Stephen Wilhite, lead engineer on the team that created the GIF, died at the age of 74. Constantly fighting others on how his invention is pronounced (like the peanut butter), “he’s with jod“ say others.
A man who is paralyzed with ALS and unable to communicate with the outside world underwent surgery to fit him with a brain implant so that he can spell out sentences one letter at a time. His first message? “I want a beer.”
One of the more chilling tracks from this year’s SXSW were the sessions about misinformation, specifically political misinformation that derailed our elections. During the first day, I attended a session titled Fact v. Fiction: Fighting Election Disinformation a panel featuring, among others, Chris Krebs, noted cybersecurity expert, and Jena Griswold, former Secretary of State for Colorado.
Krebs shared his fear that our media ecosystem, while open to any and all to participate, is easily exploited by well-funded state actors. While the internet and open-source publishing platforms such as WordPress have leveled the playing field, opening access to anyone, it has also put the burden of fact-checking and verifying sources on to the reading public.
too many people are making “insane amounts of money” from disinformation campaigns
Chris Krebs @ SXSW 2022
On Facebook and Twitter all posts tend to look the same. Reduced to a headline, thumbnail image, and snippet, a sponsored post or advertorial written by a paid shill looks no different from a site with more stringent journalistic standards. Production values are no longer an arbiter of quality. Super-charged distribution is built into the business model of these platforms so, with a little bit of budget, a false narrative can be boosted and drown out competing narratives.
The infiltration of “fake news” sites in our media ecosystem is well-documented. What used to be a fenced-off network of identifiable Press Releases has been replaced by networks of “pay-to-play” sites that where lightly re-writing paid messages are turned into into thinly-veiled news stories interlinked to increase their SEO designed to flood the zone.
To illustrate my point in an aside, I uncovered one coordinated campaign designed to promote an online learning program to the Alameda School District. I used to live in Alameda and am familiar with its geography. Imagine my surprise when I saw the identical story across three publications that I had never heard of before. East Alameda is not even a neighborhood – everyone who has lived in Alameda knows it’s called the East End. That was the tell.
Clearly what happened is that the vendor of the online learning system was trying to swing public opinion to win a contract. Thankfully, they were thwarted but this shows you how easy it is to plant a message.
Even more chilling was Krebs’ statement that the 2020 Presidential Election was just a dry run or, as he says, an a/b test. Americans were sophisticated enough to suss out foreign disinformation but with movements such as Stop the Steal, QAnon, and the January 6th insurrection, we are still uncovering the depth and extent of deception. Domestic misinformation worked very well to power the Big Lie movement and we are sure to see more domestic misinformation in future elections.
I look at the last election as an a/b test. A – foreign, B – domestic. We learned that A doesn’t really resonate, B was effective so we’ll see more of that.
Chris Krebs at SXSW 2022
Jena Griswold, Secretary of State in Colorado, shared a chilling episode that took place as she oversaw the counting of ballots in the last election. Griswold discovered one of her election workers turned off cameras monitoring the ballot machines and invited an unauthorized person linked to the QAnon movement into the room, sharing motherboard passwords giving privileged access to the ballot computers and opening the ports to the internet, exposing the votes to tampering.
This person, Colorado county clerk Tina Peters, is now running against Griswold for Secretary of State despite having 10 indictments for election tampering filed against her. The Secretary of State is responsible for election integrity and most people do not bother to look into the background of individuals running for this position, in fact, many run unopposed. This firewall around free and fair elections could likely be undermined by a coordinated campaign to put “Big Lie” sympathizers into office that could throw the next presidential election.
Terrified yet? Here’s what you need to do according to the panel.
support non-partisan organizations that are working to get people to the polls
get familiar with the people running to protect elections in your county
talk to your “crazy uncle” or neighbor – try to get thru to them, empathize, sample what they are reading and look for common issues or facts upon which you can both agree
The video above circulated in 2005 when Second Life was the new hotness. As a pioneer in virtual worlds, they attracted buzz from futurists that saw the platform as the next generation of the internet. Companies flocked to the platform, eager to engage with their audience. Reuters opened a bureau and someone made a documentary. Looking back at it now, it looks so cheesy, “Meet thousands of people!”
There are echos of this when we see the latest push to the new virtual platform by the company formerly known as Facebook, Meta. Second Life is still around, going strong with 600,000 monthly users, a third of them coming back each day. Through it all, Wagner James Au has been covering Second Life as spectator, participant, and critic.
I’ve been waiting for someone to check in with Wagner James Au to see what he thinks about Meta, the latest run at virtual reality, and if there are any lessons to be learned from the 15+ years that he’s been there.
Lessons From 19 Years in the Metaverse, a conversation between Wagner James Au and Charlie Warzel is well worth a read. In it, I found this tidbit which is wise counsel to all those out there thinking about how their company or brand can participate meaningfully in the Metaverse.
But first, here’s a quote from the first time around:
To play in Second Life, corporations must first come to a humbling realization: in the context of the fantastic, their brands as they exist in the real world are boring, banal, and unimaginative.
And now from the Warzell interview. Same as it ever was:
Back then, people saw those brand failures and concluded that the metaverse isn’t real or ready for primetime. I fear that might happen again. But the problem is not the users. It’s these companies not meeting these metaverse communities halfway. They’re bumbling their way into the community instead of finding ways to fit inside the community and make use of the platform to bring the magic to life.
Remember that cargo ship that ran blocked the Suez Canal for a week? Maybe they need to give their captains some remedial training as Ever Given’s sister ship, the Ever Forward ran aground off the coast of Maryland.
San Francisco, taking a stance against laws limiting a woman’s access to abortion, LGBT discrimination, and voter suppression, limited business with any company headquartered in states that had such laws on the books. Now the city has backed itself into a corner and is prevented from doing business with much of the United States.
Mike Tyson is launching a line of cannabis-infused gummies. They’re called Mike’s Bites. What shape are they you say? The shape of an ear of course.
Tom Brady’s last touchdown pass football sold in an online auction for more than half a million dollars. Just a few hours later, Tom Brady announced he’s coming back for another season of football, immediately deflating the value of that football.
Hard to find any good news from the front this week except the boycott which seems to be having the desired effect. One Russian man chained himself to his local McDonald’s to prevent it from closing. “Closing down is an act of hostility against me and my fellow citizens!” shouted the man as police dragged him away. U.S. drugmaker AbbVie, makers of the cosmetic anti-wrinkle cream Botox, will no longer do business in Russia cutting off their most famous customer, Putin.
The People’s Convoy of truckers continued their daily sorties onto the beltway surrounding Washington DC to protest mask & vaccine mandates by driving around and gumming up traffic. Commuters have gone from grimly tolerating them to opening flipping them off.
Customs and Border Protection agents reported hundreds of pounds of bologna were found hidden in cars crossing the US border and that contraband bologna smuggling is a thing.
A man was caught attempting to cross the Mexican border with 43 horned lizards and 9 snakes in his pants.
Houston police were called to wrangle a pig on the loose. The pig’s name is Bacon. Unfortunately, no one got video of police running around calling loudly for bacon.
Stephen Miller asked to block a subpoena of his phone records because, he argued, it would infringe on his family’s privacy. That’s when we all found out the former Senior Advisor to President Trump is still on his parents’ T-mobile family plan.
A Brooklyn man had to call 911 to mobilize county Search and Rescue units after getting lost in the mountains outside of Phoenix. In less than 24 hours, he did it again.
“Today was unacceptable, but the season has been very acceptable. And I’ll tell you, the season isn’t over,” said Duke basketball’s legendary Coach K to the crowd gathered to wish him well at his last home game (which they unfortunately lost). Tickets to the game were going for Super Bowl prices.
The highest price for a collectible sports ticket was set when someone bid $468k for a ticket to Michael Jordon’s debut with the Chicago Bulls in 1984. The record was broken again later that afternoon with a $1.75 ticket stub from Jackie Robinson’s 1947 debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers sold for a $480K.
The average national hourly rate for a babysitter jumped 11% to over $20.57/hour with the going rate topping out at $23.45 for NYC.
That flaming cargo ship loaded with over 4,000 Lamborghinis, Porsches, and Bentleys sank.
Netflix’s production of the third season of Lupin was briefly halted after thieves made off with over $300,000 worth of equipment. Lupin is a series about a master thief.
A Silicon Valley startup has deconstructed thousands of drinks to their molecular components and is taking orders for a machine that will serve drinks from it’s “molecular beverage printer.” Cana (get it, “i wanna cana…”) is due to ship in 2023.
President Biden gave his State of the Union speech at the US Capitol on Tuesday. Counter-programming at the Stage of Freedom event near the Washington Monument was disappointing. Organizers of the much-hyped event were expecting a crowd of thousands including The People’s Convoy. 12 showed up.
The 2-mile long People’s Convoy rolling traffic jam, inspired by the anti-vaccination mandate truckers in Canada, arrived a few days late and are making their way slowly around on the Beltway to protest the vaccine mandates just as many state and local and state mandates are being rescinded.
