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#lina

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Public
Strypey

"I think there's a place for government money in any industry that's in transition, and that's very much what we're seeing in the news space at the moment. This is not something that's come up in the last couple of years really, this is an issue that's been 40 years in the making in lots of different ways."

#ClaireStuchbery, Executive Director, Local and Independent News Association (LINA), 2025

abc.net.au/listen/programs/med

ABC listen · As regional newspapers lose print editions, what comes next for local news? - ABC listenACM, Australian Community Media, has announced that all 65 of its regional newspapers, including the Canberra Times and Newcastle Herald, will be reduced to weekly print runs over the next seven years. Tim and Viv look at the new initiatives springing up to keep local news alive. And government ad spending is spiking ahead of the election, what can be done about taxpayer money going to potential political spruiking?  Guest: Claire Stuchbery, Executive Director, Local and Independent News Association (LINA)
#podcasts#ABC#MediaLand
Public
Chuck Darwin

Low prices, #Lina #Kahn argued in a 95-page examination of Amazon in The Yale Law Journal, can mask behavior that stifles competition and undermines society.

Published in 2017 while she was still a law student, it is already one of the most consequential academic papers of modern times.

nytimes.com/2023/09/27/technol

The New York Times · Lina Khan vs. Jeff Bezos: This Is Big Tech’s Real Cage MatchBy David Streitfeld
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Chuck Darwin

As Silicon Valley eyes US election, Elon Musk is not the only tech bro to worry about

There was a time when the tech industry wasn’t much interested in politics. -- It didn’t need to be because politics at the time wasn’t interested in it.

Accordingly, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon and Apple grew to their gargantuan proportions in a remarkably permissive political environment.

When democratic governments were not being dazzled by the technology, they were asleep at the wheel:

💥Antitrust regulators had been captured by the legalistic doctrine peddled by #Robert #Bork and his enablers in the University of Chicago Law School
❌ the doctrine that there was little wrong with corporate dominance unless it was harming consumers.

The test for harm was price-gouging,
and since Google’s and Facebook’s services were “free”, ❓where was the harm, exactly❓

And though Amazon’s products weren’t free, the company was ruthlessly undercutting competitors’ prices and pandering to customers’ need for next-day delivery.

Again: ❓where was the harm in that❓

It took an unconscionable time for this regulatory slumber to end,
but end it finally did on Joe Biden’s watch.

❇️ US regulators, led by #Jonathan #Kanter at the Department of Justice (DOJ), and #Lina #Khan at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC),
rediscovered their mojo.

⭐️And then in August the DoJ dramatically won an antitrust lawsuit
in which the judge ruled that Google was indeed a “monopolist”
which had taken anticompetitive steps to preserve its 90% share of search.

🔥The DOJ is now proposing “remedies” for this abusive behaviour,
ranging from obvious ones like barring Google from contracts such as the one it has with Apple to make it the default search engine on its devices
to the “nuclear” option of 🧨 breaking up the company.

The shock of this verdict to the tech industry has been palpable,
🆘 and has led some movers and shakers in the Valley to think that maybe electing Trump might not be such a bad idea after all.

Some of the loudmouths like Marc #Andreessen
– and, of course, #Musk
– have explicitly come out for Trump,
but at least 14 other tech moguls are providing more discreet support.

And although quite a few tech leaders have – belatedly – come out for Kamala Harris,
some are doing so with some reservations.
Reid #Hoffmann, the founder of LinkedIn, for example, donated $10m to her campaign, but says he wants her to fire Lina Khan from the FTC.

The most dramatic evidence of how Silicon Valley lost its political virginity, though,
comes from the extraordinary amounts of money that #cryptocurrency companies have been putting into the election campaign.
The New Yorker reports that crypto companies have already sunk
“more than a hundred million dollars”
into so-called SuperPACS supporting crypto-friendly candidates.

The interesting thing is that this money seems to be aimed not so much at influencing who wins the presidency
as at ensuring that the “right” people get elected to the House and the Senate.
This suggests a level of political nous that would have been disdained by the early pioneers of the tech industry in the 1960s.

Technology might not have been political then; but it sure is just now.
theguardian.com/technology/202

The Guardian · As Silicon Valley eyes US election, Elon Musk is not the only tech bro to worry aboutBy John Naughton
Public
Chuck Darwin

Private equity’s role in US healthcare remains unchecked after California veto

The nation’s most high-profile legislative effort to regulate private equity investments in healthcare,
and would have given the California attorney general discretion to deny mergers.

Its demise comes amid US Senate hearings over mismanagement at #Steward #Health,
a chain of more than 30 private equity-backed hospitals in Massachusetts whose CEO and investors siphoned “hundreds of millions” of dollars from community hospitals even as they developed one of the worst patient care records in the country.

“We’re really disappointed to see this bill was vetoed,”
said Katie Van Deynze, a legislative advocate for Health Access California,
a consumer advocacy coalition that lobbied in favor of the bill.
“There are a lot of other states and folks who were watching this.”

The bill received an endorsement this summer from #Lina #Khan, chair of the Federal Trade Commission,
the agency responsible for enforcing antitrust regulations.

A dozen other US states, including red states such as Indiana, either have merger review laws on the books or considered similar legislation this year.

Private equity investors have gained an enormous foothold in American healthcare in the last decade,
buying up $1tn worth of physician practices, hospitals, specialty practices and even hospice centers.

California alone has seen $20bn in private equity investment.

The bill, formally known as #AB3129, would have ⭐️ required private equity and hedge fund-backed buyers of certain healthcare businesses to seek the state attorney general’s approval 90 days before a deal was slated to close,
and given the attorney general the option to deny such mergers.

⭐️The bill would have also prohibited investor-owners from interfering with professional medical judgment of providers from dentists to psychiatrists, strengthening so-called corporate practice of medicine laws.

theguardian.com/us-news/2024/o

The Guardian · Private equity’s role in US healthcare remains unchecked after California vetoBy Jessica Glenza
Continued thread
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Chuck Darwin

Many technology companies would be more benign if they were owned and governed by their users.

Users have the most to lose from tech-driven addiction and automation,
and their data generate most of the companies’ value.

⭐️User-owners would share in this value and have an incentive to keep companies from causing harm.

❓How might users come together to start and run more technology companies?

Bringing together a disparate and dispersed group of people is difficult;
-- economists call this the #collective #action #problem.

👍Influential nonprofits such as the
🔸Center for Humane Technology and
🔸Project Liberty can play an organizing role,
incubating a new generation of user-owned social media businesses.

While it’s a competitive field with entrenched players,
social media technology is not complex,
and there is a real hunger for more benign versions.

Existing firms can also be redesigned.

✅Instead of raising capital from profit-seeking corporations,
OpenAI could seek funding from users and give them representation on its board.

✅And with users on the board, the company might take more care to launch products safely
and dedicate resources to maintaining employment.

🔥Most important, more of the financial gains of the AI revolution would flow to the people creating the value.

If #Keith #Gill,
also known as #Roaring #Kitty,
could organize retail investors to drive up the market value of #GameStop by $10 billion,
could a similar approach have been employed to acquire Twitter for users in 2022?

Given the millions of defections from the platform since Musk purchased it,
it may not be too late.

The government can also help if it’s not headed off by Big Tech political contributions.

The 🔸Small Business Administration,
the Department of Energy and
the 🔸National Science Foundation
should ✅ encourage user ownership of the companies they fund.

The venture capitalists of Sand Hill Road will of course scream that this is #socialism,
but they will be wrong.

It’s just business.

#MOIC#Elon#Musk
Continued thread
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Chuck Darwin

The root of the problem is that the United States and Silicon Valley in particular are dominated by what we call an
🆘 “investor monoculture.”

Modern corporations are designed to serve investors and no one else.

About 80% of public company stock in the United States is owned by institutional investors,
most of which have one objective:
to maximize profits,
largely in the short term and without regard to the costs for society.

In 1980, their share of stocks was just 29%.

Venture capital firms,
the biggest funders of Silicon Valley startups,
have grown from under $400 billion in assets in 2010
to nearly $4 trillion today.

Their performance is measured by
“multiples on invested capital,” or “#MOIC,” as insiders call it.

Suicide rates among young people are up more than 60% since 2007,
and U.S. democracy is in danger.
-- But these are not investors’ concerns.

Regulation and advocacy can certainly make a difference.

But Big Tech is cash-rich, lawyered up and capable of running circles around regulators.

It’s time for a different approach.

When businesses are owned and governed by employees, customers, suppliers or communities, they become less predatory
and more benign.

⭐️And as it turns out, corporations have been designed in such ways across time and cultures.

Capitalism comes in many forms.

❇️Farmers, employees or customers own and govern some of the world’s most respected companies,
including
Ocean Spray,
Publix Super Markets,
Organic Valley,
New York Life Insurance Co. and
Vanguard.

❇️Corporations such as Patagonia,
Rolex,
Novo Nordisk and
Ikea
are owned or controlled by nonprofits, trusts or foundations,
which have no investors
and thus face less pressure to boost profits.

Silicon Valley has examples too.

❇️Mozilla, which operates the web browser Firefox,
is owned by a nonprofit.

It has no incentive to maximize profits,
which explains why it does not sell user data to advertisers.

❇️Wikipedia, among the world’s most visited websites, is also run by a nonprofit,
which shows that scale and impact don’t always depend on investor capital.

❇️A nonprofit owns a majority of ChatGPT maker OpenAI,
a design it chose to “ensure that artificial intelligence benefits all of humanity.”

But its minority investors, such as Microsoft, are profit-driven,
which has led to concerns that it’s releasing products at an irresponsible pace.

#Elon#Musk#Peter
Public *
Chuck Darwin

Silicon Valley is maximizing profit at everyone’s expense.

It doesn’t have to be this way

A public battle has broken out among the titans of Silicon Valley.

🔸One side, led by #Elon #Musk, PayPal co-founder #Peter #Thiel and venture capitalists #Marc #Andreessen and #Ben #Horowitz,
is backing Donald #Trump for president.

🔸The other, led by LinkedIn co-founder #Reid #Hoffman, is behind Kamala #Harris.

⚠️We should not make the mistake of thinking this is a battle over ideology or policy.

It’s a battle to ♦️maximize Silicon Valley’s profits regardless of the consequences for society.♦️

On this objective, both sides agree.

Andreessen Horowitz is one of the largest investors in #cryptocurrency and #artificial #intelligence,
and Trump has signaled that he would keep the government out of its business.

Meanwhile, soon after donating $7 million to a Harris super PAC,
Hoffman called for her to oust Federal Trade Commission Chairwoman #Lina #Khan,
who has brought antitrust cases against Big Tech and introduced rules to protect workers.

Silicon Valley, a longtime engine of human achievement,
has become a significant source of human harm.

Aware of the gathering backlash, its leaders have dived into the political fray 💥to protect their wealth.💥

Two Silicon Valley obsessions threaten the most damage:
creating human #addiction to increase profits
and #eliminating #humans altogether to decrease costs.

Social media platforms,
which started out by bringing old friends together and giving voice to the otherwise powerless,
have become “social slot machines”
compelling excessive use.

Gaming companies have a similar objective.

Teenagers today spend more than eight hours a day on screens,
fueling digital advertising revenues that reached $225 billion last year.

Meanwhile, the artificial intelligence revolution promises to cut labor costs.

A recent study by MIT economist #Daron #Acemoglu found that 50% to 70% of the growth in inequality between more and less educated workers can be attributed to automation.

Poverty rates in Silicon Valley’s home state are rising
even as AI makes Big Tech richer.

The broader prospects are equally concerning.

AI is enabling killer robots, autonomous weapons and massively destructive misinformation.

latimes.com/opinion/story/2024

Los Angeles Times · A way out of Silicon Valley's profit-driven devastationBy Hans Taparia and Bruce Buchanan
Public
The Japan Times

Zheng Qinwen's historic tennis gold at the Paris Olympics this month followed a decadeslong surge in the sport's popularity among China's burgeoning middle class, and her victory is set to boost it even more. japantimes.co.jp/olympics/2024 #olympics #china #zhengqinwen #lina #2024parisolympics

The Japan Times · China's Olympic tennis glory tracks booming middle classesBy Luna Lin
Public
Frédéric Urbain

Tiens, un truc me tracasse. À propos des recherches de la jeune #Lina dans les Vosges, j'ai entendu «le #GPS  de la voiture du suspect indique qu'elle a stationné longuement à cet endroit». Ça veut dire que le truc enregistre en permanence ? Même contact coupé ? Dans une voiture simple et très répandue ? (un témoin aurait mentionné une Clio). Quid du #RGPD  ? 

Public
BentFrame

True Bent story:

A few years ago (pre-COVID) I was paying for and following The Advertiser as my daily local news go to. One morning after reading an article about how us locals should feel about an (now forgotten) issue I looked up this said sage of local advice. It turned out he was someone who lives and breathes the "fine" New York air each morning with his sub-standard coffee.

I immediately cancelled my subscription and went the hunt for a publication that was a bit more honest and certainly more local. Forgoing the fine publication that is The Betoota Advocate, I found InDaily (Solstice Media). At the time, pretty small and very independent.

They have grown a little over the past few years. In fact are now part of or at least linked to the Ten Network in some way. Personally this has been a good move for them as it allows for a little deeper coffers to employ local journalistic talent.

I'm not saying they get everything right, and opinion pieces are exactly that, opinion pieces. At least they give me the feel that local opinions in this case are at least that, local. Honesty and Integrity are the two most important ticks for me.

I have no doubt that (my morning news read goes InDaily, ABC, BBC, and beyond) international journalist are doing their best to provide informative and factual pieces of what is going on in the world. There is nothing overtly wrong with articles published on The Advertiser. This isn't about that. However; don't live in New York and tell me how to live in Adelaide and publish like you're sitting at the seat next to me at the cafe.

Long winded way to get around to saying I happily pay what The Advertiser are asking a month to InDaily via PressPatreon and look forward to supporting local media drive in the coming week(s).

And no, I'm not employed by any media company mentioned or implied.

#indaily #solsticemedia #longestpostever #LINA

indaily.com.au/news/2024/05/29

www.indaily.com.au · InDaily joins national campaign for local journalism - InDaily
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Chuck Darwin

FTC head Lina Khan is fighting for an anti-monopoly America

Charged with enforcing #antitrust law and promoting #consumer #protection, the #FTC is nominally the regulator charged with stopping deals that will harm consumers.

But under successive administrations – Republican and Democratic – some critics charge the FTC stood by as industry after industry consolidated power in the hands of fewer and fewer companies.

All that changed under Joe #Biden, who has consistently attacked the monopolization of US business.

#Lina #Khan is his most high-profile warrior.
She has redefined the battlefield in such a sweeping manner that some argue there is no going back no matter who wins 2024’s election.

But tough talk is just that – talk. Drawing a line under an era of light-touch antitrust enforcement has proven easier said than done.

Last week the FTC sued to block #Kroger’s $24.6bn takeover of rival grocer #Albertsons.

If approved, the agency warned, the U.S.’s largest-ever supermarket merger would raise prices for millions of shoppers.

Kroger and Albertsons would collectively have over 5,000 stores and 700,000 employees across 48 states, according to the FTC, which claimed an executive involved in the deal had conceded it was “basically creating a monopoly”.

The grocery market is a classic example of consolidation in the US. 👉In a nation of 331 million people, just six companies control half the market. theguardian.com/us-news/2024/m

The Guardian · ‘She’s going to prevail’: FTC head Lina Khan is fighting for an anti-monopoly AmericaBy Callum Jones
Replied in thread
Public
anarchynano

@momozhishui

#microcash vs #microsoft

▄ ▄ ▄ ▄▄▄

#ICIAParis, please listen, first of all, to some personal messages

statics.udongein.xyz/udongein/

files.mastodonapp.uk/media_att

story-img.kakaocdn.net/dn/cHqK

sun9-10.userapi.com/impg/AFNDf

mastodonapp.uk/@Christo/111702

vamonos

#windowsfriday #fenêtrefriday #fensterသောကြာ #星期五friday

#GAF #αγορά #emile #lina

#citizen25 #baron✂di #arbale🗘e_republicaine #ᘔƐ
#bardonotbardo
#writerscoffeeclub #arbaletterepublicaine ##ClubBreton #pinceMOI #Háthôr

#multiball
Public
Sean Boyer 🇵🇸 FREE PALESTINE

I don't often post about #theatre-related stuff, but I really should do more. I get to work with the most talented performers in the world of all disciplines, and have the #privilege of using some pretty incredible #tech.

I finally had the opportunity to mix a show on a #midas #heritage #HD96 through a #lina #lineArray by #MeyerSound.

This thing is ever more #lasVegas than the #digico and #yamaha desks I'm used to.

It's a pleasure to mix on!

Close-up shot of a Midas Heritage HD96, down low by the faders, looking up at the gargantuan 21 inch HD touch screen, and a galaxy of ring-illuminated rotary encoders; backlit against a darkened theatre on the edges of the frame.
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