In @ozm, we built in 2 years a publication we could all be proud of. Did a lot of work we believed in, some that made a real difference, some that was just fun. OneZero went from a dumb name that confused everyone to a dumb name that stood for thoughtful, original tech journalism
It’s sad to know that work was no longer seen as a sound investment for the company, but that’s how the journalism business often goes these days. I'm grateful for the time and resources we were afforded, all the same.
After April 7, I’ll probably take a little time to be a house-husband—while starting to look around for the next employer crazy enough to think critical, careful journalism about tech and society is something worth paying for. My DMs are open.
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Testifying to the House antitrust subcommittee about Big Tech's impact on the free press, Glenn Greenwald warns that laws protecting the media will empower outlets like the New York Times to "impose censorship." He compares the Times' market power to "the Amazon of journalism."
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) says he's a fan of Greenwald's work, reads him on Substack. Asks whether the media is actually a dangerous power center in itself. Greenwald agrees, says we shouldn't glorify today's media as a bulwark of democracy.
(I'm paraphrasing here, to be clear. If anyone has a verbatim transcript, please let me know.)
Truly glad to see some optimism creeping into the TL about an emergence from the worst of the pandemic.
Most working parents with young kids probably won’t be joining in that optimism until there’s a realistic timeline for schools *fully* reopening.
Hybrid reopening is great for gradually bringing back some socialization opportunities and engaging kids in the classroom.
It just doesn’t help a ton for parents who have to juggle homeschool/Zoom days with in-person days & occasional closures/quarantines due to positive tests.
I will say that having the grandparents vaccinated is huge for my little fam, though. Not only can they start living life a bit more, with us worrying about them less, but they might finally get to see our soon-to-be-6yo in person for the first time since he was 4.
Twitter's head of product @kayvz just spent the past hour on Twitter Spaces, talking about the product, the competition, and the future of the medium, with a bunch of tech reporters—setting a pretty different tone from the anti-media sentiment of a lot of the execs on Clubhouse.
The most interesting part to me was @kayvz (who cofounded Periscope) offering his 20/20 hindsight on the obstacles to live video, and why he thinks live audio addresses some of those, and is ultimately a better fit with the rest of Twitter's product.
"For most people it's literally terrifying to be on live video," @kayvz said. "It's one of the early insights we had at Periscope I think we were not fast enough to act on, to lower the barrier" to going live. (I agree, & wrote this about FB Live in 2016: slate.com/business/2016/…)
just joined my first Twitter Spaces and it .... kinda sux?
not, like, the people, the people were fine but the UI was just... not good
here is my highly informed and carefully honed list of Twitter Spaces gripes after joining one (1) Twitter Space
☑️ cannot tell who's talking
☑️ cannot find out if there are people i know in the room
☑️ cannot see people's full names bc the UI cuts them off
A noted A.I. ethicist was abruptly let go from Google last night, after previously threatening privately to resign. My story: onezero.medium.com/noted-a-i-ethi…
"Your life gets worse when you start advocating for underrepresented people." Read the 🔥 internal memo from ousted Google A.I. ethicist @timnitGebru on how the company silenced its own marginalized voices even while giving them awards. onezero.medium.com/read-the-email…
In the Senate hearing just now, @jack says Twitter realized it was wrong to lock the NY Post's account over the Biden story tweet, but couldn't unlock it without the Post deleting the tweet because "we did not have a practice around overturning prior enforcement actions.”
Without implying any defense of the NY Post, the ability to overturn a mistaken enforcement decision seems like.... a practice that Twitter probably should have had prior to October 2020.
What are the chances both FB and Twitter have secret backchannels with U.S. intel sources, and that's why they both arrived at the same conclusion on the NY Post story so quickly and why neither will explain how?