The Tools for Covering Tech Are the Same as in 2009

Each time I step even an inch away from a service — let’s say not logging in to Facebook or Twitter for a while — I get this little reminder of what I actually mean to them. There’s a flood of messages, of fresh notifications, of humanoid emails with subject lines like “We miss you” or sort of unearned claims that my friends miss me, or whatever. They almost instantly abuse whatever privileges you had given them to contact you, because why wouldn’t they?

This is new territory for companies that are used to always growing. It doesn’t bode so well for what might happen if or when any of them end up in real decline.

So what about a tech trend that you think is good?

The best tech trend right now, broadly speaking, is public hearings about Big Tech.

On the surface, these are often vexing spectacles. I’ll grant that it’s frustrating to watch questioners seem to fumble with the details, or even basics, of tech issues, but it’s also good way to learn what lawmakers believe the underlying issues actually are. There are genuinely different approaches on display, and they hinge less on granular detail than on ideology. For example, some liberals tend to believe that platforms can ultimately be adjusted and fixed. Leftists may suggest they’re inherently problematic, and should reined in. Some on the right seem to think that a better Big Tech is simply a cowed Big Tech that has been made very aware of its particular grievances. Subject expertise can, and will, be adapted to these very different ends.

While it’s funny and galling that Congressman Morsecode accidentally called it “The Twitters,” can you really say you understand the first thing about what Twitter’s working definition of harassment is? What gets you barred there? Sometimes the dumbest-sounding questions actually are the best ones, particularly when you’re dealing with companies that need us to accept information asymmetry as a business model.

You often write about issues that technology has wrought. What do you think are some of the biggest tech problems, and how do you deal with them personally?

There isn’t a single such issue that doesn’t implicate advertising in some way, and advertising is so deeply intertwined with the web and the rest of the consumer internet that it’s quite difficult, often by design, to conceive of a world in which it’s less important.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/31/technology/personaltech/tools-covering-tech-same-2009.html?emc=rss&partner=rss