What do posters think the highest polling percentage will be for Reform in 2025? I'm going with 37%.
That was in the competition, so you can probably look it up.
I said 28% . So I'm still on target for a victory .
If you were to answer the question afresh would you still say 28%
IIRC I said 35%, thinking it was boldly high. I wonder now if it's a bit on the low side.
Other things being equal, the point at which it seems to get explosive (if it isn't already) is Reform at about 31%. At current speed we would be there in the spring/summer.
The difference with other odd surges is that it is not easy to see where the genius necessary for a turnaround in Lab/Con will come from.
I hadn't realised but it seems archivist is the official responsible for receiving and validating the certified electoral ballots for presidential elections!!
So it begins...
I think we're a bit past the begins part...
..The Archivist is appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate and is responsible for safeguarding and making available for study all the permanently valuable records of the federal government, including the original Declaration of Independence, Constitution and Bill of Rights, which are displayed in the Archives' main building in Washington, D.C...
I think the more important metrics are: - Reform vs Tories - Green vs Labour
If the left-hand side of the equation exceeds the right-hand side by too much, then the previously dominant party are at risk of being superseded as the party of the left/right.
... I don't think the Lib Dems could replace the Tories or Labour unless in conjunction with a new right/left party filling the previous gap. They aren't socialist enough, nor socially conservative enough, for the respective camps.
Mark Thomas appointed CEO of First Light Fusion https://firstlightfusion.com/media/mark-thomas-appointed-ceo-of-first-light-fusion/ ..He served as Chief Engineer at Rolls-Royce, working across multiple engine programmes and spearheading the company’s civil aerospace technology demonstrators and future initiatives. Mark also spent nearly a decade as CEO of Reaction Engines, where he led the development of advanced propulsion systems and thermal management technologies...
Mr Musk will be cutting funding from NIH Research grants across a swathe of universities in Red States, to the tune of capping it at half of the current average. From .. er .. next Monday.
No heating, cooling, offices, buildings, light, ventilation, illness, clerical staff or pensions for you lot. Do your research in a field.
Legal action incoming ...
President Donald Trump's administration has announced it will slash billions of dollars from overheads in grants for biomedical research as a part of broader cost-saving measures, a move some scientists say will stifle scientific advancements.
In a statement on Friday, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) said it would cut grants for "indirect costs" related to research - such as buildings, utilities and equipment.
"The United States should have the best medical research in the world," NIH said in its announcement. "It is accordingly vital to ensure that as many funds as possible go towards direct scientific research costs rather than administrative overhead."
The agency estimated that the cuts - which go into effect on Monday - would save $4bn (£3.2bn).
The NIH said on Friday that it would cap the rates grants pay for indirect research costs at 15 percent, half of the current average rate of 30 percent.
Trump is doing or proposing an enormous number of outrageous and stupid things, but this one might be the dumbest. The overhead is litterally the facilities and services that make it possible to do the research in the first place. By this way of reckoning a school or hospital would also be overhead. It's moronic.
Obviously we should try and capitalise on this American idiocy by poaching talent and funding more research.
It's causing major headaches here too. My other half (an NHS clinical scientist) was saying last night that all the collaborative research projects with the US are having to be urgently reviewed. I can't remember exactly what she said - something about patient confidentiality, I think. The gist though was that a lot of ongoing clinical trials are now in jeopardy.
What do posters think the highest polling percentage will be for Reform in 2025? I'm going with 37%.
That was in the competition, so you can probably look it up.
I said 28% . So I'm still on target for a victory .
If you were to answer the question afresh would you still say 28%
IIRC I said 35%, thinking it was boldly high. I wonder now if it's a bit on the low side.
Other things being equal, the point at which it seems to get explosive (if it isn't already) is Reform at about 31%. At current speed we would be there in the spring/summer.
The difference with other odd surges is that it is not easy to see where the genius necessary for a turnaround in Lab/Con will come from.
The Con:Ref ratio (or Con:other right wing, but ref is the only show in town) is the best way to measure this. A value over 1.0 is comfortable. Under 1 is worrying but it’s at 0.67:1 that things flip and we start doing the ratio the other way around.
In this latest poll it’s 0.8:1. That’s not far off crossover. A further 2% swing takes it to 0.68:1.
Labour on the other hand is comfortable and in no danger of replacement: 1.08:1 vs LD and Green.
I think the more important metrics are: - Reform vs Tories - Green vs Labour
If the left-hand side of the equation exceeds the right-hand side by too much, then the previously dominant party are at risk of being superseded as the party of the left/right.
... I don't think the Lib Dems could replace the Tories or Labour unless in conjunction with a new right/left party filling the previous gap. They aren't socialist enough, nor socially conservative enough, for the respective camps.
The Lib Dems are now also a regionally concentrated party. They don’t compete with Labour in most seats. You could almost (not quite) argue the fight is L+LD vs G. Which is an unequal fight. 39% plays 9%.
I actually think the Tories are in the most concerning position right now, rather than Labour:
- Labour: they have the benefit of being in office, which means they can do stuff. So whether or not they are effective and bring their ratings up; or useless and fall further is within their control, to some extent. Modest swingback and they win the next election with a much reduced majority or with the support of the Lib Dems.
- Reform: clearly doing very well. Challenge on converting that into a commensurate number of seats, but there is (currently) only one direction of travel.
- Lib Dems: polling surprisingly resilient outside of an election campaign. Reform are unlikely to challenge in many if any of their seats given vastly different target demographics, so likely to retain a similar seat count. Relatively little upside from here unless the Tories/Labour take another leg down and they benefit from it.
- Tories: I think Labour's fall from grace has been too soon in the electoral cycle for them to take advantage. The public hasn't forgiven them for their own failings, and so disillusioned voters are looking elsewhere. Their abject failure on migration means Reform are winning on the right; their move towards being Reform-lite continues to alienate the liberal wing of their support. The risk of being squeezed out of being the "default" opposition is much higher when you only have 121 MPs.
It is obvious how Reform or Labour improve from here:
Reform - continued disillusionment with the economy and lack of direction from the traditional big 2 parties, plus blanket media support from the broligarchs.
Labour - economy picks up, allowing for improvement in public services and improved fiscal position
Pretty hard to see how the Conservatives can improve much though. Main plausible scenario is a reverse takeover from Farage, but that still wouldn't really be Conservative let alone conservative. I have little idea what they can do, let alone faith in their ability to execute it.
No wonder the EU leaders present were triggered by JD Vance.
Runs counter to everything the EU is about.
The vice-president told the summit the world was on the brink of a “new industrial revolution” but said that this would never be realised “if over-regulation deters innovators from taking the risks necessary to advance the ball.”
No wonder the EU leaders present were triggered by JD Vance.
Runs counter to everything the EU is about.
The vice-president told the summit the world was on the brink of a “new industrial revolution” but said that this would never be realised “if over-regulation deters innovators from taking the risks necessary to advance the ball.”
An odd reading. Vance “stormed out” because a Chinese delegate said something he disagreed with. Sounds like the triggered person was delicate snowflake JD Vance.
(Or more likely the flounce was performative and planned to appeal to his home audience).
Hard to deal with a country led by people for whom good faith negotiation is anathema and everything is said and done for social media clicks.
NYT is reporting that both Kennedy Jnr and Gabbard are likely to have their nominations confirmed this week after what Republican resistance there was seems to have melted away.
Mr Musk will be cutting funding from NIH Research grants across a swathe of universities in Red States, to the tune of capping it at half of the current average. From .. er .. next Monday.
No heating, cooling, offices, buildings, light, ventilation, illness, clerical staff or pensions for you lot. Do your research in a field.
Legal action incoming ...
President Donald Trump's administration has announced it will slash billions of dollars from overheads in grants for biomedical research as a part of broader cost-saving measures, a move some scientists say will stifle scientific advancements.
In a statement on Friday, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) said it would cut grants for "indirect costs" related to research - such as buildings, utilities and equipment.
"The United States should have the best medical research in the world," NIH said in its announcement. "It is accordingly vital to ensure that as many funds as possible go towards direct scientific research costs rather than administrative overhead."
The agency estimated that the cuts - which go into effect on Monday - would save $4bn (£3.2bn).
The NIH said on Friday that it would cap the rates grants pay for indirect research costs at 15 percent, half of the current average rate of 30 percent.
Trump is doing or proposing an enormous number of outrageous and stupid things, but this one might be the dumbest. The overhead is litterally the facilities and services that make it possible to do the research in the first place. By this way of reckoning a school or hospital would also be overhead. It's moronic.
Obviously we should try and capitalise on this American idiocy by poaching talent and funding more research.
Highly educated foreigners being brought in versus South Wales steel workers? Wonder which way this will go
NYT is reporting that both Kennedy Jnr and Gabbard are likely to have their nominations confirmed this week after what Republican resistance there was seems to have melted away.
No wonder the EU leaders present were triggered by JD Vance.
Runs counter to everything the EU is about.
The vice-president told the summit the world was on the brink of a “new industrial revolution” but said that this would never be realised “if over-regulation deters innovators from taking the risks necessary to advance the ball.”
An odd reading. Vance “stormed out” because a Chinese delegate said something he disagreed with. Sounds like the triggered person was delicate snowflake JD Vance.
(Or more likely the flounce was performative and planned to appeal to his home audience).
Hard to deal with a country led by people for whom good faith negotiation is anathema and everything is said and done for social media clicks.
True, but China are an essential partner so we need to deal with them.
Hardly an odd reading. Vance's comments did not go down well. But in this respect he is right. We need to innovate in the area of AI and not stifle it. You do know both sides can be triggered at different times, it is not exclusive to one side.
Just because you don't like Trump or Vance doesn't mean they are wrong about everything. Stopped clock and all that
I don't think it's a Golden Calf, but I'm not sure what manner of thing this might be in Mar-a-Lago. I'm tempted to go with "All Aboard the Sky Lark", or "All in the Best Possible Test" following Kenny Everett.
Welcome to Trump's Golden Calf covered in Fake $100 Bills.
NYT is reporting that both Kennedy Jnr and Gabbard are likely to have their nominations confirmed this week after what Republican resistance there was seems to have melted away.
How is Kash doing ?
Kash "The Flash" Gill, a martial arts combatant, used to live in the same road as my Sister.
No wonder the EU leaders present were triggered by JD Vance.
Runs counter to everything the EU is about.
The vice-president told the summit the world was on the brink of a “new industrial revolution” but said that this would never be realised “if over-regulation deters innovators from taking the risks necessary to advance the ball.”
The two countries did not immediately explain their reasons for not signing a document backed by 61 nations on Tuesday, including China, India, Japan, Australia and Canada.
Confirmation of the snub came soon after the US vice-president, JD Vance, took to the stage at the Grand Palais to criticise Europe’s “excessive regulation” of technology and warn against co-operating with China in a hard-hitting speech.
The communique states that among priorities are “ensuring AI is open, inclusive, transparent, ethical, safe, secure and trustworthy, taking into account international frameworks for all” and “making AI sustainable for people and the planet”...
Mark Thomas appointed CEO of First Light Fusion https://firstlightfusion.com/media/mark-thomas-appointed-ceo-of-first-light-fusion/ ..He served as Chief Engineer at Rolls-Royce, working across multiple engine programmes and spearheading the company’s civil aerospace technology demonstrators and future initiatives. Mark also spent nearly a decade as CEO of Reaction Engines, where he led the development of advanced propulsion systems and thermal management technologies...
Dr Nick Hawker seems to have taken a step back to do the science rather than the day to day management - which makes sense but I was surprised not to see a comment saying as much in the press release...
Vance would perhaps benefit from a long session looking in the mirror. There was a time, fairly recently, when the US was slightly more qualified to voice such a reasonable criticism.
..Vance also referred to the risks of partnering with “authoritarian” regimes, a pointed allusion to China. Referring to exports of CCTV and 5G equipment – key Chinese tech products – by authoritarian governments, he said there was a cost: “Partnering with such regimes, it never pays off in the long term.”
Speaking yards away from the Chinese vice-premier, Zhang Guoqing, Vance added: “Some of us in this room have learned from experience partnering with them means chaining your nation to an authoritarian master that seeks to infiltrate, dig in and seize your information infrastructure. Should a deal seem too good to be true, just remember the old adage that we learned in Silicon Valley, if you aren’t paying for the product, you are the product.”..
I don't think it's a Golden Calf, but I'm not sure what manner of thing this might be in Mar-a-Lago. I'm tempted to go with "All Aboard the Sky Lark", or "All in the Best Possible Test" following Kenny Everett.
Welcome to Trump's Golden Calf covered in Fake $100 Bills.
Mark Thomas appointed CEO of First Light Fusion https://firstlightfusion.com/media/mark-thomas-appointed-ceo-of-first-light-fusion/ ..He served as Chief Engineer at Rolls-Royce, working across multiple engine programmes and spearheading the company’s civil aerospace technology demonstrators and future initiatives. Mark also spent nearly a decade as CEO of Reaction Engines, where he led the development of advanced propulsion systems and thermal management technologies...
Dr Nick Hawker seems to have taken a step back to do the science rather than the day to day management - which makes sense but I was surprised not to see a comment saying as much in the press release...
He's been talking about that for a while. He's always been very clear he's not the right guy to lead a commercial, as opposed to R&D venture,
No wonder the EU leaders present were triggered by JD Vance.
Runs counter to everything the EU is about.
The vice-president told the summit the world was on the brink of a “new industrial revolution” but said that this would never be realised “if over-regulation deters innovators from taking the risks necessary to advance the ball.”
The two countries did not immediately explain their reasons for not signing a document backed by 61 nations on Tuesday, including China, India, Japan, Australia and Canada.
Confirmation of the snub came soon after the US vice-president, JD Vance, took to the stage at the Grand Palais to criticise Europe’s “excessive regulation” of technology and warn against co-operating with China in a hard-hitting speech.
The communique states that among priorities are “ensuring AI is open, inclusive, transparent, ethical, safe, secure and trustworthy, taking into account international frameworks for all” and “making AI sustainable for people and the planet”...
As we shouldn't. The problem with all these communiques is that we sign up in good faith and then find out that everyone else ignored it. Better not to sign up.
No wonder the EU leaders present were triggered by JD Vance.
Runs counter to everything the EU is about.
The vice-president told the summit the world was on the brink of a “new industrial revolution” but said that this would never be realised “if over-regulation deters innovators from taking the risks necessary to advance the ball.”
The two countries did not immediately explain their reasons for not signing a document backed by 61 nations on Tuesday, including China, India, Japan, Australia and Canada.
Confirmation of the snub came soon after the US vice-president, JD Vance, took to the stage at the Grand Palais to criticise Europe’s “excessive regulation” of technology and warn against co-operating with China in a hard-hitting speech.
The communique states that among priorities are “ensuring AI is open, inclusive, transparent, ethical, safe, secure and trustworthy, taking into account international frameworks for all” and “making AI sustainable for people and the planet”...
One of those meaningless statements you get at the end of a long corporate jolly where people have done very little work but ate and drunk themselves to their hearts content.
No wonder the EU leaders present were triggered by JD Vance.
Runs counter to everything the EU is about.
The vice-president told the summit the world was on the brink of a “new industrial revolution” but said that this would never be realised “if over-regulation deters innovators from taking the risks necessary to advance the ball.”
The two countries did not immediately explain their reasons for not signing a document backed by 61 nations on Tuesday, including China, India, Japan, Australia and Canada.
Confirmation of the snub came soon after the US vice-president, JD Vance, took to the stage at the Grand Palais to criticise Europe’s “excessive regulation” of technology and warn against co-operating with China in a hard-hitting speech.
The communique states that among priorities are “ensuring AI is open, inclusive, transparent, ethical, safe, secure and trustworthy, taking into account international frameworks for all” and “making AI sustainable for people and the planet”...
As we shouldn't. The problem with all these communiques is that we sign up in good faith and then find out that everyone else ignored it. Better not to sign up.
That's a fair argument. Have we actually seen the text of the communique ?
" “Each executive order will hold up in court because every action of the Trump-Vance administration is completely lawful,” said Harrison Fields, a White House spokesman. “Any legal challenge against it is nothing more than an attempt to undermine the will of the American people.” "
NY Times
Note the "will of the people" arguments. Dark times incoming.
No wonder the EU leaders present were triggered by JD Vance.
Runs counter to everything the EU is about.
The vice-president told the summit the world was on the brink of a “new industrial revolution” but said that this would never be realised “if over-regulation deters innovators from taking the risks necessary to advance the ball.”
The two countries did not immediately explain their reasons for not signing a document backed by 61 nations on Tuesday, including China, India, Japan, Australia and Canada.
Confirmation of the snub came soon after the US vice-president, JD Vance, took to the stage at the Grand Palais to criticise Europe’s “excessive regulation” of technology and warn against co-operating with China in a hard-hitting speech.
The communique states that among priorities are “ensuring AI is open, inclusive, transparent, ethical, safe, secure and trustworthy, taking into account international frameworks for all” and “making AI sustainable for people and the planet”...
As we shouldn't. The problem with all these communiques is that we sign up in good faith and then find out that everyone else ignored it. Better not to sign up.
Before you know it these things are signed into the law of the land and the latest AI startup has 50 gazillion pages of compliance documents to output at the whim of some judge or other. "The courts were only following parliament" / "Parliament was only doing what we said we would at the summit"...
NYT is reporting that both Kennedy Jnr and Gabbard are likely to have their nominations confirmed this week after what Republican resistance there was seems to have melted away.
Senate just voted in invoke cloture on Gabbard - 52 GOP senators in favour - which means she's definitely going to be confirmed.
The Met commissioner, Mark Rowley, who has publicly vowed to clean up the force, has been left furious by the judgment and will consider an appeal. Rowley believes the process is a vital part of the effort to root out bad or suspect officers.
Rowley said the ruling has “left policing in a hopeless position”.
He added: “We now have no mechanism to rid the Met of officers who were not fit to hold vetting – those who cannot be trusted to work with women, or those who cannot be trusted to enter the homes of vulnerable people.
“It is absolutely absurd that we cannot lawfully sack them.
“This would not be the case in other sectors where staff have nothing like the powers comparable to police officers.”
@InspGadgetBlogs Unless you are in a job where a random person can make 'allegations' against you, which are never proved, and ten years later you fail vetting and lose your livelihood; please don't comment on today's hissy fit by the Met Commissioner. Thank you.
No wonder the EU leaders present were triggered by JD Vance.
Runs counter to everything the EU is about.
The vice-president told the summit the world was on the brink of a “new industrial revolution” but said that this would never be realised “if over-regulation deters innovators from taking the risks necessary to advance the ball.”
No wonder the EU leaders present were triggered by JD Vance.
Runs counter to everything the EU is about.
The vice-president told the summit the world was on the brink of a “new industrial revolution” but said that this would never be realised “if over-regulation deters innovators from taking the risks necessary to advance the ball.”
The two countries did not immediately explain their reasons for not signing a document backed by 61 nations on Tuesday, including China, India, Japan, Australia and Canada.
Confirmation of the snub came soon after the US vice-president, JD Vance, took to the stage at the Grand Palais to criticise Europe’s “excessive regulation” of technology and warn against co-operating with China in a hard-hitting speech.
The communique states that among priorities are “ensuring AI is open, inclusive, transparent, ethical, safe, secure and trustworthy, taking into account international frameworks for all” and “making AI sustainable for people and the planet”...
As we shouldn't. The problem with all these communiques is that we sign up in good faith and then find out that everyone else ignored it. Better not to sign up.
Before you know it these things are signed into the law of the land and the latest AI startup has 50 gazillion pages of compliance documents to output at the whim of some judge or other. "The courts were only following parliament" / "Parliament was only doing what we said we would at the summit"...
No wonder the EU leaders present were triggered by JD Vance.
Runs counter to everything the EU is about.
The vice-president told the summit the world was on the brink of a “new industrial revolution” but said that this would never be realised “if over-regulation deters innovators from taking the risks necessary to advance the ball.”
"Over-regulation" translates as privacy, copyright and patent laws. He wants to do away with them.
That is, of course, the other side of the coin.
Which is why I'm curious about the actual text of the communique. Which isn't, of course, legally binding. (Though given Starmer as PM, one needs to be cautious about relying on that.)
I don't think it's a Golden Calf, but I'm not sure what manner of thing this might be in Mar-a-Lago. I'm tempted to go with "All Aboard the Sky Lark", or "All in the Best Possible Test" following Kenny Everett.
Welcome to Trump's Golden Calf covered in Fake $100 Bills.
Old friend of mine spent much time in Africa (E and S). Starting with a plantation childhood in what was then Tanganyika. He had a simple rule. If the tail points up, goat; if down, sheep ...
Over the last couple of weeks the Canadian Liberals have risen dramatically in some polls where they are in the low thirties within striking distance of the Conservatives, something nobody would have forecast. Is it down to Trudeau going or more likely a swing to the government in the face of Trump's threats? If our government stands up to Trump and does not try to play every side at the same time there could be an adverse effect on Reform and there performance in May.
Vance would perhaps benefit from a long session looking in the mirror. There was a time, fairly recently, when the US was slightly more qualified to voice such a reasonable criticism.
..Vance also referred to the risks of partnering with “authoritarian” regimes, a pointed allusion to China. Referring to exports of CCTV and 5G equipment – key Chinese tech products – by authoritarian governments, he said there was a cost: “Partnering with such regimes, it never pays off in the long term.”
Speaking yards away from the Chinese vice-premier, Zhang Guoqing, Vance added: “Some of us in this room have learned from experience partnering with them means chaining your nation to an authoritarian master that seeks to infiltrate, dig in and seize your information infrastructure. Should a deal seem too good to be true, just remember the old adage that we learned in Silicon Valley, if you aren’t paying for the product, you are the product.”..
Should a deal seem too good to be true, just remember the old adage that we learned in Silicon Valley, if you aren’t paying for the product, you are the product.”..
Quite like that one. It has a lot of truth in it. What do we get paid for contributing our thoughts to PB again?
Vance would perhaps benefit from a long session looking in the mirror. There was a time, fairly recently, when the US was slightly more qualified to voice such a reasonable criticism.
..Vance also referred to the risks of partnering with “authoritarian” regimes, a pointed allusion to China. Referring to exports of CCTV and 5G equipment – key Chinese tech products – by authoritarian governments, he said there was a cost: “Partnering with such regimes, it never pays off in the long term.”
Speaking yards away from the Chinese vice-premier, Zhang Guoqing, Vance added: “Some of us in this room have learned from experience partnering with them means chaining your nation to an authoritarian master that seeks to infiltrate, dig in and seize your information infrastructure. Should a deal seem too good to be true, just remember the old adage that we learned in Silicon Valley, if you aren’t paying for the product, you are the product.”..
Should a deal seem too good to be true, just remember the old adage that we learned in Silicon Valley, if you aren’t paying for the product, you are the product.”..
Quite like that one. It has a lot of truth in it. What do we get paid for contributing our thoughts to PB again?
Ah.
To be fair, I've made some profits with political tips offered here, and others following my F1 tips (if you backed them all) had the favour returned.
No wonder the EU leaders present were triggered by JD Vance.
Runs counter to everything the EU is about.
The vice-president told the summit the world was on the brink of a “new industrial revolution” but said that this would never be realised “if over-regulation deters innovators from taking the risks necessary to advance the ball.”
An odd reading. Vance “stormed out” because a Chinese delegate said something he disagreed with. Sounds like the triggered person was delicate snowflake JD Vance.
(Or more likely the flounce was performative and planned to appeal to his home audience).
Hard to deal with a country led by people for whom good faith negotiation is anathema and everything is said and done for social media clicks.
I don't think it's a Golden Calf, but I'm not sure what manner of thing this might be in Mar-a-Lago. I'm tempted to go with "All Aboard the Sky Lark", or "All in the Best Possible Test" following Kenny Everett.
Welcome to Trump's Golden Calf covered in Fake $100 Bills.
Old friend of mine spent much time in Africa (E and S). Starting with a plantation childhood in what was then Tanganyika. He had a simple rule. If the tail points up, goat; if down, sheep ...
Over the last couple of weeks the Canadian Liberals have risen dramatically in some polls where they are in the low thirties within striking distance of the Conservatives, something nobody would have forecast. Is it down to Trudeau going or more likely a swing to the government in the face of Trump's threats? If our government stands up to Trump and does not try to play every side at the same time there could be an adverse effect on Reform and there performance in May.
25% tariffs on steel and aloominum again - I think now in place.
So there's another opportunity for more fluctuations.
No wonder the EU leaders present were triggered by JD Vance.
Runs counter to everything the EU is about.
The vice-president told the summit the world was on the brink of a “new industrial revolution” but said that this would never be realised “if over-regulation deters innovators from taking the risks necessary to advance the ball.”
Vance would perhaps benefit from a long session looking in the mirror. There was a time, fairly recently, when the US was slightly more qualified to voice such a reasonable criticism.
..Vance also referred to the risks of partnering with “authoritarian” regimes, a pointed allusion to China. Referring to exports of CCTV and 5G equipment – key Chinese tech products – by authoritarian governments, he said there was a cost: “Partnering with such regimes, it never pays off in the long term.”
Speaking yards away from the Chinese vice-premier, Zhang Guoqing, Vance added: “Some of us in this room have learned from experience partnering with them means chaining your nation to an authoritarian master that seeks to infiltrate, dig in and seize your information infrastructure. Should a deal seem too good to be true, just remember the old adage that we learned in Silicon Valley, if you aren’t paying for the product, you are the product.”..
Should a deal seem too good to be true, just remember the old adage that we learned in Silicon Valley, if you aren’t paying for the product, you are the product.”..
Quite like that one. It has a lot of truth in it. What do we get paid for contributing our thoughts to PB again?
Ah.
(Is that the first time you've heard that saying?)
Technofeudalism is the theory that social media can be seen as a land, and that those who *own* it are feudal lords, and that those who *contribute* to it (eg by commentary) are serfs, providing their labour for free.
To me, it looked very much like circular logic - does left wing 'fact checker' agree with far right post? No? Then it is disinformation.
EDIT: I don't necessarily find the conclusion unbelievable. But I wasn't convinced that the studty counted as 'evidence'
The study attempted to be a bit more rigorous than that. Unless you're saying the Wikipedia fact checkers are all left wing ?
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/19401612241311886#supplementary-materials ..To identify cases of misinformation, we scraped the MBFC and the Wikipedia Fake News list to create a database of 646,058 URLs with an associated factuality classification. MBFC offers the largest dataset covering biased and low factual news sources, and has been widely used to identify misinformation shared on social media (e.g., Baly et al., 2018; Gallotti et al., 2020; Sharma et al., 2020). MBFC describes each media outlet with a level factuality (“very low,” “low,” “medium,” “high,” “very high”), which represents the likelihood that articles from the source contain misleading information or misinformation. The Wikipedia Fake News list focuses specifically on news sources with very low factuality. Combining the database of misinformation links and the shared URLs, we produce a database of the level of factuality of the sources shared by the politicians, which covers 582,148 shared URLs. Using these, we create an indicator to measure the factuality of a politician or party based on the links they have shared. We create this variable by assigning values to each level of factuality (“very low”: 0, “low”: 0.25, “medium”: 0.5, “high”: 0.75, “very high”: 1.0) and calculating the mean value of the party. As we aggregate on the party level, the result is an indicator that captures the factuality of the links shared by a specific party. We refer to this indicator as their factuality score. It should be noted that the factuality score captures not only misinformation that is shared with the direct purpose of misleading but also sharing that is motivated by, for instance, the presence of a relationships between parties and media organizations with a culture of misinformation...
Note also that they weren't selective in what they analysed - they attempted to capture every social media post by every politician.
I'd say it's a not-ridiculous effort at objectivity - and certainly not a simple circular argument.
Vance would perhaps benefit from a long session looking in the mirror. There was a time, fairly recently, when the US was slightly more qualified to voice such a reasonable criticism.
..Vance also referred to the risks of partnering with “authoritarian” regimes, a pointed allusion to China. Referring to exports of CCTV and 5G equipment – key Chinese tech products – by authoritarian governments, he said there was a cost: “Partnering with such regimes, it never pays off in the long term.”
Speaking yards away from the Chinese vice-premier, Zhang Guoqing, Vance added: “Some of us in this room have learned from experience partnering with them means chaining your nation to an authoritarian master that seeks to infiltrate, dig in and seize your information infrastructure. Should a deal seem too good to be true, just remember the old adage that we learned in Silicon Valley, if you aren’t paying for the product, you are the product.”..
Should a deal seem too good to be true, just remember the old adage that we learned in Silicon Valley, if you aren’t paying for the product, you are the product.”..
Quite like that one. It has a lot of truth in it. What do we get paid for contributing our thoughts to PB again?
Ah.
As someone used to say to people who moaned about Facebook "demand a refund".
I wonder what Vanilla gets from hosting this board ?
Over the last couple of weeks the Canadian Liberals have risen dramatically in some polls where they are in the low thirties within striking distance of the Conservatives, something nobody would have forecast. Is it down to Trudeau going or more likely a swing to the government in the face of Trump's threats? If our government stands up to Trump and does not try to play every side at the same time there could be an adverse effect on Reform and there performance in May.
It's all those things and more. There is a leadership election on and both Carney and Freeland seem to be acceptable PM's. The fact that your neighbour wants to take you over is, not surprisingly, the big story. An organic economic boycott is taking shape too.
To me, it looked very much like circular logic - does left wing 'fact checker' agree with far right post? No? Then it is disinformation.
EDIT: I don't necessarily find the conclusion unbelievable. But I wasn't convinced that the studty counted as 'evidence'
Why would you assume that the fact checkers are left wing? The one the Guardian story links to (mediabiasfactcheck.com) notes the Guardian' left-centre bias and notes the accuracy of its factual reporting as "mixed". Presumably if these sites were some kind of left wing hatchet job they would give a better rating to one of the internet's leading liberal news sources and do more to hide the Guardian's political bias? If the very idea of checking for accuracy and bias is seen as left wing I think that in itself speaks volumes.
Incidentally I finished THE RED EMPEROR last night, an excellent concise biography of Xi Jinping by Michael Sheridan, the fairly veteran Sunday Times China correspondent
He makes it as clear as he can (probably as far as he can without being barred from China) that Covid came from the lab. He actually gets the crucial detail right - that the Wuhan Centre for Disease Control was 300 yards from the wet market, and it moved there and opened - with all attendant chaos - on December 2, 2019
He then details the extraordinary efforts China made to disguise all this, disappearing crucial witnesses at the lab, brutally silencing doubts, hoodwinking WHO, et al
Basically, if you still believe and espouse the wet market thesis, you are shilling for a brutal dictatorship. Consider that
No wonder the EU leaders present were triggered by JD Vance.
Runs counter to everything the EU is about.
The vice-president told the summit the world was on the brink of a “new industrial revolution” but said that this would never be realised “if over-regulation deters innovators from taking the risks necessary to advance the ball.”
I bought a refurbished iPhone 13 mini a few weeks back from Apple. You can't buy them in the EU anymore because this legislation doesn't let them sell even refurbished phones without USB-C - to reduce waste!
So far, at least, the UK copycat legislation doesn't seem to have had that effect.
To me, it looked very much like circular logic - does left wing 'fact checker' agree with far right post? No? Then it is disinformation.
EDIT: I don't necessarily find the conclusion unbelievable. But I wasn't convinced that the studty counted as 'evidence'
The study attempted to be a bit more rigorous than that. Unless you're saying the Wikipedia fact checkers are all left wing ?
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/19401612241311886#supplementary-materials ..To identify cases of misinformation, we scraped the MBFC and the Wikipedia Fake News list to create a database of 646,058 URLs with an associated factuality classification. MBFC offers the largest dataset covering biased and low factual news sources, and has been widely used to identify misinformation shared on social media (e.g., Baly et al., 2018; Gallotti et al., 2020; Sharma et al., 2020). MBFC describes each media outlet with a level factuality (“very low,” “low,” “medium,” “high,” “very high”), which represents the likelihood that articles from the source contain misleading information or misinformation. The Wikipedia Fake News list focuses specifically on news sources with very low factuality. Combining the database of misinformation links and the shared URLs, we produce a database of the level of factuality of the sources shared by the politicians, which covers 582,148 shared URLs. Using these, we create an indicator to measure the factuality of a politician or party based on the links they have shared. We create this variable by assigning values to each level of factuality (“very low”: 0, “low”: 0.25, “medium”: 0.5, “high”: 0.75, “very high”: 1.0) and calculating the mean value of the party. As we aggregate on the party level, the result is an indicator that captures the factuality of the links shared by a specific party. We refer to this indicator as their factuality score. It should be noted that the factuality score captures not only misinformation that is shared with the direct purpose of misleading but also sharing that is motivated by, for instance, the presence of a relationships between parties and media organizations with a culture of misinformation...
Note also that they weren't selective in what they analysed - they attempted to capture every social media post by every politician.
I'd say it's a not-ridiculous effort at objectivity - and certainly not a simple circular argument.
FFS, Wikipedia is now insanely left wing, even Jimmy Wales and his cofounders admit is is a problem
Vance would perhaps benefit from a long session looking in the mirror. There was a time, fairly recently, when the US was slightly more qualified to voice such a reasonable criticism.
..Vance also referred to the risks of partnering with “authoritarian” regimes, a pointed allusion to China. Referring to exports of CCTV and 5G equipment – key Chinese tech products – by authoritarian governments, he said there was a cost: “Partnering with such regimes, it never pays off in the long term.”
Speaking yards away from the Chinese vice-premier, Zhang Guoqing, Vance added: “Some of us in this room have learned from experience partnering with them means chaining your nation to an authoritarian master that seeks to infiltrate, dig in and seize your information infrastructure. Should a deal seem too good to be true, just remember the old adage that we learned in Silicon Valley, if you aren’t paying for the product, you are the product.”..
Should a deal seem too good to be true, just remember the old adage that we learned in Silicon Valley, if you aren’t paying for the product, you are the product.”..
Quite like that one. It has a lot of truth in it. What do we get paid for contributing our thoughts to PB again?
Ah.
(Is that the first time you've heard that saying?)
Technofeudalism is the theory that social media can be seen as a land, and that those who *own* it are feudal lords, and that those who *contribute* to it (eg by commentary) are serfs, providing their labour for free.
The joke was funnier if I pretended that I hadn't.
Well done Starmer and Labour for siding with Trump’s America and refusing to sign this absurd Paris accord; without the USA and the UK - the first and third biggest powers in this arena - Macron’s pact is dead in the water
Starmer is moving towards Trump: this is good. He has chosen
While there is a clear trend it's not clear how whether the difference in factuality is significant.
Possibly I've misunderstood the graphs, but it seems left-wing populist parties are less likely to spread misinformation (more truthful) than mainstream parties.
Well done Starmer and Labour for siding with Trump’s America and refusing to sign this absurd Paris accord; without the USA and the UK - the first and third biggest powers in this arena - Macron’s pact is dead in the water
Starmer is moving towards Trump: this is good. He has chosen
Now if he would just reinstate the funding for the supercomputer in Edinburgh that he cancelled we might well attract some useful inward investment. Being committed to AI development but refusing the means to develop it is simply incoherent.
To me, it looked very much like circular logic - does left wing 'fact checker' agree with far right post? No? Then it is disinformation.
EDIT: I don't necessarily find the conclusion unbelievable. But I wasn't convinced that the studty counted as 'evidence'
The study attempted to be a bit more rigorous than that. Unless you're saying the Wikipedia fact checkers are all left wing ?
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/19401612241311886#supplementary-materials ..To identify cases of misinformation, we scraped the MBFC and the Wikipedia Fake News list to create a database of 646,058 URLs with an associated factuality classification. MBFC offers the largest dataset covering biased and low factual news sources, and has been widely used to identify misinformation shared on social media (e.g., Baly et al., 2018; Gallotti et al., 2020; Sharma et al., 2020). MBFC describes each media outlet with a level factuality (“very low,” “low,” “medium,” “high,” “very high”), which represents the likelihood that articles from the source contain misleading information or misinformation. The Wikipedia Fake News list focuses specifically on news sources with very low factuality. Combining the database of misinformation links and the shared URLs, we produce a database of the level of factuality of the sources shared by the politicians, which covers 582,148 shared URLs. Using these, we create an indicator to measure the factuality of a politician or party based on the links they have shared. We create this variable by assigning values to each level of factuality (“very low”: 0, “low”: 0.25, “medium”: 0.5, “high”: 0.75, “very high”: 1.0) and calculating the mean value of the party. As we aggregate on the party level, the result is an indicator that captures the factuality of the links shared by a specific party. We refer to this indicator as their factuality score. It should be noted that the factuality score captures not only misinformation that is shared with the direct purpose of misleading but also sharing that is motivated by, for instance, the presence of a relationships between parties and media organizations with a culture of misinformation...
Note also that they weren't selective in what they analysed - they attempted to capture every social media post by every politician.
I'd say it's a not-ridiculous effort at objectivity - and certainly not a simple circular argument.
FFS, Wikipedia is now insanely left wing, even Jimmy Wales and his cofounders admit is is a problem
Well done Starmer and Labour for siding with Trump’s America and refusing to sign this absurd Paris accord; without the USA and the UK - the first and third biggest powers in this arena - Macron’s pact is dead in the water
Starmer is moving towards Trump: this is good. He has chosen
Now if he would just reinstate the funding for the supercomputer in Edinburgh that he cancelled we might well attract some useful inward investment. Being committed to AI development but refusing the means to develop it is simply incoherent.
Tell me about it. From that moment on I realised this government would be shite. Utterly utterly clueless
Basically this Labour government has been a painful exercise in catching-up-with-reality after a catastrophic first six months, but political history says you probably don’t get a second chance
Vance would perhaps benefit from a long session looking in the mirror. There was a time, fairly recently, when the US was slightly more qualified to voice such a reasonable criticism.
..Vance also referred to the risks of partnering with “authoritarian” regimes, a pointed allusion to China. Referring to exports of CCTV and 5G equipment – key Chinese tech products – by authoritarian governments, he said there was a cost: “Partnering with such regimes, it never pays off in the long term.”
Speaking yards away from the Chinese vice-premier, Zhang Guoqing, Vance added: “Some of us in this room have learned from experience partnering with them means chaining your nation to an authoritarian master that seeks to infiltrate, dig in and seize your information infrastructure. Should a deal seem too good to be true, just remember the old adage that we learned in Silicon Valley, if you aren’t paying for the product, you are the product.”..
Should a deal seem too good to be true, just remember the old adage that we learned in Silicon Valley, if you aren’t paying for the product, you are the product.”..
Quite like that one. It has a lot of truth in it. What do we get paid for contributing our thoughts to PB again?
Ah.
I am prepared to give my ideas out free to any interested policy makers.
Well done Starmer and Labour for siding with Trump’s America and refusing to sign this absurd Paris accord; without the USA and the UK - the first and third biggest powers in this arena - Macron’s pact is dead in the water
Starmer is moving towards Trump: this is good. He has chosen
Now if he would just reinstate the funding for the supercomputer in Edinburgh that he cancelled we might well attract some useful inward investment. Being committed to AI development but refusing the means to develop it is simply incoherent.
Tell me about it. From that moment on I realised this government would be shite. Utterly utterly clueless
Basically this Labour government has been a painful exercise in catching-up-with-reality after a catastrophic first six months, but political history says you probably don’t get a second chance
If we are going to be ruled by cyborgs and AI intelligences it is absolutely essential that they learn to play cricket properly so that we will have contributed something meaningful to the brave new world.
Well done Starmer and Labour for siding with Trump’s America and refusing to sign this absurd Paris accord; without the USA and the UK - the first and third biggest powers in this arena - Macron’s pact is dead in the water
Starmer is moving towards Trump: this is good. He has chosen
Now if he would just reinstate the funding for the supercomputer in Edinburgh that he cancelled we might well attract some useful inward investment. Being committed to AI development but refusing the means to develop it is simply incoherent.
Yes. Kemi should push this at PMQs - only problem is it's a very minor hors d'oeuvre on the all you can eat buffet of Government incompetence and malice she has to select from each week.
Well done Starmer and Labour for siding with Trump’s America and refusing to sign this absurd Paris accord; without the USA and the UK - the first and third biggest powers in this arena - Macron’s pact is dead in the water
Starmer is moving towards Trump: this is good. He has chosen
Now if he would just reinstate the funding for the supercomputer in Edinburgh that he cancelled we might well attract some useful inward investment. Being committed to AI development but refusing the means to develop it is simply incoherent.
Tell me about it. From that moment on I realised this government would be shite. Utterly utterly clueless
Basically this Labour government has been a painful exercise in catching-up-with-reality after a catastrophic first six months, but political history says you probably don’t get a second chance
If we are going to be ruled by cyborgs and AI intelligences it is absolutely essential that they learn to play cricket properly so that we will have contributed something meaningful to the brave new world.
In Life, the Universe and Everything the existence of cricket-playing robots ended very badly for everyone involved.
To me, it looked very much like circular logic - does left wing 'fact checker' agree with far right post? No? Then it is disinformation.
EDIT: I don't necessarily find the conclusion unbelievable. But I wasn't convinced that the studty counted as 'evidence'
The study attempted to be a bit more rigorous than that. Unless you're saying the Wikipedia fact checkers are all left wing ?
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/19401612241311886#supplementary-materials ..To identify cases of misinformation, we scraped the MBFC and the Wikipedia Fake News list to create a database of 646,058 URLs with an associated factuality classification. MBFC offers the largest dataset covering biased and low factual news sources, and has been widely used to identify misinformation shared on social media (e.g., Baly et al., 2018; Gallotti et al., 2020; Sharma et al., 2020). MBFC describes each media outlet with a level factuality (“very low,” “low,” “medium,” “high,” “very high”), which represents the likelihood that articles from the source contain misleading information or misinformation. The Wikipedia Fake News list focuses specifically on news sources with very low factuality. Combining the database of misinformation links and the shared URLs, we produce a database of the level of factuality of the sources shared by the politicians, which covers 582,148 shared URLs. Using these, we create an indicator to measure the factuality of a politician or party based on the links they have shared. We create this variable by assigning values to each level of factuality (“very low”: 0, “low”: 0.25, “medium”: 0.5, “high”: 0.75, “very high”: 1.0) and calculating the mean value of the party. As we aggregate on the party level, the result is an indicator that captures the factuality of the links shared by a specific party. We refer to this indicator as their factuality score. It should be noted that the factuality score captures not only misinformation that is shared with the direct purpose of misleading but also sharing that is motivated by, for instance, the presence of a relationships between parties and media organizations with a culture of misinformation...
Note also that they weren't selective in what they analysed - they attempted to capture every social media post by every politician.
I'd say it's a not-ridiculous effort at objectivity - and certainly not a simple circular argument.
FFS, Wikipedia is now insanely left wing, even Jimmy Wales and his cofounders admit is is a problem
Starmer is doing well in allying so closely with Trump. We need to swap experts, now - get in their guys to help reduce our government waste, then we can send them Torville and Dean and teach them ice dance, if they’re not dead
To me, it looked very much like circular logic - does left wing 'fact checker' agree with far right post? No? Then it is disinformation.
EDIT: I don't necessarily find the conclusion unbelievable. But I wasn't convinced that the studty counted as 'evidence'
The study attempted to be a bit more rigorous than that. Unless you're saying the Wikipedia fact checkers are all left wing ?
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/19401612241311886#supplementary-materials ..To identify cases of misinformation, we scraped the MBFC and the Wikipedia Fake News list to create a database of 646,058 URLs with an associated factuality classification. MBFC offers the largest dataset covering biased and low factual news sources, and has been widely used to identify misinformation shared on social media (e.g., Baly et al., 2018; Gallotti et al., 2020; Sharma et al., 2020). MBFC describes each media outlet with a level factuality (“very low,” “low,” “medium,” “high,” “very high”), which represents the likelihood that articles from the source contain misleading information or misinformation. The Wikipedia Fake News list focuses specifically on news sources with very low factuality. Combining the database of misinformation links and the shared URLs, we produce a database of the level of factuality of the sources shared by the politicians, which covers 582,148 shared URLs. Using these, we create an indicator to measure the factuality of a politician or party based on the links they have shared. We create this variable by assigning values to each level of factuality (“very low”: 0, “low”: 0.25, “medium”: 0.5, “high”: 0.75, “very high”: 1.0) and calculating the mean value of the party. As we aggregate on the party level, the result is an indicator that captures the factuality of the links shared by a specific party. We refer to this indicator as their factuality score. It should be noted that the factuality score captures not only misinformation that is shared with the direct purpose of misleading but also sharing that is motivated by, for instance, the presence of a relationships between parties and media organizations with a culture of misinformation...
Note also that they weren't selective in what they analysed - they attempted to capture every social media post by every politician.
I'd say it's a not-ridiculous effort at objectivity - and certainly not a simple circular argument.
FFS, Wikipedia is now insanely left wing, even Jimmy Wales and his cofounders admit is is a problem
How can an encyclopaedia be left wing?
When it’s zealously written and edited by pathetic left wing incels with nothing better to do?
To me, it looked very much like circular logic - does left wing 'fact checker' agree with far right post? No? Then it is disinformation.
EDIT: I don't necessarily find the conclusion unbelievable. But I wasn't convinced that the studty counted as 'evidence'
The study attempted to be a bit more rigorous than that. Unless you're saying the Wikipedia fact checkers are all left wing ?
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/19401612241311886#supplementary-materials ..To identify cases of misinformation, we scraped the MBFC and the Wikipedia Fake News list to create a database of 646,058 URLs with an associated factuality classification. MBFC offers the largest dataset covering biased and low factual news sources, and has been widely used to identify misinformation shared on social media (e.g., Baly et al., 2018; Gallotti et al., 2020; Sharma et al., 2020). MBFC describes each media outlet with a level factuality (“very low,” “low,” “medium,” “high,” “very high”), which represents the likelihood that articles from the source contain misleading information or misinformation. The Wikipedia Fake News list focuses specifically on news sources with very low factuality. Combining the database of misinformation links and the shared URLs, we produce a database of the level of factuality of the sources shared by the politicians, which covers 582,148 shared URLs. Using these, we create an indicator to measure the factuality of a politician or party based on the links they have shared. We create this variable by assigning values to each level of factuality (“very low”: 0, “low”: 0.25, “medium”: 0.5, “high”: 0.75, “very high”: 1.0) and calculating the mean value of the party. As we aggregate on the party level, the result is an indicator that captures the factuality of the links shared by a specific party. We refer to this indicator as their factuality score. It should be noted that the factuality score captures not only misinformation that is shared with the direct purpose of misleading but also sharing that is motivated by, for instance, the presence of a relationships between parties and media organizations with a culture of misinformation...
Note also that they weren't selective in what they analysed - they attempted to capture every social media post by every politician.
I'd say it's a not-ridiculous effort at objectivity - and certainly not a simple circular argument.
FFS, Wikipedia is now insanely left wing, even Jimmy Wales and his cofounders admit is is a problem
How can an encyclopaedia be left wing?
When it’s zealously written and edited by pathetic left wing incels with nothing better to do?
To me, it looked very much like circular logic - does left wing 'fact checker' agree with far right post? No? Then it is disinformation.
EDIT: I don't necessarily find the conclusion unbelievable. But I wasn't convinced that the studty counted as 'evidence'
The study attempted to be a bit more rigorous than that. Unless you're saying the Wikipedia fact checkers are all left wing ?
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/19401612241311886#supplementary-materials ..To identify cases of misinformation, we scraped the MBFC and the Wikipedia Fake News list to create a database of 646,058 URLs with an associated factuality classification. MBFC offers the largest dataset covering biased and low factual news sources, and has been widely used to identify misinformation shared on social media (e.g., Baly et al., 2018; Gallotti et al., 2020; Sharma et al., 2020). MBFC describes each media outlet with a level factuality (“very low,” “low,” “medium,” “high,” “very high”), which represents the likelihood that articles from the source contain misleading information or misinformation. The Wikipedia Fake News list focuses specifically on news sources with very low factuality. Combining the database of misinformation links and the shared URLs, we produce a database of the level of factuality of the sources shared by the politicians, which covers 582,148 shared URLs. Using these, we create an indicator to measure the factuality of a politician or party based on the links they have shared. We create this variable by assigning values to each level of factuality (“very low”: 0, “low”: 0.25, “medium”: 0.5, “high”: 0.75, “very high”: 1.0) and calculating the mean value of the party. As we aggregate on the party level, the result is an indicator that captures the factuality of the links shared by a specific party. We refer to this indicator as their factuality score. It should be noted that the factuality score captures not only misinformation that is shared with the direct purpose of misleading but also sharing that is motivated by, for instance, the presence of a relationships between parties and media organizations with a culture of misinformation...
Note also that they weren't selective in what they analysed - they attempted to capture every social media post by every politician.
I'd say it's a not-ridiculous effort at objectivity - and certainly not a simple circular argument.
FFS, Wikipedia is now insanely left wing, even Jimmy Wales and his cofounders admit is is a problem
How can an encyclopaedia be left wing?
Presumably how it edits contentious issues such as Israel-Palestine, Gaza, cross dressers claiming to be women etc etc.
No wonder the EU leaders present were triggered by JD Vance.
Runs counter to everything the EU is about.
The vice-president told the summit the world was on the brink of a “new industrial revolution” but said that this would never be realised “if over-regulation deters innovators from taking the risks necessary to advance the ball.”
The two countries did not immediately explain their reasons for not signing a document backed by 61 nations on Tuesday, including China, India, Japan, Australia and Canada.
Confirmation of the snub came soon after the US vice-president, JD Vance, took to the stage at the Grand Palais to criticise Europe’s “excessive regulation” of technology and warn against co-operating with China in a hard-hitting speech.
The communique states that among priorities are “ensuring AI is open, inclusive, transparent, ethical, safe, secure and trustworthy, taking into account international frameworks for all” and “making AI sustainable for people and the planet”...
Feels very significant. Not a lot to do with AI I suspect, but essentially a political decision to throw our lot in with America, Trump or no Trump.
To me, it looked very much like circular logic - does left wing 'fact checker' agree with far right post? No? Then it is disinformation.
EDIT: I don't necessarily find the conclusion unbelievable. But I wasn't convinced that the studty counted as 'evidence'
The study attempted to be a bit more rigorous than that. Unless you're saying the Wikipedia fact checkers are all left wing ?
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/19401612241311886#supplementary-materials ..To identify cases of misinformation, we scraped the MBFC and the Wikipedia Fake News list to create a database of 646,058 URLs with an associated factuality classification. MBFC offers the largest dataset covering biased and low factual news sources, and has been widely used to identify misinformation shared on social media (e.g., Baly et al., 2018; Gallotti et al., 2020; Sharma et al., 2020). MBFC describes each media outlet with a level factuality (“very low,” “low,” “medium,” “high,” “very high”), which represents the likelihood that articles from the source contain misleading information or misinformation. The Wikipedia Fake News list focuses specifically on news sources with very low factuality. Combining the database of misinformation links and the shared URLs, we produce a database of the level of factuality of the sources shared by the politicians, which covers 582,148 shared URLs. Using these, we create an indicator to measure the factuality of a politician or party based on the links they have shared. We create this variable by assigning values to each level of factuality (“very low”: 0, “low”: 0.25, “medium”: 0.5, “high”: 0.75, “very high”: 1.0) and calculating the mean value of the party. As we aggregate on the party level, the result is an indicator that captures the factuality of the links shared by a specific party. We refer to this indicator as their factuality score. It should be noted that the factuality score captures not only misinformation that is shared with the direct purpose of misleading but also sharing that is motivated by, for instance, the presence of a relationships between parties and media organizations with a culture of misinformation...
Note also that they weren't selective in what they analysed - they attempted to capture every social media post by every politician.
I'd say it's a not-ridiculous effort at objectivity - and certainly not a simple circular argument.
FFS, Wikipedia is now insanely left wing, even Jimmy Wales and his cofounders admit is is a problem
How can an encyclopaedia be left wing?
When it’s zealously written and edited by pathetic left wing incels with nothing better to do?
By that reasoning you must be a twat.
Aren’t we all, in a very real sense, twats? Especially you?
To me, it looked very much like circular logic - does left wing 'fact checker' agree with far right post? No? Then it is disinformation.
EDIT: I don't necessarily find the conclusion unbelievable. But I wasn't convinced that the studty counted as 'evidence'
The study attempted to be a bit more rigorous than that. Unless you're saying the Wikipedia fact checkers are all left wing ?
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/19401612241311886#supplementary-materials ..To identify cases of misinformation, we scraped the MBFC and the Wikipedia Fake News list to create a database of 646,058 URLs with an associated factuality classification. MBFC offers the largest dataset covering biased and low factual news sources, and has been widely used to identify misinformation shared on social media (e.g., Baly et al., 2018; Gallotti et al., 2020; Sharma et al., 2020). MBFC describes each media outlet with a level factuality (“very low,” “low,” “medium,” “high,” “very high”), which represents the likelihood that articles from the source contain misleading information or misinformation. The Wikipedia Fake News list focuses specifically on news sources with very low factuality. Combining the database of misinformation links and the shared URLs, we produce a database of the level of factuality of the sources shared by the politicians, which covers 582,148 shared URLs. Using these, we create an indicator to measure the factuality of a politician or party based on the links they have shared. We create this variable by assigning values to each level of factuality (“very low”: 0, “low”: 0.25, “medium”: 0.5, “high”: 0.75, “very high”: 1.0) and calculating the mean value of the party. As we aggregate on the party level, the result is an indicator that captures the factuality of the links shared by a specific party. We refer to this indicator as their factuality score. It should be noted that the factuality score captures not only misinformation that is shared with the direct purpose of misleading but also sharing that is motivated by, for instance, the presence of a relationships between parties and media organizations with a culture of misinformation...
Note also that they weren't selective in what they analysed - they attempted to capture every social media post by every politician.
I'd say it's a not-ridiculous effort at objectivity - and certainly not a simple circular argument.
FFS, Wikipedia is now insanely left wing, even Jimmy Wales and his cofounders admit is is a problem
Surely they just need to "make less profit" as some have said.
"Britain’s biggest retailers have warned that the high street will shed at least 300,000 jobs over the next three years in a blow to the Chancellor’s hopes of reviving local town and city centres.
Retailers including Marks & Spencer, Sainsbury’s and Tesco have fired a warning shot over the future of the industry, saying a “perfect storm” of higher costs and red tape meant they expected one in 10 shop floor workers to leave retail by 2028."
If they shed 300k jobs won't boost productivity, and free up workers to do other things, so Nonny Nonny Nigel can be less frightened of the reduced immigration?
;-)
Yep, that's 11% labour productivity growth across retail in only 3 years, or 9x faster than our annualised average growth since 2008.
People don't actually like productivity growth when it happens because it usually means lots of disruption to employment. NICs + low immigration is making capital investment look relatively more attractive for large firms.
And "leave retail" doesn't necessarily mean redundancies. Just that they won't be replaced.
One of my sisters-in-law works in high end fashion retail.
Every time the staff costs increase they cut the low end staff.
The ones who wander round, tidying stuff up, but when you ask a question refer you to someone else - them. Minimum wage job, next to no skill.
According to the wife of a friend - senior in the management of one of the companies that owns a bunch of chains, this is all pre-planned. You put the minimum wage or other employer costs into the model, it comes up with a new “staffing profile” for the business…
Over the last couple of weeks the Canadian Liberals have risen dramatically in some polls where they are in the low thirties within striking distance of the Conservatives, something nobody would have forecast. Is it down to Trudeau going or more likely a swing to the government in the face of Trump's threats? If our government stands up to Trump and does not try to play every side at the same time there could be an adverse effect on Reform and there performance in May.
It's all those things and more. There is a leadership election on and both Carney and Freeland seem to be acceptable PM's. The fact that your neighbour wants to take you over is, not surprisingly, the big story. An organic economic boycott is taking shape too.
Also I think Trudeau is perceived to have handled the Trump threat well. Which means some Canadians reviewing their very low opinion of him.
No wonder the EU leaders present were triggered by JD Vance.
Runs counter to everything the EU is about.
The vice-president told the summit the world was on the brink of a “new industrial revolution” but said that this would never be realised “if over-regulation deters innovators from taking the risks necessary to advance the ball.”
The two countries did not immediately explain their reasons for not signing a document backed by 61 nations on Tuesday, including China, India, Japan, Australia and Canada.
Confirmation of the snub came soon after the US vice-president, JD Vance, took to the stage at the Grand Palais to criticise Europe’s “excessive regulation” of technology and warn against co-operating with China in a hard-hitting speech.
The communique states that among priorities are “ensuring AI is open, inclusive, transparent, ethical, safe, secure and trustworthy, taking into account international frameworks for all” and “making AI sustainable for people and the planet”...
Feels very significant. Not a lot to do with AI I suspect, but essentially a political decision to throw our lot in with America, Trump or no Trump.
it is. Starmer and Labour had a huge choice
America under Trump and Vance and heroism and anti woke and patriotism and bravery and all that
Or the EU with Von Der Leyen and the AfD and currywurst and weird lentil salads and death
Very very sensibly, Starmer has thrown in his lot - our lot - with Trump
We have chosen life. We have chosen to live and survive as a free western nation
To me, it looked very much like circular logic - does left wing 'fact checker' agree with far right post? No? Then it is disinformation.
EDIT: I don't necessarily find the conclusion unbelievable. But I wasn't convinced that the studty counted as 'evidence'
The study attempted to be a bit more rigorous than that. Unless you're saying the Wikipedia fact checkers are all left wing ?
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/19401612241311886#supplementary-materials ..To identify cases of misinformation, we scraped the MBFC and the Wikipedia Fake News list to create a database of 646,058 URLs with an associated factuality classification. MBFC offers the largest dataset covering biased and low factual news sources, and has been widely used to identify misinformation shared on social media (e.g., Baly et al., 2018; Gallotti et al., 2020; Sharma et al., 2020). MBFC describes each media outlet with a level factuality (“very low,” “low,” “medium,” “high,” “very high”), which represents the likelihood that articles from the source contain misleading information or misinformation. The Wikipedia Fake News list focuses specifically on news sources with very low factuality. Combining the database of misinformation links and the shared URLs, we produce a database of the level of factuality of the sources shared by the politicians, which covers 582,148 shared URLs. Using these, we create an indicator to measure the factuality of a politician or party based on the links they have shared. We create this variable by assigning values to each level of factuality (“very low”: 0, “low”: 0.25, “medium”: 0.5, “high”: 0.75, “very high”: 1.0) and calculating the mean value of the party. As we aggregate on the party level, the result is an indicator that captures the factuality of the links shared by a specific party. We refer to this indicator as their factuality score. It should be noted that the factuality score captures not only misinformation that is shared with the direct purpose of misleading but also sharing that is motivated by, for instance, the presence of a relationships between parties and media organizations with a culture of misinformation...
Note also that they weren't selective in what they analysed - they attempted to capture every social media post by every politician.
I'd say it's a not-ridiculous effort at objectivity - and certainly not a simple circular argument.
FFS, Wikipedia is now insanely left wing, even Jimmy Wales and his cofounders admit is is a problem
How can an encyclopaedia be left wing?
When it’s zealously written and edited by pathetic left wing incels with nothing better to do?
By that reasoning you must be a twat.
Aren’t we all, in a very real sense, twats? Especially you?
Surely they just need to "make less profit" as some have said.
"Britain’s biggest retailers have warned that the high street will shed at least 300,000 jobs over the next three years in a blow to the Chancellor’s hopes of reviving local town and city centres.
Retailers including Marks & Spencer, Sainsbury’s and Tesco have fired a warning shot over the future of the industry, saying a “perfect storm” of higher costs and red tape meant they expected one in 10 shop floor workers to leave retail by 2028."
If they shed 300k jobs won't boost productivity, and free up workers to do other things, so Nonny Nonny Nigel can be less frightened of the reduced immigration?
;-)
It won't necessarily improve productivity. Of course stuff like increased minimum wage has led to some improvement of productivity but it does not always follow.
How does cutting head improve productivity when the likes of M&S are closing stores ?
To me, it looked very much like circular logic - does left wing 'fact checker' agree with far right post? No? Then it is disinformation.
EDIT: I don't necessarily find the conclusion unbelievable. But I wasn't convinced that the studty counted as 'evidence'
The study attempted to be a bit more rigorous than that. Unless you're saying the Wikipedia fact checkers are all left wing ?
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/19401612241311886#supplementary-materials ..To identify cases of misinformation, we scraped the MBFC and the Wikipedia Fake News list to create a database of 646,058 URLs with an associated factuality classification. MBFC offers the largest dataset covering biased and low factual news sources, and has been widely used to identify misinformation shared on social media (e.g., Baly et al., 2018; Gallotti et al., 2020; Sharma et al., 2020). MBFC describes each media outlet with a level factuality (“very low,” “low,” “medium,” “high,” “very high”), which represents the likelihood that articles from the source contain misleading information or misinformation. The Wikipedia Fake News list focuses specifically on news sources with very low factuality. Combining the database of misinformation links and the shared URLs, we produce a database of the level of factuality of the sources shared by the politicians, which covers 582,148 shared URLs. Using these, we create an indicator to measure the factuality of a politician or party based on the links they have shared. We create this variable by assigning values to each level of factuality (“very low”: 0, “low”: 0.25, “medium”: 0.5, “high”: 0.75, “very high”: 1.0) and calculating the mean value of the party. As we aggregate on the party level, the result is an indicator that captures the factuality of the links shared by a specific party. We refer to this indicator as their factuality score. It should be noted that the factuality score captures not only misinformation that is shared with the direct purpose of misleading but also sharing that is motivated by, for instance, the presence of a relationships between parties and media organizations with a culture of misinformation...
Note also that they weren't selective in what they analysed - they attempted to capture every social media post by every politician.
I'd say it's a not-ridiculous effort at objectivity - and certainly not a simple circular argument.
FFS, Wikipedia is now insanely left wing, even Jimmy Wales and his cofounders admit is is a problem
How can an encyclopaedia be left wing?
Presumably how it edits contentious issues such as Israel-Palestine, Gaza, cross dressers claiming to be women etc etc.
To me, it looked very much like circular logic - does left wing 'fact checker' agree with far right post? No? Then it is disinformation.
EDIT: I don't necessarily find the conclusion unbelievable. But I wasn't convinced that the studty counted as 'evidence'
The study attempted to be a bit more rigorous than that. Unless you're saying the Wikipedia fact checkers are all left wing ?
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/19401612241311886#supplementary-materials ..To identify cases of misinformation, we scraped the MBFC and the Wikipedia Fake News list to create a database of 646,058 URLs with an associated factuality classification. MBFC offers the largest dataset covering biased and low factual news sources, and has been widely used to identify misinformation shared on social media (e.g., Baly et al., 2018; Gallotti et al., 2020; Sharma et al., 2020). MBFC describes each media outlet with a level factuality (“very low,” “low,” “medium,” “high,” “very high”), which represents the likelihood that articles from the source contain misleading information or misinformation. The Wikipedia Fake News list focuses specifically on news sources with very low factuality. Combining the database of misinformation links and the shared URLs, we produce a database of the level of factuality of the sources shared by the politicians, which covers 582,148 shared URLs. Using these, we create an indicator to measure the factuality of a politician or party based on the links they have shared. We create this variable by assigning values to each level of factuality (“very low”: 0, “low”: 0.25, “medium”: 0.5, “high”: 0.75, “very high”: 1.0) and calculating the mean value of the party. As we aggregate on the party level, the result is an indicator that captures the factuality of the links shared by a specific party. We refer to this indicator as their factuality score. It should be noted that the factuality score captures not only misinformation that is shared with the direct purpose of misleading but also sharing that is motivated by, for instance, the presence of a relationships between parties and media organizations with a culture of misinformation...
Note also that they weren't selective in what they analysed - they attempted to capture every social media post by every politician.
I'd say it's a not-ridiculous effort at objectivity - and certainly not a simple circular argument.
FFS, Wikipedia is now insanely left wing, even Jimmy Wales and his cofounders admit is is a problem
How can an encyclopaedia be left wing?
When it’s zealously written and edited by pathetic left wing incels with nothing better to do?
By that reasoning you must be a twat.
Aren’t we all, in a very real sense, twats? Especially you?
No wonder the EU leaders present were triggered by JD Vance.
Runs counter to everything the EU is about.
The vice-president told the summit the world was on the brink of a “new industrial revolution” but said that this would never be realised “if over-regulation deters innovators from taking the risks necessary to advance the ball.”
I bought a refurbished iPhone 13 mini a few weeks back from Apple. You can't buy them in the EU anymore because this legislation doesn't let them sell even refurbished phones without USB-C - to reduce waste!
So far, at least, the UK copycat legislation doesn't seem to have had that effect.
You can't buy them *from Apple* any more in the EU, but you can buy them from anyone else.
Surely they just need to "make less profit" as some have said.
"Britain’s biggest retailers have warned that the high street will shed at least 300,000 jobs over the next three years in a blow to the Chancellor’s hopes of reviving local town and city centres.
Retailers including Marks & Spencer, Sainsbury’s and Tesco have fired a warning shot over the future of the industry, saying a “perfect storm” of higher costs and red tape meant they expected one in 10 shop floor workers to leave retail by 2028."
If they shed 300k jobs won't boost productivity, and free up workers to do other things, so Nonny Nonny Nigel can be less frightened of the reduced immigration?
;-)
It won't necessarily improve productivity. Of course stuff like increased minimum wage has led to some improvement of productivity but it does not always follow.
How does cutting head improve productivity when the likes of M&S are closing stores ?
Well, normally the stores that remain open have higher sales per member of staff than those whose stores are closed so sales per employee increase.
To me, it looked very much like circular logic - does left wing 'fact checker' agree with far right post? No? Then it is disinformation.
EDIT: I don't necessarily find the conclusion unbelievable. But I wasn't convinced that the studty counted as 'evidence'
The study attempted to be a bit more rigorous than that. Unless you're saying the Wikipedia fact checkers are all left wing ?
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/19401612241311886#supplementary-materials ..To identify cases of misinformation, we scraped the MBFC and the Wikipedia Fake News list to create a database of 646,058 URLs with an associated factuality classification. MBFC offers the largest dataset covering biased and low factual news sources, and has been widely used to identify misinformation shared on social media (e.g., Baly et al., 2018; Gallotti et al., 2020; Sharma et al., 2020). MBFC describes each media outlet with a level factuality (“very low,” “low,” “medium,” “high,” “very high”), which represents the likelihood that articles from the source contain misleading information or misinformation. The Wikipedia Fake News list focuses specifically on news sources with very low factuality. Combining the database of misinformation links and the shared URLs, we produce a database of the level of factuality of the sources shared by the politicians, which covers 582,148 shared URLs. Using these, we create an indicator to measure the factuality of a politician or party based on the links they have shared. We create this variable by assigning values to each level of factuality (“very low”: 0, “low”: 0.25, “medium”: 0.5, “high”: 0.75, “very high”: 1.0) and calculating the mean value of the party. As we aggregate on the party level, the result is an indicator that captures the factuality of the links shared by a specific party. We refer to this indicator as their factuality score. It should be noted that the factuality score captures not only misinformation that is shared with the direct purpose of misleading but also sharing that is motivated by, for instance, the presence of a relationships between parties and media organizations with a culture of misinformation...
Note also that they weren't selective in what they analysed - they attempted to capture every social media post by every politician.
I'd say it's a not-ridiculous effort at objectivity - and certainly not a simple circular argument.
FFS, Wikipedia is now insanely left wing, even Jimmy Wales and his cofounders admit is is a problem
How can an encyclopaedia be left wing?
Presumably how it edits contentious issues such as Israel-Palestine, Gaza, cross dressers claiming to be women etc etc.
Evidence?
"Presumably - used to say what you think is the likely situation"
Based on what I have seen on some of the edit sections on contentious issues.
I don't use Wiki these days for anything other than reference for Film and TV
To me, it looked very much like circular logic - does left wing 'fact checker' agree with far right post? No? Then it is disinformation.
EDIT: I don't necessarily find the conclusion unbelievable. But I wasn't convinced that the studty counted as 'evidence'
Why would you assume that the fact checkers are left wing? The one the Guardian story links to (mediabiasfactcheck.com) notes the Guardian' left-centre bias and notes the accuracy of its factual reporting as "mixed". Presumably if these sites were some kind of left wing hatchet job they would give a better rating to one of the internet's leading liberal news sources and do more to hide the Guardian's political bias? If the very idea of checking for accuracy and bias is seen as left wing I think that in itself speaks volumes.
The Guardian headline is a bit misleading. The Guardian article is clearer. The research article highlights the populist right as being the main purveyors of disinformation. Populist right and far right aren't exactly the same thing.
That the populist right have problems with truth is hardly a surprise. (The Trump administration is making new hires sign up to pledges saying they think Trump won in 2020 and that Jan 6 was an inside job.) I think what is surprising in the study is that other categories of politicians, the populist left or the non-populist right, were not spreading comparable levels of disinformation. The "radical right" appear to have a particular troubled relationship with the truth.
This fits my broader view that the only divide in politics that matters right now is between a truth-denying authoritarian radical right, and everyone else. Traditional Conservative, Christian Democrat, centrist, socialist, green, whoever, we all share a belief in the rule of law. Trump, Netanyahu, Putin, they're on the other side.
To me, it looked very much like circular logic - does left wing 'fact checker' agree with far right post? No? Then it is disinformation.
EDIT: I don't necessarily find the conclusion unbelievable. But I wasn't convinced that the studty counted as 'evidence'
The study attempted to be a bit more rigorous than that. Unless you're saying the Wikipedia fact checkers are all left wing ?
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/19401612241311886#supplementary-materials ..To identify cases of misinformation, we scraped the MBFC and the Wikipedia Fake News list to create a database of 646,058 URLs with an associated factuality classification. MBFC offers the largest dataset covering biased and low factual news sources, and has been widely used to identify misinformation shared on social media (e.g., Baly et al., 2018; Gallotti et al., 2020; Sharma et al., 2020). MBFC describes each media outlet with a level factuality (“very low,” “low,” “medium,” “high,” “very high”), which represents the likelihood that articles from the source contain misleading information or misinformation. The Wikipedia Fake News list focuses specifically on news sources with very low factuality. Combining the database of misinformation links and the shared URLs, we produce a database of the level of factuality of the sources shared by the politicians, which covers 582,148 shared URLs. Using these, we create an indicator to measure the factuality of a politician or party based on the links they have shared. We create this variable by assigning values to each level of factuality (“very low”: 0, “low”: 0.25, “medium”: 0.5, “high”: 0.75, “very high”: 1.0) and calculating the mean value of the party. As we aggregate on the party level, the result is an indicator that captures the factuality of the links shared by a specific party. We refer to this indicator as their factuality score. It should be noted that the factuality score captures not only misinformation that is shared with the direct purpose of misleading but also sharing that is motivated by, for instance, the presence of a relationships between parties and media organizations with a culture of misinformation...
Note also that they weren't selective in what they analysed - they attempted to capture every social media post by every politician.
I'd say it's a not-ridiculous effort at objectivity - and certainly not a simple circular argument.
FFS, Wikipedia is now insanely left wing, even Jimmy Wales and his cofounders admit is is a problem
How can an encyclopaedia be left wing?
Presumably how it edits contentious issues such as Israel-Palestine, Gaza, cross dressers claiming to be women etc etc.
Evidence?
"Presumably - used to say what you think is the likely situation"
Based on what I have seen on some of the edit sections on contentious issues.
I don't use Wiki these days for anything other than reference for Film and TV
Well, I still edit as "Sunil060902" (also tend to upload tons of railway pics to Wikimedia). I don't think I'm particularly left wing!
To me, it looked very much like circular logic - does left wing 'fact checker' agree with far right post? No? Then it is disinformation.
EDIT: I don't necessarily find the conclusion unbelievable. But I wasn't convinced that the studty counted as 'evidence'
Why would you assume that the fact checkers are left wing? The one the Guardian story links to (mediabiasfactcheck.com) notes the Guardian' left-centre bias and notes the accuracy of its factual reporting as "mixed". Presumably if these sites were some kind of left wing hatchet job they would give a better rating to one of the internet's leading liberal news sources and do more to hide the Guardian's political bias? If the very idea of checking for accuracy and bias is seen as left wing I think that in itself speaks volumes.
The Guardian headline is a bit misleading. The Guardian article is clearer. The research article highlights the populist right as being the main purveyors of disinformation. Populist right and far right aren't exactly the same thing.
That the populist right have problems with truth is hardly a surprise. (The Trump administration is making new hires sign up to pledges saying they think Trump won in 2020 and that Jan 6 was an inside job.) I think what is surprising in the study is that other categories of politicians, the populist left or the non-populist right, were not spreading comparable levels of disinformation. The "radical right" appear to have a particular troubled relationship with the truth.
This fits my broader view that the only divide in politics that matters right now is between a truth-denying authoritarian radical right, and everyone else. Traditional Conservative, Christian Democrat, centrist, socialist, green, whoever, we all share a belief in the rule of law. Trump, Netanyahu, Putin, they're on the other side.
lol
You’re STILL going round telling everyone Covid DEFINITELY came from the wet market, which is probably the biggest lie told about the biggest thing in the history of all humanity. And you have the temerity to accuse others of “misinformation”?!
I can never quite work out whether you are really stupid or really deluded, I have decided to compromise on the idea that you are quite stupid, quite deluded, very seriously mendacious, and I pity any students who get you as a prof
To me, it looked very much like circular logic - does left wing 'fact checker' agree with far right post? No? Then it is disinformation.
EDIT: I don't necessarily find the conclusion unbelievable. But I wasn't convinced that the studty counted as 'evidence'
The study attempted to be a bit more rigorous than that. Unless you're saying the Wikipedia fact checkers are all left wing ?
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/19401612241311886#supplementary-materials ..To identify cases of misinformation, we scraped the MBFC and the Wikipedia Fake News list to create a database of 646,058 URLs with an associated factuality classification. MBFC offers the largest dataset covering biased and low factual news sources, and has been widely used to identify misinformation shared on social media (e.g., Baly et al., 2018; Gallotti et al., 2020; Sharma et al., 2020). MBFC describes each media outlet with a level factuality (“very low,” “low,” “medium,” “high,” “very high”), which represents the likelihood that articles from the source contain misleading information or misinformation. The Wikipedia Fake News list focuses specifically on news sources with very low factuality. Combining the database of misinformation links and the shared URLs, we produce a database of the level of factuality of the sources shared by the politicians, which covers 582,148 shared URLs. Using these, we create an indicator to measure the factuality of a politician or party based on the links they have shared. We create this variable by assigning values to each level of factuality (“very low”: 0, “low”: 0.25, “medium”: 0.5, “high”: 0.75, “very high”: 1.0) and calculating the mean value of the party. As we aggregate on the party level, the result is an indicator that captures the factuality of the links shared by a specific party. We refer to this indicator as their factuality score. It should be noted that the factuality score captures not only misinformation that is shared with the direct purpose of misleading but also sharing that is motivated by, for instance, the presence of a relationships between parties and media organizations with a culture of misinformation...
Note also that they weren't selective in what they analysed - they attempted to capture every social media post by every politician.
I'd say it's a not-ridiculous effort at objectivity - and certainly not a simple circular argument.
FFS, Wikipedia is now insanely left wing, even Jimmy Wales and his cofounders admit is is a problem
How can an encyclopaedia be left wing?
Presumably how it edits contentious issues such as Israel-Palestine, Gaza, cross dressers claiming to be women etc etc.
Evidence?
"Presumably - used to say what you think is the likely situation"
Based on what I have seen on some of the edit sections on contentious issues.
I don't use Wiki these days for anything other than reference for Film and TV
Well, I still edit as "Sunil060902" (also tend to upload tons of railway pics to Wikimedia). I don't think I'm particularly left wing!
I used to edit and add actor/actress profiles and shows. Not done it for a long time.
Are railway pics contentious ? Does railway fandom have splits and schisms and arguments like Sci Fi fandom does.
Comments
Other things being equal, the point at which it seems to get explosive (if it isn't already) is Reform at about 31%. At current speed we would be there in the spring/summer.
The difference with other odd surges is that it is not easy to see where the genius necessary for a turnaround in Lab/Con will come from.
- Reform vs Tories
- Green vs Labour
If the left-hand side of the equation exceeds the right-hand side by too much, then the previously dominant party are at risk of being superseded as the party of the left/right.
... I don't think the Lib Dems could replace the Tories or Labour unless in conjunction with a new right/left party filling the previous gap. They aren't socialist enough, nor socially conservative enough, for the respective camps.
https://firstlightfusion.com/media/mark-thomas-appointed-ceo-of-first-light-fusion/
..He served as Chief Engineer at Rolls-Royce, working across multiple engine programmes and spearheading the company’s civil aerospace technology demonstrators and future initiatives. Mark also spent nearly a decade as CEO of Reaction Engines, where he led the development of advanced propulsion systems and thermal management technologies...
Reform + Labour = 51 %
Con + LD + Greens = 44%
I'd go a little higher but perhaps only 31%.
In this latest poll it’s 0.8:1. That’s not far off crossover. A further 2% swing takes it to 0.68:1.
Labour on the other hand is comfortable and in no danger of replacement: 1.08:1 vs LD and Green.
Reform - continued disillusionment with the economy and lack of direction from the traditional big 2 parties, plus blanket media support from the broligarchs.
Labour - economy picks up, allowing for improvement in public services and improved fiscal position
Pretty hard to see how the Conservatives can improve much though. Main plausible scenario is a reverse takeover from Farage, but that still wouldn't really be Conservative let alone conservative. I have little idea what they can do, let alone faith in their ability to execute it.
Runs counter to everything the EU is about.
The vice-president told the summit the world was on the brink of a “new industrial revolution” but said that this would never be realised “if over-regulation deters innovators from taking the risks necessary to advance the ball.”
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/vance-storms-out-of-elysee-speech-as-chinese-vice-premier-praises-un/ar-AA1yNIpN?ocid=entnewsntp&pc=U531&cvid=309cdd8004e74bc09a5d49790f56e095&ei=22
https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:euynv325eix7glyek377orak
Nugget:
NEW: Thanks to the Supreme Court's immunity ruling and Trump's election/dismissal of the Mar-a-Lago criminal case, the FBI's rationale for shielding key documents related to the probe no longer holds up, a judge ruled Monday.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/10/fbi-trump-classified-docs-case-015570
(Or more likely the flounce was performative and planned to appeal to his home audience).
Hard to deal with a country led by people for whom good faith negotiation is anathema and everything is said and done for social media clicks.
Hardly an odd reading. Vance's comments did not go down well. But in this respect he is right. We need to innovate in the area of AI and not stifle it. You do know both sides can be triggered at different times, it is not exclusive to one side.
Just because you don't like Trump or Vance doesn't mean they are wrong about everything. Stopped clock and all that
I don't think it's a Golden Calf, but I'm not sure what manner of thing this might be in Mar-a-Lago. I'm tempted to go with "All Aboard the Sky Lark", or "All in the Best Possible Test" following Kenny Everett.
Welcome to Trump's Golden Calf covered in Fake $100 Bills.
"In Trump we Trust" - well, loboto-MAGAs may.
https://bsky.app/profile/mattwardman.bsky.social/post/3lhus3i25bc2k
Nice lad.
That looks bloody awful.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/feb/11/us-uk-paris-ai-summit-artificial-intelligence-declaration
The US and the UK have refused to sign the Paris AI summit’s declaration on “inclusive and sustainable” artificial intelligence, in a blow to hopes for a concerted approach to developing and regulating the technology.
The two countries did not immediately explain their reasons for not signing a document backed by 61 nations on Tuesday, including China, India, Japan, Australia and Canada.
Confirmation of the snub came soon after the US vice-president, JD Vance, took to the stage at the Grand Palais to criticise Europe’s “excessive regulation” of technology and warn against co-operating with China in a hard-hitting speech.
The communique states that among priorities are “ensuring AI is open, inclusive, transparent, ethical, safe, secure and trustworthy, taking into account international frameworks for all” and “making AI sustainable for people and the planet”...
There was a time, fairly recently, when the US was slightly more qualified to voice such a reasonable criticism.
..Vance also referred to the risks of partnering with “authoritarian” regimes, a pointed allusion to China. Referring to exports of CCTV and 5G equipment – key Chinese tech products – by authoritarian governments, he said there was a cost: “Partnering with such regimes, it never pays off in the long term.”
Speaking yards away from the Chinese vice-premier, Zhang Guoqing, Vance added: “Some of us in this room have learned from experience partnering with them means chaining your nation to an authoritarian master that seeks to infiltrate, dig in and seize your information infrastructure. Should a deal seem too good to be true, just remember the old adage that we learned in Silicon Valley, if you aren’t paying for the product, you are the product.”..
He's always been very clear he's not the right guy to lead a commercial, as opposed to R&D venture,
Brave brave women
We should accept secular women refugees from Afghanistan, instead we get the religious men. Ugh
Have we actually seen the text of the communique ?
" “Each executive order will hold up in court because every action of the Trump-Vance administration is completely lawful,” said Harrison Fields, a White House spokesman. “Any legal challenge against it is nothing more than an attempt to undermine the will of the American people.” "
NY Times
Note the "will of the people" arguments. Dark times incoming.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/feb/11/far-right-mps-fake-news-misinformation-left-study
The Met commissioner, Mark Rowley, who has publicly vowed to clean up the force, has been left furious by the judgment and will consider an appeal. Rowley believes the process is a vital part of the effort to root out bad or suspect officers.
Rowley said the ruling has “left policing in a hopeless position”.
He added: “We now have no mechanism to rid the Met of officers who were not fit to hold vetting – those who cannot be trusted to work with women, or those who cannot be trusted to enter the homes of vulnerable people.
“It is absolutely absurd that we cannot lawfully sack them.
“This would not be the case in other sectors where staff have nothing like the powers comparable to police officers.”
https://x.com/InspGadgetBlogs/status/1889299657408352546
@InspGadgetBlogs
Unless you are in a job where a random person can make 'allegations' against you, which are never proved, and ten years later you fail vetting and lose your livelihood; please don't comment on today's hissy fit by the Met Commissioner. Thank you.
To me, it looked very much like circular logic - does left wing 'fact checker' agree with far right post? No? Then it is disinformation.
EDIT: I don't necessarily find the conclusion unbelievable. But I wasn't convinced that the studty counted as 'evidence'
Which is why I'm curious about the actual text of the communique.
Which isn't, of course, legally binding. (Though given Starmer as PM, one needs to be cautious about relying on that.)
If our government stands up to Trump and does not try to play every side at the same time there could be an adverse effect on Reform and there performance in May.
Quite like that one. It has a lot of truth in it. What do we get paid for contributing our thoughts to PB again?
Ah.
They used two fact-checkers. The claim either is "left wing" is arguable.
Anyway, I'm off for the day.
So there's another opportunity for more fluctuations.
The UK also did not sign up to the bland, meaningless, corporate statement
The EU, like all regulators, has a fine line to walk. So far it is overregulating. As with the case with the USB chargers. Anyway.
https://www.businesseurope.eu/sites/buseur/files/media/reports_and_studies/2016-12-02_impact_of_eu_regulation_on_innovation_-_repository_of_industry_cases.pdf
BTW what is the meaning of your handle ? Who is Alan and why was no offence intended. Always wondered.
Technofeudalism is the theory that social media can be seen as a land, and that those who *own* it are feudal lords, and that those who *contribute* to it (eg by commentary) are serfs, providing their labour for free.
Unless you're saying the Wikipedia fact checkers are all left wing ?
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/19401612241311886#supplementary-materials
..To identify cases of misinformation, we scraped the MBFC and the Wikipedia Fake News list to create a database of 646,058 URLs with an associated factuality classification. MBFC offers the largest dataset covering biased and low factual news sources, and has been widely used to identify misinformation shared on social media (e.g., Baly et al., 2018; Gallotti et al., 2020; Sharma et al., 2020). MBFC describes each media outlet with a level factuality (“very low,” “low,” “medium,” “high,” “very high”), which represents the likelihood that articles from the source contain misleading information or misinformation. The Wikipedia Fake News list focuses specifically on news sources with very low factuality. Combining the database of misinformation links and the shared URLs, we produce a database of the level of factuality of the sources shared by the politicians, which covers 582,148 shared URLs. Using these, we create an indicator to measure the factuality of a politician or party based on the links they have shared. We create this variable by assigning values to each level of factuality (“very low”: 0, “low”: 0.25, “medium”: 0.5, “high”: 0.75, “very high”: 1.0) and calculating the mean value of the party. As we aggregate on the party level, the result is an indicator that captures the factuality of the links shared by a specific party. We refer to this indicator as their factuality score. It should be noted that the factuality score captures not only misinformation that is shared with the direct purpose of misleading but also sharing that is motivated by, for instance, the presence of a relationships between parties and media organizations with a culture of misinformation...
Note also that they weren't selective in what they analysed - they attempted to capture every social media post by every politician.
I'd say it's a not-ridiculous effort at objectivity - and certainly not a simple circular argument.
I wonder what Vanilla gets from hosting this board ?
There is a leadership election on and both Carney and Freeland seem to be acceptable PM's.
The fact that your neighbour wants to take you over is, not surprisingly, the big story.
An organic economic boycott is taking shape too.
If the very idea of checking for accuracy and bias is seen as left wing I think that in itself speaks volumes.
He makes it as clear as he can (probably as far as he can without being barred from China) that Covid came from the lab. He actually gets the crucial detail right - that the Wuhan Centre for Disease Control was 300 yards from the wet market, and it moved there and opened - with all attendant chaos - on December 2, 2019
He then details the extraordinary efforts China made to disguise all this, disappearing crucial witnesses at the lab, brutally silencing doubts, hoodwinking WHO, et al
Basically, if you still believe and espouse the wet market thesis, you are shilling for a brutal dictatorship. Consider that
The fact checking they did was more a check on the validity of the automated ratings described in my excerpt above.
So far, at least, the UK copycat legislation doesn't seem to have had that effect.
Starmer is moving towards Trump: this is good. He has chosen
While there is a clear trend it's not clear how whether the difference in factuality is significant.
Possibly I've misunderstood the graphs, but it seems left-wing populist parties are less likely to spread misinformation (more truthful) than mainstream parties.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fake_news_websites
The Scottish Government is investing a record £6.3 billion in social security benefits
in 2024-25 to support the most vulnerable in our society
https://www.gov.scot/binaries/content/documents/govscot/publications/factsheet/2024/03/economic-impact-spending-social-security-technical-note/documents/illustrating-impact-increased-social-security-spending-scottish-economy-technical-note/illustrating-impact-increased-social-security-spending-scottish-economy-technical-note/govscot:document/illustrating-impact-increased-social-security-spending-scottish-economy-technical-note.pdf#:~:text=The Scottish Government is investing a record £6.3,financial safety net to those most in need.
Adams, nominally a Democrat, has been currying favour with Trump since for a few months.
Basically this Labour government has been a painful exercise in catching-up-with-reality after a catastrophic first six months, but political history says you probably don’t get a second chance
Or was that just social media mischief.
I’m not sure what all the crowing on here is about.
Every time the staff costs increase they cut the low end staff.
The ones who wander round, tidying stuff up, but when you ask a question refer you to someone else - them. Minimum wage job, next to no skill.
According to the wife of a friend - senior in the management of one of the companies that owns a bunch of chains, this is all pre-planned. You put the minimum wage or other employer costs into the model, it comes up with a new “staffing profile” for the business…
America under Trump and Vance and heroism and anti woke and patriotism and bravery and all that
Or the EU with Von Der Leyen and the AfD and currywurst and weird lentil salads and death
Very very sensibly, Starmer has thrown in his lot - our lot - with Trump
We have chosen life. We have chosen to live and survive as a free western nation
How does cutting head improve productivity when the likes of M&S are closing stores ?
Everyone knows it was General Waste who invented the dustbin!
Based on what I have seen on some of the edit sections on contentious issues.
I don't use Wiki these days for anything other than reference for Film and TV
That the populist right have problems with truth is hardly a surprise. (The Trump administration is making new hires sign up to pledges saying they think Trump won in 2020 and that Jan 6 was an inside job.) I think what is surprising in the study is that other categories of politicians, the populist left or the non-populist right, were not spreading comparable levels of disinformation. The "radical right" appear to have a particular troubled relationship with the truth.
This fits my broader view that the only divide in politics that matters right now is between a truth-denying authoritarian radical right, and everyone else. Traditional Conservative, Christian Democrat, centrist, socialist, green, whoever, we all share a belief in the rule of law. Trump, Netanyahu, Putin, they're on the other side.
You’re STILL going round telling everyone Covid DEFINITELY came from the wet market, which is probably the biggest lie told about the biggest thing in the history of all humanity. And you have the temerity to accuse others of “misinformation”?!
I can never quite work out whether you are really stupid or really deluded, I have decided to compromise on the idea that you are quite stupid, quite deluded, very seriously mendacious, and I pity any students who get you as a prof
Are railway pics contentious ? Does railway fandom have splits and schisms and arguments like Sci Fi fandom does.