Yeah, it’s really hard to have any sympathy here at all.

Saw someone link to this and remembered I should probably read the whole thing instead of just the first few paragraphs. I fall somewhere between Doctorow and Masnick on Bluesky optimism, but I really appreciate their dialogue on 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

This was one of the dumbest parts of all Meta’s announcements and now it’s… basically nothing, too?

Yes to all of this.

Digital labor issues abound in the context of generative AI, but fan labor issues make me particularly angry.

Darkly hilarious.

Not the headline I would have chosen, but very interesting argument here.

Directly out of Musk’s playbook. All the more reason to ditch Meta for the fediverse.

The headline doesn’t really make the point, but the article is interesting; of course Amazon drivers would be sent into areas evacuated for fire.

Meta’s cynicism and groveling is pretty appalling.

Some more good writing on a bad situation.

Chilling read.

I especially appreciate this article in the wake of Meta’s recent announcements. There are cases in which content moderation is inconsistent or overreaching, and there are cases in which less moderation fixes the problem. However, it’s the arbitrary distinctions and self-serving nature of the changes that make the “free expression” argument so flimsy.

Uggggggh, ALPRs suck.

Yet more to demonstrate that “free speech” often means “right-wing speech.”

Moderating employees but not users seems telling to me.

Personally, I’ve come around to the idea that fewer restrictions, “Community Notes”-style responses, and lots of personal control over what one sees could work better as content moderation. It’s interesting to see Bluesky take some of these approaches, for example!

Here, though, this seems like it’s bending the knee to the Trump administration, and I can’t imagine any of this being done in good faith. What a disappointment Meta continues to be.

See, this is the kind of content moderation we ought to worry about (and why “keep the kids safe” narratives can go horribly wrong).

There are some helpful thoughts in here. I think most of my concerns about generative AI are less about the technology itself and more about the corporate interest in and control of it.

Modern cars are creepy.

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

As someone who once owned Tintin au pays des Soviets (but also sold it more out of distaste of the art than the politics) and who is currently rereading a less-but-still-problematic classic Belgian bande dessinée, I really appreciated these reflections.

I hadn’t realized that Tintin was about to enter the public domain, and that’s exciting! I’m more optimistic that Tintin can be reclaimed from its fascist, racist roots than Werd is. I worry that that’s because I haven’t fully confronted those roots, but I hope it’s because there’s an anarchist Tintin parody/remix out there that’s already demonstrated that the character can be repurposed for other means. I regret not buying the book when I had a chance to a month or two ago, but maybe Tintin in the public domain will allow me to find other subversive takes on the character.

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

More suckiness in the world of academic publishing.