There’s zero chance that wouldn’t go exactly the same under the Biden administration. If/when this new government decides to start persecuting their LGBT community I would bet the Trump administration would cheer them on where a Biden administration would tell them to stop, but Israel gets a blank check to commit atrocities from both of them.

Well, this thread was entertaining until I read this comment

Not mad though, this is what people should be talking about

Asking (paraphrasing) “hey what are you wrong about but unwilling to admit?” and then sticking a (metaphorical) “I think Nickleback is a pretty good band” opinion in the middle of it feels like a harder challenge than the designers of AskLemmy were intending

Do you think the department of education writes the textbooks, standardized tests (SAT, ACT, etc.), grading and student management software, learning management systems (Google Classroom, Canvas), or manufactures its own classroom tech (Chromebooks, tablets)?

Each one of those has a bunch of particular nuances, but in general - yeah, I think they could and should in a lot of those cases

The education system is full of for-profit businesses that can jack up the prices, and they do.

Yeah, it’s a big problem with a lot of little parts to be tackled

The DOE simply doesn’t have the resources to create these things themselves

Then government should give them the resources (actually, I think a whole separate agency that develops open source software for any government agency or anyone else who wants to use them should be established, but that’s kind of besides the point).

and would cost them far more if they tried

I don’t think that’s true, and even if it were I think we should be willing to pay premium to make sure essential systems that support the public good are being administered in democratic ways (e.g. by public agencies that are required to give public reports to elected lawmakers and be subject to citizens’ FOIA requests).

the business model has existed forever

A lot of stupid ideas hang on for a really long time. Like, we still have monarchies in the 21st century world.

Personally, I’m more concerned with the use of Google products in schools. A company that’s sole business is harvesting user data and selling it to advertisers should have no place in schools or children’s products. But they’ve embedded themselves into everything so people just accept it at the cost of privacy

I 100% agree this is a significant problem too, I just haven’t come across any good articles about it recently

Exactly, they’re a captive audience, and moreover they are legally incompetent to consent to a contracted business relationship like this

If this was a department of education AI or even some kind of transparently administered non-profit organization I’d be fine with this, but the fact that this is being developed for some for profit company that can just jack their rates and cut off public schools whenever they want to is bullshit. Like, I’m not opposed to the technology of LLMs at all, I think they’re actually pretty neat, but our social and economic systems have a lot of exploitative trash in them that cool technologies can inadvertently exacerbate.

An American security contractor and a Chinese embassy employee are at a bar. The American says, “I gotta say, your propaganda is impressive. You sure know how to keep your people in line.”

“Oh, you’re too gracious,” the embassy worker says. “And besides, it’s nothing compared to American propaganda.”

The contractor chokes on his drink and gives his friend a bewildered look.

“What are you talking about? There’s no propaganda in America.”

MARTIN: It’s interesting, 'cause I covered the White House in the administration of George H. W. Bush, and I knew about it. But then when I’ve talked to colleagues about it, they didn’t know about it, and people are continually surprised.

Maybe because news publishers like NPR and CNN never put that detail in the headlines of their stories that brush up against this open secret

If the Wikipedia page on expungement is accurate there is some sort of process where it will get sealed from public view after a certain amount of time has passed.

I do agree if this is a one off thing it shouldn’t haunt the rest of her life, especially given the fact that we’re talking about a thirteen year old who was a victim of (at best) extremely negligent caregiving.

Conservatives when a criminal justice system is punishing someone they don’t like: “Blood for the blood god!”

Conservatives when someone’s held accountable for a hate crime: “What has happened to our humanity?!”

Disagree, people spend money with the intention of influencing the outcome of elections all the time, that’s all campaign ads and canvasses and phone banks and etc. are

And they’re not paying people to vote - they’re paying people to make a plan to vote (and make an apology and send a tweet, but I think those are irrelevant), which is something that campaign volunteers talk about with potential voters all the time

Ah you are totally right and thank you for the correction, I got taught at a young age by a very nice but very overworked public school music teacher that there were just eight notes and not to worry about anything more complicated than that and my brain always really wants to default back to that

I don’t know for sure, but the Jaws theme is definitely a half-step interval, so the spacing of the keys in the meme is right at least

Random trivia I learned from a music theory YouTuber, the bass line to Rage Against the Machine’s Killing in the Name kind of does the same thing, except instead of going back and forth a single half step it does nine thirteen (aka, an eight note octave plus one note half-step)

e; You’d think I’d remember that there are twelve tones in an octave given the name of that music theory channel

FWIW, the article author also wrote a book called “Freedom from Want: The Human Right to Adequate Food”

Campaigners say further physical and mental harm could be inflicted under Labour home secretary Yvette Cooper’s plan to increase deportations to 2018 levels – with a goal to remove thousands of migrants and refused asylum seekers by the end of the year.

I hate how many people seem to be fighting for this title

NATOpedia

About that source,

The Grayzone has downplayed or denied the Chinese government’s human rights abuses against Uyghurs, published conspiracy theories about Xinjiang, Syria, and other regions, and published disinformation about Ukraine during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which some have described as pro-Russian propaganda. Grayzone staff Blumenthal and Aaron Maté acted as briefers on behalf of the Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the United Nations at UN meetings organized by Russia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grayzone?wprov=sfla1

First off, you should really source what you’re talking about, secondly it does seem to be entirely irrelevant to this story, but third, unlike the information DOD contractors were spreading in this story, that does appear to be a more or less accurate summary of what happened there.

I did link the article, it’s the top level link of this whole post. Might be an app or instance issue keeping some people from seeing it I guess, so I’ll add it to the body of this post when I get a chance.

Second,

and then he publicly banned the practice

[Italicization added]

That’s incorrect, the public did not know about this program until Reuters reported on it here (which is why this is news). His administration privately told them to stop this specific campaign, but

After Reuters asked X about the accounts, the social media company removed the profiles, determining they were part of a coordinated bot campaign based on activity patterns and internal data.

and

Nevertheless, the Pentagon’s clandestine propaganda efforts are set to continue. In an unclassified strategy document last year, top Pentagon generals wrote that the U.S. military could undermine adversaries such as China and Russia using “disinformation spread across social media, false narratives disguised as news, and similar subversive activities [to] weaken societal trust by undermining the foundations of government.”

And in February, the contractor that worked on the anti-vax campaign – General Dynamics IT – won a $493 million contract. Its mission: to continue providing clandestine influence services for the military.

So, the accounts were still active and the posts were still visible until Reuters got involved, and the people who greenlit what should have been an obviously bad idea (anti-vaccine propaganda efforts) are continuing to work for our government.

Stopping anti-vaccine propaganda efforts was a good thing, but it was the absolute least Biden could do and wholly insufficient. These posts/accounts should have been publicly disowned and discredited, and the people responsible for them should have been prohibited from doing any further work for the US. Not doing so is a massive blow to our international credibility, which is like the last fucking thing democracy needs right now.

e; part of what I originally wrote seemed pretty irrelevant on second thought, so I deleted it to make it a bit less of a wall of text, but originally in between “Second,” and “>and then he etc.” was

the Biden Admin was made aware of this not long after he entered office

That’s not totally clear (party nominees start getting briefed on some classified things before the election to get them up to speed), but does seem to be the case given what we know now.

[Indent added for clarity]

Looks like mądry Polak po szkodzie isn’t always the case

Doesn’t matter, just wash you hands when you’re done

Gerrymandered Congress, no campaign finance laws, bought and paid for judiciary - Allow us to introduce ourselves