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Remember Milo Yiannopoulos? Deplatformed ex-gay reduced to flogging Catholic iconography on YouTube – The indy100

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Cast your mind back to 2016 and you might recall the name Milo Yiannopoulos although we could forgive you for completely blocking it out altogether.

The British commentator and journalist became synonymous with the alt-right movement in the United States which helped elect Donald Trump to the White House.

His unapologetic far-right views should have seen him maligned by the political and cultural landscape but his fame and stock kept rising, even after he was banned from Twitter for instigating an onslaught of abuse against actor Leslie Jones.

However, Yiannopouloss influence plummeted when video clips of him advocating paedophilia emerged online in 2017. Yiannopoulos, who was openly gay, claimed that the clips had been badly edited and that he had been a victim of child abuse.

This backlash to this controversy resulted in the 37-year-old being forced out of his position at the Conservative news outlet Breitbart, losing the opportunity to talk at CPAC and the publisher Simon & Schuster cancelling his planned autobiography. Yiannopoulos was also banned from Facebook in 2019.

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The de-platforming of Yiannopoulos has seen the controversial figure virtually fall of the face of the planet, at least in a digital sense. In recent months he has cropped up again in headlines when he told the right-wing Christian website LiteSite that he was now an ex-gay and that he had demoted his husband to being his housemate.

Yiannopoulos newfound faith in the Lord appears to have manifested itself into him becoming a sales rep for a US-based YouTube channel and website called Church Militant which is kind of like QVC but for religious trinkets.

The first episode, which was shared earlier this month but has since been flagged by the Twitter account Right Wing Watch, sees Yiannopoulos, alongside a woman named Deborah Vaughn, attempt to sell viewers a statue of the Virgin Mary for $87.50

Yiannopoulos descent into the more obscure realms of YouTube and shilling pieces of Catholic merchandise has inevitably resulted in much mockery but has also led to many people pointing out that limiting controversial figures outreach on the internet will reduce them to this kind of level.

It should be mentioned that Church Militant isnt any old Christian website. It has been flagged by outlets like NBC News as part of the Catholic alt-right movement, so it would appear that he is right at home.

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Remember Milo Yiannopoulos? Deplatformed ex-gay reduced to flogging Catholic iconography on YouTube - The indy100

View: The bindi as the equalizer and Hindu women as seekers – Economic Times

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There is a new game in town. It is called: I-can-outdo-you-and-create-the-most-implausible-and-zany-comparisons-to-trash-Hinduism. This is score-settling blather, and juvenile. A bizarre bandwagonism is at play here as you notice that a massive and concerted effort is afoot to deplatform Hindus and their Sanatana Dharma.

The good news is that this deplatforming is not likely to happen, even though Hindus worldwide are ominously threatened today, subject to Hinduphobia, as their faith is pilloried, misrepresented and blatantly lied about.

In the last few days, much flack has been flying around about the Hindu bindi -- variously called pottu in South India, and tika or elsewhere. Both Hindu women and men wear bindis on their foreheads, and it was traditionally available in myriad hues of red, and sandalwood paste, or saffron: it could be round in shape, a streak, a line, or in more decorative forms; it is now worn in other colours too. The spot on the forehead where the bindi is worn marks the ajna chakra, which contains the pineal gland and the hypothalamus, and is represented by the Omkara.

There are two points on which Varma falters. He says that the bindi is a symbol of patriarchy: hes wrong. The fact that both men and women wear a bindi should dismiss any specious conflation of it with patriarchy - a word so sloppily bandied about in ubiquitous Hindu-bashing discourse today that you have to be cautious using it.

Second, and more intemperate, is his equating the bindi - a symbol of liberation and beauty, on a wholly visible female face - with the burqa. What is Varma's false- analogy-creating, faux-oppression-mongering gambit, I wonder? Why does he create these counterfeit and dangerous equivalences? Which master dialogue is he in vassalage to?

The bindi does not signify bondage; the case is quite the contrary. Varma's equating an attractive and liberating symbol to a loss of freedom for Hindu women, and, following this, equating it to the burqa, are flat out preposterous. First, you see the entirety of a woman's face when she wears a bindi; the burqa hides women's faces - it is meant to conceal and shut out women's faces and bodies. Also, the bindi symbolizes liberation; I'm not sure we can say that of the burqa, which has only recently been repudiated as repressive by a roster of Afghan women embracing the magnificent colours of their traditional attire, which empowers them into showing their charmante faces and not be badgered into concealing them.

The bindi represents the chandrabindu/anusvara on the pranava, the Omkara, or Om - the sound of cosmic creation, from which all sound and knowledge originate: hence, Udgitadpranavagitah sarva vagishwareshwaraha. The Om is believed to grant human beings viveka and jnana, or discrimination and wisdom. Women in rural India and small towns wear no makeup: the sole splash of colour on their visage is the bindi. Colour is raga; as well, it is ranga (the colour of the numinous, the spirit, and, per ancient, sacred Hindu texts, present in all humanity and creation). When Americas legendary Modern Dance choreographer, the late Merce Cunningham, a devotee of Paramahamsa Ramakrishna, was with us at Carnegie Mellon, he inevitably alluded to the colour in India, with delight and reverence.

Fence sitters inevitably bark on both sides. They fought across continents a few years ago to ban the oppressive burqa; now, chameleonic apologists think it is okay for women to be forced into wearing it and obeying the diktats of a male cabal.

Liberation, or the possession of higher and more meaningful inclinations, and a turning of the mind towards the sublime -- such as the intended achievement of a metaphysical/mystical union with the Infinite, the beyond, and the ever expanding frontiers of both the universe and human consciousness -- is what is signified by women wearing a bindi. There is no compulsion at all, but most Hindu women in India wear it through the day, with pleasure. When I was a little girl at Rishi Valley School, in south India, my classical dance teacher would insist we come to class with a bindi. Why? Because she said that with the bindi our little faces looked romba azhahrka, or very beautiful, in Tamil.

My maravilhoso, well-dressed female household staff in India always wears bindis, and if they forget to wear them, they tell me they feel incomplete: theres no patriarchy here. Also, Varma does not speak for them.

What Hinduism now witnesses is an awakening, and a culture of resistance, pursuant to centuries of colonial diminishment and atrocities, followed by current, coordinated worldwide attempts to demonise innocent, faith-loving Hindus and render them marginal. Hindus dont accept western domination and its dirigente ideas any longer; they have, and will always be, open to absorbing the best thought from other faiths and philosophies across the world, other echoes (that) inhabit the garden, (Eliot), but they recognize the treasure of dharmic knowledge that is theirs for the asking. It is this deep, neglected lake of wisdom that Hindus now wish to further explore, ignoring bogus equivalences and their creators.

(Oopalee Operajita is a Distinguished Fellow at Carnegie Mellon University. She advises world leaders on public policy, communication, and international relations.)

Link:

View: The bindi as the equalizer and Hindu women as seekers - Economic Times

Blackburn’s Quest: Computer science professor researches darkest corners of the internet | Binghamton News – Binghamton University

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Life in the digital age has added one more certain thing to the old saying about death and taxes: People are going to be jerks on the internet.

Whether its an anonymous troll questioning your parentage or a propaganda campaign by a foreign power, the signal-to-noise ratio on social media has become much worse in recent years. Thats not even mentioning the hate-mongers, conspiracy theorists and outright liars who want their skewed views to become your views.

Assistant Professor Jeremy Blackburn, a faculty member in Watson Colleges Department of Computer Science, has been researching bad actors online for more than 10 years. That journey has taken him to some dark places where outsiders fear to tread, but he hopes that by shining a light there, we can start to figure how to fix them.

I dont think the problems are new. They are fundamental human problems, Blackburn says. Whats different is that its become a socio-technical problem rather than just a social problem. The internet doesnt make people bad it just enables them to be worse, and it enables them to find other people who are also bad.

FROM GAMING TO SOCIAL MEDIA

Blackburn first became interested in computers while growing up in Florida, connecting with fellow users from around the world through massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) such as Ultima Online. Players adopted sword-and-sorcery character avatars for quests to conquer kingdoms and battle monsters.

Because Blackburn and his friends were clever with programming code, they sometimes would find ways to cause chaos. One time, his clan built a virtual house in front of a key entry point and shot arrows from inside at other players who approached. Another trick, which landed them in the games jail, involved killing a character and stealing the blueprints for a new kind of building being beta-tested.

Yeah, they werent exactly angels.

If you did that kind of stuff in person during a Dungeons & Dragons game, you might get punched in the mouth, Blackburn says with a laugh. But the fact that it was virtual enabled a whole different level of mischief.

Like many teens who love coding, Blackburn headed to college in his case, the University of South Florida (USF) in Tampa with the intent to design computer games. His interests later shifted to the underlying technologies that make shared games possible, such as distributed systems that spread various components across multiple computers.

For his doctoral thesis also at USF he returned to the idea of bad behavior online by studying cheating in internet gaming, and that drew a direct path to the kind of research he does today.

While earning his degrees, Blackburn worked for more than a decade in private industry, including as principal developer at test-prep company Boson Software and as software architect at his own company, Pallasoft. He also spent three years as an associate researcher at Telefonica Research in Barcelona, Spain.

His time in academia first at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and now at Binghamton University has coincided with the proliferation and influence of mainstream platforms such as Facebook and Twitter as well as niche apps like Telegram, Parler, 4chan and Gab.

Things have evolved away from blogs and similar sites in the past 10 years, he says. People want interactive social media they want to be able to engage with each other rather than just scream on a soapbox.

In our polarized society, though, those back-and-forth interactions can get downright nasty.

TRACKING THE TROLLS

Blackburn is the co-founder of the International Data-driven Research for Advanced Modeling and Analysis (iDRAMA) Lab, which includes more than two dozen professors, PhD students and industry researchers from around the world.

In various configurations, iDRAMA members have studied nearly every social media platform, from dominant ones like Twitter to white supremacist havens such as Gab and 4chan. The only one they ignore is Facebook, because data collection from there has become increasingly unreliable.

Recent research

Assistant Professor Jeremy Blackburn has studied many types of bad actors on the internet. Here are just a few of the findings from the iDRAMA Lab in recent years.

CYBERBULLYING: By analyzing the behavioral patterns of abusive Twitter users and their differences from other Twitter users, Blackburn and his colleagues developed machine learning algorithms that can successfully identify bullies and aggressors on Twitter with 90% accuracy.

ZOOMBOMBING: As more companies and schools moved to online platforms like Zoom, Google Meet and Skype in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, interruptions to those meetings and classes often racist or pornographic became an increasing problem. An iDRAMA study showed that most of those attacks were not due to hackers, but because legitimate attendees gave passwords and advice to friends or posted the information on Reddit, Twitter and 4chan.

DEPLATFORMING: Once users are banned from Twitter and Reddit, what happens to them? Often they move to smaller platforms like Gab or Parler, where the content moderation is more lax. There, they have a potentially reduced audience but exhibit an increased level of activity and toxicity than they did previously.

ANTI-ASIAN HATE SPEECH: By analyzing posts from 4chans Politically Incorrect board as well as Twitter from late 2019 and early 2020, the iDRAMA lab tracked the rise of Sinophobic content related to the pandemic.

The iDRAMA Lab has published research on QAnon, the rise in anti-Asian and anti-Semitic sentiments, the use of manipulated news images (also known as fauxtography), cyberbullying, misogyny, state-sponsored disinformation campaigns and more.

Its a roundup of the worst that humanity has to offer, and sometimes the haters strike back. A recent 4chan post, for instance, claimed that Blackburn is a Hamas recruiter, and hes received a few ominous threats over the years. (Luckily, nothing came of them.)

Blackburn fosters an atmosphere of camaraderie among his students and peers, welcoming open conversations so that no one feels overwhelmed by internet hate.

If you dont look at the content, you cant really do research about it, he says, but if you look at the content too much or too deeply if you stare into the abyss a bit too long you might fall into it. Its hard walking that line, and Ive certainly had failures along the way.

Gianluca Stringhini, an assistant professor at Boston University and co-founder of the iDRAMA Lab, praises Blackburns willingness to think outside of the boundaries of traditional computer science methods.

When Jeremy and I started working together, we realized that studying these emerging sociotechnical problems required techniques that dont really fall under any of the established research methods in our fields, Stringhini says.

Five years later, we are combining computer networks, security, graph analysis, psychology and other disciplines to paint a comprehensive picture of online weaponized information. Not many researchers would be comfortable doing that, but Jeremy has a unique vision and is not afraid of breaking with research norms.

TURNING OVER THE ROCKS

Earlier this year, Blackburn received a five-year, $517,484 National Science Foundation CAREER Award for his project Towards a Data-Driven Understanding of Online Sentiment. The CAREER Award supports faculty who have the potential to serve as future academic role models.

At the core of the project is devising a better way to train machine learning which does most of the content moderation on social media platforms about how to judge the offensiveness of images used in memes.

Currently, artificial intelligence software tries to determine if a particular image is bad or not, but Blackburn wants to take a trick from online gaming by presenting it two images and asking which is worse. The process is similar to the matchmaking system that puts gamers into groups of similar skills, not people who are 1,000 times better or worse than you.

Instead of looking at images in isolation and making a judgment on that individual piece of content, its more like ordering them, he says. Were not learning if something is racist or not were learning which is more racist. Who knows what well find, but were convinced that it will lead to something interesting.

Blackburn admits that he and his iDRAMA colleagues sometimes discuss whether their research is helping internet jerks to dig in deeper and evade future detection. Maybe if they didnt turn over the rocks, the nasty critters underneath would just stay there and never come out.

As a computer scientist, though, Blackburn believes that learning more will be an important step toward curbing what has become a political and social menace. He contends its also a public health crisis: Online hate affects our mental well-being, and misinformation about COVID-19 has led to more deaths and hospitalizations.

We have this insanely powerful, world-changing technology thats been around for less than a generation, he says. I hope that well provide the knowledge and tools to become more resilient, more robust and less susceptible to this type of behavior, and to start figuring out ways to actively address it.

The rest is here:

Blackburn's Quest: Computer science professor researches darkest corners of the internet | Binghamton News - Binghamton University

Petition Free Julian Assange, before it’s too late. Sign …

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This is a global petition to Free Julian Assangeand to stop the legal precedent being established of a USA Extradition for a non USA journalist that exposed USA war crimes.

This petition is the largest petition in history to have been presented to the International Criminal Court (The Hague).This is also the largest petition in history to have been successfully Tabled (accepted into Parliament) in both houses of the Australian Parliament.

On January 4, 2021 this petitioned campaign helped secure a "Stop to the USA Extradition". Together with many individuals and teams around the world we are now on a pathway to Free Julian Assange.

Unfortunately however, as of January 11, 2021 the entities that perpetrated the war crimes that Julian Assange's publications revealed have indicated they will appeal the decision to STOP the USA Extradition of Julian Assange from the U.K. to the USA to be tortured for a further 175 years.

This petition invites everybody from every nation to sign and join this critically important campaign to Free Julian Assange. We helped Stop the USA Extradition now we focus to Free Julian Assange and return him to the love of his family.

Further, this petition will drive to prosecute the alleged complicit "public officers" of the UK, Sweden, Ecuador and Australia that allegedly together manifested a situation that deliberately and by design subjected Julian Assange to psychological torture. The process of delivery of psychological torture to Julian Assange continued even though public statements by the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture determined that Julian Assange was being subjected to cruel and degrading treatment that resulted in case of verified psychological torture as determined by implementation of the Internationally recognised Istanbul Protocol by a team of medical experts.

On August 10, 2021 we delivered this petition at 619,900+ signatures to the International Criminal Court's (ICC) Chief Prosecutor Mr Karim Asad Ahmad Khan. Together with the 570,000+ signatories petitioned of the International Criminal Court (ICC) on January 15, 2021. We resubmitted because the Chief Prosecutor had changed since our first submission.

This petition represents the largest petition ever presented to the ICC since it's inception. This petition has delivered a request for escalation of request of petition notices (Ref. Doc. Aug. 5, 2020 Notice 1 & Aug. 27, 2020 Notice 2) to the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. (Scroll down to see the script copy of this document pasted at the foot of welcome page).

Verified instances of psychological/mental torture is determined by the International Criminal Court (ICC), as constituting a "crime against humanity".

We the signatories consider it of international significance, because weallege that state sponsored psychological torture has been administered to Mr Julian Assange and continued in spite of official determination and notification by theUN Special Rapporteur on Torture.

Julian Assange is a journalist that published whistle-blowersourced evidence that revealed systemic governmentalcriminality including clear and obvious war crimes.

The deliberate targeting of persons known and identified as providing first aid to the wounded and then ordering their slaughter is an undeniable war crime. https://youtu.be/UaqY12VHFv4 To then subject the journalist that revealed those war crimes to psychological torture is a crime against humanity. We allege that the psychological torturing of Julian Assange is being delivered by public officers of ratified nations to the 1997 Rome Convention to the ICC.

Ifwe allow Julian Assange (multi-awarded journalist) who is not a USA citizen and who was not in the USA when he published news to be extradited to the USA to face 175 years imprisonment and possible execution, then we no longer live in a democratic society. To allow Julian Assange to be extradited for his publishing in the public interest would place every woman, child and man in western society under USA extraterritorial authoritarian rule. History proves that this always leads to the next brutal dictatorship which will assassinate, execute or permanently silence any person that publishes evidence that exposes the authorities criminality.

Feb. 10, 2020 this petition was Tabled in the House of Representatives (Lower House) of the Australian Parliament, by Andrew Wilkie MP https://andrewwilkie.org/massive-petition-to-free-julian-assange-tabled-in-australian-parliament-today/

Together with the Tabling in the Australian Senate (Upper House) of the Australian Parliament by Senator Peter Whish-Wilson on November 12, 2019.https://twitter.com/SenatorSurfer/status/1194524951044227072?s=20

It is considered unprecedented to have a petition now covering the entire Australian Parliament as it has been individually Tabled in both houses of the Australian parliament.We are a massive force now and exercising that people power to the MAXIMUM. We demand direct senior Ministerial intervention to stop the torturing of Julian Assange and to prevent a continuation of this travesty and clear perversion of legal process. We demand Julian Assange be immediately freed.

See George Christensen MP on Feb. 7, 2020 on Assange in the Australian Parliament. https://www.facebook.com/gchristensenmp/videos/306278656995310/

This petition is now represents the Largest petitioning of the International Criminal Court (The Hague) in history. This petition is the largest in any form to have been tabledin both houses of the Australian Parliament (since 1901). and represents a huge level of support from around the world andcontinues to grow. We are getting stronger every minute of every day. Please Join us.

Headline from the Australian Parliament's official website: A petition is basically a request for action. The right to petition Federal Parliament has been one of the rights of citizens since federation, and it is the ONLY way an individual can directly place grievances before the Parliament. https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Petitions

The Petitioner and on behalf of Signatories is now exercising that right.

By carefully following these petitioned demands legitimate grievances will be resolved.

This petition demands:

No USA Extradition of Julian Assange.

With immediate affect Julian Assange to walk out of prison and torture.

Freedom for Julian Assange

The Australian government is hereby instructed that they are to facilitate the granting of freedom toJulian Assange so that hemay walk out of torture and be free to go wherever he wishes.

The Morrison government is instructed to follow Liberal Party policy procedure where in extenuating circumstances the Prime Minister will intervene and make high level representations to their Ministerial counterparts in jurisdictions where an Australians human rights are being violated. This standard procedure was witnessed in the intervention by the then LNP Prime Minister John Howard after Barnaby Joyces raising of the matter concerning Habeas Corpus in relation to David Hicks. The same occurred with the LNP Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull intervening at the March 2018 ASEAN meeting when he and his team raised the matter of James Ricketson with Hun Sen of Cambodia (Ricketson had been detained on Espionage charges). So to be clear it is standard practice and procedure that an Australian LNP Prime Minister directly intervenes in situations of exceptional circumstance as was the case with David Hicks, James Ricketson and is the case with Julian Assange. Why shouldnt Julian Assange receive the same level of involvement by the Prime Minister and or Foreign Minister as others have received in similar situations.

Julian Assange has suffered enough. It's time to end this geopolitical madness. The man's an Australian. He's not an American. He wasn't in the US when he spoke out about war crimes. Put simply, he must be allowed to return to Australia. Andrew Wilkie MP & Co Chair of the Bring Assange Home Australian parliamentary group.

On 28 January 2020: News from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe Comprising 324 parliamentarians from the 47 countries of the Council of Europe https://twitter.com/CoE , speaking for 830 million Europeans The @CoE Assembly, in a resolution on media freedom, declares that the detention and prosecution of @wikileaks founder Julian #Assange "sets a dangerous precedent for journalists" and calls for his prompt release. The full resolution: http://assembly.coe.int/nw/xml/XRef/Xref-XML2HTML-en.asp?fileid=28508&lang=en

On February 8 2020. Listen to the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture and Cruel and Degrading Treatment, who extensively investigated the Assange case states that the evidence against Julian Assange has been "Fabricated" https://youtu.be/f9KRxF9oVxQ

Julian Assange is an Australian Citizen and as such it is the fundamental responsibility of the Australian Government to protect and ensure his human rights are not violated and to this end the Australian Government has failed. It can also be stated that the Australian Government to date has been silently complicit in the psychological torture of Mr Julian Assange.

Julian Assange is an Australian citizen and journalist who is currently a political prisoner in London. He is facing extradition to the USA to face 175 years imprisonment and possible execution for publishing news material that was in the public interest. The information contained in his publications were not sourced by him, but rather were delivered to him by whistleblowers. Whistleblower sourced information is the usual occupational practice of an investigative journalist in a functioning democracy. This case highlights clear human rights abuses of Julian Assange, serious perversions of justice and a direct attack on the very fabric of democracy across western democracies.

Further, in light of the concerning deterioration of Julian Assanges state of health and with Covid19 already causing the death of other prisoners in Belmarsh (HMP) Prison, politicians who may be perceived as somewhat responsible should seriously consider how citizens would react if Julian Assange was to die in prison or be viewed shuffling in shackles in an orange fashioned Guantanamo torture jumpsuit. Responsible politicians would be best advised to deal with this matter via this legal and peaceful petitioned action and this petition provides that platform for praise and endorsement. We support responsible politicians doing the right thing and winning political points from 92% of Australians as per (60 Minutes Australia) polling that want the Australian Government to intervene and Bring Assange Home. Yes 92% is across the political spectrum.

We agree nobody is above the law. As Jeremy Hunt MP wished we will stand together to make it an international taboo, of the highest order to murder, arrest or detain journalists just for doing their job. (Jeremy Hunt April 6, 2019). https://twitter.com/FCDOGovUK/status/1114199640625295361?s=20

You can read more about this campaign in the updates below. Please, sign and share this petition.

Thank you.

Phillip Adams

The Petitioner

========================================

Read more detail below on this petition'sSubmission of the largest ever petitioning of theInternational Criminal Court. 619,000 signatory strong petition delivered to the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court's (The Hague). On August 10, 2021 as well as on January 15 , 2021 to request an escalation of preliminaryinvestigation request, with reference to Notice 1 Aug. 5, 2020 and Notice 2, August 27, 2020. We resubmitted to the ICC because the Chief Prosecutor changed around June/July, 2021.

-----------------------

Petition Delivery: International Criminal Court, The Hague

619,900 signatories August 10, 2021

Petition To: Chief Prosecutor Mr Karim Asad Ahmad Khan International Criminal Court: The Hague

Petition To: Deputy Prosecutor Mr James Stewart International Criminal Court: The Hague

Dear Mr Karim Asad Ahmad Khan,

We deliver this 619,900-signature petition in accordance with International Criminal Court (ICC) protocols to request that the Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) immediately escalate to a preliminary investigation into alleged crimes against humanity by Public Officers of ratified nations to the 1997 Rome Convention.

Mr Julian Assange (Former Editor in Chief of Wikileaks) published evidence of war crimes and we allege that as a direct consequence of his publishing in the public interest that some Public Officers of the United Kingdom, Ecuador, Sweden, and Australia have been subjected Mr Julian Assange to cruel and degrading treatment amounting to psychological torture which is a crime against humanity as per ICC classification.

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture made public statement on May 31, 2019 (appendix. 1) that Mr Assange has been exposed to various forms of cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment that cumulatively have the same effect as psychological torture. We allege that some Public Officers of the United Kingdom, Australia, Sweden and Ecuador have worked together to deliver cruel and degrading treatment amounting to psychological torture in breach of international law.

Signatories to this 619,900 strong petition as well as the UN Special Rapporteur and countless others from around the world have repeatedly raised this serious matter with responsible Public Officers in accordance with due process. We have adhered to peaceful activism and have followed the spirit and ethos of the institution of the International Criminal Court and to date we have only witnessed a continuation of the cruel and degrading treatment amounting to psychological torture that now instruct falls under the jurisdiction of the ICC.

We now call on the Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) of the International Criminal Court (ICC) as per administrative protocols to escalate requests for preliminary investigation pertained in this petition submission together with Petition Submission January 15, 2021, Petition Notice documents 1 delivered to the OTP on August 5, 2020, Petition and Notice 2 delivered to the OTP on August 27, 2020. (See Appendix A, 7 & 8).

To torture a publisher for exposing war crimes is a crime against humanity. The International Criminal Court was formed as a peaceful legal pathway to investigate and prosecute international crimes that it has been notified of and which are being perpetrated despite repeated notification over an extended period of time. We now call on the Chief Prosecutor to investigate the actions of Public Officers that have and are continuing to perpetuate psychological torture on a publisher/journalist/Australian Citizen who published evidence of war crimes.

Yours Sincerely

Phillip Adams

Australian Citizen and Petitioner https://www.change.org/Free-Julian-Assange-before-its-too-late

Appendix

Appendix A: https://www.change.org/p/free-julian-assange-before-it-s-too-late-stop-usa-extradition/u/28367219

Appendix 1: United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel and Degrading Treatment Reference: https://youtu.be/ErW1taJEPrs

Appendix 2: Preamble to the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Reference: https://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/

Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people,

Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law,

Article 5: of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human RightsNo one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

Appendix 3: Reference: https://www.change.org/Free-Julian-Assange-before-its-too-late

Appendix 4: Reference Petition Notice 37, 38, 39, 40, 41 https://www.change.org/p/free-julian-assange-before-it-s-too-late-stop-usa-extradition/u/25396955

Appendix 5: Petition Official Tabling in the House of Representatives of the Parliament of Australia and accepted into official Australian Parliamentary Hansard https://twitter.com/WilkieMP/status/1226749989738573825?s=20

Appendix 6: Petition Official Tabling in the Senate of the Parliament of Australia and accepted into official Australian Parliamentary Hansard https://twitter.com/SenatorSurfer/status/1194524951044227072?s=20

Appendix 7: Petition Notice 1. Delivered to the OTP of the ICC August 5, 2020 https://www.change.org/p/free-julian-assange-before-it-s-too-late-stop-usa-extradition/u/27599933

Appendix 8: Petition Notice 2 Delivered to the OTP of the ICC August 27, 2020 https://www.change.org/p/free-julian-assange-before-it-s-too-late-stop-usa-extradition/u/27448320

-------Below this line is a copy of the January 15, 20221 submission---

Petition Delivery: Office of the Prosecutor,

International Criminal Court, The Hague

570,000 signatories as at January 15, 2021

Petition To: Chief Prosecutor Ms Fatou Bensouda International Criminal Court: The Hague

Petition To: Deputy Prosecutor Mr James Stewart International Criminal Court: The Hague

Dear Ms Fatou Bensouda,

This petition document includes 570,000 signatures from citizens around the world and in accordance with International Criminal Court (ICC) protocols we now deliver to the Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) of the ICC a request for escalation of preliminary investigation into an alleged crime against humanity by mental/psychological torture of Mr Julian Assange. Mr Julian Assange published evidence of war crimes and then was and has continued to be subjected to cruel and degrading treatment amounting to psychological torture as punishment for his publishing in the public interest.

The UN Special Rapporteur on Torture made public statement on May 31, 2019 (appendix. 1) that Mr Assange has been exposed to various forms of cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment that cumulatively have the same effect as psychological torture. We allege that some public officers of the United Kingdom, Australia, Sweden and Ecuador have worked together to deliver cruel and degrading treatment amounting to psychological torture in breach of international law.

Signatories of this 570,000 strong petition, the UN Special Rapporteur and many others from around the world have repeatedly raised this matter in accordance with due process and by peaceful means and to date we have not seen a meaningful investigation into and prevention of this alleged international crime that falls under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court.

We now call on the Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) of the International Criminal Court (ICC) as per administrative protocols to escalate requests for preliminary investigation pertained in Petition Notice documents 1 delivered to the OTP on August 5, 2020 Petition Notice 2 delivered to the OTP on August 27, 2020. (See Appendix 7 & 8)

Yours Sincerely

Phillip Adams

Australian Citizen and Petitioner https://www.change.org/Free-Julian-Assange-before-its-too-late

Appendix

Appendix 1: United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel and Degrading Treatment Reference: https://youtu.be/ErW1taJEPrs

Appendix 2: Preamble to the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Reference: https://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/

Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people,

Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law,

Article 5: of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human RightsNo one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

Appendix 3: Reference: https://www.change.org/Free-Julian-Assange-before-its-too-late

Appendix 4: Reference Petition Notice 37, 38, 39, 40, 41 https://www.change.org/p/free-julian-assange-before-it-s-too-late-stop-usa-extradition/u/25396955

Appendix 5: Petition Official Tabling in the House of Representatives of the Parliament of Australia and accepted into official Australian Parliamentary Hansard https://twitter.com/WilkieMP/status/1226749989738573825?s=20

Appendix 6: Petition Official Tabling in the Senate of the Parliament of Australia and accepted into official Australian Parliamentary Hansard https://twitter.com/SenatorSurfer/status/1194524951044227072?s=20

Appendix 7: Petition Notice 1. Delivered to the OTP of the ICC August 5, 2020 https://www.change.org/p/free-julian-assange-before-it-s-too-late-stop-usa-extradition/u/27599933

Appendix 8: Petition Notice 2 Delivered to the OTP of the ICC August 27, 2020 https://www.change.org/p/free-julian-assange-before-it-s-too-late-stop-usa-extradition/u/27448320

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The Julian Assange Case | Dissident Voice

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by RT / October 23rd, 2021

Chris Hedges talks to documentary filmmaker and investigative journalist John Pilger about the upcoming appeals hearing in London for the Julian Assange case.

On Sept. 26, Yahoo! News published Kidnapping, assassination and a London shoot-out: Inside the CIAs secret war plans against WikiLeaks. The article detailed discussions within the CIA to kidnap or assassinate Julian Assange. The revelations came a month before a hearing in Britains High Court that will see the U.S. government appeal a decision that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange cannot be sent to the United States to face espionage charges. These revelations also coincided with the arrest of an Icelandic man who played a major role in the FBIs case against Assange and who has now admitted he lied in his testimony about Assange to U.S. federal investigators. The most recent revelations, coupled with the numerous legal anomalies of the Assange case, including leaks that show that the Spanish security firm at the Ecuadoran Embassy in London where Assange sought refuge for seven years, turned over recordings of his meetings with his lawyers to the CIA, amply illustrate that the judicial pantomime carried out against Assange is a political persecution led by the U.S. government and the CIA because of embarrassing and damaging revelations about the inner workings of the US military, intelligence agencies and the political class repeatedly exposed by Assange and WikiLeaks. The goal of the U.S. government is to shut down WikiLeaks, and organizations like WikiLeaks, and to make an example of Assange, who if he is extradited to the United States faces 175 years in prison, to dissuade others who might consider replicating his courageous reporting. The upcoming appeals hearing is on October 27 and 28 at Britains High Court, London.

This article was posted on Saturday, October 23rd, 2021 at 7:27am and is filed under Journalism, Julian Assange, Political Prisoners, Torture, Video, WikiLeaks.

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What is open source software? – Red Hat

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Open source software matters to everyone, not just programmers, because it unlocks the potential of many more people to become innovators than a closed-source model. Open source communities, for instance, are organized around open source projects where anyone with skills can join and contribute code. These groups still maintain standards around contributing to open source projects just like proprietary software teams do, but they open up this process to anyone in the world who wants to contribute.

This open source development model has resulted in some of the most important applications and cloud platforms in use today. The most popular of which comprise LAMP, a model of service stacks that undergird much of the web. The LAMP acronym stands for:

Other examples of popular open source technologies include the Android mobile OS, the Mozilla Firefox web browser, the widely-used version control system Git, and the two related office suites OpenOffice and LibreOffice. On a broader scale, most innovation in the areas of cloud computing, big data, and artificial intelligence have been derived from open source software projects.

In addition to its instrumental role in the early web and some of the most popular applications used today, open source software has other advantages for businesses and individual programmers. When source code is open, it makes it easier for anyone to study it to develop new programming skills. Open source licensing also allows students to get practice by editing the code and sharing it with friends and the broader open source community, or even contributing fixes to existing open source projects.

Open source software also offers businesses the ability to customize it to meet their specific needs, or innovate new customer experiences not included in the original source code. Some also prefer open source software because there are many more developers looking for security vulnerabilities when the source code is openly available and has an active community supporting it.

Open source software is the result of an open source development model. The open source development model is decentralized and encourages open collaboration and peer production. It has influenced a broader movement in software development, and people often refer to its core principles as "the open source way."

The open source way is so effective because it can attract tremendous technical talent. Much of the innovation in technology is taking place in the open source community, and people all over the world end up using open source software. Behind many popular websites and applications you can find projects like Linux, Kubernetes, and Git, and people access the internet with open source browsers like Firefox and Chromium.

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4 trends spurring the evolution of network hardware – TechTarget

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For years, vendors have dictated innovations in networking. They developed and manufactured their own chips, appliances and network designs, and enterprises consumed what they produced.

Because of this traditional vendor-driven process, many enterprises got stuck with networks that were difficult to adapt and modernize, said Dinesh Dutt, engineer, book author and co-founder of Stardust Systems, a network observability company with a focus on open source software.

Recent networking innovations have battled the vendor-heavy model, pushing for open networking and scalability. While most of the prevalent developments have emerged in software, Dutt said the industry is also seeing an evolution in network hardware.

The major network hardware trends target changes in the following areas:

Some of the battles have already been won -- such as the rise of merchant silicon -- but Dutt said the outcomes of others haven't played out yet.

The use of merchant silicon for packet forwarding has largely become an industry standard, emerging from what was once a small trend.

Not long ago, networking vendors made their own chips and ran them on proprietary hardware. But those same vendors now often rely on merchant silicon in the form of commodity switching chips from companies like Broadcom and Marvell.

Arista, for example, built its business on a merchant silicon model, instead of "designing and building its own switching chip," Dutt said. Companies like Arrcus, DriveNets and Volta Networks have also based their business models around merchant silicon and white box networking.

Some networking vendors have even introduced their own merchant silicon. In 2019, Cisco announced its Silicon One chip that supports white box switches, in addition to its own hardware.

Dutt compared the rise of merchant silicon to the evolution of watches from Rolexes to commodity watches. At one time, a person had to buy an expensive Rolex watch in order to have a working watch. But, now, anybody can buy a cheap watch that tells the time accurately.

In the same way, he said, less expensive commodity chips have replaced traditional packet forwarding hardware, such as application-specific integrated circuits and processors. These chips are not only cheaper, but offer enterprises a broader range of options and flexibility in their network designs.

A related trend to merchant silicon is the development of smart network interface cards (NICs), functional accelerator cards (FACs) and data processing units (DPUs). These chips take on additional functions -- such as computing, routing, storage and firewalling -- to negate some of the processing load on servers.

Cloud providers have primarily led the charge with smartNIC adoption, benefiting from the opportunity to optimize computing and bandwidth costs on such a massive scale, Dutt said. Enterprises, however, usually don't have the same level of scale and wouldn't benefit as much from smartNIC adoption.

"SmartNICs are great at offloading," Dutt said. "The question becomes at what scale, at what performance and at what cost?"

That said, some analysts expect enterprises to find value in smartNICs, FACs and DPUs as more use cases emerge. In its 2020 "Hype Cycle for Enterprise Networking," Gartner listed FACs at the beginning of the cycle, likely to reach the "plateau of productivity" in five to 10 years. Gartner said it expected enterprise adoption to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 115% by 2024.

Most networking vendors have an appliance-driven ecosystem. As a result, enterprises have based their network designs and management around the appliances they've deployed and the specific configurations for them, rather than on their business requirements, Dutt said.

"Enterprise network operators not only learned how to type a command on a box, but they also learned network design from those same vendors," Dutt said. "This meant that the certifications issued were all structured around the strengths of a box rather than general network principles."

Instead, he added, vendors should move away from appliance models and focus more on providing a platform.

White box switches could help introduce a more platform-driven strategy. With white box switching, enterprises can buy commodity appliances that don't have pre-loaded OSes, enabling them to choose the network OS they prefer. Network teams could better customize their network designs for the applications they need to support and reduce Capex.

But white box adoption has lagged among enterprises, largely due to integration complexity and familiarity with legacy vendors. In some ways, the customization that white boxes offer acts as a deterrent because some enterprises don't know which OS to deploy or instead prefer brand names they recognize.

Another networking appliance trend Dutt mentioned is the move away from large, chassis-based switches to fixed form factor switches. Sometimes called pizza boxes because of their shape, these switches are small, flat and stackable. They are also easier to troubleshoot in the event of failure.

"Those fixed form factor switches have much simpler failures and are cheaper to buy and replace than the single monolithic software that was chassis," Dutt said. Because of their smaller size, fixed form factor switches can help reduce an organization's footprint, overhead and power consumption.

White box switching can't be successful without the ability for enterprises to choose which OS they want to manage their network hardware. OSes have experienced changes of their own, due in part to an industry push for interoperability and open networking.

Consider network design independent of vendors. Consider a network design that is specific to your applications. Dinesh DuttEngineer, author and co-founder of Stardust Systems

Over the past few years, many organizations have worked to develop open source network OSes (NOSes) that can help reduce dependence on proprietary hardware. One example Dutt cited was the Software for Open Networking in the Cloud project, originally from Microsoft. Some networking vendors and startups have also tried to popularize open source NOSes, he said.

Despite the industry's move to support more NOS options, open source OSes face similar battles that white box switching has encountered, such as complexity and lack of support. And the fates of white boxes and open OSes are tied together.

"The lack of a NOS for white boxes hobbles the ability to consume a white box," Dutt said. For both to gain traction, Dutt said they require the same design shift from an appliance model to a platform model.

Ultimately, network appliances and OSes won't work if they aren't connected. Wireless and cellular connectivity have seen the development of Wi-Fi 6 and 5G, and enterprises have started deploying both in their LANs and WANs.

But data centers can't use wireless for connectivity, instead they need network cables. While network cabling has remained relatively quiet in terms of emerging trends, some changes have occurred, Dutt said.

Traditionally, when enterprises bought hardware from certain vendors, they also had to buy matching cables from the same vendor. But, just as network appliances and OSes have seen a shift toward openness and vendor-agnostic options, it's increasingly possible for enterprises to buy cabling from other providers.

"Originally, if you bought hardware from Cisco, you had to buy cabling that only Cisco provided," he said. "Now, it's not hard for you to find hardware from Cisco but cabling from Finisar directly."

With various changes in networking, enterprises might find it difficult to know which upgrades to make or how to design a new network.

Dutt advised enterprises to prioritize the following steps when considering network hardware changes:

Ultimately, Dutt encouraged enterprises to start simple.

"Go back to the basic principles," Dutt said. "Consider network design independent of vendors. Consider a network design that is specific to your applications. And work with the server team rather than sitting across the table from them."

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4 trends spurring the evolution of network hardware - TechTarget

Today we offer our CoWin platform to the entire world free, and have made it open source software: PM at Sydney Dialogue – United News of India

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More News19 Nov 2021 | 12:16 PM

New Delhi, Nov 19 (UNI) Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said the government has decided to repeal the three agriculture laws, which the farmers have been protesting since November 26, 2020, even as he stressed that the laws were brought for welfare of the farmers, especially small farmers.

New Delhi, Nov 19 (UNI) Samyukt Kisan Morcha, the umbrella body under which farmers have been protesting against the new farm laws, welcomed government's decision to repeal the controversial laws, but added that they will wait till the formal procedures are completed.

New Delhi, Nov 19 ( UNI ) Congress and Trinamool took jibes at the Prime Minister and his party one after the other as PM Narender Modi on Friday morning in an unexpected development announced withdrawal of the three contentious farm laws just months ahead of five states heading for polls.

New Delhi, Nov 19 (UNI) Bharatiya Kisan Union(BKU) leader Rakesh Tikait on Friday said the farmers will not take back their agitation immediately, and will wait for the laws to be repealed in Parliament, shortly after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced repeal of the controversial farm laws.

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Today we offer our CoWin platform to the entire world free, and have made it open source software: PM at Sydney Dialogue - United News of India

AIA Group and The Hong Kong Jockey Club Announced as Winners of the Red Hat APAC Innovation Awards 2021 for Hong Kong – Business Wire

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HONG KONG--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Red Hat, Inc., the world's leading provider of open source solutions, today announced the winners of the Red Hat APAC Innovation Awards 2021 for Hong Kong. AIA Group and The Hong Kong Jockey Club were honored today for their inspiring digital transformation journey and innovations using Red Hat solutions.

Open source continues to be an innovation engine for Asia Pacific enterprises by helping them modernize infrastructures, develop applications, and transform digitally. According to Red Hats recent State of Enterprise Open Source report, 92 percent of the regions IT leaders are using enterprise open source today, above the global average of 90 percent.

This year, the Red Hat APAC Innovation Awards recognized the technological achievements of 24 organizations in the region for their creative thinking, determined problem solving and innovative use of Red Hat solutions.

The winners were selected based on the impact of their Red Hat deployments to support business goals and company culture, industry, communities, as well as the uniqueness of vision for the project. They displayed how open source tools and culture have helped them to improve productivity, agility and cost savings while empowering them to address future challenges and emerging trends more confidently and effectively.

Winners were recognized in five categories: digital transformation, hybrid cloud infrastructure, cloud-native development, automation and resilience.

Category: AutomationWinner: AIA Group

Headquartered in Hong Kong, AIA Group is the largest independent publicly listed pan-Asian life insurance group. With a presence in 18 markets across Asia, it serves the holders of more than 39 million individual policies and over 16 million participating members of group insurance schemes in the region.

AIA is on a journey of digital transformation. The company is upgrading its technology to world-class modern architecture and systems and making targeted investments in digital enablement tools. It is also embedding data analytics into its business. Altogether, the transformation is enabling AIA to significantly enhance the experience of its customers, distributors, partners and employees. Using Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform, AIA has automated its infrastructure deployment and configuration processes and has seen a significant improvement.

Category: AutomationWinner: The Hong Kong Jockey Club (HKJC)

Founded in 1884, The Hong Kong Jockey Club is a world-class racing club that has a unique integrated business model comprising racing and racecourse entertainment, a membership club, responsible sports wagering and lottery, and charities and community contribution.

Through this model, HKJC generates economic and social value for the community and supports the government in combating illegal gambling. HKJC is Hong Kongs largest single taxpayer and one of the citys major employers. Its Charities Trust is also one of the worlds top ten charity donors.

The Hong Kong Jockey Club wished to remediate legacy issues to enhance efficiencies, as well as save time and costs on repetitive tasks, in order to focus on providing the best possible customer service.

With Red Hat Consulting and Red Hat Training, HKJC documented and categorized almost 300 workflows, allowing them to identify areas where efficiencies can be improved. HKJC then deployed Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform to automate its workflows, freeing up valuable time for employees to focus on higher-value tasks such as customer service.

Its new, standardized environment has helped HKJC streamline processes and better allocate manpower to ensure all workflows are kept up to date. With more time to focus on innovation and customers, the business was able to increase customer satisfaction. Furthermore, new employees are now able to adapt to and follow proper workflows to maintain efficiency.

Provisioning of virtual environments now takes less than three days as compared to more than two weeks. The automation of routine work allowed developers to spend more time on development and less time on deployment.

HKJC also took the opportunity to promote its open culture within the organization. Teams involved in the project now have a better understanding of different workflows across departments, which will facilitate communication and collaboration and ultimately catalyze innovation and build business resilience.

The Automation category highlights projects that most successfully automated processes, workflows, tasks and IT operations to rapidly implement innovative and disruptive technologies and practices.

Supporting Quotes

Marjet Andriesse, vice president and general manager, APAC, Red Hat2021 continues to be a year of uncertainty but Asia Pacific organizations are using open source rapidly and effectively to create more business possibilities with digital transformation. They are leveraging technologies like hybrid cloud, data analytics, and edge computing to meet changing market landscapes and enhance customer experiences. Congratulations to this years winners, and we hope that Red Hats open source solutions will continue to help address the many real challenges our customers face today, and unlock the future for business in Asia Pacific.

Marcel Malan, head of Group IT Operations, AIA GroupTechnology is core to AIAs strategic ambitions to provide a leading customer experience, build unrivalled distribution and deliver compelling propositions to our customers, agents and business partners. Leveraging the use of Cloud and automation solutions, we are making a step change in building our technology, digital and analytics capabilities to drive agility across our operations and meet our customers evolving needs.

Neil Whiteing, director, IT Operations, Systems Assurance & Shenzhen Technology Center, Hong Kong Jockey ClubAs a world-class racing club, efficiency and enterprise-wide collaboration are necessary to move forward in our digital transformation journey to better serve our community. Working with Red Hat has allowed us to identify and rectify pain points and areas for improvement in our processes, while also improving interdepartmental communication, enabling us to focus on innovation and customer service.

Additional Resources

Connect with Red Hat

About Red Hat, Inc.

Red Hat is the worlds leading provider of enterprise open source software solutions, using a community-powered approach to deliver reliable and high-performing Linux, hybrid cloud, container, and Kubernetes technologies. Red Hat helps customers integrate new and existing IT applications, develop cloud-native applications, standardize on our industry-leading operating system, and automate, secure, and manage complex environments. Award-winning support, training, and consulting services make Red Hat a trusted adviser to the Fortune 500. As a strategic partner to cloud providers, system integrators, application vendors, customers, and open source communities, Red Hat can help organizations prepare for the digital future.

Forward-Looking Statements

Except for the historical information and discussions contained herein, statements contained in this press release may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements are based on the companys current assumptions regarding future business and financial performance. These statements involve a number of risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially. Any forward-looking statement in this press release speaks only as of the date on which it is made. Except as required by law, the company assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements.

###

Red Hat, the Red Hat logo, and Ansible are trademarks or registered trademarks of Red Hat, Inc. or its subsidiaries in the U.S. and other countries. Linux is the registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in the U.S. and other countries.

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AIA Group and The Hong Kong Jockey Club Announced as Winners of the Red Hat APAC Innovation Awards 2021 for Hong Kong - Business Wire

Artificial intelligence: Everyone wants it, but not everyone is ready – ZDNet

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Artificial intelligence technologies have reached impressive levels of adoption, and are seen as a competitive differentiator. But there comes a point when technology becomes so ubiquitous that it is no longer a competitive differentiator -- think of the cloud. Going forward, those organizations succeeding with AI, then, will be those that apply human innovation and business sense to their AI foundations.

Such is the challenge identified in astudy released by RELX, which finds the use of AI technologies, at least in the United States, has reached 81% of enterprises, up 33 percentage points from 48% since a previous RELX survey in 2018. They're also bullish on AI delivering the goods -- 93% report that AI makes their business more competitive. This ubiquity may be the reason 95% are also reporting that finding the skills to build out their AI systems is a challenge. Plus, these systems could be potentially flawed: 75% worry that AI systems may potentially introduce the risk of bias in the workplace, and 65% admit their systems are biased.

So there's still much work to be done. It comes down to the people that can make AI happen, and make it as fair and accurate as possible.

"While many AI and machine learning deployments fail, in most cases, it's less of a problem with the actual technology and more about the environment around it," says Harish Doddi, CEO of Datatron. Moving to AI "requires the right skills, resources,andsystems."

It takes a well-developed understanding of AI and ML to deliver visible benefits to the business. While AI and ML have been around for many years, "we are still barely scratching the surface of uncovering their true capabilities," says Usman Shuja, general manager of connected buildings for Honeywell. "That said, there are many valuable lessons to be gleaned from others' missteps. While it's arguably true that AI can add significant value to practically any department across any business, one of the biggest mistakes a business can make is to implement AI for the sake of implementing AI, without a clear understanding of the business value they hope to achieve."

In addition, AI requires adroit change management, Shuja continues. "You can install the most cutting-edge AI solutions available, but if your employees can't or won't change their behaviors to adapt to a new way of doing things, you will see no value."

Another challenge is bias, as expressed by many executives in the RELX survey. "Algorithms can easily become biased based on the people who write them and the data they are providing, and bias can happen more with ML as it can be built in the base code," says Shuja. "While large amounts of data can ensure accuracy, it's virtually impossible to have enough data to mimic real-world use cases."

For example, he illustrates, "if I was looking into recruiting collegiate athletes for my professional lacrosse team, and I discovered that most of the players I am hearing about are Texas Longhorns, that might lead me to conclude that the best lacrosse players attend the University of Texas. However, this could just be because the algorithm has received too much data from one university, thus creating a bias."

The way the data is set up and who sets it up "can inadvertently sneak bias into the algorithms," Shuja says. "Companies that are not yet thinking through these implications need to put this to the forefront of their AI and ML technology efforts to build integrity into their solutions."

Another issue is that AI and ML models simply become outdated too soon, as many companies found out, and continue to find out as a result of Covid and supply chain issues. "Having good documentation that shows the model lifecyclehelps, butit'sstill insufficient when models become unreliable," says Doddi, "AI model governance helps bring accountability and traceability to machine learning models by having practitioners ask questions such as 'What were the previous versions like?' and 'What input variables are coming into the model?''" Governance is key. During development,Doddi explains, "MLmodels are bound by certain assumptions, rules, and expectations. Once deployed into production, the results can differ significantly from results in development environments.This is where governance is critical once a model is operationalized.There needs to be a way to keep track of various models and versions."

In some cases with AI, "less is more," says Shuja. "AI tends to be most successful when it is paired with mature, well-formatted data. This is mostly within the realm of IT/enterprise data, such as CRM, ERP, and marketing. However, when we move into areas where the data is less cohesive, such as with operational technology data, this is where achieving AI success becomes a bit more challenging. There is a tremendous need for scalable AI within an industrial environment, for example using AI to reduce energy consumption in a building or industrial plant -- an area of great potential for AI. One day soon, entire businesses -- from the factory floor to the board room -- will be connected; constantly learning and improving from the data it is processing. This will be the next major milestone for AI in the enterprise."

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Artificial intelligence: Everyone wants it, but not everyone is ready - ZDNet


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