Kind: Reads

Republicans had two (recent) chances to rid themselves of Trump. Instead, they humored him. So much downside.

It’s been reported on Reddit that Twitter is marking Mastodon links as malware.

Three simple, yes-or-no questions for democracy's new allies.

I should write up a larger technical document on this, but in the meanwhile is this short (-ish) blogpost. Everything you know about RISC is...

Voters to GOP: We don’t like your MAGA candidates and their agenda.

Gary Gensler is the sheriff of Wall Street. So why couldn't he stop the fraud revealed by the blow-up of Sam Bankman-Fried?

I think the real danger for the Mastodon/greater Fediverse community is that, should Mastodon really become the "next Twitter", it will catch the attention of the other FAANGs. And the way the Fediverse is structured currently, it appears highly vulnerable to the old Embrace/Extend/Extinguish playbook: 1) Establish a corporate Mastodon server and deeply embed it into your existing platform. ("We love the Fediverse! We love it so much that we've built native support for it into Google mail. That's right! Starting tomorrow, every @gmail address is also a valid Mastodon user! No need to sign up anywhere, you can just follow and toot and boost right from your Gmail app!") 1a) Think influx of a few 1000s of users is bad? How about a billion? [1] 2) Bombard the community with proprietary extensions and attempt to take control of the technical standards. ("We love ActivityPub too! That's why we're planning to add YouTube integration to it! And Google Calendar invites! And Maps locations and advanced emotes and and and... Developers of servers and third-party clients are encouraged to follow our new ActivityPub Extensions living standard. Feedback is encouraged!") 2a) Non-FAANG server admins or client devs now have the choice between continuously playing catch-up on technical features they have to implement or tolerate that a large part of messages become incomprehensible to non-FAANG users. 3) Pull up the drawbridges. ("While ActivityPub is great, we feel that ultimately it limits the platform's potential and does not meet our standards for privacy and security. Therefore, ActivityPub will be sunset at the end of the year for @gmail.com. Third-party clients and servers are invited to implement our web API instead. Just register your server as an app in the API console and apply for a key...") I think the Fediverse community would do good to think up strategies how to counter EEE takeovers right now, because if at some point Mastodon becomes big enough that there is money or influence to be made by controlling the platform, then someone will try a takeover, sooner or later. [1] https://financesonline.com/number-of-active-gmail-users/

Twitter Was a Lifeline for People With Disabilities. Musk’s Reign Is Changing All of That

Every time I post something that gets lots of engagement, I essentially end up carrying out a denial of service attack on myself. What does this say about the design of Mastodon and ActivityPub and the future of the fediverse?

Despite the right's best efforts to scare the hell out of everyone, crime doesn't appear to have been much of an issue at all

It never should have begun.

A blog post where I mourn the loss of the places of community we and I had.

Republicans want to believe that they only lost because of Trump.

Advertisers paused spending out of concerns about Twitter’s new ownership. Elon Musk almost immediately confirmed their fears by making the entire platform less brand-safe.

Mr. Musk ordered immediate layoffs, fired executives by email, laid down product deadlines and has transformed the company.

Elon is speaking. VPs are resigning. Is bankruptcy next?

Does Twitter Have Any Employees Left Who Remember That The Company Is Under A Strict Consent Decree With The FTC? by Mike Masnick

Yesterday I tweeted out a question about whether or not there was anyone left at Twitter who remembered that the company was under a pretty strict FTC consent decree: Apparently the answer was yes, but they didn’t include Elon Musk. Late last night, a few hours after that tweet, the Chief Information Security Officer, the […]

The normies want to be heard.

The GOP starts to realize Trump is a LOSER