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USA Today Co., partners with Palantir to analyze audience data

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Re: USA Today Co., partners with Palantir to analyze audience data

#71

I lived in the US many years ago. USA Today was then already a bit of a joke - always a color pie chart on the front page, ludicrously generic news and sports, and on the last page 1 paragraph of news per state for an entire state (if something newsworthy happened according to the editor I guess). Let’s just say very much not a highbrow paper. I visited the US again last year and got the USA Today in my hotel. I thou…

Jokes aside, I do honestly wonder what they expect to learn from this kind of analysis.

For the newspaper: elderly people staying in 2 and 3 star hotels eating their free continental breakfast.

For their website: slightly younger elderly people on their ipada eating breakfast at home.

USA Today, feel free to contact me for payment details

Re: USA Today Co., partners with Palantir to analyze audience data

#74
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Personally, I ditched almost all western media outlets altogether because of their zionist and fascist tendencies. That is not helpful, and a very good way of falling down rabbit holes just because you find a source that agrees with you on one subject. That’s how you get manipulated and radicalised. It’s much better to have a variety of sources, even if you occasionally disagree. It keeps you grounded and reminds y…

When that single issue is a genocide, the calculus changes. Would you feel the same about a news source that argues the Hutus were acting in self defense?

Part of the issue is the label genocide is applied so liberally as to lose meaning. We're seeing similar devaluation of previously potent labels like "fashist"

It then becomes easy to say "I don't engage with fashists / genocide supporters / whatever" as an obvious justification for staying in ones bubble when in reality that label is so overused for people/events that say 10 years ago would have obviously not been labeled this way.

That is to say: when everyone is fascist/ genocider you have an excuse to not debate with anyone but that's not good for you.

Re: USA Today Co., partners with Palantir to analyze audience data

#75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? They mostly don't do anything very impactful. Voting and other civic engagement is very low amongst the illiterate.

not talking about illiteracy, ~50% of americans read at a 6th grade level or below... that's certainly enough to make an impact, the 2024 election was decided by ~250k votes across 3 states... Michigan specifically has a reading level below national average

And the percent of eligible citizens who vote is often not much more than 50% in presidential election years (higher recently but not for good reasons). It's even lower in mid-term years. If you're not an engaged, informed person and your worldview is based on USA Today headlines I'd rather you didn't vote.

Re: USA Today Co., partners with Palantir to analyze audience data

#76

I lived in the US many years ago. USA Today was then already a bit of a joke - always a color pie chart on the front page, ludicrously generic news and sports, and on the last page 1 paragraph of news per state for an entire state (if something newsworthy happened according to the editor I guess). Let’s just say very much not a highbrow paper. I visited the US again last year and got the USA Today in my hotel. I thou…

Stories/comments like these make me want to dedollarise.

Re: USA Today Co., partners with Palantir to analyze audience data

#77
This will be fun. Currently dealing with Palantir trying to work their away into where I work. All I can say is I’m glad it’s going the way it is and thankful the CEO has gone public that he is “leading all AI” decisions

Yeah it’s a complete disaster. They are trying to usurp all data; even employee personal data off devices via MDM that has no relevance to the project. They also asked for api keys to everything (in a regulated environment). And if you thought their forward deployed team knew anything about GRC, think again

Re: USA Today Co., partners with Palantir to analyze audience data

#78
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Personally, I ditched almost all western media outlets altogether because of their zionist and fascist tendencies. That is not helpful, and a very good way of falling down rabbit holes just because you find a source that agrees with you on one subject. That’s how you get manipulated and radicalised. It’s much better to have a variety of sources, even if you occasionally disagree. It keeps you grounded and reminds y…

When that single issue is a genocide, the calculus changes. Would you feel the same about a news source that argues the Hutus were acting in self defense?

I did not choose this world, it’s just the one I live in. If enough people believe something, it’s not really surprising to see it written, even if it is wrong. According to many comments I have read here and articles on even respectable American websites, I live in a communist shithole on the verge of collapse, we’re drowning in bureaucracy and we’re all just waiting for the good Americans to show us how everything is done. Meh. I can open the window and see how wrong they are, but I am not going to refrain from reading anything written by an American just because their nationality makes them likely to be very wrong about a lot of things in Europe.

In reality yes, Israel is a nationalist theocracy and obviously guilty of genocide in Gaza and in Lebanon. Your opinion on this or mine has no bearing on our credibility when discussing things like rocket mechanics or economics. I am not using the Armenian genocide as a purity test, either. Or the Holodomor.

Re: USA Today Co., partners with Palantir to analyze audience data

#79

Setting aside politics and personalities, are Palantir's products any good? At least on the surface, their products seem to have many competitors, so is the product quality actually driving their growth?

At least in the military aspect, I have heard nothing but great things about them from service member friends/family. I personally find the panic over Palantir, Data Centers, etc to be largely mass hysteria vs anything else. It has become an omni-cause like Israel (I mean part of the backlash against Palantir is that the CEO is Jewish, just read any internet comment thread on the topic.)

>I mean part of the backlash against Palantir is that the CEO is Jewish

Dont be disingenuous, you know damn well the backlash isn't because he is jewish. Its because of the business relationship with the Israeli government and how Palintirs tech has been used as a tool in Israel's genocide of the Palestinian people.

>just read any internet comment thread on the topic

You're the first comment in this thread or any ive seen, mentioning the CEOs religion.

>I have heard nothing but great things about them from service member friends/family

Really? And what is it that these friends and family members are saying great things about Palintir?

This reads like some grade A marketing bot bullshit

Re: USA Today Co., partners with Palantir to analyze audience data

#80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I decided to spot check a few, including places like Portland and Seattle, and it seems like private ownership by a family for the last century is pretty common. And isn't the main paper in Austin the Austin American-Statesman? That's the Hearst family. Though looking a little deeper, they were owned by Gannett until last year.

Yes for big cities, but there are very very few independent local papers in less populated areas, for example: https://www.portlandmercury.com/news/with-a-new-media-conglo... Also the Oregonian (big Portland paper) and the Seattle Times (big Seattle paper) are not locally owned anymore.

The Seattle Times is still owned by the Blethen family (who have owned it since 1896).
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