Werd I/O

I just don't think advertising is an appropriate way to support this kind of journalism - or, potentially, any kind. This is more evidence, but it's also worth knowing that the private equity firm that owns G/O Media has not been a good steward.

Non-profits and worker-owned co-operatives aren't just more aligned ways to run this kind of organization, but I strongly suspect they last longer, too.

There is, of course, always the possibility that advertising is an excuse, and the owners didn't want to support a feminist publication. #Media

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"Speaking as a science fiction writer, I'd like to offer a heartfelt apology for my part in the silicon valley oligarchy's rise to power. And I'd like to examine the toxic role of science fiction in providing justifications for the craziness." #Technology

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On models for journalism:

"I wonder if the big problem is that we focused on scale when we should have been focused on nailing down the audience. If we focused on millions when we should have focused on building ourselves a liveable wage. And if we put too much of an emphasis on global at the cost of local."

Yes! This! Exactly! News was seduced by the exponential VC model that should have been limited to certain kinds of hardware and software. And in the process - as well as through some legacy ivory tower thinking - it chose not to dig deep and figure out exactly who it was serving.

I still say modern newsrooms should use the word "community" instead of "audience". It's a two-way relationship. And building relationships does not scale. #Media

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Over time, I think it's becoming more and more likely that Zuckerberg will step down. I strongly suspect he'll be replaced by Adam Mosseri, whose Instagram and Threads products have been doing very well for Meta (in contrast to Zuckerberg's metaverse shenanigans).

In any event, if he really did veto proposals to protect teens' mental health, it's a pretty damning indictment of his leadership.

Now that the internet's growth is at the other end of the S-curve and we're societally more comfortable with technology and its implications, I think we're likely to see more 2000s-era CEOs replaced with people who have a more nuanced, less exponential-growth-led approach. #Technology

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At least in Washington State, car manufacturers may record and intercept the text messages of drivers who have connected their devices to their cars via Bluetooth or cable.

That data can then be resold or provided to law enforcement without a warrant. #Technology

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"Some critics of Big Tech have argued that leading AI companies like Google, Microsoft and Microsoft-funded OpenAI support regulation as a way to lock out upstart challengers who'd have a harder time meeting government requirements."

Okay, but what about regulation that allows people to create new AI startups AND protects the public interest? #AI

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A fascinating discussion of how authorship has changed, and what the demands of new authors from publishing houses really are.

In the old days, an author was someone who created a work. Today, they have to be a brand.

But it also turns out that unionization has a big part to play: many writers moonlight in the entertainment industry, where they can get healthcare and other benefits, all due to the WGA. #Media

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I'm really hopeful for this new generation of worker-owned media outlets. It's a promising model, and obviously hugely empowering.

What will be disempowering is if they start to disappear. So let's support them with our full voices. If you're into video games, check this out, and maybe consider supporting them? #Media

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The technology depends on ingesting copyrighted work, and the business models depend on not paying for it.

But just because the models only work if no payment is involved, that doesn't give the technology the right to operate in this way. It's not the same as a person reading a book: it's a software system training itself on commercial information - and also, that person would have had to pay for that book. #AI

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These numbers are amazing to me. The Daily Mail publishes around 1640 articles every weekday. BBC News, in contrast, which has lots of local newsrooms, "only" publishes around 226 in total.

The Daily Mail, in other words, is a content farm. It's also the largest news publisher on TikTok and one of the largest on the web.

It's famous in Britain for its center right stance and a-bit-upmarket tabloid positioning. I wonder if that reputation translates in the US and beyond? #Media

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Golinks seem like a small thing but actually might be the thing that pushes me over the edge to running my own tailnet.

I like Will's solution here to running multiple otherwise-conflicting golinks servers.

The whole thing seems powerful and I suppose I should just dive in. #Technology

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Unsurprising. Which is the word I will also use for his inevitable early release. #Business

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"An algorithm must not be in full control of decisions that involve killing or harming humans, Egypt’s representative said after voting in favour of the resolution. The principle of human responsibility and accountability for any use of lethal force must be preserved, regardless of the type of weapons system involved, he added."

Quite a reflection of our times that this is a real concern. And it is. #AI

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"AI systems falsely classifying individuals as criminal suspects, robots being used for policing, and self-driving cars with faulty pedestrian tracking systems can already put your life in danger. Sadly, we do not need AI systems to have superintelligence for them to have fatal outcomes for individual lives. Existing AI systems that cause demonstrated harms are more dangerous than hypothetical “sentient” AI systems because they are real."

This is it: we can focus on hypothetical futures, but software is causing real harm in the here and now, and attention to science fiction outcomes is drawn away from fixing those harms. #AI

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This kind of legislation is fundamentally against the public interest and, I believe, should always be opposed:

"These changes radically expand the capability of EU governments to surveil their citizens by ensuring cryptographic keys under government control can be used to intercept encrypted web traffic across the EU. Any EU member state has the ability to designate cryptographic keys for distribution in web browsers and browsers are forbidden from revoking trust in these keys without government permission."

If this passes, the government of any EU member will have the power to silently intercept and read encrypted web traffic. It undermines the right to privacy and creates a chilling effect for activists and other targeted, vulnerable groups. #Democracy

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"In the past few years, causality inverted: Start-ups and entire markets were manufactured from whole cloth to meet the demand of overcapitalized venture funds searching for a home run."

I am certain I'll found another startup, and I'm certain it will be a revenue-based business that will not be designed to raise investment. Perhaps ironically, in doing so, it may be more valuable as a result. #Technology

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This is the kind of AI declaration I prefer.

“As we know from social media, the failure to regulate technological change can lead to harms that range from children’s safety to the erosion of democracy. With AI, the scale and intensity of potential harm is even greater—from racially based ‘risk scoring’ tools that needlessly keep people in prison to deepfake videos that further erode trust in democracy and future harms like economic upheaval and job loss. But if we act now, we can build accountability, promote opportunity, and deliver greater prosperity for all.”

These are all organizations that already do good work; it's good to see them apply pressure on AI companies in the public interest. #AI

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For me, this paragraph was the takeaway:

"We affirm that, whilst safety must be considered across the AI lifecycle, actors developing frontier AI capabilities, in particular those AI systems which are unusually powerful and potentially harmful, have a particularly strong responsibility for ensuring the safety of these AI systems, including through systems for safety testing, through evaluations, and by other appropriate measures. We encourage all relevant actors to provide context-appropriate transparency and accountability on their plans to measure, monitor and mitigate potentially harmful capabilities and the associated effects that may emerge, in particular to prevent misuse and issues of control, and the amplification of other risks."

In other words, the onus will be on AI developers to police themselves. We will see how that works out in practice. #AI

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This is an interesting point of view, but I don't think I fully buy it: while these bodies set technical standards, they have no ability to actually enforce.

Consider the situation with Internet Explorer back when it virtually owned the web (and, to a lesser extent, the situation today with Chrome). Standards could be set, directions could be established, but there was no-one to stop Microsoft from going their own way. #Technology

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I've lived this, and I'd go so far that it's a sure sign of a dysfunctional team: when non-technical leadership pushes for lower estimates based on their own business hopes and doesn't accept the ones given by their in-house experts.

"Pushing for a lower estimate is like negotiating better weather with the meteorologist" covers it nicely. #Technology

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Palestinians in Gaza are, by and large, not fans of Hamas, and are not aligned with eliminating Israel.

"By and large, Gazans do not share Hamas’s goal of eliminating the state of Israel. When presented with three possible solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (as well as an option to choose “other”), the majority of survey respondents (54 percent) favored the two-state solution outlined in the 1993 Oslo accords."

Of course, they likely also don't favor being bombed to oblivion. #Democracy

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"The future is returning to an artisanal web, where you cultivate your niches and small communities, where maybe you don’t become a millionaire and a star, but you do feel a sense of belonging, and maybe make enough to get by. I think that’d be okay, honestly."

I think that's more than okay. I'd say it's optimal. Let's get there quickly, please. #Technology

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"Like so many rich media executives (see: Politico owner and CEO Mathias Döpfner), Finkelstein’s incapable of seeing most of the fatal flaws in modern U.S. journalism, whether it’s the inherent class, race and gender biases in most newsrooms, the steady erosion of trust caused by feckless “both sides” or “view from nowhere” reporting, or the underlying flaws with the ad-engagement models that now prop up — and violently derail — efforts to educate and inform the public."

This is not wrong. And you could see this implosion coming a mile off. It's just impressive to see it happen so quickly. #Media

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I think the conclusions here are the right ones. In particular, ensuring privacy by design is a far better strategy than pushing for informed consent, because the vast majority of people are not informed about the implications of data collection (even without considering Gen-Z's ambient comfort with the idea of being tracked). And DEI in the context of trust and safety is an obvious and hard requirement.

These are not standards the industry will come to voluntarily. Regulation is required in every jurisdiction and eventually as an international agreement. Without international cooperation, it'll be too easy for companies (and governments) to hop jurisdictions and use locales that are convenient for their data collection needs. #Technology

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A really accessible guide to privately using a cellphone.

One thing I think might be missing here: you probably shouldn't use the phone near your home or regular haunts. While not connecting to your home wi-fi is probably smart, cell tower records will still show your most common locations, which can also be used to identify you. #Technology

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