Resubscribed to WIRED because despite my efforts to focus more on tech news than political news, THEY HAVE BECOME ONE AND THE SAME IN REALLY WORRYING WAYS.

Currently reading David Graeber’s “Debt: The First 5,000 Years,” and while it’s really dense, one clear theme is how money has the power to abstract our moral thinking in dangerous directions. This NYT blurb seemed relevant.

Love to be living in a world where a blog I read for tech commentary—and that is more reserved than I would be on a lot of that commentary—is running articles describing current goings-on as “a coup in progress.”

More good writing from Masnick on scary stuff coming out of DC.

It’s obviously not the most worrying thing about it, but a very specific tragedy about Musk’s DOGE nonsense is that it may end up being the largest (indirect) influence Homestar Runner has had on the world.

Lots of bad things are happening right now, but this one stands out. There’s no good reason for this except to make Musk happy.

If current events continue to echo the Twitter takeover, we’re about a year out from Elon Musk telling a gathering of world leaders to go fuck themselves for not supporting his agenda.

Masnick pulls no punches.

Oh, he really is doing this like he did Twitter. That was a nightmare by itself.

Anyone who hasn’t should read one of two excellent books—Extremely Hardcore or Character Limit—on Musk’s takeover of Twitter, because I’m getting similar vibes here. Remember when Musk just refused to pay money Twitter owed because he didn’t feel like it?

Reading all this recent coverage on Musk’s “gaming” has made me want to reread Cory Doctorow’s stories about gold farming—which is all the more fitting given that Doctorow uses gold farming to talk about exploited labor. gift link

Modern cars are creepy.

This is an excellent and detailed overview and I’m better for having read it.

Bookmarking as yet another example of Elon Musk’s free speech reputation being undeserved.

Post election is a great time to realize the dangers that KOSA poses.

Some good points in here about how “shareholder value” can lead to bad decisions.

This is an important take, and I appreciate that the article concludes with a reminder that indie is the answer as we move forward with the social web.

Love these digs at Twitter in the Kickstarter video for Mike Masnick’s new card game.

Back in 2020-2021, I made the decision to pivot from Twitter as a research site in case data ever became less available—and so I could focus more on right-wing online spaces. It was a good call but still hilariously mistaken at the same time.

Rank hypocrisy. I don’t necessarily think Musk should have been deported way back when, but I think he should be called out on this.

Wild to read this so soon after finishing Character Limit, because I’m getting very similar vibes.

Like Zoë Schiffer’s Extremely Hardcore, I think this book will be even more valuable in the future than it is right now. I also wish I’d waited to read it for a bit instead of so soon after Schiffer’s book! What a wild, depressing story the Musk acquisition has been. I appreciate this book for giving more insight into the pre-Musk troubles of the company, but it still doesn’t shy away from how disastrous one billionaire’s ego has been.

I don’t understand why anyone would stay on Twitter at this point, unless they’re staying for the nonsense. gift link

A good, informing read.

Masnick is excellent at balancing “Musk has a right to do this” with “the hypocrisy is shameful.”

What a wild story.

24 hours on Elon’s Twitter feed is a great idea for a story, and I’m glad someone did it!

Who benefits from AI? Who doesn’t?

I dedicated most of my early career to Twitter and probably owe my tenure to the ease of collecting Twitter data once upon a time. Were it not for some timely decisions to diversify what platforms I was looking at, the API cutoff documented in this book would have really messed me up. Because of how important Twitter was to me professionally, I followed a lot of this news as it was happening.

I’m currently reading Extremely Hardcore and can’t wait to read Character Limit. The Twitter purchase alone ought to dismiss any serious ideas that Musk could do this kind of work.

Can something be shocking but not surprising? I’ve been thinking about this all day and still can’t believe it’s real.

introduction and history I’ve experimented for a while with consuming a range of media through an RSS reader. I don’t remember how long I subscribed to Feedbin, but being able to follow both Twitter accounts and email newsletters in the same app as my RSS subscriptions was a real game-changer. Eventually, I jumped ship for NetNewsWire—I don’t remember all the reasons behind the switch, but knowing that I could keep subscribing to Twitter and start following some subreddits was definitely a major factor.

What a disaster.

This is one of these stories where I’ve been waiting to get Masnick’s take on it, and he does not disappoint.

Finally read up on this, and it’s worrying.

A few months ago, some colleagues reached out to ask if I would be willing to record a guest lecture for our library science program’s LIS 600: Information in Society. In particular, they were interested in having me record something for a week on the digital divide. I am conversant on that topic, but it’s not an area of specialty for me, so I was unsure about it until I realized that some of the readings for that week touch on topics like platform design that I am really interested in through my work on social media communities.