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"It’s Time to End ‘Trending'"
Why it is good – as #Mastodon and #Microdotblog does – to still keep human admins in the mix on surfacing “trending” items: “The first problem with [FB and Twitter] “trending” is that it selects and highlights content with no eye toward accuracy, or quality. Automated trending systems are not equipped to make judgments; they can determine if things are being shared, but they cannot determine whether that content should be shared further. Continue reading →
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Indieweb, Fediverse and Commerical Silos
The more time I spend on the #Indieweb, #Matodon and other #Fediverse apps, the more I notice when I go back to Twitter and FB how much is pushed at me: recommended users, posts, promoted tweets, recommended apps, requests for reviews of places I just had been near, but never checked into. Sometimes you only really see it there when you have seen the alternative. #fediverse Continue reading →
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Love this: “It’s pleasantly ironic that some of the internet’s oldest open protocols are shining through, with email newsletters and podcasting standing tall… a channel they own and control.” www.niemanlab.org/2018/12/p…
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"Will California’s New Bot Law Strengthen Democracy?"
This law is a start, and should be implemented in every US state: “On July 1st, California became the first state in the nation to try to reduce the power of bots by requiring that they reveal their “artificial identity” when they are used to sell a product or influence a voter. Violators could face fines under state statutes related to unfair competition. Just as pharmaceutical companies must disclose that the happy people who say a new drug has miraculously improved their lives are paid actors, bots in California—or rather, the people who deploy them—will have to level with their audience. Continue reading →
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These seem like just common sense things Facebook and Google should do in opening up thier ad archive to an API for researchers, and for transparency: blog.mozilla.org/blog/2019…
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Building in "Web Stuff" and Micro.blog
This is a great quote on #indieweb publishing and #microblog in specific…. Build in “web stuff” if you want it to last: “Micro.blog is not an alternative silo: instead, it’s what you build when you believe that the web itself is the great social network. That’s the important part: even if Micro.blog doesn’t last (though I believe it will), the idea — that the web itself is where we are and where we talk to each other — will continue. Continue reading →
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#Facebook decieded we all were giving up FB for Lent today. Suddently a more decentralized, federated social platform seeming a bit better.
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Small Shifts Back to the Web's Roots
Another story I’m watching on how do “slow media” - from this blogger. Will be fun to watch his efforts and compare notes: “I’m optimistic that the movement away from social media is good for the Open Web. Since I scaled back my use of social media a year ago, I blogged more, re-subscribed to many RSS feeds, and grew increasingly interested in the IndieWeb — all small shifts back to the Open Web’s roots. Continue reading →
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Not quitting Social Media: But Going Back to an "the Artisanal internet."
This article from #wired, also got me relooking at #indieweb and Micro.blog. In essence, don’t quit social all together, but “curate your way to a better social media” diet. Key quote: This vision of decentralization is more back-to-the-land than blockchain. If portals to the digital world are so exploitative, it asks, why not curate our own? For consumers, this means forgoing convenience to control your ingredients: Read newsletters instead of News Feeds. Continue reading →
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Who Owns the Digital You (Part 1 of 3)
“Twenties and Thirties it was the role of government, Fifties and Sixties it was civil rights. The next two decades it’s gonna be privacy. I’m talking about the Internet. I’m talking about cell phones. I’m talking about health records and who’s gay and who’s not. And moreover, in a country born on the will to be free, what could be more fundamental than this?” — Sam Seaborne, The West Wing (Season 1, Episode 9, 1999)< Continue reading →
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Giving Micro.Blog a Whirl
Giving Micro.blog a whirl. After trying it out in beta, now am giving the lastest version a whirl as a possible “POSSE” solution - “publish once, syndicate everywhere.” Have been always looking for a solution to own your own digital identity, and syndicate out to the other giant social big guns. Before now not found anything that hit the right spot on the Venn diagram of easy but full featured enough. Continue reading →
