Nov 06, 2021 12:00 AM
Jul 31, 2025 12:00 AM

DL 310

A Concentrated Set of Users

Published: November 6, 2021 • 📧 Newsletter

Welcome back, friends. Here is Digitally Literate, issue #310. Your go-to source for insightful content on education, technology, and the digital landscape.

This week, I contributed to the following:

If you haven't already, please subscribe to receive this newsletter in your inbox. Feel free to reach out at hello@digitallyliterate.net.

🔖 Key Takeaways

📺 Watch

2021 is a critical year for climate change. The Paris Climate Agreement calls for urgent action to reduce carbon emissions and avoid catastrophic global warming.

The Climate Action Tracker shares both the progress and setbacks, shedding light on where we stand in limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

📚 Read

The Facebook Papers expose internal documents revealing stark contrasts to public statements by Facebook. Despite the negative press, profits continue to soar.

These documents represent the most comprehensive look yet at Facebook's internal operations and decision-making processes, revealing how the company prioritizes growth and engagement over user safety and societal well-being.

Twitter Data Reveals a Coordinated Campaign Against Meghan Markle

A report by Bot Sentinel highlights how a small group of Twitter accounts drives 70% of online trolling against Meghan Markle and Prince Harry. This reflects the outsized influence a concentrated group can wield on social media.

The research demonstrates how algorithmic amplification can make small, coordinated harassment campaigns appear like widespread public sentiment, creating false narratives that influence media coverage and public perception.

Mozilla's initiative aims to create a diverse voice database for AI assistants. Contribute your voice to ensure inclusivity for underrepresented languages and dialects.

This project represents an important alternative to corporate-controlled voice data collection, emphasizing diversity and open access over proprietary control.

As Facebook rebrands to Meta, and Zuckerberg trots out a vision of the metaverse, Clive Thompson indicates that our kids are already building and playing in the metaverse.

The truth is, a thriving metaverse already exists. It's incredibly high-functioning, with millions of people immersed in it for hours a day. In this metaverse, people have built uncountable custom worlds, and generated god knows how many profitable businesses and six-figure careers. Yet this terrain looks absolutely nothing like the one Zuckerberg showed off.

It's Minecraft, of course.

Thompson's insight reveals how corporate visions of the metaverse often ignore existing virtual communities that have already solved many of the technical and social challenges of online world-building.

We knew this day would come.

We've covered deepfakes for some time here in this newsletter. Deepfakes began as users could take the face and voice of someone famous and overlay that onto a pre-existing video. Most of the early deepfakes began as AI-generated synthetic media was used to create pornographic representations of real people.

According to deepfake researcher Henry Ajder, a new web app lets anyone upload a photo of a person and, using deepfake technology, superimpose their face into an adult video.

So far, the app exists in "relative obscurity," and the MIT Tech Review post above refers to the platform only as "Y," in an attempt to avoid inadvertently launching it into the mainstream.

This development represents the democratization of harmful synthetic media creation, making sophisticated image manipulation accessible to anyone with basic computer skills.

🔨 Do

Intentionally Cultivate Self-Compassion

Practicing self-compassion can provide a safe space to process vulnerability and build resilience. Explore guided meditations to strengthen your self-kindness.

Self-compassion exercises and guided meditations offer evidence-based approaches to developing emotional resilience and reducing self-criticism.

🤔 Consider

Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.

Anne Lamott

This wisdom perfectly captures the themes explored throughout this issue. The Facebook Papers reveal a company that never unplugs—constantly optimizing for engagement regardless of social consequences. The coordinated harassment campaigns against public figures demonstrate what happens when toxic actors never pause their activities. Climate change represents the ultimate failure to unplug from destructive systems.

Lamott's insight reminds us that in our hyperconnected age, the simple act of disconnection—from algorithms, from outrage cycles, from constant productivity demands—can be restorative and clarifying. Just as we might reboot a malfunctioning device, stepping back from digital overwhelm allows us to return with renewed perspective and intentionality.

The contrast between Facebook's corporate metaverse vision and the organic creativity of Minecraft communities shows what's possible when people have space to explore without being optimized for profit.

Newsletter Evolution Note

Issue #310 demonstrates Ian's ability to weave together urgent global challenges (climate crisis), platform governance failures (Facebook Papers), targeted harassment dynamics (Meghan Markle campaign), technological ethics (deepfakes), and practical wisdom (self-compassion). This synthesis reflects his growing sophistication in connecting individual experiences with systemic patterns while maintaining both analytical rigor and emotional intelligence. The "concentrated set of users" title cleverly captures both the harassment research findings and the broader theme of how small groups can wield disproportionate influence in digital systems.

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Connected concepts:

Part of the 📧 Newsletter archive documenting digital literacy and technology.

Want your metaverse for group meetings? Check out Gather for relatively lo-fi graphics to keep it accessible to anyone with a modern web browser.