You can probably already guess this, but the instability at Twitter has convinced me to adjust how I prioritize Twitter in the social media landscape. While the series of posts will continue, next week’s will end the Tweets for the Week approach. Stay tuned for news on that front.

As discussed previously, Fridays host my weekly Twitter roundups. Note that tweets of articles generally include header images from the articles, which I don’t include here unless their creators happen to have released them for use under a free license and I notice. Most have not, or I don’t notice. But I now add most of my commentary here, where I don’t feel restricted by the message length.

diagrams showing the division of the day and of the week

I also don’t generally attach pictures to posts with quotations.

9:01 – Mon 19 December 2022

Congress aims to close off presidential election mischief and fraud with simple and bipartisan solutions from The Conversation

The act would raise the objection threshold to one-fifth of the members, based on the principle that only under the most extreme circumstances should Congress consider refusing to count electoral votes.

We really should overhaul the entire process, from nomination on, but this at least starts the process.

12:04 – Mon 19 December 2022

Nothing is given so profusely as advice.

Francis, Duc de la Rochefoucauld

9:03 – Tue 20 December 2022

The effects of internet shutdowns on public mobilization from Global Voices

…authoritarian regimes have found in internet shutdowns a powerful tool to contain dissenting voices under the pretext of safeguarding national security and public safety.

Honestly, it should worry us that protest movements need to rely on corporate and governmental infrastructure in the first place.

12:03 – Tue 20 December 2022

The love of praise, howe’er conceal’d by art,

Reigns more or less, and glows in ev’ry heart.

Edward Young

9:05 – Wed 21 December 2022

Why betting on Putin’s departure is a losing game from openDemocracy

Leaving the messy business of Ukraine to a successor is not how he understands a leader’s role.

I assume that this weird theorizing derives from the early days of the war, where the West put considerable effort into trying to force a coup of some sort. That hasn’t succeeded, but people often assume that the goals of a failed project have some independent life.

12:05 – Wed 21 December 2022

To consider, Is this man of our own or an alien? is a mark of little-minded persons; but the whole earth is of kin to the generous-hearted.

Vishnu Sharma

9:04 – Thu 22 December 2022

A Year of Global Displacement from OtherWords

But far too often, states adopt double standards in their treatment of refugees and asylum seekers.

We definitely need to fix this problem.

12:01 – Thu 22 December 2022

Let him take heart who does advance, even in the smallest degree.

Plato

9:02 – Fri 23 December 2022

A little more salt may keep batteries from catching fire from Futurity

Batteries generate heat as they operate. And if there are punctures or defects in a battery, it will heat up rapidly.

I wonder how many companies already knew this, but have sat on it to avoid paying a thousandth of a cent per battery…

12:02 – Fri 23 December 2022

It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.

Oscar Wilde

Bonus

Because it accidentally became a tradition early on in the life of the blog, I drop any additional articles that didn’t fit into the one-article-per-day week, but too weird or important to not mention, here.

Elon Musk Had His Most Absurd, Disturbing 24 Hours at Twitter Yet from VICE Motherboard

The personal account of 20-year-old @elonjet creator Jack Sweeney was banned, and so were all of his other flight tracking accounts, including those that tracked Mark Zuckerberg and Russian oligarchs. Twitter then retroactively added a new policy that banned accounts “dedicated to sharing someone’s live location.”

Amusingly, I recently reviewed my post on Musk’s then-impending purchase of Twitter, and even though it shouldn’t have, it actually surprised me how much his pre-Twitter treatment of whistleblowers and critics—which I outlined in the post—completely predicts how he has acted more recently. It surprises me more that people seem surprised by his current behavior, as if it took work to uncover his history.

Credits: Header image is Circular diagrams showing the division of the day and of the week from a manuscript drafted during the Carolingian Dynasty.