Unfriended by Facebook
I’m old enough to remember when the Silicon Valley was thought of as vaguely libertarian. Good times. If true, they certainly didn’t last: Facebook Inc. executive and virtual-reality wunderkind Palmer Luckey was …
Read MoreTag: internet
China’s Trojan roads and information highways
It would help greatly if more people conceptualised the relations between China and the Western world as a kind of a cold war. Of course, God forbid that it …
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You’re only as old as the woman you feel – or want to feel
Gender and sexuality being fluid, and increasingly colour and ethnicity too, why not age? When you abandon any objective standards – because they reflect the power structures in the society …
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Swipe left, swipe right, swipe it all about
Politics ruins everything, part 578. As if there weren’t enough fake profiles on dating apps, whether bots trying to entice the unwary to other sites or sad individuals trying to …
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ASMR, or I don’t want to live on this planet anymore
There is plenty of disturbing stuff going on in the world – like a Saudi journalist walking into a Saudi consulate and being dismembered and carried out in pieces – …
Read More Social media giants aren’t even pretending anymore
Sure, they are private businesses and so they can do whatever they want with their users, but at least in the past they used to be less blatant and arbitrary about …
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I swiped on a sexbot
Well, not really. If I did, it would have made for a fascinating blog post, and I, no doubt, would have had a more enthralling online conversation than many one …
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Make Dating Great Again
Tired of being constantly dumped by your dates after they discover you are an ugly right-winger? Looking for a soulmate you can build a wall and drain a swamp with? …
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Ecuador to Assange: clean up the KittyLeaks
Julian Assange is, next to Rupert Murdoch, the most controversial Australian alive. Love him as the shaker and stirrer and speaker of truth to power or hate him as a …
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Not getting Uber rich
Just as I am sceptical of the social claims of tech boosters, I prefer to take my breathless futurism with a grain of salt. Yes, new technology can be disruptive, …
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Is the internet making you miserable?
Kanye West seems to think so, at least in regards to the social media: “There are people who are committing suicide due to not getting enough likes,” Ye tweeted Saturday …
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We have to stop fascism say people supporting China
A lack of self-awareness is a terrible thing to suffer from, or more precisely make other people suffer. It’s even worse when it’s attached to otherwise intelligent and successful people, …
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Are there Reds in your bed?
Oh, not to be young and Russian in Washington DC, “Politico” reports: Nothing prepared the young Russians of Washington for the wintry blast of social isolation and suspicion that followed …
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“America is moving toward an oligarchical socialism”
This might be the most important piece you will read today, or maybe this week, from my favourite urbanist and demographer Joel Kotkin: Oligarchal socialism allows for the current, ever-growing …
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Are you a sexual racist?
Everything is racism nowadays, so you won’t be surprised to discover that your sexual preferences and physical attractions can be bigoted too: One evening while browsing the wildly popular gay …
Read More No regulation out of frustration
This sounds more like trolling than a serious proposal, but nowadays you never know: President Donald Trump is considering new regulations on Google’s search engine to address his concern that …
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Good News from Everywhere
If you are depressed from reading the daily news, it’s nothing new – “if it bleeds, it leads” as an editorial philosophy that much predates the Trump presidency or for …
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Big Zuck is watching you
We get to rate websites (well, pretty much everything), it’s only to be expected that they rate us back: Facebook is rating users based on how “trustworthy” it thinks they …
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Finding love in all the wrong places
There has been a large shift in how we find partners: As early as 2010 the internet had overtaken churches, neighbourhoods, classrooms and offices as a setting in which Americans …
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From Russia without love
Facebook’s drive towards absolute transparency – of its users, of course, not of Facebook itself; don’t be silly! – continues: Anyone who manages a Facebook page that has a “large …
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