Werd I/O

Heather Bryant is spot on as usual here: trust is a facet of human relationships and not something you place in an organization, company, or product. Using a more appropriate framing will help you figure out how to build the relationships your newsroom needs. #Media

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This seems great: funding projects to create a fairer, more just data ecosystem, with a focus on teams who themselves come from impacted communities. I'm excited to see what comes out of it. #Technology

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The more I learn about Elon Musk, the more I think he’s exactly the kind of entrepreneur that laws and regulations are there to protect us from. This seems like something Tesla owners could take real action on. #Technology

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Fuck yes. A heartstoppingly relentless, bold, knife attack of a book that cuts to the heart of the emptiness of living in Silicon Valley and everywhere. Every few pages I wanted to yell, "this, this, this." I couldn't put it down. #Fiction

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The idea that these women - or any enslaved people - benefitted from the degrading atrocity of slavery is disgusting. That a government is peddling this lie perpetuates the deep harm that was committed. The blind cruelty is unfathomable. #Society

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Esther clearly comes from a different perspective and worldview to me, but her take on Twitter and X is uniquely notable given how tied up in the story she’s been. I honestly don’t know what to think, but this is interesting background. #Technology

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This unfortunately stands to reason: the Mastodon instance where you make your home has the potential to be seized as part of an investigation. This is a downside of federation vs peer-to-peer, and is a reason why I have my own single-user instance. (Generally, though, it's worth saying that I'd expect data to be subpoenaed rather than having the server itself be physically seized.) #Technology

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"How can I make this like me?" is something I'm striving to do better at in my creative work and my life as a whole. Words to live (and write) by. #Culture

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This bill will censor LGBTQ+ voices and far more. It's a way to heavily restrict the internet not just with respect to harmful content, but also "controversial" content. It also mandates identity verification if you're interacting with that content. It's a deeply regressive way of looking at publishing. There's still time to read up about it and tell your representative that you don't want it passed. #Democracy

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An example of why unions are great: a better wage secured for a large workforce, with better conditions. They weren't asking for anything crazy: reasonable pay, guaranteed vacations, and air conditioning in the trucks. It's just unfortunate that they didn't have these things before. #Labor

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"Our vision is for a World Wide Web that is more inclusive, and more respectful of its users: a Web that supports truth over falsehood, people over profits, humanity over hate." I like this sentiment a lot but it also has the potential to cause accidental harms. Who defines truth? W3C members? Someone else? #Technology

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A fascinating look into something that, for a little while, was a vital part of the global internet. They remain community hubs, even becoming de facto daycare centers, but smartphones and ubiquitous connectivity have left them struggling. #Society

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Oh, hey, open release! I've been using Arc as my primary browser all year, and I truly love it. It's a huge step forward in browser UX and while I don't use every feature, I can't see myself going back to the 1990s-style paradigm. #Technology

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An important designation that should never have been necessary at all. Notable that a memorial sign for Emmett Till was repeatedly stolen and shot. The sickness is ongoing. #Equality

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One reason of many why open sourced protocols are more secure: backdoors can't be kept hidden and abused by manufacturers and state actors. This was a serious breach and had the potential to destabilize nations. Secret and proprietary never means more secure. #Technology

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Every time a billionaire makes a boneheaded social media decision, a Mastodon community gets its wings. #Technology

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One of the problems with decentralized networks is that really bad stuff can traverse across them. The fediverse has a child sexual abuse material problem. Filtering it out does not solve the core problem. How can the fediverse be a good actor here? #Technology

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Utterly heartbreaking. #Health

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It's an interesting grift in a way: VC-subsidized startups changed an incumbent industry enough that its existing companies began to think that these new ideas were good business. But they never were, and it ate them from the inside. #Media

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How many American cities operate like this, either explicitly or in spirit? The answer is not going to be a small number. #Democracy

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I don't think the web is dying, but it's certainly not novel anymore - and you can't depend on its breadth alone to gain an audience. This is yet another call for "niche" publications - i.e., outlets that know who they're publishing for and go deep instead of wide. #Media

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Stories like this make me wonder if we'll ever get to a point where governments stop trying to backdoor encryption. Freedom from surveillance is a necessary prerequisite for free speech; observation always creates a chilling effect. These efforts aren't about fighting crime. This is about power. #Technology

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For a group of people that talks a lot about voter fraud, the Republican Party do seem to enjoy setting up the conditions to commit it. #Democracy

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This is something we're going to contend with as our son gets a little older. Roald Dahl is an influential children's author (who lived where I grew up) who was also, unmistakably, a bigot with a deeply cruel streak. Some of these books are strikingly not okay. #Culture

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You can have the best tech in the world, or the loftiest ideals, but social media is about people and communities more than anything else. If you don’t have that, and can’t nurture disparate, diverse spaces that grow organically over time, you don’t have a social media platform. #Technology

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