Commentary on links that caught my attention around the web.
Indieweb
[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
Media
[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
Technology
[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
Indieweb
[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
Technology
[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
Fediverse
[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
Technology
[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
Fediverse
[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
Technology
[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
Parenting
[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
Notable links
[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
Fediverse
[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