Lights are on over here, but I'm certainly crying

Doomsday present

Wikipedia at 25: What the web can be - Anil Dash A blog about making culture. Since 1999.

Today, @wikipedia.org turns 25 years old. It's never been more important — or under more attack from authoritarians. Here's what to know about how we got here, and what we can do to push for its future. There's no better example of the web we make together. www.anildash.com/2026/01/15/w...

Deputy Mayor of Vlogging

My piece about AI in the classroom in The Chronicle of Higher Ed has been out for a couple of weeks, but it blew up today after Renic quoted it.

Many commenters are ragging on AI-using students, but a lot of the problembis cognitive bias that makes AI use _feel_ like learning.

Yep. It was bleak writing it too.

FEED for DC resistance to the Musk coup: #forkoff!

With @getfree-mvmt.bsky.social and more

I'm talking about the threatened TikTok ban on TED Explains today at 1pm EST: www.youtube.com/live/fy1PbnW...

Why I'm quitting the Washington Post Democracy can't function without a free press

This is, or should be, a big deal -- Ann Telnaes, an absolute legend, quitting WaPo due to censorship of a cartoon criticizing billionaires

anntelnaes.substack.com/p/why-im-qui...

Protecting Freedom of Thought by Deciding What Information You Consume | TechPolicy.Press Cutting through the dilemma over content moderation requires rethinking the social component of online discourse, not just the technology, says Richard Reisman.

A fuller explanation of the principle is here - it is a feed selection problem within a platform, not a problem of who is on the platform - and that is Bluesky's reason for being:
www.techpolicy.press/protecting-f...

If I Must Die: Poetry and Prose Amazon.com: If I Must Die: Poetry and Prose eBook : Alareer, Refaat, Aljamal, Yousef M.: Tienda Kindle

Refaat Alareer, a Palestinian academic and poet killed a year ago, has a posthumous book of poetry coming out on Tuesday. Pre-orders have it at #47 on Amazon.

Not 47th most popular book of poetry, or even literature. 47th most popular book, full stop.

www.amazon.com/If-Must-Die-...

there's a whole class of journalists who people thought were on the left but have always been Like This.

Fang, Taibbi, Cenk, Blumenthal, a whole bunch of Young Turks types, and, of course, Greenwald

they didn't get awful. they've always been.

Yeah, and there was an October rush, before the election, caused by the "block has a plain English meaning that X is not longer going to abide by", as a precursor to this wave.

Casey, I agree about the goal of seeking good user experience and basic content moderation, and I think the migration is good, but I also think that is not simply recapitulating Twitter, in scale or design. Demand for better moderation just is demand for political difference in platform choices.

Opinion | Bluesky Is Different From X. For Now. (Gift Article) Users are looking for a more curated experience on a platform that is not constantly trying to get them to interact with brands.

Shirky does say X “has become, in internet parlance, a Nazi bar.”

My primary concern, though, is not so much the bar’s patrons as the bar’s *owner*

www.nytimes.com/2024/12/07/o...

Opinion | Bluesky Is Different From X. For Now. Users are looking for a more curated experience on a platform that is not constantly trying to get them to interact with brands.

I wrote something about the migration from X to Bluesky. (I did not choose the title, and do not like it, but there you go.)

www.nytimes.com/2024/12/07/o...

sounds like you need to create a burner account and follow that person again!

oh no!

Relativizing away the specific moral and political quandaries using Substack entails is *exactly* what you are doing. No need for "this might read like..."

And the fact that social media platforms 'inevitably entail' hard choices does not require the specific choice to be profiting from Nazis.

I’m ready to organize my fellow Substack publishers and demand answers from leadership.

You want in? Email me: MKwrites4000@proton.me

A lot of people are responding to the Truth Social and Twitter lawsuits with "can't wait for discovery" and stuff that's almost celebratory. But as someone who worked at Gawker Media in 2016, I can assure you that being right doesn't mean your media outlet will be allowed to survive.

Remarkable couple of lines in this Semafor piece about the 2024 presidential election. www.semafor.com/article/11/1...

Still remarkable that you might get a five-candidate ballot next year with no candidate under age 70.

Biden (D): 81
Trump (R): 78
Kennedy (I): 70
West (I): 71
Manchin (No Labels): 77

Article II, with first-past-the-post voting and Presidential rather than Parliamentary design, creates a two-party system.

Between 1796 and now, no 3rd party candidate has ever won, or come close. To change that, you'd need ranked choice voting, which requires constitutional, not electoral, change

By voting 3rd party, you’re throwing away your vote. The electoral college prevents a successful 3rd party. If that’s ok with you go for it. But own the consequences.

Nope. Voting third party in those states also does nothing to affect the outcome of the election.

The design of the system is 'lesser of two evils', and the way to change that is to amend the Constitution, not to complain about it every four years.

It's not a sham. It just represents aggregated group preferences, not individual ones.

There is no such right, and has never been. People's policy preferences vary along dozens of axes.

Given that there are only ever two viable candidates, it's not even mathematically possible to find a candidate that the represents your views.

I'm not sure what the objection is?
This is just a simple fact. The design of the Constitution makes us two-party country; there no way to use your vote to change that fact.

So if you don't vote for Biden, you're voting for Trump. That statement is unpalatable, but it's not wrong.