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Technically Good ✨

Welcome to Technically Good ✨

Alrighty!

This has been a long time coming - a blog and website ecosystem borne out of wondering how I can contribute to:

This blog will see content on fields I feel like everybody should know about, but most people don't, like: User privacy. Interop. Social networks not run by billionaires. Anti-surveillance. Enshittification. Real, tangible AI regulation.

This is its first post, and you're here for it! Isn't that exciting!

An Example: Tracking

Just two days ago I had a conversation with someone who sent me an Instagram link. I asked them whether they were aware that everything following igsh = in the URL they shared was a unique tracking code that Meta uses to form networks of who knows who, who is related to who, and what they share with each other. Even if participants in those conversations do not have a Meta account. (Let that sink in for a minute.)

They didn't know that. And they were shocked.

It's these gaps that worry me. A large number of people interacting with these harmful platforms (which is very nearly everyone at this point), but do not have the foggiest idea of how many ways exactly they're being f****d with, in addition to the general direction I see "social" networks, global politics, and overall discourse trending.

But: I had not been posting about any of this at all. Not sharing insights, not making my voice heard. I had kept all that relegated to an entirely divorced set of blogs and writing that lives outside of my professional life. And I think that's a problem.

Another Example: Measured Engagement with genAI

Those of us who have a more reserved approach to genAI - those who are not exactly on the AI hype train, and/or who do not stand to profit from being on the AI hype train - often feel like we are alone. That genAI is completely inevitable. As if it had been around since the beginning of time; as if it was god-given, a decree from the Sun King of our time; and we just "have to" be on board. There is no alternative.

Why is that? For multiple reasons, one of which is economies beyond human scale being propped up by the hype. But also, in the midst of that, it is because those of us who are not subscribing to the hype and the grift do not raise our voices in equal measure as those who are. Thus, "professional" platforms come to be dominated by the hype chatter. A chicken-and-egg problem:

  1. Measured, critical voices get drowned out;
  2. the algorithm pushes the hype posts because those are the ones that get engagement;
  3. You may be feeling reserved about AI, billionaire networks, ad surveillance, but you cannot find people that think like you do;
  4. you don't write posts sharing your thoughts;
  5. rinse and repeat, and in circles we go.

I have recently observed in professional circles that, once a few of the more mouthy folks (🖐) speak up, and raise concerns around genAI - like faltering accuracy, a lack of beneficence, a distinctly absent lack of maleficence, and bias - other (more quiet) folks realize they are not alone. Suddenly, it's as if they're all coming out of the woodwork. They'd been made to believe that they were in the minority, that they were the "detractors," or plain "wrong." Once they're seeing they are, in fact, not alone, they too feel like they have license to speak up about the unease they've been feeling.

We can start by setting an example. By using these flywheel and network mechanics to help regular people speak up more. To help regular people learn about all the different ways in which the current internet is no longer serving their, our, best interest.

Enter "Technically Good"

And that's why I am spinning up my own little ecosystem, called "Technically Good."

As far as I can control* (* except for LinkedIn, which I chose specifically to be able to counteract the domineering hype chatter, as well as for the fact that I already have a professional network here), this ecosystem lives outside of the billionaire-run platforms that have a habit of enshittifying and constantly becoming worse for their users:

This is too important not to talk about. Issues of billionaire-owned "social" (ad surveillance) networks and enshittification are not disconnected from the political mess we find ourselves in. These issues go hand-in-hand.

I have decided that it is time to speak up, to build what we believe in, and to speak out against what is harming users. Real people. Every day.

We can have an internet that serves us. We can entirely build websites where we can share our thoughts, connect with others, and form communities, that don't track the users' every move. That don't see every single one of us as an ambulating wallet, to borrow from Cory Doctorow's excellent writing. Who, by the way, you should probably be following.

With love & let's fix this mess,

izzy | Technically Good 💜

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#blog #deshittification #privacy #tracking