A musical wish to brighten your holiday
Creativity has no boundaries — and the raw material can come from anywhere. Consider this my gift to you along with best wishes for a wonderful holiday and an improved new year.
Tweets are lies — and not just from Donald Trump
At 140 characters, tweets lack context. Without context, there is no truth. So tweets are lies. Donald Trump’s tweets are lies, and so are mine. But they reveal a lot about what’s going on in our respective heads. What do I mean when I say that the truth demands context? Let’s start with one of my…
The Truth Foundation
Here are some things to know about truth: Truth exists. Finding truth takes work. And truth changes over time. I devote my energy to finding and promoting that truth, even when it is uncomfortable. It’s time for our biggest technology companies to do the same. Myths are persistent Megan Scudellari published an article in Science one year…
When journalists step over the line: the Julia Ioffe incident
The Trump era is a rough time for journalists. No matter how much they’re provoked, if they show too much bias and disrespect, they could lose their jobs, even for a single tweet. That’s what happened to Julia Ioffe at Politico, and it’s a revealing case study. I’ll get to what Ioffe did in a moment….
How a tweetstorm can punch up your writing style
Yesterday, we saw two incredible tweetstorms: NYU Professor Jay Rosen shared his thoughts on the unique challenges for journalists covering Donald Trump, while strategic analyst Eric Garland explained the rationale behind Russian hacking. Their tweetstorms reveal a new, disciplined way of writing, with no room for bullshit. Here’s what you can learn from writing a…
The boycott war has descended into madness
The divisions in the country have spilled over into commerce, with calls to boycott businesses from Nordstrom’s to Kellogg’s. Feel free to boycott businesses that backed a candidate you despise. But draw the line at extending those boycotts up the supply chain, because that way lies madness. After the most vitriolic election in memory, the country…
YouGov survey: People think 56% of what they read is bullshit
With the help of YouGov, I got to ask more than 1,000 people how much bullshit they saw in the things they read. It varies, with an average of 56%. And it’s about the same across a variety of demographic categories. YouGov has a massive panel of people who answer online surveys: 1.5 million people. They gave…
To Jeffrey D. Sachs: sprinkling tech on politics makes it worse, not better
In an op-ed in today’s Boston Globe, the influential economist Jeffrey D. Sachs laments the lack of trust in modern American politics. He then proposes that we solve it with (among other things) “e-parties” and “e-governance.” But proposals like this ignore the way that trolls and partisans now wreck every online social space. Sachs’ op-ed,…
CIA director-designate Mike Pompeo uses passive voice to justify a power grab
Passive voice in opinion pieces is pernicious: it hides who actually is supposed to do stuff. Donald Trump’s choice for CIA director, Mike Pompeo, repeatedly used this technique in a Wall Street Journal op-ed. When you’re advocating surveillance and data collection, we want to know who’s doing it — but Pompeo uses passive misdirection to focus on terrorists…