Today is the anniversary of the MOVE bombing. The only thing that’s changed is police are far more militarized, far more funded, and far less accountable, while their supporters fly a desecrated flag to explicitly endorse their violent attacks.

This is a milestone for the open web. https://www.theverge.com/2024/4/2/24119353/joe-biden-threads-mastodon-activitypub-fediverse

Hey! I don’t really talk about work much on here, but I’m super proud of what our team has been working on and am thrilled to share some highlights. First, we’ve been in the midst of building a whole new Glitch along with the community, and @jenn (celebrating *7 years* of leading our @glitchdotcom community!) has been hosting monthly code jams. This month: show us your blog! https://support.glitch.com/t/welcome-to-welcometomyblog-our-february-code-jam-prompt/65819

I wrote a little bit about the rise or AI-powered disintermediation of news and the threat to both accuracy and business models. Seven years ago, self-driving news. https://anildash.com/2017/03/01/tech_and_the_fake_market_tactic/

Hey look, it’s my first piece for Rolling Stone! (Thanks @noahshachtman) And I meant every word — I believe we’re seeing the renaissance of the weird, human internet. It couldn’t come a moment too soon. https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-commentary/internet-future-about-to-get-weird-1234938403/

How is the OpenAI board gonna fire Sam Altman just because he gave answers that sounded plausible but weren't actually accurate?

Roughly 1/3 of all sites on the Internet just entered the fediverse. You can’t stop an idea whose time has come. https://techcrunch.com/2023/10/11/wordpress-com-blogs-can-now-be-followed-on-mastodon-and-other-federated-platforms/

I said 5 years ago when the teachers' strikes began, but we're at the crest of the biggest wave of labor organizing since WWII, and owners & execs can feel however the fuck they need to feel, but it's happening. The pop culture moment of actors joining in today will make this real to millions more who don't pay as close attention, but who do see what happens to stars they know.

I am feeling very “Doctor Manhattan sitting on the moon” about this moment of watching this generation of the social web die due to fascist tech tycoon brain wanting control so badly that they’ll kill their own platforms. These people.

Excellent news from @Gargron about making Mastodon more accessible and inclusive for many more people! https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2023/05/a-new-onboarding-experience-on-mastodon/

Intellectual property law has fallen behind cultural practice in many ways over the last several years, and with the popularization of AI, that gap has only gotten bigger. The viral fake Drake song just revealed that Google is sitting on both sides of the divide, and @nilaypatel explains it brilliantly. https://www.theverge.com/2023/4/19/23689879/ai-drake-song-google-youtube-fair-use

Back in the late 20th century, a lot of folks used to worry about "selling out". I thought that people who don't remember that era well might find it useful to have a refresher on the concept, as well as a look at how it's been reinvented (and... improved?) in a modern context. https://www.anildash.com/2023/03/14/what-was-selling-out/

One sign that you're not making a technology for the right reasons is when you have to fucking lie about it, or misrepresent others in order to compete. For example, Nostr (the protocol which currently enjoys zero million daily active users) says of Mastodon, "There are no clear incentives to run servers" — proving that this is, indeed, a protocol created by people who have no idea how to make friends.

At its peak, there were ~5000 developers building on the Ethereum blockchain, according to enthusiasts' own estimates, and this was easily the most popular platform for blockchain devs. By contrast, over in the fediverse, Mastodon *alone* has over 40k stars on GitHub (indicating individual devs who are following the project) and that's just one project within the overall explosion of innovation happening in every facet of the fediverse — without any crypto bribes or scams driving any of it.

If you are a person who is new to the fediverse, or who’s returning to explore after a while away, I can affirmatively say (as someone who has been here right from the start) that we’re all glad to have you, and excited to see what you share, and inspired by the new ideas you have for what’s possible here.

Really clear to me that the new web of fediverse + wasm + tailscale is moving very quickly towards something pretty amazing. As much promise as all the hype of “Web3”, but open, interoperable, and no ties to crypto scams. A lot of incredible things are going to be built across this surface area in the next few years.

Okay, here's a remarkable thing about the fediverse: I was able to seamlessly move my followers to a new server, and the vast majority of them *never even noticed* that it happened. About 24 hours ago, I decided to move from mastodon[dot]cloud (because it had been bought up by sketchy new owners), and I came to @medium's new me.dm instance. At that time, I had 25,829 followers, and now less than 24 hrs later, I have 22,648 followers on this new account — without them having to do anything.