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Meta in Myanmar, Part I: The Setup

"By that point, Meta had been receiving detailed and increasingly desperate warnings about Facebook’s role as an accelerant of genocidal propaganda in Myanmar for six years." We need more discussion of this - I'm grateful for this four-part series.

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Privacy Party

This is really good: a browser extension (for Chrome-based browsers) that goes through your social networks and helps you update your settings to optimize for privacy and security. Really well-executed.

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Optimizing for Taste

A solid argument against A/B testing. A lot of it comes down to this: "It fosters a culture of decision making without having an opinion, without having to put a stake in the ground. It fosters a culture where making a quick buck trumps a great product experience." I agree.

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Meredith Whittaker reaffirms that Signal would leave UK if forced by privacy bill

Signal on UK privacy law: "We would leave the U.K. or any jurisdiction if it came down to the choice between backdooring our encryption and betraying the people who count on us for privacy, or leaving." Good.

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U.S. Counterintel Buys Access to the Backbone of the Internet to Hunt Foreign Hackers

"The news is yet another example of a government agency turning to the private sector for novel datasets that the public is likely unaware are being collected and then sold."

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Digital Disruption: Measuring the Social and Economic Costs of Internet Shutdowns & Throttling of Access to Twitter

This report found that removing access to Twitter created significant economic and social impacts. Question: are some of these now replicated with the switch to X?

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Build Great Software By Repeatedly Encountering It

This is really important, and why we talk about "eating your own dogfood". If you don't use what you build, you can't build anything great.

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EV charging infrastruture is a joke – Brad Barrish

Non-Tesla EV charging infrastructure is awful. It's good that Tesla has opened the standard, but it's not good that the only really viable charging infrastructure is owned by one company. It needs to be fixed.

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Notion web Clipper - Klippper

I'm a heavy Notion web clipper user, but this is far better for my needs. I was worried I'd need to build it myself. Luckily: no!

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The #ViewSource Affordance

I strongly agree with this. "View source" has been an important part of the culture of the web since the beginning. Obfuscating that source or removing the option does damage to its underlying principles and makes the web a worse place. I like the comparison to the enclosure movement, which seems apt.

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Mastodon 4.2

Lots of good new changes here - and in particular a much-needed search overhaul. My private instance is running the latest and I like it a lot.

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Online Safety Bill: Crackdown on harmful social media content agreed

This is a horrendous bill that is designed to encourage self-censorship, including around topics like "illegal immigration", as well as vastly deepen surveillance on internet users. And Britain passing it will likely embolden other nations to try the same.

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A (more) Modern CSS Reset

I particularly valued the explanations here. I spend less time coding these days - I can go weeks without writing a line - and I’m determined to keep my skills up.

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Nobody Will Tell You the Ugly Reason Apple Acquired a Classical Music Label

Makes complete sense: if you're charging a monthly subscription to access music, directing users to royalty-free music instead of other recordings will improve your margins. It doesn't say great things for classical music revenue in the future, though.

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David Golumbia, 1963–2023

Sad to hear that David Golumbia died. If you’re unfamiliar with The Politics of Bitcoin and you’re in tech, it’s a must-read.

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WordPress blogs can now be followed in the fediverse, including Mastodon

I'd prefer if this was default WordPress functionality - but the big lede is buried here. Hosted WordPress sites are getting fediverse compatibility. That's a huge deal.

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Finishing With Twitter/X

Who at the intersection of tech and politics is still posting on Twitter? And should they be? A good breakdown.

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Unity has changed its pricing model, and game developers are pissed off

As with API pricing changes across social media, these tiers disproportionately penalize indie developers. The message is clear: they don't want or need those customers. In a tighter economy, much of technology is re-organizing around serving bigger, wealthier players.

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Microsoft announces new Copilot Copyright Commitment for customers

“As customers ask whether they can use Microsoft’s Copilot services and the output they generate without worrying about copyright claims, we are providing a straightforward answer: yes, you can, and if you are challenged on copyright grounds, we will assume responsibility for the potential legal risks involved.”

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Silicon Valley's Slaughterhouse

“Andreessen wasn’t advocating for a tech industry that accelerates the development of the human race, or elevates the human condition. He wanted to (and succeeded in creating) a Silicon Valley that builds technology that can, and I quote, “eat markets far larger than the technology industry has historically been able to pursue.””

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Google vet wants to turn your hot water heater into a "virtual power plant"

I really need this for my home, and I suspect my entire region needs it. This could do a lot of good and be the start of something much bigger using virtual power plants as a platform.

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It’s Official: Cars Are the Worst Product Category We Have Ever Reviewed for Privacy

Every modern car brand abuses your personal information. 84% sell your data (including where you go and when). 56% will share it with law enforcement without a warrant. And none of them have demonstrably adequate security.

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Tucson's Molly Holzschlag, known as 'the fairy godmother of the web,' dead at 60

Rest in peace, Molly. We've lost one of the really good people who made the web better.

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In Europe, a regulatory vise tightens around big tech

Good overview. I think European tech regulations have been broadly good, establishing the anti-competitive and pro-privacy rules that US legislators have failed to enact. If we could only all be so protected.

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Educational Sensational Inspirational Foundational

A really great list of foundational and/or influential writing about how to build the web, starting with Tim Berners-Lee's Cool URIs Don't Change post from 1998.

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