Every day on social media, we encounter situations where what we want to convey to others is misinterpreted, misheard, or in some way responded to in an unexpected way. It’s easy to deflect blame onto the other parties when this happens, perhaps by saying they misunderstood your intention. But it’s important to take efforts to communicate in ways that ensure you don’t come off as, well, an asshole.

— Tauriq Moosa – “Ethics For Men Online, AKA How Not To Be An Asshole” – The Establishment

Guilty as charged on more than a few of these. I’m going to try to take this advice to heart, and I hope the men who read my site do, too.

There’s probably even more to Apple’s stance on encryption than the company’s business model and desire to promote a competitive advantage. My opinion, without having ever talked with Tim Cook, is that this is at least partially social activism on his part. I suspect that this is an issue he personally cares about, and he has the soapbox of one of the most powerful and popular companies in the world under his feet.

— Rich Mogull – “Why Apple Defends Encryption”

There are many, many reasons why Apple promotes encryption and privacy. Rich does a great job outlining the big ones, including the fact that Apple’s business model isn’t predicated on advertising like so many of the other contemporary technology giants. It’s not even a new phenomenon, stretching back to Steve Jobs’s tenure as CEO. Tim Cook, however, is making privacy a core value of Apple under his leadership. It’s refreshing to see, especially compared to his peers.

And, of course it’s social activism. I’ve never spoken to Tim either, but I don’t think it’s a leap to imagine why a gay man who grew up in Alabama during the 1960s and 70s would put a high value on privacy. Companies reflect the experience and values of their executive staff, after all.

Opinions are stretched out to their absurd conclusion for effect, no argument nuanced. Trolling, playing to the home team, and a never ending thirst to keep it all going. What I am more interested in is the idea of creativity being driven to frivolity shorting us on artists and writers making things.

The energy that should be devoted to making something interesting is being devoted to creating content that is disposable.

— Mike M. – “Creativity In The Era Of Hyperreality”

Once you’ve given this a read, go watch Heather Armstrong (aka dooce)’s XOXO talk. She discusses much of the same ideas, but from the inside. Heather’s story is frightening, because her children became caught up in the demands of creating a personal brand that companies leveraged to sell more units. Yet, without a solid, alternative business model for many independent content creators (boy, do I loathe that term), what other choice do we have? It’s not sustainable. And whenever someone rejects the model, there’s another ten who are willing to do it for a tenth the price.

In short, peer pressure is always terrible, and social media are a megaphone for peer pressure. And when you use that megaphone all the time you tend to forget that it’s possible to speak at a normal volume: thus my first protestor’s apparently genuinely-held view that if you’re not talking to peers on Twitter you can’t possibly be talking to peers at all. (We must all have been trapped in our silos of silence before 2006.) But the more general view of both of those who wrote to me — that rapidity of response is a virtue, and therefore that technologies that enable rapid response are superior to ones that enforce slowness — is the really pernicious one, I’ve come to believe.

— Alan Jacobs – “I’m Thinking It Over”

Social Media engenders a very specific kind of rapid discourse, where being first matters more than being correct, accurate, or humane. Jacobs’s list of alternate ways of thinking about stating an opinion online is essential, and worth thinking about. You are allowed to not state your opinion. You are even allowed to not have an opinion at all. It’s all valid. You don’t need to use the megaphone all the time.

And, yes, I am linking to The American Conservative. This is still worth your time, my fellow left-wingers.

Chantal Jandard has done some science that seems to prove some thoughts I had on conversational metadata. Turns out, it might be a UI issue:

Designers must be aware of their role in social UIs and give the same thought to social dynamics that they would to legibility, scalability and others. They must be aware of what social friction they are introducing or reducing, and they need to ask themselves, “How will this UI make my user look to others?” and “How will this UI affect the quality of social interactions?”

After all, if a communication UI can’t communicate properly, what’s the point?

— Facebook and How UIs Twist Your Words — User Experience Design (UX) — Medium

It’s a data point, not solid proof, but the idea is worth exploring in detail. When we’re interacting with strangers online, we grasp for anything that gives us more data on the interaction. This includes the UI of what we’re using to communicate. And none of it is as useful as the real thing.