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The crows play hide-and-seek with Nicole Steinke aft her older kids caput to school. She feeds a household of the birds from her flat balcony successful Alexandria, Virginia, doubly daily. Once there’s nary nutrient left, they’ll look for her arsenic she walks astir her neighborhood. When 1 crow finds her, it volition telephone to the others, and they’ll situation her.
The crows person go insignificant TikTok celebrities acknowledgment to CrowTok, a tiny but highly progressive niche connected the societal video app that has exploded successful popularity implicit the past 2 years. CrowTok isn’t conscionable astir birds, though. It besides often explores the relationships that corvids—a household of birds including crows, magpies, and ravens—develop with quality beings.
They’re not the lone intelligent birds around, but successful general, corvids are astute successful a mode that resonates profoundly with humans. But however casual is it to befriend them? And what tin it thatch america astir attention, and patience, successful a satellite that often seems to person small of either? Read the afloat story.
—Abby Ohlheiser
Elon Musk doesn’t cognize what it takes to marque a integer municipality square
It was successful 2009 erstwhile the powerfulness of Twitter truly became evident. As immoderate Iranians tweeted done the country’s elections during a media blackout, the tract began to look arsenic a captious instrumentality of planetary activists. It formed the blueprint for however aboriginal movements relied connected Twitter to disseminate accusation and summation supporters.
Now, if the platform’s caller authoritative “Chief Twit” Elon Musk sticks to his stated plans to overhaul a bid of level policies, these precise users—arguably the users who made Twitter what it is—could look the astir risk. He’s signaled that helium wants to propulsion the level to travel the section laws of governments (including authoritarian ones), trim efforts to combat disinformation, and dilute the platform’s anonymity protections, which support activists astir the world. Read the afloat story.
By Jillian C. York, Director of International Freedom of Expression astatine the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
I made it large connected Twitter. Now I don’t deliberation I tin stay.
For a agelong time, it was worthy it for writer Mikki Kendall to enactment connected Twitter due to the fact that Twitter had the powerfulness to alteration your life. She broke large connected Twitter much than 10 years agone with a hashtag, #solidarityisforwhitewomen. It was large for her career, giving her entree to a planetary assemblage and unprecedented entree to the editors who made her a published author.
But adjacent earlier Elon Musk bought the platform, she’s recovered herself tweeting little and less. Whereas she utilized to socialize regularly connected the platform, TikTok, Instagram and backstage groups are becoming progressively much charismatic ways to walk clip online. And portion harassment and a deficiency of clip are partially to blame, for those who utilized Twitter to physique a career, to prolong their careers, oregon simply to connect, the existent question is: Where bash we spell from here? Read the afloat story.
The must-reads
I’ve combed the net to find you today’s astir fun/important/scary/fascinating stories astir technology.
1 Big Tech is becoming boring
As stocks drop, truthful does Wall Street's appetite for zanier, riskier ventures. (Vox)
+ The tech roar the pandemic triggered is good and genuinely over. (Bloomberg $)
+ The tech banal diminution is atrocious quality for US pensions. (The Guardian)
+ Advertisers are spending little wealth connected societal media, too. (FT $)
+ Tech’s richest person mislaid adjacent to fractional a trillion dollars this year. (WSJ $)
2 Several caller covid variants vying for dominance
Their quality to skirt our existing immunity is simply a existent problem. (The Atlantic $)
+ Variants thin to dispersed crossed Europe earlier the US. (Slate $)
+ Vaccines that prolong the immune effect could springiness amended protection. (New Scientist $)
+ Is a covid and flu “twindemic” connected the horizon? (MIT Technology Review)
3 Twitter is readying to commencement charging for verification
Elon Musk reckons radical volition cough up $20 a period for the privilege. (The Verge)
+ Musk is reportedly readying to laic disconnected 25% of Twitter’s staff. (WP $)
4 Stop the Steal’s organizer is whipping up dissent successful Brazil
Ali Alexander is mobilizing Brazilians aft Lula bushed Bolsonaro to the presidency. (Insider $)
+ Social media chatter successful El Salvador is starring to wide arrests. (Rest of World)
+ How claims of elector fraud successful 2020 were supercharged by atrocious science. (MIT Technology Review)
6 How cryptography tin assistance intersexual battle survivors to get justice
Systems that stock information securely are being utilized to physique cases against repetition offenders. (The Guardian)
7 We’re inactive successful the acheronian implicit however TikTok affects our intelligence health
But it seems important to find out. (The Guardian)
+ For galore teens, the app is simply a gateway to self-diagnosis. (NYT $)
+ Dementia contented gets billions of views connected TikTok. Whose communicative does it tell? (MIT Technology Review)
8 Eric Schmidt is disquieted by China’s accelerated AI advances
He wants the US authorities to walk a batch much wealth connected AI probe successful response. (Protocol)
+ Do AI systems request to travel with information warnings? (MIT Technology Review)
9 This creator has been creating memes since the 1970s
But Jenny Holzer isn’t done sharing her creator visions yet. (WSJ $)
10 Why a small spot of fearfulness is bully for america 👻
+ Denmark’s Recreational Fear Lab is digging into the subject of it. (Slate $)
+ Silicon Valley’s elite are affluent pickings for trick-or-treaters. (Economist $)
“The marketplace has changed. Everything has changed completely.”—Vieje Piauwasdy, a manager astatine equity readying supplier Secfi, explains the challenges facing startups arsenic backing withers successful the harsh economical clime to the New York Times.
Quote of the day
“The marketplace has changed. Everything has changed completely.”
—Vieje Piauwasdy, a manager astatine equity readying supplier Secfi, explains the challenges facing startups arsenic backing withers successful the harsh economical clime to the New York Times.
The large story
Alina Chan tweeted beingness into the thought that the microorganism came from a lab.
June 2021
Alina Chan started asking questions successful March 2020. She was chatting with friends connected Facebook astir the microorganism past spreading retired of China. She thought it was unusual that radical were saying it had travel retired of a nutrient market. If that was so, wherefore hadn’t anyone recovered immoderate infected animals? She wondered wherefore nary 1 was admitting different possibility, which to her seemed precise obvious: the outbreak mightiness person been owed to a laboratory accident.
Chan is simply a postdoc successful a cistron therapy laboratory astatine the Broad Institute, a prestigious probe institute successful Cambridge, Massachusetts, that’s affiliated with some Harvard and MIT. Throughout 2020, Chan relentlessly stoked technological statement and doubts, and wasn’t acrophobic to pit her encephalon against the champion virologists successful the world. Her persistence helped alteration immoderate researchers’ minds, and her presumption is present wide held. But she’s improbable to beryllium capable to instrumentality to a mean beingness immoderate clip soon. Read the afloat story.
—Antonio Regalado
English (US) ·