Good focus on the digital labor aspects of this whole thing. I sympathize with Reddit for not wanting to provide free value for generative AI (this is one of the trickiest parts of that conversation), but Reddit’s users are right to balk at providing free value for the platform.

A good glimpse at content moderation, and why it’s important to do it correctly.

I was not familiar with the term “glass cliff,” so this was an insightful read.

I haven’t read much on the coronation and don’t plan to read much more, but even if I were, I think this would still take first place. A surprisingly deep dive into internet culture.

Some good commentary here. Musk loves certain buzzwords and flashy stunts, but they’re often in tension with the other decisions he makes.

A dumb future that no one is asking for.

I am not an AI expert, and my concerns aren’t on the existential scale. However, I do think it’s important to avoid moving fast and breaking things with these powerful technologies. That isn’t necessarily to say that more powerful AI shouldn’t be released (though I’m already disinterested by the current stuff), just that racing to improve them for commercial benefit and as technological flourish doesn’t strike me as socially responsible.

RIP my Twitter research. Glad I have other irons in the fire…

Somewhat meandering read, but I think there are interesting implications for both teaching and research.

Two years later, and we’re still learning just how bad this event was. Only two years later, and large parts of the country are ready to sweep it all under the rug.

I have deliberately not been following the Twitter Files stuff, but I did read this and found it helpful.

A helpful and thoughtful critique of how people are doing AI text generation.

Infertility sucks, and stories like this make me even more upset about Musk’s callous and chaotic Twitter takeover.

I had not thought this much about the privacy implications of VR, and ooooof.

I hate that there’s a need for articles like this, but I’m glad WIRED is putting them together.

This is a good response to Musk’s complaining about bots.

I had heard about this kind of software at a conference last year, but reading about it just makes it scarier.

My optimism about internet culture has been waning for several years, but I still appreciate a deep-dive into how rich and complex a given meme can be.

This isn’t the first article I’ve read comparing Q to an ARG, but I may still send it to my students next semester. I’m also interested in the book this comes from…

I loved the original book and hope to pick up the second. This was a good interview on how surprisingly many important things this kind of weird project overlaps with.

Maybe it’s because of my area of research, but I think the headline here is misleading. Being a teacher on TikTok is one thing, and I’m not opposed to that. Putting your students on TikTok is entirely different, and I struggle to see that being ethically justified. Josh’s research is absolutely the right reference point here.

It isn’t that TikTok doesn’t pose a real threat, it’s that it’s not alone in doing so. In particular, I appreciate that this article points out that U.S. border agents REGULARLY SEARCH COMPUTERS AND SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNTS. So, yes, raise concerns, but be consistent instead of creating a moral panic around thus one app (which, by the way, would be a privacy threat even if it were totally owned by a U.S. company).

Ashamed to say I hadn’t ever thought about this possibility.

I read Feed in high school and found it interesting, but when I read it again in 2019, it was amazing. This review gets at why the book is so good—and important. Maybe it’s time for me to visit it again.

What an epic—if illegal—rickroll. The best part in my book is repurposing student monitoring software.