Kamala Harris Can Be the Pro-Innovation President Silicon Valley Needs
[Reid Hoffman in the New York Times]"As Vice President Harris defines her vision for how best to lead the United States in this moment in time, she has an opportunity to take the torch passed to her...
View ArticleThe significance of Bluesky and decentralized social media
[Joel Gascoigne]"The larger social networks provide a level of distribution that's worth tapping into, but I strongly encourage investing a portion of your energy into networks where you will be able...
View ArticleJudge rules that Google ‘is a monopolist’ in US antitrust case
[Lauren Feiner at The Verge]"A federal judge ruled that Google violated US antitrust law by maintaining a monopoly in the search and advertising markets.“After having carefully considered and weighed...
View ArticleA re-introduction for Blaugust
So, the Blaugust festival of blogging is a thing. Who knew?For anyone arriving here for the very first time Blaugust is a month-long event that takes place each August which focuses on blogging...
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It's not partisanship when democracy is at stake
This moment isn’t about partisanship, because the discussions we’re having aren’t about tax policy or the intricacies of how we interact overseas. In 2024, one candidate’s supporters are waving flags...
View ArticleBitClout Wasn’t So Decentralized
[Matt Levine at Bloomberg]"Here’s a thing. It costs $1. If you buy one, the next one will cost $2. If someone buys it, the next one will cost $4. Et cetera. The price of the thing always goes up,...
View Article"Mastodon for Harris" is a Success Story for Fediverse Activism
[Sean Tilley at We Distribute]"Following President Joe Biden’s exit from the 2024 election, Democratic supporters have gained a massive influx of energy and support all over the Web. Hours after the...
View ArticleWhen split newsrooms work, and when they falter
[Bill Grueskin in Columbia Journalism Review]"What’s most important is that a disruptive start-up not be placed at the mercy of the old organization—which might see the upstart as a competitive threat...
View ArticleNo, the news is not information junk food
Every so often, a post goes around in tech circles about how news is bad and we shouldn’t pay attention to it. I think that’s ludicrous.Today’s was a post from 2022 called The News is Information Junk...
View Article50 years after Nixon’s resignation, some eerie parallels with Trump and the...
[Dan Kennedy at Media Nation]"Four years ago, Boston lawyer and journalist James Barron wrote that the Watergate break-in may well have been an attempt to steal documents from Democratic Party...
View ArticleInside Project 2025’s Secret Training Videos
[Andy Kroll at ProPublica and Nick Surgey at Documented]"Project 2025, the controversial playbook and policy agenda for a right-wing presidential administration, has lost its director and faced...
View ArticleWebmentions and lobster rolls
Webmentions have been broken on this blog for a little while. I’m on vacation this week, so I’m hoping to get them fixed up — as well as a few other fixes here and there.Mostly, though, I have to...
View ArticleFlipboard Users Can Now Follow Anyone in the Fediverse
[Anuj Ahooja and Sean Tilley at We Distribute]"Starting today, Flipboard will let users search for and follow accounts from across the Fediverse from the comfort of their own dashboards. [...] This...
View ArticleSurveillance Watch: They Know Who You Are
[Surveillance Watch: They Know Who You Are]"Surveillance Watch is an interactive map revealing the intricate connections between surveillance companies, their funding sources and affiliations."This is...
View ArticleProcreate’s anti-AI pledge attracts praise from digital creatives
[Jess Weatherbed at The Verge]"“Generative AI is ripping the humanity out of things. Built on a foundation of theft, the technology is steering us toward a barren future,” Procreate said on the new AI...
View ArticleElon Musk’s Twitter Takeover Is Now the Worst Buyout for Banks Since the...
[Alexander Saeedy and Dana Mattioli at The Wall Street Journal]"The $13 billion that Elon Musk borrowed to buy Twitter has turned into the worst merger-finance deal for banks since the 2008-09...
View ArticleAI in Journalism Futures 2024
[Open Society Foundations]"In February 2024, the Open Society Foundations issued a call for applications for a convening in which selected participants would share their visions of an AI-mediated...
View ArticleFediverse Governance Drop
[Erin Kissane]"Back in the fall, I wrote about a research project I was diving into with Darius Kazemi. Now, after a few months of prepping and conducting interviews with people who run Mastodon and...
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Using AI to feed my toddler on a road trip
This past week I embarked upon two long car drives — from Philadelphia to Cape Cod and back again — with an almost-two year-old. He’s a remarkably good traveler who takes everything in his stride (as...
View ArticleThe FTC’s noncompete agreements ban has been struck down
[Jess Weatherbed at The Verge]"A federal judge has blocked the Federal Trade Commission’s ban on noncompete agreements that make it difficult for workers to join their employers’ rivals or launch...
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