Do we have a civil duty to re-design social media platforms?

Posted on by graham

Do we have a civil duty to re-design social media platforms? Some open thoughts to start exploring the topic.

Or, to rephrase that: Is there a civil duty for civilians to design civility into our use of the social internet?

(Being deliberately aware of using the term "civil" extensively here – civility, civilian, civil as a whole. This is to draw attention to the overlap between the terms, and the ambiguity between them. Are civilians always civil? Are civilisations?)

Some fragments:

  1. The accepted narrative is that social media profits from anger and hate, which is largely true, but risks ignoring the wider notion that we humans engage with all extremes of emotions. We remain drawn to content which inspires us, calms us, and makes us laugh as much as we are to what makes us angry. (Perhaps we just remember the negative stuff for longer.)

  2. I started using Twitter in 2007 to keep in touch via SMS, before data was ubiquitous. A friend had moved to France, and it was genuinely exciting being able to text him for free (not 20p a message) by just using "DM" at the start of a text message.

  3. Twitter grew rapidly from a network to an algorithm to a business, but at its heart was the idea of being able to post "interesting things", like spotting a monkey. Similarly, Flickr had its "Interestingness" algorithm which everyone in the photography scene was trying to decipher. It was clear that being connected was less important than being famous from this point. Being favourited was less important than being reposted.

  4. This struggle to be interesting is still where we’re at now, it has become a way of life once we step into the public sphere. But we cannot separate out factually interesting from emotionally interesting content – facts confirm desires and passions are formed from observations. Second, we cannot separate out "good" interesting from "bad" interesting – for every anger-inducing content there is something funny, hopefully, shocking, cute. The dichotomy is not between good and bad, but been being entertained and bored.

  5. So we remain stuck in this vicious loop of wanting to seek out the good stuff, but getting all the while annoyed by the bad stuff, but being unable to step away from any of it. In civil participation terms – a seemingly antiquated term? – this is akin to wandering around our local community and only engaging with the people shouting the loudest, or being the most egregious, the most unruly, the most effervescent. It is to ignore the quiet, the reliable and, very often, the people closest to us.

  6. Local democracy in the UK (and possibly elsehere) is in a precarious place now, with local governance being hollowed out through the twin effects of austerity and the rise of alternative, privately-owned networks. It is much easier to partiicpate in global polls of no value than it is to engage with the complicated and charged landscape of local politics.

  7. Does this represent a giving-up, then? Are we relieved that local decisions, despite not being what we would like, are actually taken out of our hands, for whatever reason?

  8. Or is there an alternative to X as the "global town square"? Has there always been an alternative, just we never got round to giving it any attention? Is there an appetite for doing politics differently at this level – or is it too late? Are we happy with just shouting at each other from long distances.

  9. Distance is a good way to think about it. Of the people that you know, in person, have met face-to-face, how many decisions are shared between you, that you jointly participate in? Can we map domains of influence to domains of contact in this way? Can we make democracy – co-deliberation, meaningful votes, sustainable feedback – something that we implement daily, not just take for granted?

  10. In among all the clamour to make coutries "great" "again", we have lost what it means to be a citizen of that country. What do we expect of each other, of our representatives, of ourselves? And when people fail to meet those expectations, how can we capture that and turn it into something positive?

  11. Instead of grunting and accepting the world as beyond help and beyond change.

  12. How can we design our networks to give us back some faith in others?

Am I just rehashing arguments from 20 years ago? Have I missed anything? Where do we go from here? Drop me a line on Mastodon or Bluesky.

Other reading:

Midweek thoughts on Samhain and Governance

Posted on by graham
Saw 2 butterflies cavorting through the air yesterday. Outside now, fireworks pop in the dark, but it’s still not cold. More like early September in old weathers. Ha, “in old weathers”, a new phrase to track progress like “in old money” and “in olden times”. Myths but not memories.

Abundantly mixed energies this week, with the long stretch of a fresh illness finally catching up with me after going out for local drinks on Friday. Bad sleep, usually of my own making, on top of that. And today a pulled shoulder.

But blessings too. A small piece of work has come together nicely, and I have my head round CSS flexbox just that little more tightly, like a comfortable scarf. I dealt with a few last minute unexpecteds quickly and easily, which is often the bit I try to avoid most but also enjoy the most. Further work this week is lined up, after a trip up to London tomorrow for a conference.

I haven’t been to a conference in years, and I’ve ironed off a new shirt and hoping my ill doesn’t get too much in the way of enjoying the day, a day all about Governance. I’m going with my Writing Our Legacy hat on, but this is a field I’m rapidly wanting to get into more, philosophically and practically.

I enjoy governance, I’ve decided – or, more realistically, I’ve come to realise that I enjoy it. Governance comes down to goal-setting, decision-making, transparency and feedback loops, all tucked into a package of collaboration. The word itself doesn’t lend itself to me easily though, but then I realise I’ve been effectively doing governance for over a decade though. Decisions, oversight, correction, collaboration. Got a team? Want it to do well? Governance is where it’s at.

For me, governance ties in with my personal field of software systems. I’ve used the recent point of Samhain to take stock of where I am, and write up fresh thoughts. You can find them on my “now” page.

What is the future of the tech industry TNG?

Posted on by graham

Holy shit, stat of the day comes from this FT article (£) on jobs for graduates vs AI.

The ISE said graduate vacancies at the large employers it surveys had grown 4 per cent in the past year, compared with 6 per cent the previous year. But graduate hiring in the digital and IT sector fell 35 per cent, while in finance and professional services it was down 5 per cent.

Emphasis added because wow. I’m sure some of that isn’t just AI, but also wider tech cycles, but still.

I’m at an age where I think a lot about giving back to future generations, especially as my own kids get closer towards finding a job or a career or whatever you want to call it these days. A conversation the other day pointed out that people are more likely to use AI for menial tasks, which blocks off those in-roads that you’d normally take as a junior, as an intern, etc. This really made me think, especially alongside the push for Universities to have more industry links.

There’s a huge conflict going on here. Do businesses want to train people up, or don’t they? Do they even want human workers, or not – the overall push for AI and ML (oh, and de–unionising) seems to be decisively against this idea. Similarly people are having kids less, and at older ages (the parents, not the kids). But where does that leave us as an intergenerational society?

As we build hyper-automation into our lives, are we thinking about those that come after us as part of our decision-making? As with ecological concerns and resource usage, how many generations to come are we designing for? Or are we just taking what we can, and closing the door behind us?

Continuous Personal Development (or “Things I’ve Been Learning About”)

Posted on by graham

One of the things I’ve always enjoyed in my work is the opportunity to learn new things. Looking back, I feel slightly spoiled that, in my first job, we jumped between codebases and languages for different projects at a rate that most people would laugh at now – I’d work across Perl, ColdFusion, HTML, Javascript, ActionScript and more, all within a year. In the background I’d be personally playing around with Java, Linux admin, and god-knows-what-came-along.

The joy of technology for me has always been the challenge of … cajoling the systems to produce something of use and of value. Ends before means. It’s a fascination which continues 25 years on, that ever-present love-hate relationship with software and toolchains that accepts that you’re never, really, going to fully understand what’s going on. That you need to think on your feet, figure stuff out fast, absorb the docs almost intuitively, and make good things happen.

The last few months have been fairly technical, and I didn’t want to lose track of the variety of things I’ve been digging into, both for clients and for myself. Here’s a bit of a (definitely incomplete) list of some of the things I’ve been enjoying learning about and applying.

  • Trying out Nuclei Vulnerability scanner as a way to check for exploits on an old site.

  • POP chain exploits that use magic methods (such as __wakeup()) in PHP objects to run code.

  • The difference between CVSS and EPSS scores for assessing security risks.

  • Docker container setup, to get legacy sites running for development locally, as well as for throwing a new staging server together.

  • Replacing the inner door seal on a Bosch washer-dryer machine (which is the same as Siemens. The replacement part costs between £40 and… £120?). Labour is always 5 times what you expect.

  • In-depth TinyMCE hacking, including adding in a lot of custom code to implement drag-and-drop functionality for any files (not just images). And the licence differences between TinyMCE v6 (MIT) and v7 (GPLv2).

  • Javascript MutationObservers as a way to hang events off any changes to the DOM and styling, including CSS transitions. Related: The transitionend event.

  • Hooking into the DOM of the GoGoCarto mapping tool to do some in-depth (and probably somewhat fragile) UI changes.

  • httrack as a way of taking static copies of sites, but also learning that it’s important to pre-generate any images and files required for responsive display, and to copy those into place ahead of time as well. Always a trade-off.

  • The difference between em and ch units in CSS.

  • Passing messages between iframes using the postmessage() method, and combining it with scrollIntoView() to move an iframe fully on screen when interacting with it.

OK, these are all the technical things I’ve logged anyway. It’s harder to bullet point the softer skills around freelancing right now, but maybe that’s another post?

3 (years) is the Magic Number

Posted on by graham

I can’t quite believe it’s been three full years since I jumped into a freelance career. Three years feels specifically like a turning point – like something is now established, rather than experimental. It’s still not a lot compared to many others, of course, but there’s definitely some significance. Three as a magic number.

Freelancing will be different for everybody, albeit with a lot of common overlap at the same time, I’ve learned. I’m ridiculously glad I joined up with The Skiff as place to work around other people: I don’t think I’d have survived this long without a small but valuable network of people treading the same road and being so happy to share.

When I took the crazy decision to make the jump, it was in an effort to take more "creative control" over the nature of my work. At the time, I wasn’t quite sure that meant, and while I’m not convinced I do now, I have realised that freelancing, for me, is about finding my place in the world. A modern world which has so much promise, but which also faces some extraordinary risks and challenges.

I’m beginning to more freely admit that I find those challenges overwhelming at times. I’ve got more concerned, not less, about the world my kids and their kids will find themselves in once my generation leaves. Solutions seem like a world away, and billionaires seem quite happy with literally starting new worlds instead of fixing the current one.

It’s hard to boil all that down into something to focus on daily, but I hugely appreciate the chance to work with organisations such as The Restart Project and Helpful Digital to support their efforts. I know Democracy, Ecology and Digital Technology don’t necessarily dovetail together. But that’s where I am, and I’ve no plans to step out of it yet.

I’m also likely to have some availability coming up over the next few months, and will be looking around to see who needs some help. If you’re after someone technical, but with a strong social drive and with an appreciation of what’s appropriate at business-level, then let’s chat.

I’m particularly interested in:

  • Taking on existing "brownfield" projects to get them into shape (code, but also documentation and process)
  • Holding projects to account for sustainability, performance, accessibility, etc.
  • Reviewing the environmental impact and carbon footprints of technology, and identifying improvement plans

Examples of recent work and interests include:

  • Overhauling a large WordPress-based product to allow much easier modification and flexibility
  • Website maintenance and migration to greener hosting
  • Lightweight carbon impact assessment for website visits
  • Assessment of a 7-year-old tech stack for security and other issues
  • Usability testing to redesign the flow of a mapping service

A lot of this stuff is hard, without easy answers. I guess that’s why I like it.

Anyway, to celebrate three years (as well as recently getting older AND moving house), I thought I’d treat myself to a new skateboard. I last bought one 20 years ago from Oddballs in Brighton. They’re still there, and purveyor of finest wheeled devices, so I couldn’t resist picking up this beauty.

Photo of the top half of a skateboard on top of green grass. The skateboard is white, with a black and white snake illustration design on it.

Who knows where I’ll be in another three or 20 years, but at the end of the day, perhaps it’s all just about making sure we enjoy the ride.

Reflection is not a quick-win skill

Posted on by graham

There’s a part of my brain that is very impatient.

Is this a genetic thing, an in-built urge to avoid boredom? Is it due to growing up alongside the internet, as the twin notions of convenience and instant gratification truly kicked in? Or do I increasingly feel the steely fingers of time passing over me, never slowing. It’s hard to say.

So anyway, I naturally want quick results, it seems. Which, paradoxically of course, means it’s harder to see things long term sometimes. "Sustained" action can become an aspiration rather than a practicality.

Which is relevant right now. After reading about the concept of Ikigai and the overlap of purpose, skills, and needs, I woke up excited on Monday morning with a few realisations running through my head. There were directions I knew wanted to point and paths I wanted to tread. Everything seemed clearer than before.

And then, as usual, I muddied it up by writing it down 🤣

Actually, no need to be harsh on myself. Rather, just appreciate that writing things down can be a difficult exercise, especially when it comes to trying to communicate difficult stuff to anonymous others. It’s a fool’s game in some ways, but often a worthwhile one, just to get garbled sentences out of the way.

People ask me what I do, and I generally um and er a bit, which I’ve decided isn’t the greatest way to sell your services, or spin your own story. For me, it’s fine, but I’ve known myself for a few years now. Other people, well, haven’t. Seems fair.

And when I come to answer, I also tend to break it down into two parts – what I do (or have done), and what I would like to do. Liminal transition life is full of ambiguity like this.

So Monday morning, with the treat of a decent coffee, I wrote down what my skills and interests were – one per tiny post-it – and arranged them very roughly by 1) how good I thought I was at it, and 2) how much I wanted to do it. I also used two different colour, one for technical ("hard"?) skills such as coding, and another for "soft" skills, such as architecture. It was pretty quick to do – being in a constant state of reflection tends to help, at least with this bit.

(Oh, sidenote, I also started the session with an I Ching reading, which turned things pretty spooky fairly quickly. I don’t think I’ve had the same reading twice in a row before, and certainly not within a month, but here was "Advance" again. Keep going forwards, the words said, there’s a path here. I’ll take that as a definite sign.)

By the end, I had a few new things:

  1. An understanding that I enjoy code, but as a creative endeavour, rather than a technical one. I’ve always enjoyed coding because it allows me to create things, and I don’t enjoy it when what I’m making doesn’t make some kind of sense to me. I went back to Uni because of this. I understand stakeholder needs because of this. It’s what I look for in new coders. But it’s never something I was taught, or thought you could take qualifications in (except academically).

  2. A realisation that I have a bit of a language barrier at the moment, which is why I’ve been talking about things like job titles recently. I’ve also got similar thoughts about things like "Sustainability" though, which I should blog about. I really can’t decide if it’s better to use other people’s terminology up-front, or force through my own, garbled vocabulary.

  3. Some scribbled notes about practical ideas. Write more blog posts. Form more relationships. Make time for this stuff, otherwise I’ll just be wishing I was doing it.

  4. The chance to look back over some of my written notes from the last few years, and the hindsight to filter these better.

Hindsight is important. It’s an artefact of the journey being a slow one, one which develops at its own pace (albeit marginally influenced by how quickly you Get On With It). Hindsight comes from experience, and experience comes from doing, but also reflecting.

Despite the world wanting to get faster constantly, this process isn’t one which benefits from increased speed and more convenient technology.

And that’s OK.