Basicallyyy visions of armageddon
Yesterday I learned that baby puffins are called -- wait for it -- PUFFLINGS. That has nothing to do with the Internet, really, except that I saw it in a tweet. This is a curious genre of tweet, and one I see a lot lately: posts about toddlers, and puppies, and birds, billed as election counter-programming.
This strikes me as sort of weird. I mean, I'm glad I possess this puffling trivia. But a picture of even the cutest bb bird won't dent the angst inspired by debate-night social media. The only thing that'd do that, I suspect, is some Thoreau-like retreat to nature. No memes, no name-calling, no day-after spin ... just the constant reminder that the environment's in danger! 👍
oof shouldn't have touched that
1. In the attention economy, the only real loser is us. We exist on a Web designed to monopolize all our focus. Attention has become a commodity -- a thing that's harvested and sold. And uhhhh what do we get in exchange, really, besides a COGNITIVE SINKHOLE???
2. The scientists who make apps addictive are not sure they've done the right thing. (This is sorta related to link #1 -- I'm on a kick this week!) Said BJ Fogg, the founding father of behavior design: “I look at some of my former students and I wonder if they’re really trying to make the world better, or just make money ... What I always wanted to do was un-enslave people from technology.”
3. How Russia pulled off the biggest election hack in U.S. history. This is enormously helpful context for people bewildered by the ongoing saga of Wikileaks -- did the Russians do it, and why, and how, and what the hell does all this mean? TL;DR: The Russians definitely did it! They are *all* up in our election. And they're deploying a technique called "kompromat" -- "a poisonous cocktail of fact and fabrication."
4. Speaking of fact and fabrication: @Mitchellvii. WHAT A GUY. He's one of the single most powerful people on Trump Internet, and his message is almost ... entirely lies! Per Mitchell, statistics are bunk and Trump is 100% going to win. He's fascinating as a dude, yeah, but also as a metaphor for this election.
5. Surprise, surprise: Huge Facebook "news" pages push lots of crap. A Buzzfeed investigation found that on partisan pages, 20 to 38 percent of posts aren't accurate.
Postscripts: #ModernLove. #WhoIsNeal. #TellAmericaItsGreat. The promise and perils of Twitter bots after the U.S. debates. The foods America tweets about most and the inherent trouble with human memes. Why it seems like the Internet is getting harder to read. How video games are changing soccer; how one campaign hopes to reclaim Pepe. No, it's not just you: U.S. Netflix sucks lately! This is why we still can't vote online. This is what it's like to meet your Nigerian email scammer. Wanna actually get shit done? Stop fronting like you're a great "multitasker."
PSA v. tragedy porn. Tea vendor > "hot felon." These mountains of e-waste are, to me, basicallyyy visions of armageddon. The rise of the funeral livestream and the Facebook launch of Trump TV. Must be weird to write a dystopic tech show, huh, when we live there already! What was life like before smartphones? How does Trump pronounce the word "GIF"? Meet: the man who stood up to Facebook and Reddit's poet laureate. An app that turns your tweets into posters and an app that makes a bot post like you. Last but not least: A three-step plan to solve Twitter abuse.
Until next week!
@caitlindewey
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