You’ve all heard about Elon Musk blaming the Anti-Defamation League for the erosion of Twitter/X’s value over the last year. Advertising revenue is down by 60%. This, of course, has nothing at all to do with the precipitous rise in hate speech on the platform since
Two thirds of the political content people consume come from non-news sites. And most of the news content people read is not overtly political. Instead, it's mostly coming from entertainment - which has no ethical need to report factually. #Media [Link]
Another way the effect of the climate crisis is understated: climate deaths are undercounted. Changing this state of affairs is possible but requires effort, training, and resources. In the meantime, many people still don’t understand how serious the crisis actually is. #Climate [Link]
“Fundamentally: Klein is a leftist, Wolf was a liberal. The classic leftist distinction goes: leftists want to abolish a system where 150 white men run the world; liberals want to replace half of those 150 with women, queers and people of color.” #Media [Link]
One thing I learned from this story is that forced sterilization of inmates has still been widespread in the 21st century in America. Ghoulish. #Society [Link]
Doc Searls writes about what he calls wide news: Local and regional papers covered politics, government, crises, disasters, sports, fashion, travel, business, religion, births, deaths, schools, and happenings of all kinds. They had reporters assigned across all their sections. No other medium could go as wide. Doc’s argument is
Dave Winer poses: If you think of yourself as an "open source developer" please ask yourself this question. Are you as committed to freedom for people who use your software as you are to freedom for developers? Not just freedom to modify the source code, but freedom to
Yes. Absolutely this. And everywhere. #Democracy [Link]
Flexible work from home policies have allowed more mothers with young children to join the workforce than ever before. Yet another reason why these policies are positive for everyone and should not just stick around but be significantly expanded. #Labor [Link]
This is my monthly roundup of the links, books, and media I found interesting. Do you have suggestions? Let me know! Apps + Websites Productivity iA Presenter. I’ve been really enjoying this. It does have the unfortunate effect of reducing the time you spend faffing with slide design and font
It turns out that if you give homeless people money as assistance, it really helps them. This is something society should do. #Society [Link]
In turns reassuring and helpful, this was a great primer on what to do to provide a foundation to help my child eventually learn to read. If only all parenting books could be as human and equity-minded as this one is. #Nonfiction [Link]