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Mis- and Dis- Information From Online Platforms

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Mis- and Dis- information from online platforms is something online platforms like to tell us we should be concerned about so we know that they're concerned about it (otherwise they wouldn’t be bringing it up) so they can then talk about how much they care about curating spaces. Like FB and Twitter self-reported that, “Between 2018 and 2020 they had taken down 147 influence operations in total according to this Brookings article “ How disinformation evolved in 2020 ” by Josh A. Goldstein and Shelby Grossman. Some of the points that stuck out to me the most were how removals are increasingly tied to one actor as Brookings, “Based on our coding, approximately 76% of takedowns were attributed to a specific actor in 2020, compared to 62% in 2019 and 47% in 2018.” If posts taken down are consolidated to a single actor I feel like there must be more actors that they are missing with their current systems, procedures, and analyses. The points Goldstein and Grossman make later in their a...
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So Bitcoin?

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Crypto currencies are tanking. Bitcoin has dropped to less than half what it was at its peak. Folks everywhere are chortling over others' financial destitution and ruin-- compared to the stock market and its gated space. Even when the average consumer can get access, when they try to influence en masses through numbers the same organizations that gave access cut it off when they felt threatened as we saw with GME and the Robinhood App.   Bitcoin-- There's a lot of folks taking the opportunity to beat it while it's down; while others are seeing it as a downturn that parallels other markets, some see its historic trends.  At its heart Bitcoin still offers a democratized, transparent currency that's not dependent on nation states and their centralized banks often tied to financial and economic policy that favor the rich at the cost of the many when we look at nations’ wealth and income gaps.   It is not a Ponzi Scheme,  posting that it is after crashing  doesn’t s...
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9.62% APY is Huge!

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This pandemic helped me leverage more savings and purchasing power than I had before it started. Concurrently, encouraged by consumer apps and r/wallstreetbets I checked out investing-- not that making money outside of wage slaving hadn't been enticing; rent, and bills, and shut-off notices took spending precedence. Looking at Oregon's economic projection and outcome post-pandemic makes this not just an anecdote, it supports the idea that putting money into people's pockets strengthens our economy better than paying out trillions to banks. Now if we could only get this circulated and address obscene runaway profits, wealth gaps, and the growing divergence of wages and production as people are ground into GDP we could start rebuilding our economy from the bottom up.    To this end, while scrolling around Bloomberg I saw the headline, " There’s a Low-Risk Way for Investors to Earn 9.62% Returns Right Now ", by Charlie Wells, and had to click ( baited ). Frist: crypt...
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Matthew Yook: Politcal Hobbyist

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    Hello! My name is Matthew and I’m a news junkie and wonk inspired by Yuri Kochiyama , Malcolm X , and Jean Kilbourne , who appreciates data and communicating its summations and significance. I’m currently working through my last credits as a  Junior at Oregon State University in the Degree Partnership Program with Linn-Benton and Lane Community Colleges as my partner schools pursuing a Business Analytics degree who binges and purges on issues, statistics, and sentiment. I’m a non-traditional student /old/ and single dad half the week. I also like video games and used to stream on Twitch before I committed heavily to school but am thinking about picking it up again one day a week because gaming with others from anywhere is pretty sweet, and have some digital visuals, branding, and possible music and streaming functionality finagling inspiration. I need this for my Business Core Requirements for my bachelors degree and appreciate the cost-value of community college cour...
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