Noupside

Noupside, 10 days ago to random

“I like the frosting you made for this chicken. 👍”

I love this phase with toddlers where they use words in ‘wrong’ ways that actually make a surprising amount of sense.

(It was a dill-sour cream sauce)

Noupside, 16 days ago to random

I am on Meet the Press today! It’s a v good episode on threats to democracy in the 2024 election. The 1st segment is so important –four Secretaries of State discussing threats to election workers, and how they are keeping both elections & their people safe. I’m in the 2nd, w/@anneapplebaum, talking ab propaganda & autocracies. The episode really pulls together different aspects of the challenge.

https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/video/may-26-the-threat-to-democracy-211655237643

Noupside, 20 days ago to random

As I read this article about how behind the ball so many institutions are, I was thinking of the climate scientists who experienced this back in 2012. People like @MichaelEMann and others. It’s gotten worse, in part because online norms are influencing offline action, but it’s been growing over time.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-01468-9

Noupside, 23 days ago to random

🧵 I wrote ab the “is Signal secure?” manufactroversy on X. The Guardian wanted an explainer on why Elon & Jack were “concerned” about Signal. The answer, though, has nothing to do w/Signal’s product. It was part of an extended fight over whether woke NPR should be defunded & the CEO fired. Why? Because the CEO of NPR is on the board of Signal; by the Transitive Property of Bad People, Signal is thus compromised.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/article/2024/may/18/npr-elon-musk-signal

Noupside, 1 month ago to random

📣 SOME PERSONAL NEWS: 1 month from today, my book is out! 🎉

🏢 It’s about propaganda, influence, influencers, & institutions.

🪡It explains why people increasingly live in bespoke realities.

🤑 It breaks down how paranoid cranks run smear campaigns for clout, money, & power.

I wrote it during a wild year in which Jim Jordan subpoenaed me & Stephen Miller sued me. It’s time to tell the story.

Preorders are open — and really matter, so I appreciate your support!

https://amzn.to/44BjAII

Noupside, 1 month ago to random

This man unblocked me after NINE YEARS to imply I ran some kind of deep state sinister smear campaign targeting him.

Literally nine years ago this happened and I never interacted with him again.

Incredible.

Fragile man boosts fragile man.

(Nassim Taleb and Paul Thacker).

Cc @pluralistic do you remember this?

November 22, 2015 9:55 AM Edit Tweet NassimNicholasTaleb ® @nntalebr Further investigation shows that Cory Doctorow is in fact highly dishonest intellectually, pure charlatan. $doctorow GuruAnaerobic @GuruAnaerobic @doctorow @nntaleb l've read your article. I follow Taleb. You are the troll; and either stupid or dishonest. 11/21/15, 6:25 AM 7 RETWEETS 12 LIKES
< ...00 AT&T LTE November 21, 2015 7:51 AM 7:51 AM Tweet Edit Renee DiResta @noUpside Author of Fooled by Randomness defends homeopathy. 12h Boing Boing @BoingBoing assimNicholas Taleb O nntaleb tions can be rational if 1) harmless, 2) lower your an nt you from listening to forecasts by economists & B Longtime supporter of junk science now defends homeopa... - 13 Nov 2015 146 • 196 3

rodhilton, 1 month ago to random

When Jack first started talking about Bluesky, in the very early phases it involved the blockchain. I remember suggesting that I thought the reason he liked the idea was that he could theoretically build a version of Twitter where no tweets could ever be deleted, and therefore there'd be no pressure on him to moderate or ban anyone. He wanted to not have the power.

People always thought I misunderstood Jack's motivations but it turns out I was right about him all along.

https://www.engadget.com/jack-dorsey-claims-bluesky-is-repeating-all-the-mistakes-he-made-at-twitter-234326121.html

Noupside, 1 month ago to random

The mattress I bought 3 years ago wants to redefine our relationship

Noupside, 1 month ago to random

Breathtaking insight from Elon’s discarded pet propagandist

Noupside, 1 month ago to random

Last week Twitter Files substack blogger Paul Thacker was back in my inbox, wanting to speak to the manager. Paul, if you didn’t send me stupid emails, I wouldn’t post them to the internet.

Here are excerpts from the latest bad faith media inquiry from the Bullshit Industrial Complex, shared to explain how it works. This man -a notorious hack- claimed to have “whistleblower” docs showing that I secretly ran election interference ops, particularly for the U.S. Dept of Defense.

This is a lie.

This whistleblower has also said that New Knowledge won an award from the DoD to create automated disinformation for elections. Again, you have denied such involvement in election disinformation and have tried to portray yourself as an actual expert on detecting disinformation--not creating it.

Noupside, 1 month ago to random

🦐 This One Weird Trick will help you grow a massive following on Facebook, sell products that don’t exist, and drive traffic to your weird machine-generated content farm…

Shrimp Jesus continues to fascinate audiences worldwide; we describe how the broader scam and scam pages work in this piece for The Conversation:

https://theconversation.com/from-shrimp-jesus-to-fake-self-portraits-ai-generated-images-have-become-the-latest-form-of-social-media-spam-226903

Noupside, 1 month ago to random

The CyberTipline is the main line of defense for children who are exploited on the internet. Tips -filed by tech companies and others who encounter exploitation content - lead to the rescue of children and the arrest of abusers. Yet after 26 years many believe the entire system is not living up to its potential, and generative AI threatens to make it ever harder to triage reports as investigators must determine whether a child is real.

https://cyber.fsi.stanford.edu/io/news/cybertipline-report

Noupside, 1 month ago to random

“The word censorship has an actual meaning”…and it’s not a private social media platform slapping a label on bullshit.

https://techpolicy.press/the-word-censorship-has-an-actual-meaning-a-defense-of-content-moderation

Noupside, 1 month ago to random

Metatext. I reinstalled and it didn’t fix anything. Maybe an instance problem? Today I’ll try another app.

Noupside, 1 month ago to random

Testing 123 my image uploads all look blurry but apple says the app is up to date. What do you see?

Noupside, 1 month ago to random

Facebook is such a fascinating ecology. The species fittest at gaming the algos grow prolifically; the platform shifts the environment a bit; new & novel species rise. There were the weird food videos of Rick Lax et al. Now, the proliferation of generative AI content (Shrimp Jesus). One variant of cane toad after another.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/04/conservative-digital-media-traffic/678055/

carnage4life, 1 month ago to random

I wonder how social media will survive the distrust that will come from the flood of generative AI.

People question whether a song from Drake is actually by AI. VCs question if you wrote the email because of word choice. I got accused of using AI to write a description of a talk.

People are growing increasingly distrustful of any content they consume and spend energy worrying about its provenance versus actually reading, watching or listening to the media.

Noupside, 2 months ago to random

I used to reference chemtrails in 2015-era talks as one of those conspiracy theories that were prevalent in online fringe groups but which largely stayed confined to niche communities…and now these sorts of things are popping up and passing in state legislatures https://minnesotareformer.com/2024/04/05/minnesota-republicans-introduce-legislation-inspired-by-the-chemtrails-conspiracy-theory/

"If you look at a thousand planes, you won't see one (chemtrail). But then all of a sudden you see one," the author of the Tennessee Senate bill told the Tennessee Lookout last month. "So we're just asking the question: Are they putting anything in the air that could be toxic?" The Minnesota House version of the bill was authored by GOP Rep. Jeff Dotseth of Kettle River and co-sponsored by Reps. Pam Altendorf of Red Wing, Dawn Gillman of Dassel and Krista Knudson of Lake Shore. The Senate version was authored by GOP Sen. Eric Lucero of Saint Michael and co-sponsored by Sens. Glenn Gruenhagen of Glencoe, Bruce Anderson of Buffalo, Nathan Wesenberg of Little Falls and Eichorn, the assistant minority leader. Some of the language in the bill is nonsensical. "I don't think xenobiotic electromagnetism and fields is a thing - it doesn't even make sense," Buck said. The lead authors of both chambers' bills did not respond to a request to define "xenobiotic electromagnetism," or to provide a real-world example of it.