What I learnt on the Twitter this week:

1. Well I know I learnt a lot more on Twitter this week than Trump did.
2. After Covid numbers skyrocket in Ontario for past four months, Doug Ford says the data modelling suggests he might have to stop his cross-province campaigning soon.

3. After the assault on the Capitol this week, the CPC finally pulls camou MAGA hats from online merch shop.
4. With pictures of the CPC's Deputy Leader wearing a camou MAGA hat circulating, Michelle Rempel expresses outrage that Candice Bergen getting more attention than she is.
5. UCP MLA Pat Rehn issues statement after return from Xmas trip to Mexico. Says he is sorry, but also very excellent.
6. Jason Kenney says he knows he's failed Albertans and that's why he moved up to the Sky Palace to help him see things from the everyday people's perspective.
7. Westjet insists Kenney government provide more notice of planned out-of-country travel next time so airline can be sure to have enough planes ready.
8. Blogger Karen Bexte travels to DC for insurrection, asks to speak to Canada's manager after he's asked to take a Covid test.
9. Trump says the crowd he got to attack the Capitol was far larger than any crowd Obama ever got to attack the Capitol. Huge crowd. Tremendous crowd of terrorists.
10. After being shut down on every major social media platform, Trump seen at Radio Shack haggling over a CB radio.
11. Doug Ford says Ontario can't vaccinate people any faster because he only has half of his supply of vaccines left and vaccines are like a car's gas tank and you should never let the tank get below the quarter mark because it's bad for the motor, folks.
12. Lecce says schools are safe and kids to blame for the rise in youth Covid cases because they were ostensibly sharing doobies over Xmas.
13. Ford's Covid Command Table medical expert Dr. Tom Stewart says email about no personal travel during a pandemic went to his spam folder.
14. UCP MLA Miranda Rosin writes in newsletter that the worst part about Covid is no church and not being able pick out unbruised produce at the store. That's it. That's the funny part.
15. UCP MLA Devin Dreeshen blocks half of Canada on Twitter. Nine people have ever heard him.
16. Erin O'Toole expresses disappointment about Capitol attack. Says that's not democracy. CPC then publishes online campaign literature saying Trudeau fixing next election. O'Toole says it's a bigly problem. Tremendous unfairness.
17. Poilievre gets Grade 4 math wrong. Again.
18. Ontarians fall out of their chairs after learning Doug's working his back off around the clock to put everything on the table.
19. Doug says everything's on the table. Except any actual plan of action. Or expertise.
20. Hundreds die at Ontario LTCs. Trudeau to blame. Somehow.
21. Ford clamping down on travelers at Pearson. Says all new arrivals must be tested before they go to Vaughan Mills Outlet to support Ontario businesses.
22. Ford says new data modelling is terrifying. Asks Ontarians if they think the data modelling is behind Door #1, #2 or #3?
23. Ford's Comms team comes out with all their Comms gun blazing, saying Doug's "unwavering support for Donald Trump" is not what it looks like. That's it. That's the funny part.
24. Doug announces on Friday that Ontario is doomed. Says he'll expand on that sometime next week.
25. Prominent Republicans start disavowing support for Trump. Say they cannot support his behaviour this week. That he's been undermining democracy this week. He's not being presidential. This week.

Many were seen later in the parking lot yelling "Start the car! Start the car!"
26. Tough week on the news front. In Ontario. In Canada. Amurikuh. Across the globe really. Nerves are frazzled. Minds and bodies exhausted. People are hurting and sad. Nations and democracies are in turmoil. And, as usual, the CPC was no help. At all.
27. Gotta admit, after 10 months of this, I'm feeling a little burnt out.

Then I remind myself how frontline healthcare workers must feel these days.

Anyway, be sure you all get outside for at least a good long walk this weekend. It does the spirit good.
https://t.co/SxJ49dBAwI

More from Twitter

Today's Twitter threads (a Twitter thread).

Inside: Privacy Without Monopoly; Broad Band; $50T moved from America's 90% to the 1%; and more!

Archived at: https://t.co/QgK8ZMRKp7

#Pluralistic

1/


This weekend, I'm participating in Boskone 58, Boston's annual sf convention.

https://t.co/2LfFssVcZQ

Tonight, on a panel called "Tech Innovation? Does Silicon Valley Have A Mind-Control Ray, Or a Monopoly?" at 530PM Pacific.

2/


Privacy Without Monopoly: A new EFF white paper, co-authored with Bennett Cyphers.

https://t.co/TVzDXt6bz6

3/


Broad Band: Claire L Evans's magesterial history of women in computing.

https://t.co/Lwrej6zVYd

4/


$50T moved from America's 90% to the 1%: The hereditary meritocracy is in crisis.

https://t.co/TquaxOmPi8

5/
The twitter ban on 45 is a victory in some sense for the immediate but a warning in the long term, not on the curtail of free speech but as gesture towards the expansive power commercial tech has on every aspect of our governance and our lives, I don’t quite have the words but-

What I’m trying to get at, is not just that Twitter’s decision allows us to see—in ways that have been obscured—how much control they have over content moderation—

but as @Elinor_Carmi points out “platforms don’t just moderate or filter “content”; they alter what registers to us and our social groups as “social” or as “experience.”
https://t.co/GSByAOoDWg changed

I’m worried that the celebration of Twitter’s intervention on fascist rhetoric-however too little and too late- directs us to desire tech companies enforcement of liberal and democratic procedures rather than towards an investigation of

how they’ve developed computational infrastructures which exceed the power of the nation state, are hollowing out our institutions for frictionless (see removing human contact) optimization and are insufficiently described by neoliberalism

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