In July, Facebook announced they had removed four networks of accounts for “coordinated inauthentic behavior.” It was the latest battle in the long running — and ever escalating — propaganda arms race. The tactics of “inauthenticity” exploded into the American political conversation following the Cambridge Analytica and Russian interference scandals. These two stories are obviously relevant, but their prominence has centered the conversation about digital disinformation narrowly around election interference which, unfortunately, misses the forest for the trees.

“Inauthentic behavior” is not limited to political content online, it’s everywhere — it is the water of our digital ocean. Influencers are…

When Facebook launched in 2004 I never would have guessed it (and its successors) would be the subject of international diplomacy. In part that’s because I was only 15, but it’s also because the idea that any government should care about “the new MySpace” just sounded silly. Now, after sixteen years, the consumer software ecosystem has metastasized into what we now recognize as the “Age of Surveillance Capitalism,” and government’s can’t ignore the wide ranging implications.

As proof consumer software’s unignorability, India has banned 59 Chinese made apps including TikTok. The stated reason for India’s ban is that these apps…

The digital panopticon continues to expand, with a lot of help from the surveillance industrial complex. The surveillance state / surveillance capitalism mega-trend — which dates back to at least the early aughts if you believe Shoshana Zuboff — got a few boosts this week.

The state of Utah signed a 5-year, $20.7 million contract with a company named Banjo. Despite the innocuous name, Banjo provides comprehensive surveillance services that combine data from social media, satellite feeds, and other apps. …

California’s controversial new law about employee classification is doing its best Oprah impression.

From the very start, there were dozens of specific exemptions carved out of AB5. Some exemptions are cleanly applied to entire industries, others are more complex. But, since the law went into effect in January, many industries and corporations have started battling to win an exemption of their own. Organizations representing California musicians say the law would crush the industry that (so far as I know) coined the term “gig.” …

The Verge published a long feature looking into Lambda School, one of the controversial “coding bootcamps” that became popular in the 2010s. One of Lambda’s differentiators is their use of Income Sharing Agreements (ISAs). These alternative debt mechanisms allow students to take the course without paying any cost up front and instead pay a portion of their salary after they land a job as a programmer. According to Lambda’s marketing this helps the school align its success with student success — Lambda only gets paid when students start their new career.

I previously taught at a similar bootcamp, and the…

I have been obsessing over impeachment, elections, and politics in general the last few months. I watched nearly every minute of the house impeachment inquiry. It was maddening. Even worse was comparing what I saw on CSPAN to what I read in the news, on Twitter, and elsewhere. My confusion — and frankly rage — over the discrepancies compelled me to write an essay titled Reality’s Vanishing Act in early December. …

It was hard to miss the news that the world’s richest man had his phone hacked with help from the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammad Bin Salman Al Saud. Reports obtained by Vice’s Motherboard indicate that the malware installed on Bezos phone originated from a video sent from MSB’s number via WhatsApp.

There are a wide variety of reasons why someone might want to hack Bezos’ phone as the owner of Amazon (or just a rich person), but reporting by Wired suggests that Bezos actually became a target as the owner of the Washington Post. The malicious video file…

Microsoft has committed a billion dollars to becoming carbon neutral by 2025, and carbon negative by 2030. The company’s plans are multipronged and include powering their infrastructure with renewable energy, significant investments in carbon capture, and a research budget to help create new solutions to save the Earth from humans. If they succeed Microsoft’s impact won’t be trivial. Big tech companies use a lot of energy and The Verge’s reporting suggests that if Microsoft achieves just its carbon neutrality goal it would be roughly equivalent to shutting down five coal power plants.

While Microsoft has committed to doing it’s part…