A collection of 105 posts
Perhaps journalists don’t in fact like using Twitter any more than the average person, and their heavy use of the platform is simply a reflection of professional pressure coupled with its highly addictive nature.
The developments of the search engine and social media follow the usual path of innovation: incremental, gradual, serendipitous, and inexorable; few eureka moments or sudden breakthroughs.
For the most part, the Great Firewall (GFW) is irrelevant for the average Chinese citizen, mostly irrelevant for most Chinese netizens, and for many of the rest it protects their ability to make money.
Some of these services will offer really good value to consumers, and those that don’t will quickly become irrelevant.
In every instance there were detailed discussions about what’s missing and how to do better, delivered in a spirit of “hey, we’re not on a good path here.”
Breaking up the tech giants would interrupt the network effects that make their products so valuable in the first place.
The subliminal message behind this is obvious: “Censor yourself so we don’t have to.”
What is it about other people that bestows such joy, such comfort, such indispensable meaning on our lives?
But while other cryptocurrencies can serve to increase our personal freedom and privacy, Libra, which is scheduled for launch in 2020, likely would have the opposite effect.
The post brought out the worst of the knitting world’s anti-racism mobs
The YouTube-rabbit-hole phenomenon will undoubtedly continue to radicalize certain individuals. But give it time, let the churn machine keep churning.
An even more fundamental reason why social media companies shouldn’t try to suppress controversial ideas is that they are very bad at determining who and what is wrong or dangerous.
Political speech is the most important category of speech and it is the first category of speech authoritarians will seek to constrain as they consolidate power.
What has not been discussed nearly as much is the end game of the oligarchs.
Essays attacking the left- or right-wing bias of this or that media outlet are, of course, old hat in my business.