Werd I/O

[Aishvarya Kavi]

President Biden commuted the sentences of all but three prisoners on federal death row. (He doesn't have the power to pardon or commute the sentences of people held on state charges.)

This is also good:

"The president campaigned in 2020 on ending the federal death penalty. Although proposed legislation to that effect failed to advance in Congress during his administration, Mr. Biden directed the Justice Department to issue a moratorium on federal executions. Thirteen prisoners on federal death row were put to death during Mr. Trump’s first term."

The death penalty is a barbaric practice that has no place in the 21st century, just as it had no place in the 20th century. It needs to be abolished everywhere, for any reason. But this is at least a humane one-time action.

I unfortunately don't see Trump, who seems to be more on the traditional American "the government should murder people" train, taking any steps to correct the country's horrendous system. And it's a sign of how backwards and cruel we are that Biden couldn't advance legislation to end it once and for all.

#Democracy

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[OpenStreetMap]

Meta has contributed 178,710 Euros (an oddly specific number!) to OpenStreetMap.

On one level: hooray for people contributing to open source.

On another: Meta has a $1.5 Trillion market cap and uses OpenStreetMap in multiple applications. To be fair, it also provides direct non-monetary contributions, but regardless, when all is said and done, it's a bargain. Arguably, the open source project deserves much more. And it's really sad that a donation at this level from a major beneficiary of the project is so exciting that it merits a blog post.

#Technology

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[Scharon Harding at Ars Technica]

From the "gee, you don't say" department:

"Return-to-office (RTO) mandates have caused companies to lose some of their best workers, a study tracking over 3 million workers at 54 "high-tech and financial" firms at the S&P 500 index has found. These companies also have greater challenges finding new talent, the report concluded."

The study finds that RTO policies increased turnover rates by 14% - although, of course, in many cases that was part of the point, as a kind of quiet layoff that didn't involve the same level of bad press or the financial commitments to departing employees. (As part of the study, 25% of executives admitted to this. Which is a lot!)

The study also calls out that RTO rules convey "a culture of distrust that encourages management through monitoring," which is spot on - and nobody wants to feel like they're being surveilled or treated like children.

Don't get me wrong: I love coming into the office from time to time. But RTO policies - at least for most knowledge workers - are an employee-hostile policy.

#Labor

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[A New Social]

I'm psyched about this announcement:

"We're A New Social, a new non-profit organization focused on building cross-protocol tools and services for the open social web.

[...] The first project we'll take on to accomplish this mission is Bridgy Fed, a service that enables users of ActivityPub-based platforms like Mastodon, ATProto-based platforms like Bluesky, and websites to interact and engage across ecosystems."

In other words, A New Social is a non-profit that is kicking off with supporting the long-standing Bridgy project but isn't stopping there. The idea is that we'll all be sharing and communicating on one social web, even if there are a variety of underlying protocols powering it all. Bridgy, of course, helps bridge between social networks. But there's a lot more to do, which is why the non-profit is talking about collaborating with orgs like The Social Web Foundation and IFTAS.

The CEO is Anuj Ahooja, who has been doing wonderful work across decentralized social; he joins Ryan Barrett, who has been developing Bridgy for years and years. I can't wait to see what they do together.

Like I said, I'm psyched.

#Fediverse

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[Ernie Smith at Tedium]

Is the ongoing Matt Mullenweg / Automattic / WP Engine drama really about private equity undermining the open source WordPress project? In his summary of the latest developments, Ernie doesn't think so:

"But I don’t think that’s really what’s been happening here. I think the concern, if we’re really being honest, reflects frustration that Mullenweg has struggled to make Automattic into the firm that WP Engine has become—the first choice for businesses and agencies looking to get a site online. His actions since September—which, mind you, included building a website promoting the number of WP Engine users that had left that platform—have only come to underline that. And despite his claims otherwise, his actions have clearly spoken in the other direction."

I still think there's another shoe here. I've published a few times about this saga, and each time I've heard from people who have been involved in WordPress for a long time who think this is very much in line with Mullenweg's long term behavior and personality. But I still have to wonder if it's not so much him worrying about Automattic's progress in this market as his board and investors. If they're suddenly putting pressure on him to improve results, that in turn would explain why he's being so erratic, and how this appeared to come out of the blue.

I don't know. I don't have any inside here. It's so weird, and so obviously counter-productive. The most recent injunction is the prelude to a full court case; let's see what happens there. I wouldn't like to make predictions.

#Technology

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[Ghost]

Another great update from the Ghost team, this time with some lovely animation to illustrate the fediverse reading experience.

The second topic of the post gave me a little bit of pause, because, whoa Nelly, I've been there:

"In light of that, we opted to go for (essentially) no database design at all. Right now, Ghost's ActivityPub service uses MySQL mostly as a key/value store, with no formalized structure of any kind. If that made no sense to you: We're essentially blindly copy-and-pasting blog posts into Excel spreadsheets."

This is how I essentially structured the Known back-end database, using a structure that had originally been pioneered at (genuinely) FriendFeed back in the day. It's sort of a fun way to mimic a NoSQL database inside of MySQL when you don't know what the ultimate structure of the data is going to be and you don't want to create database tables on the fly. But does it scale? I mean, no, not really.

So it's good to hear that the team was just using the NoSQL fakery for a test, and is now using the data they gathered to build something more structured and efficient. It sounds like the experience is optimized for Ghost Pro, which makes sense; I wonder if non-Ghost-publishers will be able to use it in some way.

As always, the full update is worth checking out - both for the content itself, and for the example of how to develop in public in an engaging way. It's great work.

#Fediverse

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[Erin Griffith at the New York Times]

I've been using Mozi for a little while and like it quite a bit:

"Mr. Williams views Mozi as an attempt to return to social media’s original intention, which was about interacting with people you already knew. Over the years, social media companies evolved into just plain media — a place for watching videos from influencers and professional entertainers, reading links to news stories, sharing memes or impulse shopping via highly targeted ads. Many of the apps are optimized to get users hooked on an endless scroll of new information."

Here I've got to offer a disclaimer: I used to work with Ev Williams at Medium, and have chatted with him a number of times since leaving that position. I'm also friends with a few people in that circle (who were either involved in early Twitter, early Medium, or both). I like him and think he has good instincts about what the web might be missing for regular people. I also know and like a founder of Dopplr, which apps like this all owe a debt of gratitude to.

For all my hyping of decentralized social media, the underlying tech isn't the thing: it's the use case and the way it builds relationships between people and communities. What I like about Mozi is that it doesn't attempt to horde your engagement or intermediate your relationships: it uses your device's existing (inherently-decentralized) messaging tools and address book to stay in touch but adds a kind of presence layer over the top.

Also, this:

"Consumer apps like Mozi are out of step with the tech zeitgeist, which has centered most recently on artificial intelligence."

Honestly, thank God. And I'm grateful that the team is talking about monetizing through premium features that provide extra value, rather than advertising or selling to data brokers.

In other words: hooray for a good old-fashioned app that tries to behave well and add value.

#Technology

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[Erin Kissane]

Erin Kissane breaks down some interesting research about alternative social media platforms for social justice organizations in the Majority World:

"The Engine Room team found that their informants with deep experience in Majority World civil society and social justice work understand exactly what’s wrong with and dangerous about corporate mega-platforms. They also use them anyway, because as flawed as they are, they’re still the best way to reach people both inside and outside of their communities."

In other words, when the world around you is coming down, you don't have the energy to rally people to join another social network. You just need to concentrate on meeting people where they already are and helping them effectively. The same goes for privacy concerns and other ethical tech considerations; they simply don't have the luxury of considering them.

That doesn't mean that we shouldn't be building alternative social networks or creating more private tools; if the place where people are already sharing is safer and more private, these communities will see the benefit. They will gain from a holistic, long-term move, but don't have the time or energy to concentrate on it themselves. Which is quite understandable!

A relative lack of trust and safety support is also a problem - although this is improving in leaps and bounds, there's an obvious gap today. Co-developing new platforms will help:

"The factors/characteristics include a call for alternative platforms to be both designed "from the margins" to ensure a sturdy understanding of the needs of their most vulnerable users and designed "around the needs and capabilities of non-technical communities" to make a transition to alternative networks possible."

Both of these things are vitally important - but have the potential to be real advantages of alternative social networks. There's no chance that X or Facebook would be co-designed in this way. On the fediverse, say, there's an opening for platforms to be built more inclusively, and for there to be a plurality of them so platform builders aren't stuck trying to make something be everything for everybody.

There's a lot here; Erin's summary is characteristically great, and I'm looking forward to diving into the research.

#Fediverse

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[Skyseed]

Really fascinating play:

"Open Source veteran entrepreneur Peter Wang today launches Skyseed Fund, the world's first venture fund and incubator focused exclusively on Bluesky and its open ecosystem."

Peter has been involved in decentralized social networking for a long time. There's $1M in committed capital here, which is small, but at the same time, not nothing! I'd really love to see the deck (mostly to understand how they see the upside playing out) and understand who the LPs are.

This isn't just for VC moonshots, either:

"Skyseed offers traditional venture-style pre-seed terms but will also fund projects that can graduate into more sustainable for-profit or cooperative business models. Additionally, Skyseed has reserved a portion of capital for pure development grants. This is the first tranche of funding, and the goal is growth."

Do I wish there was something like this for ActivityPub? Absolutely. But any kind of investment in decentralized social networking is great to see, in my opinion. I'm really curious (and quite encouraged) to see where this goes.

#Fediverse

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[Daniel Appelquist and Yves Lafon at the W3C]

These ethical web principles that guide the ongoing development of the platform are great. And this is spot on:

"The web is a fundamental part of our lives, shaping how we work, connect, and learn. We understand that with this profound impact comes the responsibility to ensure that the web serves as a platform that benefits people and delivers positive social outcomes. As we continue to advance the web platform, we must therefore consider the consequences of our work."

I feel like this is missing a statement on inclusivity (beyond "the web is for all people"), but I imagine that might have been difficult or contentious to include.

But in particular, enforcing the web as a platform that does not lead to societal harm, supports privacy and freedom of expression, and enhances individuals' control and power feels like an important statement. Particularly right now.

I guess my question is: how does this come into play in practice in the day-to-day work of the W3C? How does the W3C intend to seed these ideas outside of its walls? Those practical considerations feel important, too.

#Technology

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[Emma Roth at The Verge]

I think this was almost inevitable:

"On Tuesday, a California District Court judge ordered Automattic to stop blocking WP Engine’s access to WordPress.org resources and interfering with its plugins."

Automattic is going to file a counterclaim, pointing out that the ruling was made without the benefit of discovery and without what it believes are the full set of facts. It believes it can still win in a full trial.

I still think there's more to this story than meets the eye. Either Matt Mullenweg was responding to some kind of outside pressure (for example, from his investors and board), or he basically went nuts. It could be a little from column A and a little from column B. It's even possible that there's some bombshell revelation forthcoming about WP Engine (although I have to say it's quite an outside chance). But I wish we could scratch the surface and go deeper. Maybe one day we'll learn more.

#Technology

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[Paul Kiel at ProPublica]

If we're going to improve on Medicare, we have to fund it - and it turns out that even today's Medicare taxes are being skipped out on by some of the wealthiest citizens in America, thanks to a legal loophole that the IRS has not adequately addressed.

"The trove of tax records behind ProPublica’s “Secret IRS Files” series contains plenty of examples of billionaire financiers who avoided Medicare tax despite earning huge amounts from their companies. In 2016, Steve Cohen, the owner of the New York Mets, paid $0. So did Stephen Schwarzman, head of the investment behemoth Blackstone. Bill Ackman, the headline-grabbing hedge fund manager, was able to shield almost all his income from the tax."

Tax advisers have found a way to funnel income - including at very high levels - in such a way that it avoids Medicare taxes, allowing these high net worth individuals to profit while ensuring that some of our most vulnerable people's healthcare is underfunded.

Will this loophole be closed in the next administration? I'll leave that thought exercise up to the reader.

#Democracy

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[The Oxford Clarion]

I grew up in Oxford, and the Eagle and Child is one of my favorite pubs from back home. I'm also a longtime critic of certain big companies, Larry Ellison's Oracle among them. So imagine my dismay when I heard this:

"The masterplan is “a place for brilliant people to come together”. The Eagle & Child is to be the in-house bar for Ellison’s new Oxford outpost, the Ellison Institute of Technology. EIT has been set up to “accelerate innovation” in four areas: health and medical science, food security and sustainable agriculture, climate change and clean energy, and government in the age of Artificial Intelligence. Its £1bn campus is under construction at the Oxford Science Park. This week it announced a £130m investment in the University of Oxford as part of a “long-term strategic alliance”."

I mean, to be fair, it might be good. And it seems to have CAMRA's seal of approval. And there's something to be said for upgrading the city center's food possibilities (the pub grub situation has not been inspiring), as long as it remains both physically and financially accessible to all.

This is the bit that's most eye-rolling to me:

"Why is a Californian billionaire funding an Oxford pub, even one where Tolkien and Lewis once conversed? The answer lies on the Eagle & Child’s upper floors.

Ellison Scholars will be graduates and undergraduates “passionate about solving humanity’s most serious problems”. At least 20 will be appointed each year, working at EIT’s £1bn campus with the Faculty Fellows on solving the world’s problems through technology."

We'll have to wait and see, but forgive me if I'm a bit skeptical.

#Culture

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[Lindsey Lionheart O'Brien at Mozilla Distilled]

This is a rebrand and reorientation for Mozilla:

"Mozilla isn’t just another tech company — we’re a global crew of activists, technologists and builders, all working to keep the internet free, open and accessible. For over 25 years, we’ve championed the idea that the web should be for everyone, no matter who you are or where you’re from. Now, with a brand refresh, we’re looking ahead to the next 25 years (and beyond), building on our work and developing new tools to give more people the control to shape their online experiences."

As I've argued in the past, Mozilla is best placed to support other peoples' work. I wrote last month:

"I believe Mozilla is best placed to achieve this goal by explicitly fostering an ecosystem of open, accessible software that promotes user independence, privacy, and safety. It should be a facilitator, supporter, and convener through which projects that promote these values thrive."

This seems to be a part of this refocused mission (and a continuation of a statement of intention that dates from 2023). As Lindsey Lionheart O'Brien writes in this update:

"We back people and projects that move technology, the internet and AI in the right direction. In a time of privacy breaches, AI challenges and misinformation, this transformation is all about rallying people to take back control of their time, individual expression, privacy, community and sense of wonder."

Who can argue with that? We need help, and if Mozilla is serious about this mission, I'm all for it. We just need to hold them to it.

#Technology

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[Gabe Schneider in Nieman Lab's Predictions for Journalism, 2025]

This is important:

"It’s not so much a prediction as a necessity: We must abandon publications and platforms that fail to center our values in favor of newsrooms that actually care for us, our families, our neighbors, and our future.

We are living in a system where our information needs are increasingly being sidelined due to shrinking newsrooms. What we’re left with now is a false choice: Many of the newspapers and platforms that remain are run at the behest of people with a minimal understanding of and interest in the success of our day to day lives."

Because the news industry has experienced (a word that is carrying a lot of water here) failed business model after failed business model, it's come down to rich people sweeping in to save it because they either believe in its importance or want to be seen as good. That's as true in non-profit journalism as it is for publications like the Washington Post.

This call to action for a course correction away from information controlled by the ultra-wealthy is spot on, but it has a prerequisite of the money coming from somewhere else. Many foundations are also effectively the ultra-wealthy funneling money into publications.

So how can newsrooms be genuinely independent? It comes down to not putting your eggs in one basket, increasing individual support as much as possible, making revenue-generating partnerships where they make sense, and becoming profitable by any means necessary. The Guardian has done a pretty good job of this, and as much as The New York Times is ridiculed for it, its games strategy probably does actually make a ton of sense.

"Whether the future is stronger union-run newsrooms or news cooperatives or nonprofits or even significantly more government investment in news, I won’t prescribe."

The form of the organization matters, yes (I think unions, co-operatives, and nonprofits are all great, for the record), but this is in some ways a parallel conversation to who is actually going to pay for it all.

#Media

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[Mathew Ingram]

As Mathew Ingram points out, Australia's new social media law is a well-intentioned error.

He quotes an Australian human rights commission dissent which points out that:

"For children in marginalised, remote, or vulnerable situations, social media offers a lifeline. It connects children with disability to peers, resources, and communities they may not otherwise access. It helps LGBTQIA+ youth find acceptance and solidarity. It can improve access to healthcare, particularly for children seeking mental health support."

This and: the harms may be overstated. Is social media leading teens to harm, or is it giving vulnerable teens a voice? The answer may be more complicated than some of the advocates who led to the ban might believe.

Other experts agree that the risks may outweigh the benefits, isolating lonely kids from help and community that they might otherwise receive. While well-intentioned, that seems like a bad thing to do.

#Technology

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[Annie Lowrey at The Atlantic]

This older interview with Matthew Desmond is doing the rounds again, and I discovered it for the first time. If you haven't read his books Evicted, and Poverty, by America, you owe it to yourself to do that. They're revealing, important works that shed light on the lived experience of many, many Americans.

On why American poverty is different, Desmond says:

"It’s different because it’s so unnecessary. We have so many resources. Our tolerance for poverty is very high, much higher than it is in other parts of the developed world. I don’t know if it’s a belief, a cliché, or a myth. You see a homeless person in Los Angeles; an American says, What did that person do? You see a homeless person in France; a French person says, What did the state do? How did the state fail them?"

It's only half-baffling to me why America has such bad social infrastructure. As Desmond points out here, social programs do work, but in America they address the symptoms and not the root cause. That's because the root cause is endemic to the entire American economic system.

"Half of us are invested in the stock market. Many times, we see our savings going up and up and up when someone’s pay is going down and down and down. Those two things are related. Or think about the housing crisis: Many times, it’s not just corporate landowners who are benefiting from high rents. It’s homeowners whose housing values are propped up and kept high by a scarcity of housing that they contribute to."

To solve poverty - which is something we absolutely must do - we have to change more than many people are comfortable with. You often hear complaints about "socialism" that are nothing of the sort - they're just the same kinds of social programs that every other developed nation has. But here they're weaponized as some kind of anti-democratic force rather than a democratic force that enhances the lives of huge swathes of the population.

The whole interview, as with Desmond's books, is worth reading: he's unflinchingly direct about what we need to do. I've personally given up hope that America will do these things. And that, quite frankly, cements other countries as far better places for most people to live.

#Society

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[Wes Davis at The Verge]

Threads added a little more fediverse support:

"While fediverse posts won’t show in feeds, Instagram head Adam Mosseri says their profile and posts do appear on Threads, and you have the option to get notifications when they publish. That’s something, at least."

This is pretty cool, but there's still a long way to go before Threads has full fediverse integration. When I tested it, I could mention my Mastodon profile in a post (when I published it using the web interface), and then subsequently could follow the generated link in the post to follow my Mastodon account in Threads.

What it won't do is show you fediverse content in the main feed. Apparently it will notify you when the fediverse profiles you subscribe to post new content, which I haven't had an opportunity to test yet; I can imagine that getting annoying if someone I subscribe to posts frequently.

A test post from my Mastodon account that referenced my Threads account, but wasn't in response to a Threads post, didn't generate a notification on Threads. I imagine there's a lot to think through with these kinds of interactions.

Clearly it's very early days - as you can see in the linked post, embedded Threads posts don't render fediverse handles properly, for example - but it's still exciting to see this kind of progress on genuine interoperability. It's the kind of thing internet services should have been doing at scale decades ago - but the second best time is now.

#Fediverse

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[Joseph Cox at 404 Media]

This is good to see:

"The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced sweeping action against some of the most important companies in the location data industry on Tuesday, including those that power surveillance tools used by a wide spread of U.S. law enforcement agencies and demanding they delete data related to certain sensitive areas like health clinics and places of worship."

Gravy and its subsidiary Venntel are two of the largest companies used to sell location information to law enforcement. The FTC is not banning the practice outright - but it's requiring that information relating to sensitive locations is removed. That includes "medical facilities, religious organizations, correctional facilities, labor union offices, schools and childcare facilities, domestic abuse and homeless support centers, shelters for refugee or immigrant populations, and military installations."

Of course, many other locations not covered by this ban are also sensitive, depending on context, and it would be far better to not sell this information at all. It's also highly likely that other service providers are selling this information under the radar.

Still, it's a start.

#Technology

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[Sam Biddle at The Intercept]

In the face of Trump's promise to conduct mass deportations, The Intercept set out to find out who in tech would be collaborators:

"To see whether corporate America will support Trump’s promised anti-immigrant operation, The Intercept reached out to data and technology companies that hold immense quantities of personal information or sell analytic software useful to an agency like ICE. The list includes obscure data brokers that glean intimate personal details from advertising streams, mainstream cellular phone providers, household-name social networks, predictive policing firms, and more."

Only four companies responded. Of those, two said they would; one said they would not; and the other (Thomson Reuters Clear) hedged with a dodgy answer that suggests the door is open.

#Technology

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[Joel Gascoigne]

I always appreciate Joel's updates.

"Early on, my dream was just to create a tool that made it easy to Tweet consistently, build it for myself and others, and make enough money to cover my living expenses and go full-time on it. The number for me to be able to work on it full-time was £1,200 per month, and that felt almost out of reach in the beginning. Today, Buffer generates $1.65 million per month, serves 59,000 customers, and enables fulfilling work for 72 people."

It's a tool I personally pay for and use every day (although it runs behind the scenes for me, as part of automations I've set up for myself). But even before then, Joel's build in public approach felt meaningful - it resonated as a way I wanted to work and do business, too.

Although there are inevitably sensitive topics that I'm sure Joel hasn't been able to talk about, I've been impressed with this transparency, which has held through good times and bad. It's a model to learn from, and one that also leads to longevity:

"When I really stop to take a step back, I feel very lucky that I've been able to do this for fourteen years. It's a long time in any sense. In tech and social media it feels like almost a lifetime already."

It is. And I love it. Kudos.

#Technology

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