If we don't care—why should the government or corporations?
Working through the news this morning, my eyes caught three different articles that I felt were pertinent to People First.
David Byrne
A fascinating article—if a tad 'self'-repetitive from the thoughtful David Byrne. The final line from his piece that examines the role of technology is contributing to and detracting from human interaction and engagement. No specific solutions, which is good, since the answers lie with 'we the people'.
“We” do not exist as isolated individuals. We, as individuals, are inhabitants of networks; we are relationships. That is how we prosper and thrive.
Source: David Byrne for Technology Review
(August 15th, 2017)
Federal Unions Disbanded?
Executive orders have become the 'order of the day,' if you will pardon the pun. I hadn't thought that executive orders from the current administration could be so far-reaching. At the time of writing, there are 900 thousand federal employees who belong to a union. Could that really be reduced to zero by the stroke of a single pen, held by a single man?
“What the law actually says is that the President is empowered, through executive order, to exclude any agency or subdivision from coverage,” Canon said, “if the President determines that that agency or subdivision has intelligence, investigative, or national security functions.”
Why Fake News Won't Stop
For all of the screams and squawks about fake news in the USA, nobody seems to be doing anything about it, but in France, there is a different thought. Storyzy has launched a solution that allows any brand to whether they are running ads that appear on a 'fake news' sites. Good—right? Well, it would be if the corporations did anything about it, but apparently they aren't. And (this might be disingenuous of me), I think that fact is driven by a combination of three things:
- those who run corporations don’t care
- ads run on fake news sites earn these corporations money
- these corporations are measuring the wrong things
This is important to People First, because if corporations don’t publicly care about fairness, equality, and democracy and position those forces lower in priority than convenience and profit on something as massively visible as this topic, we can only imagine how they must operate when 'those doors' are closed.
Storyzy's business is alerting brands to their presence on fake news sites. By and large, the advertising community's response is simply appalling.