There is also a very good read on Dr. Acemoglu’s approach to solve climate change:

The Latest Nobel Winner Has a Different Approach to Solving Climate Change - Daron Acemoglu and William Nordhaus have some disagreements.

The agreement was signed by the UK and China (in 1947 if I’m not mistaken). As @hddsx already said, it is China that doesn’t hold up to the deal.

That aside, there is no reason to violate the universal human rights, no matter what the initial agreement says.

[Edit typo.]

There’s no conclusive evidence that “social media” is bad for kids, much less TikTok specifically or only.

This is blatant misinformation and inconsistent with scientific evidence.

Even Tiktok’s own investigation says there’s strong harm caused by its own platform, let alone the strong body of research on Tiktok and other platforms. Just read tbe article.

Then it’s time to ban this.

This ‘blackout challenge’ on Tiktok was a thing before Tiktok?

TikTok’s ‘blackout’ challenge linked to deaths of 20 children in 18 months, report says - (December 2022)

TikTok faces lawsuit over ‘blackout challenge’ death of 10-year-old girl – (August 2024)

Blackout challenge – (Wikipedia)

The blackout challenge is an internet challenge based around the choking game, which deprives the brain of oxygen.[1] It gained widespread attention on TikTok in 2021, primarily among children.[2] It has been compared to other online challenges and hoaxes that have exclusively targeted a young audience.[3] It has been linked to the deaths of at least twenty children.

There is much more on that across the web.

Is this the reason then why TikTok is already banned in China, TikTok’s parent company’s home country? Because media there is lying?

banning media that shows a non western narrative.

Which media show a non-Western narrative? TikTok? Facebook? Instagram?

@CanadaPlus

I get what you mean by highlighting that no current technology can distinguish between good and bad guys, but I feel there will never be a technology that can do that. A backdoor can easily be used by your government/law enforcement to suppress people and eliminate freedoms, even if there may have been best initial intentions for such a backdoor. This is a fundamentally human -rather than a technological- issue.

Me too :-)

Just stumbled upon this blog post: Elsevier selling access to an open access article, again (2024 edition)

Addition: It’s really time to change this system.

Here comes Saul Justin Newman: 'The data on extreme human ageing is rotten from the inside out’

In general, the claims about how long people are living mostly don’t stack up. I’ve tracked down 80% of the people aged over 110 in the world (the other 20% are from countries you can’t meaningfully analyse). Of those, almost none have a birth certificate. In the US there are over 500 of these people; seven have a birth certificate. Even worse, only about 10% have a death certificate.

Just stumpled upon that (video, 20 sec): https://infosec.exchange/@littlealex/113131659214334040

Just buy from China. It’s cheap :-)

Addition:

Toxic substances found in Shein and Temu products – (August 2024)

Women’s accessories sold by some of the world’s most popular online shopping firms contained toxic substances sometimes hundreds of times above acceptable levels, authorities in Seoul said yesterday.

Chinese giants including Shein, Temu and AliExpress have skyrocketed in popularity around the world in the past few years, offering a vast selection of trendy clothes and accessories at low prices.

Shoes from Shein were found to contain significantly high levels of phthalates — chemicals used to make plastics more flexible — with one pair 229 times above the legal limit.

“Phthalate-based plasticisers affect reproductive functions such as sperm count reduction, and can cause infertility and even premature birth,” an official from Seoul’s environmental health team told reporters.

One such chemical “is classified as a human carcinogen by the International Cancer Institute, so special care should be taken to avoid long-term contact with the human body,” the official said.

The article is longer, very interesting.

Did someone say we need supply chain transparency?

This is why we need supply chain transparency and this game is over, buddy, and among the weakest points in this context is China.

Whatever we understand by a ‘free market’, China must really not complain about a ‘non-free’ market policy not in the U.S. nor in most othrr countries. That would really be hypocritical.

Just one example:

Report finds shein, temu fueled by slave labor in [China’s] Xinjiang – [archived]

The America First Policy Institute (AFPI) has released a report stating that leading fast fashion brands, Shein and Temu, are powered by “slave labor.” The author of the report, Adam Savit, who is also the director of AFPI’s China Policy Initiative, said that Uyghur Muslims and other ethnic minorities are subjected to forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region, benefitting the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

This is just one of many similar reports. I think we should always asking ourselves when buying cheap whether there are others who who pay the price, especially in.countries like China where there is no supply chain transparency.

[Edit typo.]

Australian University students and staff face increasing threats, foreign interference inquiry finds – (2022)

[Australian] Universities face escalating threats to students and to national security from hostile forces, a report into foreign interference has warned […] The report […] specifically singled out Chinese government-funded Confucius Institutes, a $10m deal between Monash University and a Chinese company linked to industrial espionage, and talent recruitment drives that see Australian researchers work with universities overseas.

Finland shuts down Confucius Institute amid censorship, espionage accusations – (2022)

A cooperation contract between Helsinki University and the Confucius Institute will be terminated following accusations of spreading Chinese soft power, conducting espionage, and an attempt to block discussions on Tibet. […] Belgium closed its Confucius Institute in 2019, Sweden and Denmark in 2020, and Norway in 2021.

Chinese students signing a “loyalty” pledges to the Chinese motherland before arriving in their host country, as shows the example of Sweden.

Chinese students signing “loyalty” pledges before arrival in Sweden – (2023)

International doctoral students who are arriving in Sweden from China are being told to sign agreements and guidelines to the Chinese government, an investigation has revealed […] The Chinese regime requires that they also must “serve the interests of the regime” and “never participate in ‘activities’ that go against the will of the authorities”, the report said. 

Sweden, Germany, and many other countries have been cutting ties with the China scholarship scheme over this practice already.

And these are just a few examples. There is much more.

Yeah, and the article the user @technocrit posted before that in this community is from 2021.

This is report is more than 3 years old.

This is a rhetorical question, right?