Tinder is the Night
Here is a reality check I think we all kinda need: It is actually really, reaaally hard to moderate online speech. This is not a challenge I'm super-sympathetic to, since it's billion-dollar companies dealing (or not) with it. But I gotta say, my thoughts were ~provoked~ by this lil New York Times comment quiz. Basically, the quiz gives you five real commenter comments, and asks you to rule yea or neigh. Then it tells you what it's actual comment moderators would say. It sounds easy -- obvious, perhaps, to literate humans with some decency? -- but I got a 1/5, and I'd consider myself pretty comment-savvy!
All this goes to show, I think, how wide-ranging our social norms still are on speech. And how important it is that platforms employ mods who apply their standards consistently. Alternately, they could just kick it to volunteer randos and see how they do! (Jk, lol, best of luck with that, YouTube.)
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1. If religion isn't the "opiate of the masses," then technology surely is. Our minds have been so thoroughly colonized by Silicon Valley that we can't survive in offline silences. You've probably already heard about Andrew Sullivan's epic #longread on faith, human nature and distracted living, but seriously, give it a read -- can't remember the last piece I read that I identified with so viscerally.
2. Mr. Robot IRL would probs look something like "Opsec." That's the pseudonym given to a mysterious, white-hat hacker who leads one writer on a tour of the so-called "Dark Net." This is the web of roaming botnets, of Chinese hackers, of spies and whistle-blowers and dissidents. (It IS, in other words, pretty damn cool -- even if you don't quite "get it.")
3. Wanna write a bestseller? It's really simple. Just use lots of contractions, have a dog somewhere, and lead with a strong female narrator. Two researchers at Stanford have built an algorithm that can predict (and mold!) best-sellers. Such efforts are awesome for the publishing industry -- but potentially ruinous for literature.
4. There is literally one person I still call "to chat," and that is my mother. (Even my grandma hangs up after five minutes or so, for one reason or another.) The long phone call is dead -- long-dead, in fact, since 2007 more or less -- and we won't get it back while we're obsessed with snaps and texts.
5. Can anyone truly be called "real" or "fake" these days? I spent a week trying to find @LilMiquela ... and all I got was this meandering essay on identity and authenticity in the digital age.
>> The sites I use to compile these links into an ebook keep shutting down, so ... if you have a solution, I want to hear about it! In the meantime, you can find all my favorite reads from this edition on Sharedli.st. Just click through to read/share 'em to your own Pocket.
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Postscripts: Barcos. Botsplaining. Tinder is the Night. Oh to live on an Internet with so few websites. Why racism can't be undone by coding and how Instagram was originally made. Mooning is the ghosting, I guess, and FLAM is a new word with which to throw shade. The very old algorithm behind Google Trips. The much newer algorithm for the very rich. When "simple" design is actually ... dumb. Speaking of: oh Lord, the Google cow puns.
We interrupt this newsletter for an important PSA: Please do NOT drive and play Pokemon Go. And parents, don't give your six-year-olds app-enabled smartphones. Pitbull is an Internet inspiration and the The Deep Web is mostly crap. How a joke in a private moms' Facebook group got some women harassed. This is when cell phones became cool. (That could be periods in five years!) This is how mayoral candidates once tried out on Sims, which is pretty weird. What we can learn about America from San Francisco. Finally, all of Donald Trump's many tweets -- compiled and searchable (!).
Until next week!
@caitlindewey
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