Then a story of Meta "experimenting" with making certain accounts pay for links as part of its "pay for verification" program, further enshittifying Facebook by siloing itself from the wider open web & extracting more from business users.
Then we have the story of OpenAI hiring George Osborne, allowing Ben and I to chronicle all the ex-British pols who seem to end up on big tech payrolls. Nick Clegg, obviously, but also Rishi Sunak (who is working with Anthropic). It's all political these days.
Then a story about Meta's new approach to age verification which is (actually) *technically* interesting, but only inasmuch as the technically interesting bits obscure that there's still real problems with age verification systems and that you have to trust someone somewhere to care for your data.
New Ctrl-Alt-Speech: Have Yourself a Very Meta Christmas
This week, we're overloading on Meta stories, starting with reports of Meta aggressively banning marginalized groups. Remember the days when everyone insisted it was all "anti-conservative bias"?
podcast.ctrlaltspeech.com/2315966/epis...
Have Yourself a Very Meta Chri...
We finally leave Metaland and head over to Siberia (yes, actual Siberia) where Roblox users are out in the snow protesting over Russia's decision to ban Roblox. Protests are generally frowned upon in Russia, so it's an interesting to note that it's a Roblox ban that pushed people over the edge...
We close out with a quick discussion of the Oscars moving to YouTube, and what a statement that makes about the internet's central place in culture today.
A fun pod for our final pod of the year. Take a listen!
podcast.ctrlaltspeech.com/2315966/epis...
Have Yourself a Very Meta Chri...
As both the House & Senate look to repeal Section 230, I'm curious who they think should be held liable for the comments they've left open on the Epstein photo dump...? Them? Dropbox?
Do they have a trust & safety team watching the comments?
View quoted note →
Really great piece by @charlottewillner.bsky.social@bsky.brid.gy & @davidsullivan.bsky.social@bsky.brid.gy highlighting how at the very same time Congress was claiming to want to "protect the children online," the White House was announcing that it's blocking visas for trust & safety workers who actually help kids be safe
State Dept. Visa Misstep Will ...