***THREAD***

I’ve been on the phone with colleagues about the hack all morning. None of us can figure out why #CISA chose this particular response to the breach. Couple of things struck us as curious.

The agencies targeted are not responding how you might expect...

Let's be clear about what @Google, @Apple & @amazon instantly destroying #Parler's ability to be the free-speech version of Twitter is. At its core, this is about the ability to freely communicate one’s thoughts to others — once considered a hallmark of "The American Way." 1/13

What Big Tech is doing is as if Ma Bell in 1973 (ask grandpa) decided what you're saying to a friend on a landline phone was “dangerous." So they cut off the line in the middle of the talk and then sent someone over to physically cut your phone line. That's Stasi shit. 2/13

I realize that a personal conversation is not the same as a public tweet, but the principle is the same. The company that "owns the wires" for your speec — and has special govt rules protecting them due to their position — cuts off your call due to what you are saying. 3/13

If this analogy doesn't work for you, imagine someone tackling and punching you for speaking on a soap box in a public park and then setting your soap box on fire. And the govt being OK with that in a country that has a First Amendment. Moving on ... 4/13

Big Tech shadow banned people for years to just do it "halfway." That way, they could continue to paint an increasingly thin patina on their original govt-protected pledge to promote the free exchange of thought. #freespeech 5/13

Transgenderism resembles a mass psychogenic illness that has spread thanks to the internet. If there were no Tumblr identity fluidity nonsense, and if Reddit and YouTube had never existed, most “trans” people would not have landed on “gender” as the source of their ills.
1.

It is handed to them in the same way religion is handed to children. Thoughts and ideas are set before them, and they have brought these thoughts and ideas to live in themselves. Without the Internet, their feelings of dis-ease would have found a different explanation.
2.

These ideas became a framework for self-understanding, a map that instructs their actions, a vocabulary that programs their tongue. The pursuit of identity was the task, the online bubble its surrogate. They were commanded by it, and it gave their lives purpose and meaning.
3.

It had benefits. It catered to vanity. Social adulation arrived with each new step. This is why they so fiercely cling to it, since any conceptual breakdown would shatter the world they’ve built, which has been buttressed and fortified through these concepts – these errors.
4.

Its appeal first came as an escapist fantasy for the dysmorphic and disenchanted. Unbound from the meanings thrust upon them by others, they could instead become self-creators. They imbibed the dogma that suggested only two paths lay before them: – transition or suicide.
5.

Today WhatsApp wished it's users good morning. Accept the updated terms and conditions or say goodbye. (Thread 1/n) It is effective from Feb 8, 2021.

There are seperate hyperlinks for terms and privacy policies. Both these hyperlinks lead to multiple pages of contracts written in a very jargonised language. A few things I noted :

The information 'we' provide to #WhatsApp include our messages. Also WhatsApp claims that it is end to end encrypted BUT,

BUT if your friend / enemy / boyfriend / family or anyone is offline and your message sent to him cannot be delivered #immediately, it will be saved on #WhatsApp servers for 30 days.

Also: When you forward media msg in #WhatsApp that media is stored temporarily in encrypted form on it's servers to aid in more efficient delivery of additional forwards. Tada! (Consider a thousand times before sending any images; news anchors can officially read your chats.)

A thread on teaching live lessons using @MicrosoftTeams Meet Now function where students follow their normal timetable except online - will go into more detail on every point in a blog post later. Have used Teams for live teaching have supported over 100 live lessons since March

1. If you are using the desktop app, check you have the latest version of Teams so that you should have Breakout rooms enabled. Check by clicking your profile picture, then About - I have version 1.3.00.28779. If you have 1.2..., click on check for updates to get the latest

2. Set your entry routine. I get my students to enter with their microphone muted - you can also not allow attendees to unmute by opening the participants list, clicking the ellipsis and selecting that option.

3. Make sure students arrive as attendees - some organisations have this set up to automatically happen that only meeting organizer is the presenter and others are attendees. Can change this in the manage permissions menu to only me if not already set (opens in a web browser).

4. Classroom routine and expectations - first lesson I share my screen and show the students the raise hand function for when they want to ask questions, how to access the chat function and how to react to questions as opposed to typing answers