If IndieWeb took off, became mainstream, would it still be IndieWeb?

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If IndieWeb took off, became mainstream, would it still be IndieWeb?

26 February 2025

The IndieWeb doesn’t need to “take off”, by Susam Pal.

It’d be great to imagine all those people who cling to social media — as if it were a life-support system — suddenly coming to their senses and launching personal websites. Owning their own content, on websites belonging only to them. And in the process, hastening the demise of the social networks, who would abruptly find themselves with no members, after the personal website exodus.

But as I wrote last May, such a groundswell would not be great at all. Because once the action returned to the website space, we’d see a repeat of what happened prior to the arrival of social media: websites monetised to within an inch of their life. And opportunists galore, looking for a channel to pedal their wares, and rocket the noise-to-signal ratio off the gauge.

Yet, such a cataclysm might have occurred in 2021, when now US President Donald Trump launched a blog, after being banned by Twitter and Facebook (how unimaginable such happenings would be today…). With his own blog though, Trump effectively became part of IndieWeb. But someone with Trump’s profile, going “IndieWeb”, could easily have opened the floodgates.

And it wouldn’t have just been the likes of Trump. Politicians of all stripes might have followed suit, if they decided IndieWeb was the place to be. When people talk of IndieWeb “taking off”, I somehow doubt that’s what they have in mind. But Trump’s sojourn into “IndieWeb” blogging was short lived. A few months later he launched his own social network, Truth Social.

On the other hand though, even if IndieWeb had, if you like, gone mainstream, IndieWeb would still be IndieWeb. It would have continued to thrive, right where it is now, in its own corner of the web. In a strange sort of way then, IndieWeb is all the richer for the existence of social media. Die-hard adherents can keep their algorithm chocked socials feeds, and declining engagement, leaving IndieWeb to flourish, and be what it is.

A pre-war deal between Ukraine and Russia? What deal exactly?

20 February 2025

If Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had made a deal with Russia three years ago, the war in Ukraine could have been avoided. According, that is, to United States President Donald Trump:

This could’ve been settled very easily, just a half-baked negotiator could have settled this years ago without the loss of much land, very little land, without the loss of any lives, without the loss of cities that are just laying on their sides.

Was an undertaking not to join NATO meant to stop Russian President Vladimir Putin’s attempt to take back territory he’s long considered part of the old Russian Empire? Or were the Ukrainians expected to offer a whole lot more?

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current affairs, politics, Ukraine

Intercepted, a Ukraine war documentary by Oksana Karpovych

19 February 2025

Ukrainian film director Oksana Karpovych’s documentary, Intercepted, which features phone calls between invading Russian soldiers and their families in Russia, has one of the starkest trailers I’ve seen in a long while.

Phil Hoad, writing for The Guardian, described Intercepted as chilling, and compelling:

Juxtaposing intercepted calls back home from frontline Russian troops with shots of the devastation they have wreaked in Ukraine, this film is a bleak and searing wiretap into Putin’s warping effect on his people and the psychology of power.

Slow and steady wins the culture wars?

7 February 2025

Keeping track of what’s happening (or being said) in the world, particularly the United States, in these past few weeks feels like an impossible task. Trying to make sense of it all is another matter entirely. But as Tyler Cowen, writing at Marginal Revolution, seems to suggest, it’s all part of a bigger scheme:

You will not win all of these cultural debates, but you will control the ideological agenda (I hesitate to call it an “intellectual” agenda, but it is). Your opponents will be dispirited and disorganized, and yes that does describe the Democrats today. Then just keep on going. In the long run, you may end up “owning” far more of the culture than you suspected was possible.

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America, current affairs, politics

Don’t believe all the news you hear on commercial TV and radio

4 February 2025

Amanda Meade, writing for The Guardian:

People who get most of their news from commercial TV and radio are more likely to believe the conspiracy theory that climate change is a natural phenomenon rather than caused by humans, a new study has found.

The research conducted by Monash University, based in Melbourne, Australia, also found people who sourced news from commercial media outlets, generally scored lower on a measure of civic values, compared to those relying on non-commercial, and public, broadcasters. People with lower civic value scores tend to be more reluctant to take on views that clash with theirs.

And, if I’m understanding the study findings correctly, almost sixty-percent of Australians source news from social media platforms. With Facebook about to do away with fact-checkers, that’s going to be a lot of people with access to news that possibly has not been substantiated or verified.

How to fact check in places where Facebook is the whole internet

20 January 2025

Upcoming changes to Meta’s fact checking and content moderation policies might precipitate greater free speech in some parts of the world. But the removal of these checks and balances could trigger unrest and violence in other regions, say Libby Hogan and Natasya Salim, writing for ABC News:

Nobel laureate and Filipino journalist Maria Ressa warned of “extremely dangerous times ahead” for journalism and democracy. Celine Samson, a fact-checker with Vera Files, said roles like hers were especially important during the last election. Vera Files recorded a rise in misinformation posts that used a particularly dangerous tactic in the Philippines — portraying opposition leaders as communists. While the term “communist” may seem relatively harmless elsewhere, in the Philippines, it can be life-threatening.

In countries where Meta platforms are among other media channels, questionable content can potentially be disputed, but that’s not the case everywhere. In some places, Meta’s social networks are considered to be the internet. The removal of fact checking and content moderation controls in those environments could have dire consequences.

Meta announces major changes to content moderation polices

9 January 2025

Justine Calma, writing for The Verge:

Meta is essentially shifting responsibility to users to weed out lies on Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and WhatsApp, raising fears that it’ll be easier to spread misleading information about climate change, clean energy, public health risks, and communities often targeted with violence.

The policy revision seemed surprising initially, but less so as I read more. I wonder why they’ve decided to make these changes, at, of all times, now?

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg also says he wants to allow more political discussion, although he refers to it as civic content, on the company’s platforms, while working to keep the communities friendly and positive. Does this mean political discourse, between people on opposing ends of the political spectrum, will be courteous and respectful?

Inauguration insurance, another form of cookie insurance?

6 January 2025

Josh Ellis writes about buying a plate of cookies he had no intention of eating, from an entrepreneurial twelve-year old neighbour going door to door, who was selling them. Why would anyone pay out good money for something they’re not going to consume? Ellis describes the gesture as cookie insurance:

Lastly, I bought cookies I never intended to eat for insurance. A few years down the road, when that pleasant cookie peddling 12-year-old is an angstful teenager marauding the neighborhood with his gang of defrocked Cub Scouts and altar boys looking to slash tires and crack the skulls of garden gnomes, he might say, “Skip that house fellas, old man Ellis bought Christmas cookies from me once.”

A few minutes later I read about Apple CEO Tim Cook making a personal donation (in contrast to one on behalf of the tech giant) of one-million dollars, to US President elect Donald Trump’s inauguration fund. Trump, despite various legal woes in recent years, is still pretty well off financially. Why on earth would Cook feel the need to send him money? As inauguration insurance?

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America, current affairs, politics

Will Australian social media users need ID to prove their age? Maybe not

9 December 2024

At some point in 2025, Australians under the age of sixteen will no longer be able to operate social media accounts. I thought up to high school age, about thirteen, seemed sensible, but lawmakers decided otherwise. Anyway, I imagine the new regulations will require, eventually, those of us sixteen or over, to verify, or certify, that we are of the correct age.

With Instagram (IG), I’ve been a member since 2011. So unless I joined up when up when I was four years old, age verification seems pointless for long standing accounts. But not necessarily. There are situations where accounts may have changed hands. A page — or more specifically, a username — once established by a person of adult age, may now belong to someone under the age of sixteen.

I don’t know how often it happens, but social media usernames or accounts, probably change ownership on at least some of semi-regular basis. I’m talking about personal pages here, not accounts run on behalf of a business or organisation. These would most likely change stewardship when the person, maybe a social media manager, previously looking after the page, leaves that role.

I receive a couple of requests per year from people asking if I could “transfer” my personal IG page to them. They probably like the account name. I politely decline the polite requests (I’ve had a couple of not so courteous… demands before). I can only imagine the pressure people with IG handles, such as, well John, must be under to relinquish their usernames, but I digress.

To prove though we are the right age to be using social media in Australia, will we need to scan our driver’s licenses, or passports, into an app? A sometimes, cumbersome, awkward process. Please try retaking the photo of your passport in a better lit setting. Hopefully not. Instead, writes Stilgherrian, at The Weekly Cybers, everything we need may already be on our smartphones:

According to The Mandarin, tests of Australia’s Digital Trust Service (DTS), run by driver registry peak body Austroads, have shown that the credentials already in digital wallets can be used to verify proof-of-age at point-of-sale transactions without needing additional personal data.

Tune into the vibe, ignore the opinion polls

7 November 2024

Tyler Cowen, writing at Marginal Revolution, last July:

Democrats and leftists are in fact less happy as people than conservatives are, on average. Americans noticed this, if only subconsciously.

Cowen made a whole heap of observations — I’ve quoted but one — about the then upcoming US Presidential election. But it’s tuning into the vibe that interests me. Opinion polls may say one thing, but it’s the mood on the street, if you can tap into it, understand it, that matters.

I can’t say the result was what I hoped for, but let’s keep an eye on the vibe, and see what it tells us going forward.

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America, current affairs, politics

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