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Showing content with the highest reputation on 10/20/2018 in all areas

  1. @Troy You don't give the media any slack, constantly badmouthing it, but you bend over backwards to give Trump voters a pass. You say they were captivated by Trump's narrative. And what was the campaign narrative that got Trump elected? There was nothing uplifting or commendable about anything he said. It was all about bullying and mocking and lying and bragging, all with racist, misogynistic undertones. Those voters you claim are not racist didn't know ahead of time how the economy and employment and the stock market would improve, the things you said were why they voted for Trump, as if these voters were in such dire straits. Trump's across-the-board appeal had to do with him being typical of millions Americans who are the anti-thesis of political correctness, - arrogant, fascistic, bigoted, religious hypocrites. They are his base, Republican conservatives who ALL represent various degrees of racism, running the gamut from benign to malignant. Yes, social media has done as much harm as good. As for the communication media, hyperbole is the price you pay for a free press. The alternative is just as bad. Finally, i obviously have no tolerance for anyone who supports Trump, especially a black person. Or do i don't pretend to be objective about any of this. I am very unpatriotic and full of contempt when it comes to America not being what it brags about being, as evidenced by its unsavory history. I think it has failed at being a paragon of democracy. America's biggest problem? Americans. And the worst of them have the most power. I'm done.
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  2. @Cynique I believe America has always been crazy, the the election of 45 just made it as obvious as ever. However I don't let mainstream and social media off the hook. They provided a tremendous, free, platform for donald trump to reach the masses. Starting with the "reality TV show that created the fiction of Trump being a great business leader, which many people continue to believe. Keep in mind, while there are certainly racist, disgruntled, and all the other groups of people you describe who voted for Trump, you are neglecting the people who voted for him because the buy into his narrative -- completely, and without reservation AND who are not racist. These people may live in a pro trump bubble. Where all they hear is how great the country is doing; we have more jobs that there are people available to do them; the stock markets are at an all time high; and 45 is responsible. You better hope the Mueller investigation takes 45 down because he'll likely survive for a 2nd term. That "woman of color", Warren, has zero chance. 45 picks these prospective candidates off the fish in a barrel. He is actually quite good at playing the media in this regard. While the country is crazy I don't think the people are inherently crazy. I think living here, under the 24/7 influence of marketers and young white men who now run the media, is making us crazy. I know most people like to diminish the impact of the media, perhaps because they feel unaffected by it, but the evidence is pretty clear. Our making 45 the president should be evidence enough... We call 45 crazy, but we really need to look in the mirror.
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  3. Well, obviously we see things differently. i think it was racial profiling because i don't believe the alarms would've gone off in the woman's head, had the man trying to enter the building been white. You act as though the black guy set her up so he could entrap her. All of these incidents are symptomatic of a larger problem, the age-old problem of black skin being a catalyst for racist white people, and currently they are coming out of the walls like roaches because Donald Trump has made their bias permissible. That's the whole point. Yet, you consider these things to be trivial incidents that should just be shrugged off as immature behavior. You sound like those who think blacks should not rock the boat and just go along to get along. But Trump has also emboldened black folks and motivated them to call these people out and expose them for these petty prejudices that are gaining momentum and polluting the polarized atmosphere in America. Your attitude harks back to your agreement with those who thought Donald Trump voters were economically-deprived underclass white people who felt threatened and neglected and needed to be reached out to, rather than condemned. A recent survey, however, showed this was not the case, that those who voted for him were average income white people from all walks of life who had one thing in common which was that they all hated Obama and wanted someone who was just the opposite of him for president. These findings are significant when it comes to the question of racism. Maybe everything isn't grounded in it, but the trend is moving back in that direction thanks to Trump's "make America great again" mantra. This battle cry seems to be resonating with more and more of the white population. As far as the woman being fired over the condo incident, she is also a victim of racism; her own. The Media is in competition with the Internet. They both run stories of interest. Everybody isn't on Twitter or FaceBook and they get their news from TV and newspapers. i don't agree that these "phone-in" incidents are given priority over other more important events. They are "human interest" stories.
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  4. Seems like another situation blown out of proportion by social media. The lady did not know the man and had no obligation to let him into the building. It never would have occurred to me to whip out my cell phone record the interaction and put it online. I would have simply let the woman close the door and entered with my own key fob. Simple. People who live in these types of buildings know this. Besides, "Luxury" apartment buildings have doormen to handle these situations.
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  5. When you ask Google Home's Smart Assistant to “name some African American websites,” Google pulls the information from AALBC. While Google cite's AALBC as the source, I would be much happier if they compensated me for my research. If AALBC's information is good enough to reference on a service for which people pay them, shouldn't AALBC.com be compensated? Honesty I don't mind Google or anyone sharing the information -- indeed I encourage it. This is why I researched the information and maintain it on AALBC, but if a multi billion dollar corporation is using it to enhance their services, why shouldn't the underlying sources, like AALBC, be compensated? I'm not talking about a lot of money, a buck a query, 10 cents, a penny -- something! Google presents the same information information on their search engine results page (see screenshot below). Google calls these “Rich Snippets,” and encourages developers to markup their HTML to make it easier for Google to pull this information from their webpages to create these rich snippets. The problem with these rich snippets, on the web, is that they discourage searchers from visiting the underlying websites. As these Rich Snippets often provide the answers searcher are seeking right on the search engine results page (SERP). Google argues this provides the best search experience for their visitors, this may be true, but the reality is that it this is killing the underlying websites by robbing them of traffic they would have received if Google did not put the website's content right on the SERP. I've argued for years that Google putting their own bookstore on the SERP page has all but killed Black book websites. I just read an article on the New York Times, “The Big Secret of Celebrity Wealth: (Is That No One Knows Anything) Chris Hemsworth, Chris Pine and Chris Pratt are cumulatively worth $150 million, according to your Google results. Are they really?” This article was interesting because it informed me that Google is using these rich snippets on the Home devices. I was already aware that query above generated a Rich Snippet in on the Google SERP and I was able to quickly confirm that Google was using the same information in their Home devices which is depicted in the video I created above. The Times article goes on to explain that the site Celebrity Net Worth's information is used by Google as well. I was already aware that Google are using their data because earlier in the year I read an article on The Outline last year, “How Google eats a business whole: Google’s Featured Snippets are not only often wrong, they’re also damaging to small businesses that depend on search traffic.” The Times articles focused on the inaccuracy of the information provided by Celebrity Net Worth, that Google is sharing, while The Outline's article focused on how Google destroyed Celebrity Net Worth's traffic. Google asked Celebrity Net Worth for a sample for their data for potential use on Rich Snippets. Celebrity Net Worth declined, not seeing and benefit, and Google took the data anyway -- causing an immediate 65% drop in Celebrity Net Worth's traffic. I actually reached out to the owner of Celebrity Net Worth and explained that the same exact thing happened to my website thanks to Google's bookstore. There are not too many people who "get this" and it was refreshing to talk to someone who does. He encouraged me to reach out to The Outline, who ultimately ran a similar story about AALBC, “Google is jeopardizing African-American literature sites.” While the article made some important points, it also provided an unusually harsh and factually inaccurate critique of the website. After some back and forth I was able to get some of the inaccurate information about the AALBC removed. Despite that experience, I'm still glad the article was published, because people can judge AALBC for themselves. Speaking about Google sharing inaccurate information, Google exploits Wikipedia to the hilt. I wrote about this over 5 years ago in an article, “The Pimping of Wikipedia: Contributing to the Decline of the World Wide Web.” Google makes liberal use of Wikipedia's information not just in the Rich Snippets, but Google also uses Wikipedia's images and biographies for the author information in their own book store! Now if I copied Wikipedia's information directly, as Google does, Google would bury AALBC in search results -- rendering it undiscoverable. Since Google is monetizing Wikipedia, why is Wikipedia always begging for contributions?! I will never give Wikipedia a dime. Google needs to pay Wikipedia, and Wikipedia needs to pay the people who create Wikipedia's content -- end of story! This is just one reason wealth inequality has greatly increased. The writers who contribute content to Wikipedia are expected to volunteer their services while Google gets rich off the content. Don't for one second think that because users get answers from Google for "free" that there is some societal benefit here: There isn't. As websites are weakened by Google using their content without compensation, the ability of these websites to provide continue to produce quality content is diminished. Google still relies on their information and quality of Google's answers suffers -- often with comical results (or tragic depending upon you perspective).
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