masirbu.bsky.social
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masirbu.bsky.social
@masirbu.bsky.social
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bostonjerry.bsky.social
This article by @tressiemcphd.bsky.social on how monopolized corporate control of news content, social media algorithms, the internet, and information itself has enabled the destruction of civic culture is a must read. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/01/o...

At the very least, read her closing argument:
So by all means, celebrate a burst of collective action that reinstated a TV show host and vote the bums out if you get the chance. But voting won’t be enough, just as canceling the Disney app won’t be enough. When I look at the consumer response to Disney censoring Kimmel, I don’t see an allegory for America’s salvation. I see a threat — that we will see ourselves as the authoritarians see us, users whose only power is in our pocketbook. We can’t just reject the threat. We have to reject the idea that our only, best power is our pocketbooks. That’s a desecration of civics, as corrosive as the idea that debate is the pinnacle of civil discourse. It cheapens our actions by degrading what we believe is possible. Our power isn’t in making one of the choices that are presented to us. Our power is in shaping the choices available to us. The fusion of corporate control and government power that empowered this administration will need to be unmade. Courts will need to be reconfigured. Market power will need to be subsumed to electoral power. Bureaucratic legitimacy will need to be restored. Information will need to be competitive and available. To achieve any of those goals, we will have to become far less complacent and far less scared. We also will have to organize. Because no citizen who simply settles for being a consumer of democracy should expect to have a real democracy ever again.
October 1, 2025 at 7:22 PM
Tim Harford has a good piece in the Financial Times on the value of institutional memory. We can expect the federal government to begin repeating previous mistakes because no one will be around to tell them why it didn't work in the past.
on.ft.com/3Y85o8e
The value of institutional memory
Why some organisations are condemned to repeat the same mistakes over and over again
on.ft.com
April 18, 2025 at 8:40 PM
The evolution of LLM's is looking a lot like the evolution of social media--a cesspool of misinformation.
www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...
Russia seeds chatbots with lies. Any bad actor could game AI the same way.
In their race to push out new versions with more capability, AI companies leave users vulnerable to “LLM grooming” efforts that promote bogus information.
www.washingtonpost.com
April 17, 2025 at 2:17 PM