Latest news with #ROOST
Yahoo
11-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Upstate N.Y. tourism operators offering discounts to win back Canadians
George Daniels doesn't expect the 25 per cent discount he's offering Canadians to entice many visitors back to the bed and breakfast he runs in Upstate New York this summer. Canadians ordinarily make up 15 to 20 per cent of guests at the Keene Valley Lodge in the Adirondack High Peaks. Only two have booked this year though, said Daniels, who has refunded cancellation requests from others who are avoiding U.S. travel due to Donald Trump's tariff and annexation threats. Daniels understands their reticence. "I support the boycott, even though it's hurting us financially," he said, describing his inn's discount as a symbolic gesture. "I really just wanted to get word out that we're not supporting these policies." From upscale lodges to a bike tour company offering "summer camp for people who love bikes," tourism operators in Upstate New York are offering "northern neighbour" discounts, hoping to win back Canadians boycotting U.S. travel due to Trump's trade war. These deals were highlighted in an email last week from the Regional Office of Sustainable Tourism (ROOST) in Lake Placid asking their "dear friends in Canada" to return. "We know now is not the right time to ask you to come, but when you are ready to come back down, we're excited to welcome you back," said ROOST president Dan Kelleher. More than retaliatory countertariffs, an informal Canadian visitor boycott is hurting American border communities whose economies rely in part on Canadian visitors and cross-border supply chains. Vehicle traffic across the Ogdensburg-Prescott International Bridge between Ontario and New York dropped 31 per cent in April compared to the same period last year, the Ogdensburg Bridge and Port Authority (OBPA) announced recently. "We know Canadians are choosing not to cross, and we understand why," the OBPA said in a statement, noting that "when Canadians stay home, we feel it immediately." Car crossings at the Champlain-St. Bernard de Lacolle Border Crossing from Quebec into New York were also down 31 per cent in March compared to a year earlier, according to the North Country Chamber of Commerce. The chamber's president Garry Douglas attributes part of the decline to a weak loonie and part to anger at Trump. In response, the chamber has launched an "intensified hospitality campaign" aimed at convincing Canadians not to punish border communities for the rhetoric coming out of Washington, D.C. "We're going to do everything we can as a region to help with the healing once we hopefully get past the trade war," Douglas said, citing a survey commissioned by the chamber indicating that 97 per cent of local businesses were concerned by tariffs. As part of its campaign, the chamber recently aired a TV ad in Canada seeking to distinguish border communities from Trump country. "I was going to the U.S. … but now I'm going to Plattsburgh and the Adirondack Coast," a woman with a Québécois accent says in the tourism ad. Plattsburgh, N.Y., is close enough to the Canadian border that locals jokingly refer to the city as Montreal's southern suburbs. Michael Cashman, Plattsburgh's town supervisor, said while uncertainty around tariffs has caused some businesses to pause expansion plans, his biggest immediate worry is a decline in Canadian visitors. "I'm most concerned about our marinas, our campgrounds, our hotels, our small restaurants," he said. Cashman said he and other local figures have been communicating their discontent to state leaders and the administration in Washington. "We continue to provide a full-throated level of support that these tariffs are nonsensical and that they are an attack on our friends and neighbours," he said. Cashman sought to distance his community from the actions of the current U.S. administration and appealed directly to Canadians: "We will do everything that we can to continue to strengthen our friendships and partnerships." Doug Haney, who runs Bike Adirondack based in Saranac Lake, N.Y., said he understands why Canadians are boycotting U.S. travel. "Honestly, if I was a Canadian citizen I would probably feel the same way," he said. This is why his company is offering Canadians 15 per cent off several of its bike tours this summer, he said. "We as business owners and as citizens want to just say, 'Hey, you're welcome here and we genuinely care about our Canadian neighbours to the north.'"


CBC
10-05-2025
- Business
- CBC
Upstate N.Y. tourism operators offering discounts to win back Canadians
George Daniels doesn't expect the 25 per cent discount he's offering Canadians to entice many visitors back to the bed and breakfast he runs in Upstate New York this summer. Canadians ordinarily make up 15 to 20 per cent of guests at the Keene Valley Lodge in the Adirondack High Peaks. Only two have booked this year though, said Daniels, who has refunded cancellation requests from others who are avoiding U.S. travel due to Donald Trump's tariff and annexation threats. Daniels understands their reticence. "I support the boycott, even though it's hurting us financially," he said, describing his inn's discount as a symbolic gesture. "I really just wanted to get word out that we're not supporting these policies." From upscale lodges to a bike tour company offering "summer camp for people who love bikes," tourism operators in Upstate New York are offering "northern neighbour" discounts, hoping to win back Canadians boycotting U.S. travel due to Trump's trade war. These deals were highlighted in an email last week from the Regional Office of Sustainable Tourism (ROOST) in Lake Placid asking their "dear friends in Canada" to return. "We know now is not the right time to ask you to come, but when you are ready to come back down, we're excited to welcome you back," said ROOST president Dan Kelleher. More than retaliatory countertariffs, an informal Canadian visitor boycott is hurting American border communities whose economies rely in part on Canadian visitors and cross-border supply chains. Vehicle traffic across the Ogdensburg-Prescott International Bridge between Ontario and New York dropped 31 per cent in April compared to the same period last year, the Ogdensburg Bridge and Port Authority (OBPA) announced recently. "We know Canadians are choosing not to cross, and we understand why," the OBPA said in a statement, noting that "when Canadians stay home, we feel it immediately." 'Intensified hospitality campaign' Car crossings at the Champlain-St. Bernard de Lacolle Border Crossing from Quebec into New York were also down 31 per cent in March compared to a year earlier, according to the North Country Chamber of Commerce. The chamber's president Garry Douglas attributes part of the decline to a weak loonie and part to anger at Trump. In response, the chamber has launched an "intensified hospitality campaign" aimed at convincing Canadians not to punish border communities for the rhetoric coming out of Washington, D.C. "We're going to do everything we can as a region to help with the healing once we hopefully get past the trade war," Douglas said, citing a survey commissioned by the chamber indicating that 97 per cent of local businesses were concerned by tariffs. As part of its campaign, the chamber recently aired a TV ad in Canada seeking to distinguish border communities from Trump country. "I was going to the U.S. … but now I'm going to Plattsburgh and the Adirondack Coast," a woman with a Québécois accent says in the tourism ad. 'You're welcome here' Plattsburgh, N.Y., is close enough to the Canadian border that locals jokingly refer to the city as Montreal's southern suburbs. Michael Cashman, Plattsburgh's town supervisor, said while uncertainty around tariffs has caused some businesses to pause expansion plans, his biggest immediate worry is a decline in Canadian visitors. "I'm most concerned about our marinas, our campgrounds, our hotels, our small restaurants," he said. Cashman said he and other local figures have been communicating their discontent to state leaders and the administration in Washington. "We continue to provide a full-throated level of support that these tariffs are nonsensical and that they are an attack on our friends and neighbours," he said. Cashman sought to distance his community from the actions of the current U.S. administration and appealed directly to Canadians: "We will do everything that we can to continue to strengthen our friendships and partnerships." Doug Haney, who runs Bike Adirondack based in Saranac Lake, N.Y., said he understands why Canadians are boycotting U.S. travel. "Honestly, if I was a Canadian citizen I would probably feel the same way," he said. This is why his company is offering Canadians 15 per cent off several of its bike tours this summer, he said.
Yahoo
11-02-2025
- Yahoo
Discord finally adds an Ignore feature so you can gently silence someone's rancid vibes
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. I'm a member of way more Discord servers than I actually engage with, and I can only put so much blame on my pathologically narrow attention span. I'd be frequenting a few more communities were it not for something I'm sure we've all experienced: having to share spaces with somebody whose vibes are frequently, y'know, a little grating. Luckily, Discord has finally implemented an Ignore feature, so you can quietly preserve your peace of mind. "With Ignore, you can take space from specific people without them knowing, so you can stay focused on the fun," Discord said in a blog describing the feature rollout as part of Safer Internet Day 2025. "Whether you just need some time away or want to take a more discreet route, Ignore lets you personalize your approach." The problem with feeling a little icked out by the occasional internet acquaintance is that it's almost always a me thing. It's not their fault that they ping everyone in the channel a little too often or that the way they use emojis makes me uncomfortable for reasons that are difficult to articulate. Blocking usually feels a little extreme—plus if they ever try to DM me, they'll realize I've banished them to my own personal phantom zone, and nobody wants that. Ignore provides a nice middle ground between the nuclear option of blocking and the faint sadness of neglecting a group DM because you've seen enough of the bad takes that one guy keeps screenshotting from Twitter. Once you ignore a user, Discord will hide any messages, DMs, and notifications they might produce on servers you're both in. They'll still see your messages, and you can unhide their individual messages as necessary if you want to see what they're contributing to a conversation. In addition to the Ignore rollout, Discord announced the formation of a non-profit foundation called ROOST, or Robust Open Online Safety Tools, which aims to address "a critical gap in child safety and digital safety by providing free, open-source safety tools to organizations of all sizes." An admirable goal, but when Discord lists OpenAI, Google, and Roblox as founding partners and describes how ROOST will "leverage large language models to power safety infrastructure," I'll admit that my brow furrowed. You can start ignoring people on Discord today.
Yahoo
11-02-2025
- Yahoo
Roblox, Discord, OpenAI and Google found new child safety group
Roblox, Discord, OpenAI and Google are launching a nonprofit organization called ROOST, or Robust Open Online Safety Tools, which hopes "to build scalable, interoperable safety infrastructure suited for the AI era." The organization plans on providing free, open-source safety tools to public and private organizations to use on their own platforms, with a special focus on child safety to start. The press release announcing ROOST specifically calls out plans to offer "tools to detect, review, and report child sexual abuse material (CSAM)." Partner companies are providing funding for these tools, and the technical expertise to build them, too. The operating theory of ROOST is that access to generative AI is rapidly changing the online landscape, making the need for "reliable and accessible safety infrastructure" all the more urgent. And rather than expect a smaller company or organization to create their own safety tools from scratch, ROOST wants to provide them, free of charge. See for yourself — The Yodel is the go-to source for daily news, entertainment and feel-good stories. By signing up, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy. Child online safety has been the issue du jour since the Children and Teen's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) and Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) started making their way through Congress, even though both failed to pass in the House. At least some of the companies involved in ROOST, specifically Google and OpenAI, have also already pledged to stop AI tools from being used to generate CSAM. The child safety issue is even more pressing for Roblox. As of 2020, two-thirds of all US children between nine and 12 play Roblox, and the platform has historically struggled to address child safety. Bloomberg Businessweek reported that the company had a "pedophile problem" in 2024, which prompted multiple policy changes and new restrictions around children's DMs. ROOST won't make all of these problems go away, but should make dealing with them easier for any other organization or company that finds itself in Roblox's position.
Yahoo
10-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Tech companies raise more than $27 million to build infrastructure for kids online safety
A group of leading major technology companies including OpenAI and Discord have raised more than $27 million for a new initiative focused on building open-source tools to boost online safety for kids. The project, dubbed the Robust Online Safety Tools (ROOST), was created to 'build scalable, interoperable safety infrastructure suited for the AI [artificial intelligence] era.' ROOST, which was announced Monday at the AI Action Summit in Paris, will provide free, open-source tools to detect, review and report child sexual abuse material and use large language models to 'power safety infrastructure,' according to a press release for the project. The founding partners of the ROOST project include Discord, OpenAI, Google, Roblox and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt. ROOST 'addresses a critical need to accelerate innovation in online child safety and AI' and will give small companies and nonprofits access to technologies they would otherwise lack, Schmidt said in a statement Monday. 'We see AI as part of the solution and by combining the expertise of the different partners and sharing that knowledge with smaller companies and public organisations, we can make it easier to introduce robust online safety measures and make the digital world safer for everyone,' Ryan Beiermeister, vice president of OpenAI's product policy, said Monday. The $27 million raised so far will cover the first four years of operation for ROOST, which will be run out of the Institute of Global Politics at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs. It comes amid mounting pressure on social media and technology companies to take action in preventing further harm to children and teens. According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, reports of suspected online exploitation of children increased by 12 percent in 2023 from the previous year, amounting to more than 36.2 million reports. As AI development continues to ramp up, the project will harness the emerging technology to track and take down child exploitation on the internet. Other organizations including the AI Collaborative, Project Liberty Institute, Patrick J. McGovern Foundation and Knight Foundation are also founding partners, while the Center for Democracy and Technology and social media platform Bluesky are partners. Bluesky rose in popularity late last year as some users on X departed the social platform in the wake of Elon Musk's leadership. Discord was one of five companies to testify before a Senate committee last year that brought kids' online safety into the spotlight. The company was notably not a large focus of the hearing but has launched various efforts over the past year to boost the safety and privacy of its users. 'Offering a platform that is safe and that fosters meaningful connection, especially for young people, is at the center of everything we do,' Kate Sheerin, head of Discord's U.S. public policy, told The Hill last month when asked about the one-year anniversary of the hearing. Ahead of Safer Internet Day on Tuesday, Discord also launched a new feature 'Ignore,' which will allow users to 'take space' from specific users without their knowledge. While there is currently a block feature, some users told Discord the feature can feel 'confrontational and scary,' the company said. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.