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LEE COUNTY The Lee County Sheriff’s Office is investigating a post made by its official Facebook account recently — a reply to another Facebook user that used a controversial emoji. The official LCSO Facebook page is accused of replying to a Facebook commenter with an eggplant emoji, which is often used as the meaning for male genitalia or an ethnic slur. The sheriff’s office posted a video about a new initiative. In the comments of the post, a user commented, “Best sheriff in a very long time,” referring to Sheriff Carmine Marceno. Facebook user Amanda Canington replied to that comment, calling the sheriff’s supporter clueless. That prompted a response to the comment by the official LCSO Facebook page, tagging Canington and saying, “Amanda Regnier Canington You’re a ”. “The taxpayers, I’m sure, don’t appreciate it,” said Melina Brady, who grew up in Lee County. Brady saw the post and knew what the eggplant meant in this context, a lewd reference to a male’s body part. “With all the things coming to light about the way women have been treated the past couple years, and especially on top of that is not professional is not okay, would he have said that to a guy?” Brady said. In an interview with The News-Press, Marceno said his office does not have a firm social media policy. Attorney Pam Seay, an FGCU professor of justice studies, told us that’s the first problem. “I found that to be a little troubling,” Seay said. “There needs to be some kind of control as to what is and is not on your official page.” The next problem is what the LCSO account represents. The sheriff’s office is a taxpayer-funded law enforcement agency, so is its Facebook page. “Once you allow the comments on that page, you…

on July 15, 2020 at 4:30 pm Facebook researchers have created an AI model that can distinguish between five voices speaking at the same time on one microphone better than any existing system. The new method could improve audio technology in noisy spaces including hearing aids and voice assistants. Voice in the Crowd The researchers explain their model in a paper titled Voice Separation with an Unknown Number of Multiple Speakers and will present it at the 2020 International Conference on Machine Learning. The scientists taught the AI how to tell different voices apart using a new variant on recurrent neural networks to simulate memory and analyze the audio to determine how many people are speaking before an encoder network organizes the voice appropriately. Models trained on between two and five simultaneous speakers, all with just one microphone. “The ability to separate a single voice from the multiple conversations occurring concurrently forms a challenging perceptual task,” the researchers explain in the paper. “The ability of humans to do so has inspired many computational attempts, with much of the earlier work focusing on multiple microphones and unsupervised learning, e.g., the independent component analysis approach. In this work, we focus on the problem of supervised voice separation from a single microphone, which has seen a great leap in performance following the advent of deep neural networks.” Listen Up Facebook’s researchers point to a couple of different areas where their model could enhance existing audio technology, such as hearing aids. While hearing aids today have advanced beyond simply making sound louder, people using them can still struggle to hear the person they are speaking with when it’s noisy. Isolating different voices and removing extraneous sound would be ideal for people using a hearing aid at a party or when it’s windy. The same…

Members of the Facebook group participate with short reports and longer descriptions of where people are and aren't wearing masks KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — A local couple noticed different businesses had different levels of compliance with wearing masks. They would post what they saw on social media but it seemed like that information needed a broader reach.  Three weeks ago they started the Facebook page called Mask Up Knoxville. It has almost 6,000 followers.  Think of it as a heads up on safety. "It's really awkward if you go to a business and you walk in and you realize, oh, no one is wearing masks, no one is taking any precautions, I don't want to be here. So it's better to know ahead of time where we can go," Robin Nichols said.  She is one of the admins for Mask Up Knoxville.  She says posts on the Facebook page must be a first-hand report of a visit to a local business.  "We try to emphasize the positives and the good places to go." The page has a search function and recommendations by category.  "There are some people that have been doing really well, right from the start. I'm very impressed. Publix has been doing very well. Trader Joe's right on top of it. Markham Jewelers also on top of it," she said.  Scrolling through the comments reveals both short reports and long descriptions.  "We've seen some real benefits for Knoxville because we have people coming in from Lenoir City and people coming up from Maryville because they know the conditions of the stores here are going to be good," she said. Reviews also point out stores not following Knox mask rules. Sometimes it's workers, sometimes it's customers, sometimes it's management.  "I was really hopeful that the group would become obsolete after the mandate.…

The percentage of Black workers in non-technical roles at Facebook Inc. has quadrupled in the last six years, but Black employees still hold just 1.7% ...

The Floyd County Fair is set to go today – with the horse show taking place first. This event, like every event this week, will be closed entirely to the public. Back on June 1st the fair Facebook page posted what many thought was inevitable: “Floyd County Fair Board has made the difficult decision to cancel all ground entertainment and grandstand attractions for the 2020 Floyd County Fair scheduled for July 15-19.” Since all the events would be closed to the public, the fair board pledged to Facebook live each event. https://kchanews.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/horse-1.mp3 Facebook Live Schedule: Wednesday, July 15th at 10am – Horse Show Thursday, July 16th at 10am – Sheep Show followed by the Meat Goat Show Friday, July 17th at 10am – Poultry Show Friday, July 17th at 1pm – Rabbit Show Saturday, July 18th at 9am – Beef Show Sunday, July 19th at 10am – Bucket/Bottle Calf Show Sunday, July 19 at 4pm – Dog & Pet Show Monday, July 20th at 10am – Swine Show The board says each show will consist of the exhibitor showing their animal and then returning it home after. Each exhibitor will also get two plus-ones to be distributed to family or friends they would like to be there. The board is hoping to reschedule some of the missed events for this upcoming Fall. To watch the events live: https://www.facebook.com/floydcountyfair/?__tn__=%2CdkC-R&eid=ARDwrDccrvBatATp8wuIXenEPQUFNTjq7g01xbz9Zrx8LDtZvWL6xMW50qBj_FFNVoJ1NENazlwvv-I5&hc_ref=ARRZBG6F4EW8b0bJBOh4QtIVQQCvaCKzCLer8bjt9A4_AlrvkFMiPuE94AHRp8TY7Ck

FACEBOOK GAVE itself a test, and the results are in: The company’s recent record on nondiscrimination, according to an expert civil rights audit it commissioned, has been marked by pitfalls as much as progress.Facebook’s audit began two years ago at the encouragment of advocacy groups concerned that the company’s commitment to free speech above all else had allowed toxicity to seep throughout the platform, giving bad actors an excuse to harass and to spread hate, and even leading to real-world violence, as seen in Charlottesville. Now, the top-level takeaway from the detailed assessment is that Facebook wrongly prioritizes free expression — yet that’s a too-simple reading of the complicated world of platform governance.Facebook was created to give people a place to speak and be spoken to; free expression will always be a lodestar. The question is to what extent the company allows other values to guide it, too. The civil rights report reveals how Facebook has struggled to weave a commitment to nondiscrimination and protection for minorities into a system that didn’t put its focus there to start with.Facebook clearly recognizes that harms such as incitement of violence, voter suppression or mere intimidation into silence can outweigh the benefits of unfettered expression. But it’s a constant challenge to figure out when. The audit is useful in spelling out the various levels where that challenge takes place, from policy formulation to enforcement to platform design, including algorithmic bias.The auditors recognize improvements in all these areas. Facebook has, for instance, instituted more robust bans on voter suppression and barred explicit support for white nationalism. The site has launched a pilot to guard against a too-common enforcement error of punishing those who complain about hate speech. It is going after census interference with tough policy and tough enforcement alike. And Facebook has overhauled…

Coinbase Global  (COIN)  shares jumped higher Tuesday after it said Facebook  (FB) - Get Facebook, Inc. Class A Report will store funds from its new digital wallet with the cryptocurrency exchange group.Coinbase said that Facebook has chosen it as the custody partner for Novi, a new digital wallet that the social media giant says will allow users to convert local currencies into crypto via a stand-alone app that plugs into other Facebook products such as Instagram. Facebook will roll out a small pilot project, using the stablecoin Pax Dollar, in both the U.S. and Guatemala, allowing users to buy Pax through their Novi accounts. Coinbase will store the funds within its custody trust company, which manages around $180 billion of crypto assets and is regulated by the New York Department of Financial Services. Stock Market Today: Dow Gains On Earnings Strength; Housing Starts Disappoint"We have an opportunity to help change the game for so many people who have been left behind by the current financial system," said David Marcus,  » Read More

Since its earliest days, the Portal line has been plagued by one major question: why? Not so much why did Facebook make it (for that I give you the following: $$$), but rather, why should people be interested, given Amazon and Google’s respective head starts in both the smart assistant and display categories?In addition to its integration with Facebook services, Portal’s original standout feature was smart panning, which used object detection to reframe its subjects. It was a clever addition -- if not necessarily enough to justify purchasing a Facebook-produced product over the competition. Since then, however, Google, Amazon and even Apple have introduced their own versions of the technology, removing Facebook’s edge.Image Credits: Brian HeaterWhile the Portal Go doesn’t address the larger question of why, it does once again showcase Facebook’s ability to think outside the smart screen box by adding portability to the mix. Honestly, it’s one of those things I’m surprised the competition hasn’t gotten on board with. Amazon discontinued its portable Bluetooth speaker,  » Read More

WASHINGTON (AP) — The senator leading a probe of Facebook's Instagram and its impact on young people is asking Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to ...  » Read More

Facebook is planning to change its name, report says Social media giant Facebook Inc is planning to rebrand itself with a new name next week, the Verge reported on Tuesday, citing a source with direct knowledge of the matter. Gloria Tso reports. Facebook is planning to rebrand itself with a new name focused on the metaverse, the Verge reported on Tuesday, as the tech giant comes under fire from regulators around the world over its business practices.The company plans to announce the new name next week, the Verge reported, citing a source with direct knowledge of the matter. Facebook wants to be known for more than social media, according to the tech publication.Facebook does not comment on rumor or speculation, a company spokesperson said in response to a question about the potential name change.In addition to its flagship social media network, Facebook also owns Instagram and WhatsApp. A name change could position the three mega platforms under an umbrella brand,  » Read More