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What to know before signing up for Bluesky
If you’re on Twitter, you’ve probably seen people flocking to Bluesky, a social platform hailed as a promising alternative to the now-ailing bird app. It looks nearly identical to Twitter, was initially funded by Twitter, and calls itself a “social network for microblogging” which, huh, is funny because that’s exactly what Twitter is. Anyway! Before you go running for Bluesky’s greener pastures, it’s important to know what you’re agreeing to when you sign up for the platform.
Bluesky currently owns everything you post
On Thursday Apr. 27, Twitter user Ashley Gjøvik tweeted about Bluesky’s disconcertingly broad terms of service. She tweeted several screenshots of the terns, including a snippet that reads “If you post any content to the Bluesky Web Services, you hereby grant Bluesky and its licensees a worldwide, perpetual, royalty-free, non-exclusive right and license to use, reproduce, publicly display, publicly perform, modify, sublicense, and distribute the content, on or in connection with the Bluesky Web Services.”
In plain English that means: we own everything you post.
Rose Wang, who works in Strategy and Operations at Bluesky according to her LinkedIn profile, replied to Gjøvik’s screenshots with an explanation of how Bluesky’s team intends to interpret the terms: “In order for us to operate, we need to be able to promote the app,” wrote Wang.
“That means, we will take screenshots of Bluesky, which will include your users’ content. That said, we have explicitly told our community that if we are using your content in a way you disapprove of, please email us… and we’ll do our best to honor your wishes. Bluesky was created so that users own their data, devs will never be locked out of the ecosystem, and creators can always own the relationship with their users… Thus, we are doing our best as [a] team to honor our ethos… Soon, our ToS will spell out use cases to mitigate confusion.”
That all sounds nice. But Terms of Service agreements amount to a binding contract, and tweets claiming a company is “doing [its] best” to use your content a certain way do not.
These terms are harsh, even compared to Facebook
Let’s take a look at Facebook’s terms of service, which are much more nuanced in their explanation of user rights. “You retain ownership of the intellectual property rights,” the terms page reads. “Nothing in these Terms takes away the rights you have to your own content… However, to provide our services we need you to give us some legal permissions (known as a ‘license’) to use this content.”
The Facebook terms document then outlines what is covered by the license, and notes that it only applies “specifically when you share, post, or upload content that is covered by intellectual property rights on or in connection with our Products.” The document also provides a helpful example: if you post a photo, you grant Facebook certain necessary permissions, allowing Facebook’s parent company Meta to duplicate it, store it, and share it with others in ways “consistent with your settings.” Reassuringly, it notes that the license you grant “will end when your content is deleted from our systems.”
Bluesky may just be protecting itself because it’s new
In comparison to Facebook’s terms, Bluesky’s read like a first draft put in place to satisfy a legal team, probably so the platform could start onboarding users and, for her part, the CEO has claimed this is essentially what happened. You know what they say in tech: move fast, break things, and claim ownership of your users’ content!
Wang’s replies point to another sticky subject: copyright. “We must protect ourselves,” she wrote. Journalists, according to Wang, have been “taking screenshots of the app and putting it into their publications,” and the terms need to make it possible to “transfer rights to license content to them.” In the case of moderation, Wang said, copyright once again comes into play. Bluesky must be able to legally transfer content to moderators “so that they can scan through content” and sift out objectionable material.
These terms might have downsides for Bluesky itself
But owning user content, and being able to transfer rights to that content, may mean BlueSky is not protected by the “safe harbor” provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Under the DMCA, safe harbor protection goes away if a company has the “right and ability to control” copyright-infringing content and can potentially profit off of it. That means these terms leave Bluesky vulnerable to costly copyright infringement litigation, which would sap the fledgling app’s potential.
For all its promise, Bluesky is still very much a work in progress. And while it’s never fun to read the fine print, it’s worth taking a quick look before handing over your content to Bluesky.
Mashable has reached out to Bluesky’s CEO for comment, and will update if we hear back.
3 tips to invest like Warren Buffett, and what not to worry about!
Dr James Fox takes a closer look at Warren Buffett’s recent comments concerning his worries, and looks at how he can invest like the legend.
The post 3 tips to invest like Warren Buffett, and what not to worry about! appeared first on The Motley Fool UK.
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What to expect when Starbucks (SBUX) reports Q2 earnings next week
Shares of Starbucks Corporation (NASDAQ: SBUX) stayed green on Friday. The stock has gained 14% year-to-date. The company is slated to report its second quarter 2023 earnings results on Tuesday, […]
The post What to expect when Starbucks (SBUX) reports Q2 earnings next week first appeared on AlphaStreet.
What to Expect From Apple’s Earnings Results Following New Macs and HomePod
Keep reading for some key things to know about the quarter, including a recap of new products announced, revenue expectations, and more.
New Products During Quarter
The quarter ran from January 1 through April 1, according to Apple’s fiscal calendar, and included the following product launches:
- 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro (M2 Pro and M2 Max chips)
- Mac mini (M2 and M2 Pro chips)
- HomePod (2nd generation)
- iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus (Yellow)
- Black Unity Sport Loop
Year-Over-Year Revenue Decline Expected
Apple has not provided guidance since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, but analysts currently expect the company to report revenue of around $93 billion on average this quarter, according to Yahoo Finance. This would be a revenue decline of around 4.5% compared to the $97.3 billion the company reported in the year-ago quarter.
Maestri provided the following commentary on Apple’s earnings call last quarter:
Given the continued uncertainty around the world in the near term, we are not providing revenue guidance, but we are sharing some directional insights based on the assumption that the macroeconomic outlook and COVID-related impacts to our business do not worsen from what we are projecting today for the current quarter. In total, we expect our March quarter year-over-year revenue performance to be similar to the December quarter.
Conference Call
Cook and Maestri will hold a conference call at 2:00 p.m. Pacific Time on May 4 to discuss the company’s second quarter earnings results. The call should last around one hour and will include a Q&A segment with analysts.
A live audio stream of the conference call will be available on Apple’s Investor Relations page, and a recording will be available later in the day for replay.
Investors will be listening for any potential commentary surrounding the economy as concerns persist about a recession in the U.S. and other countries.
What’s Next
Apple’s third quarter began April 2 and runs through July 1. Apple has yet to announce any new products during this quarter, but it did open its first retail stores in India and launch an Apple Card savings account in partnership with Goldman Sachs.
AAPL is currently trading at around $168, down around 4.5% from a 52-week high of $176.15.
This article, “What to Expect From Apple’s Earnings Results Following New Macs and HomePod” first appeared on MacRumors.com
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I’m a Georgia peach – I’m told to act more like a lady, but what they call a ‘red flag’ I call a good time
A SOUTHERN woman has shut down the haters who disapprove of her outdoorsy lifestyle.
She likes drinking beer and shooting a bow and arrow, even if others don’t think that’s what she’s “supposed” to be doing.
A woman said she gets criticized for her drinking habits and is told to act like a lady[/caption]
A self-proclaimed Georgia peach now living in North Carolina, Abigail Miller (@abigail_miller919) spends most of her time outside in the fresh air.
Between her career in construction and her penchant for hunting, the 25-year-old country girl doesn’t necessarily fit the stereotypical female mold – and she’s proud of that.
In one video, she said she has another hobby that men often criticize: how much she likes to drink.
Posing in fitted jeans and a low-cut shirt that flaunted her cleavage , she revealed what the haters tell her: “Stop drinking like a grown man and start acting more ladylike.”
Singing along to the country tune in the background, she mouthed the words: “I don’t need the laws of man to tell me what I ought to do.”
To brush off the criticism further, she captioned the clip with a beer emoji and the words: “You call it a red flag… I call it having a good time!”
Abigail’s alcohol consumption, however, isn’t the only thing men call her out for.
In another video, she revealed how men react to her love of hunting.
Besides being told that she doesn’t “look like [she] hunts,” men also find fault in her form with a bow and arrow, saying, “You’re doing it wrong.”
She’s also been told, “Women don’t belong in the woods,” and that she intimidates the guys around her.
Luckily, viewers in the comments had her back.
“Whoever the hell said that is an idiot. Everyone belongs in the woods!” wrote one.
Another follower said: “Those are the words of the insecure for sure lol…Keep doing your thing.”
“She is a keeper,” commented a third person.
Abigail is proud of her skills and said that she isn’t going to listen to what men believe she should and shouldn’t do[/caption]