US Politics Mega-thread - Page 9950

On February 22 2018 04:11 micronesia wrote:
Let me see if I understand this correctly. {CC}StealthBlue reports that MSNBC reports that NBC reports that two anonymous sources report that the 'senior member' of the transition team referred to in the Flynn plea deal was Jared Kushner. Am I correct?

On February 22 2018 05:46 TheTenthDoc wrote:
I think it's also a story that dates back to the Manafort indict rather than anything new-I'm not sure why it's come back up now besides the Kushner/Kelly clearance feud that's been cropping up across a couple sources.

The main difficulty with assessing a lot of these leaks is that so many are clearly people in the White House vying for power and turn Trump's attention certain ways.

If the Trump administration starts a trade war, Kentucky bourbon may get caught in the crossfire.

The administration is weighing strict new limits on imported steel and aluminum in hopes of shoring up homegrown metal industries. But European allies are warning of possible retaliation, including tariffs aimed at politically sensitive products such as bourbon and orange juice.

"That's what a lot of countries will look to do," said Rufus Yerxa, president of the National Foreign Trade Council. "Something that will get the Trump administration's attention."

With overseas sales of around $1 billion a year, bourbon is just a drop in the barrel of overall U.S. exports. But it's big business in Kentucky, home of Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Likewise, cheese from House Speaker Paul Ryan's home state of Wisconsin could be on the cutting board if America's trading partners fight back with import restrictions of their own. Orange juice from the swing state of Florida could also feel the squeeze.

"One of the things this whole era of increasing trade friction has shown us is our trading partners are learning a lot more about our Electoral College," Yerxa said.

Trading partners are trying to discourage the administration from invoking a seldom-used statute to protect domestic industries deemed vital to national security.

The Commerce Department has recommended tariffs of at least 24 percent on imported steel or a quota that would reduce steel imports by more than a third. The department has called for similar, but more modest, restrictions on aluminum imports.

The measures are intended to combat overproduction in China. But since Chinese products are already subject to U.S. import restrictions, the effects are likely to be felt more powerfully elsewhere.

Other lawmakers warned that adding tariffs or quotas would drive up prices for businesses that use steel and aluminum, and ultimately for American consumers.

"Even though there may be some job winners from an action like this," said Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, "you would end up with net job losses in the United States."

But Trump, who campaigned on a protectionist platform, seemed inclined to go along with the Commerce Department's recommendations.

"We cannot be without a steel industry," the president said. "We cannot be without an aluminum industry."

Trump has until April to decide how to proceed.

On February 22 2018 07:17 hunts wrote:
Lol oh man that's beautiful, if our orange snowflake in chief decides to start a trade war go after the products of McConnell and Ryan's states, and Florida which can be said to have won him the election with its swarm of Florida men. Also the puns made me both cringe and smile a bit.

On February 22 2018 08:05 Kyadytim wrote:
Another product I saw mention of being hit by Europe was Harley Davidson motorcycles, which I guess are manufactured in Wisconsin (and also Missouri and Pennsylvania).

I do enjoy the idea of Europe effectively applying sanctions to US conservatives by targeting specific states.

YouTube is promoting conspiracy theory videos claiming that survivors of last week’s Florida school shooting are “crisis actors”, in the latest example of technology companies failing to tackle disinformation.

Many of the top results for searches for David Hogg, a student survivor of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school, are videos from alternative news channels suggesting he was an actor hired by gun control advocates to push an anti-gun agenda.

One such clip briefly became YouTube’s No 1 trending video on Wednesday. YouTube later removed the video for violating its policy on harassment and bullying, as the platform doesn’t have a specific policy for misinformation.

“I am not a crisis actor,” Hogg told CNN’s Anderson Cooper. “I’m someone who had to witness this and live through this and I continue to be having to do that.”

Hogg is one of many students from the school to make it clear that “thoughts and prayers” alone won’t cut it in the aftermath of such a tragedy. He and others, including the 18-year-old Emma Gonzales, who made a widely shared speech attacking the president directly, have used their own social media channels and interviews with traditional media outlets to call for gun control.

Rightwing and alternative news sites including Gateway Pundit and Infowars have responded by attacking the students, with some using the fact that Hogg’s father works for the FBI to speculate that he could be part of a broader anti-Trump conspiracy. The attacks on the Florida schoolchildren have been amplified on social media, with Russian troll networks hijacking hashtags and feeding divisiveness over the gun control debate.

While conspiracy theories about mass shootings are nothing new in America, some fear that the algorithms that govern our information ecosystem can be gamed in a way that exacerbates the problem. As these conspiracy theory videos and articles rack up clicks, they bubble to the top of search rankings, drowning out more reputable media outlets.

In the days after the Florida shooting, it appeared that YouTube was having some success in keeping conspiracy theories out of its top results on some of the more generic search terms such as “Florida shooting” and “Parkland school”. However, results for names like David Hogg highlight the enormous challenge the platform faces.

“If we think about a taxonomy of content that’s adjudicated on social media –copyrighted material, sexually explicit content, hate speech all the way to misinformation – I would say that misinformation is the most difficult for platforms to contend with,” said Sarah T Roberts, a UCLA professor who studies large-scale moderation of online platforms.

YouTube’s challenge is potentially greater because of the way that it allows creators to generate a cut of advertising revenue from popular videos. “It’s pretty much a neon sign saying ‘upload here’ to anyone with a fringe conspiracy mindset,” said Roberts. “To what extent does the platform profit off that?”

A YouTube spokeswoman told the Guardian that it started rolling out changes to better surface authoritative news sources in search results, particularly around breaking news events.

“We’ve seen improvements, but in some circumstances these changes are not working quickly enough,” she said, adding that the company had also updated its harassment policy to include hoax videos that target the victims of tragedies.

If platforms such as YouTube don’t take this challenge seriously, users will stop trusting them and start to drift away, said Joan Donovan, of the group Data & Society, who recently co-authored a report about content moderation after “fake news”.

“These kind of conspiracy theories are easily mapped. You can see the same people sharing #pizzagate are sharing the crisis actor conspiracy theory. There are things that can be done,” Donovan added.

The problem is not a new one for Google’s video platform. After the Las Vegas shooting that killed 58 people and injured hundreds more, videos claiming the attack was a “hoax” and a “false flag” spread rapidly on YouTube, earning millions of views.

Following criticism from survivors and victims’ relatives over the prominence of hoax claims, YouTube tweaked its search algorithms in an effort to better promote reputable sources.

However, when a gunman killed 26 people at a small-town Texas church the following month, it was clear that the changes had not been effective. Search results on both Google and YouTube amplified the false news that Devin Kelley, the man accused of the massacre, was linked to anti-fascist and leftwing movements. At the time a YouTube spokesperson admitted the site had problems and said: “There is still more work to do, but we’re making progress.”

YouTube users upload more than 400 hours of video content to the site each hour, and content is typically only removed for violation of its policies after being flagged by a user or caught by an artificial intelligence system at the point of upload. Once flagged, content is reviewed by human moderators.

In December, Google announced it was hiring thousands of new moderators after facing widespread criticism for allowing child abuse videos and other offensive content to flourish on YouTube.

On February 22 2018 07:19 Leporello wrote:
It's CPAC day! Time to expose ourselves to the best and brightest in conservative discourse! Headlined by both the President and Vice-President.

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/02/21/cpac-florida-shooting-jim-hoft-gateway-pundit-panel-speaker-420360
Except this guy, banned at the last moment for mocking innocent traumatized kids.

https://www.mediaite.com/online/cpac-says-dinesh-dsouza-not-going-to-speak-this-year-condemns-indefensible-remarks/
Oops, we have a pattern. That's a problem.

https://twitter.com/SheriffClarke/status/965962123535966208
Well, fuck it, we're done banning people, I guess, because this guy hasn't lost his invite. Mocking traumatized children: the new common-denominator of today's GOP.

Don't get me wrong. People absolutely have the right to disagree with what the kids are saying. But calling them "fake", like they chose to be in that school and watch their friends die, makes you so fucking filthy I wouldn't let you pet my neighbor's dog.