You’ve probably heard about how a new paper suggests that Facebook Fueled Anti-Refugee Attacks in Germany. While there’s good reason to doubt the reporting on that paper, there’s little doubt that social media plays a substantial role in spreading misinformation and hate. The UN described Facebook as a “useful instrument for those seeking to spread hate” in a recent report. Social media companies seem either helpless or clueless whenever they have to deal with hate speech on their platforms, and Silicon Valley’s infatuation with “free speech” and amplification algorithms isn’t helping.

Twitter seems especially bad at dealing with hate speech, as their inability to deal with Alex Jones demonstrates. Their idea of simply displaying the facts next to tweets containing conspiracy theories or fake news is, at best, misguided, and at worst, completely missing the problem. Twitter’s problem is its (and especially its CEO, Jack Dorsey’s) apparent unwillingness to make any decisions at all, instead giving off the impression that Twitter doesn’t care.

What works, however, is banning these elements. Unlike Twitter, Facebook and YouTube recently decided to ban Alex Jones from their platforms (followed by Vimeo when Jones tried to re-host his videos there), and these bans seem to have done their job: Infowars Said YouTube Ban Would Make It Stronger. Actually, It’s Been Crushed. So there is hope in finding ways to deal with these issues.

By the way, if you’re interested in social media and its effect on discourse and democracy, I can wholeheartedly recommend Casey Newton’s “The Interface” newsletter, which has been a great source of information on this topic.

Zero-G Medicine

If you’ve ever had to give someone first aid, you know that all you can really do is wait for the ambulance to arrive as quickly as possible. But what if you’re separated from the next hospital by a hard vacuum and a few million kilometers away, and you have to save someone’s life? How to handle a medical emergency on a deep space mission.

Making Movies

Here’s a recipe for misery: Hollywood announces they’re turning your favorite book into a movie. That never seems to go well, does it? Does Hollywood ruin books? (YouTube)

Once in a Fortnite

On the face of it, most multiplayer video games feature fairly straightforward interaction possibilities: Here’s a variety of weapons, now go shoot or slash someone with ‘em. This is even more true in this modern age of massive multiplayer games: Going at each other and see who’s the last one standing is a tried and true concept by now, as evidenced by the success of PUBG and Fortnite. But what happens when you stop shooting people? I Played Fortnite and Figured Out the Universe.

I Can Believe It’s Not Whiskey

Producing Whisk(e)y is a very time-consuming process, in the most literal sense of the word. Distilling the alcohol takes some work, but the real long part is putting it into a barrel, and then waiting anywhere between 3 to 15 years (or more) for it to age. This means distilleries have to foresee the demand decades in advance, something no one’s very good at. Unsurprisingly, there are people working on shortening the time from creating to selling the bottle: Endless West wants to make artificial whiskey — but who will drink it?

Your Own Boss

For when you’re your own boss, but really need a different boss to hold you accountable: Your Boss - The Boss Simulation App

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