Kind: Reads

What we learned about celebrity oligarchs

There’s plenty of speculation about what he’ll do, and whether — or how — he’ll wreck it. I have no unique insights above the stuff you’ve probably already…

What's happening to the entire media, in speeded-up time-lapse form.

Well, Elon’s first week running Twitter has gone worse than I expected. I said last week that I thought the platform would be pretty much unchanged in 1-3 months and then effectively dead within a year. Now it’s looking like it’ll be pretty different in 1-3 weeks and effectively dead within six months. (Nice job, Elon. You spent $44 billion to bring back the fail whale.)

And, about that yuge DHS "leak"

For Twitter's angry nerds, the blue check is like a girlfriend — it's infuriating because you can't buy it

Rogan told guest Tulsi Gabbard last month that his wife’s friend was a teacher at a school that installed litter boxes in the girls’ bathroom.

I keep seeing this pattern. You need a content site, and tools designed for blogging are a straightforward way to create a content site. So, you start a blog, except most posts are evergreen content. Content that you are going to update. Before long, you are updating old blog posts and finding they ...

Litter boxes, stolen elections, and the Pelosi attack

Hey Elon: Let Me Help You Speed Run The Content Moderation Learning Curve by Mike Masnick

It’s kind of a rite of passage for any new social media network. They show up, insist that they’re the “platform for free speech” without quite understanding what that actually means, and then they quickly discover a whole bunch of fairly fundamental ideas, institute a bunch of rapid (often sloppy) changes… and in the end, […]

Twitter’s new owner faces a difficult regulatory landscape around the world.

Bullshit Reporting: The Intercept’s Story About Government Policing Disinfo Is Absolute Garbage by Mike Masnick

Do not believe everything you read. Even if it comes from more “respectable” publications. The Intercept had a big story this week that is making the rounds, suggesting that “leaked” documents prove the DHS has been coordinating with tech companies to suppress information. The story has been immediately picked up by the usual suspects, claiming […]

Democrats are losing on "crime" even though they have the most popular policies for dealing with crime: more cops, fewer guns.

Free speech in America is endangered by bad-faith court cases, Section 230-based workarounds to the First Amendment, and a misguided backlash against Big Tech.

Donald Trump was right about pandemic politics.

Conservatives have responded to David DePape’s attack on Paul Pelosi and plan to torture Nancy Pelosi by questioning the events or refusing to condemn it. The right has followed this pattern with other extremist elements like QAnon and January 6.

Embracing the politics of sadism, the GOP base hits a new low.

On the Matter of the New Twitter Boss and Other Things by John Scalzi

Elon Musk is buying Twitter, apparently mostly just because he can, and people are — strangely! — worried about whether a thin-skinned ego monster of a billionaire who has problems relating to humans and appears to equate “free speech” with trolling is going to make a service already rife with trolls and and bots any […]

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Staying Or Going at Twitter: Ironically, a Twitter Thread by John Scalzi

Written this morning and now posted here for archival purposes. I’ll likely have more to say on the topic soon, but at the moment I’m in transit and heading home. Also note that if you’re reading this here, you probably don’t need the links to the site that I have provided. 1. As folks are […]

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