Werd I/O

This is a complete misunderstanding of the nature and value of unions: they're not just for low-income workers. Unionization can help all workers and make healthier workplaces for everyone.

Even with that aside, this kind of public rhetoric pits a manager directly against his workforce in a way that surely can't be healthy for company culture or morale. A case study in what not to do.

TL;DR: unions are good, actually. #Labor

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Interesting to see this comment from Benedict Evans, who is far from an ideological internet participant: his social commentary very often leans conservative, and he was formerly a partner at Andreessen Horowitz.

But enough is enough. Musk's promotion of antisemitic sources and tropes has pushed him off the platform with no plans to return. Others will be watching and will certainly follow. #Technology

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Really fun to see indieweb concepts like POSSE gain attention again.

When I built POSSE into Known, I knew it would be a matter of time before API changes cut off access (and it was). These days, in a world made of open source protocols, these restrictions don't exist: my website is syndicated directly to Mastodon, and soon Threads, and nobody can stop me from doing so.

Syndicating to closed platforms is almost pointless because their owners will close the doors once they feel threatened. But open platforms have no doors. You can share your content there in a hundred different ways.

It's truly a social web. #Technology

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Baldur Bjarnason talks frankly about the cost of writing critically about AI:

"It’s honestly been brutal and it’ll probably take me a few years to recover financially from having published a moderately successful book on “AI” because it doesn’t have any of the opportunity multipliers that other topics have."

I worry about the same thing. I've noticed that AI-critical pieces lead to unsubscribes on my newsletter, and that most lucrative job vacancies relate to AI in some way.

I'm not sure I regret my criticism, though. #AI

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I have no real arguments here: this is a concise, simple list of things an engineering manager should strive for. There's a world of detail not represented here, of course, but these are the headlines. #Technology

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"In addition to being important for protecting the information that journalists are provided by all types of sources, encryption is key to making sure that information and communications within news organizations are kept safe as well."

This is my finding too from my time spent leading technology teams in newsrooms: encryption is an absolutely vital tool that keeps journalists and stories safe.

Backdoors might make life slightly easier for law enforcement, but they have so many negative downstream effects that they should not be considered a real solution in the public interest.

Backdoors are an antipattern; let's keep them out of our software. #Technology

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An in-depth assessment of moderation needs on the fediverse. Findings here include that most instances aren't incorporated and don't have liability insurance.

I'd bet that these numbers are actually better than if they'd done the same study for all community spaces on the web: web forums and so on. Considering the open nature of the fediverse - let's please just call it the social web - this is promising.

Which is not to say that folks don't need help, and that there doesn't need to be support for instance operators as they come online and support different communities. I love that this survey was undertaken, and I'm curious to see how this data is used. #Technology

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Erin Kissane's full series about Meta's conduct in Myanmar and its involvement in the genocide of the Rohingya. This is required reading for anyone in tech, and good for everyone who touches any of Meta's products to know.

"Meta bought and maneuvered its way into the center of Myanmar’s online life and then inhabited that position with a recklessness that was impervious to warnings by western technologists, journalists, and people at every level of Burmese society." And then it utterly failed the community it had placed itself in the center of. #Technology

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"I’ve now been using [Mastodon] for about two months and I am here to tell you that it is, in principle, what we should want the internet to be. If you have been remotely interested in Mastodon but had reservations about joining because you thought it would be difficult, confusing, or otherwise annoying, it is not."

Co-signed. I love Mastodon. That's not to say that there aren't problems to solve - of course there are - but it is exactly the kind of open flourishing of disparate communities that the internet should be.

The fragmentation issue that Jason Koebler dicusses here - you have to post to a million different networks to get the word out - will come out in the wash when social media lands on a "winning" protocol. Which it will - and it will be the ActivityPub standard that underpins Mastodon, WordPress, and (soon) Threads. #Technology

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Encryption has been perennially under attack since (at least) the establishment of the commercial internet. Lawmakers argue that backdoors will make us safer; in reality they will harm journalists, activists, domestic violence victims, and lots of vulnerable communities, and put real chilling effects on free expression.

The bottom line, for me and many others, is that privacy from government and law enforcement is a human right and a fundamental prerequisite for living in a democracy. The alternative is a surveillance state.

So what can we do about it? Like many ongoing debates that have real effects, this seems to be a place where we just have to keep fighting. So let's do that. #Technology

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Reuven Lerner was banned from advertising on Meta products for life because he offers Python and Pandas training - and the company's automated system thought he was dealing in live snakes and bears.

And then he lost the appeal because that, too, was automated.

This is almost Douglas Adams-esque in its boneheadedness, but it's also a look into an auto-bureaucratic future where there is no real recourse, even when the models themselves are at fault. #AI

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Ed Zitron is characteristically on-point and razor sharp on the topic of Marc Andreessen's ludicrous "techno-optimism" manifesto. I agree with him: it's a cynical, disingenuous piece that has nothing to do with optimism.

"In 5000 words, Marc’s only real suggestion is that social justice or government regulation is bad, and that economic growth is good and makes people rich. This unbelievably wealthy man, one that has made rich people even richer and lost regular people billions of dollars, does not have any solutions, or policies, or ideas." Exactly. #Technology

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If tech companies are going to be credible content producers, they need to be able to erect a firewall between business and editorial. Contrast Apple trying to force Jon Stewart’s hand on China and AI here with John Oliver’s obviously free hand on his show over on Max.

I hope Stewart finds a new home for his work, and that other commentators notice what Apple did here. There are clearly better homes for them. #Media

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Anyone that sets themselves up to be a single point of failure like this will be a target. And here we are, with hackers now able to make authentic-looking police requests for data.

Something that caught my eye in these screenshots: they include Authy, Twilio's 2-factor authentication app. #Technology

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This came out of left-field for me: not only Peter Thiel but also Charles Johnson are FBI informants. The former fed information about foreign influence in Silicon Valley; the latter about January 6th and related movements.

There seems to be an angle of retribution here from Johnson, who made a statement revealing the ties, and is resentful that Thiel didn't invest in his portfolio. It's notable also, for obvious reasons, that Thiel founded Palantir, which counts the FBI as a customer. #Democracy

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I sometimes wonder what is being concealed from us today that we'll find out has been killing us decades later? Are these sorts of efforts underway for cellphones or food supplements or some other ubiquitous good? 

I mean, probably. We'll have to wait and see what. In the meantime, I'm looking at induction stovetops. #Health

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I truly aspire not to be one of these parents. #Society

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I'm grateful that Signal exists. Meredith Whittaker has so far shown great leadership and spoken about the right things. May all projects follow her lead. #Technology

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"Perhaps, then it’s no surprise this reads like it was written by a 14 year old and put on Pastebin. That it was written by a 52 year old with billions of dollars at his disposal says more about the failure of capitalism to imbue life with meaning than Andreessen could possibly imagine." #Technology

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"The fix for the internet isn’t to shut down Facebook or log off or go outside and touch grass. The solution to the internet is more internet: more apps, more spaces to go, more money sloshing around to fund more good things in more variety, more people engaging thoughtfully in places they like. More utility, more voices, more joy." #Technology

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"You have to hire the correct people, motivate them to continue working even when there's no clear risk of being fired, make them feel valued and appreciated, not waste their time, ensure they've got the space to do work the right way, only accept the right work, and then just leave them the hell alone." #Technology

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This is a racket, run by the police. #Democracy

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Finally! It's ludicrous that we need to pay for a product to file and pay our taxes. This is a huge step in the right direction. (They describe it as "innovative", but many, many other countries have this kind of system.) #Democracy

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A smart reaction from Bluesky to Threads basically saying they won't do anything for journalists. (Of course, Mastodon also does this very well.) #Media

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A smart attack where malicious malware is stored on the blockchain, where it is immutable and can't be easily removed or blocked. The code can then be retrieved with any JS code that reads the blockchain. #Technology

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