Columbia Journalism Review: Ten tips for reporting in an autocracy – these lessons illustrate how to hold power to account—and survive.
Links
There are 374 posts filed in Links (this is page 1 of 38).
These posts by Joyce Vance (don’t jump to conclusions) and Manton Reece (saying that Trump is a threat to democracy is not a call for violence) sum up my opinion of the events at the Trump rally in Pennsylvania on July 13th. Manton’s comment on Joe Biden’s speech this evening is also aligned with what I think (good speech).
Ohio Capital Journal: Advocates concerned with Ohio’s mass voter purge set to remove 500 people experiencing homelessness (via Election Law Blog)
Politico: ‘It was horrifying’: Chutkan warns against complacency about Jan. 6 – The judge in Trump’s federal election subversion case used a Friday sentencing in a relatively routine Jan. 6 case to issue the warning. (via Election Law Blog)
On the topic of link blogs
There has been some discussion somewhere this month on the Web (although I cannot find it) of a new list or lists of link blogs. Brad Enslen noted earlier this month that he sees an increase of link blogs in his browsing. The discussion of linkblogging has been going on for a long time (see this Manton Reece post form 2016 as an example). I have a Links category on my website (with its own feed), so someone could follow just the links part of my website. It is a simple thing to do in WordPress, as well as most other weblog tools. I also have another blogging tool (MyStatusTool) which is well suited to use as a link blog and has its own feed. Of course, there are many ways to publish a link blog, but why not get started with the tools you have at hand? As I mentioned recently, we have great tools available – let’s create some great things! Start blogging those links!
How many people does it take to change the world? This BBC article summarizes research by Erica Chenowith, finding that non-violent protests engaging 3.5% of a population have never failed to bring about change. For the US, this would be 11,721,000 per this Wikipedia article. Let’s get started!
Simon Willison: AI for Data Journalism – an annotated version of a recent talk where Simon gave twelve (!) demos of using AI tools to process data – jam packed!
Tracy Durnell: Effective Creative Processes – Links to books, blogs, and other resources, with a lot of emphasis on writing resources
Terrance Eden: ActivityPub Server in a single PHP file (via Simon Willison)
The topic of text boxes
Recently, in another post on the subject of textcasting, Dave Winer made a comment about text boxes:
Every time you see a tiny little textbox that’s a sure clue they’re trying to own you, and hoping you don’t notice.
http://scripting.com/2024/02/01.html#a154043
I think this is a reach. In my opinion, the simplest reason to use a text box for text entry is that users are used to it and it is easy to implement (using Occam’s Razor here). Another explanation is that it is use of prior art, as Dave Winer has written about before (see here, here, and here). No sinister plan to “own” anyone here. Could text editors be better/have more features? Sure they could! Could writing apps cooperate with each other and have APIs? Sure they could! Should people be demanding these things? Sure…maybe….or maybe they could make those things happen…or maybe they could submit a feature request….
If the software is open source (Mastodon et al), someone could make their own changes. If the software is a service provided by a company that does not charge for the service (hmmm…Twitter, Facebook, Threads, Bluesky come to mind), it seems more difficult for users to request features and drive changes. If a group of users REALLLY wanted something and no other app seemed interested, maybe they could create their own product (thinking Kickstarter here). To me, it comes down to this: how bad do you want this?
Finally, another take on this sentence comes from Ken Smith:
Based on Ken’s comment, I take this as “any antisocial behavior” in the blank – racism, anti-Semitism, discrimination, manipulation…the list can go on and on as Ken points out. This Quora thread has some good points about someone trying to “own” someone.