Still, I'm not very interested in playing with bots (except Slackbot) but this story is good read http://www.niemanlab.org/2017/04/this-is-how-the-new-york-times-is-using-bots-to-create-more-one-to-one-experiences-with-readers

@jangles Thanks for sharing this piece. And I agree: I probably would leave Mastodon very quickly if there where corporate messages here.
It's quite interesting: I found several people in my wider network making jokes about the idea and the concept of #Mastodon. Then I realized: Most of these guys are marketing folks - maybe that's a good omen...

Lots of expert statements on the future of free spech, trolls, anonymity and news on the web http://www.pewinternet.org/2017/03/29/the-future-of-free-speech-trolls-anonymity-and-fake-news-online/
The Future of Free Speech, Trolls, Anonymity and Fake News Online

@jangles Just read a quite long piece on that Syria question in German "Spiegel". They conclude, the Russian/Syrian story seems to be false and they have some evidence the regime is responsible - but I think, it's very hard to prove http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/syrien-die-indizien-die-verschwoerungstheorien-die-fakten-zum-giftgasangriff-a-1143009.html

I understand my social bookmarks as reading recommandations for others and I'm happy that my favorit service Refind.com now offers feeds for this. Wrote a short blog post (in GER) on it. The bookmarks are in GER and EN, topics are tech, politics, online communication.
https://thomaspleil.de/2017/04/09/lesetipps-als-rss-feed/