(If you’ve ever wondered how those “this year’s hottest startups” or “companies to watch in 2022” articles happen, this is how.)
What they mean by “native” is most of these sites have paid content (go look at the homepage for a “Top 8 [whatever]” article, and though there’s usually a tiny label that says it’s sponsored, it still shows up in Google News & looks like a real piece.
The end game of this is what Ozy did, paying to sponsor a section in a legit media outlet, then quoting what they said as if that were an editorial comment on the company, rather than something they paid to place themselves.
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This is the text of the new bipartisan bill aimed at requiring large-scale (1 million+ users, $50M+ revenues) social platforms to provide views of their streams that aren’t sorted by an opaque algorithm. It’s short, and fairly readable. documentcloud.org/documents/2110…
This piece summarizes the sponsors and the intent fairly well. (Note: it uses “algorithm” here in the vernacular sense, not the technical one, but the bill itself is a bit more considered about that.) axios.com/algorithm-bill…
I think @johnthune and his cosponsors mean well with this but it’s ill-considered in its implementation, mostly for being too obviously inspired by Twitter’s optional chronological view of the timeline. They clearly saw that option & thought “let’s require more of that!”
I’m really delighted to join the board of @TheMarkup. I’ve valued the work they do right from the start, and the entire team’s approach in making smart use of data & deep investigations feels like a huge leap forward in how accountability happens. It’s vital, necessary work.
A key recent example for me was the work Alfred Ng & @tenuous did on identifying the trackers used on websites for various non-profits. It’s a privacy, ethics & even safety issue to have such data shared behind the scenes. themarkup.org/blacklight/202…
And this approach, combining smart research, clear narratives, and unique technology, really has impact. For example, look at @EFF proudly showing off how The Markup’s work justified their effort in *not* allowing trackers.
Here’s the pattern: media amplifies the message that undermines regressive efforts, then later quietly corrects the story, but the public narrative is already cemented. Here it is with labor reports, where early, (wildly wrong) estimates are treated as fact.
Here it is with blockchain triumphalism, a recurring pattern of treating false press releases as fact, just long enough for pump & dump profiteers to make their money.
Nine years ago, Instagram images used to show up natively in tweets; this wasn’t a surprise as the two companies shared a lot of DNA in common in terms of people & goals. That, of course, started to split when Facebook bought Instagram…
But the bigger lesson isn’t just about corporate politics with Facebook. In fact, Twitter used to support *many* services for hosting your photos, but over time they all went away in favor of just the built-in Twitter-owned images. (Which did improve in resolution over time.)
I've had one of the new 14" MacBook Pros for a few days (replacing my last machine, which was a similar 2016 MBP) and here are some thoughts that might help you assess whether it's a useful upgrade for you.
The primary thing, of course, is that it's absurdly faster, but not just in the "rendering visual effects" way — the biggest quality of life improvement is that apps pretty much just start instantly. You almost never see a beachball or wait for the UI to respond.
Physically, the machine is *hefty*. I suppose the outside dimensions are nominally the same as before, but it is so squared off and heavy that it most resembles the PowerBook models of the early 2000s. Still manageable, but not a lightweight machine.
For years, many people concerned about both the great potential and significant risks of the rise of AI have been calling for policy makers to get more involved in the conversation. It's really good to see a smart, fluent strategy being formed here in NYC.
The most promising part of NYC's approach to an AI strategy is that they're seeking community feedback, and have a smart framework for thinking about preventing harm while being fully fluent in what the tech can do.
This is another huge win in the move toward smart frameworks for reckoning with AI, focused at the federal level on a Bill of Rights for how people are impacted by AI and related technologies.