Reads

Reading list of books, magazines, newspaper articles, other physical documents, or online posts

👓 Why we’re changing Flickr free accounts | Flickr

Read Why we’re changing Flickr free accounts (Flickr Blog)
Today, we’re announcing updates to our Free and Pro accounts that mark a new step forward for Flickr. To be candid, we’re driving toward the future of Flickr with one eye on the rearview mirror; we…
Nice to see that they’ve looked at the data to come up with what will hopefully be a reasonable dividing line.

Having a worthwhile community there would be the only thing to make me want to syndicate my photos to it, particularly with backfeed coming from Brid.gy. I haven’t gotten much, if any, interaction from Flickr in quite a long time.

I suspect that having a curated community there will actually dovetail with helping out the IndieWeb in the long run. What they’d like to have sounds a lot more like what micro.blog has become for me in the past year. It also sounds a lot more like how SoundCloud works to some extent.

👓 Some OwnYourSwarm Updates | Aaron Parecki

Read Some OwnYourSwarm Updates by Aaron PareckiAaron Parecki (Aaron Parecki)

Today I launched some updates to OwnYourSwarm, the service that sends your Swarm checkins to your own website. It does this by watching your Swarm account and sending checkins to your site via Micropub.

 

Private Posts
I made two changes to how OwnYourSwarm can handle private posts. Private posts ar...

 
This is awesome Aaron! Thanks for continuing to push the boundaries.

👓 Weekend Reading – Rediscovering Blogging Edition | ProfHacker – The Chronicle of Higher Education

Read Weekend Reading – Rediscovering Blogging Edition by Lee Skallerup Bessette (ProfHacker - The Chronicle of Higher Education)
Blogs are back! At least, they seem to be making a resurgence as we try to disentangle ourselves from the predatory social media platforms that took all the words many of us used to write on blogs. I’ll admit, I started my own tinyletter in part because I wanted to find an audience again that was a little more personal that what gets lost in the algorithmic facebook feed and the firehose that is Twitter. My blog (which is my domain) is kind of an experiment in long-form writing now. I’m working at another Domains school, so we are thinking about how students are using their domains, owning their own data, and writing publicly.

👓 Texas Voting Machines Have Been ‘a Known Problem’ for a Decade | Motherboard

Read Texas Voting Machines Have Been ‘a Known Problem’ for a Decade (Motherboard)
The voting machines and their software—not voters—are to blame for votes switching from Beto O'Rourke to Ted Cruz (and vice versa), an expert told Motherboard.

👓 Gab, Site Where Synagogue Shooting Suspect Posted, Is Suspended | NPR

Read Gab, Site Where Synagogue Shooting Suspect Posted, Is Suspended (NPR)
The alternative social media network that was reportedly used by the suspect in the deadly shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue is now down. Gab.com is a social network that touts itself as an alternative to Twitter and Facebook to give conservatives a platform for free speech. But it also has been criticized for providing a platform for anti-Semitism and white nationalism. The site has come in for increased scrutiny since the shooting.

👓 Twitter to remove ‘like’ tool in a bid to improve the quality of debate | Telegraph

Read Twitter to remove 'like' tool in a bid to improve the quality of debate (The Telegraph)
Twitter is planning to remove the ability to "like" tweets in a radical move that aims to improve the quality of debate on the social network.

👓 Bringing blogging to the fediverse | Matt Baer

Read Bringing blogging to the fediverse by Matt BaerMatt Baer (Matt)
After much trial and error, I've finished basic #ActivityPub support on Write.as! (Though it's not live yet. Create a federated blog here, or enable federation by going to your blog's settings > Enable federation.) I'm very, very excited about reaching this point so I can try out some new ideas. So ...

👓 who is this? | Matt Baer

Read who is this? by Matt BaerMatt Baer (Matt)

I'm Matt Baer, and I built Write.as.

why?

In late 2014 I was getting more concerned for my privacy both online and on my smartphone. I felt stifled, because I knew social media sites were analyzing my status updates and search engines were cataloging my searches. So I wanted to create an antidote for that feeling, and came up with Write.as.

When I left school and entered the working world several years ago, I started to care less about becoming a millionaire and think more about problems in our world — especially when it comes to technology. I see companies like Facebook exploit our basic desire to communicate, and think there should be better options. I see Apple and Google encourage everyone to fondle glass slabs and think maybe we're losing something, even as we've gained “connectivity.”

👓 Fark Banned Misogyny to Facilitate Free Speech | Motherboard

Read Fark Banned Misogyny to Facilitate Free Speech (Motherboard)
"Now that we've done it I feel like a complete ass for waiting so long. So will everyone else who makes the same call."

👓 ‘By whatever means necessary’: The origins of the ‘no platform’ policy | Hatful of History

Read ‘By whatever means necessary’: The origins of the ‘no platform’ policy by Dr Evan Smith (Hatful of History)
Recently the concept of ‘no platform’ was in the news again when there were attempts to cancel a talk by Germaine Greer at Cardiff University. While there is no doubt that the use of ‘no platform’ has expanded since its first use in the 1970s, the term is bandied about in the media with little definition and understanding of how it was developed as a specific response to the fascism of the National Front (and later the British National Party). This post looks back at the origins of the term and how it was developed into a practical anti-fascist strategy.
hat tip: Kevin Marks

👓 Study finds Reddit’s controversial ban of its most toxic subreddits actually worked | TechCrunch

Read Study finds Reddit’s controversial ban of its most toxic subreddits actually worked (TechCrunch)
It seems like just the other day that Reddit finally banned a handful of its most hateful and deplorable subreddits, including r/coontown and r/fatpeoplehate. The move was, at the time, derided by some as pointless, akin to shooing criminals away from one neighborhood only to trouble another. But a…

👓 Deplatforming Works | Motherboard

Read Social Media Bans Actually Work (Motherboard)
Alex Jones says getting banned by YouTube and Facebook will only make him stronger. The research says that's not true.

👓 PayPal Bans Far-Right Social Network Gab After Anti-Semitic User Kills at Least 11 at Synagogue | Gizmodo

Read PayPal Bans Far-Right Social Network Gab After Anti-Semitic User Kills at Least 11 at Synagogue (Gizmodo)
On Saturday, a firearm-wielding man massacred at least 11 people attending Shabbat services at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill neighborhood and injured a number of others. The Anti-Defamation League described it as likely the deadliest single attack on the Jewish community in U.S. history. Authorities identified the suspect, who was captured after a gun battle with responding police, as 46-year-old Robert Bowers—a vitriolic anti-Semite who allegedly announced the attack on the social network Gab.