Tag: Slate

PEN AMERICA: REMOVING BLOCK BUTTON ON TWITTER/X PUTS ANOTHER NAIL IN THE COFFIN OF THE PLATFORM

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn Social Media

PEN.ORG

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

August 18, 2023

(NEW YORK)—In response to a thread on Twitter (now known as “X”) from Elon Musk that suggests he may end the platform’s block button, PEN America’s Viktorya Vilk, director for Digital Safety and Free Expression, issued the comments below:

“Elon Musk seems determined to make X (formerly known as Twitter) the least safe and least equitable social media platform on the internet. Before Musk acquired the platform, PEN America worked closely for years with Twitter’s human rights experts and trust and safety specialists to reduce the harm of online abuse against women, people of color, LGBTQ+ folks, and others disproportionately targeted online for their identities and professions. Since acquiring the platform, Musk has undone it all – and then some. He’s fired all of the human rights experts and most of the trust and safety specialists. He’s shut down one safety feature after the next or put them behind a pay wall. Removing the block button–a critical tool that so many writers, journalists, artists, and other users need to protect themselves from attempts to silence them with hate and harassment— would just be adding insult to injury and putting yet another nail in the coffin of a platform that is no longer Twitter, either in name or in spirit.”

–

In its story “Elon Musk’s Idea to Actually Make Twitter a Hellsite,” Slate Magazine writes, “Elon Musk said on Friday that he plans to do away with the block feature on X, the website that most people still call Twitter. Musk’s publicly stated case is a vague one: that blocking “makes no sense.” But it’s reasonable to think his motivations are more specific. Musk seems to have become aware by the week of this year’s Super Bowl that he’s one of the most commonly blocked users of his own website.”

The New Republic writes,”Elon Musk on Friday declared he wants to remove the block feature on X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter—despite frequently using the block button himself. There’s also one other big problem: Musk’s desire to limit this blocking feature could also cost X its spot in various app stores.”

Musk’s plan sounds like lose-lose for everyone, including himself.

–Malcolm

Book jacket descriptions aren’t that great

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn books4 Comments

When you read enough book jacket copy—that’s the stuff on the back of the book or inside the jacket flap, telling you what to expect within—you start to notice strange patterns. Books from one of the big four publishing houses will have a line or two promising that the latest in literary fiction is a sober look at our current dilemma/modern age/social media addiction/technological approach to dating. If the copywriter is feeling bold, maybe they’ll let us know that the writer is a “dazzling new voice,” or that the release of this debut novel is “heralding a brave new voice in fiction.” From there, a frustratingly vague description of the plot usually contains a foreboding line letting us know the protagonist needs to go on a journey to another country to find herself, or that a man will try to save his marriage or family. End with a reminder that this book is very important and/or brilliant. Just like every other book.

Source: Book jacket descriptions for titles like Luster and The Silence are terrible.

Book jacket copy is so bad, that I’ve come home from the store with a greatly anticipated new book that it turns out I’ve already read. Or, I waste time at the store trying to figure out whether–if I haven’t read the book–is it something I want to read. It’s hard to know when the jacket copy makes most books sound like the same book.

This is what happens when droids are allowed to write the jacket copy.

–Malcolm