Monthly Archives: June 2022

Teel off the mark on Brunswick student protest criticism

On June 8, The Times Record ran a story about the Brunswick Junior High School student walk-out protesting in-school gun violence against children (Uvalde school massacre prompts Brunswick Junior High gun violence protest). A Republican candidate for the Maine Senate, Brogan Teel, claimed the event was political and organized by a partisan progressive group, and not a good look for Brunswick. Can we talk?

If the walk-out was political, it was legitimately so. It was a protest to encourage legislative change regarding guns, a peaceable assembly protected under the First Amendment. The school administration did not sponsor or organize the walk-out; students were the driving force. The administrators attended to assure student safety.

If Im an eighth-grader and I hear/read about Uvalde (or Columbine or Sandy Hook or Parkland or), where students are gunned down in schools, I cant help but be partisan an adherent to the cause of preventing further such events. To be otherwise would ignore the undeniable reality in this country.

In the current political environment, the term progressive has lost its meaning. For some Republicans, any politician to the left of Attila the Hun qualifies. That students, an at-risk population, desire a change in current gun laws (which facilitate mass shootings) seems pretty middle-of-the-road to me.

If the Republican Teel supports the currrent interpretation of the (ambiguous) 2nd Amendment, she supports the status quo which enables these atrocities. I dont think she belongs in the Maine Senate. And if she is enraged by peaceable protest organized by eighth-graders, she needs to read the Constitution with all of its Amendments.

Steven ZimmermanTopsham

Action needed to curb gun deaths in America

I was appalled to read of Mr. Teels remarks that demonstrating for an end to gun violence is a partisan issue (Uvalde school massacre prompts Brunswick Junior High gun violence protest). Since when is wanting to be safe, to live without fear, partisan? I applaud these students for speaking up, as we adults have basically done nothing to curb the epidemic of gun violence and mass shootings we have in this country. Gun violence is the No. 1 cause of death for American children and teens with more than 4,300 killed with guns every year. A total of 40,620 people are killed by gun violence in an average year a shocking average of 110 people every day. Americans are 26 times more likely to be killed by guns than those from other high-income countries.

We need thoughts and prayers but we also need action. Lets try some actions and see how they help. Lets ban assault rifles and high-capacity magazines, increase the age to buy a gun, enhance background checks, and institute red flag laws on the federal level. We should also ask the CDC to research gun violence and its causes and possible solutions, and fully fund that effort. Doing nothing in the face of all this violence is immoral. Putting limits on gun ownership does not mean everyones gun will be taken away far from it. But some use this idea to reject any laws on gun ownership and offer no solutions to the problem.

We also need to address what is behind this epidemic. There are many causes that need to be looked at so we can figure out how to help. Many of the mass shootings are linked to young men radicalized by the white power/white supremacy movement. Listening to some of the spokesmen for these groups makes me feel sick and frightened, especially for any person of color and our children, as well as anyone who might cross them. For some of our politicians to say the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol was just legitimate political discourse and should be forgotten is encouraging this violence. We need to act to save lives! Together!

Nancy Marstaller, Harpswell

Agreed: Conservative voices needed

I enthusiastically applaud Tricia Smiths recent letter to the editor, Times Record needs more conservative voices (June 7).

Yes, more conservative voices, but also more just middle of the road types of opinions, neither liberal nor conservative.

I love the local coverage, and thats why I buy the paper. During the Trump administration, we saw four years of anti-Trump political cartoons, day after day after day.

Take a look around at what else is going on in the world besides what left-leaning liberals are saying.

Paula McKenney,Woolwich

An important article on fake news

Thursdays edition featured an outstanding article in the BoomerTech Adventures column regarding the need for diligence with regard to news and facts (Due diligence and dealing with online fake news and bias, June 7). It listed a variety of sites that can be utilized for checking facts as well as our wonderful local library resources for spotting fake news. Given the amount of fake news perpetrated by friends who are trying to either enlighten or alarm me, it is wonderful to have resources to double-check info. This is one article that should not be buried on the bottom of the last page of the last section of the newspaper. It is a well-written and informative article on resources for people to use to do fact-checking, especially in light of the frequent perpetuation of incorrect fake news.

Darlene Breton,Brunswick

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Letters: Readers sound off on gun violence, conservative voices, fake news article - Press Herald

Maharashtra Cyber Cell Department on Saturday informed that it has registered 600 cases of fake news, rumours or hate speeches in the state in the past one year. Maharashtra Cyber Cell ADG Madhukar Pandey on Saturday told ANI that the state has a 'robust social media monitoring system' to keep an eye on sensitive posts instigating communal tension or Covid-related misinformation.

"We have a robust social media monitoring system where we keep a watch on hate speech, posts disturbing communal harmony, spreading rumours, COVID-related misinformation, etc. In last one year, 600 cases registered regarding fake news, rumours and hate speech over social media in Maharashtra in various units based upon these inputs," he said. According to official data provided by Maharashtra Cyber, in these offences registered, 384 accused have been arrested till now. Out of the total arrested accused, preventive action as per the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) is carried out on 145 accused.

Also, so far 138 posts are removed by issuing take-down notices to the social media platforms wherever they are not removed by the posting individual himself. The most common platforms where these types of messages are found or reported to be offensive are WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc.

The Cyber department issued a warning to the author of the post and asks the author to take down the relevant post. According to a Cyber Department official, all offensive posts are not of the same gravity.

"So graded action is taken by the cyber department. In most of the cases author of the posts are gone notice to take down their post on their own but in some cases, posts are so offensive and disturbing that directly an FIR is registered. If the posts are not deleted by the author, Department contacts social media companies to take down the offensive posts," the official said. (ANI)

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

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600 cases of fake news, rumours, hate speeches registered in one year in Maharashtra - Devdiscourse

The water collection point in Buffelsfontein Road.

The social media post made by a DA councillor that the taps at the brand new water collection point in Buffelsfontein Road have been stolen, has been dubbed as fake news by the JOC.

DA councillor, Vernon Boggenpoel, posted a picture of the collection point without any taps on Facebook yesterday, June 16, with the caption: "The brass taps at Buffelsfontein and Airport water collection points have already been stolen...who would have thought."

Joint Operations Centre spokesperson, Luvuyo Bangazi, released a media statement following the post and said that it is "disappointing and regrettable that an elected representative of Council is free to share unconfirmed and unsubstantiated fake news about stolen water taps from water collections points currently under construction."

He added that the taps have not been stolen but that the contractors are still working on the site.

Boggenpoel had in the meantime deleted his post and replaced it with the following: "The taps have not been stolen. They are plastic. Incorrect information received. My apologies." Boggenpoel later said that he had received the information from a reputable source but that it was indeed untrue. "I apologise for the mistake. I know now to double check when receiving information that might cause harm or intend to bring negativity in our community," he said.

However, Bangazi said that although the post has since been corrected, the message continues to circulate on community groups across the Bay and beyond. "This act, which sets back the communication efforts of the JOC, done by a member of council, could have been avoided had the councilor sought confirmation from the JOC or the Department of Water and Sanitation. We urge members of the public to be vigilant towards misinformation and fake news during this crunch time. All efforts, by all stakeholders, should be aimed at informing and empowering citizens."

We live in a world where facts and fiction get blurred

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Taps stolen at brand new water collection point dubbed as 'fake news' - News24

Want to see a picture of Jesus Christ laughing at a meme on his phone, Donald Trump as the Nevermind baby, or Karl Marx being slimed at the Nikelodeon Kids Choice awards?

If youve been on Twitter or Instagram in the past couple of weeks, its been hard to miss odd-looking formulations of these kinds of scenarios in the form of AI art.

DALL-E (and DALL-E mini), the creator of these artworks, is a neural network that can take a text phrase and transform it an image. It was trained by looking at millions of images on the internet along with accompanying text and it learned to create pictures of things youd never expect to be combined, such as an avocado armchair.

Text to image technology is proceeding at a rapid pace, and the full DALL-E model is able to produce scarily clear images based on the input you provide, while the mini version is still clunky enough to capture the weird internet style that makes them instantly meme-able. The best examples of that can be found on the r/weirddalle subreddit.

But experts say the technology poses ethical challenges.

Prof Toby Walsh, AI researcher and author of a book on the morality of AI, says the kind of technology that powers DALL-E makes it easier to create fake images.

We are seeing deep fakes being used all the time, and the technology is going to allow still images, but ultimately also video images, to be synthesised [more easily] by bad actors, he says.

DALL-E has content policy rules in place that prohibit bullying, harassment, the creation of sexual or political content, or creating images of people without their consent. And while Open AI has limited the number of people who can sign up to DALL-E, its lower-grade replica, DALL-E mini, is open access, meaning people can produce anything they want.

Its going to be very hard to ensure that people dont use them to make images that people find offensive, Walsh says.

Dr Oliver Bown , a researcher in computational creativity at the University of New South Wales, says the nature of the neural networks in the AI makes it difficult to prevent DALL-E from creating offensive imagery, but it is possible to prevent the person requesting the image from accessing and sharing it.

You can obviously just have a filter at the end that that sort of tries to filter out things that are bad.

Walsh says in addition to regulatory framework and company policies around the use of the technology, the public also needs to be educated to be more discerning about what they are seeing online.

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If I got [an image] off the BBC website, the Guardian website, I hope theyve done their homework and I could be a bit more trusting than if I got it off Twitter. [In that case] I ask all the questions as to [whether this is] a bit of fake content or not.

The other major ethical issue Walsh sees coming is the potential for text-to-image AI to replace jobs in graphic design.

You can imagine that more of us are going to be able to do graphic design because we could say paint me a picture with the specification when we want, and well get that picture. Whereas previously, there was a graphic designer who produced that picture, he says.

Graphic design isnt going to go away, it will lead to even more graphic design because all of us can access these tools, but graphic designers might have less work themselves.

But Bown says this new technology will also allow for prompt creativity, meaning the thought that goes into the image request will lead to more creativity.

This new challenge is on for creative people to think about what they want to put into a system like this, he says.

The clunky look of DALL-E mini image generations is also becoming an internet art form of its own, Bown says.

I can imagine that this would just be huge for something like Instagram or just direct messaging with your mates when youre trying to send memes.

Therell be all kinds of crazy subcultures of image generation. So if it produces these kind of hazy, slightly mangled images with peoples arms in the wrong places, thats OK, we just get used to that aesthetic.

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From Trump Nevermind babies to deep fakes: DALL-E and the ethics of AI art - The Guardian