@yoyoel.com at TrustCon making the key point that big platforms can weather storms and absorb blows (litigation, regulatory churn) that kill their smaller rivals. The legal threat may look the same to an array of platforms, but the real question is who can survive it.

This is an extraordinary and courageous piece of writing that wrestles with one of the great challenges of this moment: How do you decide whether to remain a part of broken institutions to try to fix them from within?

An article by @samlai.bsky.social @yoyoel.com @noupside.bsky.social @klonick.bsky.social @mallory.techpolicy.social.ap.brid.gy @evan.cosocial.ca.ap.brid.gy and @aaron.bsky.team?!?!?! Basically the Wu-Tang Clan of the fediverse right here... Well played, @carnegieendowment.org

Genuinely baffled by the unempirical assertion that Community Notes “works.” Does it? How do Meta know? The best available research is pretty mixed on this point. And as they go all-in on an unproven concept, will Meta commit to publicly releasing data so people can actually study this?

Community Notes don't work by themselves. So many things don't get labeled because people don't reach "consensus" on them, which is really what Community Notes optimize for, not factuality What an utter failure. So disappointing

One of the things we all really need from platform T&S teams — honest, authentic, human conversations about the impossible tradeoffs involved in this work — is made effectively impossible by the deranged ways a small number of people treat platform staff when they speak publicly. Ask me how I know.

Oh no, the Signal icon very subtly changed colors and now it’s setting off my “what is weird right now” alarms every time I unlock my phone

How the email found me

How the email found me

For recent migrants from other corners of the internet who might be wondering what makes Bluesky different (and imho better), I'm resurfacing this terrific conversation from earlier this year between @bsky.app CEO @jay.bsky.team, @mmasnick.bsky.social, and @yoyoel.com. 🫶

Reminder for corporate folks: It’s oh-crap-I-haven’t-spent-my-annual-learning-stipend season — and most companies allow you to use your learning budget on newspaper/newsletter subscriptions. Good opportunity to support (and expand your access to) independent journalism.

Election Day timeline cleanse, featuring Toast and Rye

Decentralized social media platforms offer the promise of alternative governance, but remain ill-equipped to address threats to online safety. How can we change that? Here’s the latest from @yoyoel.com and I: www.techpolicy.press/online-safet...

If we want to empower consumers and rebuild social media, we need to develop shared trust and safety capabilities, write @samlai.bsky.social and @yoyoel.com.

Look at these tiny little penguins!

Should be a really interesting discussion. I'm moderating, but will have representatives from Bluesky, Threads & ActivityPub talking about decentralized moderation...

This is going to be a really great @knightcolumbia.org symposium--about the TikTok ban, foreign disinfo, surveillance at the border, selective deportation, and the exchange of ideas across borders--check out the amazing list of contributors. knightcolumbia.org/events/regar...

a brief guide to terms used in profiles for new site admins: * professional blogger = spammer * digital marketer = spammer * SEO expert = spammer * professional reviewer = spammer * affiliate marketer = spammer * marketing enthusiast = spammer * passionate about blogging = spammer

And if you think this is fun, I dare you to find a way to report abuse originating from a Google Voice number. (Spoiler: It doesn't exist!)

Just spent half an hour digging around Google's support pages to see if there's a form for reporting abuse originating from a Gmail account. Turns out — there is! Submitted a report of the weirdo who sends me very sexually graphic abuse every day. Genuinely curious if Google will do anything.

We shall call her Toast, destroyer of gardens

The corgis wish you a happy Friday.

Good interview with Yoel by John Starr on the challenges and opportunities within trust and safety youtu.be/v14ySyJhbwo

An especially happy Friday to Rye, who is doing a remarkably good job not eating Toast for lunch despite her constant barking and face-biting.

This is an incredible resource — and as someone who has unthinkingly paid DeleteMe for years, led me to sign up for Optery instead.

This is the face of someone who just chewed up a bunch of the irrigation system and feels no remorse whatsoever.

I had a really great time chatting with Jaz Michael-King and @mmccue.bsky.social on Dot Social @flipboard.com about the state of trust and safety on the fediverse: dot-social.simplecast.com/episodes/sam...

Kathleen Searles and I have been researching how to better support and protect colleagues who face backlash when they share their expertise publicly. We prepared this tip sheet for academics who are likely to be doing public-facing engagement this election season. Please share widely.

IF HUMANS CAN SLEEP ON A WATER BED THIS PUP CAN USE HER BOWL TO REST HER SLEEPY HEAD CASE CLOSE

She fell asleep in her water bowl.

Update: Rye and Toast have reached a peaceful coexistence.

Meet Toast!

Say it louder for the folks in the back: Jawboning is a real problem that deserves real jurisprudence, but this case was always built on lies, misrepresentation, and conjecture. Glad to see the majority recognize that.

IT IS THAT TIME OF THE WEEK. New Ctrl-Alt-Speech is out. We have guest host @yoyoel.com telling us "the least erotic way to talk about porn" among some fun stories about social media sides including ExTwitter, Facebook, Temu (is that social media?!?) & more podcast.ctrlaltspeech.com/2315966/1521...

Sounds right to me www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...

In retrospect, it’s really my fault for starting a great book right when I need to be grading my students’ final papers…

Just came back to my hotel room to find that someone left me complimentary reading material, and honestly, I’m not mad at the selection.

📣 Some personal news: one month from today, my book is out! 🎉 I wrote the 📖 during a wild year as Jim Jordan subpoenaed & Stephen Miller sued me & my colleagues. Now it’s my turn to tell the story. Preorders are open —they really help! If you hate AMZN, small shops on my website. amzn.to/4bbiDJD

I don’t read a lot of books with ERM as a main character, for, uh, obvious reasons, but when I tell you I could not put this book down for the last day and read it in more or less 2 sittings — take that as the endorsement it is.

Lawmakers must "seek the declassification and urgent publication of as much of the intelligence related to TikTok ... as possible. The public deserves more than hypotheticals, and eventually, a court will demand the specifics" www.techpolicy.press/the-us-gover... @justinhendrix.bsky.social

I’m in Australia for meetings and was telling someone how cute I find the kangaroo and emu in the Australian coat of arms. Without missing a beat, the guy I was talking to said, “Lots of countries have animals in their coats of arms, but Aussies are the only ones who eat the animals in ours.”

SIO's report on the NCMEC CyberTipline pipeline is out today, the result of almost a year of work. There are a lot of findings for improving the ecosystem from platforms to NCMEC to government to law enforcement.

Late last year, after my legal threats quieted down, I started to get very frustrated with the lack of coordinated response to the war on truth and the intimidation of those who defend it. This is my answer. www.nytimes.com/2024/04/22/b...

In my head, I once saw a cartoon that goes something like: - Person is raging about something inconsequential - Angel appears out of parted clouds and deposits into the raging person’s hands a reaction to the raging that just says, like, “ok cool” Did I hallucinate this meme? Internet, help me!

Offering a sort of gift: If you manage someone in Ethical/Responsible AI, please give them license for regular mental health days off. To step away from a headspace that often requires saturating in the darker side of things. I'll explain some of why. 🧵

Finally getting around to publishing my latest class syllabus! It's been a while since I taught my basic Internet speech platform regulation class. Here is the 2024 version. 1/ docs.google.com/document/d/1...

How the email found me

Maybe I completely missed this when it happened, but was there ever any coverage of the fact that Wikileaks now quietly throw a 500 error when you try to access the 2016 DNC hack-and-leak? Literally nothing else on the Wikileaks site errors out in this way.

How the email found me

This is a really good conversation between Nilay Patel and Cloudflare's CEO. www.theverge.com/24121399/clo... I especially like this bit re: content moderation's usual failure conditions — which have little to do with moderation, and everything to do with a lack of institutional trust.