Below are posts associated with the “link” type.
🔗 linkblog: First Cracks Appear: Some Conservatives Admit We’re In A Constitutional Crisis'
As usual, lots to like in this post from Mike Masnick.
🔗 linkblog: AI-Generated Slop Is Already In Your Public Library'
I get a lot of reading done through hoopla, but this kind of story is starting to sour me on the platform.
🔗 linkblog: Can anyone stop President Musk?'
I’m teaching a social media research methods class this semester, and I’m pretty sure I need to bring this article up in this week’s class.
🔗 linkblog: A 25-Year-Old With Elon Musk Ties Has Direct Access to the Federal Payment System'
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.
🔗 linkblog: The Twitter Files Playbook Comes For The US Government'
More good writing from Masnick on scary stuff coming out of DC.
🔗 linkblog: The NTSB chooses Elon Musk’s X to update the press on plane crashes'
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.
🔗 linkblog: I Don’t Have Words'
I always appreciate Sam’s writing and especially here. I’m waiting to see what—if anything—my current church has to say about the current mess, but I have a deep fondness for the church I grew up in, and it’s deeply disappointing for a rich church that is willing to throw those resources behind its interests to decide that combatting the present cruelty is not one of those interests.
🔗 linkblog: Trump To Victims’ Families: ‘I’m Doing Everything Possible To Resegregate Flight Schools’'
I’m grateful for The Onion right now.
🔗 linkblog: Acting on Trump's order, federal officials opened up two California dams'
Bookmarking this because with the sheer quantity of nonsense that’s happened in just the last couple of weeks, I feel like I will eventually need reminders of just how dumb some of it has been.
🔗 linkblog: FCC demands CBS provide unedited transcript of Kamala Harris interview'
Government overreach is scary, but it can also be really, really petty.
🔗 linkblog: Exclusive: Musk aides lock government workers out of computer systems at US agency, sources say'
Oh, he really is doing this like he did Twitter. That was a nightmare by itself.
🔗 linkblog: Treasury official retires after clash with DOGE over access to payment system'
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?
🔗 linkblog: Trump Admin Deletes Video Explaining Grammatical Concept of Pronouns in War Against DEI'
This headline would be hilarious if it weren’t so infuriating.
🔗 linkblog: OpenAI Furious DeepSeek Might Have Stolen All the Data OpenAI Stole From Us'
Yeah, it’s really hard to have any sympathy here at all.
🔗 linkblog: The Technological Poison Pill: How ATProtocol Encourages Competition, Resists Evil Billionaires, Lock-In & Enshittification'
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.
🔗 linkblog: Elon Musk, Video Game King? Well, Maybe Not.'
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
🔗 linkblog: The Emptiness Of Zuck’s Promise To Move ‘Biased’ Trust & Safety From California To Texas'
This was one of the dumbest parts of all Meta’s announcements and now it’s… basically nothing, too?
🔗 linkblog: AI Dungeon Master experiment exposes the vulnerability of Critical Role’s fandom'
Digital labor issues abound in the context of generative AI, but fan labor issues make me particularly angry.
🔗 linkblog: Donald Trump Has Mark Zuckerberg By the Balls'
Not the headline I would have chosen, but very interesting argument here.
🔗 linkblog: Meta Is Blocking Links to Decentralized Instagram Competitor Pixelfed'
Directly out of Musk’s playbook. All the more reason to ditch Meta for the fediverse.
🔗 linkblog: An Amazon Delivery Confirmation Photo Is the Last Time a Palisades Resident Saw Her Burnt Down House'
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.
🔗 linkblog: Meta Deletes Trans and Nonbinary Messenger Themes'
Meta’s cynicism and groveling is pretty appalling.
🔗 linkblog: Meta’s Moderation Modifications Mean Anti-LGBTQ Speech Is Welcome, While Pro-LGBTQ Speech Is Not'
Some more good writing on a bad situation.
🔗 linkblog: Facebook Is Censoring 404 Media Stories About Facebook's Censorship'
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.
🔗 linkblog: The Jawboning Double Standard: Brendan Carr’s Threats Are Way Worse Than What Biden Was Accused Of'
Yet more to demonstrate that “free speech” often means “right-wing speech.”
🔗 linkblog: Facebook Deletes Internal Employee Criticism of New Board Member Dana White'
Moderating employees but not users seems telling to me.
🔗 linkblog: Meta abandons fact-checking on Facebook and Instagram in favor of Community Notes'
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.
🔗 linkblog: Instagram blocked teens from searching LGBTQ-related content for months'
See, this is the kind of content moderation we ought to worry about (and why “keep the kids safe” narratives can go horribly wrong).
🔗 linkblog: Corporations as Paperclip Maximizers: AI, Data, and the Future of Learning | Punya Mishra's Web'
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.