Mastodon was supposed to be the answer to many social media problems. Instead of being one site under the control of one group of people, it’s many independent instances. If administrators on one became troublesome, you could move to another. You could find an instance that reflected your values and had the kind of people you like. It’s become something different.
Eugen Rochko, the founder of Mastodon, recently boasted:
I’d like to get it out there that the onboarding experience changed a fair bit this year. We don’t force people to choose a server anymore, so getting started shouldn’t be any more complicated than on any other site.
In the strict sense, no one was ever forced to choose a server. As far as I know, no court has ever ordered anyone to get a Mastodon account. But everyone who uses Mastodon has to choose one, and that hasn’t changed. It’s just that people now are herded into the big servers and have to make an extra effort to pick any of the others. That’s a step backward, toward monolithic social media.
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Does US federal law mandate a “kill switch” for alcohol-impaired drivers in cars made in the future? According to several fact checkers, no. However, an article by Jon Miltimore for FEE shows that it does.
The issue isn’t one of what the law contains, but of terminology. In claiming there is no kill-switch mandate, USA Today refers to the very text that mandates it:
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I just received the following email from the MIT Free Speech Alliance, regarding the malicious email that I discussed in a recent post. It came just a little while after I submitted an inquiry on the subject, but unless they can write really fast, I don’t think there’s a causal connection. Here’s the message, with their email redacted since I like to be cautious about posting addresses on the Web. (The address of the perpetrator doesn’t merit any caution.)
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My latest article for Liberty Fund is now out: “The Political Philosophy of Tolkien.”
J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings presents several societies with different approaches to government. The most prominent include the idyllic Shire, the grand realm of Gondor, the hardy kingdom of Rohan, and the absolute dictatorship of Mordor. Looking at them gives strong indications of his views of government. In addition, we have his own words on the kind of governance he favored.
The most detailed description of a governmental structure is that of the Shire, the home of the Hobbits. …
UPDATED 8:10 PM EST, November 21, 2023. Sorry, I misread the mail headers. I’m out of practice.
UPDATE 2, 4:48 PM EST, November 22, 2023. Got a statement from the MIT FSA. See my new post.
Yesterday I received an odd email purporting to be from the MIT Free Speech Alliance, but attacking it. The headers in the mail seem to say it originated from the usual source, suggesting that either an insider sent an unauthorized message or the account’s security was compromised. CORRECTION: The message comes from a Yahoo account unrelated to the usual sending account. Even so, the sender was able to get hold of at least some of the addresses on the organization’s mailing list. The mail said “Ask them to remove your name from the MFSA membership list they claim to represent as they advocate to destroy the diversity that helps make MIT the great world-class institution it is today.”
I’m trying to figure out what happened, and I’ll provide more information when I have it. Meanwhile, treat any email you receive from mit_freespeech@yahoo.com with caution. Note that that is not the address from which legitimate MIT Free Speech Alliance emails come. The situation suggests that even if the mail server wasn’t compromised, a malicious party got hold of all or part of the list of subscribed addresses and could make further use of it.
When researching and writing material about China, you have to be aware of the Chinese government’s disinformation efforts. People who speak out against it are apt to be the targets of systematic insults and character assassination. If you’re operating on a small level, you probably won’t be bothered. Even though my articles on boycotting the Chengdu Worldcon did well in the search engines, I’ve received only one clear threat with a Chinese connection.
CNN has reported on “the world’s largest known online disinformation operation”:
The Chinese government has built up the world’s largest known online disinformation operation and is using it to harass US residents, politicians, and businesses—at times threatening its targets with violence. …
The onslaught of attacks – often of a vile and deeply personal nature – is part of a well-organized, increasingly brazen Chinese government intimidation campaign targeting people in the United States, documents show.
This post is a signal boost for Ada Palmer’s very interesting John Nuveen Lecture on censorship at the University of Chicago Divinity School. A lot of you reading this blog may know her better from her songs and the group Sassafrass, but she’s amazingly knowledgeable about a lot of things.
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Just a couple more items from Chengdu Worldcon reports.
Chris M. Barkley, writing on his experience on an “Ask a US Fan” panel, reported: “Also, knowing that whatever was said at this panel would probably be reviewed by either Communist Party officials or members of the security services, I had planned in advance to make a point of saying that I was not a foreign policy expert nor was I there to criticize the government or policies of the People’s Republic of China.”
On a more positive note, there was a table for Tibetan science fiction. The report says, “The entire convention was not planned like a free and easygoing party, but more like a well-regulated exhibition. After all, the fan area was located in the lobby on the first floor, in a corner space.” I’m sure any mention of China’s conquest of Tibet was carefully avoided or rewritten as “liberation,” but given the convention’s general bleakness, giving space at all to Tibetan SF is something.
Lukianenko remained officially a Guest of Honor, though he never showed up. I haven’t seen any explanation for his absence. Normally, when a GoH doesn’t show, the concom will say something, even it’s a vague “personal reasons.” This wasn’t a normal Worldcon, though. However, his writing appears in a tie-in book that also has stories by Sawyer and Liu.
A teacher who wants to limit students’ minds and close off their horizons is a vile person. To Kill a Mockingbird is a powerful, moving novel about racial injustice in the South. It presents a world that’s different from today’s America and presents the suffering and hope of the people who suffered and tried to correct its injustices. A man defends the target of a false criminal accusation at great personal cost. For this reason, four progressive teachers in the state of Washington wanted to keep their students from reading it. A Washington Post article tells the tale.
In their formal challenge to the book in the Mukilteo School District, the teachers claimed, “To Kill A Mockingbird centers on whiteness. … It presents a barrier to understanding and celebrating an authentic Black point of view in Civil Rights era literature and should be removed.” Three of the four are white, just by the way. Claiming that the novel “centers on whiteness” shows either gross ignorance of the book or gross dishonesty. In normal use, the Civil Rights Era began in the 1950s, and the novel is set during the Depression. It’s true that it doesn’t celebrate what it was like to be black in Alabama in those days.
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