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Bloomberg

Twitter CEO Takes Some Responsibility for Stop the Steal Spread

(Bloomberg) — Twitter Inc. Chief Executive Officer Jack Dorsey said he takes some responsibility for online organizing that led to the Jan. 6 riot at Capitol Hill, while the leaders of Facebook Inc. and Alphabet Inc. deflected blame during a Congressional hearing that focused on social media disinformation.Representative Mike Doyle, a Pennsylvania Democrat, asked Dorsey, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and the head of Google and its parent Alphabet, Sundar Pichai, if their platforms bear any responsibility for disseminating “Stop the Steal” disinformation alleging the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump. Doyle demanded a yes or no answer.“Yes, but you also have to take into consideration a broader ecosystem,” Dorsey said. “It’s not just about the technology platforms we use.”Doyle cut off Zuckerberg when he responded that Facebook’s responsibility is to “build effective systems,” and said individuals who organized the events and those who questioned the election’s outcome, including Trump, deserved blame. When Doyle asked Pichai if his statement that “we always feel a deep sense of responsibility” amounted to a yes, the CEO said it was a “complex question.”This exchange set the tone for a tense back and forth between the leaders of the world’s most powerful social media networks and lawmakers eager to hold them accountable over how they police falsehoods on Covid-19, vaccines and the election on their internet services. Many committee members also pressed the executives on the negative impact of their products on children and teenagers.The executives appeared on Thursday before members of two U.S. House Energy and Commerce subcommittees during a virtual hearing examining social media’s role in promoting extremism and disinformation.While some lawmakers have been seeking tighter regulations of online content for years, pressure is increasing on tech companies to more aggressively curtail violent and misleading material on their platforms following the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, which left five people dead and many more injured.“People died that day, and hundreds were seriously injured,” Doyle said on Thursday. “That attack and the movement that motivated it started and was nourished on your platforms. Your platforms suggested groups people should join, videos they should view, and posts they should like.”Trump’s supporters used social media sites — particularly alternative platforms such as Parler and Gab, but also larger services — to organize the riot, which was held in protest of Trump’s loss to President Joseph Biden in the November election.In recent months, Democrats have been pushing the tech giants to do more to rid conspiracy theories about Covid-19 and the vaccine that prevents its symptoms from their websites.“The witnesses here today have demonstrated time and again that promises to self-regulate don’t work,” said Jan Schakowsky, chair of the Consumer Protection and Commerce Subcommittee, in an opening statement. “They must be held accountable for allowing disinformation and misinformation to spread across their platforms, infect our public discourse, and threaten our democracy.”Thursday’s hearing is sparking renewed debate in Washington over whether Congress should weaken or even revoke a decades-old legal shield that protects social media companies from liability for user-generated content posted on their sites, known as Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996.While both parties have proposed bills to reform the law, they have sparred over how tech companies should change their content moderation practices. Republicans have threatened to weaken the legal protection for tech companies over unfounded accusations that social media firms are systematically censoring conservative viewpoints. Democrats want internet companies to do more to curb the spread of misinformation, hate speech and offensive content.“Given your promises in the fall, the events that transpired on January 6 and your true incentive that you yourself admit, I find it really difficult to take some of these assurances you are trying to give us today seriously,” Debbie Dingell, a Michigan Democrat, said.Dingell followed up by asking Zuckerberg if he would be opposed to a law to enable regulators’ access to tech companies’ algorithms that promote disinformation and extremism.“I don’t agree with your characterization,” Zuckerberg said. “I do think giving more transparency into the system is an important thing.” He added it might be hard to separate the algorithms and people’s data, arguing such a proposal might risk users’ privacy.Representative Robin Kelly, an Illinois Democrat, said the companies’ business models to promote engagement on their platforms come at the cost of spreading disinformation.“To build that engagement, social media platforms amplify content that gets attention — that can be cat videos or vacation pictures — but too often it means content that’s incendiary, contains conspiracy theories or violence,” she said. “This is a fundamental flaw in your business model.”The tech executives also differed in their support for making changes to the legal shield. Before the hearing, Zuckerberg told the committee he supports making the liability protection conditional on having systems in place for identifying and removing unlawful material. Under Zuckerberg’s proposal, a third party would determine whether a company’s systems are adequate.Google’s Pichai, whose company owns the most popular video website, YouTube, signaled that he was more skeptical of making changes to the law. Reforming it or repealing it altogether “would have unintended consequences — harming both free expression and the ability of platforms to take responsible action to protect users in the face of constantly evolving challenges,” he said in prepared testimony.Later, under questioning, Pichai said he was open to Zuckerberg’s approach.“There are definitely good proposals around transparency and accountability, which I’ve seen in various legislative proposals as well, which I think are important principles,” Pichai said. “We would certainly welcome legislative approaches in that area.”Dorsey said he supported the idea of encouraging tech companies to be more transparent about their practices.Several bills being considered by Congress seek to weaken the legal shield in an effort to encourage the platforms to bolster their content moderation practices. Democratic senators, led by Mark Warner of Virginia, introduced the SAFE TECH Act, which would hold companies liable for content violating laws pertaining to civil rights, international human rights, stalking, harassment or intimidation.And a bipartisan bill — the PACT Act — from Democratic Senator Brian Schatz of Hawaii and Republican Senator John Thune of South Dakota would require large tech companies to remove content within four days if notified by a court order that the content is illegal.Several members of the subcommittees used the hearing to ask pointed questions about how the companies’ products affect children, amid Facebook’s push to make a version of Instagram for kids under age 13.Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers, a Washington Republican, criticized the power of tech companies’ algorithms to determine what children see online.“Over 20 years ago, before we knew what Big Tech would become, Congress gave you liability protections. I want to know, why do you think you still deserve those protections today?” said McMorris Rodgers, the committee’s top Republican. “What will it take for your business model to stop harming children?”Representative Bob Latta, an Ohio Republican, asked Zuckerberg whether Facebook shoulders part of the blame for an underage girl’s suicide after a man showed a compromising photo of her to her peers on the social network.Zuckerberg said it was “an incredibly sad story,” and said his company bears responsibility to build systems to remove that kind of content.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2021 Bloomberg L.P.

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The #1 Skill I Look For When Hiring

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File this column under “for what it’s worth.”

“Communication is one of the most important skills you require for a successful life.” — Catherine Pulsifer, author.

I’m one hundred percent in agreement with Pulsifer, which is why my evaluation of candidates begins with their writing skills. If a candidate’s writing skills and verbal communication skills, which I’ll assess when interviewing, aren’t well above average, I’ll pass on them regardless of their skills and experience.

 

Why?

 

Because business is fundamentally about getting other people to do things—getting employees to be productive, getting customers to buy your products or services, and getting vendors to agree to a counteroffer price. In business, as in life in general, you can’t make anything happen without effective communication; this is especially true when job searching when your writing is often an employer’s first impression of you.

 

Think of all the writing you engage in during a job search (resumes, cover letters, emails, texts) and all your other writing (LinkedIn profile, as well as posts and comments, blogs, articles, tweets, etc.) employers will read when they Google you to determine if you’re interview-worthy.

 

With so much of our communication today taking place via writing (email, text, collaboration platforms such as Microsoft Teams, Slack, ClickUp, WhatsApp and Rocket.Chat), the importance of proficient writing skills can’t be overstated.

 

When assessing a candidate’s writing skills, you probably think I’m looking for grammar and spelling errors. Although error-free writing is important—it shows professionalism and attention to detail—it’s not the primary reason I look at a candidate’s writing skills.

 

The way someone writes reveals how they think.

 

  • Clear writing = Clear thinking
  • Structured paragraphs = Structured mind
  • Impactful sentences = Impactful ideas

 

Effective writing isn’t about using sophisticated vocabulary. Hemingway demonstrated that deceptively simple, stripped-down prose can captivate readers. Effective writing takes intricate thoughts and presents them in a way that makes the reader think, “Damn! Why didn’t I see it that way?” A good writer is a dead giveaway for a good thinker. More than ever, the business world needs “good thinkers.”

 

Therefore, when I come across a candidate who’s a good writer, hence a good thinker, I know they’re likely to be able to write:

 

  • Emails that don’t get deleted immediately and are responded to
  • Simple, concise, and unambiguous instructions
  • Pitches that are likely to get read
  • Social media content that stops thumbs
  • Human-sounding website copy
  • Persuasively, while attuned to the reader’s possible sensitivities

 

Now, let’s talk about the elephant in the room: AI, which job seekers are using en masse. Earlier this year, I wrote that AI’s ability to hyper-increase an employee’s productivity—AI is still in its infancy; we’ve seen nothing yet—in certain professions, such as writing, sales and marketing, computer programming, office and admin, and customer service, makes it a “fewer employees needed” tool, which understandably greatly appeals to employers. In my opinion, the recent layoffs aren’t related to the economy; they’re due to employers adopting AI. Additionally, companies are trying to balance investing in AI with cost-cutting measures. CEOs who’ve previously said, “Our people are everything,” have arguably created today’s job market by obsessively focusing on AI to gain competitive advantages and reduce their largest expense, their payroll.

 

It wouldn’t be a stretch to assume that most AI usage involves generating written content, content that’s obvious to me, and likely to you as well, to have been written by AI. However, here’s the twist: I don’t particularly care.

 

Why?

 

Because the fundamental skill I’m looking for is the ability to organize thoughts and communicate effectively. What I care about is whether the candidate can take AI-generated content and transform it into something uniquely valuable. If they can, they’re demonstrating the skills of being a good thinker and communicator. It’s like being a great DJ; anyone can push play, but it takes skill to read a room and mix music that gets people pumped.

 

Using AI requires prompting effectively, which requires good writing skills to write clear and precise instructions that guide the AI to produce desired outcomes. Prompting AI effectively requires understanding structure, flow and impact. You need to know how to shape raw information, such as milestones throughout your career when you achieved quantitative results, into a compelling narrative.

So, what’s the best way to gain and enhance your writing skills? As with any skill, you’ve got to work at it.

Two rules guide my writing:

 

  • Use strong verbs and nouns instead of relying on adverbs, such as “She dashed to the store.” instead of “She ran quickly to the store.” or “He whispered to the child.” instead of “He spoke softly to the child.”
  • Avoid using long words when a shorter one will do, such as “use” instead of “utilize” or “ask” instead of “inquire.” As attention spans get shorter, I aim for clarity, simplicity and, most importantly, brevity in my writing.

 

Don’t just string words together; learn to organize your thoughts, think critically, and communicate clearly. Solid writing skills will significantly set you apart from your competition, giving you an advantage in your job search and career.

_____________________________________________________________________

 

Nick Kossovan, a well-seasoned veteran of the corporate landscape, offers “unsweetened” job search advice. You can send Nick your questions to artoffindingwork@gmail.com.

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Politics likely pushed Air Canada toward deal with ‘unheard of’ gains for pilots

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MONTREAL – Politics, public opinion and salary hikes south of the border helped push Air Canada toward a deal that secures major pay gains for pilots, experts say.

Hammered out over the weekend, the would-be agreement includes a cumulative wage hike of nearly 42 per cent over four years — an enormous bump by historical standards — according to one source who was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter. The previous 10-year contract granted increases of just two per cent annually.

The federal government’s stated unwillingness to step in paved the way for a deal, noted John Gradek, after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made it plain the two sides should hash one out themselves.

“Public opinion basically pressed the federal cabinet, including the prime minister, to keep their hands clear of negotiations and looking at imposing a settlement,” said Gradek, who teaches aviation management at McGill University.

After late-night talks at a hotel near Toronto’s Pearson airport, the country’s biggest airline and the union representing 5,200-plus aviators announced early Sunday morning they had reached a tentative agreement, averting a strike that would have grounded flights and affected some 110,000 passengers daily.

The relative precariousness of the Liberal minority government as well as a push to appear more pro-labour underlay the prime minister’s hands-off approach to the negotiations.

Trudeau said Friday the government would not step in to fix the impasse — unlike during a massive railway work stoppage last month and a strike by WestJet mechanics over the Canada Day long weekend that workers claimed road roughshod over their constitutional right to collective bargaining. Trudeau said the government respects the right to strike and would only intervene if it became apparent no negotiated deal was possible.

“They felt that they really didn’t want to try for a third attempt at intervention and basically said, ‘Let’s let the airline decide how they want to deal with this one,'” said Gradek.

“Air Canada ran out of support as the week wore on, and by the time they got to Friday night, Saturday morning, there was nothing left for them to do but to basically try to get a deal set up and accepted by ALPA (Air Line Pilots Association).”

Trudeau’s government was also unlikely to consider back-to-work legislation after the NDP tore up its agreement to support the Liberal minority in Parliament, Gradek said. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, whose party has traditionally toed a more pro-business line, also said last week that Tories “stand with the pilots” and swore off “pre-empting” the negotiations.

Air Canada CEO Michael Rousseau had asked Ottawa on Thursday to impose binding arbitration pre-emptively — “before any travel disruption starts” — if talks failed. Backed by business leaders, he’d hoped for an effective repeat of the Conservatives’ move to head off a strike in 2012 by legislating Air Canada pilots and ground crew to stick to their posts before any work stoppage could start.

The request may have fallen flat, however. Gradek said he believes there was less anxiety over the fallout from an airline strike than from the countrywide railway shutdown.

He also speculated that public frustration over thousands of cancelled flights would have flowed toward Air Canada rather than Ottawa, prompting the carrier to concede to a deal yielding “unheard of” gains for employees.

“It really was a total collapse of the Air Canada bargaining position,” he said.

Pilots are slated to vote in the coming weeks on the four-year contract.

Last year, pilots at Delta Air Lines, United Airlines and American Airlines secured agreements that included four-year pay boosts ranging from 34 per cent to 40 per cent, ramping up pressure on other carriers to raise wages.

After more than a year of bargaining, Air Canada put forward an offer in August centred around a 30 per cent wage hike over four years.

But the final deal, should union members approve it, grants a 26 per cent increase in the first year alone, retroactive to September 2023, according to the source. Three wage bumps of four per cent would follow in 2024 through 2026.

Passengers may wind up shouldering some of that financial load, one expert noted.

“At the end of the day, it’s all us consumers who are paying,” said Barry Prentice, who heads the University of Manitoba’s transport institute.

Higher fares may be mitigated by the persistence of budget carrier Flair Airlines and the rapid expansion of Porter Airlines — a growing Air Canada rival — as well as waning demand for leisure trips. Corporate travel also remains below pre-COVID-19 levels.

Air Canada said Sunday the tentative contract “recognizes the contributions and professionalism of Air Canada’s pilot group, while providing a framework for the future growth of the airline.”

The union issued a statement saying that, if ratified, the agreement will generate about $1.9 billion of additional value for Air Canada pilots over the course of the deal.

Meanwhile, labour tension with cabin crew looms on the horizon. Air Canada is poised to kick off negotiations with the union representing more than 10,000 flight attendants this year before the contract expires on March 31.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.

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Federal $500M bailout for Muskrat Falls power delays to keep N.S. rate hikes in check

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HALIFAX – Ottawa is negotiating a $500-million bailout for Nova Scotia’s privately owned electric utility, saying the money will be used to prevent a big spike in electricity rates.

Federal Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson made the announcement today in Halifax, saying Nova Scotia Power Inc. needs the money to cover higher costs resulting from the delayed delivery of electricity from the Muskrat Falls hydroelectric plant in Labrador.

Wilkinson says that without the money, the subsidiary of Emera Inc. would have had to increase rates by 19 per cent over “the short term.”

Nova Scotia Power CEO Peter Gregg says the deal, once approved by the province’s energy regulator, will keep rate increases limited “to be around the rate of inflation,” as costs are spread over a number of years.

The utility helped pay for construction of an underwater transmission link between Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, but the Muskrat Falls project has not been consistent in delivering electricity over the past five years.

Those delays forced Nova Scotia Power to spend more on generating its own electricity.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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