🙏🏻 Hope for Tech – And the winner is…Microsoft!!

—TechWite’s Do the Right Thing (“Tee DRaT“) Award for 2022!!
As former self-appointed Vice President in charge of Doing the Right Thing at Apple, —known “inside the donut” as the “EViP of DRaT” — it’s my pleasure to announce that Microsoft wins TechWite’s “Do the Right Thing” Award!! In this MS vs FB competition, Facebook says it can identify a user’s emotional state and share that with advertisers and anyone else for $$$, but gosh, they’ll stop doing that.

Meanwhile Microsoft’s response? “Nah, let’s not go there. And BTW, we’re okay if you guys want to unionize.” Is this the same Microsoft that hijacked the code for OS/2 from IBM, tried to crush Apple, insisted on its private standards vs. open Internet standards, etc. etc. etc.?? 🤪

Apple, I feel like I’m in Bizarro world.

Microsoft shares its Responsible AI Standard. Microsoft Corp., as part of its framework for building AI systems, announced that its Azure Face service would no longer include capabilities “that infer emotional states and identity attributes such as gender, age, smile, facial hair, hair, and makeup.”

—Wall Street Journal, “CIO Tech Report” newsletter for 6/22/22

Meta agrees to end alleged discriminatory practices in housing ads. Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc. agreed Thursday to adopt new online advertising practices to settle an investigation by federal officials, who said its ads discriminated against users by race, gender and other factors.

Discrimination by algorithm. According to federal officials, Meta created an ad-targeting algorithm that would consider protected characteristics—including race, religion and sex—to find users who mirrored the advertiser’s targeted audience. The WSJ’s John D. McKinnon notes that it is illegal to deny someone housing based on federally-protected characteristics such as race, religion and sex.

—Wall Street Journal, “CIO Tech Report” newsletter for 6/22/22

— 🙄 Will Facebook Do the Right Thing? Only when they get caught!! And “How long, has this been going on?”

P.S.: You can still #DeleteFacebook and #AvoidtheInternet

—TechWite