She said Wynn-Williams’ allegations about Kaplan are false, and in a Thursday statement, she called the book “defamatory” and alleged that Wynn-Williams had skipped “the industry’s standard fact-checking process.
(emph, mine)
This, coming from a Meta spokesperson, is rather rich.
I’m curious what would be considered the industry standard for fact checking in tech. Does Google Search, Apple App Store, TikTok, Snapchat, Amazon store, etc. apply fact-checking to the content posted by users/sellers?
Or more abstractly, is fact-checking the responsibility of authors and content editors, or of platforms and infrastructure that spread the content?
A Youtuber I follow got in an argument a couple of days ago with someone who kept claiming the expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians in 1948 was primarily voluntary (not by force or a response to threats to their safety). The Youtuber kept asking him for sources (providing his own to the contrary), and the contrarian kept, I shit you not, asking Grok and then citing Grok as his source.
I mean if you're publishing a book, especially a tell-all one, you'd go and talk to sources familiar with the matter who can independently verify whether the statements are true or not to shield you against defamation lawsuits.
Publishing anything dodgy about the biggest tech executives on the planet without that would lead your company getting nuked from orbit
> skipped “the industry’s standard fact-checking process."
And the industry in question has compromised its host culture. What is Truth now?
This billionaire corporate sociopath suggested "Facebook remake the news ecosystem with the company at its center."
How is the corporate propaganda business working out socially and politically? I see the stock valuations — perhaps they are a measure of what has been lost in stability and community.
> "I’ve seen him face so many choices and lose touch with whatever fundamental human decency"
Including the rush to dismantle fact-checking in his corporation's product, which has become THE news source for millions of citizens.
> Yep, but as opposed to a startup those "mistakes" will be deadly.
Well, these mistakes are also deadly if it’s a move fast and break things startup in medtech. And these mistakes are deadly in healthcare.
I am calling this out because I see this complete myopia of abstracting people’s lives as OK to ever lose on purpose.
Statements like “no one thinks that!!!” “Most people are XYZ!!!” are thrown around because computer scientists start being computer scientists - we try to solve problems the way we do at work. Big O notation is not an acceptable way to manage other people’s lives.
In computer science, 100,000 people in the global population converge to zero. If you are counting DAU… OK.
If you are estimating the number of people you might accidentally kill… not OK.
If you are trying to reduce corruption and you don’t actually know if you will kill people or not, and you do it anyway… I don’t see how anyone can consider that ethical.
> The general slowness extends to simple things like x-rays and blood tests too. This is not just US but whole of the west seems to have the exact same attitude.
In Switzerland I get an MRI within 48 hours if my doctor orders it.
Mind you, healthcare is also very expensive comparatively but the quality is very high and coverage is extensive.
Condition is if "your doctor orders it" and how long does it take to get to that doctor if it isn't an emergency. I don't about Switzerland but it is quite bad in majority of EU countries.
And Why can't you just walk in to a clinic to get x-rays and tests done like it is in done elsewhere. Have clinics compete for price.
The other part no one mentions is the utter cheating that goes on in statistics to show that the health care system is doing good. Things like counting the patients who were admitted but not counting the rest 90% who died just waiting for months.
> And Why can't you just walk in to a clinic to get x-rays and tests done like it is in done elsewhere. Have clinics compete for price.
Because false negatives are a massive problem. People get biopsies or treatments for things that never needed it, which is ultimately worse for their health (on average) than catching the rare time it is something.
There is no stats to what you are speaking. General People not being able to get to doctor in months is a bigger problem than a rare false negative.
This also reduces burden on doctors. If the only thing your doctor does is prescribe antibiotics and orders scans. Why not do it yourself and get treated early.
> And Why can't you just walk in to a clinic to get x-rays and tests done like it is in done elsewhere. Have clinics compete for price.
I hope you are aware that these also exist in many EU countries, private clinics aren't banned because of public healthcare, you can purchase private health insurance in many countries, I can't say all because I don't know the intricacies of every country's system since this is a national policy and each member-state is free to run their own systems.
Here in Sweden I have private health insurance through my employer, I cannot go directly to a clinic for imaging, etc. since it needs a referral from a doctor but it's quite simple and when I needed I had many choices of private clinics to do a MRI. If you don't have insurance you can definitely pay out of your own pocket, both for a private doctor as for exams.
I feel the seiss system really nails it. Health insurance is mandatory. If you can't afford even the basic level, the government pays for it. The basic level itself covers basically everything from emergency care, hospital stays and gp. The extras you can pay for are things like single rooms in hospitals or access to private clinics. Compared to the local salaries, the basic package is quite cheap - doubly so compared to the UK where National Insurance extracts a very hefty portion of your paycheck and this gets you the dire waiting times of nhs...
Maybe because the Swiss didn't let the magical hand of privatization solve it? The healthcare providers might be private but the laws and regulations and conditions under which they are run are very strict and very detailed. Perfect? Of course not, I could give examples heaps. But better that many? Very yes.
Now, is there here anybody from Spain to comment on their system? I've heard good stuff about it.
National insurance contributions have nothing to do with the NHS.
NI contributions determine your state pension (but because the money from NI just goes to treasury, NI is really just income tax with different name)
How much does it really help you if your complete user-space can still be messed up by an offending Windows SYSTEM process? As I understand it, they are able to hurt the system e.g. by killing processes, uninstalling applications, replacing binaries, allocating memory, starting too many processes, ..
Actually I could easily see a buggy remote system management update could just decide to uninstall everything and nuke the system, because it thinks it's stolen. And it would be designed functionality for it.
> Where is a service where I can just enter from/to which city/airport I want to fly (or in Europe also rail)
Try momondo.com. You can add # of luggage (checked in & cabin) and play with some other parameters. They won't, or very rarely will, show train connections. They sometimes show bus connections, though.
For train travel I find trainline.com quite good. It gives you an overview over what's available an with which carriers. They are UK focused but offer tickets throughout Europe.
The Man in Seat 61 is (https://www.seat61.com/) is an invaluable resource to inform yourself about train travel. Mostly focused on Europe but covering the world.
Hope this helps.
Edited to add : I use Momondo as an information resource about available carriers and pricing for specific routes. I would never book via an OTA, but strcitly with the airline executing the flight. No matter if it's a few franks more.
If there's any problem with your flight you're up shit creek if you have to deal via a third party.
>If there's any problem with your flight you're up shit creek if you have to deal via a third party.
I have learned that the hard way. My flight was cancelled and I don't get any notification.
There is a real communication issue between OTAs and airlines.
After a week of poking the customer service, I got a refund from Opodo, fortunately.
On the flip side if something goes wrong you get to discover what $RANDOM_VENDOR in $RANDOM_COUNTRY thinks is a reasonable policy for handling it, which is not usually a big risk for domestic USA travel, but for international travel can be a true wrench in the spokes.
Maybe but if $RANDOM_VENDOR isn't willing/able to help, I don't really expect Expedia to. That said, I do use an agent to arrange self-guided walking trips and things like that and they seem to be a useful resource rather than planning and booking the whole thing myself, in part, because a lot of local knowledge can be involved. But that's different from booking 5 nights in some European city.
I had a couple of times when car rentals and hotels decided to add surprise charges when I arrived. As those was booked through Expedia, the latter refunded me those immediately (and I suspect went and got them back from the vendor later)
(emph, mine)
This, coming from a Meta spokesperson, is rather rich.