Commentary on links that caught my attention around the web.
AI
[Allison Morrow at CNN] It's refreshing to see this kind of AI skepticism in a major outlet: "Apple, like every other big player in tech, is scrambling to find ways to inject AI into its products. Why? Well, it’s the future! What problems is it solving?
Notable links
[Makena Kelly at WIRED] If you know anything about building software, you know that this is an absurd idea: "The so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is starting to put together a team to migrate the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) computer systems entirely off one of its oldest
Notable links
[Joshua Kaplan and Justin Elliott at ProPublica] I bet this practice is more common than anyone might think, and certainly isn't limited to China. As always, follow the money: "In December, [SpaceX investor] Kahlon testified that SpaceX prefers to avoid investors from China because it is a
Technology
[Sabhanaz Rashid Diya at Rest of World] Like the author, I read Careless People, Sarah Wynn-Williams' account of her time as a director for global public policy at Facebook during a period when the company transitioned from a largely-domestic social network to a worldwide powerhouse that ultimately enabled a
Notable links
[Gaby Del Valle at The Verge] I appreciated this deep-dive on whether it's safe to travel through US borders with your phone. Journalists and anyone who's made overt political statements should take particular note. "The government maintains that it doesn’t need a warrant to
Technology
[Brandon Vigliarolo at The Register] In the wake of the French and German governments joining forces to build an alternative to Notion and Google Docs, the Dutch government has passed eight motions to avoid US software and move to a home-grown stack. ""With each IT service our government
Notable links
[Ella Yurman in Teen Vogue] This interview with Musk's daughter Vivian Wilson is everything. "The Nazi salute sht was insane. Honey, we're going to call a fig a fig, and we're going to call a Nazi salute what it was. That sht was
Technology
[Meredith Whittaker in the Financial Times] A great op-ed from Meredith Whittaker, President of Signal on the ludicrous demands by the British government for Apple to backdoor its encryption: "Imagine a government telling a car company to secretly weaken the effectiveness of the brakes on all the cars it
Notable links
[Jasmine Mooney] A nightmare account from a Canadian citizen detained by ICE: "I was taken to a tiny, freezing cement cell with bright fluorescent lights and a toilet. There were five other women lying on their mats with the aluminum sheets wrapped over them like dead bodies. The guard
Media
[Freedom of the Press Foundation] Wired is going to stop paywalling articles that are primarily based on public records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. This approach makes a ton of sense: "They’re called public records for a reason, after all. And access to public documents is
Technology
[Scharon Harding at Ars Technica] Don't keep an Amazon Echo (or any smart speaker) in a room where you'll be having sensitive conversations, either with your family or on a work call. Particularly if you're a journalist or activist - but privacy is something
Fediverse
[Ghost] Ghost has released its ActivityPub social web integration in beta: "Today we're opening a public beta for our social web integration in Ghost. For the first time, any site on Ghost Pro can now try out ActivityPub." Those of you who are, should. And everyone