Notices by Dan Gillmor (dangillmor@mastodon.social), page 5

So now the deadbird site, formerly known as Twitter, is inviting developers to come back and "build what's next" with the much abused API.

Twitter (and Reddit)'s greed-infused API restrictions wrecked a project we (ASU News Co/Lab) were doing to help journalists send corrections down the same social media pathways as the original journalism.

The idea that we'd ever work with them again is a sick joke.

Yes, it is disgusting that Musk and company have removed 2011-2014 photos (and videos?) from the deadbird site.

But it's also yet another reminder to everyone: DO NOT completely entrust what you create to highly centralized, privately controlled (sometimes by evil people) cloud-based services.

At the very least, have backups -- local and off-site -- from which you re-post what you've created.

I hope that Mastodon folks who like to scold newcomers will realize how off-putting -- and damaging -- that behavior is.

Please be helpful, not scornful. Let's reduce the genuine risk of poisoning fediverse growth, and thereby giving social-media oligarchs indefinite control over online discourse.

Read this essential post from @kissane to understand more. https://erinkissane.com/mastodon-is-easy-and-fun-except-when-it-isnt

One of Big Journalism's saddest traits is choosing to be helpless in the face of challenges with ready solutions. Two examples:

1) Political coverage still obsesses on falsely balanced issues and horse races, and continues to normalize extremism, even when our democracy is at stake.

2) Journalists stay on Twitter, or X or whatever, even though the person controlling it uses the site to amplify extremists, including enemies of democracy (and journalism).

The (few) exceptions prove the rule.

@nickmartin It should be a turning point for a lot of journalists, but they believe themselves to be hooked.

After Reddit's beyond-arrogant CEO dismissed the subreddit blackout as just posturing, moderators of discussions extended the blackout. This is the only sensible response to the company's contempt.

https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/13/23759674/reddit-mods-blackout-protest-extended-indefinitely

Please stay the course.

For my part, I'm canceling my Reddit account and looking at decentralized alternatives.

When this is over, we're going to owe Musk a debt of gratitude for demonstrating not just the folly of relying on sociopath billionaires to give us places to speak and collaborate.

He's demonstrated the danger inherent in all centralized services where one person or company can control what we say and do.

When journalists choose to be weak in the face of attacks on what they do, they encourage more attacks. The editor of the New York Times chooses a bended knee for his organization's non-response to Musk's provocations.

He embarrasses himself and his craft -- and leaves both weaker for the battles ahead.

https://www.axios.com/2023/04/15/nyt-editor-says-paper-wont-lead-the-boycott-of-twitter

#journalism #nytimes

A BS study touted widely by anti-vaxxers is about to be retracted. This should make your blood boil -- and lead to deep soul-searching at all scientific journals.

https://archive.is/hEwOj

The damage this stuff causes to public perceptions of science, and to public health, is incalculable.

Big Publishing's lawsuit against the Internet Archive is the industry's foot in the door essentially overturning what libraries do: buy books and lend them out. Please learn what's happening -- and understand the stakes. https://www.battleforlibraries.com/

Again, @molly0xfff nails it:

"Faced with the choice between the more communal, cooperative choice and the self-serving, every-man-for-himself choice destined to end in a bank run, it should be no surprise which option [the venture capitalists] picked. As the Titanic sank, they were the ones pushing people out of the lifeboats."

https://newsletter.mollywhite.net/p/the-venture-capitalists-dilemma

The more we're learning about Silicon Valley Bank, its management, and the industry that made it a linchpin of the startup ecosystem, the worse it sounds. This is an epic combination of arrogance, big money, incompetence, and backstabbing. And that assumes no major corruption...

For many years, I've been calling the BBC the world's best English-language news broadcaster.

In light of its refusal to air a program because it fears the right wing's response, I can't say that anymore.

Tragic to see an icon of journalistic brilliance destroy its own credibility...

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/mar/10/david-attenborough-bbc-wild-isles-episode-rightwing-backlash-fears?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

The arrogance embedded in the Sam Altman blog post about generative AI is almost beyond belief, but you have to understand that he is a canonical example of Silicon Valley's recent culture. https://openai.com/blog/planning-for-agi-and-beyond/

A reminder that the New York Times coverage of Section 230 has been dishonest for a long time.

The "paper of record" relentlessly frames this a Congressional favor for tech giants. In fact, the law protects freedom of expression -- yours and mine -- on the sites where we share, and the ones we own. It also protects our right to edit.

This is about money, and control. Traditional media have less of both due to the Internet. They want it back.

Social media giants have a new pitch:

"Nice identity you got there -- be a shame if something happened to it."

Tesla is, for me, a toxic brand. I would rather take taxis than own one. The company's CEO is why. Here's an example of how he behaves outside of the hellhole he's making of Twitter: https://techcrunch.com/2023/02/16/tesla-fires-dozens-of-workers-one-day-after-launching-union-campaign/

Big Tech -- with help from others in corporate America -- wrecked NY state's right-to-repair law. The way they did it, how politicians bent over, and what this means for your rights should make your blood boil: https://themarkup.org/news/2023/02/08/how-big-tech-rewrote-the-nations-first-cellphone-repair-law

The Twitter API lockout of third-party apps is only the latest reminder of centralization's most important rule: The platform owner has the right to capriciously wreck the businesses of people who accepted the platform's invitation to run a business on the platform.

Reminder that journalists who would never consider working for the Murdoch family's Fox "News" -- because they have too much integrity to participate in its relentless poisoning of our civic life -- continue to pour their work into Elon Musk's Twitter.