Bret Carmichael / is on Nostr

Opinions about technology news, social media platforms, and policy. Interested in the future of tech and its power to shape society.

Last Notes

2024-10-25 23:56:28

#AI is becoming a race to the bottom. Tech companies are spending hundreds of millions to train #LLM’s that are increasingly becoming commodities.
https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/25/24279600/google-next-gemini-ai-model-openai-december

2024-10-25 12:19:23

Meta struck a deal with Reuters to power its #AI at a time when it’s suppressing news from #Facebook and #Threads feeds. It seems Meta does believe there’s value in serving news; on a one to one basis by its AI, rather than many to many by its users. This will allow #Meta to supply news while still keeping the temperature down from content shared vitriolic sources and bad actors. The tradeoff is, like other AI companies paying for news, Meta is choosing who you trust.
https://www.axios.com/2024/10/25/meta-reuters-ai-news-facebook-instagram

2024-10-18 02:05:04

#Twitter / #X found a way to earn more money after #Musk burned its ad business to the ground. It’ll sell user data to train LLMs.
https://techcrunch.com/2024/10/17/elon-musks-x-is-changing-its-privacy-policy-to-allow-third-parties-to-train-ai-on-your-posts/

2024-10-06 11:50:15

“For Twitter to earn the public trust, it must remain politically neutral,” so says the man wearing a MAGA hat. File this one under “tweets that didn’t age well.”
#Musk #Twitter #X
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/260/325/223/367/064/original/1cd04472f19ed757.jpeg

2024-09-30 16:52:45

When the word “equity” follows the word “private” in a sentence, the results tend to be bad for consumers and employees alike. Two struggling businesses do not make a successful one. It’s a recipe to extract the maximum remaining value before satellite goes bust.
“[Private equity will own] the combined assets of two fading satellite video companies that the press release says have lost ‘63 percent of their satellite customers since 2016.’”
#tech #technology #technews
https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/30/24258196/directv-dish-merger-tpg-deal-announcement

2024-09-25 23:04:49

WordPress has confirmed that it terminated WP Engine's access to the plugin repo. Any legal consequences aside, this presents a lot like a malware attack. Instead of installing malware directly, WordPress is blocking WP Engine sites from receiving security updates that might prevent it, including critical severity ones.
https://wordpress.org/news/2024/09/wp-engine-banned/
#WordPress #WPEngine #infosec https://mastodon.social/@bretcarmichael/113200552326161842

2024-09-25 22:29:09

Drama is brewing in #WordPress land. #WPEngine says WordPress.org blocked its access to the plugin repository. WP Engine-hosted trying to access it are unable to do so. If this is indeed intentional, it's going to be a mess.
https://wpenginestatus.com/incidents/640187
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/200/552/073/513/592/original/8361173a75ec0b54.png

2024-09-20 03:24:32

#Musk spent $44B to buy #Twitter / #X, obliterate its advertising business, and use it to troll and alienate #Tesla’s core buyer audience. Epic self-own. Tesla investors must be thrilled.
"Democrats are twice as likely as Republicans to purchase an #EV.“
https://apple.news/A4bgoaxqrRYOB9_38dhrDaA

2024-09-19 11:47:03

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In the near-term, the EU’s regulatory flex is a roadmap for a feature starved version of iOS in the EU. If Apple has to fork iOS anyway, the safe bet is to withhold features from EU users; reducing regulatory risk, containing security exposure, and limiting development investment in the iOS fork.
#EU #iOS #Apple

2024-09-16 16:57:22

These #TikTok “ban” headlines continue to be misleading. The US Government did not ban TikTik. It mandated that #ByteDance sell it for reason for being under control of the Chinese Government. The Chinese Government validated US concerns by declaring TikTik’s algorithm a national security asset. ByteDance can sell TikTok as Grindr was previously sold.
https://www.axios.com/2024/09/16/tiktok-us-ban-trial

2024-09-08 22:47:50

Given the tradeoffs, it’s fair to argue that Brazil was right or wrong to ban #Twitter. It’s just bad framing to say “#Musk fights for free speech in Brazil.” Musk has both banned journalists from #X and taken town thousands of posts for India. Fighting for speech you agree with and eliminating other speech at a whim or on request, is not fighting for free speech. I suspect the author knows this. It’s been covered previously extensively.
https://apple.news/AVYJIhTO3SuiSjkXx5bkgCg

2024-07-28 12:10:47

#Musk shared a manipulated video that mimics VP #Harris’s voice without disclosing that was manipulated and in violation of #Twitter / #X’s terms of service. It’s a clear tell on how the world’s richest man intends to use his social media platform to help the #Trump campaign. Musk use of Twitter’s platform power is the reason that the US banned TikTok; the fear China would do the same.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/27/us/politics/elon-musk-kamala-harris-deepfake.html

2024-07-17 12:29:05

As the internet is filled with #AI slop content, federated social media is an increasingly valuable place to find quality content. It’s a blending of traditional social and RSS. On #Mastodon, users can follow #Flipboard, #Ghost, and #WordPress blogs. Since feeds aren’t subject to an algorithm, users always see the content they follow. Slop might rank for web searches, but users don’t find it valuable. They don’t follow or share it, so it doesn’t land in users’ feeds.

2024-07-15 15:40:45

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@npub1psa…xhme I didn’t delete mine either. Instead, I deleted all my tweets and likes. I kept my handle, even though I have no intent to go back. If X deletes, oh well.

2024-07-08 21:42:34

This is good for #Ghost, its users, and readers. Newsletters will be accessible to #Mastodon users and 175 million #Threads users. They’ll be readable in user feeds. People who don’t want or pay attention to email will have a convenient way to access and bookmark content from writers they follow. For paid newsletters, it’s a lever to convert readers of free articles into paid subscribers, and it lets users chat directly with the content/authors.
https://mastodon.social/@Sarahp/112752215642744014

2024-07-02 02:18:51

This is an invitation for regulation. Every software company is racing to add #AI features, and many are accruing value by stealing from those who created it.
https://mastodon.social/@daringfireball/112714411025135838

2024-03-22 14:09:04

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@npub1k08…6xvn Federation is a term used to describe an action or state occurring over the ActivityPub (or AT) protocol. It’s neither a brand nor owned. In app design, devs use different icons to define open-menu and close-menu actions, different symbols for sending emails — envelopes and paper airplanes — and different symbols to chat widgets among other actions. Meta serves users all over the world, and in some of those places, using a pentagram as a UI convention might be offensive.