[As published in Tech Policy Press, 2/14/23] Managing society’s problems related to how (and by whom) social media news feeds are composed is rapidly reducing to the absurd. Elon Musk’s capricious management of Twitter highlights many of the core elements of the presenting problems — while related issues have risen…

Nice case for E2E, which I put in the human rights perspective of “Freedom of Impression” - the right of users not platforms to control what gets into our individual feeds. In an age of global feeds, freedom of expression is only practical if paired with freedom of impression. The best way to make that happen, since many users have difficulty managing the details for themselves, is by adding the right of Delegation to a service that acts as their agent (often referred to as "middleware").

Poor performance at Meta and Twitter’s self-destruction remind us that the dustbin of online history is littered with once dominant platforms. Many see this as akin to the extinction of dinosaurs, to be replaced with smaller, more nimble mammals, like the Mastodon.* …

Great guide to directions for recapturing the dream of new media and how it can augment human collaboration. For some complementary perspectives, see this series in Tech Policy Press by Chris Riley and me: 1. Delegation, Or, The Twenty Nine Words That The Internet Forgot 2. Understanding Social Media: An…

This article in Tech Policy Press is the third in a series with Chris Riley (6/17/22) Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.) — Walt Whitman, Song of Myself Capsule: Current news is awash with acute concerns about social media content…

My take on the deeper issues for democracy of Musk’s on-again/off-again bid for Twitter, Boiling Elon Musk — Jumping Out Of The Pot Of Platform Law?, has been published on Techdirt. The boiling frog syndrome suggests that if a frog jumps into a pot of boiling water, it immediately jumps…

Beyond the hope, fear, and loathing wrapped in the enigma of Elon Musk’s Twitter, there are some hints of possible blue skies and sunlight, whatever your politics. A new architecture document from the Bluesky project that Jack Dorsey funded points to an important strategy for how that might be achieved…

This article in Tech Policy Press is the second in a series with Chris Riley (4/27/22) We shape our tools and thereafter our tools shape us. (Marshall McLuhan) Capsule: Social media do not behave like other media. Speech is not primarily broadcast, as through megaphones and amplification but rather, propagates…

This article in Tech Policy Press is the first in a series with Chris Riley (2/27/22) It is the policy of the United States…to encourage the development of technologies which maximize user control over what information is received by individuals…who use the Internet…” (from Section 230 of the Communications Decency…