dangillmor

dangillmor, 1 year ago to random

Erdogan regime tells Twitter to censor election opponents. Musk says "Hell yes!"

This comports with Twitter's new policy (since Musk took over) to say "Hell yes" to all censorship request from governments.

Mr. "Free Speech" indeed...

dangillmor, 1 year ago to random

CNN brass is furious that one of its employees, who writes a newsletter about media happenings, told the truth about the channel's PR-for-Trump event. https://www.mediaite.com/news/cnns-oliver-darcy-reportedly-scolded-by-boss-chris-licht-over-emotional-trump-town-hall-coverage-they-put-the-fear-of-god-into-him/

The newsletter is called "Reliable Sources," and its former reporter was also punished by the channel for daring to tell the truth.

dangillmor, 1 year ago to random

Please, journalists, get this one right:

Musk didn't hire an actual CEO. He hired a new employee.

dangillmor, 1 year ago to random

Hope to see this news article:

The new "CEO" of Twitter is not in charge. Musk is.

dangillmor, 1 year ago to random

To those who have been paying closer attention than most people have time to do, Andreessen Horowitz' relentless investment (generally other people's money) in and promotion of cryptocurrencies has smelled to high heaven.

You truly should read this detailed deconstruction of the VC firm's "report" on the speculation marketplace by @molly0xfff.

https://newsletter.mollywhite.net/p/andreessen-horowitzs-state-of-crypto

My question, after reading it, is whether regulators are looking at this, too.

dangillmor, 1 year ago to random

When I was posting over at Saudi-government-funded Twitter, I routinely included outbound links to things I thought other people should see, and got minimal engagement. It turned out that Twitter was actively demoting my efforts to share my sources.

Here, I add links and regularly get dozens to (less often) hundreds of boosts. Because the fediverse is not about deciding things for you (and me). It's about us deciding for ourselves. Which is as it should be.

dangillmor, 1 year ago to random

CNN's Licht justifies giving the most dangerous politician in America its platform once again, by touting it as an event that "made news" -- but Trump's relentless lying had absolutely nothing new in it.

What CNN created was a prime-time entertainment show. Its effect, if not purpose, was to spray gasoline on the fires that threaten to consume our democracy.

I used to ask why a self-respecting journalist would work for Fox "News" -- and now I have to ask the same thing about CNN.

dangillmor, 1 year ago to random

At what point does Musk's fundamental incompetence at Twitter -- the latest is deeply (deliberately?) broken messaging encryption -- cause even a slight questioning among his fan base?

dangillmor, 1 year ago to random

CNN seems to think its self-induced disgrace is a profile in courage. What contempt the channel has for the public, and for democracy -- and, by extension if we lose our democracy, for freedom of the press.

dangillmor, 1 year ago to random

A streaming service I'd forgotten I subscribed to signed me up for a year for $20. Without any recent notice or warning that I can find (yes, it was in the fine print at the beginning), they renewed it for four times that amount.

The best thing to do with these services is to cancel immediately when you subscribe. Force yourself to manually renew, or you'll find yourself paying a lot more than you planned.

dangillmor, 1 year ago to random

A reminder that an indictment is not proof. But if even a tenth of what's alleged in the Santos filing is true (and the descriptions are of felonies so brazen that they are almost surely true), this guy is a walking crime wave.

Also a reminder that he got into Congress because every journalism organization (except one that had almost no influence) didn't even attempt to check his lies when it counted.

dangillmor, 1 year ago to random

Major kudos to Wikipedia for telling the UK to stuff its age verification law: https://www.techdirt.com/2023/05/09/wikipedia-tells-uk-government-it-wont-comply-with-proposed-age-verification-mandates/

dangillmor, 1 year ago to random

"(W)hat we are witnessing is the wealthiest companies in history (Microsoft, Apple, Google, Meta, Amazon …) unilaterally seizing the sum total of human knowledge that exists in digital, scrapable form and walling it off inside proprietary products, many of which will take direct aim at the humans whose lifetime of labor trained the machines without giving permission or consent."

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/may/08/ai-machines-hallucinating-naomi-klein

dangillmor, 1 year ago to random

This is "savvy and irreverent?"

Disgraceful, even for the NY Times' consistently awful political coverage. Is there not even one editor there with an ounce of integrity?

dangillmor, 1 year ago to random

"Officer-involved shooting" is a euphemism for "officer shot someone" -- and it's used, by police and journalist, to make reality fuzzy.

If all journalism organizations agreed to, as this commentary advises, abolish the "Exonerative Tense” in headlines (and I'd add, articles as well), journalism would be much improved.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/emersonmalone/police-traffic-safety-headline-language-exoneration

dangillmor, 1 year ago to random

I'm one of the people Google conned when it pushed "AMP" as a mobile standard. My long article about it in Backchannel (now part of Wired) was, in retrospect, credulous.

Read the @verge piece on a corporate campaign that contributed to massive -- and reasonable -- mistrust of Google at news organizations: https://www.theverge.com/23711172/google-amp-accelerated-mobile-pages-search-publishers-lawsuit

dangillmor, 1 year ago to random

The Goethe Institute asked me for some thoughts on social media's impact and how we should deal with it. I responded: https://www.goethe.de/prj/zei/en/pdk/24687701.html

dangillmor, 1 year ago to random

Before you buy into the (false) narrative that California invited more shoplifting by changing the misdemeanor-felony threshold, read @radleybalko's latest newsletter post. Lots of red states have higher thresholds, but you won't find that out on Fox "News" or its ilk. https://radleybalko.substack.com/p/hi-youve-been-referred-here-because?publication_id=668365&post_id=120051599&isFreemail=true

dangillmor, 1 year ago to random

Do read this interview with @doctorow, who's just published a wonderful detective-tech novel, "Red Team Blues," and offers here a collection of ideas that will make your brain work. https://jacobin.com/2023/05/cory-doctorow-big-tech-internet-monopoly-capitalism-artificial-intelligence-crypto/

dangillmor, 1 year ago to random

How long has Windoiws 11 been out now? Still can't move taskbar/dock to the left side of the screen. A reminder that if you use Microsoft's (or any other big company's) product you are not in control of how you use it.

dangillmor, 1 year ago to random

Kudos to the scientists who resigned, en masse, from the editorial board at one of the journals published by Elsivier, a company that almost defines the word "greed" -- https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/may/07/too-greedy-mass-walkout-at-global-science-journal-over-unethical-fees

dangillmor, 1 year ago to random

The proclamations of Maston's "failure" are at best premature and -- and in many cases they sound like wishful thinking from people who still think they can find a centralized social media daddy to take care of them.

Maybe the fediverse won't turn out to be the best centralized system, but it's leagues better than Twitter in ways that matter to me.

mattblaze, 1 year ago to random

My decision about whether to try Bluesky depends on what everyone else does. I just want to be where everyone else is, and not be around too many Nazis. My needs are simple.