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23 votes
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TikTok invaded this cruise for content. Maybe someday it’ll come for you.
19 votes -
A new kind of climate denial has taken over on YouTube
31 votes -
Substack is removing some publications that express support for Nazis, the company said today
46 votes -
A US-sanctioned oligarch ran pro-Kremlin ads on Facebook—again
18 votes -
"Goodbye internet": MatPat retiring from YouTube
27 votes -
Sludge videos are taking over social media and people’s mind
16 votes -
‘Andrew Tate greeted us by his pool bare-chested’: Dan Reed on his pursuit of the misogynist
19 votes -
How social media’s biggest user protest rocked Reddit
80 votes -
YouTuber Joel Haver to create twelve feature-length films in twelve months
26 votes -
The "X Factor" was never going to work
Of all the changes Elon Musk brought to Twitter, the one I'm quite skeptical and cringed about is the renaming of the platform itself to "X". I don't know who advised him that this name could even...
Of all the changes Elon Musk brought to Twitter, the one I'm quite skeptical and cringed about is the renaming of the platform itself to "X".
I don't know who advised him that this name could even work at all. X is so generic a name that it doesn't really mean anything because it already stands for a lot of things, how can one even think that a whole new brand can be built out of it? For example, one of the first picture that comes to my mind is "X-Men" movie series and the famous Professor X. But from what I gather, Elon is more of an Iron Man fan boy than Prof X, right?
The X-Men brand isn't some fluke, the Marvel folks have put some decent effort in creating that story line, plot, dialogs, sound and video effects, etc. to build the legend that it is. If me sitting here in India knows so much about X-Men series, I can only imagine the kind of cult it must have built in US, UK, etc.
And who can forget the "X" variable in mathematics? It is often used for equations like (X2 + Y2). X is also very commonly used in discussions to denote an unknown quantity or factor. For example, "Let us assume that X is the demand factor for this new product.".
I don't know about other parts of the world but at least here in India, almost every person I've talked to still calls the platform "Twitter" and not X! Indeed, as long as the domain
twitter.com
still works, one might be even correct or justified in calling it so. But who knows how long that domain is going to work.However, one of the noblest things for Musk to do in 2024 is to just revert or rollback this decision and restore back the "Twitter" brand. This is not just a popular demand but if I recall, Elon himself had often said that they will experiment with twitter and roll back what doesn't work? At least his top advisors or generals must strongly advice Elon to consider reverting this. Maybe they can come up with a slightly modified version of the Twitter logo with a different color and a bit of what Elon has in mind with respect to X? I'm sure there is no dearth of creativity in either Silicon Valley or Elon's team!
30 votes -
Tom Scott: After ten years, it's time to stop making videos
109 votes -
Do you ever "self filter" before making a post or comment and what is it based on?
Lately, I've started posting a bit on twitter as much as I do here. What I've found is that I used to just pour my heart and post anything I wanted earlier but since I've got a couple hundred...
Lately, I've started posting a bit on twitter as much as I do here. What I've found is that I used to just pour my heart and post anything I wanted earlier but since I've got a couple hundred followers now (many folks I often interact with have started following me), I always keep wondering what they will think as they see this new post on their timeline.
Another thing is that many of those folks are from different countries and issues pertaining to India (which I'm often tempted to post on!) may not even be relevant to them. Further complicating the issue is that the tastes, cultures, morals, ethics, etc. vary greatly between the Orient and Occident. How aware are Western folks about the politics and happenings in this part of the world, especially India and surrounding regions? Of one thing I'm sure is that there is an ample scope for misunderstanding here, of one another's perspectives. The kind of things and views which are popular or even acceptable here may not be in other parts of the world and vice versa.
One of the obvious filters I apply to all my conversations is the "political filter" (in the sense of electoral politics) which I think is a wise thing to do. Politics has this very nasty habit of dividing people who are very well meaning of one another and come to the discussion in good faith otherwise. I don't think a person should be cancelled due to their mere opinion (however radical or unacceptable it might be). We can disagree however strongly we want and as long as the other person reciprocates, it's a win-win for everyone, right?
29 votes -
Y'all are nerds (according to math)
8 votes -
Threads is blocking servers on the Fediverse. Here's how we unblocked ourselves.
26 votes -
Substack turns on its ‘Nazis Welcome!’ sign
89 votes -
‘Scream 7’ director Christopher Landon exits “a dream job that turned into a nightmare”
10 votes -
Technology is making people busier during their so called free time
34 votes -
Flipboard begins to federate
21 votes -
The work of online volunteers - Moderators’ work on Reddit and Facebook is crucial but not paid. We should be creative in how we compensate them.
32 votes -
Twitch's new sexual content guidelines updated to include 'artistic nudity' after viral topless stream
45 votes -
Threads is starting to make content available on the Fediverse
33 votes -
Elon Musk's X receives Pennsylvania money license in push toward payment features
3 votes -
YouTube likely lowering resolution of videos if it detects you using Firefox on Asahi Linux
39 votes -
The year Twitter died: a special series from The Verge
26 votes -
Bluesky says it will allow users to opt out of the public web interface after backlash
23 votes -
Ex-Twitter exec claims X fired him for raising security concerns
21 votes -
New Mexico attorney general sues Meta for allegedly failing to protect children from predators on Facebook, Instagram
21 votes -
Reddit moderators of r/law and r/scotus filed an amicus brief in US Supreme Court first amendment case Moody v NetChoice LLC
62 votes -
Plagiarism and You(Tube)
74 votes -
Can a social media post change public opinion? Researchers weigh in.
14 votes -
Across the ASMRverse
10 votes -
Gaza and the future of information warfare
7 votes -
What does it mean to friend someone online?
Recently my daughter (third grade) has started learning to type at school. It's a Montessori program, so it's a pretty low tech environment overall, which I mention because I don't necessarily...
Recently my daughter (third grade) has started learning to type at school. It's a Montessori program, so it's a pretty low tech environment overall, which I mention because I don't necessarily expect them to have a nuanced view of technology issues.
One of the typing programs they use is nitrotype.com, which adds a competitive gameplay element. However, it also has mechanism to friend another player. Friends can only communicate with stock phrases, so there's not too much "Internet leakage" beyond being able to choose a username.
I set it up for my daughter on her Linux Chromebook (I whitelist things I want her to have and everything else is blocked at DNS). Seeing her interact with it the first time, I realized that she spends as much time "adding friends" as doing the typing.
On its face, this activity is pretty harmless. But I am worried about the patterns it might be creating for her. I'm worried about her uncritically engaging with the dopamine hit of getting a new friend. Or how it shapes her idea of how many friends she has or where idea of her self worth comes from. Or what she thinks friends are.
So after that long preamble, here are some questions:
- How would you explain "friends" in this context?
- Would you distinguish them from other kinds of friends, either real or virtual?
- Would you attach a moral component to the activity? E.g. that it is good/bad or helpful/harmful
- How would you frame it to the teacher? Not so much in terms of whether or not they should do it in the classroom, but what kinds of conversations should they be having about the friends experience?
- If I'm asking the wrong questions, what questions should I be asking instead?
I'm really interested in seeing the perspectives people have on this. My own ideas are a bit murky, but I will put them down as a comment.
37 votes -
Six months from now this channel stops
27 votes -
Silicon Valley vs. teenage girls
12 votes -
Accused of violating kids' privacy, Meta sues US Federal Trade Commission, hoping to block ban on monetizing kids’ data
40 votes -
Former Twitter employees give advice to companies who want to replace it
15 votes -
Meta’s Threads to launch in Europe in app’s biggest expansion since debut
9 votes -
TikTok pledges €12B European investment over ten years as work on Norwegian data center begins
6 votes -
The internet is worse than ever – now what?
28 votes -
The truth behind all that cortisol talk. What exactly is high cortisol? A debunking guide.
11 votes -
A tourism boom to the Faroe Islands, fuelled by social media, has resulted in some landowners taking measures to get a share of the revenues
8 votes -
Meta designed platforms to get children addicted, court documents allege
24 votes -
Facebook does not let me delete my account
I did not use facebook for ages, i always thought i need it for my international contacts, but now this new pay or say yes to ads window showed up I realised I did not use it for a long time. So I...
I did not use facebook for ages, i always thought i need it for my international contacts, but now this new pay or say yes to ads window showed up I realised I did not use it for a long time. So I was like, tech is like clothes, if you don't use it for a year it's time to let it go.
So i tried to delete my acc.
After some research (wtf????) I finally found this page
https://www.facebook.com/help/delete_account
where I can click my through a menu, until I can enter my password to delete my account, and it just does not let me.
""Sorry, this feature isn't available right now""
wtf? how is deleting my acc not available????
fuck this, fuck them. this is one of the "leading" tech enterprises. this is one of the biggest fucking companies in the world.
I don't know how that is even legal.
I'm so fucking angry. Fuck this fucking fuckers!
does somebody know what i can do? can i send them an angry real life letter? do i need a lawyer?
I'm not really in the EU, but the GDPR still applicates to me. so what do I do now to get rid of this fucking fuckers?ps. looking in the internet does not help nothing, it's just 100s of links to facebook help center. fuck the fucking modern web as well.
42 votes -
A Spanish agency became so sick of models and influencers that they created their own with AI — and she’s raking in up to $11,000 a month
27 votes -
China tried to keep kids off social media. Now the elderly are hooked.
27 votes -
Yup hacks together a cross-posting app for X, Threads, Bluesky and others
18 votes -
Melissa Barrera dropped from ‘Scream VII’ after social media posts amid Israel-Hamas war
25 votes -
Twitter’s former head of trust and safety finally breaks her silence
30 votes