Good morning. I’m back on the shore this weekend - my last until I return for a longer stretch around New Year's. Yesterday, my friends and I went exploring in Annapolis. It was a nice, chill day. Today, the DC area is expected to get two inches of rain, so I might be building an ark soon as well.
I’m also still feeling all the feels from this paragraph in the TIME story about Taylor Swift being Person of the Year:
“Maybe this is the real Taylor Swift effect: That she gives people, many of them women, particularly girls, who have been conditioned to accept dismissal, gaslighting, and mistreatment from a society that treats their emotions as inconsequential, permission to believe that their interior lives matter. That for your heart to break, whether it’s from being kicked off a tour or by the memory of a scarf still sitting in a drawer somewhere or because somebody else controls your life’s work, is a valid wound, and no, you’re not crazy for being upset about it, or for wanting your story to be told.”
That and how “Trash takes itself out every single time.”
I’ll write about this more in my 2023 year in review, but I can’t stop thinking about how, in many ways, this felt like the year of the woman. Not just Taylor Swift but watching Simone Biles return (and I love her love of Green Bay) and what Pink has done this year. I’m not a huge fan of Beyonce’s music, but damn girl - she’s killing it. And to watch the dudes getting all upset about them being recognized …
Have a great Sunday!
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What I’m Reading
The Atlantic: Taylor Swift and the era of the girl
- : The Science of Reflection
Pew Research Center: Striking findings from 2023
New York Times: E.U. Agrees on AI Act, Landmark Regulation for Artificial Intelligence
DFR Lab: Learning more about platforms from the first Digital Services Act transparency disclosures
Washington Post: 2024 could be the ‘deepfake’ election. Few states are acting.
Politico Pro: California lawmaker to propose prohibiting AI in political communication
Axios: U.S. political ad market projected to reach record $16 billion in 2024
Politico: RNC officially bows out of hosting primary debates
National Review: Voter Trust in Elections Weakened. Both Parties Must Help Restore
On With Kara Swisher: Rep. Mike Gallagher on TikTok, Taiwan and Trump
Supreme Court: Amici in support of NetChoice (or in support of neither party) for Texas and Florida cases regarding content moderation
Morning Consult: 2024 Tech Trends: AI, Autonomous Transport, Immersive Tech
Axios: Omidyar Network creates $30 million fund to boost AI diversity
International Observatory On Information and Democracy: Submit your Research on AI, Media, Data Governance and Mis- and Disinformation
New Scientist: Trust and safety – the most important tech job you’ve never heard of
Harvard: What do we study when we study misinformation? A scoping review of experimental research (2016-2022)
Free Press: Big Tech Backslide: How Social-Media Rollbacks Endanger Democracy Ahead of the 2024 Elections
Chronicle of Higher Education: A Star Misinformation Scholar Says Harvard Pushed Her Out for Criticizing Meta
University of Minnesota and Oxford: The Paradox of AI Disclosure for Audience Trust in News
Policy and Internet: Moderating borderline content while respecting fundamental values
Freedom House: NEW REPORT: Governments Are Escalating Transnational Repression to Silence Journalists around the World
The Verge: TikTok’s biggest hits are videos you’ve probably never seen
National Endowment for Democracy: Twentieth Annual Seymour Martin Lipset Lecture: Larry Diamond on “Power, Performance, and Legitimacy”
Oversight Board: Oversight Board Announces New Cases on Israel-Hamas Conflict for Expedited Review
Google: Introducing Gemini: Google’s most capable AI model yet
- : The friendship problem
Please support the curation and analysis I’m doing with this newsletter. As a paid subscriber, you make it possible for me to bring you in-depth analyses of the most pressing issues in tech and politics.
Annapolis is great, I live not too far from there.