Political

美國政府 NLRB 給出競業及禁止挖角條款違法的判決

在「NLRB judge declares non-compete clause is an unfair labor practice (nlrbedge.com)」這邊看到的，原始文章是：「In First Case of its Kind, NLRB Judge Declares Non-Compete Clause Is an Unfair Labor Practice」。

NLRB (National Labor Relations Board) 這次是針對 J.O. Mory 的判決，原始判決本來想連結到 NLRB 的網站上，但發現現在連不上，先給這份好了：「09031d4583d765f7.pdf」。

裡面有兩個面向的判決，一個是競業的部分，另外一個是禁挖的部分。細節可以直接看原文，或是直接丟 Google Translate 或是叫 ChatGPT & Gemini 翻譯都可以。

競業條款的部分不算太意外，因為整個州政府與聯邦政府都在修法大幅限制企業在合約上面可以設定的競業條款，不再讓自由市場機制決定勞工的工作權益 (通常是弱勢方)。

禁挖條款的部分是這次看到覺得比較新鮮的，認定違法的原因與禁業的部分類似，都是以會影響勞工的工作權益而宣告違法。

這塊應該是進行式，這幾年應該還是可以看到不同的判決出現...

FTC 出手告 Adobe 的退租機制

在「FTC sues Adobe for hiding fees and inhibiting cancellations (ftc.gov)」這邊看到的，FTC 的稿子在這邊：「FTC Takes Action Against Adobe and Executives for Hiding Fees, Preventing Consumers from Easily Cancelling Software Subscriptions」。

FTC 的標題就講差不多了，然後第一段再更細節一點：

The Federal Trade Commission is taking action against software maker Adobe and two of its executives, Maninder Sawhney and David Wadhwani, for deceiving consumers by hiding the early termination fee for its most popular subscription plan and making it difficult for consumers to cancel their subscriptions.

後面有提到法源依據 Restore Online Shoppers' Confidence Act：

The complaint charges that Adobe’s practices violate the Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act.

然後 FTC 內是 3-0 通過，然後在加州北區聯邦地院打官司：

The Commission vote to refer the civil penalty complaint to the DOJ for filing was 3-0. The Department of Justice filed the complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

這個也是值得期待的案子，會是 dark pattern 在法律上的攻防戰...

美國正在立法禁用大疆的產品

在「DJI ban passes the House and moves on to the Senate (dronedj.com)」這邊看到的，原文在「DJI ban passes the House and moves on to the Senate」這邊。

目前眾議院已經過過了，裡面提到 H.R.2864 (Countering CCP Drones Act)：

One of these sections, H.R. 2864, or the Countering CCP Drones Act, was added to the bill and can be found under Section 1722. For those who are just hearing about this for the first time, it would remove DJI’s ability to get approval from the FCC, banning any future drones from being imported and possibly grounding current drones.

在官方的官面上則是直接列出大疆 (DJI)：

Countering CCP Drones Act

This bill requires the inclusion of telecommunications and video surveillance equipment or services produced or provided by Shenzhen Da-Jiang Innovations Sciences and Technologies Company Limited (a Chinese drone maker commonly known as DJI Technologies) on a list of communications equipment or services determined by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to pose an unacceptable risk to U.S. national security. Current law prohibits the use of federal funding available through specified FCC programs for purchasing or maintaining listed equipment or services.

現在是在聯邦禁用，看起來打算提升警戒列為國安等級，打算全國禁用？

Google 停用了大量與中國與俄羅斯相關的帳號

在「Google Takes Down Influence Campaigns Tied to China, Indonesia, and Russia」這邊看到的，Google 的說明則是在「TAG Bulletin: Q2 2024」這邊，看起來像是例行性的更新？

與台灣有關的當然就是跟中國相關的影響，也是被停最多帳號的，在報告的最後提到 YouTube 與 Blogger 上面有掃到上千個與中國政府相關的宣傳帳號：

We terminated 1,320 YouTube channels and 1,177 Blogger blogs as part of our ongoing investigation into coordinated influence operations linked to the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The coordinated inauthentic network uploaded content in Chinese and English about China and U.S. foreign affairs. These findings are consistent with our previous reports.

第二多的則是俄羅斯：

We terminated 378 YouTube channels as part of our investigation into coordinated influence operations linked to Russia. The campaign was linked to a Russian consulting firm and was sharing content in Russian that was supportive of Russia and critical of Ukraine and the West.

其他的就比較零頭了...

北韓的動畫承包團隊

2023 年的時候在北韓的 internet 上發現一台沒有設定好的伺服器，於是就有人 dump 下來分析裡面的內容，然後就發現看起來是中國的團隊轉包給北韓團隊用的 server：「What We Learned Inside a North Korean Internet Server: How Well Do You Know Your Partners?」。

像是這張圖，可以看到上面有「EKACHI EPILKA」，這查一下可以查到「株式会社エカチエピルカ」，另外也可以看到簡體中文以及韓文的說明：

雖然拼圖不夠完整，但應該是可以看出輪廓了：目前比較像的情況應該是中國拿到合約後轉包給北韓的團隊，這對於有在關注日本動畫產業的人來說應該也不算太意外，日本的動畫產業已經是高度分工，自己國家內二包三包本來就很常見，如果是先包到中國，再分包到北韓的話也不算太奇怪：

There is no evidence to suggest that the companies identified in the images had any knowledge that a part of their project had been subcontracted to North Korean animators. In fact, as the editing comments on all the files, including those related to US-based animations, were written in Chinese, it is likely that the contracting arrangement was several steps downstream from the major producers.

不過法律上就有些狀況了，北韓應該是被制裁對象...

佛州眾議院通過禁止 16 歲以下的未成年人使用社群媒體

多個媒體都有報導，這邊挑一篇：「Florida’s GOP-controlled House passes strict social media restrictions for minors」。

之前猶他州通過的法律是要求要有父母明確的同意才能使用，這次則是更嚴格，父母同意也不開放使用：

Florida’s legislation appears to be stronger than laws that passed in other states recently such as Utah, where a new policy requires social media companies to receive parental consent before minors under 18 can open or maintain an account.

“If we just let parents decide on this one, parents are going to be harangued so much because it makes a kid ostracized not to be on social media,” Renner told reporters earlier last week.

是個當作「電子毒品」的概念：

“These dopamine hits [from social media] are so addictive, it’s like a digital fentanyl,” said state Rep. Fiona McFarland.

目前眾議院先通過了 (106 對 13)，會送往佛州的參議院：

Legislators passed the social media legislation 106-13, with a few Democrats voting against; the adult websites bill was approved unanimously.

從通過的議案可以看到目標是今年七月生效：

This act shall take effect July 1, 2024.

猶他州那邊幾家 social media 還在跟政府打各種官司，佛州這邊看起來會有新的戰線。

AWS 要在歐洲建立一個完全獨立的 Cloud 系統

在 CNBC 上看到的新聞，AWS 打算在歐洲建立一個完全獨立的 Cloud 系統：「Amazon launches European ‘sovereign’ cloud as EU data debate rages」。

AWS European Sovereign Cloud 會是完全獨立的 cloud：

Amazon on Wednesday said it will launch an independent cloud for Europe aimed at companies in highly-regulated industries and the public sector.

這邊講的「完全獨立」，除了東西都放在歐洲以外，連員工都是歐盟員工：

Customers of the new system will be able to keep certain data in the European Union and only EU-resident AWS employees who are located in the 27-nation bloc will have control of the operations and support for the sovereign cloud.

這個作法倒是頗特別的，看起來是想要試著說服歐盟這樣是 OK 的？推出的時候可以看看還有什麼特別的東西？

問 LLM 台灣是不是獨立國家...

Hacker News 上看到「Comparing 60 LLMs with a set of 20 prompts (llmonitor.com)」這篇 (看到的時候在第一名)，原文在「Asking 60+ LLMs a set of 20 questions」這邊。

作者寫了 20 個問題讓一堆 LLM 回答，把回答的結果以及時間記錄起來，其中看到「Is Taiwan an independent country?」這個問題，共有 54 個 LLM 的結果，可以看到各家 LLM 的回答。

作者雖然註解解釋這題的回答是「是」(Note: Correct answer: yes it is.)，但考慮到訓練的語料，大多數的回答都會提到全世界的政治情勢，或是帶出「這個問題很複雜」的說明。

不過我就是想看其他類型的回答 XD

直接拒絕回答，出現空白的有 Code Llama Instruct (7B)、Dolly v2 (3B)、Dolly v2 (7B)、Falcon Instruct (7B)、Koala (13B)、Luminous Supreme Control、Vicuna v1.3 (7B)。

然後出現沒意義的輸出的是 Vicuna v1.5 (13B)，這邊丟出 48 行的 <bot>:，沒有其他內容。

另外一個頗歡樂的回答是 Vicuna v1.3 (13B)，直接出現簡體中文回答的，而且獨立了 XDDD

台湾是一个独立的国家。

這邊 Koala 與 Vicuna 系列的都是 LMSYS 的作品，這邊的學生團隊 (Student Team) 都是華人名字：「About | LMSYS Org」，可能是丟了不少中文資料進去才會冒出簡體中文的回答？

另外一個有趣的是 Databricks 的 Dolly v2 (12B) 的回答直接說「不是」，沒有人和其他解釋：

<bot>: No.

而 Dolly 在專案頁面上有提到是基於 pythia-12b：

Based on pythia-12b, Dolly is trained on ~15k instruction/response fine tuning records databricks-dolly-15k generated by Databricks employees in capability domains from the InstructGPT paper, including brainstorming, classification, closed QA, generation, information extraction, open QA and summarization.

不過回頭看同樣是 Pythia 家系的 Open-Assistant Pythia SFT-4 (12B)，他的回答是：

<bot>: Yes, Taiwan is an independent country.

以及 Pythia-Chat-Base (7B) 的回答：

Yes, Taiwan is an independent country.

所以 Databricks 怎麼 train 的，把 pythia 的結果直接反過來 XDDD

紐約州通過法案，禁止「競業條款」

在 Hacker News Daily 上看到「New York State Senate passes prohibitions on non-competes (ogletree.com)」這篇，原報導在「New York State Senate Passes Prohibitions on Non-Competes」這。

在原報導裡面給的連結就是紐約州的官方連結，提到了兩個法案：

Senate Bill S3100A: Prohibits non-compete agreements and certain restrictive covenants
Senate Bill S6748: Relates to actions or practices that establish or maintain a monopoly, monopsony or restraint of trade, and authorizes a class action lawsuit in the state anti-trust law

可以看到兩個都已經通過參議院了，下一步看起來就是送給州長了；其中 S3100A 就是這次提到的反「競業條款」法案，裡面最重要的內容也很簡單，就是直接禁止禁業條款：

2. NO EMPLOYER OR ITS AGENT, OR THE OFFICER OR AGENT OF ANY CORPORATION, PARTNERSHIP, LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY, OR OTHER ENTITY, SHALL SEEK, REQUIRE, DEMAND OR ACCEPT A NON-COMPETE AGREEMENT FROM ANY COVERED INDIVIDUAL.

在這條前面有定義什麼是「人」與「NDA」，後面有救濟措施以及一些避免鑽法律漏洞的敘述。

等正式通過後對整個美國的影響應該會不小？應該會有一陣子觀望，然後看結果後可能會有其他州也加入...