Werd I/O

[Natalie Alms at Nextgov/FCW]

I'd say this was an unbelievable own-goal. But, unfortunately, it's believable:

"The General Services Administration deleted 18F, a government tech consultancy that helps other agencies with their technology, early Saturday morning.

The office has been deemed “non-critical,” Thomas Shedd, director of GSA’s Technology Transformation Services, emailed staff at 1am. The agency’s acting head, Stephen Ehikian, told GSA staff Monday that the agency, which works across the government on tech, procurement and real estate, would be conducting a reduction in force."

18F has consistently saved other agencies money, and is seen as an example of modern government that other agencies (and governments) should learn from. It's an insane agency to dismantle.

But the way 18F worked - human-centered, in the open, with a real eye for inclusive change that saved real resources - is antithetical to Musk's mindset of believing yourself to be the smartest person in the room and forcing people to use your systems based on your own values.

Likely, Musk believes that these services should be provided by private companies (like his own) that could profit from it. It’s a backwards, profiteering, grifter-first approach to government services.

Of course, 18F is confronting to Musk in another way too: you can't be the smartest person in the room when those people are also in the room.

Yet another loss to hubris.

#Democracy

[Link]

[Mel Leonor Barclay and Jasmine Mithani at The 19th]

The impact of this will be severe:

"Organizations that provide services to LGBTQ+ victims of domestic and intimate partner violence expect much of the federal funding they rely on to dry up as the Trump administration’s executive orders target the work they have been carrying out for years.

[...] Groups that focus specifically on LGBTQ+ victims are part of a broader network of federally funded nonprofits that provide life-saving counseling, housing and legal aid to people experiencing violence from spouses, partners or family members. Some nonprofits also train social workers, therapists and lawyers in how to work sensitively with LGBTQ+ victims of violence."

Protecting vulnerable communities from harm is not on this administration's agenda. Instead, it seeks to pursue a restrictive, theocratic vision of society that punishes people who are already suffering. Hopefully other organizations will step up and provide some of the funding shortfall.

#Democracy

[Link]

[Anna Betts in The Guardian]

He's not wrong:

"Marty Baron, a highly regarded former editor of the Washington Post, has said that Jeff Bezos’s announcement that the newspaper’s opinion section would narrow its editorial focus was a “betrayal of the very idea of free expression” that had left him “appalled”."

"Democracy dies in darkness" indeed:

"“If you’re trying to advance the cause of democracy, then you allow for public debate, which is what democracy is all about,” Baron said, adding that Bezos is sending a message that is “anything but democratic”."

Clearly Bezos's move to only host opinion pieces that further "free markets and individual liberties" is an attempt to curtail pieces that might be critical of Trump - and avoid reprisals for his own businesses. Baron is right to call him out on it.

#Media

[Link]

[Bill Fitzgerald]

What a missed opportunity. As Bill Fitzgerald points out:

"Mozilla has given a masterclass, yet again, in how to erode trust among people who have loved your work."

Mozilla rolled out a new terms of service and privacy policy that rolled back a key promise never to sell user data. And then complained that people were making a big deal of it.

As Bill points out:

"Data brokers and adtech companies are weeds choking the internet. The data theft required to train large language models is a new, more noxious species of the same weed. Mozilla is going deep into AI and adtech, which means they are buying fertilizer for the weeds – and these changes to their terms, which provide Mozilla more rights to the data defining our online interactions and experience, should be understood in this context: Mozilla is building advertising and AI tools, and they need data to do this. Our web browser is right up there with our phone, car, and router with devices that provide a clear view on how we live."

Mozilla always had the potential to demonstrate what a tech company could be, and what the web could be, and it's always found new and interesting ways to fall short of that ideal. This is yet another one.

#Technology

[Link]

[Edwin Wong and Andrew Melnizek at The Verge]

This is much-needed research:

"The Verge partnered with Vox Media’s Insights and Research team, along with Two Cents Insights, to better understand how American consumers are embracing this shift. The goal of the work was to redefine what online communities will be in a post-social media era of emerging AI and Google Zero. And as brands look to hold onto the internet of the past, the term “community” will become a loaded word, with brands and platforms trying to use it more often to reach their ideal consumer."

And the findings are both obvious and highly actionable:

"Our research makes one thing clear: power is shifting back to the consumer (the fediverse signals this). Consumers crave community, but on their own terms — seeking deeper, more meaningful connections with those who truly matter (something we identified in 2014). Authenticity is at the heart of it all, supported by a foundation of safety and security. The future of community is personal, intentional, and built on trust."

Something that's maybe less obvious but still important: social media has often been the domain of editorial teams rather than product teams. There needs to be a strategic shift here: while actual messaging is editorial, the strategy of outreach and adoption for community platforms is a core part of product and needs to be treated that way. Community is a core part of any publication's product offering, and placing it on the editorial side disincentivizes innovation and real change.

Take this finding in particular:

"The desire for smaller, more intimate communities is undeniable. People are abandoning massive platforms in favor of tight-knit groups where trust and shared values flourish and content is at the core. The future of community building is in going back to the basics. Brands and platforms that can foster these personal, human-scale interactions are going to be the winners."

That's not something that an editorial team can provide on its own. It requires taking a step back and completely rethinking how you approach "audience" (that's the wrong word, for a start - community is two-way, whereas audience is one-way). That's not something I see many publishers grappling with.

#Technology

[Link]

[Brad Reed at RawStory]

This is incredibly disappointing to see:

"David Shipley, who has spent the last two-and-a-half years running the Washington Post's editorial page, has stepped down from his position over new demands being made by Post owner Jeff Bezos.

In a letter sent out to staff members obtained by New York Times media reporter Ben Mullin, Bezos said that Shipley stepped down because he could not go along with Bezos's plan to ban editorials in his paper that were critical of "personal liberties and free markets," which he described as "two pillars" of American society."

It's a bizarre change for a few reasons:

1. It's not like opinion columns in favor of "personal liberties and free markets" are in short supply in American media
2. This is exactly the Wall Street Journal's positioning
3. It's likely to further alienate the Post's flailing readership.

American media is already overwhelmingly conservative; another libertarian organ is hardly going to make a difference to American readers. Instead, this likely has more to do with Bezos wanting to win contracts and favor with the current administration. Just like the bad old days.

#Media

[Link]

[Craig Silverman at ProPublica]

Let the attention dollars flow:

"Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg also said in January that the company was removing or dialing back automated systems that reduce the spread of false information. At the same time, Meta is revamping a program that has paid bonuses to creators for content based on views and engagement, potentially pouring accelerant on the kind of false posts it once policed. The new Facebook Content Monetization program is currently invite-only, but Meta plans to make it widely available this year."

This combination very obviously incentivizes bad actors to make the most viral content possible, whether it's truthful or not.

For example:

"“BREAKING — ICE is allegedly offering $750 per illegal immigrant that you turn in through their tip form,” read a post on a page called NO Filter Seeking Truth, adding, “Cash in folks.”"

That post is a hoax, and Facebook's existing fact checking had meant it had been demonetized. The page owner is quoted as being delighted that fact checking is ending. Thousands others like it doubtless agree.

#Technology

[Link]

[Dan Sinker]

This story doesn't feel like it's going to end up inspiring, but bear with it:

"George Dale printed their names in his newspaper, part of his unrelenting, unceasing, and unflinching attack on the Muncie Klan.

[...] When he wrote an editorial accusing circuit court judge Clarence Dearth of being a Klansman and stacking his juries with Klansmen, that judge sent Dale twice to perform hard labor on a penal farm. He later fled to Ohio to avoid arrest. When Dale got home, he picked up right where he left off and he and Judge Dearth fought a long and protracted defamation battle that left Dale broke."

But do stick with it, because not only is the entirety of George Dale and the story of what he did in Muncie, Indiana inspirational from start to finish, but the conclusion might be enough fire to power you through and inspire your own acts of democratic heroism.

#Democracy

[Link]

[Bert Hubert]

A European point of view:

"We now have the bizarre situation that anyone with any sense can see that America is no longer a reliable partner, and that the entire US business world bows to Trump’s dictatorial will, but we STILL are doing everything we can to transfer entire governments and most of our own businesses to their clouds.

Not only is it scary to have all your data available to US spying, it is also a huge risk for your business/government continuity. From now on, all our business processes can be brought to a halt with the push of a button in the US. And not only will everything then stop, will we ever get our data back? Or are we being held hostage? This is not a theoretical scenario, something like this has already happened."

I can understand the risks. What's interesting is that many US companies also feel that way about European cloud services, in an effort to avoid having to adhere to the GDPR. Should every business adhere to strong privacy standards? Absolutely. I'm not defending it or suggesting it's equally justifiable. Regardless, the impulse exists.

These trends ultimately culminate in stratified national internets: technically connected internationally but in effect separated through different legal requirements and jurisdictions. (Some national internets are also separated by firewall or content filters - think China, for example.)

It would be nice to reverse this trend: one of the real benefits of the internet is that everyone is connected to everyone else. But I can also fully understand why Europeans (and particularly European governments) are worried about US policies and want to remain independent from them. There is a security and business continuity issue here, and they're right to de-risk their operations.

#Technology

[Link]

[Lizzie Presser, Andrea Suozzo, Sophie Chou and Kavitha Surana at ProPublica]

My colleagues at ProPublica conducted a first-of-its-kind data analysis on health outcomes after Texas banned abortion in 2021.

Here's what it found:

"The rate of sepsis shot up more than 50% for women hospitalized when they lost their pregnancies in the second trimester, ProPublica found.

The new reporting shows that, after the state banned abortion, dozens more pregnant and postpartum women died in Texas hospitals than had in pre-pandemic years, which ProPublica used as a baseline to avoid COVID-19-related distortions. As the maternal mortality rate dropped nationally, ProPublica found, it rose substantially in Texas."

The abortion ban is leading to dangerous delays in care that is leading to an uptick in maternal death. Which is exactly what patient advocates warned would happen.

#Democracy

[Link]

[Matt Webb]

I love this:

"Slowly, slowly, the web was taken over by platforms. Your feeling of success is based on your platform’s algorithm, which may not have your interests at heart. Feeding your words to a platform is a vote for its values, whether you like it or not. And they roach-motel you by owning your audience, making you feel that it’s a good trade because you get “discovery.” (Though I know that chasing popularity is a fool’s dream.)

Writing a blog on your own site is a way to escape all of that. Plus your words build up over time. That’s unique. Nobody else values your words like you do."

Fun fact: I started my first startup, the open source social networking platform Elgg, after my university employer told me, verbatim, "Blogging is for teenage girls crying in their bedrooms." I've been pro-blogging both long before and long after it was cool.

So sure, blogging might never be mainstream. But it can also be leading edge: a way to demonstrate what ownership can look like. A place to own your words by every definition of the word "own".

Everyone should have a blog. Everyone should write on their own terms. I want to read everyone's reflections; understand their worldviews from their perspectives, from a space that is truly theirs.

As Matt says:

"I evangelise blogging because it has been good to me.

[...] You should start a blog. Why? Because, well, haven’t I just been saying?"

There's no better time to start than now.

#Indieweb

[Link]

[Alissa Quart in Columbia Journalism Review]

This article cuts right to the core of why media is failing to connect with mass audiences in America. It doesn't report from a perspective that they can identify with - largely because it doesn't hire people like them.

What would working-class media look like?

"It would be one where economic reporters are embedded in blue-collar communities and neighborhoods rather than financial districts, and source networks built around people with direct experience instead of outside analysts. Centering inflation coverage around wage stagnation rather than the stock market and written for people who live paycheck to paycheck. Healthcare reporting would be conducted by those who have experienced medical debt. Labor reporting that represents workers not as mute sufferers but as true experts. Housing that is considered from the perspective of the renter, not the landlord or developer."

Because:

"While Americans in polls report historically low levels of trust in the media, it could be in large part because much of the press hasn’t been speaking to the concerns of their everyday lives."

The piece goes on to laud people from working-class backgrounds like Heather Bryant, who I think is a voice that every newsroom needs to be listening to. Instead, journalism is often a very inward-looking, upper middle class endeavor; people who grew up with nannies and went to private school are overrepresented while people who grew up on income support and had a traditional state education are underrepresented. And because richer people are better targets for advertising buys, ad-supported publications chose to chase them.

In this vacuum, another kind of media has erupted to meet the needs of a disconnected audience:

"This brings us to where we are today with faux-prole Republican journalists, a kind of social-class kitsch of Rogan-ish dudes on barstools with podcasts."

Exactly. This moment requires fundamental change that is about reforming every part of journalistic culture - not just to be more focused on who the audience actually is, but to be more representative of them. That means creating the conditions that allow working-class journalists to stick with it, providing support and training structures that don't assume independent wealth, and truly internalizing the industry's shortcomings on this front.

On that last point, I don't know how optimistic I feel that real change is possible. But we should try.

#Media

[Link]

[Allison Hantschel in DAME]

Hand-wringing over people leaving overtly unsafe spaces like X to find communities that are actually enjoyable to hang out in (like Mastodon and BlueSky) is absolute nonsense.

"With that user growth, mostly from liberals disgusted with Musk’s nonstop promotion of conservative disinformation, came criticism that people were merely seeking out an ideological “echo chamber” to reinforce their views.

They’re complaining that Americans are underexposed to fresh new ideas like “non-white races are inferior” and “trans people shouldn’t exist” and “we should hunt the poor for sport” and without algorithmic pressure will suffer without such content. They’re upset that they’re not allowed to promote their toxic work into the eyeballs of people who aren’t looking for it."

Let's put it like this. If you're at a party and it's full of assholes, it's quite reasonable to leave and go to another party. There's no law that says X is the social networking platform for everybody (at least, not yet). There's nothing that says you have to be on Facebook or Instagram. Everyone gets to use the law of two feet to find a community that's comfortable for them.

Hantschel puts it like this:

"There’s no obligation to stay where you find nothing useful or interesting, and there’s no homework assignment that requires you to allow people to ruin your experience. You’re not required to spend a certain number of hours a day engaging with hateful people, or even people you just dislike, in order to accumulate Intellectual Diversity Points."

What these commentators are really complaining about: they spent well over a decade building up followings on these platforms and now people are looking elsewhere, rendering their investment moot. That's just too bad.

#Technology

[Link]

[PJ Onori]

I can't disagree with anything here:

"Web 2.0 seemed like such a great idea in a more innocent time. We’re at a point where it’s only prudent to view third-parties as guilty until proven innocent. Not as some abstract, principled stance, but for our own direct benefit.

Now, more than ever, it’s critical to own your data. Really own it. Like, on your hard drive and hosted on your website. Ideally on your own server, but one step at a time."

We still have a lot of work to do to make this easier and cheaper. Owning your own domain costs money; running web hosting costs money. Not everyone can afford that, and this kind of self-sovereignty should be available to all: if only wealthy people can own their own stuff, the movement is meaningless.

But the principle is right. We are being exploited, locked down, pigeonholed, and forced into templates of someone else's making. We can do so much better.

#Indieweb

[Link]

[Matt Binder at disruptionist]

Just in case you thought he was still all about free speech:

"Elon Musk’s social media platform, X, is currently banning links to “Signal.me,” a URL used by the encrypted messaging service Signal. The “Signal.me” domain is specifically used by the service so that users can send out a quick link to directly contact them through the messaging app."

Signal, of course, is the encrypted chat app that is used by anyone who wants to have conversations with freedom from surveillance - including activists, journalists, and, as it happens, public servants who have either been fired or are under threat of it. As the article points out:

"Signal has been an important tool for journalists over the years as really one of the few services that are truly private. All messages are end-to-end encrypted, everything is stored on device, and no content is kept on any Signal servers in the cloud. If a source wants to reach out to a reporter and be sure their communication would be as confidential as possible, Signal is usually one of the primary methods of choice."

This includes public servants blowing the whistle on DOGE. So it's weird that X is blocking it. But given Musk's activities in the current moment, maybe not surprising.

#Technology

[Link]

[Mastodon]

Mastodon doesn't have quote posts, but is finally adding them after years of pressure. It's a harder decision than you might think - which is made clear by this excellent post by the team.

In order to help mitigate potential abuse, the team has imposed three main requirements:

• You will be able to choose whether your posts can be quoted at all.
• You will be notified when someone quotes you.
• You will be able to withdraw your post from the quoted context at any time.

Some Mastodon clients fake support now by showing a post in a quoted context whenever it's linked to from another post, but this doesn't have any of the aforementioned properties, and therefore is more susceptible to abuse. And ActivityPub, as yet, doesn't have a great way to represent this either.

So it makes sense that it's taken a while: Mastodon wants to do it correctly to preserve community health, and do it in a standard way that other Fediverse participants can use, too.

I appreciate the transparency and approach. I'd love to see many more updates in this vein.

#Fediverse

[Link]

[Joe Wilkins in Futurism]

The job market in the tech industry has been brutal for a little while now, and doesn't show signs of getting easier.

"Of all the workers devastated by the carnage, former tech workers in Silicon Valley are having a particularly rough go of it.

The region's former software engineers and developers — whose jobs were previously thought to be ironclad — are now having to contend with a fiercely competitive job market in one of the most expensive housing markets in the world."

Silicon Valley - which, here as in a lot of places, is incorrectly used to mean the San Francisco Bay Area - is in a bit of a pickle. Mass layoffs have driven down salaries, so many tech companies are quietly firing swathes of workers and re-hiring those seats in order to lower their costs. That's before you get to the actual downsizing, which has sometimes been significant.

And at the same time, living costs are sky-high, and house prices are all but unobtainable. When so many peoples' wealth is tied to the equity in their home, there are two possible outcomes: a significant drop in wealth as prices decline (particularly as fired employees flee for more affordable climes), or a significant increase in inequality as prices continue to climb. Either way, that doesn't look good.

That's a societal problem, but it's also a problem for the tech industry. Who can afford to found a startup when base prices are so high? The demographics of founders are narrowing to the already well off, forcing other founders to look elsewhere.

The solution will have to involve more help (potentially including more startup funding for a wider set of founders) or better jobs in the area. Otherwise Silicon Valley will continue to lose talent to other parts of the country and the world. Tech companies are trying to get their employees to return to the office to counteract this effect, but it simply won't be enough; no RTO policy is compelling enough when you can't afford to buy a house and bring up a family.

That's an opportunity for other ecosystems, but it's one that they will need to intentionally pick up. To date, smart tech ecosystem strategies in other parts of the world have been few and far between - not least because they aim for a similar level of talent density as Silicon Valley rather than embracing a remote, distributed culture.

I openly miss living in the Bay Area and may return in the future, so I have skin in the game. I'm curious to see what happens here.

#Technology

[Link]

[Jon Pincus at The Nexus of Privacy]

There's an argument that one reason Elon Musk bought Twitter was to reduce its effectiveness as a platform for progressive organizing. Whether you buy that or not, it's clear that the new set of social networks are fertile ground for new and existing movements to make progress.

The question is: how? Jon is an experienced organizer and is here to help out:

"The Nexus of Privacy is planning a series of online discussions and video/phone calls focusing on organizing on decentralized social networks. There's a range of topics to cover, including looking at the tradeoffs between the different platforms for different use cases, brainstorming how organizers can leverage these platforms, easy ways to start exploring, and ways for groups to move as a whole."

There's a form to express interest (which uses CryptPad to support anonymity, which is both new to me and seems like a great platform in itself). If you're interested in organizing using decentralized social networks as a tool, these sessions look like they'll be a good resource.

#Fediverse

[Link]

[Miriam Eric Suzanne]

Every single word of this piece resonated for me, from the underlying discomfort to the realization that AI as it currently manifests reflects a kind of fascist mindset in itself: an enclosure movement of culture and diversity that concentrates power into a handful of vendors.

This is true of me too:

"Based on every conference I’ve attended over the last year, I can absolutely say we’re a fringe minority. And it’s wearing me out. I don’t know how to participate in a community that so eagerly brushes aside the active and intentional/foundational harms of a technology. In return for what? Faster copypasta? Automation tools being rebranded as an “agentic” web? Assurance that we won’t be left behind?"

I think drawing the line between "tech" and "the web" is important, and this piece captures exactly how I've been feeling about it:

"“Tech” was always a vague and hand-waving field – a way to side-step regulations while starting an unlicensed taxi company or hotel chain. That was never my interest.

But I got curious about the web, a weird little project built for sharing research between scientists. And I still think this web could be pretty cool, actually, if it wasn’t trapped in the clutches of big tech. If we can focus on the bits that make it special – the bits that make it unwieldy for capitalism."

So this post made me (1) feel less alone (2) like I want to be friends with its author. This is a fringe feeling, unfortunately, but if enough of us stick together, maybe we can manifest an alternative.

#Technology

[Link]

[Sergey Bogdanov]

This is a story about parenting, but also about the importance of considering context inclusively. We've all heard about the Stanford marshmallow experiment, but:

"Kids from wealthier families waited longer than kids from low-income families. Not because they had more self-control, but because their environment made waiting feel safer. If you grow up knowing there will always be food on the table, waiting for an extra marshmallow isn’t a big deal. But if your life is more uncertain, grabbing what you can when you can make total sense. It’s a survival skill, not a lack of discipline."

It's not just about socioeconomic background; it's also, as the article points out, about building a culture of trust. That's important in families, but also in companies, and everywhere.

"So what’s the takeaway here? It’s simple, really: as parents, we set the tone. Our actions, promises, and reliability shape how our kids see the world. Are we building an environment where they feel safe enough to wait? Or are we teaching them that they need to grab what they can, when they can?"

What can we change to create emotional safety? How can we let them know they're protected? It really matters, in all walks of life.

#Parenting

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[Jennifer Gerson at The 19th]

Musk has been seen with his child, X Æ A-Xii (or "Lil X" for short), at press conferences. But, as Jennifer Gerson notes here, it's not just a photo op.

"Musk, a father of 12, is an avowed pronatalist, or someone who believes declining population rates are a major concern and has committed to work to remedy this by having as many children as possible. He sees part of his life’s work as repopulating the planet with as many children — and exceptional children at that — as possible."

It's also a wild double standard. Imagine the chorus of conservative mocking if a woman had done the same thing. That's not to say that children shouldn't be normalized at work - they really should - but what's happening in the current moment is hardly a symbol of radical inclusion.

"Pronatalism requires that people who are able to carry pregnancies — mostly women — be pregnant for large periods of time. These pregnancies can have a major impact on women’s participation in the workforce and economic mobility."

Finally, as Gerson points out, it's certainly worth mentioning that pro-natalists aren't just in favor of any kind of baby. They're heavy eugenicists, with a focus on certain characteristics, including retrograde ideas like potential IQ. Might this also include, in Musk's case, the 14 words? I couldn't possibly say.

#Democracy

[Link]

[Social Web Foundation]

The Social Web Foundation has joined the W3C:

"SWF joins CDT as one of the few civil society organizations that comprise the Consortium. SWF’s membership in the W3C underscores our commitment to promoting an open and federated social web, and our alignment with the W3C mission to develop web standards through community consensus that ensures the long-term growth and accessibility of technical specifications that are openly licensed."

More forward motion for the open social web as a core part of the open web itself. This is also very good news:

"In terms of concrete ongoing work, we look forward to bringing end-to-end encryption to direct messages in ActivityPub, developing groups on the social web, supporting data portability with ActivityPub, making discovery of ActivityPub objects and their authors easier."

These will all make the open social web safer, more flexible, and easier to build on for new platform entrants. Let's go.

#Fediverse

[Link]

[Sarah Perez at TechCrunch]

This was a very nice surprise to see:

"Automattic confirmed to TechCrunch that when the migration is complete, every Tumblr user will be able to federate their blog via ActivityPub, just as every WordPress.com user can today."

ActivityPub is the open protocol behind Mastodon and Pixelfed, among others. Threads and Ghost have also been steadily adding support.

Given the long tail of ActivityPub and the simultaneous rise of Bluesky, which is connected to the ActivityPub network via Bridgy Fed, the future of the open social web is very bright. It is the future of all social media. This is another great milestone along the road.

#Fediverse

[Link]

[Oneofthelibrarians at LibrarianShipwreck]

Some advice about how to survive this era from LibrarianShipwreck, one of my most favorite blogs on the planet:

"So, uh, it’s pretty bad out there! You are probably trying to figure out what the hell to do about it. Here are some words of advice, from wisdom gained through a couple decades in the trenches. Hope it helps."

Some of these are things that I am very bad at, including prioritizing physical health / ability. I think there's also a lot to say in favor of this:

"The Western, and especially USAian, mythos of the singularly special hero is a load of hooey. Don’t fall into that trap. Even when we occasionally do have individuals who make an outsized difference, if you need the thoughts in this post you are almost certainly not positioned to be that person. And that’s ok!"

What these times need, in other words, is co-operation, mutual aid, community, and allyship. American culture, as the piece says, is oriented around rugged individualism; while we all have individual rights, including the right to self-identity, the right to safety, the right to freedom of speech and thought, and so on, it's community that will set us free.

Jerry Springer was a cultural grenade who in some ways paved the path to where we are, but he got one thing right: he signed off every day with the mantra, "take care of yourselves, and each other." That's the spirit.

#Democracy

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[Judd Legum and Rebecca Crosby in Popular Information]

The removal of banned terms on both internal and external government websites is going more stupidly than one might have expected:

"One example included a job listing page for the Department of Homeland Security that removed language about maintaining an “inclusive environment.” The Post also found examples of words being removed that had nothing to do with DEI, such as a page on the Department of the Interior’s website that boasted of its museums' “diverse collections,” removing the word “diverse.”"

And:

"The memo acknowledges that the list includes many terms that are used by the NSA in contexts that have nothing to do with DEI. For example, the term "privilege" is used by the NSA in the context of "privilege escalation." In the intelligence world, privilege escalation refers to "techniques that adversaries use to gain higher-level permissions on a system or network.""

The whole enterprise is silly, of course, but this is an incredibly bad way to go about it. Words have meaning, and sometimes you need to use them. A global search and replace isn't a perfect way to revamp the whole apparatus of federal government.

#Democracy

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