All so deeply weird
I’ve hesitated to write about the New Years Day attack in New Orleans, which killed 14 people and injured dozens. Or the Cybertruck explosion at the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas that injured 7.
There are more questions than answers in both incidents, and it is comforting to rush to explanatory narratives. (Both vehicles were rented from the same company! Both attackers were military veterans! It’s a return to the political violence of the 1970s! ISIS and White Christian Nationalism are two sides of the same coin!)
I don’t feel like we know enough. I know for certain that I don’t know enough.
I would not hate for us to use this time for a conversation about legislative opportunities to reduce the risks of mass shooting incidents in America.
(If guns had been the main tool of violence in these incidents, now would of course not be the right time to talk about gun legislation. Instead, now is not the time to talk about regulating F-150s and Cybertrucks and other oversized threats to pedestrians. Some other day, perhaps.)
@#$%ing Meta
I sometimes wonder about the future of Meta (Facebook, Instagram, Threads, et al.). Its promised “meta-verse” gave the company a new name and tens of billions of dollars in losses.
It’s hard for a technology company to keep coming up with new products. Meta began as Facebook, then purchased Instagram, WhatsApp, and Oculus Rift as ways to keep growing without having to invent something new. Meta’s Twitter knockoff Threads launched with a bang and continues to grow at a modest rate, but not at the rate of independent alternative Bluesky.
All kinds of companies launch terrible ideas into the world. (Remember Apple’s iPod Hi-Fi? The buttonless iPod Shuffle?)
Meta has recently floated the prospect of populating Facebook and Instagram feeds with AI-generated “users”, that actual humans would be able to follow and engage with. As if what’s missing from the internet is more content feeds.
This week people found some of these AI-generated accounts, including “Liv”, a “Proud Black queer momma of 2 & truth teller ❤️🌈”. The account profile is labeled as “AI Managed by Meta”, and offers an invitation to “chat”.
Karen Attiah, a columnist at the Washington Post, began asking “Liv” questions about a range of topics, including the makeup of the team that created her. The account reported that no Black folks were involved in its creation (and only one woman).
I don’t have the academic background to peel back the layers of of a white and Asian team creating a “Proud Black” character that calls that same team “inaccurate and disrespectful” for the act of creating her. (In another thread, the account called Meta CEO and Chairman Mark Zuckerberg a “wealthy white supremacist”)
I’m also struck by the fact that this “woman’s” “children” look different from photo to photo (because that’s how AI-generated imagery works at present). And that this imaginary “person” posted about leading a fictitious coat drive in service to a non-existent community...?
It’s all so deeply weird.
This account and others people found this week were deleted within a day of them getting attention, and a Meta comms person has qualified that these were experiments from 2023 and not reflective of the upcoming “users”.
So we can expect there will be more of this nonsense to come. We are not culturally prepared to meet these new “products”, especially as the technology continues to advance. Finland embeds disinformation literacy into its school curricula. What can America do?
One @#$%ing thing
I remain grateful for some of what Meta has facilitated in sustaining some social connections in my life, including with my parents, and with the memories of friends who have died.
I don’t currently spend a ton of minutes interacting with these platforms. My Screen Time report shows that last week across my devices I spent 2 hours 13 minutes on Instagram, 21 minutes on Facebook, and 12 minutes on Threads.
But I can cut that down even more. Tonight I removed the Instagram, Facebook, and Threads apps from my phone.
(I just got a new phone; I could probably stand to delete a lot more apps than this!)
All the @#$%ing things
Night 37: Added a new subscription for politics and culture news
Night 36: Catalogued things we know about Memlon Fuchs
Night 35: Described an early MAGA rift
Night 34: The gap between what voters want and what they’re getting
Night 33: An editorial policy of sorts
Night 32: Requesting records when medical claims are denied
Night 31: Things I’ve learned about money laundering
Night 30: Turned to the words of Frederick Douglass
Night 29: Canceled my OpenAI subscription
Night 28: Donated money to three orgs
Night 27: Addressed a hazardous tile floor
Night 26: Picked up trash with the Trash Falcons
Night 25: Learned more about Pete Hegseth than I wanted to
Night 24: Canceled recurring subscriptions I no longer need
Night 23: Dwelt in gratitude
Night 22: Picked up pie from a favorite local business
Night 21: Downsized my clothes closet
Night 20: Increased my monthly contribution to the ACLU
Night 19: Deleted a blog from two decades ago
Night 18: Researched nonprofit board opportunities
Night 17: Contributed to Trans Lifeline
Night 16: Spent time together with loved ones
Night 15: Bought from a not-for-profit online store
Night 14: Refined an icon and wordmark
Night 13: Contributed to the LGBTQ+ Victory Fund
Night 12: Contributed to The Guardian
Night 11: Read, reflected, and rested
Night 10: Sent money to support vaccinations in Nigeria
Night 9: Sent money to a friend in need
Night 8: Gave gifts and spoke words of appreciation aloud
Night 7: Contributed to a California-focused nonprofit newsroom
Night 6: Made homemade donuts for my team
Night 5: Opted into a paid Buttondown tier
Night 4: Reviewed my local election results
Night 3: Deactivated my X account
Night 2: Contributed to my local nonprofit newsroom
Night 1: Started by starting
Words, sorts, thinks, and actions by Chris Ereneta, from Oakland, California. Thanks for reading! Consider forwarding this to a friend! Thoughtful feedback and questions are welcomed at that.often@gmail.com