Links for August 28, 2016
"A Honeypot For Assholes": Inside Twitter’s 10-Year Failure To Stop Harassment
2011 brought the Arab Spring and more international acclaim for Twitter as a platform for revolutionaries. That same year, Twitter fought secret government order to provide user information for WikiLeaks.... Not long after, Twitter executives began publicly touting that “Twitter is the free speech wing of the free speech party,” a phrase sources attribute to Macgillivray. This maximalist approach to free speech was integral to Twitter’s rise, but quickly created the conditions for abuse.... Twitter has made an ideology out of protecting its most objectionable users. That ethos also made it a beacon for the internet’s most vitriolic personalities, who take particular delight in abusing those who use Twitter for their jobs.
Justice Department Plans to Stop Using Private Prisons
The Department of Justice will stop contracting with private prisons, the department announced Thursday morning. The decision comes a week after the DOJ inspector general released a damning report on the safety, security, and oversight of private prisons, which incarcerate 12 percent of federal inmates.
Seymour Papert, whose ideas and inventions transformed how millions of children around the world create and learn, died Sunday, July 31, 2016 at his home in East Blue Hill, Maine. He was 88.