Every design choice that social media platforms make nudges users toward certain actions, values, and emotional states.
It is a design choice to offer a news feed that combines verified news sources with conspiracy blogs — interspersed with photos of a family picnic — with no distinction between these very different types of information. It is a design choice to use algorithms that find the most emotional or outrageous content to show users, hoping it keeps them online. And it is a design choice to send bright red notifications, keeping people in a state of expectation for the next photo or juicy piece of gossip.
Platform design is a silent pilot steering human behavior.
Social media platforms are bringing massive changes to how people get their news and how they communicate and behave. For example, the “endless scroll” is a design feature that aims to keep users scrolling and never reaching the bottom of a page where they might decide to pause.
I’m a political scientist who researches aspects of technology that support democracy and social cohesion, and I’ve observed how the design of social media platforms affects them.
Democracy is in crisis globally, and technology is playing a role. Most large platforms optimize their designs for profit, not community or democracy. Increasingly, Big Tech is siding with autocrats, and the platforms’ designs help keep society under control.
There are alternatives, however. Some companies design online platforms to defend democratic values.
Didn't I read somewhere that today's youth drinks less alcohol? I know when I was young I wouldn't be caught "dancing" at the club unless I was closer to puking than to slurred speech.
Login/add account by clicking the user icon in the top right corner
Select PieFed and choose a server
Likely I'll be pushing PieFed support to TestFlight next.
This might be the biggest PR I've ever written. It took a month of work and thousands of lines of code updated. There s a very high chance that random things will be a little broken, but I'll fix the bugs as I find them. That being said, it's very usable. Please let me know if you encounter any issues.
PieFed is still pretty unstable. They could push a breaking change at any point that would require me to make an app update for PieFed to work again.
There are known issues that I'm solving with the help of the PieFed devs:
Private messages don't load your reply messages to other users
Comment loading is a little broken. You will see "missing comment" a lot
I hope you like the update, and I'm pretty confident this work will unlock the next chapter for Blorp. I might even look into mbin support, no promises.
Episodes of The Bear, Stranger Things and Lena Dunham’s new show Too Much are stretching the limits of television and reducing our enjoyment in the process
A robot trained on videos of surgeries performed a lengthy phase of a gallbladder removal without human help. The robot operated for the first time on a lifelike patient, and during the operation, responded to and learned from voice commands from the team—like a novice surgeon working with a mentor.
The robot performed unflappably across trials and with the expertise of a skilled human surgeon, even during unexpected scenarios typical in real life medical emergencies.
In work led by Johns Hopkins researchers, the robot performed unflappably across trials and with the expertise of a skilled human surgeon, even during unexpected scenarios typical in real life medical emergencies
His comments came in response to a U.N. report released last month that alleged technology firms including Google and its parent company Alphabet had profited from “the genocide carried out by Israel” in Gaza by providing cloud and AI technologies to the Israeli government and military.
“With all due respect, throwing around the term genocide in relation to Gaza is deeply offensive to many Jewish people who have suffered actual genocides. I would also be careful citing transparently antisemitic organizations like the UN in relation to these issues,” Brin wrote in a forum for staff at Google DeepMind, the company’s artificial intelligence division, where workers were debating the report, according to the screenshots.
Google co-founder Sergey Brin calls U.N. ‘transparently antisemitic’ after report on tech firms and Gaza
His comments came in response to a U.N. report released last month that alleged technology firms including Google and its parent company Alphabet had profited from “the genocide carried out by Israel” in Gaza by providing cloud and AI technologies to the Israeli government and military.
“With all due respect, throwing around the term genocide in relation to Gaza is deeply offensive to many Jewish people who have suffered actual genocides. I would also be careful citing transparently antisemitic organizations like the UN in relation to these issues,” Brin wrote in a forum for staff at Google DeepMind, the company’s artificial intelligence division, where workers were debating the report, according to the screenshots.
Social housing makes up almost half of the city’s 1m homes. The system isn’t perfect, but it gets a lot of things right, says housing expert Justin Kadi
È firmata dal compositore Edoardo Verde la colonna sonora ufficiale dell’edizione 2025 del Festival del Doppiaggio – Premio Tonino Accolla, svoltosi a Siracusa, Noto e Ortigia dal 26 al 29 giugno 2025. Un riconoscimento importante per un artista dalla cifra stilistica raffinata, capace di coniugare profondità sonora, sensibilità narrativa e ricerca espressiva.
Impossibile parlare di Edoardo, senza ricordare la figura del nonno Dino Verde – autore di alcuni dei brani più iconici della musica leggera italiana: da "Resta cu’ mme" a "Romantica", da "Piove (Ciao ciao bambina)" a hit indimenticabili come "Il ballo del mattone", "Una zebra a pois", "Buonasera buonasera", "Felicità tà tà tà". Una tradizione artistica che Edoardo onora con la sua personale voce musicale, capace di emozionare e raccontare, anche attraverso una semplice nota.
Renzo Pasolini, pur non avendo mai vinto un campionato del mondo, rimane popolare grazie al suo stile intrepido. È sepolto nel Cimitero Monumentale di Rimini, dove il suo casco e alcune testimonianze delle sue vittorie sono esposte sul suo sepolcro. Jarno Saarinen è ricordato come uno dei piloti motociclistici più promettenti e talentuosi della sua epoca. Rimane l’unico finlandese ad aver vinto un campionato del mondo di motociclismo su strada. Il suo stile di guida, in particolare la sua posizione del corpo e la capacità di far scivolare il pneumatico posteriore, influenzò futuri campioni.
L’incidente che tolse la vita ad entrambi il 20 maggio 1973 a Monza fu un momento che generò una forte richiesta di migliori condizioni di sicurezza nello sport delle due ruote
The Trump administration announced on Wednesday it was issuing sanctions against an independent official tasked with investigating human rights abuses in the Palestinian territories, the latest effort by the United States to punish critics of Israel’s 21-month war in Gaza.
The state department’s decision to sanction Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur for the West Bank and Gaza, comes after a recent US pressure campaign to force the international body to remove her from her post failed.
Albanese, a human rights lawyer, has been vocal in calling for an end to what she describes as the “genocide” that Israel is waging against Palestinians in Gaza. Both Israel and the US, which provides military support, have strongly denied that accusation.
Israel has faced accusations of genocide at the International Court of Justice and of war crimes at the ICC over its devastating military assault on Gaza. Albanese’s position has also been backed by leading genocide scholars and rights organisations.
This study from MIT used geo data collected from cars in Milan, Italy, to check the effectiveness of 30 km/h zones in reducing speed.
The first conclusion is that the signs don't work: 85 percentile speeds are all over the place in 30 km/h zones in Milan, as shown in the figure below:
The second step was finding correlations between speeds and street features extracted from openstreetmap. Results are as expected: narrow, short, curvy sections correlate with lower speeds, as do 1 lane vs more, one way vs 2 ways:
The final step is also interesting: the authors made a model to predict the compliance of 30 km/h speed limit on streets that are 50 km/h at the moment. Useful for urban planning to understand if charging an area to 30 km/h would need structural interventions (like bumps, narrowing of the street...) or not:
There is so much more in the article, I suggest to read it fully.
Milano, analisi del limite 30 km/h dimostra che quel che conta non sono i cartelli, ma com'è fatta la strada
Uno studio di #MIT sulle velocità rilevate, dimostra con dati concreti e analisi dell'infrastruttura da #openstreetmap, quel che già era noto: i guidatori adeguano la velocità alla loro percezione di pericolo, e non ai limiti imposti. Strade più strette, a senso unico, con incroci fanno rallentare. Non ci sono più scuse
So the limit is what matters, but it has to actually be enforced. Thats some very novel insight hmmmm. But yes, physical filters like bumps are much more effective compared to signs.
If the limit is setup appropriately. Loads of roads have the limit set where you would think the speed limit is 80km/h but somehow it is set to 50km/h. So everyone ignores the set limit. While at other roads the limit is say 70km/h but you can hardly drive over 50km/h.
The limit should be set to whatever is deemed safe for pedestrians and cyclists in a given location. The road design should then match that speed limit.
Loads of roads have the limit set where you would think the speed limit is 80km/h but somehow it is set to 50km/h
So the road should be redesigned to make it hard to drive over 50 (make it more narrow and add traffic calming)
This is Italy we're talking about, our public officials want zero responsibility so they always set absurdly low limits.
Point is, road design is everything, if you want people to go slow, you can make it so, if it's an area where people can go faster, design the road accordingly and keep it maintained, don't let it turn into a crater field, just to later "fix" the problem with a temporary speed limit.
In Milan this would be possible, since it is a rich city, in the rest of Italy, not so easy.
This is Italy we’re talking about, our public officials want zero responsibility so they always set absurdly low limits.
Sounds good TBH. If they also narrow the roads/remove lanes to enforce it, put bike paths/public transit lanes in the free space, and fine anyone driving dangerously, then this is the recipe for a good city.
This study from MIT used geo data collected from cars in Milan, Italy, to check the effectiveness of 30 km/h zones in reducing speed.
The first conclusion is that the signs don't work: 85 percentile speeds are all over the place in 30 km/h zones in Milan, as shown in the figure below:
The second step was finding correlations between speeds and street features extracted from openstreetmap. Results are as expected: narrow, short, curvy sections correlate with lower speeds, as do 1 lane vs more, one way vs 2 ways:
The final step is also interesting: the authors made a model to predict the compliance of 30 km/h speed limit on streets that are 50 km/h at the moment. Useful for urban planning to understand if charging an area to 30 km/h would need structural interventions (like bumps, narrowing of the street...) or not:
There is so much more in the article, I suggest to read it fully.
Milano, analisi del limite 30 km/h dimostra che quel che conta non sono i cartelli, ma com'è fatta la strada
Uno studio di #MIT sulle velocità rilevate, dimostra con dati concreti e analisi dell'infrastruttura da #openstreetmap, quel che già era noto: i guidatori adeguano la velocità alla loro percezione di pericolo, e non ai limiti imposti. Strade più strette, a senso unico, con incroci fanno rallentare. Non ci sono più scuse
Moreno Vignolini, presidente di Confartigianato Moda:
“Il settore tessile e moda, pilastro storico del Made in Italy, oggi vive una crisi che richiede risposte immediate, mirate e un’azione coordinata tra pubblico, privato e istituzioni”.
Nei primi quattro mesi del 2025 l’export delle aziende artigiane è sceso del 3,7%, la produzione ha registrato un calo del 9,3% e l’occupazione è diminuita del 5,6%.
Maybe the USA should heavily invest in the industry of the USA, just like China does, in order to keep up? No, then USian companies would have oversight & have to meet expectations, and we all know that they wouldn’t want that.
Also labor price is unmatched. Nobody would work for the wage they give to children in China, so you can't really go that much cheaper while not sacrificing safety.
Very few children work in china right now, Chinese workers even have 5 days of vacation a year by law.
That's 5 more than the US....
There were probably more children working on farms in the US than in china, and I remember something about Florida wanting to reinstate child labour again?
Yes, there may not be child labor. But in places we cannot see, there are still black industry chains. A brick factory was exposed some time ago. They let some people with low IQ or disabilities work. They were not given masks, and the air was full of dust. They may work more than ten hours a day or even more. What is the difference between this and slavery? I just want to give this example to illustrate that there are still many black-hearted factories in society, and there is also the possibility of employing child labor. In China, young people who have not studied will choose to work in factories, but they must be at least 16 years old. If they are younger, they will not be hired. Back to the issue of BYD, although we are proud that it can be recognized by the world as a Chinese brand, and many people in China also buy it. But recently there have been some news that they blindly work overtime within the company, and have meetings after get off work, etc. Someone exposed the chat records within the company. We are all ordinary people. We just want to fight for our rights. Even if it is a big company, as long as it exploits people, we must oppose it.
We still have a question, why do we work so hard when we have achieved what we have now? We envy people in Europe, who have easy work. Every time we take a holiday, we have to make up for it with more working days. You often say that Chinese people are hardworking, but the younger generation does not want to suffer unnecessary hardships. We realize that we come to this world to enjoy life, not to spend the best decades of our lives working.
I think it's about being content with what you have. Not always wanting more and bigger and better. I have a comfortable salary, nothing too much, loads of people earn way more, but i can pay my mortgage and all other costs, don't have to worry about losing my job. And still have enough money left to spend on nice things.
I don't have to save up loads of money for medical bills or other unfortunate events. I can just easily live my life.
That having said I'm still fed up with the daily grind, so I'm selling the house now to retire early somewhere in Spain or Italy, hopefully going off grid somewhere in the mountains enjoying peace and quiet and nature, embracing my inner hermit.
I also want to save money to buy a house in our village. Most of us came to the city from the countryside, but I don’t have enough money. I don’t think I am not ungrateful, but the salary of the company is indeed lower than the industry average. That’s why I think so. Your life seems wonderful — I truly wish you all the best.
You too, just count your blessings, and think about what you have and don't focus on what you don't (or can't) have.
I like to lead a more minimalist life so I can retire, small cabin in the mountains, maybe put up a big tent for a bed and breakfast to cover my cost a bit. And just be busy with growing my own food, chickens, getting ready for winter doing repairs, hiking. Now with solar panels being cheap and batteries, going off the grid is a lot easier. And if you don't need much you can live very cheap.
Search for Martijn Doolaard on youtube and you know what I mean, although i want to keep it a bit simpler. 😁
Thank you for your suggestion. I didn't think of building a cabin. Our land is collective and we can't just build a house casually. That's why we have to save money to build a house. Thank you always, I hope we can all have a bright future~ 😘
Willie Nelson la voce. Chi "mastica" un po' di musica sa che Willie Nelson è una vera istituzione, una delle colonne portanti del panorama country. La sua è una carriera molto prolifica, con i suoi quasi ottant'anni infatti, nel suo portafoglio si trovano oltre sessanta album di cui una decina dal vivo che volendo fare una media è quasi vicino ad un disco all'anno, una "cifra" che molto probabilmente lo candida nel podio dei più attivi... Leggi e ascolta...
Willie Nelson la voce. Chi “mastica” un po' di musica sa che Willie Nelson è una vera istituzione, una delle colonne portanti del panorama country. La sua è una carriera molto prolifica, con i suoi quasi ottant'anni infatti, nel suo portafoglio si trovano oltre sessanta album di cui una decina dal vivo che volendo fare una media è quasi vicino ad un disco all'anno, una “cifra” che molto probabilmente lo candida nel podio dei più attivi. In questo suo incredibile catalogo Nelson oltre ad aver riscosso parecchi premi (una quarantina circa) ha conosciuto il successo di critica e commerciale ed è stato spesso in cima alle classifiche di vendita, ma, nonostante questo, quello che lo ha sempre contraddistinto è la sua coerenza ed etica musicale. Anche se per definizione Nelson è un artista country, la sua musica è stata un caleidoscopio di influenze sonore, dal blues al folk, dal rock'n'roll a collaborazioni variegate, tutte e comunque sempre ispirate e non banali... artesuono.blogspot.com/2014/10…
I'm looking for manufacturers of different kinds of paper to print on. So vinyl sticker paper, photo paper, normal paper, cardstock paper and so on. Do you know of any good European (EU) paper manufacturers that sell these in high quality and don't break the bank at the same time?
This is a break down of commits to each project per month. In most cases a review request is just a single commit, but this chart helps to see what projects are being worked on.
We did originally rlease 2.92.0 but I noticed immediately when I went to update the flatpak that I forgot to update the version in the metadata file so we had to cut 2.92.1 right away to address that.
Future Plans
Finish up the conversation persistence that we were trying to get into Experimental 3.
Determine how to proceed with the SIP protocol plugin. We're probably going to create yet another library to handle it.
After conversation persistence is done, we need to add persistence to the contact list as well.
We have decided that we're going to do a 2.15.0 release. The decision and announcement can be found here.
Retrospective
Added support to display protocols, loaders, and other "hidden" plugins in the plugins list but made them not unloadable.
Fixed log viewing for protocols that are no longer loadable.
Removed the "retro" protocols plugins. The ones that still existed have been moved to the new retro-prpl project.
Releases
None yet, we're trying to finalize some things before releasing 2.15.0.
Future Plans
We're still working on updating the versions of GLib and GTK for the windows build as well as creating an official pre-built development bundle/SDK.
GPlugin
GPlugin is our GObject based plugin library that is used in Pidgin 3.
Retrospective
No notable changes
Releases
None
Future Plans
GPlugin is pretty stable at the moment but there's quite a lot of maintenance stuff to get too, but it's not as high of a priority as the other stuff at the moment.
HASL
HASL is the Hassle-free Authentication and Security Layer library. It implements SASL in a modern and easy use way compared to the existing libraries.
Retrospective
We fixed our error domains which were not implemented in a way that would work in language bindings.
Releases
None
Future Plans
We have been in the progress of implementing the SCRAM Mechanisms which will be included in the next release.
Birb
Birb is a library of GLib utilities that we use across all of our projects.
Retrospective
No notable changes
Releases
None
Xeme
Xeme is our XMPP integration library. It is the basis for both the Link Local Messaging (Bonjour) and XMPP protocols in Pidgin 3. It is still early in development and has not yet had a release.
Ibis
Ibis is our IRCv3 integration library. It has seen a lot of active development as it is used in the IRCv3 protocol plugin in Pidgin 3.
We are nearing known feature completion on it and expect to do a 1.0 release in the near future.
Retrospective
No notable changes
Releases
None
Future Plans
Continue working through the open issues and watching new IRCv3 specifications for things we should be including.
Hiya
Hiya is a new client abstraction library for mDNS. It was created to help make implementation of the Link Local Messaging protocol easier as we would have to abstract out the different platform implementations and by putting it in a library that abstraction can be used by other projects.
Hiya has not yet had a release.
Myna
Myna is a new integration library for Matrix. It is still extremely early in development.
Seagull
Seagull is a new library we created to make working with SQLite feel more like a GLIB/GNOME library and force usage of prepared statements with named parameters and other similar things.
Retrospective
Added aliases for columns.
Added support for binding objects.
Added support for retrieving columns from objects.
Added support for creating statements from resources.
Added API for date times, enums, and flags.
Fixed a bug were non prefixed parameters would match even though a prefix was specified.
We have a few features to fill out yet and a few ideas that need a bit more time in the oven.
More specific details can be found in our open issues.
Traversity
Traversity is a new library for traversing NATs. There are many different ways to traverse a NAT and the goal of Traversity is to hide that from developers who just need to traverse a NAT.
It is still early in development and has not yet had an official release.
retro-prpl
retro-prpl is a new repository we've created on GitHub. This repository contains all of the abandoned protocols that have ever lived in our code base and is meant to make them easier to study and for people to use with services like Retro AIM Server and NINA.
Retrospective
We've wrapped up just about all the development here and are just waiting for Pidgin 2.15.0 before releasing.
Releases
None
Future Plans
Right now we didn't add any support for protocol specific emojis because we completely forgot about them. Anyways we're looking at creating a custom emoji theme that will include everything for these retro protocols.
Closing
We hope you all are enjoying the new format and if you have any questions of comments please leave them below!
Lithuania and Finland plan to begin domestic anti-personnel mine manufacturing in 2026, with some of the supplies potentially earmarked for Ukraine to counter the Russian threat, Reuters reported on July 9.
Disclaimer: The article linked is from a single source with a single perspective. Make sure to cross-check information against multiple sources to get a comprehensive view on the situation.
Disclaimer: The article linked is from a single source with a single perspective. Make sure to cross-check information against multiple sources to get a comprehensive view on the situation.
The anti-poverty charity Oxfam warns that growing inequality in Africa is hindering democracy. The four richest Africans have more wealth than half of the continent's population.
Disclaimer: The article linked is from a single source with a single perspective. Make sure to cross-check information against multiple sources to get a comprehensive view on the situation.
Disclaimer: The article linked is from a single source with a single perspective. Make sure to cross-check information against multiple sources to get a comprehensive view on the situation.
Disclaimer: The article linked is from a single source with a single perspective. Make sure to cross-check information against multiple sources to get a comprehensive view on the situation.
Idk about other countries, but in Italy I'm quite sure the power infrastructure isn't ready to handle the enormous requirements of switching from gas to electrical heating
i mean, italy has not produced enough power to meet domestic demands since the 80s. they're the biggest electricity importer in europe. i don't know if the rest of the continent can handle them switching off of gas.
Disclaimer: The article linked is from a single source with a single perspective. Make sure to cross-check information against multiple sources to get a comprehensive view on the situation.
Petr Pavel will present a comprehensive plan for Ukraine’s post-war recovery at Thursday’s summit in Rome, aiming to coordinate international support around investment, refugee return, and accelerated EU integration.
Disclaimer: The article linked is from a single source with a single perspective. Make sure to cross-check information against multiple sources to get a comprehensive view on the situation.
Something smells a little off in today's Build Showcase. DwaneDibbley shows us some creativity with his aptly named Fartmaster build where he marches across Wraeclast with his Ritualist and leaves foul gas and bodies of monsters in his wake. Check it out in the video below!
Path of Exile 2 is filled with tons of Unique Items, each with intricate designs. Take a look through today's news post, where our 3D artists show off some closer looks at some of their Unique Item designs.
You're invited to talk on Matrix. If you don't already have a client this link will help you pick one, and join the conversation. If you already have one, this link will help you join the conversation
Washington (AFP) – US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday announced Washington was sanctioning the United Nations special expert on the Palestinian territories, following her criticism of Washington policy on Gaza.
"Today I am imposing sanctions on UN Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese for her illegitimate and shameful efforts to prompt (International Criminal Court) action against US and Israeli officials, companies, and executives," Rubio said on social media.
In a subsequent statement he slammed the UN expert's strident criticism of the United States and said she recommended to the ICC that arrest warrants be issued targeting Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Rubio also attacked her for "biased and malicious activities," and accused her of having "spewed unabashed antisemitism (and) support for terrorism."
He said she escalated her contempt for the United States by writing "threatening letters" to several US companies, making what Rubio called unfounded accusations and recommending the ICC pursue prosecutions of the companies and their executives.
"We will not tolerate these campaigns of political and economic warfare, which threaten our national interests and sovereignty," Rubio said.
While Albanese was appointed by the UN Human Rights Council, she does not speak on behalf of the United Nations itself.
The Italy-born expert released a damning report earlier this month denouncing companies she said "profited from the Israeli economy of illegal occupation, apartheid, and now genocide" in the occupied Palestinian territories.
The report provoked a furious response from Israel, while some of the named companies also raised objections.
Albanese has leveled broadsides against the policies of Israel in Gaza, and of US President Donald Trump, particularly the plan he announced in February to take over the Gaza Strip and resettle its residents elsewhere.
That proposal faced a rejection from Palestinians, Middle East leaders and the United Nations.
Albanese dismissed it as "utter nonsense" and an "international crime" that will sow panic.
"It's unlawful, immoral and... completely irresponsible because it will make the regional crisis even worse," she said on February 5 during a visit to Copenhagen.
US ally Israel on Wednesday commended Rubio's action against the rapporteur.
"Albanese has consistently undermined the credibility of the UN Human Rights Council by promoting false narratives and pushing for illegitimate legal actions that ignore the realities on the ground," Israel's UN Ambassador Danny Danon said.
Molti sono gli ostacoli sulla strada di un onesto cittadino che, per una ragione o per l’altra, abbia scelto come scopo nella vita di riuscire un giorno a salvare il mondo.
Damage
in reply to Deceptichum • • •I know when I was young I wouldn't be caught "dancing" at the club unless I was closer to puking than to slurred speech.