Google – Symphony

Encore of Revival: America, June 7, 2021

SymphonyJune 7, 2021

The DOJ set an interesting precedent by siding with Google against the DOJ. This DOJ action transcends presidential administrations. The DOJ ordered Google to hand over email info about a few New York Times reporters—without Google telling the newspaper. Google resisted the government on the basis of its private contract with the New York Times. Finally, the DOJ caved and allowed a top executive to know, which led to negotiations and legal counsel.

Based on the DOJ having cooperated with Google’s private contract on user privacy, we now have a precedent that no digital company would be obligated to hand over user information without informing the users, not even in the face of a court order. Therefore, there is no excuse for censorship of private users on social media, including former President Trump. Companies only take users content and information if they want to, never because they must because, well, they don’t need to anymore.

We don’t know what Trump really thinks because social media giants found an excuse to mute him. If they want us to know what he truly thinks, they will unmute him. But, they don’t unmute him, so no one can trust hearsay about what Trump thinks. The latest nonsense was about him being re-instated in August. But, if Trump really thought that, Twitter and Facebook would allow him to say it for himself because it would be so embarrassing. If he’s too dangerous to be allowed to speak, then what they say he says is too dangerous to trust.

Social media giants are losing their power. Facebook objected to “digital services” taxes around the world. Now, all corporations face a flat 15% corporate tax, in G7 markets. Leaders facetiously thanked Facebook for urging governments to remove “digital services” tax. Facebook will get its way, which means Facebook will pay more, so Facebook won’t get its way because Facebook got its way. The same could be said about what Facebook doesn’t let Trump say for himself.

In Encore

Encore of Revival: America, February 22, 2021

SymphonyFebruary 21, 2021February 21, 2021

Drama and theater! The veil is lifting. Tech giants are useful, but they seem driven by parasites. The same can be said of legislative bodies, entertainment giants, and prosecutors going after the January 6 Capitol Insurrection.

Jessica Watkins has an interesting story to tell. Her defense of January 6 could convince the public that the prosecution is over-stating its case, looking to hang anyone and everyone possible as payback for the Capitol being breached. In acquitting those who occupied their legislative floor in 2014, Taiwan’s dignity far outshines that of America’s. To the US Supreme Court: You have a higher bar to reach, so to speak.

Social media takes a bumpy turn for the better. Australia’s social media law is somewhat vague, but mainly forces dialog. As understood by the Times, the Aussie law, along with the infamous ‘Articles 11’ of the EU law, aren’t aimed at the normal guy nor the pundit. Instead, they aim at huge tech giants who use AI to aggregate enormous numbers of new stories as one more added feature of their already behemoth-sized tech services. The infamous EU ‘Article 13’ law banning memes is another story. While Europe wants to tax links on Apple and Google, then ban memes for nearly everyone, Australia just wants Facebook and Google to have a conversation when they re-post part of a news story.

While the giants fight, originality steps up. In the approaching shadow of it becoming illegal to use any old music on YouTube, the need for original music spikes. Such laws were lobbied for by big entertainment companies; ironically it is big entertainment that now faces its fiercest competition from billions of ‘little guys’—who used to be their customers.

So, to the tech giants, tech-phobic lawmakers, copyright mongers, and prosecutors: Keep overreaching. Just keep overreaching.

In Encore

Encore of Revival: America, July 22, 2019

SymphonyJuly 22, 2019July 22, 2019

Washington is all excited because this week Mueller is scheduled to testify, again, about a report he already handed in. If the report had said enough on its own then there would be no need for him to testify, again. Democrats are all excited, but not as excited as Senator Graham, who plans to launch his own investigation investigation. While Washington is distracted with theatrics of Russians and the “fab four”, a much deeper problem is swelling, one which will not escape Trump’s tenure unchanged: social media.

Social media giants are out of control. One current argument on the table is to make Google’s “index” public.

This “index” is Google’s inside stockpile of information that a “Google search” queries. Right now, it’s on lockdown and no one can access it without going through Google. Making it public would allow anyone to use it—if they know the right code, which code monkeys could learn. And, that’s where the trouble is…

Publicizing Google’s search index would be difficult to prove because it would need a new computer language—or API—to access. What’s to keep Google from making that API language too difficult to use? And, what’s to ensure the same idiots in Washington who tried to ram SOPA & PIPA down everyone’s throats—or wondered if Hillary wiped her server “with a cloth”—would know whether Google is making the API too difficult to use?

It could be done. It would need oversight. It should apply to Yahoo, Microsoft, and any other publicly traded tech giant with a search index. And, it would be a game changer.

According to Bloomberg, Google gets over 90% of all search traffic; Microsoft’s Bing at second place gets under 3%. That’s a lot of power to be in just one place.

While the current thinkers have “thunk” up this as the way to regulate Google under laws governing “public utilities”, there’s another important argument to consider. Google’s search index isn’t an index about Google’s own intellectual property—Google’s search index is an index about private information owned by everyone. So, the real question is whether it should be legal to “index the public”, which is essentially what Google does. If it’s legal to “index the public”, then of course the public should have access to that index, duh.

In Encore

Encore of Revival: America, March 11, 2019

SymphonyMarch 11, 2019January 27, 2020

The nation is polarizing. Conservatives are becoming more conservative; Liberals are becoming more liberal. The veil of mediocrity has been lifted and people are being forced to fly their true colors.

Democratic Congresswoman Omar from Minnesota called out Obama for being a “pretty face” more “polished” than Trump, while denouncing Obama’s policies. Freshman Congresswoman Cortez and veteran Senator Sanders decried capitalism while unemployment is at a record low and jobs are returning to America—jobs which Obama said would not come back. That only adds to the lists of failed Obama promises. Yet, Democrats still think it was the Obama ideological opposition that failed, not their own—except for Omar who thinks everyone failed, kind of.

It’s one thing to not know when one lost, it’s another thing to not know when one will lose again. What better place to discuss a campaign for the anti-enterprise 2020 ticket than in the Caribbean!

Socialist cities across America are in a battle against rural American sheriffs and prosecutors.

Don’t attack people with your posts on social media—but if you’re CNN, that’s common practice, though still defamation—at least according to the lawyer for the Covington High School student who was treated by CNN and the Washington Post the way Facebook doesn’t want you to treat real bad guys who actually did something wrong—maybe. It all depends on opinion, but there is one solution: utilities.

Facebook and Google are in the fast lane on the highway to “Utilityhood”. Irritating as it is, a free market can’t force Facebook to cooperate with Vine when there is neither profit nor loss in our “free-and-open” Internet. By allowing Facebook to make market decisions in its own interests, it will be easier to sway public opinion toward government crushing the Facebook and Google empires by making them public utilities.

In Cadence

Cadence of Conflict: Asia, February 18, 2019

SymphonyFebruary 17, 2019February 18, 2019

Google’s negligence with Taiwanese military secrets certainly put Taiwan on the map—and it may list Google among the utilities. Being made into a public utility by force is a mild settlement for de facto espionage.

Taiwanese military tech is also growing. At an expo in Abu Dhabi, Taiwan hopes to sell its own tech to the Middle East; including its own supersonic anti-ship missiles. If China’s tech were so supreme, China would be courting the patronage of Middle Eastern states. Credibility is often in the money.

While trade talks drag on and on—and on and on—even the Leftist press supports President Trump in standing against China. Ah, yes—the one thing China hates about the West most of all: elections. Nothing could guarantee a sitting president’s re-election like a war against the self-polluted giant who ate America’s jobs. America’s ping-pong game of “talk and smack” with China continues. Wait until the US cozies up to Taiwan even more—with the Google spill being a perfect excuse—after the Huawei CFO suspect gets extradited to the US.

In Encore

Encore of Revival: America, January 28, 2019

SymphonyJanuary 28, 2019January 30, 2019

American deadlock trudges on. Trump promised a wall and he won’t back down. Democrats won’t back down either. Both show solidarity with their respective platforms. The only group that seems to favor backing down is Congressional Republicans, who want Trump to get this over with any way possible. For the compromising Republicans on Capitol Hill, Trump’s refusal to sign a “wallless budget” isn’t a “wall” strategy as much as it is a “shut down” strategy. Trump and Congressional Democrats see it differently.

Keep watch; it just might be Jared Kushner who saves the day.

The term “free speech” has taken a new meaning. While speech has kept less and less freedom from the tech bosses, the monetary cost of speaking out has essentially become free. With speech becoming more and more “financially free”, the media industry can’t find a way to stay solvent.

Newspapers and local news broadcasters seek collective ways to work against the tech giants, but they only rearrange their immediate problems with no long-term solutions in sight. The dwindling news industry is attacking “free” platforms of semi-free speech: social media. That’s the clue of where news & information will head in the future.