Below are posts associated with the “link” type.
🔗 linkblog: Nokia Busted Helping Russia’s FSB Spy On Citizens, Activists, Journalists | Techdirt'
Do not be fooled by the headline, the article’s best contribution is its indictment of U.S. politicians and companies for their complicity in this sort of thing.
🔗 linkblog: Women are splitting off from Reddit’s preppers sub.'
This is a fascinating article on prepper communities on reddit. Great example of the importance of a gender lens.
🔗 linkblog: Google Ordered Translators to Replace References to Ukraine “War”'
Speaking of the non-neutrality of platforms… Granted, Google has a difficult line to walk here, but this is still disappointing.
🔗 linkblog: Rumble, the Right’s Go-To Video Site, Has Much Bigger Ambitions - The New York Times'
Glad to see reporting on Rumble, but disappointed to see uncritical repeating of claims about “free speech,” “neutrality,” and “censorship.” There are no neutral platforms, and content moderation is the real key idea here.
🔗 linkblog: Stop Invasive Remote Proctoring: Pass California’s Student Test Taker Privacy Protection Act | Electronic Frontier Foundation'
Seems to me that not using proctoring software is the best response to these concerns, but glad to see the EFF sponsoring efforts to regulate its inevitable use.
🔗 linkblog: Pride flag displayed at Lexington KY man’s house gets burned | Lexington Herald Leader'
I bike past this house and its flags every day; seeing them is always a boost. How upsetting that people would want to burn one.
🔗 linkblog: The ‘Culture Of Free Speech’ Includes Criticism Of Others’ Speech; Get Over It | Techdirt'
I have been waiting for days to see what Techdirt would have to say on this, and it doesn’t disappoint.
🔗 linkblog: So how do Russian cosmonauts feel about Russia’s war on Ukraine? | Ars Technica'
This article is the most helpful thing I’ve seen on the cosmonauts’ uniform choice so far.
🔗 linkblog: To Make Social Media Work Better, Make It Fail Better | Electronic Frontier Foundation'
This idea increasingly resonates with me.
🔗 linkblog: Columbia Professor Expresses Doubts over University Ranking - The New York Times'
This is why I’m skeptical of terms like data driven decision making, which are meant to sound objective but cannot live up to their rhetorical power.
🔗 linkblog: Hacked News Channel and Deepfake of Zelenskyy Surrendering Is Causing Chaos Online'
Oh good, our fears about deepfakes are coming true.
🔗 linkblog: Now That White Musicians Are Getting Sued For Copyright, Lawyers Say Copyright Needs To Change | Techdirt'
Intellectual property is a social justice issue.
🔗 linkblog: Kentucky lawmakers advance bill to resettle war refugees | Lexington Herald Leader'
I do not always have praise for the local Republican supermajority, but I’m glad to see this goes beyond Ukraine to provide support for all kinds of refugees. Tentative optimism here.
🔗 linkblog: Yemen Crisis Has Only Worsened, Despite Biden Pledge'
Yemen has been on my mind a lot since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but mostly because I’m belatedly realizing I haven’t been paying attention. It’s not that Ukraine doesn’t deserve our attention, it’s that Yemen has long deserved just as much. There, we’re the ones complicit in civilian deaths, and we need to own up to that.
🔗 linkblog: Performative Conservatives Are Mad That A Search Engine Wants To Downrank Disinformation | Techdirt'
I missed most of this yesterday, but Masnick sums up my thoughts so much better than I could.
🔗 linkblog: U.S. Condemns Russian Bombing Of Hospital As Horrific Act That Any World Power Could Theoretically Commit'
The Onion speaks uncomfortable truth. Americans must hold Putin accountable, but we meed to turn our attention inward, too.
🔗 linkblog: How KONY 2012 Trained the Audience— and YouTube — to Love Reactionary Media | by Jamie Cohen | Mar, 2022 | OneZero'
KONY 2012 has been on my mind a lot lately, and this is a good read. It doesn’t bring up why I’ve had it on the mind, though. I’m afraid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could turn into a sequel of sorts: Something important and meaningful that people glom onto because they see something oversimplified on social media.
🔗 linkblog: Millions of Leftists Are Reposting Kremlin Misinformation by Mistake'
Interesting if disconcerting story. The idea of whataboutism as misinformation is particularly disturbing, and it’s important to remember that misinformation is a non-partisan phenomenon (even if the GOP is particularly keen on it). The worst part from a personal angle is how this relates to my own struggling to balance calling out the invasion of Ukraine with knowing that I haven’t been as attentive to other conflicts that deserve my brainspace. I think that’s possible in a way that doesn’t support the Kremlin, but there is some delicate balancing to be done here.
🔗 linkblog: Ky. lawmaker apologizes for comments about Jewish women during abortion debate | Lexington Herald Leader'
Textbook example of why it is never enough to say you didn’t mean any harm. This is shameful and gross.
🔗 linkblog: Russia Can Now Jail People for 15 Years for Tweeting About the War on Ukraine'
On one hand, this is actual social media censorship, not what bad actors in the U.S. complain about. On the other, it is a reminder that even the best intentioned laws against misinformation, etc. could have unintended effects. We need to tread carefully when figuring out legal responses to social media problems.
🔗 linkblog: Stromae’s Music Delves Into Dark Topics. His Return Is Right on Time. - The New York Times'
Pleased to see Stromae reviewed in the NYT—by someone who liveblogged Eurovision no less. Will be listening all afternoon, I’m sure.
🔗 linkblog: Religious Education at BYU: An Open Letter to the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities | By Common Consent, a Mormon Blog'
Lots of thoughts about this. As someone with an education PhD who teaches and researches outside traditionally education topics, I want to emphasize that the prevalence of education PhDs is a symptom, not the actual problem. In my teaching and research outside my home discipline, I work hard to learn the content and communities that I’m branching into. The disdain for those content and communities at BYU Religious Education is the real problem here and therefore what I’m really worried about. To channel Shulman, this is a context that values pedagogical knowledge at the expense of content knowledge; there are lots of academic departments out there that make the opposite mistake, but that doesn’t justify this approach either.
🔗 linkblog: Ukraine’s ‘Neo-Nazi’ Battalion Is Greasing Bullets in Pig Fat for Russia’s Muslim Soldiers'
We can support Ukraine generally and still be concerned about the integration of the far-right into their armed forces.
🔗 linkblog: Critics Call Out ‘Racist’ Western Coverage of Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine'
So very gross. What’s happening in Ukraine is terrible, but terrible things are happening all over the world, and we shouldn’t make Ukraine more terrible out of some kind of chauvinism.
🔗 linkblog: Lexington KY peace vigil for Ukraine set for Wednesday | Lexington Herald Leader'
Proud of Lexington for hosting this. Also wondering if I should check the Lexington groups on Gab to see if the local far-right is cranky about it.