Paul Jacobson

Category: Policy issues

  • Choosing Signal over WhatsApp is about personal agency

    Analog cryptographic device

    Reframing the WhatsApp privacy debate It is tempting to frame the discussion about WhatsApp’s privacy policy change that enables WhatsApp to share your profile data with Facebook (even though it’s been doing this for some time without being clear about this) as being about Facebook being able to read your WhatsApp messages. That interpretation is […]

  • Stand against racism

    Black Lives Matter protester holding a megaphone

    The wave of violence spreading across the United States is shocking, even as the growing protests are understandable. It boggles my mind that this country, the “land of the free”, is still mired in deeply routed racism, and inequality. Every society has its challenges, certainly. Israel is no different. We have divides of our own. […]

  • The greatest propaganda machine in history

    Man speaking to a crowd

    Sacha Baron Cohen recently spoke about how social media services have become the “greatest propaganda machine in history”. Much of the media’s focus, when reporting on his remarks, was on his attack on Facebook. While he certainly targeted Facebook, he also spoke about how Google, YouTube, and Twitter shape online discourse, and how they help […]

  • Join #TeamTrees, and plant more trees

    We watched Mark Rober’s video promoting the #TeamTrees initiative to plant 20 million trees by the end of 2019, this morning: I was fascinated to learn how trees capture carbon to build mass. I knew that trees absorbed carbon from the atmosphere, but didn’t quite realise how. He explained this as part of his pitch […]

  • New Automattic research on how to improve gender representation for technical roles

    Our team has just released a white paper titled “Trust, Growth,Inclusion: A Study ofWomen Engineers’Job-Search Priorities” that explores what motivates women and non-binary technical professionals to join companies, and what helps retain them. Better gender representation is a challenge. I’m proud of our team’s efforts to better understand this challenge, and how to meet it. […]

  • Your journey into the Personal-Website-Verse

    Walking along a forest path

    I really enjoyed reading Matthias Ott’s post titled Into the Personal-Website-Verse. It’s an essay about why it’s so important to have your own space on the Web, and why IndieWeb is a great way to get there. It’s well worth the read. There are many reasons to have your own site, at your own domain, […]

  • Make your Web

    I enjoyed Tantek Çelik‘s recent talk at beyond tellerrand // DÜSSELDORF 2019. If you’re interested in the IndieWeb, or just curious why having a personal site is still so important, make yourself a beverage and enjoy: Featured image: IndieWebCamp Berlin 2018 | Day 1 by tollwerk GmbH, licensed CC BY NC SA 2.0

  • Knowing when NOT to share something online

    Facts Matter pin on a backpack

    It’s really easy to share stuff online (that’s the point of social media, isn’t it?). At the same time, just because we can share something online, doesn’t mean we should share it. With all this talk about the term “fake news” that a certain president made popular, there is plenty of material that is misleading, […]

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