Sex Sells. Let’s A/B Test that Puppy and See Who Bites

Now that the mid-terms are over let's switch it up and have some fun! I did one silly little video about “prairie dogging” on YouTube and it immediately got 36,000 views. Viewers thought it was the “toilet humor” version (which apparently everyone knows about) but instead it was the “geek humor” version (which many of you still don’t know about). Didn’t matter… here was a term that straddled both worlds and in the offline world, it was about something “dirty” so it generated enough views that Google wanted me to put an ad on it.

I make money online with ads but I didn’t bite. I could’ve gone online and explained every little naughty term there is to be had on the Internet in my bikini (that’s what I do, track Internet terms and wear bikinis). Or topless, like the Dutch meteorologists in my motherland do. My BFF and I are geek girls… we get it, we talk about it, and she’s definitely a hot MILF. We’ve often thought we should continue my original NetLingo mission about explaining technology from a woman’s point of view on a vlog. We’d be great… even better than Soledad O'Brien was back in my CNET days. We should probably still do it, half-clothed of course.

It was that idea which inspired my little video exercise, mind you “prairie dogging” isn’t even a sexy term. The funny online explanation is slang for when someone drops something loudly at work in a cube farm and everyone's heads pop up over the walls to see what's going on. The funny offline explanation is when you have to take a crap so bad the turd is popping in and out until you get the chance to release it. Even Planet Mancow didn’t know that definition when I was on national TV with him; sorry Erich Muller but there’s a NetLingo word for that: 404.

I decided to investigate the online jargon I’ve been tracking all these years so I dug deep into my analytics and found, you don't say, America is searching for sex. Gang, I’m an online pioneer, I’ve been writing about internet jargon and cyber culture since the beginning --even before 1995 when the web browser was first commercially released-- and sure enough, y'all talk dirty!

Having worked in the industry all of my professional life, I read publications and hear terms, but I’m also an academic researcher, a Social Psychologist, hell I’m even considered a Linguist, and I’ve never censored anything on netlingo.com. It cracks me up, I’ll get a smiley submission from an Intel engineer :) and a detailed net neutrality update from a millennial: We all speak some form of net lingo online. Unlike Urban Dictionary, NetLingo is still moderated and curated. But like Urban Dictionary, the sexy themes keep coming in and standing out.

So, I decided to own it. Give you a taste of what you seem to want. I bit. Now I’m committed. And I’m gonna bring it. Let’s take a look at the naughty side of our online communication with the new book “NSFW: The Little Black Book of Acronyms.” To be able to finally showcase the fun and flirty terms is getting me excited for the holiday season! Were you and your friends NAUGHTY or NICE this year? We've got “NSFW: The Black Book of Acronyms” for your NAUGHTY list, and “Texting Terms” the white version for your NICE list.. take a peek!

Dudes, peeps, my NetLingo friends, I am loving my new "NSFW" book so don’t be surprised when you see my digital doppelganger showing up in my social media feeds. I need a break from all this "Big Tech Politik" Mr. POTUS and chuckle on my toilet for a change. Better yet I’ll be by the pool sexting my bae some “Not Safe For Work” fantasies. It totally helps to flip through this “sexty little book” while I’m doing so... someone get the Kardashians a copy of “NSFW” stat.

- Erin Jansen, Internet Specialist, Social Psychologist, Founder of NetLingo.com
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WTF? He Told You the Motive on Social Media: No More “Hopes and Prayers”

If I thought Congress was ignorant about internet technology, you must be idiots regarding guns.

The Thousand Oaks gunman actually took the time, in between killing 12 people, to post on his Instagram during last week’s massacre. Was he asking for forgiveness or acknowledging he was crazy? No. He was mocking you Congress. Not only did he have no reason to do it, he called you out specifically:

“…the only thing you people do after these shootings is 'hopes and prayers'...or 'keep you in my thoughts'. Every time...and wonder why these keep happening... --(two smiley face emojis)."

It’s chilling how social media has given murderers the platform they need to get the attention they want. Anyone in Big Tech who’s made money off of social media is culpable: your creations are causing addiction, teen suicide, live video morbidity, and it’s only getting worse. Hollywood needs to cut out the gun violence crap, and you know why reality TV celebrities suck? Because they’ve inspired this desperate “get rich quick” for your “15-minutes of fame” behavior. Nobody needs more than $10 million in your bank account; if you do you’re just plain greedy. There’s a NetLingo word for that: anus envy.

The fact that this person used two smiley face emojis is psychopathic. Yes, dude you are suicidal and insane, and I’m not giving in to your quest by even mentioning your name. Why do these guys always seem to have three names anyway? Momma’s don’t let your babies grow up with guns and three names.

Listen people, you don’t need to give up your guns. It’s our right to keep and bear arms. We’ve given the Second Amendment 227 years; it’s outdated and clearly not working anymore. Keep your shotguns and revolvers but turn in these military-assault weapons and ban them once and for all. If you think you need your stockpile of weapons in case the government comes after you for some paranoid reason, then you’re going to cause the next Civil War.

So, don’t tell me the “authorities” have not yet determined a motive. The killer told you himself “life is boring” and he basically knew he could get away with it. Military style weapons have no place in this world except for in the military. Do something about it. More people have been killed at American schools this year than have been killed while deployed in the U.S. military. Shame on you.

Congress it has been a horrible week for Southern California. I went to Pepperdine and I’ve been to the Borderline Bar many times. We need your “thoughts and prayers” for the fires, but nobody wants your “thoughts and prayers” over gun violence. The NRA doesn’t send out their “thoughts and prayers” after a mass shooting, so why do members of Congress, especially when you are the only ones who can do something about it?

I’m a lover not a fighter, and when my sympathetic nervous system is activated to fight or flight, I’ll fly. Between the Parkland students, the Jewish synagogue and this former Marine, you Mr. President and every member of Congress has blood on your hands. You have to start fighting America’s crazy gun violence and pass measures to ban high-magazine capacity weapons. Meanwhile I’m on the next flight to Fiji.

- Erin Jansen, Internet Specialist, Social Psychologist, Founder of NetLingo.com
Subscribe to the NetLingo Blog via Email or RSS here



Big Tech has a Saudi Arabia Problem: Apple's Hypocrisy

Saying goodbye to my iPhone will be the hardest. I admire Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO for voicing strong support for a national data protection law (which I called for 2 blog posts ago in Facebook’s Gone FUD), and I’m glad someone in Big Tech finally said “our own information is being weaponized against us with military efficiency.”

Many colleagues are giving Tim Cook flack however, because it’s fairly easy for him to say this: Apple doesn’t rely on ads for its main business and it limits the data it collects on users. Still, he’s right on the money in calling out Facebook and Google for their hacking scandals, and for describing how much of the online ad industry is now, surveillance. All our personal data is only serving to enrich the companies that collect it.

When Tim took a swipe at rivals in his extraordinary speech “who claim to support rules but lobby behind closed doors to weaken any initiative” well there it was; what used to smell like lobbyists to me is now out in broad daylight. Facebook, Google, and Microsoft have all backed some version of a new privacy law so now we’ll be looking to you Congress, not the lobbyists, for clear legislation similar to Europe’s GDPR - under which Facebook currently faces a fine of as much as $1.63 BILLION.

Did you hear me Congress, Mr. President and my new friend Ivanka? The CEO of Apple agrees we need GDPR like I said two weeks ago; when you need someone other than Political Lobbyists to explain that to you, call in the Internet Specialists.

Apple advocating for privacy is definitely two steps forward, so why are they preparing to take one big step back? According to The New York Times, the kingdom’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has shifted Saudi Arabia’s investment attention from Wall Street to Silicon Valley and Big Tech is jumping… high.

The “Saudi Public Investment Fund” has put $45 billion into a technology fund run by SoftBank and reportedly plans to invest $45 billion more. My colleagues are asking, why does Big Tech want to add a medieval theocracy that still beheads by sword to the criticism they are already facing? Why would Big Tech want to go along with a Saudi narrative and become a reputation-laundering machine for one of the least admirable regimes on earth?

Money. The sheer amount of it offered by Saudi Arabia is unprecedented and to some founders, irresistible. In fact, the kingdom is now the largest single funding source for U.S. start-ups. But Silicon Valley’s morals and idealism in exchange for short-term profits won’t mix well with tyranny. There’s a NetLingo word for it: wild ducks. Recode.net summed it up: Doing business with tyrants is not only morally the wrong thing to do, it’s economically stupid. 

Investment in Saudi Arabia will prove controversial for Apple. With its draconian form of sharia law, Saudi Arabia’s autocratic government is consistently rated among “the worst of the worst” human rights offenders. Its gender apartheid system treats women as second-class citizens, shrouded in fabric, dependent on male chaperones, and barred from going out alone and from any form of public life. The country has notoriously strict anti-LGBT laws as opposed to Apple's pro-LGBT stances in the U.S. and elsewhere. There’s no freedom of religion. The press is censored. They're covering up the killing of one of their own nationals in their own embassy, allegedly sawing his limbs off and desolving him in acid. Brutal, public floggings and stonings are the penalty for committing adultery. Those arrested are routinely tortured to extract confessions. They've jailed the country's elite inside the Ritz Carlton, for years. Last year, Saudi Arabia put to death 146 people for crimes including murder and drug dealing; most of the executions were beheadings. Not to mention the U.S.-backed military campaign in neighboring Yemen which is killing thousands and putting millions of people at risk of starvation, including whatever else we don't know...? It's not worth it.

Tim, if you really want to throw the privacy rule book at your rivals, then begin by removing Google’s search engine as the default search on Apple devices. We know Apple collects more than $5 BILLION dollars a year in “licensing fees” from Google, so put your money where your mouth is and start there. And good luck with opening your new Apple store over there next year, but don’t let your wild ducks get tamed by Saudi money, because if you do, I’ll go back to Dell.

- Erin Jansen, Internet Specialist, Social Psychologist, Founder of NetLingo.com
Subscribe to the NetLingo Blog via Email or RSS here

China is Beating Us at Our Own AI Game = Not Good for Your Grandkids


Don't think a cold war can't happen again, we are already on our way. For those of us who don't remember the cold war in 1945, hindsight has shown it wasn’t inevitable. The United States and Soviet Union had been allies during World War II, but then a series of choices and circumstances over a 5-year period set the conflict on its self-perpetuating track.

A new article in the November issue of Wired called "The AI Cold War That Threatens Us All" by Nicholas Thompson and Ian Bremmer is a MUST READ. For all of us. If not for you, then for your future children or your grandchildren. The article is more than 5000 words, you can still do it. AI is artificial intelligence.

Even though it's become a joke to think Mr. President Donald Trump will take 30 minutes to read anything, he must - or have Ivanka read it to you, this is of interest to her STEM initiative as well. Members of the Congress, this is your job, to read articles like this one so you can understand the severity of "a new cold war arms race over artificial intelligence (AI)." If you don't understand something, email me (info@netlingo.com) and I will explain it to you. Here's a paraphrased summary:

In the spring of 2016, an artificial intelligence system called AlphaGo defeated a world champion Go player. The Chinese were perplexed because most Americans were unfamiliar with the ancient game Asian Go, and the technology that emerged victorious was even more foreign: a form of artificial intelligence called machine learning, which uses large data sets to train a computer to recognize patterns and make its own strategic choices.

At the time, Obama’s science and technology policy advisers cheered it and saw it as a win for technology; the next day the rest of the White House forgot about it. In China, however, 280 million people watched AlphaGo win and what mattered was that a machine owned by a California company had conquered a game invented more than 2,500 years ago in Asia.

In spring of 2017, AlphaGo triumphed again, this time over a Chinese Go master ranked at the top of the world. This prompted China to act fast: By October 2017, you may remember seeing China’s president, Xi Jinping, standing in front of red banners and his fellow party members laying out his plans for the party’s future. What many don't realize is that he specifically named artificial intelligence, big data, and the internet as core technologies that will help transform China into an advanced industrial economy.

After President Trump took office, the earlier AI reports were archived, and --I can't believe I'm even writing this, he should be ashamed of himself-- in March 2017, Treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin said the idea of humans losing jobs because of AI was not even on his radar screen and that it might be a threat in 50 to 100 more years(!) There's a NetLingo word for that: ID10T. That same year, China committed itself to building a $150 billion AI industry by 2030 (that's 12 years from now).

According to the Wired article, what’s at stake is not just the technological dominance of the United States, it's that the arc of the digital revolution is starting to bend toward tyranny, and one of the only ways to stop it is to keep developing our own AI technology and partner with China on joint AI research and corporations. Yeah right, like that is going to happen. Well it's worth trying, and the only possible way is to learn from our mistakes.

It was never inevitable that the digital revolution would inherently favor democracy. Over the past several years we've seen the crisis of democracy unfold throughout the world and even though it has many causes, social media platforms seem like the prime culprit. Social media has amplified everyone’s worst instincts. Rather than cheering for the way social platforms spread democracy, the authors are busy assessing the extent they corrode it.

Back in China, government officials watched the Arab Spring and other uprisings with unease. Beijing already had the world’s most sophisticated internet "control" system, which could dynamically block a huge swath of foreign web domains, and now The Great Firewall can turn off internet access in zones within cities. In fact, China recently censored, I mean "digitally walled off" the entire province of Xinjiang after violent protests there spread via the internet.

Even Vladimir Putin, a tech pioneer when it comes to cyberwar and spreading disinformation, said the one who becomes the leader in the AI sphere will be the ruler of the world. And Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google, has compared artificial intelligence to the discovery of electricity or fire. Yeah, it's that big and it's that important, and AI is just one component to China's advancing technology.

So, the world can commit to America's technology or to China's. The old silk road is being strung with Chinese fiber-optic cables and we're seeing more countries commit to China including Pakistan and huge swaths of Africa. In May 2018, about six months after Zimbabwe got rid of the despot Robert Mugabe, the new government announced that it was partnering with a Chinese company to build an AI and facial-recognition system: Zimbabwe gets to expand its surveillance state; China gets money, influence, and data.

The Wired article aptly states that for the past century, democracies have proven more resilient and successful than dictatorships, even if democracies have made stupid decisions along the way. Well Congress, we cannot make stupid decisions about AI and our relationship with China during the next 5-years. But there is nothing close to a serious debate as to how to address this and so far, you're not doing too great with China. Please read the full article in Wired "The AI Cold War That Threatens Us All" by Nicholas Thompson and Ian Bremmer here: https://www.wired.com/story/ai-cold-war-china-could-doom-us-all

- Erin Jansen, Internet Specialist, Social Psychologist, Founder of NetLingo.com
Subscribe to the NetLingo Blog via Email or RSS here

Facebook’s Gone FUD: Why Big Tech Needs Regulation

I never thought I’d say it, but the Internet needs government regulation. The notion of cyberspace as a level playing field was an ideal many indie developers held on to fiercely in the beginning. But along came online advertising and search engine marketing, where anyone could pay-to-play based on secret algorithms; then came e-commerce and Amazon’s demise of the sole proprietorship (big box stores too) while never paying taxes; and now there’s social media, which has taken over millions of people’s lives despite well-known tech addiction issues and personal privacy hacks.

The idea of regulating something feels like you’re taking away a freedom or putting a restriction on me, especially when it comes to the Internet, my beloved, revolutionary wild west frontier. But alas, Silicon Valley needs a sheriff. Big Tech cannot seem to handle the real life threats their technology is creating, both in our country and around the world. And that’s what our government is for: To establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, and promote the general welfare.

Instead I’m writing about hate speech, fake accounts, personal privacy stolen, election manipulation, disinformation campaigns, false advertising, and flawed, monopolistic business practices. Does this sound like America? No, but this is Facebook today. Their business model simply isn’t worth it: To collect data about you so they can target you with ads? Meanwhile identity thieves are stealing our data and our government still has done nothing about it. Congress please tell us: What have you done to investigate whether Facebook can make it through the 2018 election season without another national crisis?

Last week Google got hacked, and this week Facebook got hacked twice… what are we learning from this? Earlier this year Facebook took out full-page ads in the U.S.’s and U.K.’s biggest newspapers pledging to protect users’ personal information. They said if they can’t, they don’t deserve it. Well, we just learned they don’t deserve it. Misinformation distributed by social platforms like Facebook has led to people being arrested, jailed, and in some cases killed. There’s even a NetLingo word for it: FUD. But millions of Americans love their Facebook and want to keep it, so what to do? Time for an educated Congress to step in.

But first, what did Facebook do about this latest theft against them and 50 million of their users? They tried to bury it: As the news of the data breach spread over other sites, you could barely find reports of it on Facebook. Hmm, and what is Facebook going to do next? Spend $1 billion to acquire a digital security firm. Hey Facebook, you told us we were already secure. Sounds like insanity… doing the same thing but expecting a new result. Even you, Mr. President, can realize that more security might help, but it won’t fix this.

Sure enough, the Internet won’t get safer without the government stepping in. Now there are new reports that even Silicon Valley accepts the need for coming regulations. Bravo! But, of course there’s a catch: Big Tech wants to help now only to try and persuade elected officials to create laws that are weaker than the privacy laws currently in Europe and coming to California. Smells like more lobbyists to me.

Meanwhile, it’s clear Congress: Regulatory agencies must hold Big Tech accountable for patrolling their platforms and ensuring that hostile users are removed immediately, and for restricting false accounts. There should also be penalties for companies with bad data security, whether it’s heavy fines or annual fees. Don’t you already have a blueprint for this with the latest Wall Street debacle? Oh wait, you just voted on the biggest rollback of Wall Street regulations, didn’t you? Please Congress, follow the European GDPR formula and look to California to lead by example before the chicken littles are proven right and there is a catastrophic event due to hacking or disinformation.

- Erin Jansen, Internet Specialist, Social Psychologist, Founder of NetLingo.com
Subscribe to the NetLingo Blog via Email or RSS here

Google Hid their Hack for 7 months: That's Evil

So, Google can get hacked just like the rest of them – but they don’t want you to know it. That’s what we found out this week when they shut down Google+ (their failing social network) because of “a glitch” that gave outside developers would-be access to 500,000+ private profiles. This kind of headline has become so  common that people hardly pay attention to privacy data issues anymore, but we must! Google does... there's a reason they hid the compromising SNAFU from the government, and everybody else, for 7 whole months.

Why did they hide? Because they feared it would draw “immediate regulatory interest.” Well they’re right! Hello Congress, this time they told it to you themselves, in your kind of English: They covered up this data breach for 28 weeks, with no concern for their users’ private information, because they didn’t want to get “immediate regulatory interest.” Maybe you’ll understand the NetLingo word for it: data Valdez.

The privacy breach alone is one thing but this kind of cover up used to be damaging to a company. Even though they are reporting that it was “just email addresses and birth dates,” that kind of data gets put into algorithms that can identify specific people to target for identity theft. If data breaches are run of the mill for the masses, then maybe Google’s cover up will finally jar action from the classes. Dear Mr. President, please tell the FCC to make an 8th floor decision and launch an investigation to find out what else Google isn’t telling us.

- Erin Jansen, Internet Specialist, Social Psychologist, Founder of NetLingo.com

Forced to "Go Responsive" In Response to Big Tech

It’s called Responsive Website Design, or in webmaster lingo simply RWD, and it’s the new breed of website you’ve likely been seeing that “responds automatically” to your screen size. Basically, websites like NetLingo can overlay a little code to take our same robust content and make it easily viewable on all different kinds of screen sizes, whether it’s your smaller smartphone, medium size tablet, or larger size desktop. Check it out: NetLingo.com - on any of your devices, even the ads look good!

This latest design was considered “critical” because the truth is, as an online small business owner, you are always having to upgrade. I had created a nice, clean, SEO-optimized .mobi site back in day to fill the mobile browsing demand, but ultimately that wasn’t good enough for Big Tech. When Google announced “Mobilegeddon” in 2015 and started to boost the ratings of sites that are mobile friendly if the search was made from a mobile device, then “mobile first” became the new mantra. It’s understandable, especially since the amount of mobile traffic for the first time accounted for more than half of total Internet traffic, but here was another instance of Google forcing tech-savviness upon millions business owners in order to primarily service their search needs and their mobile search results.

My website started out as a flat HTML site and then got converted to a database-driven site and then upgraded to a LAMP stack site, and has now evolved into a full-blown Responsive Web Design site… and Big Tech forced my hand each upgrade all along the way. Even though NetLingo.com remains on the leading edge of website content and technology, apparently in this day and age, leading edge is no longer good enough… there’s even a NetLingo word for it: bleeding edge.

So, is this another instance where Congress should be seriously looking into Google’s monopoly and business practices if we want to remain a country where small business really matters? YES. But Congress doesn’t seem to understand Internet technology, let alone the implications. Who other than lobbyists is informing Congress about these matters and why is it taking Congress so long to make any decisions regarding Internet oversight?

Congress still hasn’t figured out the Secure Federal File Sharing Act (H.R. 4098), which would prohibit the use of P2P software on government computers and networks. I’m sorry but this bill has been under review by the United States Senate since March 25, 2010 meanwhile new botnets spread most rapidly via peer-to-peer communication. If my team and I didn’t make a decision for 8 years we’d get fired… and then hacked, or in their parlance “meddled with.” That's not good enough.

C’mon Congress. Of course, many small businesses want more and better mobile search results but does Big Tech have a right to make the millions of small business owners keep upgrading when they could possibly make a few changes on their end that would in turn benefit us all? United States citizens have been naïve in counting on Congress to care about Big Tech’s impact on small business owners. When you're ready for me to come to Washington and explain the implications of peer-to-peer networking, Google’s monopoly, or anything else Internet-related, I’m on the first plane.

- Erin Jansen, Internet Specialist, Social Psychologist, Founder of NetLingo.com


Internet Taxes are Inevitable :( Why BERNIE and BEZOS are at WAR

As a small online business owner, I hate to admit it but Internet taxes are inevitable. Senator Bernie Sanders introduced a bill called the "Stop Bad Employers by Zeroing Out Subsidies Act" also known as the "Stop BEZOS Act" because Sanders found out that many of Amazon's warehouse workers live on food stamps and Medicaid. Since Amazon gets government subsidies, that forces the American taxpayer to cover these costs, which in turn helps Bezos and Amazon shareholders become richer and richer. In case you haven’t heard, Amazon is now worth $1 trillion dollars and Bezos is the richest man in the world.

Under this Sanders plan, if an Amazon employee receives $300 in food stamps, Amazon would be taxed $300.  Great idea Bernie! Make Bezos and Big Tech pay, but better still, help Congress wake up. If 1 in 3 Amazon employees in Arizona receive food stamps and you recognize these workers need this type of help, Congress should also see the bigger picture that companies like Amazon are getting rich off of low worker wages and instead paying high shareholder returns. We now know that if Lowe’s, CVS, and Home Depot wouldn’t have “bought back their own stock” they could have provided each of their workers a raise of $18,000 a year; Starbucks could have given each of its employees $7,000 a year; and McDonald’s could have given $4,000 to each of its nearly 2 million employees. The workers would rather have a raise than food stamps! Yes, we all want to be rich like Jeff, but not with taxpayer subsidies.

Why does Amazon get a subsidy “cost of aid, hand-out” like this in the first place anyway --and then not have to pay it back-- when millions of small businesses are trying to compete with no assistance from the government at all? While Congress couldn't figure out who should get an online sales tax, Bezos was allowed to build Amazon through un-taxed revenue and low-wage employees, but every other brick and mortar store across America was obligated to pay, for 21 years and counting.

Who should get the Internet tax: Should it be the state where it was shipped FROM (sold) or the state where the product was sent TO (purchased). C'mon Congress, is that so difficult?  Make a decision. The online buyer, where the product is shipped TO and where the product is USED, gets the sales tax. All those years of taxes could have been helping to rebuild this country. Or look at it this way: Due to a low 5.46% sales tax in Wyoming and a high 10.02% sales tax in Louisiana, Amazon was able to charge 5 to 10% less for any product in America even before the small business discounted their product. Yes, Amazon is responsible for the demise of the sole proprietorship, there's even a NetLingo word for it: you've been Amazonned.

So, is Sanders right in asking Congress to seriously look into Amazon’s monopoly and business practices if we want to remain a country where small business really matters? YES. In fact, where is Congress in any of this?  Why did you not foresee the loss of revenue to the States and the economic burden ahead when Bezos and pals began profiting from hiring mostly part-time employees that would not be eligible for the ever-rising health care costs? Smells like lobbyists to me.

Bravo Bernie, the 77-year-old Senator from Vermont, who is leading the charge with his Stop BEZOS Act.  It’s long overdue but face it, Internet taxes are inevitable. Restoring the American dream and supporting a middle class should not mean subsidies from Congress. No to subsidies, yes to a living wage! Amazon's decision this week to raise its minimum wage to $15 an hour means Bernie Sanders' strategy is, so far, working magnificently. Et tu Congress?

- Erin Jansen, Internet Specialist, Social Psychologist, Founder of NetLingo.com


Our President, the Google Narcissist


Does Google rig search results?  You bet it does! The Trump administration wants to regulate Google because Trump claims Google rigs search results. Well of course they do! That’s their business Mr. President, but not in the way you think. Google’s search algorithms are the secret sauce of their revenue, which last year amounted to $109.65 billion US dollars. Rigging search results is what makes them the dominant search engine in the market.

I’ve been tracking Internet trends since 1994 when the Web browser was first commercially released and take it from me, search engine algorithms have not only changed, they’ve gotten worse. Back then, a business owner could navigate through the various meta-tags and keyword policies that helped you boost your business listing. But now, Google makes 500-600 new algorithm updates in one year alone, and the small business owner has no way of keeping up unless they pay an SEO firm or fork out mega-dollars to Google for paid search results - which they created to push the other organic business listings further down.

The dream of a website used to be you could hang your shingle right next to the biggest corporation and still be seen, or at least get traffic by your own creative means. Now you’re one SEO tweak away from your blog or website tumbling down to the bottom of their search results never to be found again… I mean who really clicks after the first 2-3 result pages anyway?

So, is Google a monopoly that Congress should be seriously looking into if we want to remain a country where small business really matters? YES. Ask any small business owner if they feel overwhelmed by all the technology upgrades needed nowadays and then add search engine optimization spreadsheets and paid advertising dashboards to the mix, and they’ll tell you it’s a hot mess.

Face it, technology has outpaced our culture. It would seem a paradox because it all started out being a good thing: Google set up specific formulas to help promote business listings and champion free speech, however they’ve devolved into the corporate greed culture where the only thing that matters is money. Quarterly profits and stock prices are the gods they worship. They quietly removed the “Don’t Be Evil” clause from their code of conduct in May (!) and last month announced they are building a secret censored search engine in China which would block websites that are banned by the government and would not answer certain blacklisted questions. But they’ll all still make money, and their “answer boxes” will continue to divert website traffic away from small businesses thereby siphoning off even more of our online revenue dollars.

Rigging search results is only one example of Google’s monopoly, in fact there are MANY reasons why Google and other Big Tech companies should be investigated for anti-trust behavior (which I intend to explain one at a time). But we must also make sure Congress understands all of this Internet technology too (because quite frankly, it’s embarrassing to realize how our elected officials are so behind the digital times).

The real reason Trump’s administration is taking action is because he’s been ego-surfing! Trump has a Narcissistic Personality Disorder, and he’s concerned about HIS search results. He believes Google manipulates its search results to prominently display negative stories about HIM. There’s even a NetLingo word for it: Google narcissist. The fact is Mr. President, you just have a lot of negative news; right idea, wrong motive. You bet Google is rigging the system… for all of us… are we naïve in counting on Congress to care?

- Erin Jansen, Internet Specialist, Social Psychologist, Founder of NetLingo.com

Technology is Outpacing Culture

Dear Friends of NetLingo,
Due to the recent events of this crazy world and the random characters in it, I am re-activating the NetLingo blog because I've decided I can no longer stay quiet and watch Big Tech and Congress duel it out with so little input from Us: the Public, the Everyman, the Individual, the Business Owner, the Citizen.

I invite you to join me in my editorial journey as I continue to explain and comment on the important Tech Issues In The News today and how it impacts our lives. Thank you for your continued support.
See you online,
Erin


I was Time Magazine's Person of the Year in 2017

Word of the year: #metoo - the movement began and exposed a cultural ugly truth, also revealing the power of hashtag activism and a #word

2016 will forever be known as the Year Donald Trump Won

President Trump's victory in American politics brought on a slew of memes and acronyms from MAGA to ITMFAFilm at 11.

I Am the White on the Flag

Watching the opening scene of the movie Sahara, where the Confederate army is making a run for it and stealing coins of gold, helped me realize the reality of the United States Civil War. Sure I learned about it in history class, but you know how movies can sometimes really bring it home. It made me realize there was an actual Civil War here, a few hundred miles from where I live. For those of you who don't like to read, watch the movie Sahara, it's one of my top three favorites and I am movie particular, believe me. After I watched it, I read the book and yes it's Clive Cussler fiction, but nonetheless, our lives seem to be living in a comparable fiction now. Plus you'll like it anyway. 

Since he who shall not be named became this country's leader, there is talk of Civil War! My European friends and family cannot believe how quickly the United States is disintegrating. But now there's no gold currency to be stolen, it's power over our minds and beliefs. Disinformation has been a toxic presence in our world ever since social media came out in 1997 with Six Degrees. Now he's given it a nickname: fake news and along with his toxic presence, it's killing our democracy. 

The value of gold coins cannot compare to the value of our trust in other people, and our ideology around certain central truths. No we don't all get along and we never have, but we always shared a common belief in the structure of our society. Now we don't trust others and we don't share these central tenets and I blame it all on social media. The reality show masses weren't meant to have a platform, and now they, he, Fox News, and the like are fanning the flames of our worst fears and somehow hypnotizing a large part of the population. That's the gold of our day: attention currency and it's created an attention economy

In our hearts we all know that something feels wrong with the country and that's OK because acknowledging it is the next step in the process. When you fear something, you're getting ready to actually do something about it. I've talked about the negative effects of internet addiction for a long time and the fact is, it's up to you. It's up to each one of us individually to not partake in social media and fake news platforms, to resist this cult-like knee-jerk response to a person who is preying on our fears, and to respect ourselves and each other. It's sickening how many moms and dads let their kids indulge in social media endlessly, while they do it themselves too. Wake up.

Here we are in epic times wondering how we can shape this nation away from a Civil War. It will unlikely be an actual battle although you never know in America with these idiotic gun laws. Rather it's being waged in the media. The answer is to come together because in our hearts, not our minds, we do actually love each other, especially in times of natural catastrophes. Now we need to channel our love to this man-made catastrophe. We know in our hearts that's our connection. The news and politics and social media have all become entertainment! Get real. Things are either man-made or nature-made and all of the social media feeds and streaming services blah blah blah aren't doing anyone any good. Get out in nature. Get into yourself. And sure, watch an occasional movie now and then.

The best thing you can do is get back to your own nature within yourself and be happy for you first and then care for others. How are you going to love someone if you don't love yourself? Many of us were taught to care for others and then care for ourselves but honestly that's ass backwards. "Put on your oxygen mask first before assisting others." I believe if we all take care of ourselves first and strive to be happy, healthy and productive in our livelihoods, then our collective society will be better and this power for power's sake will have less of a power grab on us. 

I confess, I was born Republican and I've been Republican all my life primarily because that's how I was raised and I'm a business person. As an adult I had Democratic leanings for sure, but now everything has flip-flopped. Since neither political party can get their act together and actually work with each other, like we have to do in business, I am now an Independent. I think of myself as a unifier not a divider, someone who is middle of the road, who Margaret Thatcher said "gets hit by both sides" yet keeps an open mind. This is following my heart versus all of the mind games and it already feels better. 

If you are red or blue, then I am the white on the flag... and there's more white on the flag than red or blue! I am the love that unites and unifies in honor of We The People. Media and politics know We The People are the ones with the power to change things otherwise they wouldn't focus on us so much. So stop staring at all the damn screens in your daily moments and spend time in reality being the love and positivity you want to see. Otherwise you are allowing a dystopian takeover of your own world, and as they say in the movies, that's a bad ending. 


From Sunrise to Sunset, Thank You

Dear Friends of NetLingo,
As part of ongoing improvements, I am sunsetting the NetLingo blog because I've decided to add these insightful updates within the NetLingo definitions in the dictionary.

I invite you to submit your own terms, sign up for free emails of the day, join me on social media, get copies of NetLingo books on Amazon, shop the NetLingo store for new lists, and most importantly, keep coming back to the website to learn the newest terms. I appreciate your loyalty, keep in touch, stay safe, and I'll see you online...!
AMBW,
Erin

Hello HoloLens: Virtual New Reality for the Real New Year

Microsoft could be about to turn the promise of virtual reality into, well, a reality, said Farhad Manjoo in The New York Times. The company unveiled a prototype of the Microsoft HoloLens, a “wondrous” pair of high-tech glasses that overlay three-dimensional holograms onto the environment around you. During one demonstration, I put on the headset and saw a scene from the video game Minecraft superimposed on a real living room. A Microsoft minder showed me how to use my hands to select a virtual hammer—a tool in the game—and instructed me to smash the coffee table in front of me. “She wanted me, in other words, to use a digital object to interact with a real one.” I waved my index finger, brought the hammer down, and was stunned by what happened: The coffee table shattered into digital splinters and then disappeared. “HoloLens had perfectly erased the coffee table from the environment.”

This device isn’t just a fancy toy, said Jessi Hempel in Wired.com. Microsoft thinks it will usher in “the next era of computing,” in which workers will one day swap their keyboards and monitors for virtual reality headsets and “compute in the physical world, using voice and gesture to summon data and layer it atop physical objects.” I got a glimpse of this new reality in a hands-on test with HoloLens. I sculpted a digital model of a plastic snowman that could be produced on a 3-D printer and had a holographic Skype call with a motorcycle designer in Spain, who helped me “paint a three-dimensional fender atop a physical prototype.” The big question is whether a tech dinosaur like Microsoft can perfect HoloLens without messing it up, Devindra Hardawar in Engadget.com. “Given its history, there’s no guarantee it won’t.” The last time the company released a supposedly groundbreaking product, in 2012, the laptop-tablet hybrid Surface, it was “a fiery train wreck of a device that I wanted to catapult out the window.”

Still, HoloLens already looks as if it has more potential than Google Glass, said Christina Warren in Mashable.com. Glass was designed to be an always-on “smart companion” that users would wear in the car, at work, and at home—something few people wanted to do. The HoloLens, in contrast, is “something a person would only wear for short stretches of time” and for specific tasks, such as playing a video game or holding a teleconference. “By setting the expectation that HoloLens isn’t something you wear all the time,” Microsoft could make it into “an experience that you eventually want to have everywhere.”

-As seen in The Week
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Goodbye Google Glass

“Google Glass is finally dead,” said Will Oremus in Slate.com. This week, Google suspended sales of the “semifunctional and socially controversial” high-tech eyewear and all but admitted it was “going back to the drawing board.” Launched in 2013, Glass proved “a public relations disaster” from the start. The device was banned in bars, restaurants, and much of Las Vegas over privacy concerns, and early adopters were widely mocked as “Glassholes.” Some might argue that Google Glass was “too far ahead of its time for its own good,” said Rick Aristotle Munarriz in DailyFinance.com. But in truth, the specs were simply too “creepy” to catch on. No one wanted to sit next to a Glass-wearing stranger, wondering if his or her every move was being recorded, or put up with a Glass-bedecked dinner companion who might be secretly reading emails or even “watching porn.” And at $1,500 a pop, Glass was far “too expensive” and odd looking for a product that still had plenty of kinks.

Ignore these “premature obituaries,” said Fred O’Connor in PCWorld.com. Even though Google will no longer sell the specs in their current form, the company isn’t killing the project, just shifting it out of the company’s incubator, Google X, and into a stand-alone unit. The fact that Glass will now be overseen by Tony Fadell, an early designer of the iPod who is more recently responsible for the popular digital thermostat, Nest, also suggests Glass’s “future as a consumer device might not be over.” In the immediate term, analysts believe Google will redesign Glass for the workplace, since groups like “surgeons and engineers” have been far more embracing of the technology than everyday users.

If Google is smart, it will ditch the embedded camera altogether, said Jake Swearingen in TheAtlantic.com. Smart glasses are a promising type of wearable, since they give users “a hands-free way to look at a screen.” But new technology involves new social norms, and having a recording device attached to everyone’s faces is too much, too fast. Let this be a lesson to Silicon Valley about the “perils of developing hardware whose purpose isn’t clear,” said Conor Dougherty in NYTimes.com. Compared with the iPhone, which “cleverly combined products people already understood and used,” Glass has a value that has always seemed a little vague. In order for Google to be “the gateway through which people live every aspect of their lives,” the company must be smarter about creating products “that aren’t just useful but have more ethereal qualities like beauty and coolness.” Only time will tell if Google takes this “humbling retreat” to heart.

-As seen in The Week
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I’m a sucker for the conveniences of modern digital life, but...

A guest post from my favorite magazine The Week. Like most Americans, I’m a sucker for the conveniences of modern digital life. I bank on my phone, upload photos to the cloud, and keep my address saved with online retailers to save a few minutes at checkout.

I’ve also come to assume that my personal data have wound up in the hands of a hacker somewhere. I’d be a fool not to. Every week, it seems, there’s a data breach at a big corporation or a new leak of stolen celebrity nude selfies. JPMorgan Chase became the latest victim in 2014, revealing that the accounts of 84 million customers had been digitally ransacked.

Security experts say we should all simply presume our digital data have been stolen. But unless you’re Jennifer Lawrence or the head of IT at a megabank, it’s hard to get worked up about these breaches. For most of us, they mean a canceled card here, a changed password there. The hacks have become so commonplace that we’ve become numb to their dizzying scales and potential danger. Call it a case of data breach fatigue.

Psychologists would call it habituation—we sit up and take notice the first time something happens but tune out after the fourth or fifth occurrence. It’s that effect that causes the nation to collectively shrug when it hears about the latest major car recall, crisis in the Middle East, or tragic school shooting.

When consumers are asked why they tune out to massive data theft, they say the breaches are simply “unavoidable.” Yet it’s that same complacency that allows companies—and political leaders—to perpetuate the status quo. On second thought, excuse me while I go change my passwords.
- Carolyn O’Hara

-As seen in The Week
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Google Glass may not be inevitable after all

A guest post from my favorite editor William Falk of The Week. In these grim times, there is some hope for our species: Google Glass may not be inevitable after all.

Mat Honan of Wired, the bible of the technorati, spent a year trying out Google Glass, a futuristic pair of eyeglasses equipped with a voice-activated wireless computer and camera and a tiny Internet display in one lens. The trial didn’t go well. Honan reports back that the Glass’s ostentatious techiness—and its ability to photograph or video anything the wearer wants—made him the subject of derision and threats wherever he went. People “talk about you openly,” Honan marvels; he got used to hearing himself called a Glasshole. And despite some “cool” features, Honan found Glass “more novelty than utility”—just another way of “documenting rather than experiencing.”

You need not be a Luddite to be heartened by the Glass rebellion. It suggests we haven’t yet been seduced into surrendering the last vestiges of privacy and spontaneity. In recent months, young techies have been publicly questioning the toll that constant connectivity has taken on their relationships, their attention spans, and their ability to sit quietly with their thoughts. Burnouts are treating themselves to Internet “holidays” or checking into retreats promising “digital detox.” Last week, Web journalist David Sessions published a mea culpa in which he called much of Web journalism “stupid and worthless,” saying it “exists simply to produce the act of clicking.” His chastened advice: “New tools should be scrutinized intensely and skeptically, as should the people who stand to gain vast new forms of power and wealth when they are widely adopted.” Wise words, which I immediately shared with everyone I know via the Internet.

-As seen in The Week
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Drones: Google’s sky-high ambitions

Google is spreading its wings, said Alexis C. Madrigal in The Atlantic. The tech giant unveiled a drone delivery project called Project Wing last week, which aims to use “self-flying vehicles” to transport and deliver goods. The project has been in development for two years at Google X—the research lab responsible for Google’s self-driving cars and the Google Glass headset—and has run more than 30 test flights in Queensland, Australia, delivering items such as radios, candy bars, and cattle vaccines to farmers. With a wingspan of 5 feet and a weight of 19 pounds, the Project Wing drones take off vertically and then hover and winch packages down to the ground. Though Google says it will be years before the vehicles are ready for commercial use, it imagines a future in which its drones help reduce the carbon footprint of traditional delivery vehicles like planes and trucks, and goods can be delivered mere minutes after orders are placed.

Google is clearly trying to give Amazon a run for its money, said Will Oremus in Slate.com. The Internet retailer announced its own drone delivery ambitions last year, with plans to develop a system that could deliver orders to customers within half an hour. Both companies’ commercial aims are years away, but the drones they develop could have other applications, such as delivering emergency relief more efficiently or letting people rent certain items, like a power drill, “for only the few minutes that they need them before sending them on their way.” It’s too early to say how Google’s efforts stack up against Amazon’s. But one thing is clear: The drone war has begun.

Amazon may have at least one advantage, said Alex Wilhelm in TechCrunch.com. The company is already experienced in sourcing, shipping, and delivering goods. Still, “non-military drones remain a nascent area of technology,” and Google could quickly catch up. For now, both companies will face similar challenges if they want their drone experiments to really take off. That means building “fleets that are safe, and useful enough for the average consumer to want to summon,” but also economically viable. Government regulations will make that tough task more difficult, said Conor Dougherty in The New York Times. The Federal Aviation Administration has banned commercial drones in the U.S. pending new rules that are due next year, and the vehicles haven’t been tested in densely populated cities. That won’t stop Google or Amazon from moving forward, but the days of receiving “dog food, toothpaste, or whatever else a modern family might need” via hovering drone are still a distant prospect.

-As seen in The Week
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As governments invade privacy, tools for encryption grow more popular

In the wake of Edward Snowden’s revelations about the NSA collecting massive amounts of user meta-data, many people went in search of safer, more secure ways to use the internet anonymously. Once thought to be something only used by the tech-savvy, increased interest in end-to-end e-mail encryption has prompted both Google and Yahoo to develop user-friendly versions of the protocol that would, in theory, make personal messages exceedingly difficult to intercept.

GeeksPhone, a Spanish hardware manufacturer, and Silent Circle, U.S. communication firm, promise to provide the same kind of privacy with Blackphone, the first fully encrypted smartphone meant for the average consumer. While technically an Android device, Blackphone runs a forked version of the operating system called PrivatOS that rids the phone of any and all connections to Google’s servers.

Encrypting e-mail is effective, but requires that both the sender and recipient of a message use the same specific encryption protocol to maintain privacy. Blackphone, for all of the protection that it provides, cuts users off from most of the services–like games, maps, and other functions–so as to make sure that there are absolutely no gaps through which information might be extracted.

The Onion Router also known as Tor, a browser designed keep users entirely anonymous, is something of a happy medium, and the NSA is actively trying to scare people away from it. Tor guides its internet traffic through complex networks of layered encryption that hide a computer’s physical location and make it nearly impossible to monitor the IP addresses that it visits.

Post-Snowden, Tor saw a substantial increase in the number of people using its browser and network, undoubtedly in-part due to privacy concerns. Documents published by The Guardian revealed that the NSA were actively engaged with attempting to infiltrate Tor’s network, and considered the browser to be “the king of high-secure, low-latency anonymity.” Following widespread, successful-attempts at tracking Tor users’ activity, the FBI openly admitted to exploiting a loophole in Tor’s infrastructure as a part of a larger operation in pursuit of a child pornography ring.

Authorities have justified their pushes into the “anonymous internet,” asserting that by and large, much of Tor’s traffic is related to illegal activities, but that seems to be changing. Richard David James, better known by his stage name Aphex Twin, is a fixture in the electronic music scene. Earlier this week James announced his latest album using a website that could only be accessed using Tor, drawing in a significant number of pageviews in a single day.

The attention, says Tor executive director Andrew Lewman, is both a blessing and a curse. While Tor’s network was able to handle the 133,000 visits that Aphex Twin drew, he doubts whether it could withstand the kinds of gargantuan traffic that Facebook sees on a daily basis. Tor users, comparatively speaking, are rare–a fact that Lewman asserts is what makes them targets for governmental organizations.

“It’s been co-opted by GCHQ and the NSA that if you’re using Tor, you must be a criminal,” Lewman explained to The Guardian. “I know the NSA and GCHQ want you to believe that Tor users are already suspect, because, you know, god forbid who would want their privacy online, they must be terrorists.”

Proponents of Tor and other forms of ubiquitous encryption have called for the public to adopt the technologies on a larger scale, logic stating that if everyone is using encryption, then no one can be singled out for it. Rather than adopting the small, experimental proofs of concept like Tor, Lewman says, true privacy on the internet will come when internet juggernauts like Facebook, Twitter, and Google incorporate the technology into their platforms, making them the standard rather than the exception.

-As seen on PBS
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