Reading list
Shortform reading
This is an incomplete list of the shortform reading (and listening and watching) I’ve been doing lately.
Watching 'Andor' Is No Substitute for Actual Resistance
I have always found the praise for the show's revolutionary politics to be at odds with the means of its production.
Building an open web that protects us from harm
It's not enough to be neutral. Platform and protocol owners should be allies.
Crypto bros are the most powerful new donor class—Trump's SF fundraiser proved it
So what gives? Why the hell would the famously liberal denizens of Silicon Valley and the idealistic dreamers behind Bitcoin and AI possibly be in the tank for such a nakedly fascistic candidate?
… is a question you would only ask if you’ve been asleep for the past 15 years.
Contempt (Podcast)
Judge Juan Merchan has found Trump in contempt of court, finding that nine out of 10 social media posts prosecutors objected to were in violation of his gag order. Merchan fined Trump $9,000 — $1,000 per violation, the maximum authorized by New York law. He also noted those fines might not be large enough to influence Trump's behavior, and he threatened to jail him if he violates the order again.
For years, internet advocates have warned against restrictive policies by governments like those in China and Russia aimed at limiting access to specific content online. They said initiatives like the Great Firewall risked ushering in an internet that was increasingly balkanized into different spheres where users will have very different experiences of the web based on where they are. The “splinternet,” as some call it, was to be avoided at all costs, but maybe it’s time to reconsider that stance; maybe it’s time to embrace it.
#censorship · #politics · #web
DON'T LIE TO YOUR LAWYER (Podcast)
Robert Menendez gets indicted again, again; Donald Trump posts a $92 million bond in the E. Jean Carroll case; Michael Avenatti is still in prison
The anti-enshittification movement rightly criticizes the old, good internet because it wasn't inclusive enough. It was a system almost exclusively hospitable to affluent, privileged people – the people who least needed the liberatory power of technology.
Likewise pro-enshittification monopolists – billionaires and their useful idiots – deplore the old, good internet because it gave its users too much power. For them, ad-blocking, alternative clients, mods, reverse-engineering and so on were all bugs, not features. For them, the enshitternet is great because businesses can literally criminalize taking action to protect yourself from their predatory impulses.
Superficially, it seems like the pro- and anti-enshittification forces agree – they both agree that the old, good internet was a mistake. But the difference that matters here is that the pro-enshittification side wants everyone mired in the enshitternet forever, living with what Jay Freeman calls "Felony contempt of business-model." By contrast, the disenshittification side wants a new, good internet that gives every user – not just a handful of techies – the power to decide how the digital systems they work use, and to be able to alter or reconfigure them to suit their own needs.