social media | Chris Aldrich

Read Hypothes.is Social (and Private) Annotation by

Dan Allosso (danallosso.substack.com)

How I use Hypothesis myself and with my students

Private groups are also my solution to the potential “saturation” problem that many people have asked me about. I DO think that there’s a potential disincentive to students who I’ve asked to annotate a document, if they open it and find hundreds of comments already there. I already face a situation when I post questions for discussion that people answer in a visible way, where some students say their peers have already made the point they were going to make. It’s easier to address this objection, I think, when EVERY LINE of a document isn’t already yellow! ❧

I’ve run into this issue myself in a few public instances. I look at my annotations as my own “conversation” with a document. Given this, I usually flip the switch to hide all the annotations on the page and annotate for myself. Afterwards I’ll then turn the annotation view back on and see and potentially interact with others if I choose.
Annotated on February 23, 2021 at 10:28PM

Small world of annotation enthusiasts, but hopefully getting bigger! ❧

I’ve always wished that Hypothes.is had some additional social features built in for discovering and following others, but they do have just enough for those who are diligent.

I’ve written a bit about [how to follow folks and tags using a feed reader](https://boffosocko.com/2019/11/07/following-people-on-hypothesis/).

And if you want some quick links or even an OPML feed of people and material I’m following on Hypothesis: [https://boffosocko.com/about/following/#Hypothesis%20Feeds](https://boffosocko.com/about/following/#Hypothesis%20Feeds)
Annotated on February 23, 2021 at 11:33PM

👋

Annotated on February 23, 2021 at 11:35PM

Read How and why to tell your story online, revisited (Jon Udell)

I wrote this essay in 2006 as part of a series of Internet explainers I did for New Hampshire Public Radio. It never aired for reasons lost to history, so I’m publishing this 15-year-old time…

Thomas Mahon is a Savile Row tailor. His shop in London caters to people who can spend two thousand pounds on a classic handmade suit. I’ll never be in the market for one of those, but if I were I’d be fascinated by Mahon’s blog, EnglishCut.com, which tells you everything you might want to know about Savile Row past and present, about how Mahan practices the craft of bespoke tailoring, and about how to buy and care for the garments he makes. ❧

I went down a rabbit hole just the other day on this topic. Bookmarking this for for some future journeys.
Annotated on February 06, 2021 at 12:38AM

We’ve always used the term ‘social networking’ to refer to the process of finding and connecting with those people. And that process has always depended on a fabric of trust woven most easily in the context of local communities and face-to-face interaction. ❧

Too much of modern social networking suffers from this fabric of trust and rampant context collapse. How can we improve on these looking forward?
Annotated on February 06, 2021 at 12:40AM

Listened to You Missed a Spot from On the Media | WNYC Studios

Revealing Zello's role in last week's riot, making a case for deplatforming, and exploring the idea of responsible social media. 

Evidence shows that insurrectionists used the walkie-talkie app Zello to help organize the riot at the capitol. On this week’s On the Media, a look at how the platform has resisted oversight, despite warnings that it was enabling right-wing extremism. Plus, how to sniff out the real corporate boycotts from the PR facades. And, how to build social media that doesn't exploit users for profit.

1. OTM reporter Micah Loewinger [@MicahLoewinger] on Zello's role in last week's insurrection, and what the app is finally doing about its militia members. Listen.

2. Casey Newton [@CaseyNewton], writer for Platformer, on why this wave of social media scrubbing might not be such a bad thing. Listen.

3. Siva Vaidhyanathan [@sivavaid], professor of media studies at the University of Virginia, and Americus Reed II [@amreed2], professor of marketing at the Wharton School of Business, on the true costs of corporate boycotts. Listen.

4. Eli Pariser [@elipariser], co-director of Civic Signals, on how to build digital spaces that do not monetize our social activity or spy on us for profit. Listen.

Music from the show:
Fallen Leaves — Marcos Ciscar
The Hammer of Loss — John Zorn — A Vision in Blakelight
Hard Times — Nashville Sessions — Songs of the Civil War
What’s that Sound? — Michael Andrews
In the Bath — Randy Newman
Boy Moves the Sun — Michael Andrews
Ain’t Misbehavin’ — Hank Jones

Read Parler Hack - 70TB users’ data leaked by security researchers (CyberNews)

Parler has been hacked - hit by a massive data scrape. Security researchers collected swaths of user data and leaked it online.

Read Thread by

@pfrazee (threadreaderapp.com)

Yo, decentralizers. If our projects are ONLY about censorship resistance and NOT about better algorithms for elevating truth, and NOT about creating constrained but real powers of moderation, then we're making things worse. 1/n

It kills me, absolutely kills me, that after years of decentralization advocacy it's a moment like this when all the dweb projects pop up on HN and social media. The interest popped -- not when truth became inconvenient for corporate power, but when lies did.

Charitably, people may be reflecting on the kind of power imbalance being revealed and reflecting on how it could be abused.

https://twitter.com/pwang/status/1348335710303096833

Uncharitably? Do I need to even say it.

For anybody still unsure:

We have to find a way to square our ideals and our fears about monopoly control with the realities of how our technology is working. It's not enough to defend an ideal. We need to be effective.

We've all done our spiderman homework. What comes with great power?

If we really believe that free speech is important -- as I do -- and we want to protect it, then we need to work hard to make sure that free speech provides value to people. Otherwise they're going to shrug and let it drift away, "a nice idea, but impractical, really"

The question isn't "how do we make moderation impossible?" The question is, how do we make moderation trustworthy.

That, it turns out, is much harder than p2p tweets

It's also about *checking* power, not just distributing it. Like code-forking: FOSS doesn't always mean "anybody can contribute," but it definitely means that the users can fork if the core devs abuse their position. How can we get that kind of check on power here?

It's nuanced. It's harder to sell than "censorship resistance." Maybe we need a new framework for discussing this, a new set of words. I don't know what to tell you, but the reward is equal to the challenge. n/n

Read Permanent suspension of @realDonaldTrump (blog.twitter.com)

After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them — specifically how they are being received and interpreted on and off Twitter — we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence.

Too little, too late, but nonetheless.

Where is the digital pale?