Andrew Orr

The New York Times writes how internet trolls have won, and there’s not much we can do about it.

Case in point: the right-wing conspiracy site Infowars. For years, the site distributed false information that inspired internet trolls to harass people who were close to victims of the Sandy Hook school shooting. This week, after much hemming and hawing about whether to get involved, some giant tech firms banned content from Infowars. (Twitter did not, after determining Infowars had not violated its policies.)

What does that show us? That you as an internet user have little power over content you find offensive or harmful online. It’s the tech companies that hold the cards.

Maybe social networks should have decency laws like broadcasts radio and television do. That will only stop the most vitriolic of trolls, but at least people will be able to visit sites like Twitter without getting a flood of harassing DMs.

Bloomberg recently came out with a piece about Apple, asking if the company is really the privacy hero we think it is. Short answer: yes, but here’s a quote:

When developers get our information, and that of the acquaintances in our contacts list, it’s theirs to use and move around unseen by Apple. It can be sold to data brokers, shared with political campaigns, or posted on the internet. The new rule forbids that, but Apple does nothing to make it technically difficult for developers to harvest the information.

As we discussed on today’s TDO, my problem is that Ms. Frier tries and fails to compare this to the Cambridge-Analytica scandal. App permissions and developers with data access are entirely different to what Facebook and C/A did. Apple could improve the system to be sure, but there’s only so much companies can do before we realize that we need to be more proactive about these issues ourselves, not reactive.

Ken Kocienda worked at Apple from 2001 to 2016. He wrote a book called Creative Selection that talks about Apple’s design process and more from an insider’s perspective, including the iPhone keyboard.

Scott didn’t clue me in on the politics in play between him and Phil or why he had scheduled the demo. I imagined that Scott was eager to show off the results of the keyboard derby, which must have been a topic for discussion up at the executive level. In any case, my job was to prepare my demo so it worked as it did for the demo derby, so that’s what I did.

You can preorder the book, called Creative Selection, on Apple Books for US$14.99.

Plant biology is an interest of mine, and recent scientific research suggests that plants could have a basic form of intelligence, with memory and learning capabilities. Monica Gagliano talked with Forbes about her research on plant intelligence:

If Gagliano’s interpretation of the data is correct, the scientific community may have to reckon with intelligent organisms independent of the traditional brain and nervous system model. If her interpretation of the data is correct, we may be in the early stages of waking up to a world long-populated by considerably more intelligent, sentient beings than previously acknowledged. It would be a major paradigm shift.

Ms. Gagliano has a book coming out later this year, called Thus Spoke the Plant.

An ethical guide was recently created by think tank Institute of the Future and the Tech and Society Solutions Lab. The guide—called Ethical OS—aims to serve as a bridge between researchers who study tech’s societal impact, and the companies that impact society.

The first section outlines 14 near-future scenarios, based on contemporary anxieties in the tech world that could threaten companies in the future. What happens, for example, if a company like Facebook purchases a major bank and becomes a social credit provider? What happens if facial-recognition technology becomes a mainstream tool, spawning a new category of apps that integrates the tech into activities like dating and shopping? Teams are encouraged to talk through each scenario, connect them back to the platforms or products they’re developing, and discuss strategies to prepare for these possible futures.

In my opinion, it should be a requirement for business majors to take ethical classes, if they already don’t. Starting a company in a garage with no knowledge of societal quandaries doesn’t cut it anymore.