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.

What a stupid thing this whole “banning TikTok” thing has proved to be.

I’m not terribly attentive to music or film quality, but the complaints about access to streaming media resonated with me.

I don’t like Big Tech, but I’ve become more wary of regulation in recent years because folks like Masnick have compellingly made this argument over and over: It’s the smaller, better companies and sites that suffer the most from it.

Horrific story; not sure why we’re so eager to punish the unhoused.

I’m bookmarking this so I can sit with it and return to it. It is powerful, searing, and condemning.

I don’t think I’ve ever been more angry about the gig economy than when reading this post.

I don’t see myself pivoting away from Reeder, but this looks interesting, and I want to see more of this kind of app out there.

Look, I don’t know all the finer points of this debate, but Mullenweg has repeatedly struck me as petty and juvenile, so it’s hard to imagine taking his side on any of the more substantive issues here.

Some more reflection by Doctorow on Bluesky and Mastodon.

This is the best possible response to a bad situation.

Some good observations here.

Well put:

TCL plans to get more into original content, fueled by a dystopian strategy that seems largely built around minimizing costs and pushing ads.