I see that adding kiddo to the extended family Signal chat has had predictable consequences.

Once or twice a week, I get a “Reaction Daily Digest” in my work email account catching me up on some of the emoji-style reactions I’ve received to recent emails that I’ve recently missed. I hate these emails for enough reasons that I’m taking a break from clearing my morning email to write a post about this.

email shouldn’t have emoji reactions

This isn’t a criticism of emoji or emoji reactions. As I’ve been increasing my use of Signal over the past week or so, I’ve been pleased that it supports emoji reactions and that it allows a wide range of them instead of locking you into a select few. However, one of the (few) great things about email is that it’s pretty much an open, cross-platform means of communication, and adding emoji reactions to Outlook email in a way that isn’t accounted for in the protocols that email is built on just feels dumb. It’s even more annoying than seeing phones trying to account for iOS and Android’s differing approaches to emoji reactions in a mixed group chat. Emoji reactions are great, but they don’t belong in email.

Today is “getting siblings and parents on Signal” day.

I’ve been trying to think through Durov’s arrest since I first heard about it—there are a lot of complex things going on here. I think this captures nicely my thoughts and taught me a few things, too.

Telegram is a sketchy platform (technically even more than in terms of content), but that doesn’t mean arresting the founder is warranted. Yet, that doesn’t mean that outcry on the right is in good faith, either.