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Amazon reportedly employs thousands of people to listen to your Alexa conversations
Key Excerpts from Article on Website of CNN News


Amazon reportedly employs thousands of people to listen to your Alexa conversations
CNN News, April 11, 2019
Posted: 2019-04-22 02:30:19
https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/11/tech/amazon-alexa-listening/i...

Not only is Alexa listening when you speak to an Echo smart speaker, an Amazon employee is potentially listening, too. Amazon (AMZN) employs a global team that transcribes the voice commands captured after the wake word is detected and feeds them back into the software ... Bloomberg reports. Amazon reportedly employs thousands of full-time workers and contractors in several countries, including the United States, Costa Rica and Romania, to listen to as many as 1,000 audio clips in shifts that last up to nine hours. The audio clips they listen to were described as "mundane" and even sometimes "possibly criminal," including listening to a potential sexual assault. In a response to the story, Amazon confirmed to CNN Business that it hires people to listen to what customers say to Alexa. Amazon doesn't "explicitly" tell Alexa users that it employs people to listen to the recordings. Amazon said in its frequently asked question section that it uses "requests to Alexa to train our speech recognition and natural language understanding systems." People can opt out of Amazon using their voice recordings to improve the software in the privacy settings section of the Alexa app. Alexa auditors don't have access to the customers' full name or address, but do have the device's serial number and the Amazon account number associated with the device. Amazon previously has been embroiled in controversy for privacy concerns regarding Alexa.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corporate corruption and the disappearance of privacy.


Explore our index to revealing excerpts of key news articles on several dozen topics.

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U.S. Military Wanted to Provoke War With Cuba
2001-05-01, ABC News
http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=92662

In the early 1960s, America's top military leaders reportedly drafted plans to kill innocent people and commit acts of terrorism in U.S. cities to create public support for a war against Cuba. Code named Operation Northwoods, the plans reportedly included the possible assassination of Cuban emigres, sinking boats of Cuban refugees on the high seas, hijacking planes, blowing up a U.S. ship, and even orchestrating violent terrorism in U.S. cities. The plans were developed as ways to trick the American public and the international community into supporting a war to oust Cuba's ... Fidel Castro. America's top military brass even contemplated causing U.S. military casualties, writing: "We could blow up a U.S. ship in Guantanamo Bay and blame Cuba," and, "casualty lists in U.S. newspapers would cause a helpful wave of national indignation." The plans had the written approval of all of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and were presented to President Kennedy's defense secretary, Robert McNamara, in March 1962. But they apparently were rejected by the civilian leadership and have gone undisclosed for nearly 40 years. The Joint Chiefs even proposed using the potential death of astronaut John Glenn during the first attempt to put an American into orbit as a false pretext for war with Cuba. Should the rocket explode and kill Glenn, they wrote, "the objective is to provide irrevocable proof ... that the fault lies with the Communists." The scary thing is none of this stuff comes out until 40 years after.

Note: Why was ABC the only major news source to report on this highly revealing story? Read the shocking declassified documents on Operation Northwoods. Many military and political leaders look at the world as a grand chessboard. Sacrificing pawns (innocent civilians) is sometimes necessary to capture the queen. Explore revealing news articles on military corruption. Then check out eye-opening 9/11 news articles.


Inside the secretive Bilderberg Group
2005-09-29, BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4290944.stm

How much influence do private networks of the rich and powerful have on government policies and international relations? One group, the Bilderberg, has often attracted speculation that it forms a shadowy global government. Every year since 1954 [they have brought] together about 120 leading business people and politicians. At this year's meeting in Germany, the audience included the heads of the World Bank and European Central Bank, Chairmen or Chief Executives from Nokia, BP, Unilever, DaimlerChrysler and Pepsi ... editors from five major newspapers, members of parliament, ministers, European commissioners ... and the queen of the Netherlands. The chairman ... is 73-year-old Viscount Etienne Davignon. In an extremely rare interview, he played down the importance of Bilderberg. "I don't think (we are) a global ruling class because I don't think a global ruling class exists." Will Hutton ... who attended a Bilderberg meeting in 1997, says people take part in these networks in order to influence the way the world works, to create what he calls "the international common sense". And that "common sense" is one which supports the interests of Bilderberg's main participants. For Bilderberg's critics the fact that there is almost no publicity about the annual meetings is proof that they are up to no good. Bilderberg meetings often feature future political leaders shortly before they become household names. Bill Clinton went in 1991 while still governor of Arkansas, Tony Blair was there two years later while still an opposition MP. All the recent presidents of the European Commission attended Bilderberg meetings before they were appointed. Informal and private networks like Bilderberg have helped to oil the wheels of global politics and globalisation for the past half a century.

Note: Why is this meeting of top world leaders kept so secret? Why, until a few years ago, was there virtually no reporting on this influential group in the major media? Thankfully, the alternative media has had some good articles. And a Google search can be highly informative. Explore many other revealing major media news articles on powerful secret societies. And for those interested, check out reliable, eye-opening information covering the big picture of how and why these secret societies are using government-sponsored mind control programs to achieve their agenda.


[9/11] Hijack 'suspects' alive and well
2001-09-23, BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/1559151.stm

Another of the men named by the FBI as a hijacker in the [9/11] suicide attacks on Washington and New York has turned up alive and well. The identities of four of the 19 suspects accused of having carried out the attacks are now in doubt. Saudi Arabian pilot Waleed Al Shehri was one of five men that the FBI said had deliberately crashed American Airlines flight 11 into the World Trade Centre on 11 September. His photograph was released, and has since appeared in newspapers and on television around the world. He told journalists there that he had nothing to do with the attacks. He has contacted both the Saudi and American authorities. He acknowledges that he attended flight training school at Daytona Beach in the United States, and is indeed the same Waleed Al Shehri to whom the FBI has been referring. But, he says, he left the United States in September last year [and] became a pilot with Saudi Arabian airlines. Abdulaziz Al Omari, another of the Flight 11 hijack suspects ... says he is an engineer with Saudi Telecoms, and that he lost his passport while studying in Denver. Meanwhile ... a London-based Arabic daily says it has interviewed Saeed Alghamdi. He was listed by the FBI as a hijacker in the United flight that crashed in Pennsylvania. And there are suggestions that another suspect, Khalid Al Midhar, may also be alive. FBI Director Robert Mueller acknowledged on Thursday that the identity of several of the suicide hijackers is in doubt.

Note: The deceptions in the 9/11 official story are clearly shown in this key story. The FBI never revised its list of alleged hijackers. These four are all listed in the official 9/11 Commission report as the hijackers. Click here and scroll down a little over half way to see their photos in the official report. For more, see this webpage. Explore also concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles with evidence of a 9/11 cover-up from reliable major media sources. Then examine an abundance of reliable information suggesting a major 9/11 cover-up.


The above three are excerpts from the 20 most revealing news articles ever published.

Below is a sample of the three articles most recently posted to this website.


Crossing Divides: How a social network could save democracy from deadlock
2019-10-25, BBC
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-50127713

There is one thing that practically everyone can agree on: politics has become bitterly divided. Yet what if it doesn't need to be this way? For the last five years, Taiwan has been blending technology with politics to create a new way of making decisions. And with certain limits, it has found consensus where none seemed to exist. Taiwan's burgeoning scene of civic hackers ... were invited to join the government. Their creation was called vTaiwan - with the "v" standing for virtual - a platform where experts and other interested parties can deliberate contentious issues. It works by first seeking to crowdsource objective facts from those involved. Then users communicate with each other via a dedicated social media network called Pol.is, which lets them draft statements about how a matter should be solved, and respond to others' suggestions by either agreeing or disagreeing with them. Once a "rough consensus" has been reached, livestreamed or face-to-face meetings are organised so that participants can write out specific recommendations. Pol.is lifted everyone out of their echo chambers. It churned through the many axes of agreements and disagreements and drew a map to show everyone exactly where they were in the debate. There was no reply button, so people couldn't troll each other's posts. And rather than showing the messages that divided each of the four groups, Pol.is simply made them invisible. It gave oxygen instead to statements that found support across different groups as well as within them. "Change the information structure," Colin Megill, one of its founders, told me, "and you can tweak power". Rather than encourage grandstanding or the trading of insults, it gamified finding consensus. "People compete to bring up the most nuanced statements that can win most people across," Tang told me. "Invariably, within three weeks or four ... we always find a shape where most people agree on most of the statements, most of the time."

Note: Dozens of laws have been passed from this process. For more along these lines, read our inspiring summaries of news articles on tech for good.


When They Couldn't Afford Internet Service, They Built Their Own
2018-03-26, Yes! Magazine
https://www.yesmagazine.org/democracy/2018/03/26/when-they-couldnt-afford-int...

In 2016, a coalition of media, tech, and community organizations launched the Equitable Internet Initiative, a project that will result in the construction of wireless broadband internet networks across three underserved Detroit neighborhoods. Leading the initiative is the Detroit Community Technology Project, a digital justice project sponsored by Allied Media Projects. "During the economic and housing crisis, communities had to fend for themselves," [executive director of DCTP Diana] Nucera says. That's why, she explains, "we developed this approach called community technology." The coalition raised just under $1 million from local and national foundations. Funds were used to hire employees, buy equipment, and internet bandwidth. They purchased three discounted wholesale gigabit connections from Rocket Fiber, a Detroit-based high-speed internet service provider. Their contract with Rocket Fiber allows the coalition to share its connection with the community–a provision not allowed by other companies. Each neighborhood is represented by a partnering organization, whose locale is used as the central connection hub for service. The community members are responsible for installation. DCTP trains a representative of the partnering organization, who then trains five to seven neighbors to install the equipment. "Being a digital steward was completely out of the range of what I usually do," [neighbor and digital steward Roston] says. "I was so used to using the internet ... but I didn't know how internet networks work." So far, he's helped with getting 19 of the 50 designated households in the Islandview neighborhood online. The bottom-up approach ... strengthens community relationships, increases civic engagement, and redistributes political and economic power to otherwise marginalized neighborhoods. "If the community has ownership of the infrastructure, then they're more likely to participate in its maintenance, evolution, and innovation," [Nucera] explains. "That's what we believe leads to sustainability."

Note: More than 750 American communities have built their own internet networks. For more, read about the rural Indigenous communities building their own internet networks.


More Than 750 American Communities Have Built Their Own Internet Networks
2018-01-23, Vice
https://www.vice.com/en/article/new-municipal-broadband-map/

More communities than ever are embracing building their own broadband networks as an alternative to the Comcast status quo. According to a freshly updated map of community-owned networks, more than 750 communities across the United States have embraced operating their own broadband network, are served by local rural electric cooperatives, or have made at least some portion of a local fiber network publicly available. The map was created by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, a nonprofit that advocates for local economies. These networks have sprung up across the nation as a direct reflection of the country's growing frustration with sub-par broadband speeds, high prices, and poor customer service. They've also emerged despite the fact that ISP lobbyists have convinced more than 20 states to pass protectionist laws hampering local efforts to build such regional networks. The Institute's latest update indicates that there's now 55 municipal networks serving 108 communities with a publicly owned fiber-to-the-home internet network. 76 communities now offer access to a locally owned cable network reaching most or all of the community, and more than 258 communities are now served by a rural electric cooperative. Many more communities could expand their local offerings according to the group's data. A recent study by Harvard University researchers indicated that community broadband networks tend to offer notably lower pricing than their private-sector counterparts. The study also found that community broadband network pricing tends to be more transparent and less intentionally confusing than offers from incumbent ISPs like Comcast or AT&T.

Note: Read about the rural Indigenous communities building their own internet networks.


The above three are excerpts from the news stories most recently posted to this website.

Explore our index to revealing excerpts of news articles on several dozen topics.

Don't miss amazing excerpts from the 20 most revealing news articles ever published.


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