US linguist George Lakoff explains how Donald Trumps' tactics work

As many have pointed out Trumps tactics include outright lies, unsupported statements, and exaggerations. The well known American linguist argues that these tactics lead the media to respond in ways that help those tactics work in his favor.

In an interview with Lakoff in Vox Sean Illing talks to Lakoff about how Trumps' tactics work for him through the response of the media. Lakoff argues that Trumps' lies and half-truths, provide news events which the media exploits and immediately report.

Trump can thus determine the issues the press talks about and divert attention away from things that he does not want the media to report about. He creates the controversies he wants and and also says things that his base want to hear. At the same time the press is forced into an opposition role.

Press reaction to Trump helps his cause

Lakoff says of Trump: "He manipulates the media by constantly tweeting and saying more and more outrageous things. The media says, “Well, we have to cover the president. We have to repeat what he says.” But there is no real reason this has to happen. Journalists could, if they choose to, ignore the president’s tweets."

Illing points out that whether what Trump says is ridiculous or not it is taken as important because of his position and needs to be reported. Lakoff responds that when Trump says something and the press deny it they are actually helping him. Denying what he has said brings the issue to people's minds. As Lakoff puts it denying a frame puts that frame in mind.

Lakoff might mention that often the lie is not denied but just reported objectively and thus the frame is put in mind even without a denial and will stay in the consciousness of many who hear the lie or half truth.

Truth sandwiches

Lakoff's suggested response to the dilemma that reporting or even denying what Trump says can help Trump is to suggest that reporters should respond in the form of "truth sandwiches": " Journalists could engage in what I’ve called “truth sandwiches,” which means that you first tell the truth; then you point out what the lie is and how it diverges from the truth. Then you repeat the truth and tell the consequences of the difference between the truth and the lie." Lakoff says that if the media did this consistently then it would be more difficult for Trump to lie.

While this may be true, perhaps this would be considered be going beyond just reporting and providing an opinion piece. It would need research by the journalist to backup the claim that there was a lie. It would mean a lot more work for the journalist and the owners of the mass media might not go along with it since there could be considerable opposition to continually criticizing the president. The media is often dished out in short bits that simply report what important figures say.

Lakoff argues that the truth sandwich does more than just expose the truth Trump is attempting to suppress. It shows the difference between the two putting the truth first and then stating the lie and also putting the truth afterwards and discussing its consequences. This is why the sandwich metaphor is appropriate. Trump gets his message across by putting it first and then repeating it so it penetrates peoples' mind.

Lakoff admits that it will be difficult to convince people against Trump but says that if the media did not allow themselves to be manipulated by Trump it would be much more difficult for his tactics to work. As it is now the press appears that they must report everything he says which can just help him.

Lakoff argues that by merely reporting what the president says which could be considered just doing their job, they are simply reinforcing his communication strategy. I agree with Lakoff that just reporting what Trump says whether lie or truth or whatever, which would be considered objective reporting, could be to aid Trump in manipulating the public.

Calling a Trump lie a lie is to strengthen it

Lakoff suggests that the best way to avoid making Trump's tactic successful is not to report them. If you call what Trump says a lie you reinforce it in peoples' brains according to Trump. It may reinforce it positively in supporters of Trump but for others it surely can have the effect of regarding what he says on the issue in a negative manner even though it increases ones attention to the matter.

Illing points out that Trump has 55 million Twitter followers and there are many in the media who are happy to amplify any of his comments. Even though the rest of the media is silent the message will get through and amplified. Illing could note as well that the media could then be rightly accused of ignoring important statements that Trump makes and this would help energize his base and their criticism of the press.

Truth sandwiches as the backup tactic

If the media does feel it has to report on some of Trump's lies the best that can be done is to do it in form of truth sandwiches which will have the effect of reinforcing the truth rather than the lies. Given that Lakoff believes that people respond to language in terms of their underlying framework of values surely Trump supporters will filter out the truth in the truth sandwiches and see them as an attempt to hide the truth which for them is the lie. It is as they would say "fake news".

George Lakoff

George P. Lakoff was born on May 24 1941. He served as a Professor of Linguistics at the University of California in Berkeley from 1972 until he retired in 2016. He is a well known cognitive linguist and philosopher. He is known for his thesis that the lives of individuals are much influenced by the central metaphors they use to explain complex phenomena.

The conceptual metaphor thesis was introduced in a book he wrote with Mark Johnson in 1980 Metaphors We Live By. The views expressed in the book have been applied in politics, literature and mathematics.

Previously published in Digital Journal

Canada loses billions in revenue due to tax loopholes favoring the rich

New data released by Finance Canada shows that the amount of revenue the government lost through tax loopholes mostly benefiting the very rich has risen sharply since last year.

The annual Federal Report of the Department of Finance on tax expenditures shows the government is losing many billions of dollars in tax revenue through a number of tax loopholes. We look at three main loopholes. Five loopholes are discussed in this article.

Partial inclusion of capital gains

Capital gains are treated differently than wages for tax purposes. An article in National News explains: "Income from capital gains, usually made as profits from the sale of financial assets such as stocks and bonds as well as non-owner occupied real estate, is not treated in the same way for personal income tax purposes as income from employment. While 100% of wages is included in taxable income, just one half of capital gains income are taxable. The cost to the federal government of this special tax break is significant, almost $6 billion ($5.95 billion) in 2016 according to the Department of Finance. Provincial government revenues are also reduced."

Research published in the Canadian Tax Journal in 2015 found that 87 percent of all the benefits from this loophole went to people earning $200,000 or more. The latest data shows that this loophole cost the government $6.9 billion in 2017 up a whole billion from 2016. Finance Canada estimates that the amount will rise further to $7.07 billion by the end of 2018.

Dividend gross-up

This loophole compensates stockholders for taxes that are paid by companies they have invested in. According to the latest data a full 91 percent of benefits go to the richest ten percent of Canadians. Half of the amount goes just to the top one percent of richest Canadians. Given that Canadian corporate tax rates are at historic lows, it is hard to see the logic in the loophole. Perhaps, it is meant to encourage people to buy stocks.

This loophole lost Canada $5 billion in revenue in 2017. This was up from $4.4 billion in 2016. This year it is projected to reach $5.3 billion according to Finance Canada.

Stock Options

This loophole is much used by corporate executives and directors who compensate themselves in stocks rather than salary to take advantage of the lower tax rate. When employees of a company exercise their stock options, they are taxed only upon 50 percent of the total value of the stocks.

The Liberal government promised during the last election that it would close this loophole. The Liberal platform even cited Finance Canada's data which showed that three quarters of the benefits went to 8,000 very high income Canadians.

However, following the election the Finance Minister Bill Morneau announced that the government had changed its mind. He claimed that this was in response to small tech feedback. However, internal documents show that it was probably due to Bay Street lobbyists' influence.

Some claim that the stock options loophole is falling out of favor. However data shows that after a brief decline during the last election it is again increasing, no doubt because it still exists. The loophole saved $530 million in 2016 but $635 million in 2017. By 2019 it is expected it will cost Canada $740 million in lost revenue.

There are many other ways of avoiding taxes such as using tax havens as discussed in the appended video.

Previously published in Digital Journal

Many are concerned about employees having chips implanted

UK's largest employer organization and largest trade union group have expressed alarm at the prospect of national companies implanting staff with microchips to improve security after a firm was revealed to have already chipped 150 Britons.

Biohacking

Biohacking is used for much more than just companies implanting chips as Wikipedia notes. There are a number of different activities covered by the term. The practice of implanting chips often between the thumb and forefinger is becoming common across Europe, especially in Sweden. Many who do this are called Grinders who alter the human body by among other things implanting cybernetic devices such as microchips. These digital implants can store data such as medical information, or contain data that allow the bearer to open electronic security doors or even start cars.

An article in the Independent notes: "Thousands of people in Sweden have inserted microchips, which can function as contactless credit cards, key cards and even rail cards, into their bodies. Once the chip is underneath your skin, there is no longer any need to worry about misplacing a card or carrying a heavy wallet. But for many people, the idea of carrying a microchip in their body feels more dystopian than practical." While many may find this dystopian and dangerous, many Swedes consider it a way to enhance what the human body can do, Many consider themselves transhumanists.

Transhumanism

Wikipedia describes transhumanism briefly: "Transhumanism (abbreviated as H+ or h+) is an international philosophical movement that advocates for the transformation of the human condition by developing and making widely available sophisticated technologies to greatly enhance human intellect and physiology.[..Transhumanist thinkers study the potential benefits and dangers of emerging technologies that could overcome fundamental human limitations as well as the ethical[3] limitations of using such technologies.[4] The most common transhumanist thesis is that human beings may eventually be able to transform themselves into different beings with abilities so greatly expanded from the current condition as to merit the label of posthuman beings.[2]"

Biohax

The Telegraph reported on November 11, that the Swedish firm Biohax was having discussions with several UK firms including a major firm with hundreds of thousands of employees. Biohax plans to open an office in London. It claims to have already microchipped 4,000 people mostly in Sweden. It is working with the state-owned rail company Statens Jarnvagar to implant its passengers with microchips that will be used instead of traditional tickets.

The firm encountered negative publicity when there were claims it forcibly implanted microchips in employees of the firm Epicenter, a corporate innovation lab, allegedly to find out how long they spent on lunch, and cigarette and bathroom breaks. However, this turned out not to be the purpose of the implants at all. Patrick Mesterton, CEO and co-founder of Epicenter said: "I was shocked at the massive exaggeration. The implants are so-called passive chips — they have no built-in power supply, so can't send signals on a subject's position or movements. They get their power from and can only send data to reading devices that must be applied directly to the chip. Your mobile phone or internet search history poses a bigger threat than the RFID chip we use ever would. We're certainly not tracking when users go for a cigarette and how long they take — we simply can't."

Jowan Osterlund, founder of Bihax, said that the microchips could help financial and legal companies improve security around sensitive document by setting restrictions on who can and cannot access sensitive documents.

The Epicenter program is actually voluntary, Employees are not forced to have the implants. As an earlier article in Digital Journal notes: "Epicenter's program also is voluntary. Epicenter is a digital hub in Stockholm housing more than 300 startups for larger companies. The RFID implants unlock doors, operate printers, open storage lockers and purchase items at the cafeteria just by the wave of a hand. The use of these chips has been ongoing for some time."

Concerns over misuse of the technology

The Confederation of British Industry representing 190,000 UK business has voiced concerns about Biohax. A spokesperson said to the Guardian: "Firms should be concentrating on rather more immediate priorities and focusing on engaging their employees."

The UK Trades Union Congress also worried about staff being coerced into getting implants. Frances O'Grady General Secretary said that workers were already concerned that some employers were using tech to control and micromanage their activities and were whittling away at employees right to privacy. O'Grady said: "Microchipping would give bosses even more power and control over their workers. There are obvious risks involved, and employers must not brush them aside, or pressure staff into being chipped."

In spite of concerns about the technology the use of microchips by employers on a voluntary basis has now spread to the US. It would seem the chips being used are not for tracking but the development of the technology needs to ensure that workers who have the implants have control over their use, otherwise employers will use the devices just to control employee behavior without concern for their rights.

The appended video shows an employee of Epicenter getting the implant. There are several You Tube videos claiming the chips are used to monitor breaks etc. even though this appears to be quite impossible given the nature of the chips,

Previously published in Digital Journal

White House Press Secretary uses altered video footage to show the reporter was the aggressor

(November 9)Last Wednesday, Jim Acosta, a reporter for CNN had a heated exchange with President Trump over immigration during a press conference. During the exchange a female Trump aide tried to get the microphone from Acosta.

The White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders claimed that Acosta had placed his hands on the woman and Acosta was banned from the White House.

The differing narratives

The White House and others differ about what the video shows. However, what one sees may depend upon which video you look at, The video posted with the White House press conference came from Tom Watson of Infowars but he in turn had it from other sources. He said he did not doctor the video. The original video from CNN does not actually show Acosta placing his hands on the aide as the White House claims but just that their arms touched when the aide reached across his body to seize the microphone according to an article in The Verge However, in the tweet that Paul Watson sent out with a GIF video of the incident the footage has been altered to make it appear that Acosta actually chopped the woman's arm with his hand. Less than an hour later White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders herself tweeted out the same video saying: "We will not tolerate the clearly inappropriate behavior clearly documented in this video". However, what may be clear on the tweeted video is not clear in the original footage. The two videos of the exact happening are posted in the appended video. While in both videos Acosta's arm touches that of the aide, in the video on the right it appears more as if it is an aggressive chop. That is the video the White House posted.

Was the footage doctored?

Watson of Infowars says he did not doctor the clip. He told Charlie Warzel of Buzzfeed that he had simply zoomed in on section of the footage but did not change it otherwise. Could it be that doing this and changing the frame rate of the video could make it appear as if Acosta were the aggressor? The issue is not simple as Warzel notes:"It’s all confusing. There’s even an example in which all parties are mostly correct. Watson’s clip is different than the CSPAN clip because it was taken from a gif and thus missing frames, which could cause the Acosta movement to look faster than it actually was. In that case, one can argue that the video was made faster. If that’s the case, there’s also an argument that Watson is telling the truth — he didn’t personally speed up the video, he just took a clip that was missing frames."

Frames are often lost when converting videos to gifs. Also the process can sometimes distort the image. Several analysts however claim the footage was altered. Journalist Shane Raymond, a journalist at the social media intelligence company Storyful did a frame-by frame analysis and found that the footage was altered so that certain frames were repeated. Paris Martineau also did a frame by frame analysis and also concluded that the incident had been made more dramatic by repeating a frame three times. Whatever the change in the video, Warzel worried that this was the beginning of a dystopia where everyone chose their own reality based on a doctored video of their choice.

An article in Wired goes into great detail as to how the Watson video became a White House tweet.

Observations

The Verge noted that there is no simple algorithm that can settle the dispute between Acosta and the White House. Quite intelligent people could look at both videos and come away with opposite conclusions often reflecting their political views. The author of the Verge article believes that an aide trying to wrest a microphone from a journalist doing his job was an assault on democracy even though the discussion on the issue seems to ignore that fact as if it is beside the point.

Of course the aide was also just doing her job which was to control the microphone. No doubt she had a sign from Trump or someone to get the microphone as Trump found the questioning disruptive. Given that she was trying to wrest the microphone from Acosta it is to be expected that there would be some physical contact. Both actually seem relatively restrained given that they were both trying to keep control of the mike.

The White House IMHO was making a mountain out of a molehill and to do so they had to use an altered video that made Acosta look more aggressive than he actually was.

Previously published in Digital Journal

Chine-based Tik Tok number one downloaded app in September

Byte-Dance acquired the tween and teen-focused social app Musical.ly back in 2017. It is paying off as it this year it has merged with Byte-Dance's own short video app TikTok, and Muscal.ly is being used to enter the U.S. market.

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Tik Tok at the top of the download charts in September

The Tik Tok app surpassed former number one Facebook, as well as Instagram, YouTube, and Snapchat in installs during the month according to data from the app intelligence firm Sensor Tower.

Tik Tok surpassed the four other popular apps on September 29 with 29.7 percent of downloads of the five apps together. Just days ago on October 30th it had reached as high as 42.4 percent of the five apps download.

In September, downloads of the app had grown about 31 percent and reached approximately 3.81 million on the App Store and Google Play combined, Facebook was number 2 at 3,53 million first installs. From October 2017 to October 2018 installs were up 237 percent from the 1.13 million installed last October.

Tik Tok still behind in some respects

In the App Store's Top Charts Tik Tok was ahead of Facebook at number seven a few days ago and Messenger at number five. Tik Tok stood at the number four. However, YouTube was number one, Instagram number two and Snapchat number three. Tik Tok has been as high as number three.

The percentage of monthly users who open the app daily is far behind some others. App researcher Apptopia found that Tik Tok's had just a 29 percent engagement rate compared to 96 percent for Facebook, 95 percent for Instagram, and the same for Instagram and YouTube.

Some gains are attributed to the merger of Tik Tok with Musical.ly which comes with the download. Tik Tok known as Douyin in China claims it has reached a global monthly active user count of 500 million across 150 countries and regions. However, at around the same time, Instagram reported reaching one billion monthly active users.

ByteDance

Wikipedia describes ByteDance as follows: "ByteDance (Chinese: 字节跳动) or Bytemod Pte Ltd. is a Chinese Internet technology company operating several machine learning-enabled content platforms. ByteDance’s core product, Jinri Toutiao (“今日头条” in Chinese, literally meaning “Today’s Headlines”, also known as “Toutiao”, “头条”in Chinese), is a popular content platform in China. Toutiao started out as a news recommendation engine and gradually evolved into a platform delivering content in a variety of formats, such as texts, images, question-and-answer posts, microblogs, and videos. Toutiao offers its users personalized information feeds that are powered by machine learning algorithms. A content feed is updated based on what the machine learns about a user’s reading preferences. ByteDance also pioneered the video-sharing mobile app Tik Tok. After it acquired music start-up musical.ly, the company combined the two platforms into a single application under the Tik Tok name. It also runs BuzzVideo and Vigo Video. " The company has over 200 million active daily users as of November 2017. As of August 2018 the company was valued at $75 billion.

Tik Tok

Wikileaks' entry on Tik Tok says: "TikTok, also known as Douyin (Chinese: 抖音短视频; pinyin: Dǒuyīn duǎnshìpín; literally "vibrato short video") in China, is a social media app for creating and sharing videos as well as live broadcasting. Launched in September 2016 by ByteDance, it is a leading short video platform in Asia and has extended to other parts of the world, becoming one of the fastest-growing apps with a large community across several countries for short music videos."

Tik Tok is made for android devices but can be downloaded to be used on other devices with a few workarounds as shown on the appended video which describes how it can be downloaded to be used on a PC.

Published previously in Digital Journal

GM announces contest for naming two new electric bikes

General Motors(GM) has unveiled two new EV's that are not cars or trucks, but bicycles. One is foldable and the other is compact. This is part of a larger plan for an electric future for the company.

This is notable a Verge article reports because there is very little e-bike manufacturing based in North America. However, as the appended video shows there are a number of e-bikes made by small manufacturers some with hefty price tags however as mentioned in the article many US dealers import their e-bikes from abroad.

A few e-bikes are made in Europe but most come from China.

Sales of e-bikes are soaring

GM no doubt does not want to be left out of a growing market. In 2023 world sales of e-bikes are estimated to be almost 40 million units according to Statist.com. China is expected to be the most significant market with 34.3 million predicted to be sold in the country. GM's future is heavily invested in its ability to grow in China.

Other automakers are already making e-bikes

Auto makers are leveraging their expertise in manufacturing, batteries, and powertrains to manufacture more electric two-wheelers including not just e-bikes but also motorcycles and scooters. Audi manufactures electric mountain bikes. Ford recently helped to launch an electric scooter sharing project at Purdue University.

BMW makes both electric bikes and electric motorcycles. The newest entry into the field, the Active Hybrid, keeps the traditional pushing on the pedals as a means of propulsion but can enhance the power of the pedal pushing by 50 percent up to a huge 275 percent. The rider would be able to go up hills without slowing down most likely and without having to push down that hard. The price tag would come out at around $4,000 in the US but some bikes already in the US are more than that and BMW has a solid reputation for quality.

Many other bicycle makers such as Giant and Trek are already producing e-bikes with pedal assist which can help the rider pedal faster and reduce fatigue over longer distances. Most larger and even mid-sized cities now have places that rent bikes by the hour or day. No doubt the e-bikes will be on offer in many places.

Previously published  in Digital Journal

Facebook loses more users in Europe last quarter but is growing elsewhere

Facebook finds its user base had gone down in Europe the company reported as it announced its third-quarter earnings. This is the second quarter in a row that the company has lost users in Europe.

Reasons for the decline of users in Europe

Two reasons for the decline in Europe are the Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal and the implementation of the new continent-wide privacy law, the GDPR.

The Cambridge Analytica scandal

Wikipedia describes the Cambridge Analytica scandal as follows: "The Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal was a major political scandal in early 2018 when it was revealed Cambridge Analytica had harvested the personal data of millions of people's Facebook profiles without their consent and used it for political purposes. It has been described as a watershed moment in the public understanding of personal data and precipitated a massive fall in Facebook's stock price and calls for tighter regulation of tech companies' use of data." This serious breach of privacy no doubt caused some users to simply stop using Facebook.

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)

Wikipedia describes the GDPR: "The General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679 ("GDPR") is a regulation in EU law on data protection and privacy for all individuals within the European Union (EU) and the European Economic Area (EEA). It also addresses the export of personal data outside the EU and EEA areas. The GDPR aims primarily to give control to individuals over their personal data and to simplify the regulatory environment for international business by unifying the regulation within the EU.[1]" There can be huge fines for violating the GDPR.

You would think this regulation would bring in more users as it protects their privacy. However, it requires all users to inspect their privacy setting forcing users to acknowledge how much information they are allowing to be collected. This may have caused some users to simply stop being engaged with the likes of Facebook.

Facebook executives have said that they will follow Europe's lead on privacy regulation in the US. This could lead to future declines in the US,

The decline in Facebook users in Europe

In Europe the active number of Facebook users is 375 million whereas in the US it is just 242 million. Two million users have left Facebook on a monthly basis since the first quarter, and even more, 4 million, have abandoned it on a daily basis. The last quarter is the first in which the GDPR rules have been in force. In Quarter 1 to 3 the decline in Europe has been from 377 million to 375 million. The decline in daily active users has been from 282 million to 278 million. The decline in daily users in Europe from its peak to its recent low is about 1.4 percent. If this happened in the US it would mean the loss of about 3.4 million users.

In other areas Facebook usage is growing considerably

The anxiety about a decline in the US in Facebook users as well as Europe is a bit misguided it seems to me in that in the Asia Pacific region and the rest of the world the user base is growing substantially. The number of users in those areas is far larger than in the US and Europe. The markets in US and the EU may be more or less saturated and not likely to grow more in any event.

The Business Insider's own monthly active user's chart shows that in the last quarter the user base in the Asia-Pacific Region went from 894 million to 917 million over three times as many users as in the US and more than twice that of Europe. The rest of the world went from 723 million users to 736 million users. The total number of users went from 2,234 million users to 2,271 million users. So Facebook is actually still growing substantially world wide even though it has lost some users in Europe.

The Business Week article notes that Facebook usually reacts to user-growth numbers. In pre-market trading on Wednesday morning its stock price was up about 5 percent. The article suggests that declines from the GDPR were already priced in. Perhaps why the price went up is that the total number of users is up substantially in spite of the fact that Europe has lost users and growth is virtually flat in the US. Both areas are minor relative to the total user base of Facebook.

Previously published in Digital Journal

Trump claims Twitter is suppressing his follower count

Donald Trump is again claiming without evidence that Twitter is suppressing his follower count due to their political bias. Apparently he made the claim after watching a Fox Business report on Twitter earnings.

Trump's complaint

Trump tweeted: “Twitter has removed many people from my account and, more importantly, they have seemingly done something that makes it much harder to join — they have stifled growth to a point where it is obvious to all. A few weeks ago it was a Rocket Ship, now it is a Blimp! Total Bias?”

As mentioned Trump made the complaint after watching his favorite TV channel Fox News. As Matthew Gertz of Media Matters pointed out Fox Business discussed Twitter's earnings report which showed that Twitter lost 9 million accounts last quarter which followed a loss of one million the quarter before.Twitter explains these losses due to a mass deletion of automated and spam accounts. It has been overcounting for years and is now attempting to correct the matter.

Twitter is removing fake accounts and trying to stop malicious behavior

A Twitter spokesperson told The Verge that “our focus is on the health of the service, and that includes work to remove fake accounts to prevent malicious behavior. Many prominent accounts have seen follower counts drop, but the result is higher confidence that the followers they have are real, engaged people.”

Twitter is harder to join

Since June Twitter has asked new users to confirm either an email address or a phone number. According to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey this is a measure to reduce spam accounts. This is not that much of a burden for most people. This happened months ago along with the purging of many accounts.

Trump's followers' count is actually growing

Given the huge purging of accounts it would not be surprising if Trump's followers numbers were declining. Many prominent persons have found their follower numbers declining due to the purge. A decline in itself would not show bias. However in Trump's case Washington Post journalist Brian Fung checked and found that far from losing many people Trump's followers had increased over the course of this month.

Trump is wrong about Twitter changing from a rocket ship to a blimp

The earnings report on Fox is actually quite positive. Far from becoming a blimp now and a rocket ship before, this is the first year that Twitter has turned a profit. A recent Digital Journal article notes: "Twitter reported Thursday stronger-than-expected profits and revenues in the third quarter, igniting a strong rally in shares of the key social network. The San Francisco group delivered a $789 million profit, including one-time gains, compared to a net loss of $21 million in the previous year, as revenues grew 29 percent to $758 million." So in spite of losing so many accounts the firm is doing fine and much better than last year.

There are signs that Twitter filters show bias

Trump has before accused Twitter and other sites of mass-deleting real conservatives user's accounts as well as suppressing his follower count. There have been complaints about Twitter and other sites such as Facebook as filtering out conservative accounts. However, it seems that the bias is towards any strong anti-establishment view left or right. As discussed in a recent Digital Journal article some of those chosen to help filter out fake news such as the Atlantic Council are hardly neutral. As the appended video shows not just Twitter but Facebook also has been accused of bias in filtering out news posts. So behind the bravado boasting and downright lying, Trump's complaints do have a germ of truth, although he provides no evidence of personally being censored by Twitter or Facebook. In fact Twitter is one of Trump's favorite means of communication.

Previously published in Digital Journal on October 28

Facebook bans more accounts said to be linked to Iranian influence campaign

After identifying more suspicious behavior linked to an ongoing Iranian influence campaign the company removed a combined 82 pages, groups and accounts that were pretending to be US and sometimes British citizens and organizations.

Some of the accounts had large numbers of followers

Facebook claims it removed 30 pages, 33 Facebook accounts, and three groups on Facebook. It found 16 new accounts on Instagram. About one million people followed at least one page. Approximately 25,000 people joined one of the groups. On Instagram about 28,000 people followed at least one of the accounts. Obviously, Facebook is taking down some pages and closing some accounts that people find quite interesting even though they do not pass the Facebook test of being authentic.

New bans are a continuation of a campaign begun in August

Back in August, Facebook saw evidence of an Iranian campaign designed to sow division and amplify tensions in the US. Google found that the operation was spreading to You Tube. Nathaniel Gleicher Facebook head of cybersecurity policy said: “Despite attempts to hide their true identities, a manual review of these accounts linked their activity to Iran. We also identified some overlap with the Iranian accounts and Pages we removed in August. However, it’s still early days and while we have found no ties to the Iranian government, we can’t say for sure who is responsible.” Note that there have been no actual ties found to the Iranian government.

In August, Facebook deleted over 600 accounts that it associated with Russia or Iran. It was alerted to the Iranian network by FireEye: "In July, FireEye tipped Facebook off to the existence of a network of pages known as Liberty Front Press. The network included 70 accounts, three Facebook groups, and 76 Instagram accounts, which had 155,000 Facebook followers and 48,000 Instagram followers. The network had undisclosed links to Iranian state media, Facebook said, and spent more than $6,000 between 2015 and today. The network also hosted three events." Facebook owns Instagram.

Most interventions are not aimed at supporting specific candidates

As with Russian interventions in the 2016 elections most posts are aimed at stoking tensions over high priority concerns such as immigration and race relations. Many of the examples shown by Facebook profess anti-Trump sentiment or they comment on recent controversies such as on the hearings for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. There does not seem to be an attempt to spread propaganda unilaterally but to inflame current disagreements. Of course they may do this by providing information or points of view that the US establishment does not like but is well appreciated by followers of the accounts.

Facebook sets up a war room to identify and counter suspicious behavior

The war room in its Menlo Park headquarters in California is fighting misinformation on Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. Katie Harbath, global politics and government outreach director said in an interview: “This is going to be a constant arms race. This is our new normal. Bad actors are going to get more sophisticated in what they’re doing, and we’re going to have to get more sophisticated in trying to catch them.”

Some of those involved in the Facebook filtering of fake news are hardly neutral

In a recent Digital Journal article that discusses the war room and its function it was noted: "Among those helping Facebook to filter the news is the Atlantic Council. Rania Khalek an independent journalist said in a tweet: “This is alarming. The Atlantic Council — which is funded by gulf monarchies, western governments, NATO, oil and weapons companies, etc. — will now assist Facebook in suppressing what they decide is disinformation." In Facebook's statement which announced the partnership it said that the company will use the Atlantic Council's Digital Research Unit Monitoring Missions during elections and other highly sensitive moments.

The Gray Zone of Max Blumenthal notes that the account of Sayed Mousavi an Iranian student and independent journalist was suspended from Twitter. Mousavi pointed out that Twitter’s second-largest shareholder is the billionaire Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal and that Facebook works with the Israeli government in that it censors Palestinian media based upon its requests. You do not see Facebook suspending Israeli accounts, trolls, or removing bots. He said that what is happening is just the tip of the iceberg compared to what we will see in the future. He also said of the Facebook suspensions mentioned earlier: "These suspensions were based on a questionable, thinly sourced report by the American cybersecurity firm FireEye, which is led by former US military officers."

US allies such as Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey continue to run their own troll propaganda campaigns without being shut down. Only some Saudi Arabian trolls have been suspended because they spread false news about the Khashoggi murder. They actually just report what Saudi officials say spreading the official line. This being in opposition to official US government narratives that gets you suspended.

In December 2017, journalist Glenn Greenwald warned: " “Facebook Says It Is Deleting Accounts at the Direction of the U.S. and Israeli Governments.” Since then, the repression has only grown."

Previously published in Digital Journal

Exemptions to Digital Millennium Copyright Act help the right to repair movement

In a huge win for hackers, tinkerers, and the right to repair movement, the US copyright office has made several major changes to legal exemptions to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)

The legal exemptions make it now much easier for owners of devices to hack, modify, and repair them.

The DMCA

Wikipedia describes DMCA: the Digital Millennium Copyright Act:The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is a 1998 United States copyright law that implements two 1996 treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or services intended to circumvent measures that control access to copyrighted works (commonly known as digital rights management or DRM). It also criminalizes the act of circumventing an access control, whether or not there is actual infringement of copyright itself. In addition, the DMCA heightens the penalties for copyright infringement on the Internet.[1][2] Passed on October 12, 1998, by a unanimous vote in the United States Senate and signed into law by President Bill Clinton on October 28, 1998, the DMCA amended Title 17 of the United States Code to extend the reach of copyright, while limiting the liability of the providers of online services for copyright infringement by their users.

Section 1201 of DMCA makes it unlawful to circumvent technological measures used to prevent unauthorized access to copyrighted works. This includes software that has been ubiquitous and essential in all the devices we use be they phones, cars or even tractors. While you may own the devices you only have a licence to use the software that enables them to function. Device manufactures have long used this section to prevent owners from repairing their own devices or modifying them if it involves breaking software locks. To do so companies argue is illegal and a violation of the DMCA.

However, every three years citizens can petition to allow exemptions to section 1201. The office then rules what kinds of repairs and software tools are and are not allowed under the law. The latest ruling goes into effect on October 28th and offers broad new protections for repairing devices.

Kyle Wiens of ifixit lists the main changes:You can now jailbreak Alexa-powered hardware, and other similar gadgets—they call these ‘Voice assistant devices.’You can unlock new phones, not just used ones. This is important for recyclers that get unopened consumer returns.We got a general exemption for repair of smartphones, home appliances, or home systems. This means that it’s finally legal to root and fix the Revolv smart home hubs that Google bricked when they shut down the servers. Or pretty much any other home device. Repair of motorized land vehicles (including tractors) by modifying the software is now legal. Importantly, this includes access to telematic diagnostic data—which was a major point of contention.It’s now legal for third-parties to perform repair on behalf of the owner. This is hugely important for the American economy, where repair jobs represent 3% of overall employment.Lastly, it’s legal for other third parties to do these kinds of repairs on your behalf — so even if you can’t code your way into fixing a bricked smart home, it’s not illegal to pay someone who can to do it for you.

The self repairers and hackers did not win on every issue. Game console repairs are still not allowed. You cannot repair a busted CD drive on your Xbox or PS4 on your own since for security reasons these parts are locked via software to the specific console.

The ruling also applies only to specific categories so owners of vehicles such as boats or planes still are bound by the law. The ruling also does not allow trafficking in the software tools designed to circumvent software locks even in the name of repair. You can develop those tools yourself or people can pay you to do the repairs for them, but the tools cannot be distributed or sold to others.

The John Deere case

The John Deer situation is discussed in detail in the appended video. John Deere's restrictions prevent software repairs being done except by authorized repairmen. At harvest time when a machine breaks down this creates a tremendous expense for farmers. The machinery may need to shipped long distances at huge expenses or farmers need to spend precious time waiting for an authorized repairmen to come and make repairs. As discussed in a Digital Journal article some time ago farmers are resorting to local repair people who use illegal hacking tools to access and repair the software. The new legislation still does not allow that but it may be difficult to enforce.

Companies had been forcing those who buy their products to get them repaired only by them often garnering huge profits since it gives them in effect a monopoly over repairs. Of course it is not only tractors but a myriad of products that use proprietary software that is only licensed to owners. At least the new legislation allows a huge number of exceptions that will be of great benefit to owners of devices containing such software.

Previously published in Digital Journal

Tether Company destroys 500 million of its Tether cryptocoins

(October 24) Just before 1 PM eastern time on Wednesday, Tether, the company that issues the dollar-linked coin tether(USDT) announced on Twitter that it had destroyed 500 million of the cryptocoins.

Masses of tethers have been redeemed for US dollars

The coins were held previously in an account known as the Tether Treasury. During the past few weeks there has been a huge influx of USDT into the Treasury, especially when the coin lost parity with the US dollar last week as questions arose about the access of Tether to banking services. Usually the value of the coin is stable almost at the same value as the US dollar.

The coin started to slip below par on Oct. 14 and by Oct, 23, a total of 680 million USDT were transferred to the company-controlled Treasury wallet. All of the transfers emanated from an address controlled by Bitfinex, a large cryptocurrency exchange that overlaps with Tether both in terms of ownership and also management.

Bitfinex may be spending Bitcoins to buy tethers

The balance of Bitcoins in Bitfinex's cold wallet has dropped by about 100,000 coins since early September. This has led some to speculate that Bitfinex is trying to take tethers off the market. This may be to drive the price back up to parity with the dollar or even to exit the stable coin business, as there are several competitors now.

Supply of tethers is dropping rapidly

In just a week and a half the supply of tethers in circulation has dropped by around a quarter to about $2 billion. Now many of those taken out of circulation have actually been destroyed by the Tether company.

Statement by Bitfinex

Bitfinex's director of communications, Kasper Rasmussen said that the destruction of the coins had nothing to do with defending dollar parity. He says both Bitfinex and the Tether company guarantee redemptions at par. His explanation of the action is that when the number of tethers required for Bitfinex or Tether to operate is exceeded by the number in circulation then tokens are redeemed. He also denied that Tether was intentionally scaling back the supply as the action does.

He said that most of the tokens destroyed came from Bitfinex's wallet since the exchange is one of Tether's main customers. The company said that it still had about 466 million tethers in the Treasury for future issuances.

Tethers are said to be redeemable in US dollars directly with the company

The redemption is on the basis of parity and was described in the original white paper for the coin in 2016. The company claims that every tether is backed by a US dollar deposit. However, many skeptics doubt that the tether is full collateralized.

There is disagreement whether redemptions directly with the company take place. Rasmussen claims that customer can. However many others say that it is not possible. In any event it seems complicated. On Bitfinex itself there is no trading of the tether US dollar pair.

Kraken exchange

Kraken is one exchange that does trade the USDT to the US dollar. When the value of tether went below that of the US dollar tethers flooded into the exchange. Bittrex exchange also offers to two as a trading pair but has not seen the same influx.

Bitfinex publishes data for a non-existent trading market

If you go to the CoinMarketCap page on Bitfinex you will find that the second-highest volume during the past 24 hours almost $48 million dollars was the USDT/USD pair linking tether (USDT) with the US dollar (USD). However, there is no such pair on the Bitfinex exchange. A Bitfinex spokesperson pointed out that there was no such pair trading on the exchange and no such pair is listed on the site. The spokesperson said: " Customers can deposit and withdraw both dollars and tethers at Bitfinex, meaning that it is possible to transfer one for the other through the exchange, but this process is far slower and more involved than placing a trade on the exchange."

Carylynne Chan, CoinMarketCap's global head of marketing said the data they list comes from Bitfinex's own public application interface program (API) which feeds the data to outside applications. Chan said she is confused as anyone else about what the data represents:"With this endpoint, as with others on the site, we try to represent all the pairs that the exchange offers in their API," she told CoinDesk, adding, "we are continuing to follow up with our contacts at Bitfinex to have them clarify exactly what this endpoint represents, as you asked, but they have not responded to multiple direct requests from our team members."

However, following the publication of the article referenced, Rasmussen said that the USDT/USD pair tracked deposits and withdrawals from a specific wallet. He did not name the wallet but perhaps it is the Treasury wallet. There is a link to the wallet.

Previously published in Digital Journal

BMW partners with two firms to build a battery supply and recycle chain

German luxury car maker BMW is partnering with a new Swedish battery manufacturer plus a Belgian recycling company that will build a sustainable future battery supply chain.

The partnership

The two companies BMW will work with are Northvolt, and Umicore. Northvolt is building the largest battery factory in Europe for EVs in Sweden. Umicore is a Belgium-based materials processing company. It will develop battery reuse and recycling systems. The company will dismantle battery packs down to their cells and recycle the cell material into new cells which in turn will be built by Northvolt. Before being disassembled the packs could be used for grid or home storage of electricity until their useful life is spent according to a report in Automotive News Europe.

Advantages of the new system

Besides the systems being good for the environment, it has a couple of advantages for BMW. The system could bring down the price of batteries which have become more expensive since 2015. European automakers and also auto manufacturers in other parts of the world are being made responsible for ensuring that their installed batteries are properly disposed of when they no longer function. Reusing and recycling the materials from the batteries could also lower the disposal costs of companies.

The new agreement could also suggest that BMW will turn to Northvolt to supply batteries for its future EVs, rather than the Samsung batteries it uses now.

Northvolt's plans

The company intends to invest $4.6 billion in order to build a battery factory that will be a rival to Tesla's Gigafactory in the US. It should eventually produce up to 32 gigawatt-hours of batteries each year. Northvolt intends to begin producing as much as 8 gigawatt hours worth of batteries in 2020 and to have its plant fully operational by around 2025. However, BMW gave no timeline for developing it end-to-end recycling system.

BMW plans to add many new EVs to its lineup

Last month, BMW claimed it will add 25 different battery-electric and plug-in hybrids to the market by the year 2025. The figure was released at a company presentation and interview last year in early December.

BMW already offers the reasonably priced battery-electric i3 as shown in the appended photo and video. It has the plug-in hybrid i8 and also a half dozen of plug-in hybrids of its sedans and crossovers.

The present electric cars with the larger batteries produced last year are termed their fourth generation of EVs. The fifth generation will be reworked versions of two basic BMW architectures.

BMW says it expects that by 2025 fully a quarter of its sales to be plug-in electric vehicles.

CEO of Apple, Tim Cook, asks Bloomberg to retract report on Chinese spying on the company

In an interview with Buzzfeed News, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Apple Tim Cook asked Bloomberg to retract its news report alleging that Chinese spies had compromised company servers by implanting a malicious micro chip on them.

The original claim

In the original story the Bloomberg authors, Jordan Robertson and Michael Riley, quote Joe Grand, a hardware hacker and the founder of Grand Idea Studio Inc. as saying: “Having a well-done, nation-state-level hardware implant surface would be like witnessing a unicorn jumping over a rainbow. Hardware is just so far off the radar, it’s almost treated like black magic.” Yet this does not deter the Bloomberg authors from claiming this is what happened.

The authors claim:But that’s just what U.S. investigators found: The chips had been inserted during the manufacturing process, two officials say, by operatives from a unit of the People’s Liberation Army. In Supermicro, China’s spies appear to have found a perfect conduit for what U.S. officials now describe as the most significant supply chain attack known to have been carried out against American companies.

One official says investigators found that it eventually affected almost 30 companies, including a major bank, government contractors, and the world’s most valuable company, Apple Inc. Apple was an important Supermicro customer and had planned to order more than 30,000 of its servers in two years for a new global network of data centers. Three senior insiders at Apple say that in the summer of 2015, it, too, found malicious chips on Supermicro motherboards. Apple severed ties with Supermicro the following year, for what it described as unrelated reasons

Apple denies the Bloomberg claim

Cook claimed: “This did not happen. There’s no truth to this " After the Bloomberg report was issued Apple released a statement that picked the story apart and denied each individual claim the statement said: “On this we can be very clear: Apple has never found malicious chips, ‘hardware manipulations’ or vulnerabilities purposely planted in any server." Shortly after that the Apple vice president of information security wrote to the US Congress to directly deny the allegations.

Cook told Buzzfeed that he had been involved in the response from the beginning in correspondence with Bloomberg. He claimed that Apple made it clear to them that what they alleged did not happen and had answered all their questions. Cook also claimed that each time they brought the issue up the story changed and each time the company investigated they found nothing.

Other sources are critical of the reports as well

The report has also been criticized by US intelligence chiefs and cybersecurity experts. No malicious chips have been discovered. There has been no new evidence come to light and none of the many sources Bloomberg claims the report is based upon have acknowledged that they are part of the investigation. Indeed, one of the few named sources said in a podcast that the claims did not make sense.

A recent article in the Digital Journal notes that the The UK National Cyber Security Centre claimed it had no knowledge of the investigation. The article contains as well denials by others such as Amazon who were said to have been affected by the Chinese actions.

The original article claimed that 17 unnamed intelligence and company sources reported that Chinese spies had placed the computer chips inside equipment used by about 30 companies and numerous government agencies. Yet none of these agencies have identified themselves and no companies have claimed that they have found the chips.

However, Bloomberg stands by the story even though it has damaged the reputation of the Chinese suppliers as well as those of the giant US companies using the Chinese equipment. Perhaps Bloomberg is being used to spread fake news to further convince US companies not to use Chinese produced products. So far Bloomberg has avoided being sued.

On the appended video an expert claims a chip on a motherboard would be a very amateurish hack.

Previously published in Digital Journal