Jun, 2018

The infamous shower scene from Hitchcock’s ‘Psycho’. © Getty Images

Scientists at MIT have revealed how they trained an artificial robot to become a “psychopath” by only showing it captions from disturbing images depicting gruesome deaths posted on Reddit.

The team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) named the world’s first psycho robot Norman, after the central character in Hitchcock’s 1960 movie ‘Psycho.’ As part of their experiment they only exposed Norman to a continuous stream of captions from violent images on an unnamed “infamous” subReddit page to see if it would alter the bot’s AI.

After the gruesome exposure, Norman was subjected to the Rorschach inkblot test – a psychological exam from 1921 which tests what subjects see when they look at nondescript inkblots. As part of the test the answers given by participants are then psychologically analyzed in order to measure potential thought disorders.

The team found Norman’s interpretations of the imagery – which included electrocutions, speeding car deaths and murder – to be in line with a psychotic thought process. A standard AI who hadn’t been subjected to the Reddit posts saw umbrellas, wedding cakes and flowers.

‘Psycho’ bot’s responses (left) compared to the regular AI © MIT

In one example, the normal AI reported seeing “a black and white photo of a baseball glove,” while Norman saw “man is murdered by machine gun in broad daylight.” Another test saw the regular bot report “a black and white photo of a small bird,” when Norman said it shows the moment a “man gets pulled into dough machine”.

The scientists say they developed a “deep learning method” to train the AI to produce descriptions of the images in writing. MIT team members Pinar Yanardag, Manuel Cebrian, and Iyad Rahwan say the study proved their theory that the data used to teach a machine learning algorithm can greatly influence its behavior.

They say the results of the experiment show that when algorithms are accused of being “biased or unfair” (like Facebook or Google) “the culprit is often not the algorithm itself but the biased data that was fed into it.”

FIVE reasons to ditch YouTube and switch to REAL.video on Vimeo

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Natural News

by: Mike Adams

Sunday, June 03, 2018

 As we’re all well aware by now, YouTube is no longer a platform for freedom of expression. Over the last two years, YouTube has systematically censored, demonetized and banned video channels that cover cannabis, liberty, natural health and firearms self-defense. This has turned YouTube in an echo chamber of stupidity driven by corporate narratives and globalist disinfo.

REAL.video launches in July, providing a free speech alternative to YouTube. Upon launch, it will almost instantly become the new hub for the most powerful and well-informed videos on the ‘net, covering everything from daily independent news to censored science and medicine.

As I explain in my video below, there are five powerful reasons to ditch YouTube and switch to REAL.video. These reasons include:

• REAL.video is a platform engineered to protect your free speech. It’s run by independent-minded free thinkers, not an evil globalist corporation like Google. This means you can finally stop censoring yourself and actually tell the whole truth in your videos without fear of being cut off.
• REAL.video has an affiliate program that can earn you revenues from the massive e-commerce retail operation launching with it. (More details coming soon.)
• Our editorial team may help you promote your videos and video channel by writing articles about your video content. This costs you nothing.
• You are free to attract your own sponsors and get paid by your sponsors for your video views. We don’t get involved in your sponsorship arrangements, and we don’t take a cut of your revenues, either. (Unlike Google / YouTube, which demands a cut.)

 

 

‘A shit den of hate’: Silicon Valley pastor unloads on liberal tech elitists

RT.com

May 22,2018

Facebook’s campus at Menlo Park, Palo Alto © Noah Berger / Reuters

A Silicon Valley pastor has resigned after a series of tweets he made slating the tech industry’s social justice posturing and calling the city of Palo Alto an “elitist s**t den of hate” were made public.

Gregory Stevens’ now-deleted tweets were made public at a hearing of the Palo Alto City Council, where his church, the First Baptist Church of Palo Alto, had been seeking approval to lease its space out as a community center.

In the foul-mouthed tweets, Stevens called the city “disgusting,” its social justice Earth Day activism a “f***ing joke” and the city’s police force “pigs.” He also mocked Mormons, the elderly and Beyoncé. Concerned residents argued that a man like Stevens was unsuitable to oversee a community center.

Stevens, whose church was a liberal and LGBT-inclusive organization, resigned in order to deflect negative publicity away from the church. In a statement, he explained: “I tweeted to vent my frustration, and I acknowledge that I did so in an unprofessional and often hurtful way. My Twitter community has always been a small group of progressive ministers and Leftist political activists to whom my rants were geared.”

In his 623-word statement emailed to the San Francisco Chronicle, Stevens said that he was frustrated with the city’s wealth inequality.

“In my experience of trying to work with this community for almost 3 years, I believe Palo Alto is a ghetto of wealth, power, and elitist liberalism by proxy, meaning that many community members claim to want to fight for social justice issues, but that desire doesn’t translate into action,” he wrote.

Stevens had moved to California from his native Florida to study theology, and he began working in Palo Alto in 2015. There he became frustrated with the greed of the tech industry and the city’s widening gap between the impoverished and the mega-rich.

“The tech industry is motivated by endless profit, elite status, rampant greed, and the myth that their technologies are somehow always improving the world,” he said, adding: “The insane wealth inequality and the ignorance toward actual social justice is absolutely terrifying.”

Read more

Fire-ravaged hovel in Silicon Valley hits property market with $800,000 price tag

House prices in Palo Alto are among the highest in the country, and despite Silicon Valley being home to dozens of Forbes 100 companies and attracting one-third of all venture capital investment in the US, low-income workers are being forced to sleep in their cars or commute to work from further and further away. Four of the top 10 US cities for homelessness are located in California.

“Jesus was a homeless Jew who said it was harder for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven than for a camel to get through the eye of a needle,” Stevens wrote. “It is very difficult to do Christian ministry, a ministry that calls us to fight with and for the poor and marginalized among us, in the midst of an enclave of wealth and power.”

Stevens blamed the tech sector for much of the region’s ills. He argued that Facebook has destroyed the historically black neighborhood near its Menlo Park headquarters, moving in highly-paid tech workers and setting off a wave of evictions and gentrification.

“The working class does not benefit from these ‘advances,’ but cook, clean, and baby sit rich babies before heading off to home on long hours of public transit,” he wrote.

Before his Twitter rant was exposed, Reverend Stevens was also thinking of packing his bags and moving out of the city he so despises.

Cops Threaten to Prosecute People Who Troll Their Weed Bust Posts on Facebook

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ANTIMEDIA

Written by Carey Wedler

May 11, 2018

The Malicious Communications Act predates the digital age but nonetheless has bused to target offensive behavior or statements online. In 2014, the U.K. government amended it to make it more stringent and applicable to internet activity, notifying the public of the changes:

“The government is changing the law to increase the maximum sentence for the offence of sending certain items with the intent to cause distress or anxiety. This will mean more serious offences can be dealt with in the Crown Court and there will not be a time limit for police and Crown Prosecution Service to bring a prosecution.

“Alongside this, the government is also changing the law to allow up to 3 years, as opposed to 6 months as previously, to bring prosecutions against people for using the internet, social media or mobile phones to send menacing messages.”

According to that notice, “The Criminal Justice and Courts Bill amends section 1 of the Malicious Communications Act 1988 to make the offence an either-way offence with a maximum penalty on conviction on in the Crown Court of 2 years imprisonment.”

The government made it clear that the offense “covers sending a letter, electronic communication or article of any description to another person, which is in nature, or which conveys a message which is, indecent or grossly offensive, or conveys a threat or false information, with the purpose of causing distress or anxiety to the recipient or to any other person to whom it is intended that its contents should be communicated.”

Concerns about the broad definition of “grossly offensive” have surrounded the policy, and nowhere is this more apparent than the West Yorkshire police reaction to trolls. After articulating the failed ideology of the drug war, Moizer warned commenters they could be prosecuted:

“We will not overlook the significant harm that illegal drugs cause to our communities. We know from experience that this can progress from using what are perceived to be recreational drugs to more addictive and harmful substances and the resulting criminality used to fund their continued use.

“Please use this page with respect or you will be banned and maybe even prosecuted.”

Here are some of the comments on the cannabis bust and the police department’s reaction to criticism of it:

In addition to the 1988 law, the 2003 Communications Act has seen prosecutions for internet trolling skyrocket. Citing official statistics, the Telegraph noted that in 2014, “1,209 people were found guilty of offences under Section 127 of the Communications Act 2003 – equivalent to three every day – compared to 143 in 2004.”

The British government is well-known for its Big Brother intrusive surveillance tactics, and last year, Prime Minister Theresa May introduced a new plan to strictly monitor and regulate the internet that would impose “huge restrictions on what people can post, share and publish online,” the Independent reported.

As far as cannabis is concerned, the British government’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) acknowledged in 2016 that cannabidiol (CBD) had medical benefits, but cannabis remains illegal in the country despite the recent news that the U.K. is the world’s largest producer of the plant.

They Admitted Social Media Is Programming Us (23 min)

Truthstream Media

5 May 2018