This is going to be a long-ish note, primarily because I'm going to be quoting at length from Jay Springett's excellent INTERNET OPERATOR zine. As you can see from the gif above, I've given it the highlighter treatment, pulling out things which resonate with me.
…I think the root of the problem is the globalization of all problems.
Now, it feels like anything bad that happens anywhere in the world is somehow relevant to me and my responsibility. It’s like, I’m not allowed to be happy as long as someone, somewhere, is having a bad time.
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Sometimes you read things that explain eloquently something you've felt but not been able to articulate. For example, this from Sam Kahn:
There was a point when the middle class... was more culturally aspirational. The heyday of this probably was Mortimer Adler’s great books program and the ubiquity of Encyclopedias Britannica and Great Books boxsets in middle class homes. It’s still discernible in, say, old Woody Allen movies where a major part of Allen’s neuroses is that he’s not measuring up to what he takes to be a European cosmopolitan ideal.
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I'm not sure whether it's the old one gets, or just the older I personally get, but essentially nothing is urgent. As I'm fond of quoting the artist Finley Quaye as saying, "good things happen slowly, bad things happen fast."
…I'd like to think that something will come of this initial finding against Meta for being in breach of the Digital Services Act.
I'm hopeful, if only because WhatsApp isn't included in this. It's very difficult for legislatures in this day and age to meaningfully find against social infrastructure (which is what WhatsApp has become in Europe) but it's much easier to regulate social media.
…The way in which Bo Burnham (who I’ve already declared a genius) speaks in this clip is not only intense and refreshing, but insightful.
In a discussion regarding the film, "Eighth Grade"" written and directed by Bo Burnham, Bo discusses phones, technology, the internet, social media, and their effects on kids and society. Corporations are trying to colonize our mind, capitalizing on every free second you have. Self-Esteem in the Age of Social Media.
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I received an email from Flickr this morning notifying me that someone had favourites one of my images. It was a photo of an adult member of my family, but I was still a bit shocked.
Which is weird, because had that happened 10, 15, or 20 years ago I wouldn't have batted an eyelid. It's been quite a while since I marked all of the photos of my kids as private on Flickr, but I spent time this morning ensuring that photos including other family members are now private.
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