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Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg made another buyout offer this week, and threatened employees who speak to the press with termination.
It has been rumored for a while that Elon wants to remove the official “block” functionality on ExTwitter, but now it’s official. The company has announced that it will soon start rolling out a new version of “block” that no longer blocks content, only interactions.
That’s ExTwitter’s engineering team saying:
Soon we’ll be launching a change to how the block function works. If your posts are set to public, accounts you have blocked will be able to view them, but they will not be able to engage (like, reply, repost, etc.).
Today, block can be used by users to share and hide harmful or private information about those they’ve blocked. Users will be able to see if such behavior occurs with this update, allowing for greater transparency.
This is a bad idea for a variety of reasons, though I’d push back on people calling it a “crazy” idea. There actually is some logic to it. As many people will point out, even with the existing “block” functionality, you can still see the content in question if you just switch to an incognito view. And, of course, there is something slightly odd in posting some content publicly, and then expecting that certain people should be “blocked” from seeing it.
That’s the theoretical argument for why what Elon is doing here seems to make sense.
But reality and theory don’t always match up. The reality is that the current “block” feature acts as a form of friction to stop abuse, and it’s somewhat, though not perfectly, effective in that role. That friction does not stop abusive people from viewing tweets or passing them along, but it does seem to help in some form.
The simple fact is that (even though Elon probably doesn’t know this or care to look at the history), Twitter tried this. A decade ago. And it was a complete flop. Such a flop that Twitter backtracked almost immediately.
On Thursday, the social site tweaked the way users block others who harass, spam or otherwise bother them. Under the change the blocked user would still be able to see the profile and tweets of the other user, as well as retweet their posts.
By Thursday night, however, the change was gone, reversed in stunningly abrupt fashion after a flurry of user protests, on a platform perfectly suited for both flurries and protests.
Part of the issue is that the block feature is a somewhat crude tool for dealing with multiple forms of abuse. Some of that abuse is still stopped via the new version (blocking interactions, but still showing content), while an awful lot is not. That’s the real problem. While block is far from a perfect tool in stopping people from ganging up on and abusing people, it does help. And with the new changes, that mostly goes away.
This plan is taking away an important, if imperfect, tool for stopping abuse, while not providing any alternative. It’s likely based on Elon’s near total inability to have empathy for people who are not himself. Over and over again, he has shown that he thinks the real problems on ExTwitter are just the ones that impact him directly: spam and scam repliers (even though he’s made that problem worse).
He has no concept of marginalized and targeted people and the kinds of abuse and attacks that can be heaped upon them. Thus, a tool that works towards minimizing such an impact is not even remotely interesting to him.
At the same time, it’s been said that the legacy blocking system is expensive computationally, because figuring out who can (and who cannot) see certain tweets is a pretty complex issue. I’ve noticed that this system breaks a lot since Musk took over, in that in the last few months I have repeatedly seen tweets from people who block me.
So, what this seems to come down to is (1) Elon trying to reduce more costs as the company continues to collapse, combined with (2) an inability to understand or care about the actual harassment that happens on his own platform. It doesn’t seem like a recipe for success.
Filed Under: blocks, elon musk, engagement, harassment, social media, trust and safety
Companies: twitter, x
I’m honestly not sure which part of North Carolina Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson’s freshly filed defamation lawsuit to focus on here.
The obvious lede is that Robinson — currently the Republican nominee for North Carolina governor — sued CNN for defamation yesterday. The suit targets the network for publishing meticulously documented allegations that Robinson made a series of bizarre and frequently bigoted comments on a porn forum called Nude Africa between 2008 and 2012, including referring to himself as “a black NAZI” (capitalization in original).
Robinson’s lawsuit claims someone likely impersonated him using information from data breaches, which is certainly possible — but based on the evidence would require a remarkably complex level of deception targeting a man who wouldn’t enter politics until many years later in 2018. The statements arguably aren’t even much worse than things Robinson has unquestionably said. It seems just as plausible that Robinson is the latest public figure to weaponize the law against his critics in bad faith, following the pro-censorship lead of more powerful conservatives like Donald Trump and Elon Musk.
Speech law is serious! But the lawsuit also happens to include a very funny encapsulation of the current feedback loop between politics and viral entertainment. Because, in addition to naming CNN, Robinson is suing a North Carolina punk singer and former adult video store clerk named Louis Love Money over an obscure YouTube music video that accuses Robinson of not paying $25 for a bootleg porn tape more than 20 years ago.
Money (not his birth name, according to the lawsuit) is part of a band called Trailer Park Orchestra, which, in August 2024, released a song and associated music video called “The Lt. Governor Owes Me Money.” Its core allegation — as outlined above — is not high on the political scandal barometer. But in a handy bit of publicity for Money, North Carolina publication The Assembly picked up and bolstered his claim that the avowedly conservative Christian gubernatorial candidate had been a regular at the store in the 1990s and 2000s. CNN cited The Assembly when detailing the Nude Africa claims, raising the report’s profile.
Robinson’s counter: he was just bringing over pizza.
In the 1990s, Mark Robinson was a young father, struggling to provide for his family. During this period, he worked at Papa John’s pizza, eventually being promoted to manager, where he sometimes managed the closing shift. Nearby was an adult video store where Defendant Money worked. Lt. Gov. Robinson, who has always been a gregarious, outgoing person, made friends with Defendant Money, who also worked the night shift. He would occasionally bring over free pizza and socialize. More often, however, Defendant Money would come over to the Papa John’s, looking for free or discounted pizza.
Contrary to the portrayal by Defendant Money, Lt. Gov. Robinson was not spending hours at the video store, five nights a week.
Robinson also implies there are sinister motives at work because the music video and CNN report came out while he was running for governor. (Maybe there’s mileage in pretending not to understand some pretty basic concepts of publicity.)
This may turn out to be the most straightforward Streisand effect of the 2024 election cycle. Robinson’s alleged porn store visits were far from the focus of CNN’s report. Trailer Park Orchestra’s music video was posted two months ago and had a mere 13,000 views on YouTube yesterday; it’s gained about 2,000 since the suit was filed. (“I had no idea this existed until reading his lawsuit,” one commenter notes.) While the CNN report damaged Robinson’s standing in the Republican party, we’re talking about a man who won his primary after minimizing the Holocaust on Facebook. The long-term reputational damage he’s facing is unclear, and ignoring Money’s claims in particular would be the simplest way to make them disappear.
Regardless of whether Robinson wins his suit, legal complaints have become a valuable political rallying point — they’re a great way to justify raising money and position yourself as a fighter while putting a grievance in the public record. Despite the fact that the most successful recent defamation claims have been against conservative media juggernauts like Alex Jones and Fox News, there’s an ongoing Republican attempt to dismantle the speech protections that have long let journalists (and average citizens) freely criticize public figures. Every new defamation suit is a shot at getting the Supreme Court to finally make that call. At least this one has a soundtrack.
A reliable leaker has shared details and an image of an unannounced car charger from Anker that would be the first from the company to feature a retractable USB-C cable. As the proud owner of an eight-year-old minivan lacking modern amenities like built-in USB ports, this would be a welcome alternative to a glove box stuffed full of unraveled charging cables.
The new Anker Nano car charger, which plugs into a vehicle’s auxiliary power outlet, will reportedly deliver up to 75W of power shared between a 30W USB-C port, and a 45W retractable cable with a USB-C connector on the end that’s almost 30 inches long, according to Reddit user joshuadwx.
Pricing is expected to be somewhere between $30 an $40, while availability could be either later this year, or some time in the spring of 2025. The retractable cable is a convenience feature that should help keep your vehicle a little neater and keep the charger in place — since it’s permanently tethered to a car-specific adapter, no one is going to be able to borrow it and use it elsewhere.
A charger with a retractable cable is only as useful as the retracting mechanism is reliable. If it breaks, you’re back to manually wrangling cables again. A quick Amazon search reveals many existing car charging solutions with similar functionality, but from relatively unknown and unproven brands. Anker has developed a reputation for good hardware and also seems to be increasingly invested in charging solutions with retractable cables.
Image: Reddit
At a recent media event in Japan, Anker revealed a 10,000mAh power bank with a 27-inch retractable USB-C cable, while last month the same Reddit leaker shared details of an unannounced 25,000mAh Anker power bank that also included a retractable charging cable. If the company is incorporating this new feature into several new products, hopefully that means Anker’s developed a retractable cable mechanism it’s confident will be reliable.
Google has asked the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to halt the imminent changes required from Judge James Donato’s recent ruling in Epic v. Google. The company already asked Judge Donato to do the same, but it’s not waiting till Friday to find out if the judge who vowed to “tear the barriers down” will let Google press pause on his ruling.
The ruling, which Google has appealed, would force Google to distribute third-party app stores within Google Play, no longer require Google Play Billing for apps distributed via Google Play, and more, with many of those changes ordered to begin on November 1st — just over two weeks from today.
But echoing many of Google’s arguments during the district court case, which Judge Donato rejected as insufficient, the company now argues that the order “threatens Google Play’s ability to provide a safe and trusted user experience.”
“This wouldn’t just hurt Google – this would have negative consequences for Android users, developers and device manufacturers who have built thriving businesses on Android, writes Google’s Lee-Anne Mulholland, VP of regulatory affairs, in a fact sheet distributed to journalists.
The fact sheet is bulleted into five different sections, and the section headers give you an idea of Google’s objections:
To get a sense of Google’s actual filing with the court, here’s how it begins:
At the request of a single competitor, Epic Games, the District Court ordered extensive redesigns to Play that will expose 100-million-plus U.S. users of Android devices to substantial new security risks and force fundamental changes to Google’s contractual and business relationships with hundreds of thousands of Google partners. The court gave Google just three weeks to make many of these sweeping changes—a Herculean task creating an unacceptable risk of safety and security failures within the Android ecosystem.
Epic, in a statement, is pushing back on Google’s arguments. “The jury’s verdict and the court’s injunction were clear: Google’s anticompetitive Play Store practices are illegal,” says Epic spokesperson Natalie Muñoz. “Google is merely fear mongering and falsely using security as a pretext to delay the changes mandated by the court. This is Google’s last ditch effort to protect their control over Android and continue extracting exorbitant fees. The court’s injunction must go into effect swiftly so developers and consumers can benefit from competition in the mobile ecosystem.”
You can read the whole fact sheet, and Google’s whole emergency motion, below.
Update, October 17th: Added statement from Epic.
As a writer, note-taking apps are a boon for me. I use such apps to organize my day-to-day life, both personal and professional. These apps help me note down important information, create to-dos, track daily tasks, and much more.
Back in 2022, I started using Standard Notes on a web browser for my work-related note-taking, and it was going well until earlier this year, when I felt the need to have rich text editing.
The free plan of Standard Notes didn't include this basic feature, and I had to look around for alternatives. That is when I learned about Notesnook, which offers rich text editing with its free plan, along with some other neat features.
Notesnook went open source back in 2022. Since then, it has been growing in terms of popularity, with a thriving community around it.
Now, I have successfully integrated it into my workflow over the past few months, and I would like to share with you my experience so far.
📋
Nonetheless, I have added a humorous note that should be a fun placeholder.
Standard Notes is not all that bad. It has end-to-end encryption and a decent editor, with the paid plan unlocking more editing tools and advanced note management features than the paid version of Notesnook does.
Its objective is to provide “a steel vault for your mind” with its privacy-focused approach that has been audited for security by third-party security firms. (Notesnook hasn't been audited yet).
Additionally, there are many features available with the free plan, such as offline access, encrypted email backups, 100 MB of storage, note export, password-protected notes, and more.
Sadly, many of its important features are locked behind a paywall. That was another pain point for me, which led me to look for other options.
Suggested Read 📖
When I started using Notesnook, the user interface felt familiar, with a note list to the left and the editor to the right. I just had to copy over my content from Standard Notes and organize it.
You can utilize Notesnook Importer for the job or do it manually.
If you are a long-time user of note-taking apps, you might be acquainted with Evernote's user interface, and Notesnook's interface may remind you of that. It's not a bad thing, of course.
Notesnook presents a comfortable user experience that caters to all kinds of users, whether they are switching from Standard Notes like me, or proprietary options like Evernote.
The editor has handy tools at the top to format the text, using which I am able to easily create easy-to-read and organized notes. I have the freedom to choose different font sizes, headings, bullet points and add bold/italic/underline formatting to texts to emphasize them.
In addition, the editor also supports keyboard shortcuts for those, and the “Focus mode” (the spectacle icon) function allows me to concentrate on the writing itself, hiding all the unnecessary user interface elements.
At the top, the search tool is handy for finding words, and a publish function called Monograph (the cloud icon) lets me generate shareable links for notes so that I can share them with others.
The humorous note shared at the beginning of this article is the result of that.
There's also the ability to pin notes, add them as favorites, lock them with a password, make them read-only, and a separate page for reminders where I could add important tasks to be reminded of.
Similarly, organizing notes is easy with the tags feature. But, for adding custom colors, I would have to sign up for the paid Pro plan, which, now I realize, is priced really well for me in my region (India) when compared to Standard Notes; more on this later.
There's also support for community-built themes, which change the look and feel of Notesnook. My current favorite is “Crimson Carbon,” but I like to mix things up from time to time.
The other most essential aspects of Notesnook for me are the end-to-end encryption, which keeps my notes secure, and the tab functionality, which allows me to multitask by opening up multiple notes.
Even though the pricing for these services was never a deciding factor for me, I was surprised to see how big of a gap there was in terms of affordability. For Standard Notes, I would have to pay ~₹7,057 ($84) per year for the “Professional” plan and ~₹5,292 ($63) for the “Productivity” plan.
In contrast, Notesnook has a far more affordable pricing plan, with only a “Pro” plan in their lineup for individual users, costing ~₹1010 (~$12) per year. This makes me think about going for a paid plan to support development.
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The currency conversion is for the pricing plan I see from India. As per the rates, and region, this might differ.
What you've read so far represents my everyday usage of note-taking apps, but both Notesnook and Standard Notes have more to offer. As a casual user, I've only scratched the surface of their capabilities.
For me, I like a good WYSIWYG note-taking app that has a decent rich text editor, a straightforward user interface, and some neat dark-colored themes.
Hence, I will be sticking with Notesnook for a long time, until I feel the need to switch.
💬 Which note-taking app do you use? Let me know your experience in the comments below!
Suggested Read 📖
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