How about better infrastructure policy, for starters? (Policy that would take into account realistic forecasts of climate evolution, in particular.)

The many levee breaches make me think that we are not focussing on raising the right walls, at this point in time.

Wikipedia's article about the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market has useful information and pointers, such as the procedure file, itself pointing (in section "documentation gateway") to many documents, including:
  - Committee report tabled for plenary, 1st reading/single reading (PDF in top right corner of frame)
  - Text adopted by Parliament, partial vote at 1st reading/single reading

It would have been nice if the summary had listed key reasons leading to sanctions. Even the article itself takes it time before finally spelling them out:

Every time I read this “argument”, I wonder: what’s with the big rush? Frankly, is 5G going to change our lives compared to 4G? I doubt it.

I understand that there are actors who stand to benefit (and may therefore be impatient):

• - Governments will harvest a few billions licensing 5G spectrum to wireless operators, and that'll help with budgetary difficulties.
• - Wireless operators will deploy 5G in select situations where they can profit: crowded places like airports and stadiums, major urban arteries prone to traffic jams, etc; that will help slightly increase consumption and reduce customer frustration. They might be slightly more competitive against cable and fibre residential ISPs in very-high-density urban areas. And they will probably try to sell their service to corporate customers like automakers in the hope of connecting everything all the time, which could, theoretically at least, turn into a nice cash cow for them (mostly, at our expense, in the form of indirect added costs and lost privacy).

But for the bulk of ordinary consumers? Yes, when visiting very crowded places, they'll get acceptable connectivity in conditions where 4G might be subpar. But that will concern a fraction of people, a fraction of the time in their daily life. Aside from that, nothing terribly new and exciting. If so, 5G won't really be a game changer for consumers or even for the overall economy.

And in that case, why not keep improving the current 4G network until better, cheaper, more trusted 5G options become available, instead of taking risks rushing with the cheapest hardware offering from a problematic supplier?

Aw, come on, who needs [Windows-Up] and [Windows-Down] when we already have [Alt-Space][X], [Alt-Space][R] and [Alt-Space][N]?

(just kidding)

I might have considered it if was not managed by a Russian foundation running with the blessing (or more) from the Russian government.
But to each his own, I guess...

Coming from those three particular companies, that name inspires confidence. They might not know anything about healthcare, but I'm sure they all employ top experts on safe havens.

“the loop” is robot code-word for “crosshairs”.

An easy-to-implement first step would be to require the prominent disclosure of such limitations, on the box and any advertisements, online sales pages, etc..

Something like this (depending on the device):
    Locked device
    Using (and resetting) this device requires service from the manufacturer.
    Such service may be discontinued at any time, at the discretion of the manufacturer,
    after which you will no longer be able to use or reinitialise this device
    (for example to transfer it to another user).

It's only a first step (whose effectiveness would obviously depend on consumers' attitude), but perhaps legislators would be able to agree fairly quickly on something benign like that.

I know what you mean but, really, this may be the only way successful social movements can really start.

It depends what you mean by “changing how people vote”. If you meant “abruptly switching to the other side”, then the answer is likely negative. After all, suppose that you’d just read the opposite news: some questionable company helped manipulate things, hoping to make your side win. Would you automatically change your vote in favour of the opposite side? I wouldn’t.

Sure, such affair would leave a foul taste in my mouth and I’d want things to improve. Yes, if my elected officials were directly implicated, I’d certainly consider possible (and sensible) alternatives with the same general alignment (but alternatives are often scarce or inexistent), while retaining some amount of pragmatism. Setting aside the mindset of radical one-issue voters, there are many concerns to simultaneously consider, and compromises to be made, when casting a vote. So, I don’t find it shocking that the answer to your question is, in all likelihood, “no”.

That being said, as long as it is covered in the media and talked about, this kind of abuse can have some small but lasting and compounding impact. Of course, one can dream that citizens would forcefully communicate their disapprobation to their elected representative, in an attempt to stimulate positive change (such as passing laws instituting penalties for such corrupt practice, and ensuring that those laws are properly enforced). But even in a fairly passive society, after abuses have occurred repeatedly, popular indignation will indeed begin to influence poll results.

Unfortunately, mounting exasperation can lead to people haphazardly jumping from one extreme to another (or even abandoning moderation to embrace an extreme), and that has rarely been a good thing. As recent (and no-so-recent) history has all too well illustrated in a number of countries, years of unbridled corruption can drive despairing people to enthusiastically vote for the worst demagogic scumbag who’s promised to “clean house” by any means.

In short, I prefer to hope that this type of news does not directly change the way people vote, but that it helps shape people’s perception and change the way people talk about political issues and about the process by which political decisions are made. And I do hope that we get laws and enforcement that puts perpetrators of such stunt (as well as their complicit beneficiaries) behind bars for a dissuasive length of time.

Looking at the signatories of the open letter, I can’t help getting the feeling that what they meant by “New Yorkers” is, rather, “New Yorkers that matter”. You know, the ones who own stuff like real estate and businesses.

I’m no expert but today’s situation reminds me more of pre-feudal civilisations, where a king (sometimes, principally considered as unifying war leader) was elected (sometimes, for a short term) by the elite from the elite (so that’s more like the president today, rather than the state); the elite being composed of rival chieftains who (like today’s billionaire investors manipulating mega-corporations) effectively owned a piece of territory and pretty much everything on it (including all vital resources necessary for the people’s subsistance). The lower classes were divided into two main categories: the corporate employees, whose main job was to fight in wars and loudly acclaim the ruler; and the sheeple consumers, whose only job was to feed the machine with fuel (yesteryear: food and materials; today: money). There was still much fluidity (instability) as every chieftain aspired to the top job and was mostly busy fighting all others. And, exceptionally, a foot soldier (not a peasant, of course) might even rise through the ranks (and by that, I mean usurp power by force, not “receive a well-deserved promotion”) through a mix of stunning military prowess, extreme ruthlessness, cunning ability to manipulate others’ rivalries and greed and, of course, phenomenal luck.

The next logical step, unsurprisingly, was the eventual rise as king of some more-powerful and more-ambitious than average character who had no desire to face opposition, accept limitations of power, or face the prospect of eventually having to give up the job; and who would then seek to obtain unlimited powers and to permanently solidify the semi-fluid political structure through the establishement of a fixed hierarchy, complete with well-defined privileges and duties, with help from the clergy to supply religious justifications and further eliminate any moral opposition. In Western Europe, that was medieval feudalism; but I think that, arguably, this process has repeatedly occurred throughout the ages and around the world.

It does looks like we’re now headed straight into repeating that pattern.

Translation: a number of those pros excel at using crypto to pull cons on the rest of us.

It would be more accurate and honest to say that the Bark product being used by schools is a business-critical marketing device to gain leverage over parents and “convince” them that they’d better pony up the 9 USD per month. Because, you know, it would be too bad if their child’s school found out whatever could be out there in the cloud, and proceeded to initiate some reprisal or even call the police on their beloved little one.