Robin Berjontweets archive

July 2024

55 tweets

Robin Berjon @robinberjon ·
Along with 35 colleagues, I have signed an open letter to the UN to keep the internet decentralised, open, and multistakeholder. While our governance model needs an upgrade, replacing it with hierarchical state control is not the answer. #OpenInternet open-internet-governance.org/letter
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Robin Berjon @robinberjon ·
Starting next month I will be living in Brussels, Belgium! 🇧🇪 If you're there, know good people who are, want to meet when you're visiting, hit me up! My exact arrival is still unspecified, but will be "in August". I'm excited to see folks there and for what we can accomplish!
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Robin Berjon @robinberjon ·
Hilarious: Twitter is natively spreading erroneous information about the French elections (and also calling them the "France legislative elections" for some reason). For French citizens abroad, such as myself, voting is already open and closes in a few hours.
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Robin Berjon @robinberjon ·

Replying to @montezumachavez

Yup!
Robin Berjon @robinberjon ·

Replying to @0gust1

Je n'ai pas encore de plan mais j'y songerai! Pareil dans l'autre sens!
Robin Berjon @robinberjon ·

Replying to @gabrielazanfir and @biancamarcu2

It would be a pleasure!
Robin Berjon @robinberjon ·

Replying to @Ianopolous

It just might happen 😉
Robin Berjon @robinberjon ·

Replying to @swodinsky

You better come visit the EU too! Also, I need to have some drinks in NYC to say goodbye at some point.
Robin Berjon @robinberjon ·

Replying to @wheresaddie

I get there the 10th for Camp, you better still be around!
Robin Berjon @robinberjon ·

Replying to @kkomaitis

Hell yes!
Robin Berjon @robinberjon ·

Replying to @brucel

Thankfully there's always Dutch, which they also speak correctly there.
Robin Berjon @robinberjon ·

Replying to @nataliabielova

Yes, brilliant! Definitely reach out then!
Robin Berjon @robinberjon ·

Replying to @pvineetha

Thanks! Reach out if you get to go next time!
Robin Berjon @robinberjon ·

Replying to @fgeorges

Super! Je te dirai quand je sais. En partant de numéro, tu as un conseil opérateur mobile et internet?
Robin Berjon @robinberjon ·

Replying to @robvank and @stefihane

Great, thanks, looking forward to it!
Robin Berjon @robinberjon ·

Replying to @pvineetha

I'm sure it will, thank you so much! ♥
Robin Berjon @robinberjon ·

Replying to @mberk

Same job! Where in Europe? It would definitely be great to finally meet!
Robin Berjon @robinberjon ·

Replying to @mberk

Germany is great, London used to be great but I've only been hearing bad things since Brexit. I didn't want to go to France, I feel nothing much is happening there. If you want to speak French you should think about Brussels 😁
Robin Berjon @robinberjon ·

Replying to @fgeorges

Haha, merci pour ces détails, je vais regarder de plus près. Ça peut difficilement être pire qu'aux US… J'avais fait un contract pour Proximus en 97 ou 98, un CMS de FAQ multilingue en Perl — fun times!
Robin Berjon @robinberjon ·
I'm not crying you're crying.
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Robin Berjon @robinberjon ·
La France est un pays avec une forte culture de gauche, ça ne se voit pas ces derniers temps parce que l'offre politique est tellement médiocre que cet électorat reste à domicile.
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Robin Berjon @robinberjon ·

Replying to @WebDevLaw

Hell of a good week.
Robin Berjon @robinberjon ·
Information wants to be free from corporate capture.
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Robin Berjon @robinberjon ·
Has anyone written a unified view of the major fees & rents that tech platforms impose on other businesses (eg. from app stores, ad cuts, seller fees), not counting imposed labour? These are de facto the internet's tax system. I'd find a collated view of it useful & fascinating.
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Thread of 2 tweets

Robin Berjon @robinberjon ·

Replying to @ViliLe and @michaelpatron0, @HustlingOscar

For commerce yes, though for e.g. ads it's often quite obscure. My interest is to find out, if we put these fees under democratic control, what kind of money do we have to work with, for instance for digital infrastructure (or for reducing the rent).
Robin Berjon @robinberjon ·
We often talk about ethics in tech but how much of an impact has that really made? I think that we can do better, but for that we need to give up on useless habits, hone our skills, and focus a lot more on governance. berjon.com/ethicswishing/
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Robin Berjon @robinberjon ·

Replying to @IEthics

Agreed — I don't think I said otherwise? (Though perhaps not clearly enough?) My point isn't so much about the stretching of words but rather about *limiting* to ethics.
Robin Berjon @robinberjon ·

Replying to @proximus and @fgeorges

J'ai essayé de souscrire une offre mais ça ne marche pas et le système d'aide par chat avec une AI est totalement débile et anti-client. C'est assez honteux.
Robin Berjon @robinberjon ·

Replying to @IEthics

As a governance person, I must insist that rather it is ethics that is part of governance ;-)
Robin Berjon @robinberjon ·

Replying to @IEthics

When are you next in Brussels? ;-)
Robin Berjon @robinberjon ·

Replying to @kate_sills

I mean the Technocracy movement never died, it just went quietly mainstream. All major tech companies have a completely modernist ideology to the point of not understanding that it's an ideology. It's not subtle, just taken as simply the way things work.
Robin Berjon @robinberjon ·
Question for the lawyers: when a browser links to a search engine and gets paid for the traffic, what distinguishes that from affiliate marketing?
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Robin Berjon @robinberjon ·

Replying to @micshasan

Not quite the same since it's usually the same owner.
Robin Berjon @robinberjon ·
One critical component of resilience is "response diversity." Intuitively, perturbations *always* happen but you never what they will be. If your entire system is a monoculture, the wrong perturbation will wipe it out; with response diversity the impact is contained.
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Robin Berjon @robinberjon ·
That's how forest monocultures collapse: just one illness or bug or storm, and since it's all the same species with each tree the same age all planted regularly, the illness or bug just tear through everything, the storm topples it all.
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Thread of 4 tweets

Robin Berjon @robinberjon ·

Replying to @fatemehx2 and @mariafarrell

Delighted you like it Fatemeh!
Robin Berjon @robinberjon ·

Replying to @MissIG_Geek

We didn't get all of our freedoms by expecting altruism or looking for incentives. Here as always:
Robin Berjon @robinberjon ·

Replying to @MissIG_Geek

I think we have more power than that, we've just lulled into thinking we don't!
Robin Berjon @robinberjon ·

Replying to @natashanyt and @Delta

According to the paper, they have to!
Robin Berjon @robinberjon ·
Hour 24 of a 5h flight, briefly stranded in Houston and all the displays are still Microsoft Blue. "Welcome on the plane to nowhere" says the staff.
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Robin Berjon @robinberjon ·

Replying to @BuggeErik

It must be popular, I see it *everywhere*.
Robin Berjon @robinberjon ·

Replying to @stimpee and @ianosh

My IT outrage never stops.
Robin Berjon @robinberjon ·
A more in-depth elegy is called for, but I will point out, with great sadness, that James C. Scott passing away on the day of the Crowdstrike incident is a sign if ever there was one, although a bit on the nose.
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Robin Berjon @robinberjon ·
Chrome remains the only browser with no meaningful privacy protection. Worse, it tracks its users in highly deceptive and invasive ways. What Chrome does is deliver data and eyeballs to Google. Your safety as users is entirely a secondary consideration.
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Thread of 3 tweets

Robin Berjon @robinberjon ·

Replying to @montezumachavez and @Ryanbarwick, @Chronotope

No one knows, it's an absolute shit show.
Robin Berjon @robinberjon ·

Replying to @KayJebelli

It's absolutely not the CMA's fault. What Google proposed has been consistently underwhelming, there was no reason whatsoever for the CMA (or anyone else) to accept it.
Robin Berjon @robinberjon ·
It's probably not just the regulators who are disappointed. If you work on Chrome and you've had enough propping Google up for no reason, this could be a great time to start working on making Chrome and Chromium independent. You know you have friends who'll help.
Quoting a tweet by @PrivacyMatters ↗
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Robin Berjon @robinberjon ·
When I compared Google to ExxonMobil, it used to be metaphorical. Alas they seem hellbent on making me right. Can we maybe stop pretending that the Totalitarian Bullshit Parrots are promising, let alone worth destroying the world for? theguardian.com/world/article/…
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Robin Berjon @robinberjon ·

Replying to @Calcolis and @willovvens, @cremieuxrecueil

Getting writing and pictures isn't the real world. The real world is when you fuck up it punches you in the face. AI can only replicate this if it is embedded in real contexts, with real stakes, and starts from a real diversity of agents. Otherwise it's just inbreeding.
Robin Berjon @robinberjon ·
Periodic reminder that you can use @bluesky at bsky.app instead. It's: ✅ Open to all. ✅ Just as easy to use as Twitter, with better moderation features. ✅ Not a campaign site for Trump & technofascism. ✅ Full of fun folks! Find me at robin.berjon.com!
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