Musk’s get-out-the-vote workers didn’t know they were canvassing for Trump – report; The Guardian, October 30, 2024

Robert Tait in Washington, The Guardian; Musk’s get-out-the-vote workers didn’t know they were canvassing for Trump – report

"Elon Musk’s get-out-the-vote effort for Donald Trump has come under renewed scrutiny after paid canvassers reported not knowing beforehand that they were being hired to support the former president.

Workers recruited by Musk’s America Pac to canvass in the battleground state of Michigan only discovered they were working for the Space X and Tesla entrepreneur to drum up voter turnout for Trump after signing non-disclosure agreements, Wired reported.

“I knew nothing of the job, or much of the job description, other than going door to door and asking the voters who are they voting for,” a canvasser who was flown to Michigan from another state told the website. “Then, after I signed over an NDA, is when I found out we are for Republicans and with Trump.”

The canvassers also said they faced threats to their working conditions if they failed to meet stringent door-knocking targets.

The disclosure comes after the Guardian revealed serious question marks about Musk’s voter turnout effort in Nevada and Arizona amid reports that up to 25% of reported door knocks in the state could be fraudulent."

Cisco wants to balance privacy with security; SFGate, June 20, 2017

Marissa Lang, SFGate; Cisco wants to balance privacy with security

"It’s a common trade-off in cybersecurity: Do you want privacy, or do you want protection?

To be more secure, businesses typically have to accept some level of surveillance, inviting third-party companies to track traffic and monitor network data for intruders, threats or malicious software.

Cisco wants to do away with that choice."

Donald Trump’s RNC Speech Was a Terrifying Display of Nightmarish Authoritarianism; Reason, 7/22/16

Peter Suderman, Reason; Donald Trump’s RNC Speech Was a Terrifying Display of Nightmarish Authoritarianism:

"It was a relentlessly grim and gloomy picture of America, built on thinly disguised racial distrust and paranoia. It was a portrait that was also essentially false. Violent crime has been steadily falling for more than two decades. Immigrants are less prone to criminality than native-born Americans.

But portraying America in such a dark light let Trump cast himself as the nation's dark hero, a kind of billionaire-businessman fixer, unbound by rules or expectations of decorum—President Batman, the only one with the guts and the will to fight for the people.

Trump did not invoke superpowers, of course, but he might as well have; he had no other ideas or solutions to offer...

Trump's entire speech was packed with threats and power grabs, details be damned. It was a speech about how government should be made bigger and stronger and given more authority over every part of American life, and government, in most cases, simply meant Donald Trump himself. It was an argument for unlimited government under a single man, for rule by Trump's whim. He sounded less like he was running for president and more like he was campaigning to be an American despot."

Girls Keep Out: Female Video Gamers Face Vile Abuse, Threats; Associated Press via New York Times, 3/12/16

Associated Press via New York Times; Girls Keep Out: Female Video Gamers Face Vile Abuse, Threats:

"IGDA's Edwards acknowledges that dealing with harassment is a difficult challenge. "You're dealing with minors versus adults," she says. "You're dealing with free speech issues. It's a struggle for companies to figure out exactly how to approach it."

And while Riot-style moderation might limit harassment, it's unlikely to solve the problem on its own. "This is a social and cultural problem, not a technological one," says Dmitri Williams, CEO of game analytics firm Ninja Metrics."