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Mozilla Wonders What Social Media Could Look Like If It Started With A Clear ‘No Assholes’ Policy by Mike MasnickMike Masnick

Content moderation at scale is impossible to do well. And, contrary to what most people believe, a huge part of content moderation is not “we have to suppress this content that scares us,” but just an attempt to “stop people from being jerks to others.” Unfortunately, too many people get confused, and think that “free […]

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I know this is a small thing, but I’m incredibly grateful that @mmasnick@mastodon.social differentiates between Mastodon, ActivityPub, and the Fediverse — while also acknowledging that, while Mastodon is synonymous with ActivityPub and the Fediverse, it shouldn’t be.

And he does it in such a diplomatic fashion too.

https://www.techdirt.com/2023/05/09/mozilla-wonders-what-social-media-could-look-like-if-it-started-with-a-clear-no-assholes-policy/

—@atomicpoet

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The idea of turning cars into computers on wheels has always appealed me.

As a computer engineer, I’ve always failed to see the point of a system with hundreds of physical moving parts, grease, oil, and an inefficient engine that burns fossil leftovers and spits out pollutants. It always seemed to me like an inefficient vestige from another century that should belong to museums rather than roads.

What I could not foresee is that the new “computers on wheels” would have taken all the most awful ideas from my industry and bring them to the automotive industry.

Do you want your car to have heated seats? That’s $16/month. Remove the power limitations artificially added to your engine? That’ll be $60-90 a month. Have the media system on your car to play more formats? Another subscription. Get an all-in-one package with no subscriptions? That’ll be a few thousands bucks. And don’t worry, all these upgrades are just one click away and will be delivered over-the-air to your car when you click accept, just like a smartphone.

What’s more immoral and annoying than a paywall, a pointless subscription or an aggressive upsell strategy on the Web? Well, when the same business model comes to your car.

It’s time for regulators to intervene before it’s too late. The idea of limiting the power of my own car’s engine unless I pay a monthly fee is just so plain wrong that I’m surprised that nobody has slammed Mercedes yet.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/23/05/05/2252252/mercedes-locks-better-ev-engine-performance-behind-annoying-subscription-paywalls

—@blacklight

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yay, new WCAG 2.2 editor’s draft out https://w3c.github.io/wcag/guidelines/22/ … including the updated understanding for 2.5.8 Target Size (Minimum) with the spacing exception based on circles (and lots of fresh new illustrations/diagrams I made for it) https://github.com/w3c/wcag/pull/3103#event-9202338934 https://w3c.github.io/wcag/understanding/target-size-minimum.html #a11y #accessibility #wcag

—@patrick_h_lauke

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Fucking Christ the @protocol is the most obtuse crock of shit I’ve ever looked at. It is complex solely for the sake of being complex and still suffers from *all* of the same problems as Mastodon.

Your server goes down? Sorry, all of your followers are lost. Account portability is no better than Mastodon. ‘DIDs’ serve literally no purpose. And none of the API code that Bluesky uses in their own app validates ANY of the crypto they’re doing on the server. NONE OF IT.

—@sam

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I know people are anti-birdsite, but with Elmo taking down accounts with no activity, it makes me sad for all the people where someone died, and their account is a type of online memorial.

Twitter has no official policy on what happens to someone’s account when they die. There is no legacy transfer to a family member or friend, only the option to delete.

Unless you arranged with someone to access the account post death, it sits there or gets deleted.

P.S. You can transfer your FB, Insta, and Google to a family member in many instances; If you set it up before you pass.

#birdsite #death #tech #infosec

—@Lockdownyourlife

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Anyone who still thinks that Elon Musk is “just” a spoiled rich white boy tech bro whose political views are, as New York Times tries to tell us, “complicated,” needs to read Popular Information’s outstanding commentary on his blatant attempt to spread white supremacist disinformation following the choking of Jordan Neely by Daniel Penny on a train in New York.

Musk is a crude out & out white supremacist. And his platform makes him dangerous.

#ElonMusk #WhiteSupremacy

https://popular.info/p/elon-musks-obsession-with-anti-white

—@wdlindsy

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Elon Musk's obsession with anti-white bias
On May 1, Jordan Neely, an unhoused subway busker and Michael Jackson impersonator with a history of mental illness, was killed on the F train in New York City. At about 2:30 in the afternoon, Neely entered a subway car and began screaming that he was hungry and thirsty. "I don’t care if I go to jail and get locked up," Neely said, according to a witness. "I’m ready to die."