Mark Little

@marklittle
1.5K Followers
345 Following
165 Posts
Talking about media, tech and democracy. #Journalist for the longest time. Then founder/co-founder Storyful & Kinzen. Worked @twitter in the good old days. Now @Spotify. Focus on #TrustAndSafety
“A team of Italian researchers evaluated more than half a billion comments spanning 30 years, and concluded that online discourse is no more "toxic" today than it was in the early 1990s.”
https://linksiwouldgchatyou.substack.com/p/actually-the-internets-always-been
Actually, the internet's always been this bad

A new study considers 30 years of comments, with surprising conclusions

Links I Would Gchat You If We Were Friends
With anglicized words like "schedulato" and "diskussion," English is taking over the European languages, and there’s not much anyone — be it linguists or prime ministers — can do about it. Airmail’s Elena Clavarino explains. https://flip.it/o-R2yM
#Culture #Language #Europe #English
English is Taking Over Europe's Languages. Franglais, Anyone?

The anglicization of German, French, and Italian is happening at lightning speeds, and there’s not much anyone—be it linguists or prime ministers—can do about it.

Air Mail
“Worldwide, daily active users on the mobile app fell to 174 million in February, down 15% from a year earlier … Other social media apps experienced modest increases in their worldwide user bases during the same period” https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/fewer-people-using-elon-musks-x-struggles-keep-users-rcna144115
Fewer people using Elon Musk’s X as it struggles to keep users

The number of people using X daily is falling, more than a year after tech billionaire Elon Musk bought the app formerly known as Twitter.

NBC News
Thomas Dolby explaining the synthesizer a quarter of a century ago. The kiddie version of David Bowie’s legendary internet prediction: https://www.openculture.com/2014/05/thomas-dolby-explains-how-a-synthesizer-works.html
Thomas Dolby Explains How a Synthesizer Works on a Jim Henson Kids Show (1989)

We've all heard the musical fruits of audio synthesis, especially if we regularly listen to the pop of the 1980s. But how, exactly, does a synthesizer work? Ask a modern electronic-music enthusiast and the answer may come out too technical, and at too much length, to bear.

Open Culture

@paul @hybridhavoc @mike Here's a new blogpost on how to discover, follow and organize federated Flipboard Magazines.

https://about.flipboard.com/inside-flipboard/flipboard-federates-magazines-for-mastodon-users/

How to Follow Flipboard Magazines in the Fediverse - Flipboard

People on Mastodon can now follow Flipboard Magazines by selected publishers and creators. This builds on a test to federate Flipboard content and adds over 1,000 Flipboard Magazines for hundreds of interests like fashion, politics, science, sports, technology and more.

Flipboard

Hello Fediverse!

Today we're taking another important step in our journey to fully federate Flipboard.

This morning we federated 1,000 Flipboard Magazines curated by the publishers we have been testing federation with in addition to 20 new publishers we are federating today. These include magazines like Adventure Travel by Outside, Eater DC by Eater, Explore NYC by Thrillist, Throwbacks by SPIN, and Climate Tech by Bloomberg.

Flipboard Magazines are a simple way to curate articles, images, videos and podcasts into a thematic feed. This powerful curation tool has been at the heart of Flipboard since 2012 with millions of magazines curated since about recipes, road trips, architecture, books, tech trends and so much more.

Federated magazines become native #ActivityPub feeds and can be followed by anyone on Mastodon. For example, check out my Following the Fediverse magazine @following-the-fediverse-mike

I believe that thoughtfully curated feeds have the power to make social media a lot more effective and inspiring so I'm excited to bring millions of these magazines to the #Fediverse as we federate all public curators in the next few weeks.

Check out my Medium post for more details along with a list of some of the great magazines we federated today.

https://medium.com/@mmccue/federating-flipboard-magazines-575a18297bd6

Federating Flipboard Magazines

Bringing the power of curated feeds to Mastodon and the broader Fediverse

Medium

This sort of feels like a VergeCast kind of a story @alexeheath @davidpierce @alex_cranz

Ireland’s new Internet regulator wants people in the EU to upload copies of their state IDs and live selfies to porn sites.

More detail: https://www.thegist.ie/the-gist-coimisiun-na-mean-is-big-mad/

The Gist: Coimisiún na Meán is Big Mad

Oh boy, Ireland's new Internet Regulator is super mad that their idea to get people to upload their passports and live selfies to porn sites is being criticised. This is the Gist.

The Gist
“We had a tough day last night in the Middle East. We lost three brave souls,” President Biden tells a dinner for Brookland Baptist congregants in Columbia, SC. He then led a moment of silence and vowed “we shall respond.”
“The story from the early 2000s about how the internet was going to kill the creative industries and creators was not only wrong, it had everything backwards. The internet has been a huge boost to the creative industries, opening up new ways for people to create, to distribute, and to engage with content of all kinds.” https://www.techdirt.com/2024/01/22/the-sky-is-rising-2024-edition-rather-than-destroying-culture-the-internet-has-saved-the-content-industries/
The Sky Is Rising 2024 Edition: Rather Than Destroying Culture, The Internet Has Saved The Content Industries

Read the latest edition of The Sky Is Rising at The Copia Institute » Twelve years ago, we released our very first research report, the Sky is Rising. Back then, in 2012, the commonly accepted wisd…

Techdirt
“That may be the real lesson of Davos: Everyone is winging it, experts and schlubs alike, muddling through with at best fragmentary understandings of a fast-moving world and its inscrutable future.” https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/01/17/why-the-davos-smart-set-sounds-dumb-00136249
Why the Davos Smart Set Sounds Dumb

In a complex world, having original insights is harder than ever.

POLITICO