As Twitter destroys its brand by renaming itself X, Mastodon user numbers are again soaring

Every time a billionaire makes a boneheaded social media decision, a Mastodon community gets its wings.  #Technology [Link]

Addressing Child Exploitation on Federated Social Media

One of the problems with decentralized networks is that really bad stuff can traverse across them. The fediverse has a child sexual abuse material problem. Filtering it out does not solve the core problem. How can the fediverse be a good actor here?  #Technology [Link]

I am dying of squamous cell carcinoma, and the treatments that might save me are just out of reach

Utterly heartbreaking.  #Health [Link]

Merchant: How Silicon Valley mind-set begat Hollywood's strike

It's an interesting grift in a way: VC-subsidized startups changed an incumbent industry enough that its existing companies began to think that these new ideas were good business. But they never were, and it ate them from the inside.  #Media [Link]

A Black Man Was Elected Mayor in Rural Alabama, but the White Town Leaders Won’t Let Him Serve

How many American cities operate like this, either explicitly or in spirit? The answer is not going to be a small number.  #Democracy [Link]

Bryan Goldberg: Why audience for online news is declining

I don't think the web is dying, but it's certainly not novel anymore - and you can't depend on its breadth alone to gain an audience. This is yet another call for "niche" publications - i.e., outlets that know who they&

Apple slams UK surveillance-bill proposals

Stories like this make me wonder if we'll ever get to a point where governments stop trying to backdoor encryption. Freedom from surveillance is a necessary prerequisite for free speech; observation always creates a chilling effect. These efforts aren't about fighting crime. This is about power.

Texas resigns from ERIC, a national program that keeps voter rolls updated

For a group of people that talks a lot about voter fraud, the Republican Party do seem to enjoy setting up the conditions to commit it.  #Democracy [Link]

Roald Dahl Museum Calls Author’s Racism ‘Undeniable and Indelible’

This is something we're going to contend with as our son gets a little older. Roald Dahl is an influential children's author (who lived where I grew up) who was also, unmistakably, a bigot with a deeply cruel streak. Some of these books are strikingly not

Dear Alt-Twitter Designers: It’s about the network!

You can have the best tech in the world, or the loftiest ideals, but social media is about people and communities more than anything else. If you don’t have that, and can’t nurture disparate, diverse spaces that grow organically over time, you don’t have a social media

Media Startups Draw Less Backing, But AI Is A Bright Spot

I don’t know that it’s fair to count AI startups as media startups. Given the (justified) labor disputes going on right now, I’d offer that they’re closer to anti-media, and I’m not sure that I’d think of them as a bright spot. There’s

Meta provides Facebook messages in Nebraska abortion case prosecution

Or: why real privacy legislation would also protect women seeking reproductive healthcare. These laws aren't just a principle; they save lives.  #Technology [Link]