Notices by Erin Kissane (kissane@mas.to)

I need a linter that just removes commas I stick everywhere in informal writing but I need it at the level of my brain

@mpjgregoire They're intended to get engagement and make money. Exclusively. Whatever else they do is an externality to the creators.

Two years ago, I wrote at very great length about how this played out in Myanmar. It is so upsetting to see how many of the same dynamics are at work here now.

https://erinkissane.com/meta-in-myanmar-full-series

This thing that 404 is writing about in the US—the dehumanizing fake content created purely because Facebook pays people to make it?

https://www.404media.co/ai-generated-videos-of-ice-raids-are-wildly-viral-on-facebook/

It has a direct precedent in the Myanmar genocide and has been widely reported on for years. Karen Hao's work on this is outstanding:

https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/11/20/1039076/facebook-google-disinformation-clickbait

@bonfire is doing some of the most interesting work on the open social internet, and they're doing it in the most exhilarating ways. I am delighted to be even a little bit involved in the work they have planned:

https://www.wrecka.ge/sparks-fly-up/

@janl Wow is this weasely

> A Microsoft spokesperson said that it had been in contact with the court since February “throughout the process that resulted in the disconnection of its sanctioned official from Microsoft services.” The spokesperson added that “at no point did Microsoft cease or suspend its services to the ICC.”

@mattly @janl Truly, what??

@mattly Uhhhhhhhh

I wrote about Bluesky’s moderation tensions and the White House’s threats and the critical need for open networks that can do broad connection and also care for communities at Tech Policy Press:

https://www.techpolicy.press/trump-administrations-arrival-on-bluesky-highlights-growing-pains-for-open-networks/

I think Mastodon's proposal for starter packs is a significant positive evolution of the way Bluesky rolled them out. I wound up on a bunch of packs there and it was…not a great thing for my specific brain and purpose.

I do hope the people in Masto's comments saying they must allow opt-out and removal will read the actual post, which features both blanket opt-out and individual removal.

https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2025/10/our-ideas-about-packs/

Vital, highly condensed, very well prioritized stuff on why the open social web matters so much—and how it can help people do the necessary work of society in our very rough moment—from @ben at #fediforum. The keynote is being recorded and I'm so glad, because I will be recommending it widely.

I don't think it's possible to be where we are in #uspol (and in the global authoritarian slide) without our information ecosystems being such a mess.

There's a ton of work to do on the distribution side of the problem, but also on the info-making side: Even great newsrooms aren't built to make the kind of knowledge we need in this moment, bc what they make are endless streams of atomized stories.

And we ordinary people are all out here in the feeds trying to piece it together in our heads.

Anyone reading this yet? https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2025/05/29/one-brief-shining-moment-rise-and-fall-of-the-second-american-republic/

@kims @jaz Thank you! I am so excited to find more direct ways to help.

I sure have a lot of thoughts on a lot of things, none of which belong on a microblogging network.

I am very anti getting covid *and also* this Lancet paper actually does a nice job of noting that the small cognitive deficits that persisted after clinically mild pre-vax-world covid may be too subtle to be noticed by the subjects, but there are other confounding factors & mysteries.

IRL many folks are *very* aware of cognitive problems after infection, so this isn't necessarily a case of special sneaky damage that's always subjectively invisible at high severity.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5370(24)00421-8/fulltext

Mostly I want to say: There's a ton of evidence that covid damages cognition to some degree, even in clinically mild cases. But the specific relationship between subjective experience and objective measures is genuinely complex, so it's good not to over-reduce it.

(Metacognition is wickedly tricky, as anyone with a history of "brain fog" and/or loved ones with cognitive decline can attest. Some conditions are subjectively detectable and some not and severity CAN play a role but doesn't always.)

Lastly! (Sorry.) The portents of doom clearly aren't the only reason for Moz going so hard on AI—there's a long history of classic techno-libertarian philosophy within the org that makes a lot of it make sense—and Moz has been looking for ways to diversify for a loooong time, but I do think the intensity of focus has been bumped up by the sense that things could hit a very heavy wall quite soon.

In lieu of an extremely specific reply card: I will not myself be engaging in arguments about whether or not Mozilla's initiatives are "good AI" or whatever.

Also I promise that you do not have to explain to me how Moz is funded or how browser development and/or open source works. ✌️

I haven't said this bc it seemed obvious but since I was snarky yesterday: My assumption is that Mozilla is real into AI (and not into most other things) right now is bc the potential remedies in the Google monopoly suit are an extremely serious existential risk and they're trying to operate where the money is (AI, for now) and maybe do some good—by someone's lights—to prep for that potential doom.

Remedies coming in about a year: https://archive.ph/j13bw

On Moz risk: https://news.itsfoss.com/google-mozilla-firefox-threat/