Verifiable truths
I suppose I’m not surprised that opinions in the mainstream media continue to worry that the growth of Bluesky, and the cultural norms of its early adopters to block rather than engage represents a worrying retreat from the “public square” of Twitter.
As if Twitter hadn’t become a Nazi bar. As if it weren’t the top source of online misinformation. As if one’s voice in the “public square” wasn’t algorithmically downranked if it doesn’t align with Memlon’s worldview.
But also, I don’t look to Bluesky (or Twitter before it) for “conversation”. And I don’t want posts from random people showing up in my feed, as if the unfiltered flow of often bot-generated garbage were somehow a window into “what’s actually happening” in the world.
At the moment Bluesky is a place that (in between wise-cracks, raging howls, surrealist nonsense, and breakdowns of fancy chicken breeds) I can get information from people—writers, journalists, historians, critical thinkers—who are interested in verifiable truths. The kind of people who are interested to share when they learn that the recent scare about black plastic kitchen utensils was build on some bad math.
Corporate media and the internet are becoming worse and worse at helping us understand what’s happening in the world, even in our own communities. I’ve lost momentum some nights trying to identify links I can share to help offer “evidence” backing up one claim or another I’ve made here. But every link I find either limits access with a paywall, or provides free access cluttered with excesses of online advertising and tracking.
As Josh Marshall points out, establishment media is structurally hostile to the Democratic Party. And while there is still good reporting and analysis to be found in establishment media, it takes work to tolerate the anti-trans and pro-corporate biases of the NY Times, or Jeff Bezos’ decision to block the Washington Post’s endorsement of Kamala Harris (and later to give $1 million to TFP’s inauguration fealty fund).
ABC News gave $15 million to make TFP less unhappy with them. And MSNBC hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski have begun prostrating to the Dear Leader for their past sins, both with an in-person trip to Mar-a-Lago and with on-air apologies. And the billionaire owner of the LA Times who also killed a pro-Harris endorsement before the election is now asserting he that stories will be labeled with an AI-driven “bias-meter” (giving readers the ability to have robots rewrite the story toward their preferred bias).
It’s a lot of obeying in advance. Historian Anne Applebaum spoke with The New Republic’s Greg Sargent about the assault on access to verifiable information about the world:
Sargent: This looks to me like Trump knows that the media is in a vulnerable and precarious spot, and he’s really putting them on notice to a greater degree that more of this is coming. Let’s put this in your framework. Is this the sort of conditioning of Americans you’re talking about, in addition to sending a message to the media? What is he conditioning Americans to accept here?
Applebaum: He—and not just him, there’s been a coordinated campaign—he and others have been seeking to attack and undermine journalism and the basis of journalism for a long time. I know perfectly well that there’s good and bad journalism out there. Lots of TV journalism was pretty weak and click-baity, and lots of newspapers have made mistakes. I wouldn’t deny that. But they’re also attacking the very idea that there can be journalism—in other words, that there is such a thing as people going off into the real world, observing something, talking to people, writing about it, fact-checking it, and then publishing it with the possibility that if they have made a mistake, they’ll print a correction the next day. That idea—that that’s possible and that there’s something good about that, and that that form of communication or description of the world has a value—is itself under attack.
One @#$%ing thing
An editorial policy of sorts: I mean things that I write, and do not mean things that I don’t write.
If I make an assertion without a link to a source it’s likely because I am working quickly and that there is no obvious link, but I will always rely on what I understand to be verifiable facts. I will be willing to provide sources in response to follow-up questions. When I learn that an earlier fact or assertion was untrue, I will follow up with corrections (including on the archived post).
I might have less patience engaging with questions about things that I didn’t write, i.e. the kinds of questions I might be expected to find on Twitter these days.
All the @#$%ing things
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