Dan Gillmor

@dangillmor.bsky.social

Posts

dangillmor.com/about

Mainly at Mastodon: mastodon.social/@dangillmor

Take the time to watch this video of an American Nazi gathering at NYC Madison Square Garden in 1939. It is chilling. anightatthegarden.com Our modern fascists aren't as cartoonish, nor quite as regimented (yet). But they are deadly serious. We can't let them succeed.

The Murdoch family's Fox "News" did its best to foment national fear and loathing with its dangerously bogus claim that the car explosion at Niagara Falls was terrorism. It's a reminder that Murdoch and his underlings relentlessly inject poison into our civic bloodstream, for profit and power. 1/2

Musk's SLAPP attack against Media Matters is a direct and more-vile-than-usual expression of his hatred of the press. If that doesn't get journalists to leave his platform, is there anything he can do to get them to do the right thing? (Sadly, that may be a rhetorical question.)

"Journalists (And Others) Should Leave Twitter. Here’s How They Can Get Started" www.techdirt.com/2023/01/04/j...

Journalists (And Others) Should Leave Twitter. Here’s How They Can Get Startedwww.techdirt.com Summary: Elon Musk has demonstrated contempt for free speech in general, and journalism in particular, with his behavior at Twitter. He is also demonstrating why it is foolhardy for anyone to rely …

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Dan Gillmor

This would also be a realistic hacker movie.

Remember, a realistic lawyer movie would just be one person sitting at their desk & staring at a computer screen, & every 15 minutes they’d say “Goddammit.” That’s it, the whole thing, 95 minutes

This is in the NY TImes, not the Onion where it belongs.

It's increasingly clear that preservation of creative works will require a significant amount of copyright infringement. The publishing/entertainment cartel will try to persuade you that the permanent removal of creative works from public view is a great thing. It's not.

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Dan Gillmor

Very similarly to Trump, there is an extremely obvious solution at hand to this problem in the fact that Musk is coincidentally a clumsy criminal who is constantly committing criminal acts, but that fact is weirdly seen as a moral dilemma instead of a layup.

Ronan Farrow on Elon Musk: “There is little precedent for a civilian’s becoming the arbiter of a war between nations in such a granular way, or for the degree of dependency that the U.S. now has on Musk in a variety of fields, from the future of energy and transportation to the exploration of space”

Elon Musk’s Shadow Rulewww.newyorker.com How the U.S. government came to rely on the tech billionaire—and is now struggling to rein him in.

Bluesky may not be the best place to move from Twitter (currently called "X" by its off-the-wall head), but moving anywhere else is better than staying on an ever-more-toxic site. That this isn't obvious yet, notably to Big Journalism, is an enduring mystery.

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Dan Gillmor

Reply to

Mike Masnick

So... we're excited to launch: Moderator Mayhem (which we've spent the last few months building, in partnership with Engine). A browser-based mobile content moderation simulator game: https://moderatormayhem.engine.is/

CNN's Licht justifies giving the most dangerous politician in America its platform once again, by touting it as an event that "made news" -- but Trump's relentless lying had absolutely nothing new in it.

Major kudos to Wikipedia for telling the UK to stuff its age verification law: https://www.techdirt.com/2023/05/09/wikipedia-tells-uk-government-it-wont-comply-with-proposed-age-verification-mandates/

If this site is what you prefer, I'm happy for you. Mastodon is where I do most of my posts. I have 1/3 the followers I had on Twitter, and at least 20x the genuine engagement (e.g. "boosts" and non-troll comments). I look forward to the day when these sites interoperate.

Of course CNN is pretending that giving Trump its platform tonight is about journalism. Come on, folks. Engaging in this charade is a waste of time. It's about money, period. Yet Big Journalism is, indeed, wasting time and resources it could be devoting to actual journalism.

"Officer-involved shooting" is a euphemism for "officer shot someone" -- and it's used, by police and journalist, to make reality fuzzy. This commentary wisely advises journos to abolish the "Exonerative Tense” in headlines (I'd add articles as well).

When there's an independently run TweetDeck-like application for this site -- and lots of other third-party offerings, including alternate servers, that fully interoperate -- I'll be much more inclined to invest time here. It certainly is possible, but is it probable?

Kudos to the scientists who resigned, en masse, from the editorial board at one of the journals published by Elsivier, a company that almost defines the word "greed" -- https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/may/07/too-greedy-mass-walkout-at-global-science-journal-over-unethical-fees

Crytpocurrency company announces launch, with a name that will confuse people about federation (by design?) -- and its lead investor, I'm not joking, is called "Ego Death Capital" -- https://www.fedi.xyz/blog/fedi-inc-announces-raising-17-million-in-series-a-round

It just astounds me that the NY Times felt compelled to lead its business section today by helping Elizabeth Holmes (attempt to) reboot her reputation. Then again, over at the political desk, the Times routinely normalizes right-wing extremists. (No link from here...)

The UK government is accelerating its campaign to become a police state. Arresting people for utterly peaceful opposition to the self-satire the "royal family" has made itself -- that's pure autocracy. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-65507435.amp

With every new revelation about the corruption of Clarence Thomas and his wife -- each worse than the last -- you get the sense that this is tip-of-the-iceberg territory. https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/sugar-justice-the-clarence-thomas-story

Amazon Prime video has a well-done documentary about the late and truly great musician Gordon Lightfoot. Recommended. When I was young and embarking on brief but fulfilling musical career, his combination of poetry, melody, and arranging probably inspired me the most.

NPR is the only major journalism org to have shown a spine in dealing with Musk. So he's threatened to give the NPR username to someone else. Meanwhile, other media orgs STILL pour their work and advertising money in to his rancid site. What will it take for journalists to wake the hell up?

@bnewbold.bsky.team Suggested tweak for the page (blueskyweb.xyz/blog/4-28-20...) helping people use their own domain names in handle here. If they're using a hosting company other than registrar (using different nameservers), that's where they need to add TXT record, not at original registrar.

I would bet there hasn't been an "original" chord progression created in at least the past 200 years (using the 12 tones in western music, at any rate). If the financial manipulator suing Ed Sheeran gets away with this, it will be proof that copyright law has gone completely insane.

An example of out-of-control crime in San Francisco: Hotel company stole $9 million from workers. https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/san-francisco-marriott-tips-18000567.php?cmpid=gsa-sfgate-result SF Chronicle totally downplaying this kind of criminal behavior, naturally...

CNN has decided to promote a presidential candidate who, when he was president, tried to prevent his elected successor from taking office. It was an attempted coup d'etat. CNN to democracy: Up yours. https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/01/politics/donald-trump-town-hall/index.html

What's the best guide for attaching my account here to my domain name (dangillmor.com)?

Trying YASN...