An imminent change to a growing social media platform offers an opportunity to advocate for privacy by default in our user experiences — If you’re not familiar with Bluesky, it’s one of the few microblogging platforms jockeying for supremacy, since Twitter began its long slow slide into ignominy. The front runners now seem to be Bluesky, Mastodon, and Threads. Bluesky slowly but steadily built its way up to two million users recently, despite…

Consistency is helpful as a tool for designing user-friendly experiences. Until it isn’t. — In a recent post on LinkedIn, design system consultant Brad Frost referenced Google’s notoriously baffling 2020 changes to the icons for its popular apps, simply noting, “All…

Whether generating digital content via AI for yourself or your company, the same pitfalls apply. Avoid them to avoid damage to yourself or your brand. — OK, that headline is a stretch, but I do enjoy dropping a Blade Runner reference. What we’re really talking about here, of course, is online content and the growing use of generative AI to create it. First, an anecdote. The other day, I saw this prompt within a section of…

Some popular apps essentially become accidental stalkerware. How can we avoid falling prey to using them—or designing them? — You may not realize it, but one or more of the more apps you use regularly may essentially behave like stalkerware. Stalkerware, by definition, allows someone to track your activity without your knowing or consenting to it. We typically think of stalkerware as something that’s accidentally installed by the user…

Extremists access gaming channels to indoctrinate young people with their ideology. Some new tools help identify them online and off. — It’s no secret that social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube host accounts, which cater to extremist and white supremacist ideology, sometimes even nakedly branding their accounts as such. …

(And how brands could learn a little from the Foo Fighters, too) — Brands like Budweiser and Target could learn a thing or two about responding smartly to hate from this new ad/music video from Liquid Death, the canned water drink with a particularly aggressive style of branding. Purportedly directed by “Puritan Worldwide,” the song’s catchy lyrics come from actual hate comments on…

Meta just made quite a splash with Threads, but what are the hidden privacy issues you may not be aware of? — Well, Meta’s alternative to Twitter, Threads, certainly took off with a bang, didn’t it? 30 million signups overnight? Of course, Meta did have the smarts to launch the new platform off the back of Instagram, where many folks have amassed huge followings already. And they did make hopping onto the…

Information wants to be free in North Korea and its citizens are consuming it at a tremendous rate — I don’t know about you, but before attending a tremendously informative panel at RightsCon in Costa Rica earlier this month, I assumed North Korean citizens were almost entirely cut off from news and culture from the rest of the world. Not so, as I learned. In fact the amount of…

A detailed look at how Musk acts with intentionality to target the transgender community — On April 20th, as the owner of Twitter scarcely for 6 months, Elon Musk followed through on his promise to yank the once-coveted “blue checkmark” from people who weren’t paying for it. Remarkably, on that same day of 4/20 (Musk has a predictable, juvenile sense of humor), a rocket launched…