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Chatting about why we're building Relevant on Tank Magazine...
"Right now we have an overabundance of populist metrics online and not enough hierarchical structures that can help us navigate the digital world. That’s the void that Relevant is trying to fill." ...Read More
9
With all the current concerns about Faceapp this article suggests its not the scandal everyone thinks. It's good to see a wider discussion on privacy though.
47
“We might now be able to imagine the death of capitalism, yet one problem of capitalist realism remains: our inability to imagine what comes next.”
Great piece by @sarahljaffe on Mark Fisher! ...Read More
108
Four of the seven Google employees who organized a 20,000-person walkout in November have resigned from the company, including two women who claimed Google retaliated against them for their internal activism.
Whittaker claimed Google had retaliated against her for her role in the walkout and her advocacy work on AI ethics through AI Now, a research institute she co-founded that has received funding from Google. She had already been told her AI ethics work was no longer a fit for Google’s ...Read More
11
On 'platform' parties (Farage, etc.):
"Like tech startups, they're aimed at rapid growth, w/ email sign-ups and PayPal donations replacing formal membership. And, in accordance w/ the creed of Silicon Valley, their purpose is to disrupt."
62
“Every pretty girl in New York in those days, Ghislaine would invite to Jeffrey’s.”
6
What could possibly go wrong? Unless it doesn’t work.
Scientists propose dumping 7,400 gigatons of 'artificial snow' on Antarctica ...Read More
Rob Horning on authenticity.
What came to my mind is all the authentic things that are not desirable and commodifiable, like poverty, grief etc.
4
Phalanges and metacarpals: These are bones of the fingers and hands that Trump has used to tweet tirades against black and brown people and to retweet Nazi sympathizers, including, twice, an account called @WhiteGenocideTM with a photo of the founder of the American Nazi Party.
Mandible and maxilla: These are the jawbones that Trump has used to denounce Mexican immigrants as “criminals, drug dealers, rapists,” not to mention to refuse to criticize the Ku Klux Klan. ...Read More
64
Gab.com (an alt-right social network) has migrated to Mastodon and is now the biggest server if you go by number of registered accounts (not a very reliable metric). The creator of Mastodon and many of the existing servers are ideologically opposed to gab so its interesting to see them respond
In a decentralized setting isolating a malevolent community seems to be the main option. In many ways its better than a ban from a centralized company. A ban from twitter can be harnessed as a marketing campaign and paint the banned group as a rebellious underdog defending free speech. At ...Read More
63
"He was standing up against the hasty roll out of facial recognition technology."
15
“We do family meetings every Sunday where we review goals for the week, our to-do list, and activities coming up”
43
Megapixels covered in NYT - but also check out this incredibly blasé business model: "Clarifai used the images from OkCupid to build a service that could identify the age, sex and race of detected faces, Mr. Zeiler said.
He said Clarifai had access to OkCupid’s photos because some of the dating site’s founders invested in his company. ...Read More
35
"Is it culture or economics? That question frames much of the debate about contemporary populism.
Are Donald Trump’s presidency, Brexit and the rise of right-wing nativist political parties in continental Europe the consequence of a deepening rift in values between social conservatives and social liberals, with the former having thrown their support behind xenophobic, ethno-nationalist, authoritarian politicians? ...Read More
56
“In addition to the fine, Facebook agreed to more comprehensive oversight of how it handles user data, according to the people. But none of the conditions in the settlement will restrict Facebook’s ability to collect and share data with third parties.”