fheinderyckx

fheinderyckx , 1 month ago to Random stuff

“tech makes finding these conspiracy fantasies easier than ever, and […] tech makes forming communities of conspiratorial belief easier, too. But the vulnerability to conspiratorialism [is] a function of corruption – of life in a world in which real conspiracies (to steal your wages, or let rich people escape the consequences of their crimes, or sacrifice your safety to protect large firms' profits) are everywhere.”
@pluralistic,
https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/25/black-boxes/

fheinderyckx , 1 month ago to Random stuff

“Maybe people believe in conspiracy theories because they have hundreds of life-or-death decisions to make every day, and the institutions that are supposed to make that possible keep proving that they can't be trusted. Nevertheless, those decisions have to be made, and so something needs to fill the epistemological void left by the manifest unsoundness of the black box where the decisions get made.”
@pluralistic, Conspiratorialism and the epistemological crisis.
https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/25/black-boxes/

fheinderyckx , 2 months ago to communicationscholars group

AI researchers are calling on organizations to provide basic protections and more equitable access for independent testing of Generative AI models.
If you agree, please sign and share the letter:
https://sites.mit.edu/ai-safe-harbor/
#AI #Research @communicationscholars

fheinderyckx , 2 months ago to Brussels

Full-time academic position in Brussels (domain: Communication) — deadline extension until 21 March.
Full vacancy:
In French: https://cwfront.ulb.ac.be/greffe/modules/vac/data/sources/pdf/prod/8512.pdf
In English: https://cwfront.ulb.ac.be/greffe/modules/vac/data/sources/pdf/prod/8511.pdf
#academic #job #communication #university #Brussels @communicationscholars

fheinderyckx , 3 months ago to Random stuff

Over 8,000 of the world's best and finest open source and free software developers meet over the week-end at @ULBruxelles in Brussels, Belgium. The world needs open source more than ever!
https://fosdem.org/2024/
#FOSDEM #FOSDEM24 #OpenSource #PeakGeek

Gargron , 3 months ago to Random stuff

With @grishka at our #FOSDEM stand!

fheinderyckx , 4 months ago to communicationscholars group

Must read: @jeffjarvis leans on Arendt, Kornhauser, @ICAHDQ, @Chanders, Carey, @snurb and many other brilliant minds to argue masterfully that we must shift focus from a crisis of disinformation to one of believing and belonging: “The danger is in not belonging, and filling that void with malign substitutes for true community: joining a cult of personality or conspiracies, an insurrection, or some nihilistic, depraved perversion of a religion.”
https://medium.com/whither-news/journalism-belief-belonging-07a8dabe35e4
@communicationscholars

fheinderyckx , 4 months ago to Firefox

✅ New Year Resolution: I'm switching back to @mozilla Firefox as my default browser. This is consistent with my using Mastodon, Signal, Zotero, and other outstanding privacy mindful Open Source alternatives to the data- and dollar-hungry apps of the monopolistic tech giants.
#Mastodon #Firefox #Signal #Zotero #OpenSource

fheinderyckx , 5 months ago to Twitch

Finally:
“Starting today [Netflix] will publish What We Watched: A Netflix Engagement Report twice a year. This is a comprehensive report of what people watched on Netflix over a six month period1, including:

• Hours viewed for every title — original and licensed — watched for over 50,000 hours2;
• The premiere date3 for any Netflix TV series or film; and
• Whether a title was available globally.”
  https://about.netflix.com/en/news/what-we-watched-a-netflix-engagement-report

#Netflix #audience #streaming @communicationscholars

fheinderyckx , 5 months ago to communicationscholars group

Artificial General Bullshit: @jeffjarvis aptly calls out the BS that plagues the debate on AI.
“[T]his debate must occur less in the context of technology than of humanity, which is why the humanities and social sciences must be in the circle.”
https://buzzmachine.com/2023/11/19/artificial-general-bullshit/
@communicationscholars #commodon #humanities #AI

fheinderyckx , 6 months ago to communicationscholars group

The future's now:
New York City uses AI to make robocalls impersonating the Mayor in languages such as Spanish, Yiddish, and Mandarin. (Mayor Adams doesn't speak any of these languages.)
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/20/nyregion/ai-robocalls-eric-adams.html
#polcom #AI @communicationscholars

fheinderyckx , 7 months ago to bookstodon group

“The US library system, once the best in the world, faces death by a thousand cuts,” writes @brewsterkahle founder of @internetarchive.
“The traditional practice of libraries is to buy or acquire published materials, preserve and catalog them, and lend them widely and confidentially. (…) But now, in the digital age, every one of these functions has been denied to libraries, or recently even declared illegal in the United States.”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/09/us-library-system-attack-digital-licensing
#Libraries #books @bookstodon

fheinderyckx , 7 months ago to communicationscholars group

A proper, in depth, documented dive into articifial intelligence as seen by those who shape it. Proper story by @TheAtlantic, and #LongRead really worth your attention.

GIFT LINK for anyone to enjoy:
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2023/09/sam-altman-openai-chatgpt-gpt-4/674764/?utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

#AI #QualityJournalism @communicationscholars #commodon

fheinderyckx , 7 months ago to communicationscholars group

Populists, autoritarians, nationalists and fascists of the world keep conquering public opinion by sowing the seeds of hatred, anger and fear using brute digital force. We figured out long ago how these not-too-subtle strategies work, and yet it seems we can't do anything to stop them. This is disheartening.
“Inside the vast digital campaign by Hindu nationalists to inflame India.”
GIFT LINK:
https://wapo.st/3rCji5j
#propaganda #polcom @communicationscholars

fheinderyckx , 10 months ago to Random stuff

I am floored and fascinated by the near-literary quality of many of the descriptions of images that people carefully craft when appending pictures to their posts on Mastodon. Some of them will reveal a detail that had escaped my attention. Others will help me understand a subtle joke I had missed. Others still are true poems. ALT are their own microblogging world that reveals itself as you hover on a picture. And I hover, and hover.

#AltText #inclusivity
#Mastodon #netiquette #tootiquette