A good glimpse at content moderation, and why it’s important to do it correctly. link to ‘Inside 4chan’s Top-Secret Moderation Machine | WIRED’

Look, this is the kind of book that I bought knowing already that I’d agree with its thesis, so maybe you shouldn’t read my review of it. Nonetheless, I think Caine does an excellent job of bringing together many of the arguments against Amazon. This company is bad news, and while it’s hard to escape it entirely, I think the world would be a better place if more of us did less to support it.

Really loving this (six year old) podcast episode. I don’t care much about the Trinity except when it’s understood in the ways that Karin Peter and Susan Ocley describe here. link to ‘78 | Common Grounds | Trinity Sunday – Project Zion Podcast’

Last paragraph here is an important one: I’ve seen a lot of headlines about OpenAI calling for regulation, but it’s noteworthy that it’s hypothetical future regulation. link to ‘OpenAI says it could ‘cease operating’ in the EU if it can’t comply with future regulation - The Verge’

Masnick makes a good point here. I’m sympathetic to “for the kids” motivations, but I’m increasingly convinced that Masnick is right, that it’s meant to make bad policy sound impossible to argue against. link to ‘Heritage Foundation Says That Of Course GOP Will Use KOSA To Censor LGBTQ Content | Techdirt’

Bookmarking this for later. Community of Christ isn’t very big in Kentucky, and I wonder how digital technologies could help connect us and provide people easier ways to visit us. This seems like an interesting model. link to ‘584 | What’s Brewing | A Path Forward for Chicago – Project Zion Podcast’

I was not familiar with the term “glass cliff,” so this was an insightful read. link to ‘Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino Is Teetering on the Glass Cliff | WIRED’

I picked up a copy of this book at the 2023 World Conference of Community of Christ, after it being on my wishlist for some time. It does an excellent job of examining the subjectivity of Restoration scripture by tracing its evolution over time. I remarked to a friend earlier this week that it’s a shame it was written in the 90s (and originally, the 60s) rather than now, when there’s so much more available to do this kind of work.

Can’t believe it’s been ten years; can’t believe we’re not collectively furious about this. link to ‘10 Years After Snowden: Some Things Are Better, Some We’re Still Fighting For | Electronic Frontier Foundation’

I have been furious with Intuit since ProPublica did their great reporting on this, but I’ve continued to use TurboTax because the system is broken. Very excited for this news, and I appreciate Doctorow’s passionnate take. link to ‘Pluralistic: The IRS will do your taxes for you (if that’s what you prefer) (17 May 2023) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow’

Good podcast episode; what stands out the most is the authors’ comments at the end that merely researching the book gave them nightmares. link to ‘Stream episode Mountain Meadows Massacre — What did Brigham Young know and when did he know it? | Episode 286 by Mormon Land podcast | Listen online for free on SoundCloud’

My alarm woke me from a dream in which I was trying to recruit Latter-day Saint missionaries as pilots for the Rebel Alliance, and I have a lot of questions about that worldbuilding.

Bellingcat does good work; Twitter continues to be a joke. link to ‘Twitter ‘Shadowbans’ Bellingcat After Musk Attacks Them, Then Tries To Retcon A Nonsense Explanation | Techdirt’

Using AI for customer service is the stuff of my nightmares. link to ‘Zoom will soon integrate Anthropic’s chatbot across its platform - The Verge’

I know I can always count on Masnick to write this article when a story like this comes up. link to ‘Once Again, ‘Free Speech Absolutist’ Elon Musk Caves To Authoritarian Censorial Bullies | Techdirt’

Some good comments in here—especially on how AI enforces and normalizes certain kinds of writing instead of allowing us to determine what writing should look like. link to ‘Google’s AI pitch is a recipe for email hell - The Verge’

A great column from Jana. It’s hard to believe that it’s been ten years—or that I’ve changed so much in my own Mormonism over that time. link to ‘The ‘Mormon Moment’ 10 years later: Why Joanna Brooks and Mitch Mayne left the public eye’

This sounds worrying to me. Surveillance can and will be abused, and we should be wary about embracing it on this scale. link to ‘Neighborhood Watch Out: Cops Are Incorporating Private Cameras Into Their Real-Time Surveillance Networks | Electronic Frontier Foundation’

One of this week’s lectionary readings in Community of Christ (and presumably elsewhere) is in 1 Peter 3. As I was reading the NRSVUE rendering of this passage this morning, verses 13-17 stood out to me: 13 Now who will harm you if you are eager to do what is good? 14 But even if you do suffer for doing what is right, you are blessed. Do not fear what they fear, and do not be intimidated, 15 but in your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord.

This is indefensible, and no amount of spin from a comms director can change how harmful this is. link to ‘Kelly Craft escalates anti-trans rhetoric, calls for excluding ‘transgenders’ from Ky. schools’

Content moderation is hard, and it’s especially hard at scale. Because AI makes doing things at scale easier, it necessarily makes content moderation harder. link to ‘Spotify ejects thousands of AI-made songs in purge of fake streams | Ars Technica’

All right, black tea, let’s see how we get along.

I feel like I say this whenever I post a link to a Twitter story, but I honestly can’t believe how dumb this stuff gets sometimes. Also, is Musk going to give someone else control of @ldschurch? link to ‘Elon Musk threatens to re-assign @NPR on Twitter to ‘another company’ : NPR’

One of the more interesting passages of scripture produced by Joseph Smith Jr. is in Section 36 of the Community of Christ Doctrine and Covenants (or the Book of Moses in the Latter-day Saint Pearl of Great Price): And it came to pass that the God of heaven looked upon the residee of the people, and he wept, and Enoch bore record of it, saying, How is it the heavens weeps and shed forth their tears as the rain upon the mountains?

I read a passage in Wil Gafney’s A Women’s Lectionary for the Whole Church this morning that really stood out to me—especially as it related to two things I’ve recently written. A few weeks ago, I wrote about Easter hope, acknowledging that [a literal] resurrection is something that’s hard for me to wrap my head around, but I figure that if I can try to muster the belief in the impossibility of the resurrection, I can have the belief that we can overcome racism, fix poverty, and solve other seemingly impossible tasks facing us.

I was disappointed this morning to see this article in the Salt Lake Tribune. The article reports that BYU professor Sarah Coyne “became the target of online bullying and hostile emails” after discussing “her child’s years of wrestling with gender dysphoria, including suicidal thoughts and agonizing mental health issues” in a class she was teaching. According to the article, this is something that she has done for several semesters, but this time, her action “made it into a critical article in a conservative off-campus newspaper… which was retweeted by Utah Sen[ator] Mike Lee on his personal Twitter account.

I’m a couple of days late on writing this post: I started listening to the audiobook within hours of Doctorow sending out Kickstarter rewards on Monday and had it finished within a day. I often introduce Doctorow to others by saying that his books sometimes read like op-eds—but that that’s a good thing. I found that to be true in this book. I don’t know that I liked it as much as Walkaway (though I never expected to like that one!

There’s no such thing as dressing according to one’s biological sex. Gender-based dress expectations are perhaps the best possible example of the social construction of gender. What inanity. link to ‘Texas agriculture department’s new dress code based on ‘biological gender’ : NPR’

I have enjoyed going through this book. It’s the kind of book that invites personal action instead of just letting you read it, and that’s felt overwhelming at times (particularly as my life has gotten busier in recent weeks), but it’s a good invitation, and I know I’ll need to revisit this slowly and deliberately to get the most out of it.

I’m tired of reading Twitter news, but I’m professionally obligated to do so, no matter how dumb it gets. link to ‘Twitter Suspends Reporter For Reporting On Twitter Hack, Using Same Policy Old Twitter Used To Block NY Post Hunter Biden Story | Techdirt’

Over the past five years, my belief in a literal resurrection has gone down, but (perhaps unexpectedly) my love for Easter has gone up. For my congregation’s 2022 Easter service, I was invited to say contribute during a certain part of the service. I shared with the congregation that the resurrection is something that’s hard for me to wrap my head around, but I figure that if I can try to muster the belief in the impossibility of the resurrection, I can have the belief that we can overcome racism, fix poverty, and solve other seemingly impossible tasks facing us.

This is one of the most amazing things I’ve read on generative AI. link to ‘Bing has a testimony of the Book of Mormon! And other adventures with AI chatbots.’

Local shame in response to local tragedy. link to ‘Calls for action on gun violence meet silence from Kentucky’s Republican legislative leaders - Kentucky Lantern’

A week from tomorrow, I’m heading to Independence, Missouri to attend a few days of the 2023 World Conference of Community of Christ—and to act as a voting delegate in any of the legislative sessions that take place during my short time there. This is the first time since my confirmation into Community of Christ that a World Conference has taken place (the last one was in 2019), so I’ve been thinking about this for several months as “my first World Conference experience.

To paraphrase Mike Masnick, the defining motto of the Musk era seems to be ‘it can always get more stupid.’ link to ‘Elon Musk tweets, then deletes DMs from Matt Taibbi over his Substack snit - The Verge’

Made sure to take some CBD oil before leaving for Easter services, just as the good Lord intended.