The walls are closing in on infinite-scroll feeds and other addictive design mechanics. I wrote about how lawyers and regulators may have finally found a way around Section 230 https://www.platformer.news/social-media-addiction-trial-eu-tiktok-investigation/

RE: https://mastodon.social/@rands/116002507324909683 This is so good 👀 I love that it can do social posts too and not just news articles

As we build new social apps, how do we break the harmful UX patterns as well? One I think about a lot is the infinite feed. Mastodon, bluesky, Pixelfed - everyone just copies this standard design pattern. https://frequency.leaflet.pub/3md26xqn3dk2m/l-quote/40_0-40_254#40_0

While writing about how engagement-maximizing features of social media are affecting us, a professional group I'm in shared tips for how to get your post seen on LinkedIn: make 3-4 comments on others' posts first - literally proving my point about inauthentic "engagement"! […]

RE: https://frequency.app/@frequency/115941025932426144 New blog post from me on the ways engagement maximizing apps are designed to hook you and why they're designed that way. This took way longer to write than expected just because of the sheer amount of research and data there is out there […]

RE: https://mastodon.social/@augieray/115860878401553122 👇🏻

The author of a viral Reddit thread alleging fraud at a food delivery company tried to back up his claim by sending me AI-generated documents. Today I'm publishing those documents in the hopes that it helps other reporter see what we're up against in the age […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

RE: https://mastodon.social/@jesseplusplus/115827833724840046 Doing the research for this blog post was super interesting too! There are sooooooo many articles about how to do a digital detox that repeat a lot of the same advice - very little of which is actually supported in the results of […]

RE: https://mastodon.social/@jesseplusplus/115827833724840046 I've been experimenting with using leaflet for blog posts. It's very barebones and approachable; built on ATproto. I love the ease of use for just oAuthing with your bluesky account instead of having to set up a new account. The […]

Unpopular opinion: you don't need more willpower. You need better designed apps. New blog post about the problems with digital detoxes: https://frequency.leaflet.pub/3mbezkaxwhk27

Happy New Year! Wishing everyone an excellent 2026 🎊

Silicon Valley, drunk on exponential curves and both terrified and entranced by endless funding rounds, has given us the "Hero Developer": a figure who ships features at midnight, who “moves fast and breaks things,” who transforms whiteboard scribbles into billion-dollar unicorns through sheer […]

I continue to be so impressed with everything about the Oura ring, even when things go wrong. My barely-one-year-old 4th gen ring started having battery issues this past week or two after a recent firmware update. I went into the help section of the app and described my issue to the chatbot […]

@signalapp @Mer__edith any plans for adding multi-chat support to Signal groups (ala WhatsApp communities)? 🙏🏻 A few local groups in my area would LOVE to move off of WhatsApp to Signal due to all of the AI stuff being forced on them, but it would be a nightmare for admins to manage because […]

#wrapstodon2025 https://mastodon.social/@jesseplusplus/wrapstodon/2025/8e6a50ac4216e858

The deterioration of GitHub continues... made a new issue, clicked on the issues tab, it wasn't there. Had to do a hard refresh for it to appear in the list. C'mon y'all 🙄 I know that caching is one of the hard CS problems, but this is literally one of the simplest cases of cache invalidation.

How do I get push notifications to work with the official @Mastodon iOS app? I have enabled them in the OS settings for the app, checked each type on and off multiple times in the in-app settings, ensured background app refresh is enabled.. still nothing is coming through. I had no problem […]

Just watched the Corey Doctorow @pluralistic interview on the daily show - so cool to see this sort of stuff getting more mainstream coverage! I dunno if many normies would be able to follow what he was saying though, unfortunately.. it was still full of a lot of technical and academic […]

lol @fedidevs do you automatically boost stuff from fedi devs? I've been making a few test posts recently from the @frequency account and you always seem to boost them within seconds before I can verify my test and delete them, even when they say to just ignore it 😂

I always thought of chair yoga as mainly being for folks who couldn't physically do yoga on a mat, but one of my teachers recently showed me a few supported poses to do while working for those with desk jobs, and I am making use of it almost every day! My hips are so much happier 😃

Didn’t sleep well last night, and clearly I woke up feeling spicy today 😅🌶️

RE: https://mastodon.social/@andrewnez/115672824196543078 As someone who used to work for GitHub, this makes me unbelievably angry. We refused to build something like Actions for a very long time, despite many requests for it, because of the complexity of the security implications. I knew when […]

The two relics of exploding stars are black holes and neutron stars. Both were discovered by women. Jocelyn Bell discovered neutron stars, in the guise of “pulsars”, in 1967. Since then, three Nobel prizes have gone to male scientists for their work on pulsars, but none to Bell. Louise Webster […]

RE: https://mastodon.social/@joanpla/115637445845733350 Very cool! I want to see electric cars go more in this modular direction and hope that the EU’s right to repair laws give the industry a nudge

Today’s culinary experiment for the potluck: a persimmon custard tart with vanilla cinnamon chai infused whip cream 😋😋

RE: https://hachyderm.io/@rmondello/115607066809840896 What a delightful blast from the past to see Strong Bad Emails again 😊

Cafe Zoetrope, San Francisco "Many other musicians and musical groups were allowed to utilize this studio, including the Grateful Dead." "Francis Ford Coppola bought the building in 1972 to be the headquarters for his production company, American Zoetrope. A […] [Original post on hachyderm.io]

RE: https://mastodon.social/@verge/115519900952263701 This is so spot on. I remember being so excited when Pandora first came out. It *did* help me discover the kind of music I wanted more of. But then the economics of streaming turned it into what every other streaming service is now […]

My take on empathy - and people on the right who mock and fear empathy - is slightly different. We mock, dismiss, and otherwise fear and fight in others what we are unable to tolerate in ourselves. People who say something's "cringe" when others are being earnest or sincere are afraid of the […]

Thank you again to @jesseplusplus #founder of @frequency for joining me on today's episode of Fireside Fedi. #fedi #fediverse #privacy #private #photos #videos #peertube #vod - https://video.firesidefedi.live/w/nJx5yUZTZ7Mi3vdz2FbYVq #castopod #fedicast - […]

Good day all! Fireside Fedi Episode 53 starts NOW! Special Guest: @jesseplusplus @frequency #frequency #loops #socialmedia #photo #socialnetwork #sharing Watch the show live: #owncast #livestream - https://stream.firesidefedi.live After the show: #peertube #vod - […]

Good day all! Only one show this week due to me being on call again. Special Guest: @jesseplusplus #founder @frequency a #followersonly #federated #photosharing #app Watch the show live: #owncast #livestream - https://stream.firesidefedi.live After the show: #peertube #vod - […]

If you’re a user of Libby (the library app), consider before following their suggestion to type #inspireme into the search bar. It seems harmless, but it turns on an unrequested AI feature, & there is no way to reverse that. This comes courtesy of ProfHeyRochelle, who is now reasonably pissed […]

Social media does not have to be on a public town square, or manipulate you. Here's @jesseplusplus's demo at #fediforum showing off Frequency Social, a federated, privacy-first social networking app. https://spectra.video/w/1ubnyBJFWZTwQfXaVDz619

Here’s my writeup of #FediForum (the openings at least). Loved the message of @ben’s keynote — everything big starts small — and I was impressed by the fedi products showcased: @altstore ( @rileytestut), Bounce ( @quillmatiq, @snarfed.org), Frequency ( @jesseplusplus), CrowdBucks ( @reiver#fediforum & […]

💯 This excerpt from @pluralistic’s Enshittification book is so good! I’m eagerly waiting for my copy to arrive to read more! https://lithub.com/how-american-tech-cartels-use-apps-to-break-the-law/

Just downloaded this app, presented at #FediForum today by @jesseplusplus#fediforum Photo sharing without the bigco algorithms! https://frequency.app/@frequency/115327818938811236

I see lots of people walking around with weighted vests these days, but for the nerds in your life, you gotta get ‘em a weighted typing companion 😹

War ravaged Portland

I’ll keep posting this until I find a great person to come be my manager: the Monterey bay aquarium is looking for its next VP of Technology! […]

Still catching up on the chatter over the weekend, but I fully endorse the statement posted at https://writings.thisismissem.social/statement-on-discourse-about-activitypub-and-at-protocol/

Recently there has been a lot of discourse about ActivityPub and AT Protocol which has been quite dividing and heated. Yesterday at the Social Web CG meeting (the group that maintains the ActivityPub and related specifications), I proposed releasing a statement that counters the narrative that […]

Ugh, I slept like crap last night and am way too groggy to be getting “well-actually..” replies to a joke I made on the internet. Chill out ppl! The 😂 emoji signifies I’m not being serious!

We're looking for a journalist with development chops (or a developer with journalism chops) to join our news apps team and build new web-based interactive stories, databases, and experiences. It's a remote role; candidates must be eligible to work in the US […]

It’s a long article, but I really think every person on the internet should read this: https://www.theverge.com/cs/features/717322/wikipedia-attacks-neutrality-history-jimmy-wales

We're ramping up our funding efforts at @anewsocial to ensure we can run Bridgy Fed and Bounce for the long run. As a non-profit, we want to be as community-funded as possible, so we're focusing on ways to make that easier. A quick thread about where we're at in terms of funds: (1/3)🧵 […]

😂 love getting praised by the wordle bot for this word choice