The thing is, any feed or search result is "algorithmic." "Just show me the things posted by people I follow in reverse-chronological order" is an algorithm. "Just show me products that have this SKU" is an algorithm. "Alphabetical sort" is an algorithm. "Random sort" is an algorithm.
--
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
One interesting wrinkle to framing platform degradation as a failure to connect willing senders and receivers is that it places a whole host of conduct within the regulatory remit of the #FTC. #Section5 of the #FTCAct contains a broad prohibition against "unfair and deceptive" practices:
If you own an Alexa, you might enjoy its integration with #IFTTT, an easy scripting environment that lets you create your own little voice-controlled apps, like "start my Roomba" or "close the garage door." If so, tough shit, Amazon just nuked IFTTT for Alexa:
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
The fact that a company can make more money by defrauding you by revoking or bricking the things you buy from them doesn't oblige you to stand up for their right to do this.
Indeed, all of this conduct is arguably illegal, under Section 5 of the #FTCAct, which prohibits "unfair and deceptive business practices":
#Enshittification is the process by which a #platform lures in and then captures end users (stage one), who serve as bait for business customers, who are also captured (stage two), whereupon the platform rug-pulls both groups and allocates all the value they generate and exchange to itself (stage three):
When Twitter asks you who you want to hear from, then refuses to deliver their posts to you unless they pay a bribe, that's both "unfair and deceptive":
But that's only a stopgap. The problem with Twitter isn't that this important service is run by the wrong mercurial, mediocre billionaire: it's that hundreds of millions of people are at the mercy of any foolish corporate leader.
Anything that can't go on forever will eventually stop. 40 years of declining worker power shattered the American Dream (TM), producing multiple generations whose children fared worse than their parents, cratering faith in institutions and hope for a better future.
--
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
Shifting the norms - having the conversations - is the tactic, but getting shit done is the goal. The Biden administration - a decidedly mixed bag - has some incredible, technically skilled, principled fighters who know how to get shit done. Take #LinaKhan, who revived the long-dormant #Section5 of the #FederalTradeAct, which gives her broad powers to ban "unfair and deceptive" practices:
American support for #unions is at its highest level in generations, from 70% (general population) to 88% (Millenials) - and yet, American unionization rates are pathetic.
That's about to change.
--
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
It's also a stunning example of what regulatory competence looks like. The Biden administration is a decidedly mixed bag. On the one hand there are empty suits masquerading as technocrats, champions of the party's #centrist wing (slogan: "Everything is fine and change is impossible"):
#Privacy raises some thorny, subtle and complex issues. It also raises some stupid-simple ones. The American #surveillance industry's shell-game is founded on the deliberate confusion of the two, so that the most modest and sensible actions are posed as reductive, simplistic and unworkable.
--
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
Alas, not all the Biden appointees have the will or the skill to pull this trick off. The corporate Dems' darlings are mired in #LearnedHelplessness, convinced that they can't - or shouldn't - use their prodigious powers to step in to curb corporate power:
My god, they sure hate#LinaKhan. This once-in-a-generation, groundbreaking, brilliant legal scholar and fighter for the public interest, the slayer of #Reaganomics, has attracted more vitriol, mockery, and dismissal than any of her predecessors in living memory.
She sure must be doing something right, huh?
--
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this to read or share, here's a link to pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
All this is cover for a King Log performance, in which Buttigieg's far-reaching regulatory authority sits unused on a shelf while a million Americans are stranded over Christmas and whole towns are endangered by greedy, reckless rail barons straight out of the Gilded Age:
Ther's lots of ways to slice the #DemocraticParty coalition, but one important axis are the self-styled adults-in-the-room, who declare themselves realists, and the party's left wing, who are dismissed as idealists who don't understand politics: neither how to win elections nor how to wield power.
--
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
By contrast, the grownups in the party - people like #PeteButtigieg - have notably, repeatedly failed to master the procedural technicalities needed to exercise comparable authority. You can't be a technocrat unless you understand the techniques:
Lapillus(라필루스) 'Who's Next' MV (www.youtube.com)
Lapillus OFFICIAL SNSFancafe...