Where the Internet is, so is the glorious dream

Today's subject line comes courtesy the Chinese government, which penned a *literal anthem* to Internet censorship and sang it at a high-profile talent show on Tuesday. The best part about this -- besides the hilariously bombastic lyrics, and the fact that Chinese government employees participate in talent shows -- is that videos of the performance were deleted off the Chinese web almost as soon as they went up. So get this: China is Internet-censoring its own odes to Internet censorship. Idk guys. What a world.

1. Vkontakte's Pavel Durov is like ... straight out of Dostoevsky. Russia's "Mark Zuckerberg" tangled with the Kremlin, got raided by the modern equivalent of the KGB, and fled to Buffalo to go into hiding. (Fun tangential fact: I spent a week last year trying to track Durov down in my hometown, and take enormous satisfaction in the fact that he was there. Eating chicken wings. Visiting the Falls! Even though I didn't, ya know, actually find him after all.)

2. There's an art to Twitter art. There are bots, there are emoji, there's ASCII -- whatever it is, they're elevating Twitter to "a gallery, an experiment," or something higher.

3. Uber, but for jokes. How some insidery tech talk became an inescapable meme.

Do the owl y'all

Pocketable: How one stupid tweet ruined Justine Sacco's life. [Hint: It was prettyyy stupid.] (4657 words/19 minutes)

Postscripts: Ladypug. Sheep cafe. Bao Bao's tumbles. Beckyonce. The 50 Shades text generator and how to write a love letter. 5 apps to chill you out. 8 websites you probably forgot about. Can free speech survive the Web? Can Spotify make you ~feel sexy~? (Yep!)

Until tomorrow!
@caitlindewey

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