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Who goes Nazi?
Dorothy Thompson, writing for Harper’s:
It’s fun—a macabre sort of fun—this parlor game of “Who Goes Nazi?” And it simplifies things—asking the question in regard to specific personalities.
Kind, good, happy, gentlemanly, secure people never go Nazi. But the frustrated and humiliated intellectual, the rich and scared speculator, the spoiled son, the labor tyrant, the fellow who has achieved success by smelling out the wind of success—they would all go Nazi in a crisis.
Believe me, nice people don’t go Nazi. Their race, color, creed, or social condition is not the criterion. It is something in them.
Those who haven’t anything in them to tell them what they like and what they don’t—whether it is breeding, or happiness, or wisdom, or a code, however old-fashioned or however modern, go Nazi. It’s an amusing game. Try it at the next big party you go to.
A timely piece from 1941.
No-one cares about the cool bands you like
Recommendation engines, play-ola and “platform capitalism” (please stop with this shit) are not the problem/s. It’s that you think the millions of Drake and Beyoncé fans out there would, in an ideal world, rather hear Beabadoobee.
Speaking of complaining about sanitised music: people just plain like the tunes.
And that’s fine. There’s a reason people get vitriolic about the music’s popularity, though. They’re trying to defend their sub-culture.
Alas:
Nothing and no one is holding music lovers back from finding and sharing their beloved songs and fiercely-held contentions with one another. There just aren’t as many of us out here as you hoped.
That’s the problem with great mic drops – they’re often true.
Muzak for tech bros
Liz Pelly for The Baffler:
Everything about Sofar Sounds is a data-driven simulacrum: a performance of what it might be like to be at a house show, intimate in a way that has been optimized for Instagram. Consistent in a way that for some likely fills a similar purpose as, say, Sweetgreen. The ideal Friday night for digital nomads staying in Airbnbs and co-living pods, looking for frictionless, curated experiences.
Sounds like muzak for tech bros.
And yet, it is largely another creation of tech middlemen where music is devalued in order to bolster a brand: participating musicians are paid poorly (generally one hundred dollars per set, while the company can make from $1,000 to $1,600 per show)… The folks who host the shows and help them run smoothly are largely volunteers—Sofar cynically refers to them as “ambassadors.”
Ah.
The kill shot, from musician Gabriel Birnbaum:
I remember we got in trouble for being too loud, which is funny because we are not a loud band at all.
So. Sofar provides a sanitised version of cool and relies on volunteer labour to staff events and chronically underpays the musicians it relies on for anything resembling credibility.
This mightn’t surprise you: Sofar is doing well for itself, venture capital wise.
Stratechery on privacy fundamentalism
It is disappointing, though, that the maker of one of the most important and the most unavoidable browser technologies in the world (WebKit is the only option on iOS) has decided that an absolutist approach that will ultimately improve the competitive position of massive first party advertisers like Google and Facebook, even as it harms smaller sites that rely on 3rd-party providers for not just ads but all aspects of their business, is what is best for everyone.
In a world full of binary takes on privacy – which, to be, I’ve been guilty of – Thompson has provided a thoughtful counterpoint.
It feels counterintuitive that any more to improve people’s privacy online would help the likes of Facebook and Google. After all, they’re chief among the organisations people want to escape.
But it is a feeling and not more than that, a feeling based on what’re ultimately surface-level understandings of how the internet and all its myriad forces operate.
Privacy is just one element of the web’s power dynamics. A sizeable one, sure. But if we really want to limit the influence places like Google and Facebook have over our life, we have to be careful about how we start picking their powers apart.
The Cook Doctrine comes for your iPhone battery
Craig Lloyd for iFixit:
Apple is locking batteries to their iPhones at the factory, so whenever you replace the battery yourself—even if you’re using a genuine Apple battery from another iPhone—it will still give you the “Service” message. The only way around this is—you guessed it—paying Apple money to replace your iPhone battery for you.
Apple have been lauded for the Cook Doctrine: “We believe that we need to own and control the primary technologies behind the products that we make.” It’s part of how they make high quality tech.
The desire to control what batteries go into your iPhone (and who gets to put them there) is a natural extension of that. It’s even rational, in a way.
But “rational” doesn’t always mean “good”.
This change is an overreach. Your phone is your phone once you’ve bought it. Even if a third-party battery installed by a bad vendor can damage your phone, that’s your mistake to make.
I do wonder, however, if this change was driven by philosophy or by perceived consumer need. How many complaints at Apple Stores are driven by mediocre repairs from random stores? Is there a number that would make this move seem okay?
Probably not. It’s not a good look. But it’s not a surprising one either.
Your wearable might be prejudiced
Ruth Hailu for Stat News:
Fitbits, Samsung watches, and several other brands rely on only green lights. These lights are simpler and cheaper to use than infrared lights.
In short: Skin with more melanin blocks green light, making it harder to get an accurate reading. The darker your skin is, the harder it gets.
Researchers, health insurance providers, employers and more all use these trackers for a variety of purposes – some trivial, many not. This is a perfect example of all the bias that sneak into things like health and tech. That’s not to say it’s intentional but they’re there all the same.
As for the Apple Watch:
Apple, meanwhile, explained that while its devices rely on green light for continuous monitoring, the device also takes a reading with an infrared light roughly every five minutes.
Craigslists' founder is committed to helping the newspaper industry
Jessica Dolcount for CNET:
Newmark’s dedication to journalism is another one of his seeming contradictions. He’s credited by some with single-handedly taking down the newspaper classifieds industry and strangling local papers of revenue. In February, he gave $15 million to projects that support journalism ethics at a time of deep political divide over where and how we get our information, and how trustworthy those sources may be. Newmark never uttered the term “fake news,” but he wants to fight it.
Great profile of an interesting guy.
How a trade dispute in Asia could affect Apple
Virginia Harrison for the BBC:
In July, Tokyo imposed export controls targeting South Korea’s key electronics sector.
The export curbs apply to three high-tech materials: fluorinated polyimide, photoresists and hydrogen fluoride.
Japan is the dominant producer of those materials which are vital to make memory chips and display screens.
[DBS economist Ma Tieying] says supply disruptions could hit Apple, Huawei and Sony among others in the production of smartphones, computers and televisions.
Comprehensive – and readable – explanation of how a trade biff between Japan and South Korea that has roots in a conflict dating back to 1910 could affect Apple and other tech giants. Economic integration has a lot going for it but it can’t always paper over historical grievances and pride.
Or maybe trade spats are just in vogue now.
Jeremy Renner has an official app (and a song)
Danny Heifetz, doing the lord’s work for The Ringer:
Whether these accounts belong to devoted fans or app administrators creating an echo chamber of Renner love is unclear. If it is the latter, they have succeeded. If it’s the former, I have joined a cult devoted to the poor man’s Mark Wahlberg. But while people on social media make fun of Renner for his pivot to music, the good people of the Jeremy Renner app will see him as I do: just a guy doing his best.
The app is worth downloading for the icon alone.
Everyone owns your face
Brad Esposito, writing about FaceApp and the hubbub about it being owned by a Russian company, for Pedestrian:
The reality is this: if you’re online in 2019 it’s highly likely that you don’t own the exclusive rights to your own face. That’s scary to think about – and definitely not good – but it is also the result of millions of people endlessly agreeing to a deal with a conglomerate mass of company’s they mistakenly trusted.
As for concerns that FaceApp is a particular worry because it’s Russian, well, it’s not like American companies are representing themselves well:
Yahoo, an American company, was the victim of one of the biggest data breaches in history when billions of user accounts were impacted. Facebook, an American company, went through its own security issues in September, when almost 50 million user accounts were impacted. Recently, Facebook received a $5 billion fine that actually increased Zuckerberg’s net worth by $1 billion. It’s almost like the national origin of these companies has nothing to do with the actual globalised issue.
If nothing else, at least we don’t rely on FaceApp for our day-to-day socialisation and communication. That’s a plus.
How to regulate the internet
Karen Kornbluh and Ellen P. Goodman for Project Syndicate:
The Digital Democracy Agency would limit the vulnerabilities of the digital system without interfering in content decisions – in the same way that radio, television, cable, and telecommunications providers became more publicly accountable as they developed. Self-regulation played an important role, including through journalism’s own transparency norms. But government regulation – such as common-carrier rules for telecommunications companies, political ad disclosures, restrictions on cross-ownership of newspapers and broadcast outlets in the same market, and support for non-commercial broadcasting – was essential to prevent abuse.
While the internet is unprecedented the problems facing it – or at least parts of it – aren’t new. We’ve dealt with them in different forms.
The internet is going to be regulated. Now’s the time to reflect and learn from the past to make sure we do it in a way that preserves, and even improves, the things that make it great.
Microsoft champions progressive values while donating to Republicans
In the dissonance between his words and actions, Mr. Smith resembles another tweeter-in-chief who likes to create an alternate reality on social media.
In that mirror world, Microsoft is a champion of refugees, immigrants, women’s rights, climate science, diversity and inclusion in the workplace, equality for LGBT people, and election security. But the company’s political donations tell a conflicting story.
Most major companies donate to both sides of politics. That’s a given. And for a long time it wasn’t really a problem: companies didn’t pronounce political opinions so most people didn’t care about where they sent their money.
Now outfits like Microsoft (among countless others) have realised that being outwardly progressive is a great branding exercise (especially when you’re chasing younger audiences) but the machinations of donations haven’t caught up to the rhetoric.
And they won’t. They’re too valuable. So they’re just going to hope people don’t pay attention so no-one notices how disingenuous they are.
That is, assuming anyone really cares.
At what point will people decide that a company’s behaviour is so off-base with their personal beliefs that they’ll stop knowingly using their products? (It’s almost impossible to stop using them completely.)
There’s no one answer for that. But it’s something to sit with.
Netflix isn't a storytelling company
Jessica Toonkel, Tom Dotan and Beejoli Shah for The Information:
[Netflix] now routinely ends shows after their second season, even when they’re still popular. Netflix has learned that the first two seasons of a show are key to bringing in subscribers – but the third and later seasons don’t do much to retain or win new subscribers.
Despite any PR work to the contrary, Netflix is a subscription machine – not a storytelling company. The latter is just a means to an end, no matter how attached people get to the shows they produce.
It diminishes the artistry but it won’t stop people from producing great work. Creators will make some amazing shows if they go into them expecting a two-season arc. And there will still be people making eight-season epics. They just mightn’t be available on Netflix.
But there’s still reason to be cynical:
Ending a season after the second season saves money, because showrunners who oversee production tend to negotiate a boost in pay after two years.
Convenient.
Jony Ive and the Apple Watch compromise
Much is being said about Jony Ive leaving Apple, from the Wall Street Journal’s reporting to Tim Cook’s “scathing” rebuke. Odds are we’ll never know much of substance.
Any reporting on relationships is, by nature, interpretive – especially if the people involved aren’t talking. How well can you understand your own relationships let alone those of others?
Thomas Ricker, writing for The Verge, highlighted a tiff that’s believable, however:
Ive disagreed with “some Apple leaders” on how to position the Apple Watch. Ive pushed for the Apple Watch to be sold as a fashion accessory, not as an extension of the iPhone. The product that went on sale was a compromise.
The Apple Watch is one of the most interesting products Apple has released in a while. It felt like the compromise it allegedly was.
Apple figured out the Watch – or people figured it out for them, gravitating to its potential as a fitness tracker. And now it’s freeing itself from the iPhone.
Given the path the Watch has taken, it looks like both sides of the debate (if there was one) were wrong. The Watch, at its best, isn’t an extension of the iPhone – even if it had to start life as one – and it’s not quite a fashion accessory.
That lofty status fell to the AirPods.
Funny how a device that knows what it needs to be – and does it well – can become chic. Especially when their looks didn’t exactly endear themselves to people at first.
9 million people play Candy Crush for 3+ hours a day, but there are no but there's no 'addiction problem'
Alan Dale, a senior executive at King, put on a masterclass in disingenuousness while talking to a British Parliament Commons select committee looking into addictive technology.
[Dale] told MPs he did not believe that there was an addiction problem among Candy Crush Saga players.
That’s the kicker.
Dale told the committee that of the 270 million players, 3.4% (9.2 million) play for three or more hours a day, while 0.16% (432,000) play for six or more.
He went on to say that the average player plays Candy Crush for 38 minutes.
“It is a very, very small number who spend or play at high levels. When we speak with them they say they are happy with what they are doing.”
It’s a misnomer to suggest – or even imply – that people with addictions are unhappy. You can be happy and be addicted to something.
That doesn’t mean the addiction isn’t a problem. You’re just not at the stage where you’re aware it’s a problem yet.
None of that is to say that someone playing Candy Crush for hours on end is addicted to the game. Addiction is complex and difficult to diagnose.
But confidently saying your game doesn’t have an addiction problem while relying on people self-reporting that they’re happy is disingenuous to the point of parody.
Dale said an email used to be sent out to players who spent $250 in a week for the first time but that gamers would respond that they would not play if they could not afford it and felt the communications intrusive…
“We will look at the whole area again but we have done it before and they didn’t like it,” he said.
Good job.
The internet's right to partiality
Jeff Kosseff, in interview with Adi Robertson:
Then we get to these early internet services like CompuServe and Prodigy in the early ‘90s. CompuServe is like the Wild West. It basically says, “We’re not going to moderate anything.” Prodigy says, “We’re going to have moderators, and we’re going to prohibit bad stuff from being online.” They’re both, not surprisingly, sued for defamation based on third-party content.
CompuServe’s lawsuit was dismissed because they didn’t moderate content. Prodigy’s wasn’t. Suddenly, moderating user-submitted work on your website is a bad thing.
That really is what triggered the proposal of Section 230. For Congress, the motivator for Section 230 was that it did not want platforms to be these neutral conduits, whatever that means. It wanted the platforms to moderate content.
And now that freedom to be partial is under threat, no matter how much of a red-herring the desire for “neutrality” turns out to be.
It’s a shame Kosseff and Robertson didn’t touch on algorithms in their interview. That’s where a platform’s claim to be distributor falls down and that’s where they need to rethink what it means to be partial. It’s one thing to have the right to remove content with impunity. It’s another to have the right to elevate and promote content.
It’ll be interesting to see how the likes of Facebook and Twitter respond to being challenged here. They don’t seem well equipped to manage a culture war.