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Happy last minute panic-shop to everyone who celebrates.

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Glaswegian who 'invented' chicken tikka masala dies

“A Glaswegian chef credited with inventing the chicken tikka masala has died, aged 77. Ali Ahmed Aslam is said to have come up with the dish in the 1970s when a customer asked if there was a way of making his chicken tikka less dry. His solution was to add a creamy tomato sauce, in some versions of the story a can of tomato soup.”

[Link]

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This is the year of the RSS reader. (Really!)

“I predict that these people won’t stand for a universe where their email becomes ever more crowded just because of Elon Musk mucking up Twitter. The only way to survive in a world where multiple DC-insider publications are launching multiple newsletters and Twitter is no longer socially acceptable is to use an RSS reader that satisfies the intelligentsia and political elite.”

[Link]

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Big Changes to 401(k) Retirement Plans Move Ahead in Congress

“Some lawmakers, academics and policy analysts have criticized some of the provisions, including the move to raise the age of required retirement account distributions to 75. They argue much of the legislation benefits the wealthy and the financial-services industry.” I agree and would prefer to see welfare and social security improvements instead.

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ByteDance Inquiry Finds Employees Obtained User Data of 2 Journalists

“Over the summer, a few employees on a ByteDance team responsible for monitoring employee conduct tried to find the sources of suspected leaks of internal conversations and business documents to journalists. In doing so, the employees gained access to the IP addresses and other data of two reporters and a small number of people connected to the reporters via their TikTok accounts.”

[Link]

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Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from authoritarianism.

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Federated communities with more friction will make it harder to manufacture consent, and that’s a good thing.

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I’m now getting roughly 20-30 approaches about placing ads on https://getblogging.org a day. I’m not doing it.

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Mozilla to Explore Healthy Social Media Alternative

“Our intention is to contribute to the healthy and sustainable growth of a federated social space that doesn’t just operate but thrives on its own terms, independent of profit- and control-motivated tech firms. An open, decentralized, and global social service that puts the needs of people first is not only possible, but it’s absolutely necessary.”

[Link]

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Public Domain Day 2023

“On January 1, 2023, copyrighted works from 1927 will enter the US public domain. They will be free for all to copy, share, and build upon. These include Virginia Woolf’s To The Lighthouse and the final Sherlock Holmes stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, the German science-fiction film Metropolis and Alfred Hitchcock’s first thriller, compositions by Louis Armstrong and Fats Waller, and a novelty song about ice cream.”

[Link]

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Predictions for Journalism 2023

I have a piece in Nieman Lab’s Predictions for Journalism 2023:

The current landscape makes clear what has always been true: On the internet, nothing lasts forever. The most resilient choice is always the one that allows you to own your relationships with your audience and directly build community with the people who care about your work. That way, when a platform inevitably disappears, your relationship with your community remains intact.

I’m proud of it and stand by its advice.

In the same collection, my colleague Errin Haines also has a piece:

The 2024 election is also a new opportunity to challenge conventional editorial decisions about who voters are, what they look like, and what matters to them, their families and their communities. For too long, our default setting as journalists for those who have power (and this includes voters) has been white, cisgender, and male. Nearly 60 years after the passage of the Voting Rights Act, there is still much progress to be made to make real the promise of “one person, one vote” in our democracy.

I hope newsrooms take note.

As always, the whole collection is worth reading.

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What The 19th loved in 2022

“To close the year, we ask our staff what brought them joy — not within journalism, but life outside of it. Some picked up new hobbies, some spun their favorite album a modest 600 times, others reflected on new babies or engagements (keep reading to find out who!). Big or small, here are some of the musicians, shows, sports teams, hobbies and people that got The 19th through 2022.” Including mine.

[Link]

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Enough about Twitter

I’ve decided to stop writing about Twitter as of tonight. I’ll pour one out if the site dies or if it changes hands to a stable, ethical custodian, but for now, my commitment to not posting on the platform extends to not posting about the platform.

It’s clear that Musk is using the Trump communications playbook - own the conversation by any means necessary - and it’s all too easy to play along. So, enough.

Instead: what can we do that’s better? What should we build together?

What am I enjoying lately? What’s interesting and worth talking about in a productive way? How am I feeling? What kind of future do I want to see for me and all of us?

Onwards. Seriously.

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and smaller again

Hours after enacting a policy to prevent users from linking to outside platforms, Twitter has reversed it and deleted the page from the policy website.

Among other laws this policy broke, it fell afoul of the European Union Digital Markets Act, which went into force in November. The fines for breaking this are steep:

Also, the EC will be able to impose penalties and fines of up to 10% of a company’s worldwide annual turnover and up to 20% of such turnover in the event of repeated infringements.

Maybe someone pointed that out to Musk, because it was all gone by dinnertime.

Meanwhile, he’s asked if he should step down as CEO in a Twitter poll, which at the time of writing he’s losing by a lot. Various people who should absolutely not be given the reigns have asked to be given the reigns. Maybe they should just run it like the Swedish Twitter account and cycle through a new CEO every month?

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Own your posts. Own your words. Own your identity. Own your ethics. Own your ideas.

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The Anti-Social Network

“Now 17, the Edward R. Murrow High School senior is the founding member of the Luddite Club—a group of teenagers who feel technology is consuming too much of their lives. They took their name from the 19th-century English textile workers who destroyed the machines they saw as threatening their livelihoods.”

[Link]

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The Twitter walled garden's walls get taller

Updated: Twitter rescinded the policy the same day.

Twitter has banned linking to your profile on other social networks. What a completely pathetic, counterproductive policy.

Twitter can’t ban linking to any external website, so here’s the simple workaround:

  • Make a page on your personal website with all your social profiles
  • Link to that instead of directly to your profiles

What this policy breaks more readily is tools that let you find your existing Twitter connections on Mastodon. Perhaps this is an opportunity to rebuild a social graph from first principles, or to use other mechanisms to find your friends.

As a reminder, you can find my profiles on my homepage.

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I Wish I Could Tell You This One Is Not All About Twitter

“Content moderation at Twitter under Musk regime is simply raw, unadulterated petulance. He clearly sees the entirety of Twitter as his own personal $44 billion playground and a vicious cudgel to be wielded against his perceived enemies.”

[Link]

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Twitter is a mess, so former employees are creating Spill as an alternative

““This will probably be the first, from the ground up, large language content moderation model using AI that’s actually built by people from the culture,” Brown told TechCrunch.”

[Link]

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Amnesty International: Twitter’s decision to suspend journalists’ accounts threatens press freedom

“Twitter is an important space for connection. People’s right to freedom of expression and the freedom to impart information shouldn’t be predicated on whether Musk likes it or not. Musk’s latest move illustrates the dangers of unaccountable tech companies having total control over platforms we rely on for news and other vital information.”

[Link]

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I don’t know why I worried: this baby is an almost absurdly chill traveler. He slept better on the plane than he does in his bed.

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You know, I haven’t been to the movies in over three years, and at this point I’m not sure what would bring me back.

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Send me your best air travel with infant tips! Please. I need them.

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Joint Statement on the Disbanding of the Twitter Trust and Safety Council

“We call on Twitter, in the strongest terms, to cease making ad hoc, unaccountable, and damaging content moderation decisions and to commit to implementing policies and practices that promote the safety, expression, and participation of its users.”

[Link]

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Just realized that maybe some people think that if it weren't for Twitter's community moderation America might be more receptive to conservative ideas? Because here's some breaking news: it's not Twitter. Twitter is the mirror. People genuinely care.

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