Alan W. Dowd is a Senior Fellow with the American Security Council Foundation, where he writes on the full range of topics relating to national defense, foreign policy and international security. Dowd’s commentaries and essays have appeared in Policy Review, Parameters, Military Officer, The American Legion Magazine, The Journal of Diplomacy and International Relations, The Claremont Review of Books, World Politics Review, The Wall Street Journal Europe, The Jerusalem Post, The Financial Times Deutschland, The Washington Times, The Baltimore Sun, The Washington Examiner, The Detroit News, The Sacramento Bee, The Vancouver Sun, The National Post, The Landing Zone, Current, The World & I, The American Enterprise, Fraser Forum, American Outlook, The American and the online editions of Weekly Standard, National Review and American Interest. Beyond his work in opinion journalism, Dowd has served as an adjunct professor and university lecturer; congressional aide; and administrator, researcher and writer at leading think tanks, including the Hudson Institute, Sagamore Institute and Fraser Institute. An award-winning writer, Dowd has been interviewed by Fox News Channel, Cox News Service, The Washington Times, The National Post, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and numerous radio programs across North America. In addition, his work has been quoted by and/or reprinted in The Guardian, CBS News, BBC News and the Council on Foreign Relations. Dowd holds degrees from Butler University and Indiana University. Follow him at twitter.com/alanwdowd.

ASCF News

Scott Tilley is a Senior Fellow at the American Security Council Foundation, where he writes the “Technical Power” column, focusing on the societal and national security implications of advanced technology in cybersecurity, space, and foreign relations.

He is an emeritus professor at the Florida Institute of Technology. Previously, he was with the University of California, Riverside, Carnegie Mellon University’s Software Engineering Institute, and IBM. His research and teaching were in the areas of computer science, software & systems engineering, educational technology, the design of communication, and business information systems.

He is president and founder of the Center for Technology & Society, president and co-founder of Big Data Florida, past president of INCOSE Space Coast, and a Space Coast Writers’ Guild Fellow.

He has authored over 150 academic papers and has published 28 books (technical and non-technical), most recently Systems Analysis & Design (Cengage, 2020), SPACE (Anthology Alliance, 2019), and Technical Justice (CTS Press, 2019). He wrote the “Technology Today” column for FLORIDA TODAY from 2010 to 2018.

He is a popular public speaker, having delivered numerous keynote presentations and “Tech Talks” for a general audience. Recent examples include the role of big data in the space program, a four-part series on machine learning, and a four-part series on fake news.

He holds a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Victoria (1995).

Contact him at stilley@cts.today.

YouTube automatically deleted comments that criticized China’s Communist Party

Wednesday, May 27, 2020

Categories: ASCF News Emerging Threats National Preparedness

Comments: 0

YouTube has admitted that it automatically deleted comments that criticized China’s ruling Communist Party (CCP). 

The video platform — owned by Google’s parent company, Alphabet — said the automatic removal of certain comments was down to “an error” with its automated enforcement systems. The issue was first confirmed to The Verge

“We’re always working to resolve issues on YouTube,” a YouTube spokesperson said. “Upon review by our teams, we have confirmed this was an error in our enforcement systems.”

Users raised the issue on YouTube’s official help pages in October 2019, suggesting it was going on for at least six months.

Comments were deleted under videos and live streams and two Chinese language phrases were targeted in particular, even if they were used positively. 

If comments contained the words ”共匪” (“communist bandit”) or ”五毛” (“50-cent party”) then they were picked up by YouTube’s comment filters and deleted in around 15 seconds, The Verge reports. The first phrase is a derogatory term for Chinese communists, while the second is a term given to internet users who are paid to manipulate public opinion on the Community Party. 

Palmer Luckey, the founder of Oculus, brought attention to the issue when he tweeted about it on Tuesday, saying that it appeared to be a form of censorship. 

Luckey’s comments were noticed by Sen. Ted Cruz. 

“Why is Google/YouTube censoring Americans on behalf of the CCP? This is WRONG,” Cruz tweeted. “Big Tech is drunk with power. The Sherman Act prohibits abusing monopoly power. DOJ (Department of Justice) needs to stop this NOW.”

Google has a history of censoring content for the CCP. Project Dragonfly, for example, involved building a censored search engine that complied with state censorship. The project was reported to have been terminated following a clash with Google’s privacy unit. 

This YouTube issue, however, appears to be accidental. 

To complicate matters further, YouTube is technically blocked in China but some citizens use VPNs (virtual private networks) to get around the issue. 

Photo: Carsten Rehder/picture alliance via Getty Images

Link: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/27/youtube-china-communisty-party-comments.html

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