TikTok plans mass job cuts on UK moderation and safety teams: To be replaced by a mix of offshore workers that they can treat and pay a lot worse alongside cost-cutting ‘automation’ it sounds like.

Five Reasons People Who Claim PR Will Help the Far-Right are Wrong: Rebuttal to a common claim that well-meaning opponents of proportional representation in the British electoral system make.

TikTok knows its app is harming kids, new internal documents show: All the social media companies either know full well the harms that using their product can bring or are wilfully ignorant of them.

Ribbonfarm is Retiring: The how and why of Venkatesh Rao - creator of the term ‘cozyweb’ I think - ceasing his 17 year old blog.

The future of live news online sucks: Why the TikTokization of the big social media platforms makes them ‘uniquely bad places to follow news’.

In pursuit of the Engineering Analyst: On the (fairly new) role of the analytics engineer.

The Essential Tools for Exploratory Analysis: The types of tools one might want at hand when engaging in exploratory data analysis.

Trump’s rampant lies about FEMA’s Hurricane Helene response, briefly explained: Once again, disinformation can have deadly consequences.

New enforcement agency will protect workers’ rights as part of ‘watershed’ bill: Big fan of anything that shifts the balance of employer:employee power away from the total dominance of the former.

Hurricane Milton: what causes such intense storms?: Largely climate change, unsurprisingly.

I’ve missed Sam for a long time (or: Pick Your Battles): A wonderful written tale of what happens when your best friend starts to part ways from you in important ideological ways.

Democrats launch new campaign attack on ‘weird’ Republicans: Seems legit.

Why Privacy Matters: You should care about your privacy even if you don’t have any secrets.

Introducing canvas: A new interface for OpenAI’s ChatGPT that’s designed for better “collaboration” when coding or writing.

Aesthetic Command Lines with Hyper, Spaceship, and Oh My Zsh: Never really thought about customising my command line much before but now I’m probably going to waste half of tomorrow doing so.

Crowdsourcing the Monetization of Social Media: Social media could have been good if only we’d landed on a different incentive structure.

You Can’t Own The Social Web: Would the ‘Social Web Foundation’ better be thought of as an Activitypub trade group?

Representation of the People Act 1948: The act that abolished the right of some people to vote twice in UK general elections amongst other things.

The blogosphere is in full bloom. The rest of the internet has wilted: There’s plenty of good stuff out there even if - or perhaps especially if - you’re in a position to boycott the big social media sites.

Thousands of Linux systems infected by stealthy malware since 2021: Researchers discover ‘perfCtl’ - computer malware that, unusually, targets Linux and does all sorts of nasty things.

A Profile of the Top-Ranked Podcasts in the U.S.: True crime is the most popular genre.

New Scientist Live: The “festival of ideas and discoveries” is back in London later this month.

Digital Content Piracy Is on the Rise: Not very surprising given ‘legitimate’ services are raising prices, reducing libraries, adding adverts and generally making the experience of using them worse.

Amazon will “ramp up” Prime Video ads in 2025: Ugh, in a further recreation of cable TV, we’re likely to be subjected to yet more ads, including in the middle of shows, from Amazon’s paid service.

MPs to get historic vote on the legalisation of assisted dying: Almost certainly a good idea as long as done alongside a huge improvement in later-life social and medical care.