Issue 2245 - Wednesday 8th January, 2025

Hey! Just a quick note to say that the Cam-Anthony Sizzle handover bug fixes are still happening. Thanks all for your patience! To follow what’s happening, check out the forum post or holler at me - Cam.

In Today’s Issue

• Meta rolls back lies & hate speech protection

• The Aussie angle

• Apple isn’t selling Siri data

• Computer scientists are using oracles

• Free habit tracking Android app and cheap refurbished Konica Bizhub printers, Anker Soundcoure K20i earbuds, Apple magic mice and Lenovo Ideapad Slim3i.

The News

Meta rolls back lies, hate speech protection

Meta — via its charismatic, warm and definitely human founder Mark Zuckerberg — announced some changes to how it decides what you are allowed to say in the most popular online space. Please excuse me, I’m going to go a little longer on this one because it’s a big deal with Australian implications, and one that I have a lot to say about.

Unfettered, American-style free speech is coming back on Facebook, Instagram and Thread, said Zuckerberg in a short video today. In a grovelling appeal to the incoming Trump administration, Meta’s unelected ruler of social networks with roughly 3 billion users (which make up the three top downloaded social media apps in Australia’s iOS app store) will drop its fact-checking program in favour of something like X’s Community Notes, allow more extreme speech like calling women “property” and transgender people “ill” and “freaks”, put political content that was just removed back into the feeds and stop automatically scanning content for low-level policy violations. The context is that there’s been a politicised war on any kind of content moderation. I imagine there will be plenty of future opportunities to newsletter about content moderation but let me just say a lot of the public debate is ill-framed and in bad faith and Zuck’s rhetoric is no exception.

It’s tempting to sum up Meta’s response as Zuckerberg just sucking up to whoever is in power to curry favour. After all, Meta just put UFC CEO and MAGA loyalist Dana White on its board and donated US$1 million to Trump’s fund. Trump will no doubt be either an important ally against the EU and other countries trying to regulate Meta (more on this in a sec) or a foe who will fulfil a previous threat to throw Zuck into jail for life lol. But don’t discount the fact that this might just be what Zuck really believes. He is an acolyte of the libertarian Silicon Valley school of thought on free speech, seeing any regulation as an impediment to growth at all costs. In 2018, he made a point of publicly defending holocaust denialism on Facebook before immediately backflipping. This isn’t a complete defence of Meta’s current approach nor is it a reflexive criticism of all of Zuck’s new plans. For example: I’ve seen Community Notes working well on X in some cases. The point is that it is obvious Zuck is doing what is best for him, not because of what’s best for the the wellbeing of the billions of people who use his company’s services.

The Aussie angle

There was one line in Zuckerberg’s video that piqued my Aussie ears. “We’re going to work with President Trump to push back against countries around the world that are going after American companies and pushing to censor more,” he said. Regardless of whether you think Meta has been too harsh, too loose or just right, the idea that some guy can drastically change the rules around speech online for close to half the planet should worry you. Australia isn’t America, and we should get a say what speech and protections we want. Australia’s tech policy history is, err, far from perfect but there is some novel and justified regulation happening here that tech companies don’t like (see: Elon Musk’s not wanting to explain how X is stopping paedophiles on its service). Another example is last year’s flawed mis/disinfo bill, which would have regulated this kind of decision, was shelved in response to opposition and put in the too hard basket. If we just avoid the tough debates and difficult processes to come up with the rules we want, we’re leaving it to the whims of a tech billionaire CEO who barely knows Australia exists.

Apple isn’t selling Siri data

There was a story going around last week about Apple settling a lawsuit which claimed that iPhone users were being targeted with advertising using data from Siri recordings, which was widely circulated on social media as an admission of guilt. As skeptical as I am of tech companies, my bullshit detector went off. If Apple was letting Nike target people based on Siri recordings, as alleged, we would definitely know. There’s no way that someone from the advertiser side (i.e. Nike) wouldn’t have tipped journalists off long ago. The kernel of truth in this legal claim was that contractors were picking up delicate conversations as part of their Apple’s quality control program for Siri, according to a 2019 whistleblower. Apple has come out now saying it has never sold or used Siri data for ad targeting, which is good. It seems like like the settlement was to avoid further scrutiny of the whistleblower’s claims which, if true, are a problem but not as bad as the Siri data sale claim. On another front, I just published how Apple’s new AI features are rewording scam messages to make them seem more legit which is definitely going to screw some people over.

Oh, Also

Computer scientists are using oracles

I first read this headline and was like: duh, they probably have to deal with databases heaps so using Oracle isn’t news. Turns out it’s much more delightful story. A kind of computer scientist called complexity theorists are using what’s known as an “oracle” to help their work. The article compares them to a Magic 8 Ball that answers either yes or no to queries, except oracles are purely hypothetical and always correct. It’s hard for me to explain in a more concise way than the author has, so check the article out, but oracles are helping researchers figure out new ways of computational thinking. 

Bargains

• Motivated: Habit Tracker - Free lifetime licence on Google Play

• Refurbished Konica Bizhub 4402P & 4700P A4 Mono Laser Printers - $15

• JBL Go 4 Ultra-Portable Bluetooth 5.3 IP67 Speaker - $39 at The Good Guys

• Anker Soundcore K20i Semi-in-Ear Bluetooth Earbuds - $42.99 at Amazon

• Apple Magic Mouse - $97 at Officeworks

• Kingston FURY Renegade 2TB M.2 NVMe PCIe Gen4 SSD - $189 at Scorptec

• Team T-Force Z44A7 M.2 PCIe Gen4 NVMe SSD 4TB - $299 at PC Case Gear

The End

😎 The Sizzle is written by Cam Wilson and emailed every weekday afternoon. It was created by Anthony “decryption” Agius.

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Always Was, Always Will Be Aboriginal Land

The Sizzle is created on Gadigal land and acknowledges the traditional owners of country throughout Australia, recognising their continuing connection to land, water and community. I pay my respect to them and their cultures and to elders both past and present.