breadwinner

Germany’s ambassador to India made a pitch for skilled Indians to come to his country, taking an indirect jab at the United States over its crackdown on skilled foreign workers. https://x.com/AmbAckermann/status/1970450472642482473

Will/can Facebook tell you the real identity of the user? If no then Facebook has to take responsibility for the fraud/slander/libel. Currently Section 230 means they can't be held responsible.

Citizens. Through lawsuits. Currently we can't because of Section 230.

I am not saying we should go back to physical newspapers printed on paper. News can be published online... but whoever is publishing it has to stand behind it, and be prepared to face lawsuits from citizens harmed by false stories. This is feasible, and it is the only solution to the current mess.

You know how this used to work in the old days? Instead of publishing allegations yourself, you would take your story to a newspaper reporter. The reporter will then do the investigations then, if there is solid evidence, the story will be published in the newspaper. At that point the newspaper company is standing behind the story, and citizens know the standing of the newspaper in their community, and how much credence to give to the story, based on that. Social media destroyed this process, now anyone can spread allegations at lightning speed on a massive scale without any evidence to back it up. This has to stop. We should return to the old way, it wasn't perfect, but it worked for 100s of years. Repealing Section 230 will accomplish this.

I think it would be wise to listen to Nobel Prize-winning journalist Maria Ressa of The Philippines, regarding unchecked social media.

"You and I, if we say a lie we are held responsible for it, so people can trust us. Well, Facebook made a system where the lies repeated so often that people can't tell."

"Both United Nations and Meta came to the same conclusion, which is that this platform Facebook actually enabled genocide that happened in Myanmar. Think about it as, when you say it a million times... it is not just the lie but also it is laced with fear, anger and hate. This is what was prioritized in the design and the distribution on Facebook. It keeps us scrolling, but in countries like Myanmar, in countries like Philippines, in countries where institutions are weak, you saw that online violence became real world violence."

"Fear, anger, hate, lies, salaciousness, this is the worst of human nature... and I think that's what Big Tech has been able to do through social media... the incentive structure is for the worst of who we are because you keep scrolling, and the longer you keep scrolling the more money the platform makes."

"Without a shared reality, without facts, how can you have a democracy that works?"

https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/12/us/video/gps0112-meta-scraps-...

The New York Times has published plenty of stories you could call controversial. Just this morning the top headline was that Trump lied at the UN. Trump has sued the Times for defamation, yet the paper stands by its reporting. That’s how publishing works: if you can’t defend what you publish, don’t publish it. The Section 230 debate is about whether large online platforms such as Facebook should bear similar accountability for the content they distribute. I think they should. That's the only way we can control misinformation and disinformation.

Have you visited nytimes.com in recent months? Just this morning the top headline was about the lies Trump told at the UN. That's pretty controversial - the newspaper of record calling the sitting president a liar. That's not allowed in many or most countries, but it is allowed in the US. And Trump is suing New York Times for $15 billion, for defamation. That didn't intimidate NYT. They are willing to stand behind the articles they publish. If you can't stand behind what you publish, don't publish them.

That seems like a reasonable middle ground.

The government created this problem when they enacted Section 230. This is at the root of the misinformation and disinformation... social media companies are not responsible for the harm.

The simple solution is repeal Section 230. When information can be transmitted instantly on a massive scale, somebody need to responsible for the information. The government should not police information but citizens should be allowed to sue social media companies for the harm caused to them.

Easy solution: Repeal Section 230.

Allow citizens to sue social media companies for the harm caused to them by misinformation and disinformation. The government can stay out of this.

Easy solution: Repeal Section 230.

Social media platforms in the United States rely heavily on Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which provides them immunity from liability for most user-generated content.

It is social media that is the root problem.

On the internet everything can appear equally legitimate. Breitbart looks as legit as the BBC. Sacha Baron Cohen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymaWq5yZIYM

Excerpts:

Voltaire was right when he said "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." And social media lets authoritarians push absurdities to millions of people.

Freedom of speech is not freedom of reach. Sadly There will always be racists, misogynists, anti-Semites, and child abusers. We should not be giving bigots and pedophiles a free platform to amplify their views and target their victims.

Zuckerberg says people should decide what's credible, not tech companies. When 2/3rds of millennials have not heard of Auschwitz how are they supposed to know what's true? There is such a thing as objective truth. Facts do exist.

If the government asks private companies to do that, then that's a violation of 1st amendment, isn't it?

This is the conundrum social media has created. In the past only the press, who were at least semi-responsible, had the ability to spread information on a massive scale. Social media changed that. Now anyone can spread information instantly on a massive scale, and often it is the conspiracy theories and incorrect information that people seek out.

"We were a bit naive: we thought the internet, with the availability of information, would make us all a lot more factual. The fact that people would seek out—kind of a niche of misinformation—we were a bit naive." -- Bill Gates to Oprah, on "AI and the Future of us".

> silencing people doesn't work

I agree, but how do you combat propaganda from Putin? Do you match him dollar for dollar? I am sure YouTube would like that, but who has deep enough pockets to counter the disinformation campaigns?

Similar issue with Covid... when you are in the middle of a pandemic, and dead bodies are piling up, and hospitals are running out of room, how do you handle misinformation spreading on social media?

O-1 is not enough. For jobs requiring bachelors degree, there is currently plenty of US-born workers looking for jobs. For jobs requiring masters and PhD there is still a need for H-1B visas, and O-1 is too high a bar.

Agree, for ordinary CS jobs, there's plenty of workers available right now, thanks to AI. But for highly specialized jobs including AI research, you still need to be able to hire immigrant talent.

Yes, it would be a new H-1B visa.

That would be surprising if developers were fungible. You can have a surplus of web developers (whom you lay off) while at the same time have a shortage of AI talent. Those web developers can't be hired in to the openings for AI talent.

It is not a win unless you are talking about IT jobs. For silicon valley type jobs, silicon valley is silicon valley because it is where top tech people congregate. If it loses that status then talent and venture capitalists will find another place to congregate, for example Vancouver BC. It won't happen overnight, but even a slow migration is bad news.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/johntamny/2024/09/16/the-micros...

It is not, and don't be. If you were not previously qualified you won't suddenly be. The job will simply migrate overseas.

You are right about Bell Labs, the majority were US-born.

But let's consider one of the biggest innovations of recent times: Artificial Intelligence (transformers/LLMs specifically). Where was it invented? In America. Who invented it? Let's take a look. The seminal research paper that kicked off this revolution (titled "Attention is all you need") was written by 2 Indians, 1 German, 1 British Canadian, 1 Pole, 1 Ukrainian, and 2 US born people. So only 25% US-born.

Have you watched OpenAI's demos and how many of their researchers are Asian? Would you prefer for them to remain in Asia and contribute to DeepSeek instead?

Ha! And who worked at Bell Labs, the US company? Immigrants.

Mohamed "John" Atalla, raised in Egypt, and Dawon Kahng from Korea, who together invented the MOSFET transistor, which underpins modern electronics and computing. Both immigrated to the United States for graduate engineering education and made their breakthrough at Bell Labs in 1959.

Yann LeCun, born and raised in France, immigrated to the U.S. in 1988 to work at AT&T Bell Labs, where he became head of image processing research and contributed significantly to artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Alexander Graham Bell, the Scottish-born inventor of the telephone, was a founder and major figure in the creation of the Bell Telephone Company; AT&T, created by American Bell in 1885, later established Bell Labs.

“I believe the shortage of U.S. talent, and the U.S.’s unwillingness to let companies bring in more global talent, has been a huge factor in why U.S. technology companies are increasing their Canadian footprint.”

https://vancouversun.com/opinion/columnists/douglas-todd-ama...

$15K extra per year? Absolutely. $100k pre-payment? No. That's impractical since the visa holder may get hit by a truck or return home due to an emergency, etc.

Why does America have all the tech jobs in the first place? It is because of people like Elon Musk immigrating to the US and building the tech industry.

You seem to be saying only Native Americans should remain in America, everyone else should leave?

Yes, see: https://www.forbes.com/sites/johntamny/2024/09/16/the-micros...

If visa rules prove too onerous, companies pivot north to Vancouver, BC. [1]

Canada is rejoicing for the new boost to its economy.

[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/johntamny/2024/09/16/the-micros...

No, it is every time you petition. So every time you apply for the visa.