Replying to @Paul__Walsh and @AmeliasBrain
People do web science, the dataset must exist!
♥ 2
August 2021
316 tweets
Replying to @MikeIsaac
I've been wondering if there's an official classification of the musics that they use for these things, or if it's more of a craft, with greatly varying skills amongst practitioners and heated debate as to what rates as pensive versus melancholic.
♥ 2
Very interesting post on the joint dynamic of Facebook ad prices going up while conversions go down. I wonder what the numbers look like elsewhere. readmargins.com/p/advertising-…
♥ 8↺ 3
Replying to @wayneblodwell
Agreed! It's an interesting angle on what happens to the platforms if we cut off the data supply to them.
♥ 2
Replying to @null and @MadronaCitizen
That too!
Replying to @future_email and @MalloryKnodel
I know nothing of this world, but what's held back the emergence of a good standard to date? If there's community interest, no promises whatsoever but I can ask about what we would do if there were something sensible.
♥ 1
Replying to @publictorsten and @clarkwork, @jilliancyork, @nytimes
Hmmm, not that I know of, it would be surprising. But if you're logged in, then obviously it's the same user. Whatever the cause, it isn't related to cookies.
♥ 1
Great article on Hirschman, who "ensured that there was no discontinuity between armed resistance and scholarly research" and would value "complexity over simplicity and uncertainty over predictability."
aeon.co/essays/from-pr…
♥ 2
Replying to @Rich_Harris and @JacksonKernion
Yeah, Rich has been telling people all afternoon that it's an eventual full removal :)
In iframes it makes sense; other than that it's a zero upside change. And as far as I can tell it's purely a ruling of the Chrome Politburo, there's no community support.
♥ 2
"And as the pioneering political economist Elinor Ostrom showed over a lifetime of research, there are countless examples of people coming together to create rules and institutions to manage common resources."
Great stuff from @fmanjoo: nytimes.com/2021/08/04/opi…
♥ 23↺ 7
What @fmanjoo is pointing at is very much the topic of the recent "Stewardship of global collective behavior," which I very much recommend you read if you haven't already: pnas.org/content/118/27…
♥ 29↺ 8
And in the unlikely event that you want to read even more about the issues that the Internet is creating for global collective behaviour, notably to our collective cognitive abilities, it's on the blog! berjon.com/stewardship/
♥ 16↺ 1
We value your privacy whenever it gets in the way of our accountability.
Quoting a tweet by @andymstone ↗
♥ 46↺ 12
Replying to @TaylorLorenz and @clancynewyork
So, this means that we have all of their phone numbers in the recent leak. Could be interesting 😁
♥ 1
Replying to @null and @MadronaCitizen
Let me know what you think of the good times! 😀
Replying to @clancynewyork and @TaylorLorenz
Taliban Influencer Dead After Drone Strike is basically around the corner.
Replying to @clancynewyork and @TaylorLorenz
There may have been a tinge of humour to it, but I thought of it as just dark. Taliban, drone killings, pervasive loss of privacy: I like none of these around but having them fight one another isn't better.
♥ 1
Replying to @ashk4n and @Facebook
More broadly than @_alialkhatib's strategy, it clearly seems to be what @CT_Bergstrom calls agnatogenesis: few people understand the interplay of scraping, privacy, ad accountability, and the FTC, so just say whatever could sound plausible and that sows enough doubt to get by.
♥ 4↺ 1
Replying to @swodinsky
Hmmm, sorry but no. By your rule, no data collection can ever be good. Just because adtech has tried every bullshit way doesn't mean it can't be done. Things like the NYU study, @themarkup's Citizen Browser, @mozilla Rally are all good examples of how you can do it right.
♥ 3
Long, looooong before all this privacy shit show, people had figured out that you could do research on human subjects that learns very intimate things, and do it right.
♥ 2
Unfortunately, some hopelessly naive privacy folks who had never heard of design tried to turn that into consent for whatever. That's dumb. But the OG still works
♥ 1
Replying to @swodinsky and @themarkup, @mozilla
Sure, and that allows you to... not participate in the study? It doesn't mean that Facebook is justified in blocking a study of ads that people deliberately seek out, that has all kinds of IRB controls, etc.
♥ 1
Replying to @DuncanEMcCann
Oh! Shame I didn't see this before our call, we could've chatted about that too :) papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf…
♥ 2
(The truth is I never understood what people meant by that, I just nod and smile.)
♥ 1
Replying to @mariafarrell
It sounds like that, yes. I have it in the same box as "keeping it real" which as far as I can surmise means even less.
♥ 1
Replying to @megancgraham
Wow, but also they didn't understand the meme format? I mean, in no way was she ever into migraines or should she be?
♥ 2
Replying to @daiwaka and @CaseyNewton
It could happen, sometimes legitimate nudes are stolen and used in CSAM contexts. If that happens, the hashes could match. But I suspect it would be relatively rare, and hopefully the cops can tell the difference. (Emphasis on hopefully.)
♥ 1
A bigger problem might be that it seems really easy to trick perceptual hash models into not recognising a known fingerprinting. This might become common.
♥ 1
Replying to @swodinsky
I'm sorry to hear that, it's really good when smart people have takes to disagree with, that's how we think about stuff.
STFU angry DM fuckers!
♥ 4
Replying to @null and @benharnett
Well, you know how they say about regexes, "fuck up twice, cut once."
♥ 1
Very solid analysis of UID2 and SWAN from @mozilla: blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/swa…. (details in the PDF: mozilla.github.io/ppa-docs/swan_…)
Both are tracking mechanisms supposed to protect users with systems that have long been discredited (SWAN) or that simply don't exist yet (UID2).
♥ 11↺ 3
Replying to @null and @mrmister_2, @sanjuktampaul
I get a sense that he's positioning himself in view on Éric Zemmour's presidential bid next year.
Best ignored.
♥ 1
Replying to @lauren_kelley and @ablackwell
If you were moved in the same way as us neighbours, you'll be on 9!
Replying to @lauren_kelley and @ablackwell
Could be different, could have changed!
Replying to @ekr____ and @Log3overLog2
Damn, I was so looking forward to going through 35 redirects to set up a "pseudo anonymous identifier" with lots of digital signatures attached to it for no reason.
♥ 3
Replying to @ablackwell and @lauren_kelley
So... back to normal then?
Post a picture of yourself as the leader of an underground organisation without downloading any new pics. twitter.com/jeanqasaur/sta…
♥ 19
Replying to @YaelEisenstat
Lucky you. I tried to get Kitsune to mix a bourbon sour but she's not impressed.
♥ 3
Replying to @null and @doctorbowring
Ha! Well played. I have some pics of myself down en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meuse/Hau… that would work quite well too but I can't find them!
The kittens and I are quite ready to get this weekend going! 🐈
♥ 35↺ 2
Replying to @YaelEisenstat
I know. But so furry, though.
Replying to @nandoodles
If it doesn't feel weird and foolish, you're following someone else's gut!
♥ 2
Replying to @TzviyaSiegman
Yeah, I mean, the @W3CAB is so underground, it couldn't get into the limelight if were wanted for murder 😁
♥ 1
Replying to @montezumachavez
♥ 1
Replying to @mnot
Replying to @ZachWeiner
Also: perfect villain vehicle.
Replying to @publictorsten
Ewww that sucks. All this rent seeking and what we get is a crap product.
@BrettFrischmann has a lot of good things to say about how we should be running the web, the Internets, as infrastructure. Here's a short example:
♥ 6↺ 1
There's a strong case that infrastructure should never empower legibility. It can be used for anticompetitive purposes, as @linakhanFTC explains in her Separation of Platforms and Commerce, but even without that the reduction of uncertainty leads to harmful optimisation.
In a rugged landscape of complex, unpredictable opportunities (like the Internet), there will be many local optima much lower than alternatives. Being data-driven at the infrastructure level is a fast track to getting stuck in one and locking everyone there with path dependency.
♥ 1
Replying to @humanpropensity
Yes! And not just the needs of tomorrow but also needs of today that aren't being measured as well, either because they are hard to measure or because data is biased in ways you don't understand.
♥ 1
Replying to @JDHamkins
How often have you needed to know the city in which a book was published? There is no reason for most of the formatting that journals require (and even less reason to impose that on authors, technology could handle it given semantic manuscripts) but no one will budge.
♥ 3
Replying to @rubin
Ah, mais tu ne comprends pas, mon cher Rubin. Il est question de savoir si l'on a affaire à une *moyenne* antisémite, et il semble que non. Les gars, ils sont antisémites plutôt 9/20 tu vois. Rien contre les juifs, hein, mais juste bon. Voilà, vous voyez.
♥ 1
Replying to @SaraLUckelman and @JDHamkins
Oh, for historical reasons, sure 😁 Also, once upon a time it would help order manuscripts from the right place, so it has had a purpose. It's just very much vestigial by now!
♥ 2
There is still time.
We are not doomed.
But… we have to act.
Quoting a tweet by @goodjillian ↗
♥ 8↺ 1
"The challenge of modernity is to live life without illusions and without becoming disillusioned… I’m a pessimist because of intelligence, but am an optimist because of will." — Gramsci
Thanks @lastpositivist.
Quoting a tweet by @lastpositivist ↗
♥ 11↺ 4
Replying to @elipariser
Wild geese vs the more aggressive farm geese?
Frankly, even 45% is too high — you'd have to be foolish to take on a goose.
Has anyone succeeded in getting any kind of answer from any American consular service anywhere for questions about current visa renewal?
♥ 7↺ 3
If I can't renew my visa & remain separated from my family for a few more weeks I'm going to have to go work remotely from the EU for an indefinite amount of time.
If you have recs for good areas to crash-land to, with good English and/or French language schools, I'll take them!
♥ 16↺ 2
Replying to @gabrielazanfir
I last lived in Ixelles in *counts on fingers* 1998. It was a bit of a chaotic experience, but I'm sure things have changed and it would be very different now!
♥ 4
Replying to @morar
I can confirm that it is; I've been going embassy page to embassy page to see which ones are processing again, and which ones say they will (at least some of the time) process non-resident non-citizens.
I wrote to Bucharest! They might work. But I haven't heard back, sadly.
♥ 2
Replying to @tim_libert
It's news to me that software engineers know how to fix things. What have they been doing all this time?
♥ 1
Looking at infrastructure — care at scale, from @debcha.
cardus.ca/comment/articl…
♥ 6↺ 1
Replying to @tim_libert
From what I've seen, most software folks work implementing unethical business models which they justify finding cool because you can scale obscure jargon?
Seriously, though: the reason I stepped away from software for a spell is because no one there knows how to solve this shit.
♥ 2
In "humanities" like things, people might not know how to implement, but they have some thoughts on how to fix. The problems are harder, too.
♥ 1
Replying to @tim_libert
I might be reading that out of context, but this sounds like pedagogically one group isn't being encouraged to see that it's part of the solution?
Replying to @tim_libert
I'm not lecturing, Tim, just noting that there's a difference between knowing how to fix shit and feeling like you can fix shit 🙂
Replying to @tim_libert
I'm not educated like you so I literally don't know this at all, but isn't this precisely what teaching ought to fix?
♥ 1
Replying to @tim_libert
No no, I got the wink, I think you know I'm not actually lecturing 😁
Replying to @tim_libert
Maybe, but I still have no clue what happens inside those beast institutions! It was an honest question!
♥ 1
Replying to @tim_libert
From the students? I guess I can see the kind. It reminds me of philosophy students who didn't want to learn logic "because it's maths."
♥ 1
Replying to @DoraCrisan
Thanks! I hope to avoid the Paris area if I can, though.
Replying to @coolharsh55
Do you know which consulate? Those I looked at in Germany don't do nonimmigrant visas right now, but there are several.
♥ 1
Replying to @DoraCrisan
Je sais, je connais Versailles 😁 But I'm trying to avoid the French school system, and if things go that way and I have to work there too, French unemployment and the working hours!
Replying to @zackwhittaker and @swodinsky
I did it several times in the Before, and it had its problems but it was much better: plenty of options and much shorter waits. Now it's one option, perhaps, and in April next year...
♥ 3
Replying to @zackwhittaker and @swodinsky
Last I looked London didn't even do my visa class in their current mode. It's unclear why they're so shut down.
♥ 1
Replying to @null and @jamesthomsnyder
Thank you! Some quick background: I work here on an E3, wife & daughters had to visit family in France. I can extend locally but they can't come back without renewing their E3D. I have an appointment in Paris in April 2022 and have filed for expedited but no news after 2 weeks.
I have a letter from NYT backing me up that I believe meets all the requirements for an NIE. But it's hard to figure out:
1) Which consulates will process non-residents. Many restrict to those, but few are clear.
2) What the wait times are. travel.state.gov/content/travel… is often wrong.
And 3) How to get information on expedited requests. They say replying could take weeks, and also that when they deny they might simply not answer at all…
I've just been emailing consulates all over. Any help would be greatly appreciated — thanks again!
Replying to @coolharsh55
Frankfurt is in emergency-only mode, but I'll ask!
Replying to @DoraCrisan
Yes, that's an option!
Replying to @epc_angela
That would be one of my top choices and perhaps the top choice but I'd need a visa there!
Replying to @esd and @johnwilander
Terrifying.
Replying to @braedon and @johnwilander
I think they don't care, it probably has the same effect.
Replying to @braedon
Right, but I suspect there'll be scams either way? Last I heard it's not clear that ads.txt is helping much...
♥ 1
Replying to @null and @jamesthomsnyder
It was issued in Paris — they know what it is, or at least they know well enough to issue them! I wish calling helped — they're not answering on any channel. US consular services everywhere remain highly disrupted. Thanks!
Replying to @jesslynnrose
There's @UnlockProtocol for one! @kleros_io also looks interesting but I know less about it.
♥ 3
Replying to @braedon
It'll definitely be interesting to see if there's significant fraud, and if there is then they can fix it and we can see if it has an impact. Natural experiment!
♥ 2
Replying to @kfranasz and @braedon
Of course, or maybe even email me so I can more easily loop in our folks!
♥ 3
Replying to @voxpelli and @jesslynnrose, @UnlockProtocol, @Kleros_io, @helium, @KeybaseIO
The random Lumen crypto drops on Keybase were weird, though.
♥ 2
Replying to @voxpelli and @jesslynnrose, @UnlockProtocol, @Kleros_io, @helium, @KeybaseIO
I've also been wondering if there's something to hedera.com. Hashgraphs look interesting, but it's unclear how much actual movement there is there.
♥ 1
Replying to @voxpelli and @jesslynnrose, @UnlockProtocol, @Kleros_io, @helium, @KeybaseIO, @solidity_lang, @HypercoreProto
I've been wondering along similar lines. We need a way to tie content publishing like on the Web to distributed computing and some form of contract (though I'm still wondering about whether existing smart contracts are right).
♥ 1
I've also been meaning to investigate DAOs much more closely, notably in terms of how to nest them. But there is only so much time in the day and sadly no one will pay me just to do whatever the fuck I want :)
♥ 1
"I'm sorry, your house was… in the treatment group."
♥ 8↺ 3
Replying to @nataliabielova
Thank you!
Replying to @doriantaylor
I run past that sign every morning and it makes me chuckle every time.
♥ 1
Replying to @Chronotope and @voxpelli, @jesslynnrose, @UnlockProtocol, @Kleros_io, @helium, @KeybaseIO, @solidity_lang, @HypercoreProto, @sydsvenskan, @BeakerBrowser, @mafintosh, @hyperdivisiondk, @nytimes
I think that writing down the contract as they are now, and then iterating to see what could be improved would be very interesting.
I wonder if this could tie into changing ad selection mechanisms.
♥ 2
Computer science, as a field, is shockingly bad at document engineering. And people being proud that they can use LaTeX as a gating factor just leads to stagnation.
Quoting a tweet by @rahulbot ↗
♥ 14↺ 3
Replying to @JuliaAngwin and @corintxt
Hey, "legacy media" — no, you're legacy media!
(Seriously though, great stuff there.)
♥ 3
Replying to @gizmomathboy
The problem I see isn't LaTeX in itself but rather the fact that people think it's an intelligence test of some sort.
It should be possible to keep LaTeX feel but give it better semantics, proper Unicode, sane macro, syntax that isn't Turing Complete.
♥ 1
Replying to @gizmomathboy
It's a decent way to write some docs, it's a pretty terrible format to process, though. This means that a lot of useful information is lost, because it's encoded in LaTeX. It also compiles to formats with bad accessibility.
All of this is fixable, I think that there could be an evolution of LaTeX that would feel like writing LaTeX to LaTeX lovers, but would have a better architecture.
Replying to @brianleroux
But at least the great thing is that the US has been responding by promptly opening their borders to others! #ohwait
Replying to @_alastair
Adblocker fingerprinting! Because, of course, data capitalism hellscape and all that. The latest fun fact from @swodinsky!
gizmodo.com/how-your-ad-bl…
♥ 19↺ 4
Wait, but HANG ON. What if people are being radicalised by the videos they see recommended but don't actually bother watching? Ha!
♥ 1
Replying to @slightlylate and @swodinsky
Yup, the technical solutions need to be built to align with good policy ones, but they can't work alone. We'd have to rip out almost everything.
♥ 1
Replying to @swodinsky and @johnwilander
Programmatic is over, Shoshana. We're wrapping it up, the last SSP goes dark two weeks from now.
♥ 10
Not only this, but I love the particular attention to detail with which Twitter A/B tested this in such a way that you would not get the same experience in the app and on Web. Being in both arms of the test, with the same user, really added to the clarity of the change.
Quoting a tweet by @DavidKlion ↗
♥ 10↺ 3
Replying to @temptoetiam
En même temps, la cuvette grenobloise mi-août c'est souvent la meilleure température à laquelle apprécier les matières particulaires fines.
Replying to @Iwillleavenow
I'll admit it has potential, I see the vision there. Trade the PB for guac and I'm in.
Replying to @stuartathompson
Is there a link for this? Can't share the tweet :)
This is very rare, but I feel quite ambivalent about this VPN article from @themarkup. Tracking in-VPN behaviour and using marketing tracking on a VPN website are two completely different threats and violations, and bundling them together is confusing.
themarkup.org/ask-the-markup…
♥ 11↺ 2
To its credit, inside the article there's a fair bit of nuance and details. But I still think that these two issues should be treated separately; people are confused enough as it is when it comes to privacy threats.
♥ 4
Tracking in-VPN is deceptive and potentially life-threatening to its users. A company doing that should be sued out of existence and then some.
Muddying that with marketing trackers on those sites has strong "and yet you participate in society — curious" vibes IMHO.
♥ 10
Marketing trackers suck but as things are now they're often the primary means of acquiring customers. If we want to have privacy-friendly companies to buy from, they're going to need customers so they can live to fight another day.
We shouldn't hold them to impossible standards.
♥ 5
Replying to @Chronotope and @DuckDuckGo
How and who matters, a *separate* article on the multifaceted woes of marketing would be great. That said, for the "who," the worst privacy offenders are also those with the greatest ad reach, so that's hard…
♥ 2
The Duck folks do amazing work, including on marketing, and I'd love to learn more from them. (Some of it is just billboards!) But I don't think we should assume that that's reproducible everywhere. Search is probably easier to pitch than VPN.
♥ 2
Replying to @Chronotope and @DuckDuckGo
I honestly don't think that's a fair standard. I speak from experience, too! We've put more effort than most into improving this yet we're still short of the mark. But we're fully behind the philosophy that privacy is key to making "all of society stronger and more just!"
♥ 1
Replying to @DoraCrisan
That's true, but for a small business, especially one not aimed at iOS high-income/high-WTP segments, it's still effective.
Replying to @Chronotope and @DuckDuckGo
Oh, I'm not saying we shouldn't talk about mismatches. I just think that presenting it in this way confuses the issue more than it clarifies it.
♥ 2
Replying to @vonthedock
Of the very few that don't rely on this, one used to and stopped after they were well established, another is backed off of an existing successful service. Entrants need to have the option to be successful too.
Replying to @vonthedock
Well, given a choice between a dead market for privacy-friendly companies and a thriving one in which the world is improved in increments, I'll pick the latter. Call me an "actually fix shit" guy but it is what it is.
Replying to @JuliaAngwin and @themarkup
Thanks Julia, I agree (and said) that there's nuance in the article. My unease is that the threat disparity feels hard to bridge, even with nuance. "This VPN eats kittens for breakfast! (…) That one was seen waving away mosquitoes."
♥ 1
This doesn't change the fact that @themarkup is still in my heart tied at the top (with us ;) for the best tech journalism. Thanks for all the good stuff.
♥ 2
Replying to @vonthedock
I get your point too :) The issue is that it's a collective action problem: if I don't feed the monster gods, the other villages will and then they have great crops while you starve to death.
The way we've approached it has been to figure out how to feed the monsters less and…
…use the time to develop alternatives, improve our monster defences, and tell the other villages that There Is Another Way™.
It's frustrating and incremental, but it's also having an effect. If this had had to be perfect on Day One, it just wouldn't exist at all.
Replying to @vonthedock
I get the sentiment. I think the case of companies blogging that FB ads are bad and then using them is clearly hypocritical. But even for PET companies I think we have to leave the door open to incrementalism, though perhaps in exchange for greater (and real) transparency.
Like: "Hey, we're a VPN company. We need to get new customers. We have trackers A & B — for now. We're telling you upfront and not hiding this in our privacy policy because we want to be trustworthy but we also have to make money so we can bring you awesome privacy tools."
♥ 1
Replying to @natashanyt
If I recall correctly, @kanarinka & @laurenfklein refer to "big dick data" and frankly that doesn't get used enough.
♥ 2
Replying to @runasand and @imp0rtp3, @tenacioustek, @AmnestyTech, @citizenlab, @cyb3rops, @Arkbird_SOLG, @malwrhunterteam, @jsrailton
I will look, thanks.
Replying to @Chronotope
The only use case I've found convincing is for sites that may host arbitrary user content and need to create a boundary yet maintain ACL. Might this be solved with a mechanism to declare one site as the dumb user content of another, with rules to make it safe?
♥ 3
All the other use cases I remember seeing are either privacy violations or "doctor, it hurts when I stab myself in the face" kind of problems. Let's not change fundamentals of the Web because some companies feel they need a bunch of TLDs?
♥ 4
Replying to @Chronotope
Exactly. The FPS people seem smart and caring but I'm still waiting for the moment when I understand why they want this to work this way so hard.
♥ 3
Replying to @ericlaw and @Chronotope
Yes, sloppy sorry, I meant the use case that seems to be cited a lot about needing to have berjon.{com,fr,de,jp}... Registrable with the TLD varying as "bunch of TLDs."
♥ 2
Replying to @Chronotope
Maybe not move on but focus on addressing what feels like the most core issue with a simpler approach?
♥ 2
Replying to @zeynep
I know there are nasal sprays in the works, though I couldn't find any quick info on ETA. I guess that could help more than expected.
♥ 2
Replying to @null and @defcon_5
Thank you ♥️
Replying to @ubiquity75 and @doriantaylor
Agreed, camelidae are nothing if not woolliness made majestic!
♥ 2
Replying to @ubiquity75 and @doriantaylor
A bear! But I'll admit I'm no expert on the various kinds. 🐻
♥ 3
Replying to @braedon and @Chronotope
Never ascribe to malice that which can equally well be explained by a culture of overengineering 😁
♥ 3
Replying to @torgo
Where are you off to?
Replying to @torgo
Nice! I didn't spend much time there but I liked what I saw.
Replying to @torgo
Tell me about it 😅
"I know you just rolled it out, but you weren't planning to use this, right?"
♥ 15↺ 1
"Before asking the question of how technology can affect democracy, I’m going to ask: What is democracy for? (…) one of the main functions of a democratic political system is to help us collectively manage living in a complex, global society." —@debcha
theatlantic.com/technology/arc…
♥ 9↺ 3
Replying to @swodinsky and @_abialas
I'm not sure that that's the cat/cow pose done right, though.
♥ 4
Replying to @_abialas and @swodinsky
Yes, he always has this earnest, questioning look. Except when he just woke up.
♥ 2
Mornings, dude. They rough.
♥ 4
Replying to @kjhealy
It's interesting to see that La Commune seems to have been much more of an equal opportunity killer than the world wars.
Replying to @cwarzel
I want to hear more about his best friend Boar, who seems to be very wizened.
♥ 3
A young deer has been trying to intimidate Mochi, my 6 months old kitten. Who would you put your money on? 🦌 vs 🐈
♥ 14↺ 1
It's 15min later and the deer is still furiously stomping its hoof for control over the woods, and Mochi is still...
♥ 2
After 25min of hollow huffing and puffing, the deer has yielded the claim: the vast woodlands that border my backyard remain the cats' province.
♥ 8
Replying to @null and @podopie
I would even pick one cat-size cat over a hundred deer-size deer!
Replying to @chris_bail
Stupid thought: has anyone looked at if the *lack* of echo chambers is actually causing polarisation? (Search yielded nothing but I could be missing a term of art.) If people are radicalised by random exposure to the "other side", would they not be more moderate in echo chambers?
Replying to @fatemehx2
Confused and outraged 😂
Replying to @dveditz
Wouldn't a concerned deer run though?
Replying to @dveditz
Lol, fair!
Replying to @alexmilowski
Classic cat tactic. It's the first time I see it used on something larger than a mouse though!
The level of dystopia in this article...
"That introduces the very real possibility that, in the not too distant future, money could morph from being something neutral and universally equivalent (and thus fungible) into something much more bespoke and conditional."
Quoting a tweet by @RDBinns ↗
♥ 9↺ 2
Replying to @__apf__
It works both ways! I got a flurry of follows unrelated to anything I've done. I can only imagine it's all people who intersected with me and went "Who TF is this? Why am I following this clown?" and sought to unfollow. Hi, new friends!
♥ 2
Replying to @Chronotope and @aripap
The more I think about it, the more I reckon putting together something new is worth a shot. For everything that's more or less publisher-provided segments with anonymous users, a matching market would be more efficient and simpler than RTB.
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It might also be the best way to avoid browsers asserting control over ad selection. Point an anonymising frame to the ad server and let it pick from "campaigns" that the publisher won in the last matching market round (every hour, every ten minutes, whatever).
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Replying to @shails and @Chronotope, @aripap
Yeah, I have been pitching this for an upcoming W3C group. 🤘
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Replying to @humanpropensity and @Chronotope, @aripap
Totally — and others are doing similar things. But one interesting thing is that the system has nothing that really needs to happen in real time. You could imagine matching heartbeats to allocate microcampaigns of like 1k impressions (made up number) for some targeting params.
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Money in escrow, if it's not filled by a given time what's left is returned. I'm handwaving a lot of details, of course.
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Replying to @stewosch and @EtheHerring
Alpacas are horses that are cat levels of fluffy, this may be the most right part of this excellent graph. Five minutes ago I didn't know there was a hill there, but now I'm dying on it.
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Replying to @craigaatkinson
Nothing is ever perfectly neutral! But, like all good infrastructure, it is very much underdetermined in usage. The moment that it starts behaving in a way that is informed by the legibility it produces, things will change radically.
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Replying to @SturnioloSimone and @stewosch, @EtheHerring
Camelidae are like that too, though. I think the alpaca is where it should be, but maybe something more docile and compliant should sit on the horse-dog path? Maybe a boar? I hear they're easily domesticated.
The more I think about a reformed architecture for ads on the Web, the less it makes sense for the browser to be running any kind of auction.
Auctions and ad selection are complex affairs, they should be carried out by a party with skin in the game. The user isn't getting paid.
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Since the user isn't drawing any direct benefit, this isn't the browser's job to handle this. Basic comparisons between two already-selected ads, *maybe*. Anything more involved than that is putting complexity where there is no incentive to get it right.
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What's more, the end-to-end principles predicts that if you move complexity into intermediary steps that don't gain from it, you'll get underwhelming implementations that are there just for compliance.
The browser is just a piece of infrastructure here, it should stay dumb.
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The browser's interest is in protecting the user, notably for privacy. That part is core and on-mission.
I would suggest that we evaluate these new web adtech proposals with strong emphasis on whether they put too much intelligence in the browser.
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Replying to @alextcone
I understand how we landed there, there are logical steps along the way. What I'm saying is that we should pause and take stock. Is this what we want? Because, from first principles, it looks like in the long term it really is going to suck.
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Browser vendors know better than to discount long-term maintenance costs, and I really don't see how we get anything other than underinvestment in this given the structure of how it's set up now.
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There are options! Something more PARAKEET-like that offloads most (ideally all) of the auction work to parties that need it to work well should be more robust.
Also, based on the recent discussions on here we could get rid of auctions too :)
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Replying to @Log3overLog2 and @alextcone
I've been wondering if we shouldn't start from that and see how far it takes us. It's often hard to know when people *actually* need more for things. (I'm not pointing fingers, when you're in that position there's only downside in asking for less.)
♥ 1
Replying to @Log3overLog2 and @alextcone
Agreed — that seems ambitious. But I worry that we pick something today because it's what we can make work, but browsers don't have real incentives to make it good & improve over time unless they also have an ad business. It's tricky.
♥ 1
I haven't felt much like living in a city recently, but I think feel like it doesn't get much better than this one. youtube.com/watch?v=1icTIQ…
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Replying to @Log3overLog2 and @alextcone
I can't speak for Alex but the folks I'm hearing that from aren't on the technical side and are often unfamiliar with standards. Many have only heard of "the Privacy Sandbox" and don't understand what the other thing is. They're unlikely to find a way to the WICG!
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"Remember when both Adobe and Corel had vector graphics formats for the Web? Well, they still aligned on SVG once the group made the call."
Somehow this isn't convincing anyone; I'm still figuring out why.
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Replying to @kjhealy
Part of me is tempted to turn that article into an article generation tool; but there is so little to change between themes.
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Replying to @craigaatkinson and @dmarti
I have no numbers but I suspect as many people have ad blockers as there are who know how to find an extension to install, or near it.
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Replying to @null and @pes10k
Yeah, that tweet is one of the many times I've wanted to have footnotes on this here site.
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Replying to @DoraCrisan
Hmmm, no, a dumb browser is predicated on the idea that infrastructure should be dumb and browsers are infrastructure. Browsers today are mostly dumb and that's a feature. Where they aren't, eg in defaulting search, there are issues.
♥ 1
Replying to @alextcone and @Log3overLog2
I agree with Alex, I think people feel powerless and disenfranchised more than they feel unsafe here. I reckon the unsafe part can be handled with "Look, there's a tweet from Michael Kleber openly seeking feedback." I think we can make that part work.
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The harder part at this stage is IMHO that the idea that they would be listened to is quite counterintuitive. I've been on a bit of a continuous road show to get people to speak up, and I think Alex too. It's getting better? I feel we could get a decent group's input.
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I appreciate that the French are trying to make their covid app accessible to foreigners, but I'm as bilingual as it gets and I have no idea what this means. 😂
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First time I see this advice, too!
Hmmm... Which 6 of you do I keep?
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Replying to @humanpropensity
Sorry, I didn't mean to be constructive on Twitter, I was thinking out loud and it came out that way.
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Replying to @Myles_Younger
Yeah, you're right about the resource issues, though in fairness I don't know how much users will notice given what browsers already use :-D
Browsers are still supporting mistakes made in the 90s today. That's why they're so conservative overall — and they need to be here too!
♥ 1
Also, one thing that is often missed is that browsers aren't like an app, they're not the end point. They're a piece of infrastructure, basically a very complicated pipe. They should of course be defensive of the user, but they shouldn't make user-related decisions.
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That's why Sync and SSO integration in Chrome are so problematic: they're 100% layer violations. They're ratcheting up Chrome to be the in-app browser of the Googleverse rather than an actual browser, and that's a dark place for the Web to be.
Replying to @null and @mattmay, @benlikestocode
Yes, I think they're trying to convey the idea of a contact tracing guestbook — but you need a lot of context to figure that out :)
Replying to @docum3nt
Yes — but it takes a lot of context to read through that copy :)
Replying to @docum3nt
Same same.
Replying to @humanpropensity
Obviously, I can't apologise enough. I'll do my best not to take part in anything like this again.
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Replying to @DoraCrisan
No, no I really don't. One key reason why tech infrastructure is so problematic is because it is pushing to be hard rather than neutral.
Replying to @DoraCrisan
Not sure what happened there — that word should be "smart".
Replying to @bayesianboy
Are you worried they'll rat you out to the cockroaches? Seems like you're doing everyone a service.
♥ 1
So, in the wake of their regularly-scheduled data breach, @TMobile just sent me a PIN reset. And the new PIN looks… quite non-random. Of course, this could be entirely by chance, but I thought I'd check with others here: if you got it too, does yours also look non-random?
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Replying to @temptoetiam
Ah... Tu penses que c'est psychologique? Je me renseigne, c'est pour un ami.
Replying to @temptoetiam
Ah oui. Moi quand je suis désespéré, je m'achète des bouquins pour me consoler, et quand ça va bien, je m'achète des bouquins parce que j'ai besoin de connaître tel ou tel sujet pour sauver la planète, tout ça.
♥ 1
Replying to @erikphoel and @SubstackInc
That effect only lasts so long. It was like that for Medium initially, but then it turns into "the look that everyone has" and the pendulum swings back to valuing distinctive looks.
♥ 1
Replying to @null and @koalie, @TMobile
I mean, it reads like a joke, but I'm pretty confident that more people have succeeded in leaking their data than in changing their phone plan through the website.
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Replying to @daveyalba
I mean, this thread really drives home the value that Facebook is delivering to society. It's totally worth putting up with the downsides.
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Replying to @YaelEisenstat and @kevinroose
I've been wondering the same thing (as well as for reach, which could be just as fuzzy). The IAB standard for a viewable ad is to have half its pixels on screen for one (1) continuous second. By that standard, I fail to see how engagement wouldn't be the better metric.
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What do you mean, exactly, by "it's time to buy supplies for the coming school year"?
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Replying to @null and @funnymonkey
Oh those I get more often than once a year 😛
Replying to @swodinsky
The number is meaningless without the volume of LAT people being accounted for. The last numbers I saw were north of 40%, and it has since become easier and better advertised. That puts the ATT opt-in at a very optimistic 24%.
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Replying to @swodinsky
I think there could be more explainers in that space. People oscillate between sensational and boring also because it's hard to convey to readers who don't even understand why this could be possible or profitable.
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Replying to @swodinsky
This! I think the only discussions of the value of data that I've seen have been in dry scholarly texts. This leaves the door open for the whole "pay for data" thing. I feel like explaining volume/variety/velocity would be illuminating.
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This is pure, unadulterated genius. A great present for all your lawyer friends! (via @finnmyrstad)
Quoting a tweet by @5RightsFound ↗
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If you enjoyed "My First Terms and Conditions," you should give Share Bear a try!
"It looks like you're sad today… so here's an advert about losing weight!"
vimeo.com/561330584
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Replying to @kjhealy
But… meetings in superhero costumes!
Replying to @MarietjeSchaake
🙋🏼♂️I've been separated from my family, who had to travel to Europe and can't come back. We *just* heard that we have an appointment at the end of the month. I really hope it works out, otherwise I'll have to leave.
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Replying to @deaneckles and @chris_bail
I read the book, that's where I got the "radicalised by random exposure bit" :) I may have been thinking about it wrong at the time and so missed it, but I didn't get the lack of echo chamber as potential cause from it.
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Replying to @deaneckles and @chris_bail
Right, but IIRC from the book, the effects can be noticeable even at small doses. Again, I may have missed it but there's a potential policy recommendation to *create* more filter bubbles there. It actually makes sense.
Replying to @JulieSBrill
It's a bit of a cop-out, but I think the biggest impact will be from reinforcing effects between these (and others — DGA/DSA/DMA, viable privacy-preserving adtech, a better understanding that sharing data *creates* competition issues, fiduciary user agents, broad GPC support…).
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The next Tech Policy Princeton gathering will be on Sep 16! Come join us, sign up for updates, it was great last time, it'll be great this time too!
berjon.com/tech-policy-pr…
PS: If you signed up and didn't get the update, please fish it out of spam. ProtonMail doesn't like it.
Many good points from @GregBensinger, one of which being that Apple should support GPC. Unsurprisingly, I agree 🥰
nytimes.com/2021/08/19/opi…
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Replying to @internetdaniel
Seriously? Whoa. My jaw has dropped, like, I'm literally picking it up. Even if you're talking about it just to say how bad it is :)
If it's in any way helpful/appropriate/etc., I'd be more than happy to join the talk.
♥ 1
Replying to @joejerome
Ha — I always feel like it's nowhere near enough…
Overall, I'm a slow reader, the trick that helps is that I have practically no social life :)
♥ 1
Replying to @jensimmons
I'm glad that it's picking up again — it definitely wasn't the biggest piece of news at the times, but it was an additional depressing thing when they put compostables collection on hold early in the pandemic.
Replying to @mataliandy and @Moonalice
I believe he updated between the hard cover and the paperback to take that into account, but then they went ahead and made things worse again!
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Replying to @null and @pes10k, @johnwilander, @othermaciej
That's true, the Chicago-style tomato quiche is just too good to leave behind.
Replying to @null and @pes10k
I wonder if there's a response header that sites could send to tell in-app browsers and their close cousin Chrome with Sync "you can't steal the data from here."
Replying to @null and @pes10k, @johnwilander, @othermaciej
What did I say wrong? I love tomato quiche!
Replying to @MaxGendler and @pes10k, @johnwilander, @othermaciej
Tomato tart (but quiche has a better ring to it) cuisine.journaldesfemmes.fr/recette/317909…
Replying to @RDBinns
It also completes "have a nice" with "week" instead of "weekend." The bias is real.
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Replying to @RobertJBateman and @RDBinns
Weird, I get a slightly different version, maybe because I'm in the US?
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Quel enfer.
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Replying to @nicolasrieul
Zemmour à Montparnasse, bloqué par une manif antivax à la Rochelle, on se sent accueilli!
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I'm excited to say that I wrote a piece for @smashingmag! It's about about what we can do when we build web things to improve privacy for our users.
smashingmagazine.com/2021/08/agains…
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Many thanks to @yagayagafred for a lot of patience and excellent editing, as well as to @smash_it_on and Vitaly. The experience writing for that crew is outstanding.
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Replying to @coolharsh55
Thank you!
Replying to @null and @LibSkrat
Glad to hear I'm not the only one who does that! It's the only way I've found to give people an intuition for privacy online.
♥ 1
Replying to @nandoodles and @smashingmag
Thank you!
I don't know if it's gullible — for the longest time they haven't needed to understand the underlying tech and no one gets fired for that. Things are changing, though!
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Replying to @null and @LibSkrat
Oooooh, thank you! I will definitely read this.
Replying to @null and @LibSkrat
Professionally, I mostly read people who sound like they have a stick up it, so this sounds like a perfect match 😁
Want to work on policy, untangling some complex issues and supporting democracy? Bonus: I'm guessing this position gets to work with my team a fair bit!
Quoting a tweet by @newsalliance ↗
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Replying to @jason_kint
Thanks Jason!
Replying to @null and @pixeldetracking, @smashingmag
Merci beaucoup 😁