Linked List: September 3, 2020

Thursday, 3 September 2020

Poolside FM 

What kind of sick twisted people, who obviously know and love the classic Mac look-and-feel, would mix it with parts of the old Windows look-and-feel? And somehow make it work? I’ve consulted with experts and we’ve determined that the Poolside vibe is 3 measures classic Mac OS, 1 measure Windows, 1 measure original, and the resulting cocktail is just what the good doctor ordered.

Put it in full screen and click around. They’ve even got an Instagram “app”. The UI aesthetic here has more heart than just about anything I’ve seen in a decade. This is our reminder that UI design is supposed to be fun. How cool, too, that they made a nice Mac app — before doing iPhone?

To team Poolside: 🍸

Facebook Didn’t Remove Kenosha Guard Gang Event Page 

Ryan Mac and Craig Silverman, reporting for BuzzFeed News:

Despite Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s previous statements that the company had removed a militia event where people discussed gathering in Kenosha, Wisconsin, to shoot and kill protesters, the company never took any such action, BuzzFeed News has learned. The event was taken down by the militia group itself after two people were killed. […]

“I fully plan to kill looters and rioters tonight,” one person wrote on the event page, according to screenshots seen by BuzzFeed News. “I have my suppressor on my AR [rifle], these fools won’t even know what hit them.” “When the shooting starts, make sure that somebody is sending a live feed of the mother fuckers going down,” said another. […]

After the shootings, chatter on the Kenosha Guard event page took on a celebratory tone. “Tried to attack business owners, got their azzes shot off. MORE please… this needs to happen a LOT MORE,” wrote one man. “1 protester dead got shot in the head… then they tried to attack the guy and a couple more got shot. Gotta love it,” wrote a man who was labeled by Facebook’s automated system as a “Top Fan” in the group due to his frequent posting.

Top fan indeed.

Anyone who insists on describing these groups as militia instead of gangs needs to explain what the difference is between a militia and a gang. Pretty sure no news organization can do so, because it’s obvious that the difference is simply whether the members are “conservative” white men.

Ellen Pao on Facebook’s Election Policy Changes: ‘Superficial’ 

Ellen Pao, on Twitter:

Facebook is making superficial changes instead of addressing the core problem: an engagement engine that amplifies misinformation and hate for profit.

They should remove all political ads. Why just in late October? They should add a way to report misinformation about candidates and Black Lives Matter protests, not just Covid. And they should ban everyone who violates their rules instead of granting exceptions.

See also: Zeynep Tufekci:

There are the details. And there is this: Mark Zuckerberg, alone, gets to set key rules — with significant consequences — for one of the most important elections in recent history. That should not be lost in the dust of who these changes will hurt or benefit.

Mark Zuckerberg Tweaks Facebook Policies Regarding Election 

Mark Zuckerberg, on Facebook:

• We’re going to block new political and issue ads during the final week of the campaign. It’s important that campaigns can run get out the vote campaigns, and I generally believe the best antidote to bad speech is more speech, but in the final days of an election there may not be enough time to contest new claims. So in the week before the election, we won’t accept new political or issue ads. Advertisers will be able to continue running ads they started running before the final week and adjust the targeting for those ads, but those ads will already be published transparently in our Ads Library so anyone, including fact-checkers and journalists, can scrutinize them.

This is a good change. But why does Facebook even accept political ads in the first place? Just get rid of them.

This could be a very heated period, so we’re preparing the following policies to help in the days and weeks after voting ends:

• We’ll use the Voting Information Center to prepare people for the possibility that it may take a while to get official results. This information will help people understand that there is nothing illegitimate about not having a result on election night.

• We’re partnering with Reuters and the National Election Pool to provide authoritative information about election results. We’ll show this in the Voting Information Center so it’s easily accessible, and we’ll notify people proactively as results become available. Importantly, if any candidate or campaign tries to declare victory before the results are in, we’ll add a label to their post educating that official results are not yet in and directing people to the official results.

“Any candidate or campaign” — there’s only one candidate, one campaign, who this is about. And we all know it’s Donald Trump.

Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit 

What a fantastic idea. Reminds me a little of those Anki race cars except this looks like it’s actually fun to play with. (Says me, a guy who wasted money on those Anki things.)