December 11, 2017
- Battle for the net: The movement to save the Internet isn’t giving up, and neither should you. With the FCC vote coming up this Thursday, Tuesday is now “Break the Internet” day, with everyone pushing their audience to contact Congress.
- Tech and politics: Politico’s Nancy Scola reports on an unusual tech alliance between libertarian billionaire Charles Koch and “left-leaning Silicon Valley.” Two events—a partnership between Engine and TechFreedom on encryption, and a symposium with the Newseum Institute and the Center for Democracy & Technology, were co-hosted with the Koch Institute, she notes. Of course, Silicon Valley isn’t really left-leaning—the word libertarian is an obviously commonality with Koch. That’s why this emerging alliance comes in for criticism from Catherine Bracy, executive director of TechEquity Collaborative, a group advocating for fairness in the Bay Area economy. “At some point the tech community needs to realize that our work has a moral dimension,” she tells Scola. “Taking money from people who are dedicating their lives to undermining American democratic values, like openness and inclusion, goes against everything the internet is supposed to stand for.”
- Life after Facebookistan: Chamath Palihapitiya, Facebook’s former VP of Growth, says during a recent talk at Stanford (about 20 minutes in), “I feel tremendous guilt. I think we all knew in the back of our minds…that something bad can happen. I think we are creating tools that are ripping apart the social fabric of how society works. That is truly where we are…If you feed the beast, that beast will destroy you. The short-term dopamine fed feedback loops that we have created are destroying how society works….My solution is I just don’t use these tools any more.” He goes on to admit that he has posted maybe two times in the last seven years on his Facebook feed. (h/t Tristan Harris)
- Trump watch: The little Twitler attacked Dave Weigel of the Washington Post for mistakenly tweeting a picture of his Pensacola rally that appeared to show a small crowd. The President said he should be fired. Weigel apologized for his error and then added with an update “on the worst thing that happened to be me this weekend: 48 hours after I checked my luggage with @delta, it has still not arrived.”
- As journalist Daniel Dale points out, “Trump has lied 22 times this year about crowds.”
- Just to refresh your memory, it is not normal for a President to call for a journalist to be fired. Remember?
- If, like me, you are worried that Special Counsel Robert Mueller may soon be fired by President Trump, MoveOn.org and a coalition of groups including Public Citizen, Common Cause, Indivisible, March for Truth, People for the American Way, and Stand Up America have put together TrumpIsNotAbovetheLaw.org, a website clearinghouse for more than 300 emergency rallies to be held across the country in the unfortunate event that that happens. New York City-ers should also follow @nycmueller for real-time updates.
- Former national security officials and tech experts are trying to stop Trump’s voter “fraud” commission from building a giant government database, arguing that it could be a target for hacking, Hamza Shaban reports for The New York Times.
- When public officials block accounts on Facebook and Twitter, that creates an inaccurate image of support for government policies, ProPublica’s Leora Smith and Derek Kravitz report, noting that governors and federal agencies are currently blocking at least 1300 such accounts.
- Reuters reports on how Chinese intelligence services are using fake profiles LinkedIn to probe German officials and politicians.
- This is civic tech: Does “design thinking” rot your brain? That’s the argument of Lee Vinsel, a professor of science, technology and society at Virginia Tech, who says its just a management fad.
- Instead of chasing moonshots around blockchain and AI, “government needs to find the confidence to prioritize technology investments that most people will never see,” Bianca Wylie, the head of Toronto’s Open Data Institute writes on Medium.
- How to not step in the Internet of Shit this holiday season: Mozilla has put together an online shopping guide if you’re thinking of buying a connected device and don’t want to get one that spies on your kids.
- Your moment of zen: Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones interviews his Alexa about its connections to the CIA.