Actor Vince Vaughn caught flak from liberals on social media Monday after he was seen talking with President Donald Trump at the 2020 college football national championship game in New Orleans.

"I'm very sorry to have to share this video with you. All of it, every part of it," Timothy Burke wrote on Twitter, posting a video of the interaction between Vaughn and Trump that has since went viral.

In reaction, people who said Vaughn was one of their most favorite actors disavowed him, calling his meeting with Trump "gross." Other critics were more brash, simply saying, "F*** em both."

Yet still other critics claimed the left does not want to "cancel" Vaughn because they do not remember who he is, implying that he is no longer relevant.

Though civilized interaction between two adults should not be news, neither is Vaughn's apparent interest in Republicans.

Vaughn, of course, is a well-known libertarian who does not shy away from his beliefs in small government. He has been outspoken about his beliefs on taxation and the Second Amendment, for example, in the past. Vaughn endorsed Mitt Romney for president in 2012, and even once said that Edward Snowden is a "hero."

Criticism of Vaughn for cordially speaking with Trump was met with swift condemnation and mockery.

"You guys really have no idea how petty and ridiculous you look when you do this, do you," one person responded.

"Vince Vaughn is really trending because of that? Get a life," another person wrote.

"It's an amazing time to be alive when shaking the hand of the president is enough to get you canceled. Vince Vaughn doesn't strike me as one to give a s**t fortunately. Y'all have lost your minds. You never learn," another person said.

"Please say a little prayer for Timothy who's perturbed by three adults interacting in a civil manner. PS Vince Vaughn is cancelled, naturally," one person mocked in response.

"So do Swingers and Wedding Crashers get taken off the air for all of eternity now after Vince Vaughn had a civilized conversation with the president at the Superdome tonight?" another person mocked.

Even the White House responded to the criticism. White House spokesperson Hogan Gidley told Fox News, "Democrats seem to be more upset at this exchange than they do over Soleimani killing American citizens.

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Liberals outraged at Vince Vaughn for speaking with President Trump. Conservatives hit back with mockery. - TheBlaze

Bonjour! Today we did a full on analysis of Edward Snowdens Twitter activity. So lets do it. The main metrics are as follows as of 2020-01-11, Edward Snowden (@Snowden) has 4213934 Twitter followers, is following 1 people, has tweeted 4639 times, has liked 489 tweets, has uploaded 377 photos and videos and has been on Twitter since December 2014.

Going from top to bottom, their latest tweet, at the time of writing, has 20 replies, 171 retweets and 600 likes, their second latest tweet has 618 replies, 4,015 reweets and 10,995 likes, their third latest tweet has 88 replies, 464 retweets and 1,830 likes, their fourth latest tweet has 152 replies, 631 retweets and 5,446 likes and their fifth latest tweet has 76 replies, 844 retweets and 1,950 likes. That gives you an idea of how much activity they usually get.

MOST POPULAR:

Going through Edward Snowdens last couple pages of tweets (plus retweets), the one we consider the most popular, having caused a very nice 1032 direct replies at the time of writing, is this:

That really seems to have caused quite a lot of different comments, having also had 11124 retweets and 64339 likes.

LEAST POPULAR:

Now what about Edward Snowdens least popular tweet as of late (including stuff they retweeted)? We believe its this one:

That only had 2 direct replies, 78 retweets and 197 likes.

THE VERDICT:

We did a ton of research into Edward Snowdens Twitter activity, looking through what people were saying in response to them, their likes/retweet numbers compared to what they were before, the amount of positive/negative responses and more. We wont bore you with the details, so our conclusion is this: we believe the online sentiment for Edward Snowden on Twitter right now is just fine no major issues.

Thats it for now. Thanks for coming, and drop a comment if you agree or disagree with me. Dont be afraid to speak your mind.

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Edward Snowden & Twitter What On Earth? (2020-01-11) - Global Real News

The following is an excerpt from Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson. Watch the video investigation by clicking the link at the bottom.

We begin with an examination of one of the worst abuses of government power that could happen in our society. Illegal spying on U.S. citizens. Amid findings about egregious violations by our intelligence community, theres a criminal investigation. And the court that approves surveillance on U.S. citizens has instructed the FBI to implement new safeguards as of this week. As our intelligence agencies face what may be their biggest scrutiny in decades, we examine how we got here.

Our examination of government surveillance controversies begins in 2001. Under FBI Director Robert Mueller, new rules were imposed to address FBI abuses.

FBI Agents had repeatedly gotten caught submitting false information to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to justify wiretapping or spying on U.S. citizens.

The new protections called Woods Procedures were named for the FBI official who helped devise themMichael Woods. Hes seen here testifying to Congress.

Michael Woods: There is significant public concern about the impact of surveillance activities on the privacy and civil liberties of Americans.

The Woods Procedures require the FBI, all the way to the top, to strictly verify each fact in a wiretap application. Now, eighteen years later, those very rules are back in question. More on that later.

First, we go to Salt Lake City, Utah in 2002 and a National Security Agency whistleblower named Thomas Drake. Drake said the NSA was fine [tuning] a new scale of mass surveillance and secretly conducted blanket surveillance of virtually all electronic communications going into or out of the area during the Winter Olympics. Intel officials denied it.

In 2009, FBI whistleblower Shamai Leibowitz stepped forward and accused intel agencies of serious constitutional violations and illegal abuse of power.

As the government secretly expanded its surveillance powers in the name of national security there were shades of what was later to come in 2016.

Intelligence officials began to listen in on members of Congress sometimes political rivals speaking with American-Jewish groups and foreign officials including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

A senior official confessed it raised fears [of]an Oh-[blank] moment,that the executive branch would be accused of spying on Congress.

Someone illegally leaked information about private calls made by Democrats Jane Harman and Dennis Kucinich and even leaked actual recordings of Kucinich calls with Libyan officials.

Saif Gaddafi: Hello

Dennis Kucinich: Yes sir.

Gaddafi: This is Saif speaking.

Kucinich: Yes. This is Dennis.

Journalists were targeted, too. Government agents initiated secret surveillance and subpoenas against then Fox News reporter James Rosen and 20 Associated Press reporters. They also secretly hacked into and monitored my computers while I worked at CBS News.

CBS News: Someone has been breaking into the computer of our investigative correspondent Sharyl Attkisson.

An internal email by a global intelligence firm laid some blame at the feet of then Homeland Security adviser John Brennan.

Brennan is behind the witch hunts of investigative journalists learning information from inside the beltway sources. There is specific tasker from the [White House] to go after anyone printing materials negative to the Obama agenda.

Brennan went on to head up the CIAwhere questions continued to build. In 2014, the CIA Inspector General revealed that under Brennan, five CIA officials had improperly searched through staff emails of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Brennan had denied it but apologized after the IG report.

John Brennan: But what I really want to do is to have as much dialogue as possible with you to have that trust can be built up.

Meantime, at a public hearing, Democrat Ron Wyden asked another top intel official, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, about mass surveillance on innocent U.S. citizens.

Sen Ron Wyden: Director Clapper, I want to ask you about what I asked you about a year ago. Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions, or hundreds of millions of Americans?

James Clapper: No, sir.

Wyden: It does not?

Clapper: Not wittingly.

Clappers testimony proved false. He later apologized saying hed misunderstood the question.

It was NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden in June 2013 who blew the lid off just how massive and intrusive the governments surveillance dragnet had grown.

Edward Snowden: You cant come forward against the worlds most powerful intelligence agencies and be completely free from risk because theyre such powerful adversaries that no one can meaningfully oppose them. If they want to get you, theyll get you in time.

President-elect Donald Trump received a similar warning from the Democrats Senate leader Chuck Schumer after Trump criticized sitting intelligence officials.

Sen. Charles Schumer: You take on the intelligence community they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you.

Sure enough, Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz recently concluded the FBI committed egregious errors in targeting Trump associates for investigation and surveillance during the 2016 campaign.

Donald Trump: Today is our Independence Day.

Michael Horowitz: We are deeply concerned that so many basic and fundamental errors were made by three separate, hand-picked investigative teams on one of the most sensitive FBI investigations.

On their way out, Obama officials secretly listened in on conversations between Trump officials and others including at Trump Tower.

They wiretapped former Trump campaign volunteer Carter Page as if a Russian spy.

To get the wiretap, an FBI lawyer allegedly doctored a document.

And the FBI used evidence that turned out to be unverified political opposition research bought by the Clinton campaign and delivered to the FBI and the media.

Less than two weeks before the 2016 election, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Courts lead judge Rosemary Collyer secretly slammed Obama intel officials over a series of surveillance violations shed just learned about. She accused the NSA of institutional lack of candora very serious Fourth Amendment issue and demanded fixes.

Intelligence officials deny doing anything wrong. They say their motivations were never political or to spy but to protect national security and that whenever theyve discovered issues, theyve taken steps to correct them.

In a speech and Congressional testimony, Trump FBI Director Christopher Wray claimed theres never been any abuses of surveillance authority known as 702 although the court has documented numerous examples.

Christopher Wray: Theres been no evidence of any kind of abuse of power under Section 702 despite all the oversight I mentioned before, with the three branches of government and quite a few years of experience now.

In the end, those who blew the whistle on alleged government abuses paid a price. The NSAs Thomas Drake was prosecuted for mishandling documents and made a plea deal. The FBIs Shamai Leibowitz was prosecuted for leaking to the media.

Snowden: Its a fear Ill live under for the rest of my life.

And Edward Snowden is charged with three felonies in his absence from the U.S.

This story ends today back at square one where it began. According to the Inspector Generals report last month, FBI officials violated the Woods Procedures when they wiretapped Trump campaign volunteer Carter Page repeating the very mistakes the Woods Procedures were set up to avoid 15 years before.

Theres news regarding Sharyls computer intrusions. A former government agent who admits he took part in the illegal surveillance operation against her has now stepped forward to provide information and implicate his colleagues. He says many US citizens were illegally spied on in the same way. And a former FBI Unit Chief has also publicly confirmed he initiated the original forensics that proved the government was involved. You can read more at SharylAttkisson.com.

Watch the report by clicking the link below:

http://fullmeasure.news/news/politics/i-spy

Support Attkisson v. DOJ and FBI

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The government game of I Spy - Sharyl Attkisson

The 2010s came to an end on Dec. 31. Any period is comprised of irreplaceable memories for those who lived through it, but the decade band is a particularly vivid marker of time. This was especially true of the 2010s.

During this decade, the framework of the long postwar period its international order, domestic political structures, and the organization of industry and media started to crumble.

It was the Lehman shock of 2008 that gave birth to the roaring and tumultuous decade that followed. It triggered a global financial crisis, reduced trade and forced free trade into retreat.

The Lehman shock also complicated the euro crisis, encouraged both China and Russia to challenge the international order and flout established rules, and fostered opposition to globalization and liberalism among advanced industrial nations while encouraging the counter-currents of populism and nationalism.

These counter-currents were particularly striking in Britain and the United States the two countries that have been the worlds leading forces of liberalism as they were manifested in the 2016 Brexit vote and the election of Donald Trump as U.S. president. Meanwhile, votes won by political parties opposing European integration among EU member states have doubled over the past decade.

The collapse of the international order began in the Middle East. Following the setback of the Arab Spring democracy movements, Syria and Libya slipped into national dissolution and anarchy. The U.S. began to retreat from its global roles.

Next, the rise of China in the 2010s forced us to realize that a country with an entirely different political system had become a superpower and that we needed a new strategy to deal with this nation. In the U.S., Europe and Japan, a new view of China as a revisionist power and strategic rival that would threaten the existing international order is increasingly shared across party lines.

In retrospect, no words better capture the decade than those delivered by Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi at the July 2010 ASEAN Regional Forum. Scowling at the ASEAN foreign ministers assembled in the audience, Yang declared: China is a big country and other countries are small countries, and thats just a fact.

In his History of the Peloponnesian War in the fifth century B.C., the ancient Greek historian Thucydides records the following words from the Athenian envoy to the people of Melos: The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must. Yangs declaration is the 21st century version of the Athenian warning to Melos.

The 2010s also witnessed the social implementation of the Fourth Industrial Revolution as represented by the advent of artificial intelligence, 5G next-generation mobile networks, big data and blockchain, which captured both the real and the virtual within the net of the internet of things and connectivity.

On one hand, this enabled innovations that targeted individual needs within a diversifying society. On the other hand, it raised major fears surrounding the giant American platformers control over data and the dataism they have accelerated.

In 2013, Edward Snowden leaked highly classified information regarding the U.S. National Security Agencys surveillance program. In 2016, it was revealed that the British consulting firm Cambridge Analytica had worked for the Leave campaign ahead of the Brexit vote, manipulating political opinion. Just as people wondered whether the age of electronic voting would arrive, they realized that social networking services represented a threat to the very basis of free and fair elections. As the internet split into the Splinternet, the dark and repulsive future of the dark web is already upon us.

The 2010s are frequently compared to the 1930s. The British historian Ian Kershaw identifies ethnic-racist nationalism, territorial revisionism, acute class conflict and a prolonged crisis of capitalism as the four concurrent crises of the interwar years (between the first and second world wars). Kershaws analysis is beginning to resonate with the present moment in terrifying ways.

The fascist parties of 1930s Europe gained the support of ordinary citizens by advocating for a welfare state. In the face of economic depression and extremely high unemployment, women who had initially turned their backs on Nazism because they disliked its violence eventually demonstrated the same level of support as men for Nazism in elections after the early 1930s.

This was because the Nazi regime successfully created jobs for people who had lost their occupations and provided a brief period of stability for German households.

Despite many similarities, the 2010s were not the second coming of the 1930s. At present, at least, it is difficult to imagine a war breaking out between the worlds great powers. Todays populist movements lack the militaristic slant of 1930s populism.

Furthermore, climate change has become a major issue for the entire world. This may prompt greater cooperation across national borders, and solidarity among the worlds youth in particular. They have the media tools to connect individuals throughout the world to make that possible. Indeed, the speech by the 17-year-old Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg before the United Nations may herald the advent of a new tide of international climate change politics.

Yoichi Funabashi is chairman of the Asia Pacific Initiative and a former editor-in-chief of the Asahi Shimbun. This is a translation of his column in the monthly Bungei Shunju.

See original here:
Were the 2010s a return to the 1930s? - The Japan Times

By Boing Boing

In A Public Service, activist/trainer Tim Schwartz presents the clearest-ever guide to securely blowing the whistle, explaining how to exfiltrate sensitive information from a corrupt employer - ranging from governments to private firms - and get it into the hands of a journalist or public interest group in a way that maximizes your chances of making a difference (and minimizes your chances of getting caught).

Parts of A Public Service read like a spy thriller, covering detailed operational security planning - everything from buying a burner phone to doing research into possible journalists to take your docs to - all without leaving a trail that can be traced back to you.

Schwartz draws on the lessons of whistleblowers who remained anonymous (like the Panama Papers' John Doe); to those who got away with it, more or less (like Edward Snowden); to those who ended up in jail for their bravery (like Reality Winner).

Schwartz goes over their planning and execution with a fine, forensic lens, making it clear where they were smart, where they were lucky, and where their luck or their planning failed them.

Every technical lesson is presented in clear, easy-to-follow terms - and more importantly, this technical material is embedded in super-sharp context explaining how to assess your risks and use your technological information to counter them.

Schwartz begins at the beginning, with steps for getting data out of a network without leaving signs that point to you, and then carries on through the whistleblowing process - sanitizing identifying information in the files, securely transmitting them, and then covering any trace of your possession.

Just as important are Schwartz's chapters on how to figure out who you should leak your documents to, and then how to contact them in a way that is likely to get your leaks taken seriously enough to rate a follow-up (both public interest groups and journalists get far more tips than they can handle, so this is every bit as important as the security advice).

He also discusses when you might expect to have to go public - as with a workplace sexual assault accusation, say - and how to prepare yourself both mentally and technologically for the inevitable fallout.

The book ends with a chapter of sample cases and a chapter of advice to journalists and public interest groups who might want to receive leaks of this sort, explaining how to be a good steward of that information and a safe haven for leakers.

This is an outstanding, simple guide to a daunting and vital subject. Schwartz has done outstanding work explaining the ethical, personal, technical and legal considerations in blowing the whistle.

-

From the publisher:

"Governments and corporations now have the tools to track and control us as never before. In this whistleblowing how-to, we are provided with tools and techniques to fight back and hold organizations, agencies, and corporations accountable for unethical behavior.

"Can one person successfully defy a globe-spanning corporation or superpower without being discovered? Can a regular citizen, without computer expertise, release information to the media and be sure her identity will be concealed?

"At a time we're told we are powerless and without agency in the face of institutions such as Google, Facebook, the NSA, or the FBI, digital security educator Tim Schwartz steps forward with an emphatic 'yes.' And in fewer than 250 pages of easy-to-understand, tautly written prose, he shows us how.

"A Public Service can teach any one of us the tricks to securely and anonymously communicate and share information with the media, lawyers, or even the U.S. Congress.

"This book is an essential weapon in the pervasive battle to confront corruption, sexual harassment, and other ethical and legal violations."

-

The author is also an artist.

-

Plus:

-

Comments welcome.

Originally posted here:
How To Blow The Whistle - The Beachwood Reporter

Data privacy and protection are likely to be high on the agenda for 2020 in the wake of Facebook-Cambridge Analytica and other data scandals. These controversies have prompted regulators and consumers alike to question how much personal data big tech companies gather, how they put it to work, and how they store and manage it.

The enactment of the European Unions General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in 2018 in response to personal data privacy concerns was a watershed moment, setting a benchmark for global data protection regulation that is likely to be emulated in many parts of the world. Yet the debate has already moved on.

Edward Snowden the NSA-whistle blower living in exile in Russia after exposing Americas mass surveillance programmes for example, argues that we should not be looking only at protection of data. We should also ask whether this personal data should be collected in the first place, given that leaks or abuse of the data are inevitable.

He says that the underlying assumption of GDPR and similar data privacy laws is that the collection of data in the first place was proper, that it was appropriate and that it doesnt represent a threat or danger. That its okay to spy on your customers or your citizens so long as it never leaks.

This reframing of the debate could have profound implications for digital marketing if it becomes increasingly difficult for programmatic platforms to collect data that enables brands to run highly targeted advertising campaigns. We could see lawmakers question whether the way these platforms gather and use data is truly in customers best interests.

As powerful as these capabilities are, it is perhaps also time for marketers to question whether they should amass as much personal data as they can without asking whether their customers are in favour of it. Many leading brands believe that they could benefit from shifting from mass collection of data towards collecting data only with customers consent.

The obvious drawback is that brands have less customer data to use for their targeted campaigns; the upside is that marketers can build trust among their customers by asking for permission and being transparent about how they collect and use data. They can overlay mass data with surveys and other tools to not only understand what customers are doing but why they are doing it.

Data captured via tags embedded within sites for targeted campaigns is still the most effective way to gather vast amounts of client data quickly. It will always be more efficient than survey-based data, but if regulation starts to move from protection to collection it is worth building the capability now in anticipation of that possibility.

Its not necessary to gather likes to market your product or service to a user on Facebook. You can reach him or her through a range of more precise targeting criteria that are far better qualified. I would rather have 80% less likes on my page if I knew that remaining 20% were genuine brand ambassadors.

One way to get richer data is to use survey data consumers knowingly provided to target ads on platforms such as Facebook. This can build trust with the customer, since they will have more control over how their data is used to target messages to them. The brand can still leverage the data the platform collects about the user, while using the data the user-supplied for more accurate and transparent engagements.

We work closely with platforms such as Google and Facebook, and believe their intentions are generally good. However, marketers also need to keep ahead of the evolving data privacy debate and position themselves for the best practices of tomorrow. Those that get it right will be able to both target their customers at a highly granular level and build trust in their brands by using data in a manner that respects concerns of consumers and regulators.

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How the privacy debate will shift in 2020 - Bizcommunity.com

A SECURITY man was stunned when he witnessed a "UFO" rising from a California construction site and soaring off.

The bizarre footage shows an exceptionally bright, unspecified object slowly rise into the night sky before momentarily pausing mid air and speeding away at incredible speed.

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Douglas Benefield was working as a night watchman - in Cathedral City, CA, on July 23, 2018 - when he made the eerie sighting.

The 48-year-old explained the unusual sighting: I was sitting there and everything just felt weird all of a sudden, I cant really explain.

Then out the corner of my eye I saw something on the monitor, so I played it back and I couldnt believe my eyes.

"I kept watching it over and over again.

Immediately after, Douglas recorded the security footage from his cellphone and texted it to his eldest son Sklyer.

Skyler watched the video and responded: WTF IS THAT?

Sun Online has not been able to independently verify the footage.

Douglas blamed his busy life as the reason why he didnt think to show the footage to anyone else.

But after recently finding the video again, he decided it was something that needed to be shared with the public.

He said: I cannot explain what is going on in that video but its extremely strange.

"Ive watched it so many times and it still gives me chills."

According to one scientist, UFOs could be "time machines" operated by humans from the future.

Scientists have failed to find alien life in scans of 1,300 stars but say theyre not giving up yet.

Breaking

SHOCK STOP Iranian national armed with 'knives, ax' stopped near Trump's Mar-a-Lago

PREZ'S PAIN Trump weighs in on 'sad' Megxit declaring 'it shouldn't happen to the Queen'

RUSSIAN RAM RAID Russian warship ignored warnings and 'aggressively approached' US vessel

BOEING WOE Boeing workers thought 737 Max was designed by clowns in damning messages

WORLD AT HIS FEET American Horror Story star Harry Hains, 27, dead after addiction battle

DEATH DISH Trump 'served up US justice' to Iran General & attacks 'Nervous Nancy' at rally

Last year, notorious whistle blower Edward Snowden revealed he snooped on US intelligence networks for proof of aliens.

And,here's a list of asteroids that could crash into Earth including one with a one in 16 chance.

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GOT a story? EMAIL exclusive@the-sun.com

More:
Security guard stunned as he sees UFO rising from construction site and soaring off - The Sun

In a leafy cafe courtyard in San Francisco, Anna Wiener is cradling a cup of tea while eavesdropping on the next table. Theres a man wearing shiny pants, holding forth on artificial intelligence and the Chinese hegemon, she says, eyes glimmering with amusement.

It will come as no surprise to readers of her debut, Uncanny Valley, that Wiener is as quick witted in person as she appears on the page. All writing is a sort of performance, she says. In the book Wiener condenses four years of working at tech startups in Silicon Valley into a neat narrative about outsized male egos, dramatic wealth disparities and the psychological toll on young female employees.

Despite its unsavoury and troubling contents unregulated surveillance technology, ruthless bosses, casual sexual harassment the book is a delight. Deftly drawn characters are granted pseudonyms and companies are unnamed; instead they are identified by cutting descriptions. Facebook is the social network everyone hated and Edward Snowden is the NSA whistleblower who was back in media. Microsoft is the highly litigious Seattle-based software conglomerate. Essentially, she says: Its important to remember that Google is an ad platform and that Facebook is a surveillance platform.

I envied their sense of entitlement to the future. There were no crises in their vision only opportunities.

Wiener interviewed former colleagues and friends, engaging in what she calls a dance around everyone elses NDA. She also scoured her iMessage chats and email archive for granular details, such as the humourless office flag that read In Meritocracy We Trust or the CEO in his 20s who instructed employees to BCC his mother on the companys customer support communications. My Gmail is an incredible corpus of mid-20s work anxiety, she sighs. And an archive of what in hindsight are very obvious ways to navigate work situations that were overly complex, because I didnt know how to be a person.

The book first took shape in 2015 as a lightly fictionalised essay for the Brooklyn-based literary magazine n+1. Wieners piece went viral but the surge of attention came as a shock. I thought that no one in literary n+1 world would care about Silicon Valley startups, and that no one in Silicon Valley reads n+1. For years, she had documented the cultish work rituals and peculiar cultural norms of the industry, but it wasnt until Dayna Tortorici, editor of n+1, visited San Francisco that she considered synthesising those observations into a cohesive narrative. Dayna has a theory that people in tech arent used to being seen because everything is mediated, Wiener says. I wrote the piece to entertain her.

As an editor, Tortorici had noticed an unnerving pattern: when writing about their workplaces, female contributors were often threatened for violating NDAs, whereas rarely, if ever were NDAs used against male writers. (Despite the industrys fervent defences of freedom of speech, most tech companies also enforce strict policies that ensure former employees stay silent about work conditions, including sexual harassment allegations.)

While she didnt face NDA-related constraints, Wieners first drafts were fairly restrained. Tortorici encouraged her to reveal more about her former bosses without worrying about reprisals. By 2018, Wiener had left her job at the software development platform GitHub after a seven-way auction to expand the original n+1 essay into a book. (And in January 2018, Universal Pictures optioned film rights; the screenplay is now in its initial development stages and Wiener is executive producer.) I very deliberately wrote this book as non-fiction and memoir, she says, because if I wrote it as fiction, it could be mistaken as satire. And I dont know how politically useful satire about the tech industry is in 2019. I want this book to be politically useful.

Wiener, now 32, grew up in Brooklyn, New York. Her mother is a writer and gun-control activist co-founder of the nonprofit New Yorkers Against Gun Violence and her father a business journalist; she was exposed to feminist ideas and progressive politics at a young age. In person, Weiner is self-possessed. Apart from bitten fingernails and frank asides about therapy there are few signs of neuroses, although she says: I have very bad anxiety. Her worries around the book centre on her use of creative non-fiction techniques: the story is based on real events, but the specific timeline and characters are compressed for clarity and cohesion. She is concerned about whether people in the tech industry will understand the conventions of this approach and about possible backlash from tech executives whose public images can directly affect their companies stock value. I sometimes have these daytime nightmares about testifying in court about creative non-fiction, where Im like, I would like to summon Vivian Gornick to the stand to explain compression, or Id like to bring in John DAgata to discuss composite characters.

Just as New York City is a core character in Ben Lerners auto-fictitious 10:04 and various areas of California play leading roles in Joan Didions seminal essay collection The White Album, both influential texts for Wiener, San Francisco and its immersive digital world are central characters in Uncanny Valley. The digital landscape is textured with what is referred to as God mode an employees unbridled access to her companys database, from which she can intensively track users and glean their personal information. In the book, Wiener describes her workplaces blase, apolitical attitude to God mode: We didnt think of ourselves as participating in the surveillance economy. We certainly werent thinking about our role in facilitating and normalising the creation of unregulated, privately held databases on human behaviour. She continues: Users might not know they were being tracked, but that was between them and our customer companies.

While writing, Wiener studiously avoided reading books about the tech industry, and instead focused on office novels and compact memoirs, including Renata Adlers groundbreaking novel Speedboat, which centred on a New York journalist in the 70s; and Ana Castillos The Guardians, a novel about a Mexican-American woman living along the US/Mexico border. I tried to reread Ellen Ullmans Close to the Machine a little bit stoned in a hot bath an ostensibly relaxing situation and almost had a panic attack. Its essentially a perfect memoir and sets the standard, she explains. (Ullman is an engineer who documented her experience developing software at the forefront of the male-dominated technology boom in the 90s.)

For a moment, Wiener is distracted by the cafes playlist as Nirvana thunder over the speakers. I feel like Im 16 and burning incense in my bedroom and telling my mom Im a vegetarian, she deadpans.

We return to unpacking Silicon Valleys accountability problem and popular modes of aggrandisement. The way that people spoke in San Francisco was so strange to me, like all of the acronyms, jargon and weird things that people do to the English language. To inspire us in a meeting, one CEO said, Were at war! And like, Learnings. Why? Its lesson, she says. I find the naming scheme of the last 15 years in tech companies to be very funny, these names are just obscene. She rattles off AppLovin and Verbling as two of her favourites. You can practically throw a spitball and hit a badly named company.

Throughout the memoir, there are moments when Wiener acquiesces to male characters demands only to correct her course with a renewed sense of agency. In a memorable scene, she goes out to a Japanese bar with her mostly male co-workers to celebrate their bosss birthday, conceiving of herself as the babysitter, fifth wheel, chaperone, little sister, ball and chain, and concubine. She explains: I was always trying to be someones girlfriend, sister or mother. (Uncanny Valley takes place in the years leading up to the #MeToo movement; details about a sexual assault incident were withheld from the book to protect her former colleagues anonymity.)

The 2016 election result strikes at the end of the book with cataclysmic force, no doubt a reflection of the way the author herself experienced the event. The major failure of the media in the years leading up to the election was to not take tech companies and their ambitions very seriously, Wiener says. The media engaged with the industry on the industrys terms. It lapped up the mythology.

In reference to the founders of an ebook startup, Wieners first tech job, she writes: I envied their sense of entitlement to the future. There were no crises in their vision only opportunities. In California, this techno-optimist outlook is often associated with anti-union, libertarian politics. By contrast, she says: Ive always had a hard time picturing a future, which one could credit to having witnessed a major terrorist attack as a teenager. She pauses. In my head I was like, dont mention 9/11. She continues: My hope for the future is that we start to move slower and at a smaller scale.

At the end of Uncanny Valley, after the 2016 election, Wiener writes that she felt that the industry was in for a reckoning, that it was the beginning of the end, that what [she] had experienced in San Francisco was the final stage of a prelapsarian era, the end of our generational gold rush, an unsustainable age of excess. A freewheeling culture of misinformation, offensive memes and trolling unfettered by regulation or oversight only proliferated. Wiener says: The city and the industry, bound by the ecosystem, continued to cycle and churn.

Of course, conflicting views of the future also reflect a greater schism in industry. Just as the publishing world shrinks, tech companies bloat with capital. If we continue on the track that were on, were going to move into an era of even greater privatisation, Wiener says, shifting uncomfortably in her chair. The future will be increasingly homogeneous, divisive and private. To illustrate this point she highlights public goods or services that are increasingly privatised, like for-profit coding boot camps, which are marketed as an investment or a substitute for a four-year university degree. The tech industry is trying to provide solutions to crises that they didnt necessarily create, but that they are now exacerbating.

Everyone deserves better. Especially employees and consumers. But I dont know that change is going to come from within the industry because the incentives of venture capital encourage speed and rapid growth, which inspire a certain thoughtlessness or recklessness. She pauses. There is currently very little accountability.

Uncanny Valley: a Memoir is published by HarperCollins (RRP 16.99). To order a copy go to guardianbookshop.com. Free UK p&p over 15.

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'I want this book to be politically useful: the explosive memoir exposing Silicon Valley - The Guardian

If a week is a long time in politics, then the past decade has been a lifetime in the media world literally in some cases.

The 2010s will be remembered for many things: protest, austerity, populism, mass migration, Brexit. But perhaps one of the most dangerous developments in this most difficult of decades has been the revolution in the way we produce, share and disseminate information.

Our media how it is produced, financed and distributed has been turned upside down. And as we enter the 2020s, the implications of this are clear for all to see: competing versions of the truth; liars and confabulators winning high office across the world; polarisation and antagonism; deep fakes, rumours, confusion; the evaporation of trust.

Ten years ago, the traditional media ecosystem was still just about intact. Several rapid technological developments atomised it. The proliferation of smartphones ate away at the print model we had always used, and many newspapers local and national were forced to shut up shop. People stopped paying for news. Meanwhile, the seemingly unstoppable rise of social media produced rival platforms that would quickly suck advertising billions away from news providers.

The resultant financial penury meant many titles turned to billionaires, sheikhs or oligarchs for a lifeline. Social medias growing power also meant that those with resources and reach could shape their own message, however dishonest, rather than rely on traditional media as a channel.

It was this perfect storm that you, our growing community of 1 million-plus supporters, helped us weather. We saw that factual, honest reporting had never been so in jeopardy, or so essential. We knew it would be hard but we chose a different approach to sustainability.

We remain determined to retain our editorial independence and keep our journalism open to everyone, regardless of who they are or what they can afford. We knew that so many of our readers shared this same value. So we asked you to contribute voluntarily, for the benefit of those who cannot. Remarkably, it worked.

Thanks to you, our supporters in 180 countries, we have been able to retain proper editorial independence at a time when the world urgently needs unbiased, trustworthy sources of information.

Thanks to you, we have been able to produce groundbreaking journalism that challenges those in authority, and gives voice to those who arent. In the past decade, we have exposed the mistreatment of the Windrush generation, helped fight global corruption with our Panama Papers investigation, won a Pulitzer prize for our work with the whistleblower Edward Snowden into the actions of the NSA, and revealed the way election campaigns are skewed in the digital age with the Cambridge Analytica files. Just last month, our climate pledge demonstrated our determination to show leadership in environmental journalism and commit to steps we will take organisationally to become greener and more ethical.

Thanks to you, we have succeeded in positioning ourselves as a leading voice on the most critical issues facing the world today: the environment, nativism, fairness, social justice, inequality. With your support, we can continue to produce the journalism we know means so much and makes such a huge difference in the world. We rely on your support for our future.

In 2019, we announced that after years of financial uncertainty in this most challenging of media climates, the Guardian broke even. It was a tremendous moment for all those who have worked on these stories, and for our supporters around the world who played a key part in making our journalism possible. Thank you so much. There is a good chance that, together, we can dare to hope for a better world.

As 2020 unfolds, we ask for your ongoing support. If you are able to, please consider supporting us today with a contribution of any size. Each and every one makes a big difference to our future.

Happy new year, from all of us at the Guardian.

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With support from Guardian readers, we can make the 2020s the decade of hope - The Guardian

Hello! Today we did a major analysis of Edward Snowdens Twitter activity. Lets jump right into it. First, the primary metrics: as of 2020-01-05, Edward Snowden (@Snowden) has 4210614 Twitter followers, is following 1 people, has tweeted 4638 times, has liked 489 tweets, has uploaded 377 photos and videos and has been on Twitter since December 2014.

Going from top to bottom, their latest tweet, at the time of writing, has 476 replies, 2,823 retweets and 7,909 likes, their second latest tweet has 71 replies, 318 reweets and 1,435 likes, their third latest tweet has 149 replies, 610 retweets and 5,327 likes, their fourth latest tweet has 73 replies, 747 retweets and 1,814 likes and their fifth latest tweet has 76 replies, 1,402 retweets and 3,595 likes. (We could keep going, but we think you get the idea )

MOST POPULAR:

Going through Edward Snowdens last couple pages of tweets (including retweets, BTW), the one we consider the most popular, having incited a whopping 1017 direct replies at the time of writing, is this:

That really seems to have caused quite a bit of discussion, having also had 11046 retweets and 64013 likes.

LEAST POPULAR:

Now what about Edward Snowdens least popular tweet as of late (again, including retweets)? We reckon its this one:

That only had 2 direct replies, 71 retweets and 186 likes.

THE VERDICT:

We did a huge amount of of research into Edward Snowdens Twitter activity, looking through what people were saying in response to them, their likes/retweet numbers compared to the past, the amount of positive/negative responses and so on. We wont go into that any more, so our verdict is this: we say the online sentiment for Edward Snowden on Twitter right now is totally fine.

Well leave it there for today. Thanks for reading, and write a comment if you disagree with me. However, we wont publish anything overly rude.

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Edward Snowden The Twitter Master (2020-01-05) - Global Real News