1. Good Monday Morning

It’s Oct. 25th. Halloween is Sunday. The American Academy of Pediatrics has a guide to Halloween & COVID-19. Parents will want to also have a look at their general Halloween Guide. Both offer great advice although neither comments about sneaking that full-size Snickers out of your kid’s bag.

Today’s Spotlight is 1,442 words — about a 5 minute read.

2. News To Know Now

Quoted:”We need to steel ourselves for more bad headlines in the coming days, I’m afraid.” — Nick Clegg, Facebook VP of Global Affairs (and former UK Deputy Prime Minister) quoted exclusively by Axios yesterday. 

a) A reporter erroneously branded as a “hacker” by Missouri Gov. Mike Parson and at least one of his sources do not yet have resolution on a state investigation of their activity and continue to face personal legal costs.

St. Louis Post Dispatch writer Josh Renaud and a University of Missouri professor who was one of his sources are being investigated at Parson’s direction. Renaud’s story disclosed that anyone viewing the public source code on state pages could see the social security numbers of school personnel. The command is available to any person using a web browser.

The newspaper notified the state and gave them time to correct the error before publishing the information. Parson’s reelection campaign ran an attack ad about the incident four days ago, days after the governor publicly ordered the investigation of the two men. (KCUR)

b) Also on Thursday, the Federal Trade Commission released a public report criticizing consumer privacy practices of internet service providers AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, and others. The report (PDF) says that the companies are “at least as intrusive” as advertising platforms, group consumers into sensitive economic, religious, and sexual orientation categories, collect unnecessary customer data, and share real-time location data with third parties. FTC Chairwoman Lina Khan called the breadth and granularity of the data collection “staggering.”


c) Reddit advertising revenues are expected to jump this year from $161 million to $305 million and reach $522 million in 2023, according to projections by eMarketer. The 16-year-old social news company with 40 million monthly average users is valued at $10 billion. Those are big numbers for a company that the public often overlooks.

3. Search Engine News — Image Search Ranking Changed & WordPress Takes On SEO

Responding to a growing chorus of voices demanding that companies accept responsibility for algorithm choices, Google recently changed its image search results to be more racially diverse, reports Bloomberg. Organizations have criticized Google’s image search algorithms since at least 2016. Critics point out that phrases related to skin, hairstyles, and even families and professionals do not accurately portray diverse races.

We’ve also learned that WordPress is planning to take on more responsibility to cope with Google’s new Core Vital Statistics ranking. A blunt internal proposal was reported by Search Engine Journal and acknowledged that the company was falling behind other platforms in reaching speed metrics that Google requires. About one-third of the world’s websites use WordPress. The company also has a 60% marketshare in sites using a content management system, far ahead of competitors like Drupal, Joomla, and Wix.

4. Spotlight Explainer — The Facebook Papers

The what? Didn’t we just do this with the former employee’s testimony to Congress?

Sort of. You’re thinking about The Facebook Files. That was the name of a series that The Wall Street Journal published earlier this month thanks to documents given to them by whistleblower Frances Haugen after she filed an SEC complaint about the company.

These are The Facebook Papers — a much bigger set of documents that were being investigated by a collaborative group of several dozen media companies. They were related to Haugen’s initial disclosure. Oh, and there’s also a second whistleblower now.

So what’s the scoop this time?

We don’t have all the details yet. Today was to be the day that the consortium members published their pieces at the same time. Instead, there was an argument or misunderstanding among the members on Friday night, and The New York Times led with its first piece. Others have followed, but only covering what the Times already disclosed. And then Axios quoted Facebook exec Nick Clegg, who warned Facebook employees this weekend that more exposes were coming.

So what do we know as of late Sunday?

We know that Facebook’s algorithms recommended conspiracy and misinformation groups to its own researchers, including pages about QAnon, when that group’s beliefs were allowed on the site. 

We also learned that a Facebook researcher reported on November 9 that up to 10 percent of all US political comment views alleged there had been election fraud and that there was “also a fringe of incitement to violence.”

Misinformation and toxic content reaches far beyond the U.S. Specifically cited and new to this reporting is polarizing speech among Facebook’s 340 million users in India and corroboration of missteps in Myanmar.

One anecdote from The Facebook Papers sure to get more attention was the company’s decision to exempt Breitbart News from Facebook rules about false news reports. When questioned by an employee, Facebook executive Joel Kaplan reportedly responded, “Do you want to start a fight with Steve Bannon?”

Do you want to say something about the law of big numbers?

Yep. We humans don’t know how to tackle these issues. We don’t have another organization on our planet that is used by so many people. Consider those 340 million Facebook users among India’s 1.3 billion people. If Facebook reacted appropriately to 99.9% of content others posted on its site, that means that 340,000 people there would still be exposed to problematic content.

Anything else?

Look for Facebook to continue pointing out that it’s a platform and inviting anyone else to write platform rules and accept responsibility. Facebook will continue arguing that it doesn’t post videos of murders or hate-filled language based on race or gender. The company is closing in on 3 billion monthly active users. 

5. Did That Really Happen? — What Let’s Go Brandon Really Means

While NBC Sports reporter Kelli Stavast interviewed winning NASCAR driver Brandon Brown at Talladega earlier this month, the crowd began chanting profanity about Pres. Joe Biden. Stavast told Brown she was having trouble hearing because the crowd was apparently chanting, “Let’s Go, Brandon,” which they clearly weren’t.

Since then, it’s become a staple of Republicans and conservative media. Rep. Bill Posey (R-FL) used it during a speech on the House floor on Thursday, and the phrase has been endorsed by Ted Cruz and now Fox pundits.

Here’s the story and video.

6. Following Up — Just Go Tech Coming To Fridges

We’ve written before about Amazon’s smart Go technology that allows shoppers to place items in their smart cart and leave when they’re done because the item was scanned and charged. Ars Technica has news that Amazon has spent $100 million developing a smart refrigerator that will track food stored inside and make ordering replacements easy.  You can read about the fridge, but there is no function yet for determining which leftovers have gone bad.

7. Protip — Uninstall Cortana from Windows 10

We showed you last week how to upgrade to Windows 11. If you didn’t, we still have good news: you can uninstall Microsoft assistant Cortana from Windows 10. 

8. Screening Room — John Oliver’s Car Commercial

The comedian recently made an offer to car dealers: record a script his writers created instead of one of the copy and paste jobs from national firms, and they could have it free. Heads up: there is some NSFW audio after the commercial.

9. Science Fiction World — The Orb & Worldcoin

Sam Altman’s resume is pretty good. He’s the former CEO of YCombinator, the startup accelerator that’s launched 3,000 companies including Stripe, DoorDash, Instacart, and Dropbox. And he’s the current CEO of OpenAI, the organization that created the GPT-3 language model.

Now he wants to create a universal basic income for the planet using a cryptocurrency called Worldcoin. Every person on Earth would get free Worldcoin if they consent to have their irises scanned.

It’s an audacious plan, but if you’re older than your mid-30s, consider that people didn’t always have online grocery delivery, easy file transfers between computers, and all the other things done by the companies he helped shepherd into our culture. Here’s a profile on the initiative that is already being tested in multiple countries.

10. Coffee Break — 13 Traditions That Were Really Marketing

I love this slideshow covering traditions and stories like Paul Bunyan (c. 1916 to sell lumber), green bean casserole (Campbell Soup in 1955 to sell soup), and the Pledge of Allegiance (written by a socialist minister in 1892 for his magazine and to help sell…flags). Read the stories here.

11. Sign of the Times

1. Good Monday Morning

It’s Oct. 18th. The Olympic flame is scheduled to be lighted today at 4 a.m. The flame will make its way to Beijing where the Winter Games start February 4. You can watch the ceremony at the official Olympics site.

Today’s Spotlight is 1,504 words — about a 5 minute read.

2. News To Know Now

Quoted:”Facebook puts users in a near-impossible position by telling them they can’t post about dangerous groups and individuals, but then refusing to publicly identify who it considers dangerous.” — Brennan Center for Justice executive Faiza Patel, to The Intercept when it published the full contents of Facebook’s Dangerous Individuals and Organization’s List.

a) Amazon’s private brand program used proprietary sales and returns information to copy successful products, according to a Reuters expose.The copied products were then reportedly shown in favored positions during customer searches. Called the Solimo Project, the program now offers dozens of private label Amazon products in multiple countries. Amazon testified to Congress two years ago that they do not use this data or favor their products in search. Then-CEO Jeff Bezos confirmed that behavior was prohibited in Congressional testimony last year.

b) Amazon’s very bad week continued when word came of a nearly $200 million class action suit filed by delivery drivers in the UK. The argument is familiar — contractor vs. employee -—and the lead firm for the plaintiff won a similar case in the UK against Uber earlier this year.

Still more Amazon: Corporate and technology employees at Amazon will be permitted to work remotely indefinitely as long as they can reasonably commute to their physical office as needed. Others on permanent work from home status include Square, PwC, and Salesforce. Fast Company cites research that claims nearly half of workers would work an additional 10 hours per week or accept reduced benefits to be allowed to worked remotely.


c) Even before U.S. government experts reported shock this weekend at Chinese advances in hypersonic missile technology, the Air Force’s former Chief Software Officer told The Financial Times that the U.S. would be unable to compete with Chinese cyber technology in 15-20 years. His claim was countered by Army CIO Raj Iyer, who also conceded that the Chinese government excels in “the actual use of AI.”

Separately, LinkedIn announced that compliance requirements and a “more challenging” operating environment led the company to close its site in China. The company was under fire from members  whose profiles it had blocked to appease Chinese government demands.

3. Search Engine News — Google Updates Title Link and Heading Guidance

Two months after Google began arbitrarily changing the titles of webpages in its search engine results, Google has updated its best practice guidance on writing what it now calls “title links.” The company has renamed this element because the “title tag” name used for decades is part of a broad international coalition that Google doesn’t control so technically the company is telling you how to handle your title tags so that it doesn’t change the information when it publishes its own title links.

Bah.

Here is what to know:

• Don’t repeat yourself or use boilerplate (best locksmith in Atlanta, best locksmith in North Atlanta, etc.).
• Branding should come first. This is a big change for SEO watchers, but Google specifically suggests concise branding appear first although it acknowledges beginning or end is acceptable.
• Don’t use words like “video” unless there is actually a video on the page.
• Keep things short.

Google says that it uses these sources to automatically create title links: the main visual and heading elements, prominent content especially when it is styled larger, anchor text on the page, text within links that point to the page.

One interesting comment: Google credits its machine learning software with the automation of this function and says that it can detect when a page’s content doesn’t match its title tag.

An example: A piece written for a 2021 policy that still has a 2020 title tag.

Later in the week, Google search exec John Mueller also suggested using product or brand names on headings within the document. It was here that he suggested that “Widget-color” might be acceptable provided that the content under that heading addressed the widget and the color.

4. Spotlight Explainer — AI Hiring

What exactly do you mean by “AI Hiring?”

Artificial intelligence has become a buzzy catchall for what is most accurately described as machine learning. That’s the process of giving a computer many (millions or more) examples so that the software can assess whether something new is a good match. 

Consider labeling pictures of flowers for that software. After uploading hundreds of thousands of flower images, you upload an unlabeled image and ask the software if it’s a flower. That’s a simplistic view of resume sorting. 

And just like a website’s automated help function can help you track a package or request a refund, an AI hiring chatbot can also make interview appointments or answer an applicant’s questions.

So how widespread is AI hiring or screening?

75% according to a Harvard and Accenture study (PDF).

Does it save money?

Yes, the original screening by computer versus person is always going to save money initially, but the real question to ask is which one does it better in the long run and do you honestly save money or do employee hours get replaced with something less productive. 

One of that study’s key findings is that the software training has caused huge pools of qualified applicants to be overlooked. Harvard calls them “hidden workers” and suggests that up to 27 million Americans could be negatively affected. And it’s not a homogenous group either: it’s a big mix that includes military veterans, caregivers, and immigrants.

How does AI hiring hide people?

Remember that the software only does what you tell it. Unorthodox breaks in an employment history are a big culprit. So are a lack of traditional qualifications. Screening with a rigid set of rules and using negative instead of affirmative filtering also creates problems.

What’s the problem with applicants who have a disability?

MIT Technology Review summarized a disability policy analyst’s experience with a game by software maker Pymetrics that tests nine soft skills. Like all good technology, the game asked if the applicant wanted to use a modified version for color blindness, ADHD, or dyslexia. It’s a benign request that ultimately forces someone with a disability to choose between disclosing their condition or facing a test that discriminates against them.

Resume writing for AI hiring screens.

Use simple, short, declarative sentences, but keep a regular resume for human readers. Remember to test your resume with an inexpensive automated tool like VMock.

Here are 7 more tips to help you land that job.

5. Did That Really Happen? — Conspiracy Theories Come from the IRS

There are multiple memes and posts all over social media falsely complaining that the IRS is monitoring all bank transactions over $600. What actually happened is that accounts with transaction levels under $600 in a calendar year or that contain a balance under $600 will now be exempt from bank reporting of interest paid. The IRS is not monitoring transactions at the individual bank account level.

6. Following Up — A New GPT-3 Challenge from Megatron

We’ve written a lot about OpenAI’s GPT-3 model that uses 175 billion parameters to create functions like auto-completing sentences and even new sentence creation among other things. You may remember that some executives didn’t want to release GPT-3 at first because it was far beyond the state-of-the-art.

Now Microsoft and Nvidia have collaborated on a 530 billion parameter model that they called Megatron-Turing Natural Language Generation Model. You’re a better person than I am if you think that people will call it anything other than Megatron. I can only marvel at how many resumes it must have read.

7. Protip — How to Install Windows 11–Even Without The Update

The latest version of Windows is officially available. This step-by-step explainer walks you through upgrading your machine. 

8. Screening Room — John Lewis

9. Science Fiction World — Peach Pickin’ Robots

Georgia produces close to 400 million peaches with a farm gate value of about $70 million each year. This report shows that you may know about harvesting robots, but tree pruning and thinning robots are here too.

10. Coffee Break — Nightcafe

We’ve thought a lot about AI and words today. Let’s think about AI & images. I’ve been playing with, erm, testing a free website called Nightcafe that uses machine learning to generate low resolution images from plain text.

For my text command of “a desk in a home office with a computer, microphone, camera, and coffee cup in view”, the program returned this image. I remind you that this image was (a) free and (b) created from 16 words of text. You can use Nightcafe once you sign up for a free account.

11. Sign of The Times

1. Good Monday Morning

It’s Oct. 11th. Happy Indigenous Peoples Day. The proclamation that President Biden issued last Friday included this somber thought: “We must never forget the centuries-long campaign of violence, displacement, assimilation, and terror wrought upon Native communities and Tribal Nations throughout our country.” Biden is the first U.S. president to commemorate this holiday.

Today’s Spotlight is 1,293 words — about a 5 minute read.

2. News To Know Now

Quoted:”The original Bill of Rights is nearly 230 years old, and we’re still debating the meaning of nearly each of its 652 words. If an AI Bill of Rights is our ultimate goal, we’re still at the stage of haggling over the Articles of Confederation.” — Axios’ Bryan Walsh writing about the White House’s consideration of an “AI Bill of Rights.”

a) Fueled by the pandemic,the e-commerce explosion continues. TikTok owner Byte Dance is the latest entity to leverage its incredible presence into direct sales revenue. Big box Best Buy is launching a new $199 membership program that includes free shipping, installation, and priority purchases of undefined hard-to-find items. Amazon and Walmart are focusing their sights on prescription medications. Walmart + customers can now buy common generic prescriptions for heavily discounted prices without insurance while Amazon’s pharmacy services are offering 6 month prescription renewals.

b) YouTube has removed two official accounts owned by disgraced singer R. Kelly following his conviction on racketeering and sex trafficking charges. The company cited its creator responsibility guidelines for the move. Separately, YouTube announced that it will no longer allow climate change denialists to monetize their YouTube channels beginning next month.

c) A former Amazon warehouse employee in Colorado has sued the company because she says that mandatory COVID-19 screenings before work were not considered part of a work shift and employees were not paid for that time.

3. Search Engine News — No More Internet Explorer

If you are the single person out of every 200 North Americans who is still using Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser, you’re going to have to find some site other than Google to search. Google software engineer Malte Ubl announced on Twitter that Google search will no longer work for IE sessions. “We did the Math [sic]. It is time,” he wrote. 

Sept. 2021 browser market share by our friends at StatCounter:
Chrome 65%, Safari 18%, Edge 4%, Firefox 4%

Google also told an EU court that it is the top search term on Microsoft Bing in Europe. The thrust of the argument Alphabet makes while appealing an antitrust matter is that “People use Google because they choose to, not because they are forced to.”

Part of Google’s search experience includes advertising throughout the result pages. Google is now enhancing its ad disclosures to allow users to see all the ads a specific advertiser has run over the past 30 days. 

From their announcement, “.. Imagine you’re seeing an ad for a coat you’re interested in, but you don’t recognize the brand. With advertiser pages, you can learn more about that advertiser before visiting their site or making a purchase.”

4. Spotlight Explainer — Silver Beacon 

For our 400th issue, we’re taking the liberty of putting ourselves in the spotlight. We won’t have another big milestone issue until 2023, so don’t worry about this becoming a habit.

What does Silver Beacon Marketing do?

We do three distinct things: we promote an organization’s message, we increase the number of relevant people who see that message, and we track everything so we can quickly repeat what works in a continuous improvement cycle.

So it’s advertising?

We do a lot of advertising campaigns in a lot of places: Google, Bing, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Amazon, and a lot more.

But we also do a lot of other marketing projects like search engine optimization that ensures that your site is found online, social media messaging, websites, emails, newsletters, and marketing strategy.

Are there any special industries that you work with?

We adore small organizations and work with more than our share of startups. We love teams that have a passion for what they do. You can see our client list here. We are exceptionally proud of never needing to hire a sales staff and only running advertising sporadically over the past fifteen years. Our business is entirely built on word-of-mouth. We’re thankful for all those referrals.

Why this newsletter?

You know how photocopying articles for colleagues turned into emailing each other links and that turned into, please for the love of everything holy, let me get some work done?

We wanted to give clients, colleagues, and friends the opportunity to have us drop by once a week for 5 minutes and let them know what they need to know in a nontechnical way. We write this for people who use technology, not for technologists.

Why do you ask us to forward this to friends and others?

Aw, you know the answer to that. But seriously, send this on to friends and colleagues who can use it. You’re likely a subscriber. You know that we don’t call or send other emails. Spotlight comes out every non-holiday Monday at 6 a.m. Eastern Time. That’s it. Click here and we will add you to the list.

Thanks again. Here’s to 400 more issues.

5. Did That Really Happen? — A New Conspiracy Theory Quiz

There are six seemingly simple questions in this Washington Post quiz that asks if you’ll fall into the conspiracy theory rabbit hole. I got all six correct. Can you do the same?

6. Following Up — EU Calls for Facial Recognition, Predictive Policing Bans

The European Parliament last Wednesday called for bans on law enforcement officers using facial recognition technology in public places and the elimination of predictive algorithms to profile “potential criminals.” We write often about police use of technology (most recently in our 2021 Spotlight in June).

It’s important to understand that it’s not the technology being questioned, but its use by police that may infringe upon your privacy.

7. Protip — Dark Mode in Google Search

Whether desktop or mobile, this explainer shows you how to enable dark mode on Google Search even if the rest of your display is set to regular view.

Screening Room — Very Stores

9. Science Fiction World — Caltech’s Secret Robot

We’ve shown you robots that scoot around and deliver food or drugs. We’ve even shown you some that can jump up or climb steps.

Caltech researchers have built LEONARDO (short for Legs Onboard Drone) that is way more mobile. LEONARDO can walk a slackline, hop, and even ride a skateboard. Check it out here, and understand that you are going to end up interacting with robots during your lifetime — even if only infrequently.

10. Coffee Break — The Monument Report

This very cool online report allows anyone to explore nearly 50,000 data records about monuments in America. It’s not comprehensive, but it’s a pretty darn big data set. There are essays and articles exploring all of it as well as guides to help teach students.

Most popular: Abraham Lincoln with 193 monuments
Most popular Native Americans: Tecumseh (21) and Sacagawea (20)
Non-Americans: Columbus (149), St. Francis of Assisi (73), Joan of Arc (26)

11. Sign of the Times