The more technical an issue is, the easier it is to report it incorrectly. Today I noticed a widely retweeted claim that Parler had sent the email addresses of all its users in a message related to Kayne West’s acquisition of the service. Here it is:
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When you report or comment on a news story, the first step is to understand what it says. Low-quality websites have ways of appearing to say more than they do. They aim to create a panic and attract links. A careful reading may show there isn’t much substance to what happened.
Let’s look at a Daily Mail article claiming that an application called “New Profile Pic” “hoovers up your details.” A careful reading shows that doesn’t mean much.
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Robby Soave is making a name for himself among the younger generation of libertarian journalists. His Tech Panic addresses many of the overblown concerns and bad recommendations about social media. The attacks come from both the right and the left, and they’re disturbingly similar even though the two sides hate each other. They’re often attacks on free speech as such. 
I should mention that I don’t like the big social media platforms very much. Rather than go off on a major rant, I’ll just leave it at that. I make minimal use of Facebook and have given up on Twitter, and I’m not biased in their favor.
Politicians often demand the repeal of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. The bulk of the CDA was declared unconstitutional, but Section 230 remains as protection for hosting companies and their users. It says, basically, that websites aren’t responsible for user-posted content. There are some exceptions; for instance, hosts have to take down child porn as fast as they can. But if a user violates a copyright or libels a person, the liability falls on the user, not the host.
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Most browsers give you the option of browsing in a private window. The name may vary; Microsoft Edge calls it inPrivate, and Chrome calls it Incognito, Whatever it’s called, it sets up a temporary window or tab and discards your cookies and browsing history when you close it. You’ll see warnings everywhere about its limitations. If you’re an NSA whistleblower, you’ll need much better protection to avoid being caught. But here I want to talk about some benefits that aren’t often discussed. They’re especially handy when doing research.
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No convention is complete without a website. It lets people know about the event and keeps its members and supporters up to date. There’s room for variety in how it looks, but some items are essential. We’ve gone so long without in-person conventions that a reminder of how to create a website for one is useful right now.
I’ve had a lot of experience in the running of science fiction and filk music conventions, and I’ve set up or provided technical support for a number of sites. Here’s a quick guide to the points that a convention website needs to cover.
Use a secure HTTPS site. It gives visitors more confidence, improves your visibility in search engine results, and protects the personal information that participants give you. Upgrading to HTTPS costs little or nothing.
Graphics can include the convention logo and pictures of the guests and the hosting facility. They aren’t required, but they make the page more attractive. Don’t overdo them.
Visitors come to the homepage first. Some of the convention pages I’ve seen are awful, leaving out essential information. Make sure to include everything visitors need to find out when they learn about your event.
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There’s a little-known security risk built into the design of HTML. It concerns links that open in a new tab or window. You make it happen by specifying target="blank" in an anchor (a) element. For example:
<a href="something.example.com" target="_blank">The trouble is that when you do it, you put the page containing that link at risk. For some bizarre reason, the designers of HTML decided that the destination page should gain access to the window.opener property of the source page. This gives the target page — the one run by someone else considerable control over your page. For instance, it can redirect your page to another URL.
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There’s an old Internet saying: “Don’t feed the trolls.” It’s still excellent advice. When people communicate with you only to get you upset, the best answer is usually no answer.
Some authors have been subjected to online harassment by cultural segregationists. Their crime is to write something which is not permitted to their race or ethnic group. A bunch of racists piled on Amélie Wen Zhao for the offense of depicting a fantasy world in which slavery isn’t limited to people with dark skins. (There’s a real-world counterpart: China, which is where Zhao comes from.) Some of these bigots said that people with yellow skins shouldn’t write about slavery at all. They temporarily intimidated her into withdrawing her book from publication.
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I’ve been on Medium.com for just a few weeks. It’s too soon to say whether it will be a significant source of income, though I’ve already gotten one payment. Here are a few observations, based on limited data.
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If you’ve ever tried to research a difficult topic on Google, DuckDuckGo, Bing, or any of the other major search engines, you know what a battle it is. You don’t just get irrelevant results, you get the feeling the search engine is working against you. Instead of matching your keywords, it returns matches for vaguely similar spellings. Instead of matching all your search terms, it gives you popular pages that match just one. You may start to think the search engines are conspiring against you, and in a sense you’re right.
Here’s the secret: Search engines think you’re stupid. They think you can’t construct a proper search and they have to “help” you by guessing your real intent. Statistically, this isn’t so unreasonable. Most people have no idea how to construct a search string. They can’t spell. Search engines have dumbed themselves down to the level of these people. This is great if you can’t remember the spelling of a name and you’re looking for popular articles, but it’s murder when you’re trying to get an answer to a difficult query.
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Google has accomplished something impressive. It has thousands or millions of people who regularly tell others to use its search engine. They don’t do it because they think it’s better than the alternatives. They don’t do it because they’re paid to. They do it because being an unpaid publicist for Google is a social norm. Want to show you’re smart when someone asks a question? Tell them to “Google” for it. No intelligence required.
Google is far from the only search engine around. Among the alternatives:
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