politics

Revealed back in April, Facebook Messenger's bots have taken off in a big way. Now numbering in the thousands, these chat bots do all sorts of things, from helping you find travel deals to bots that allow you to send whatever feedback you may have to brands and corporations. Messenger is adding another bot to the list today, but this one definitely stands out from the rest, as it lets you send a note to President Obama.

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After months upon months of political ads, debates, and news stories flying at us from every direction, the general election will finally be decided later this year. Yet, living through nearly two years of endless political commentary and talking heads analyzing nearly every word each candidate has ever said will all be for nothing if you aren't registered to vote when time comes in November. Google has announced today that it's going to try to make the process of registering to vote at least a little easier for those who want their voices to be heard.

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Assuming you haven't already had enough of this election cycle (we're guessing you have), Twitter is ready to dish out another heaping helping of politics. The social media site announced today that it has partnered with CBS to bring users live streams of both the Republican National Convention and the Democratic National Convention. Presumably, it'll be sort of like Twitter's live stream of Wimbledon, only with less athleticism and more facepalms.

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UK telecommunications company Vodafone is among the many unhappy with the recent vote to leave the European Union, and has dropped a couple serious hints that it's considering a relocation of its London-based headquarters. While nothing has been made final yet, the firm notes that it won't be abandoning its services or customers in the UK, however most of its earning and operations are found outside England.

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Today we need to cut the crap. This nonsense has gone too far. I'm speaking of the Echo Chamber. The search engine optimization, and the filtering of the content I see on the internet. Not only me, but my family and my friends, as well. This point was driven home to me this morning by a fellow by the name of Tom Steinberg who, earlier today, attempted to find any people on Facebook who were expressing happiness with the results of the "Brexit" vote for which results have come in overnight. He couldn't find any. That's not real. At least it's not realistic. At most, it's extremely dangerous.

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It would appear that Republican Senator John Thune has a problem with how Facebook may or may not filter its news feed. After a story on Gizmodo suggested that "several former unnamed Facebook employees" spoke about surpressing "conservative viewpoints" and "artificially highlighted other news stories" - words from Thune's press release. He's displeased with how Facebook chooses to use their news aggregator, suggesting that if these claims are substantiated, "Facebook's assertion that it maintains a 'platform for the people and perspectives from across the political spectrum' misleads the public."

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Not only are we speaking about aliens when it comes to potential targets for space exploration in our Science department - we've got a presidential candidate who wants to uncover THE TRUTH as well. While this began as a bit of a joke on the part of Hillary Clinton, it's become far more real now that Clinton campaign chair John Podesta has made public comments with CNN.

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Google has been adding information on presidential debates, candidates, and other political activities to Search over the past few months, and this week marked yet another update. This time around, Google has added information on candidate funding, making it easy for voters to find out where a particular politician is getting his or her money. As well, Google Search also now shows how one politician is trending in relation to another.

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John Oliver has released an entire "Last Week Tonight" segment on Donald Drumpf, including a Chrome Extension to boot. Why Drumpf, you might wonder? Because that is Donald Drumpf's ancestral name. For real. After calling out Oliver's former boss John Stewart for having had a more Jewish-sounding name in the past, Oliver found that Drumpf had a different family name as well. With a Chrome extension, you too can see Drumpf's true name plastered across the internet: Drumpf.

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Google has teamed with Fox News Channel ahead of the final Republican debate. This is the last debate ahead of the 2016 primaries, and with this Google partnership, people will have a trio of new options for staying up to date on the details. Says Google, it is integrating three additional elements into the debate, including Google Trends data, questions from YouTube stars, and a new way to get info from candidates.

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Apple's tax practices have long been under criticism, with CEO Tim Cook even commenting during a recent 60 Minutes interview that accusations that the company goes to great lengths to avoid corporate taxes are "total political crap." However, that doesn't mean governments have to feel the same, with Italy saying that Apple failed to declare its full earnings in the country. The company has now agreed to a settlement in the investigation, and will pay 318 million euros, or roughly $347 million.

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The Turkish government seems to be continuing it crusade against internet platforms that enable the public to freely communicate, with the latest victim being Reddit. The entire site has been blocked in the country, with officials saying it violates Internet Law 5651, and users losing access sometime late Friday night. The law allows the government to ban websites found hosting "scandalous" content, including piracy, drugs, adult material, or criticism of Mustafa Ataturk, the nation's first president. However, it's not hard to imagine the law being used to censor criticism and free speech.

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