Don’t laugh. This is a very serious scientific term to describe the way social media function in the 21st century. The scientific reference goes back to 2025 and article in “Science” by Kai Kupferschmidt. Twitter, now eXit, like most other social media platforms uses algorithms that select posts for you from the millions of posts that are likely to induce a reaction from you, which prolongs your time on the platform. Additionally, eXit Twitter applies an algorithm that prioritizes accounts with already a huge followership, which makes these accounts even bigger. The result is an increasing inequality in attention to info, facts, fake news, but also revenue for the platform owners through more advertisements. As hate speech and fake news are commonly perceived as shit, many social media are happy to spread more shitty things on their platforms as this generates more money for the platform as well. In short, enshittification happens sooner or later to most platforms and we all suffer from this. As user of these platforms, it is hard to escape from this process, as most platforms tend to “convert” to enshittification at some later point in their life cycle, unlike babies who manage to quit this phase after a few months. A move to Bluesky might be indicated, but there is no guarantee that the same process will just happen again. Mastodon is another small twitter-like platform that like Bluesky offers a more open approach to its governing algorithms and a more controlled access in the registration process.
To avoid enshittification, we have to be ready to move away from one platform to another one, just like changing bank accounts or club memberships. Make sure to take most of your friends with you and there are already tools for this online as well. Enjoy the safe online life again on another platform or consume more of the traditional media like newspapers, radio or tv with proven quality. (Image: extract from Jan Steen, 1625-1679, The Rhetoricians – “In liefde vrij”, MRBAB) 
Game Tech
Gaming has moved digital and online for a long time. Networked gaming and following the best gamers online on video-platforms like twitch has captured a lot of attention from younger generations. With a real trend of gamification for industry and even public services, the digital gaming sector is moving from backstage to front end of companies and services. Public administration as a game. Enjoy the use of a public service through a game-like experience. Walk around in the metaverse world and get your admin work done. I would love to have such an experience. There are so many applications for gamification that the bottleneck is in the human resources to program all these applications. Coding the digital and virtual worlds to get real stuff done is just around the corner. The SCCON 2024 in Berlin showed these technologies next to each other. 2025 we might see integrated prototypes. I have a digital dream, others call it a vision for public services in the 21st century. 
Language Tech
Inclusive societies can build on many tools including AI to lower language barriers. It is not only a question of translation, but many other forms of language come to mind. Sign language or easy language are necessary to facilitate broader access to public services. Reading out texts on webpages or Braille translation for the blind to interact through keyboards are additional forms that are available in digital communication as well. The audio description of videos and images is well advanced (reverse engineered through AI) and allows people with limited vision to fully participate in society. Audio messaging and transcription are used by almost everyone by now. Public services will open up to these channels of communication as well. The technology around languages is much more than just translation and AI-assisted learning of languages (talkpal for example). The new lingua franca is language technology, because it enables us to speak many languages at the same time even dialects or lost languages and in many voices. (Image: Extract of Josef Scharl, the newspaper reader, 1935, Neue Nationalgalerie Berlin)
Justice Tech
The digital or hybrid courtroom has become more the rule than the exception in Germany. Video conference equipment reduces costs and can speed judicial processes. Even the production of transcripts from the proceedings and circulation of documents and certificates, enhanced by AI will change the speed to exercise justice. Digital tools and technology has found its way into the courtroom and younger lawyers and judges as well as the accused or defendants will value the simplified procedures. Until this is the standard in all legal domains we shall have to wait a bit. In Germany 2026 is the deadline to install the adequate equipment and tech companies and consulting firms like Arktis are well prepared to support this overdue process. In terms of an economic theory of the judicial process a judgement that is delivered years later has to apply a discount rate of at least equal to annual inflation. For moral issues another discount rte might apply. Excessive delays of judgments may cause additional suffering on the side of victims. Justice Tech, therefore, has a role to play in the practical and theoretical debate about „doing justice“. (Image SCCON Berlin 2024-10)
Citizen Services
In addition to public services there are many citizen initiatives that pick up common interests of citizens. These range from long-term infrastructure projects to daily care and provision in small neighborhoods. Such efforts build on volunteers and the organization of volunteering as an integral part of community life and services. To facilitate these organizational tasks online tools can make a real difference. However, the trust in specific tools beyond the general platforms known for their sketchy treatment of data privacy and protection is low. Therefore it is necessary to rely on trustworthy open source software to support local communities and networks of volunteers in their work and efforts. Secure e-tools for collaboration have an important role to play to reward volunteers with e-learning and being part of or even driver of new digital services. The software „wechange“ offers a platform with several tools for e-organization and communication small communities can set up themselves. Bottom up organizing in addition to the more top down public services complement each other. Going digital is the way forward in both domains.
Gov Tech
For many years we have believed that technology is something for experts and a special sector of the economy. Private sector companies have taken the lead and innovative applications of e-solutions or web-based applications have moved online to attract huge crowds. Some 20 years later, the scope to move public services online are on top of the agenda as well. Not only in security, defence, infrastructure management and health e-solutions are drivers of innovation and improve the reach out to persons in remote places, where it is hard to keep up equal provision of services otherwise. This is where “Gov Tech” comes into play. Government Technologies I would define as all technolgies that are needed to service your current citizens, past and future citizens as well as “want to be citizens”. This needs a whole of government approach, since there are many cross-cutting issues involved like cyber security and data protection. “Gov Tech” is no longer just nice to have. It has become a “sine qua non” condition of government. The expectations of people have been shaped by private use and habituation to online access and amenities that government and public services have to follow suit in order to be perceived as similarly close and accessible for people. Besides the technological aspects of hardware and software solutions for gov tech there is the huge issue of taking people with you on that e-journey. Even social policies and social inequality are subject to the e-volution of gov tech. There is a potential to reach more people with the same number of administrators by use of new gov tech solutions. At the same time, the risks to loose people who choose to remain off-line or have no access to online services increases as well. Gov Tech poses multiple challenges as well as interesting solutions. Great to see many regions and states taking these issues very seriously.
(Image: SCCON, Berlin 2024-10). 
Digital Zebra
It is a difficult task in all countries to bridge the digital divide in a society. On the one hand, there are so-called digital natives, those who have grown up with smartphones and notebooks all around them all the time. On the other hand, there are many persons who have not kept track of the digital turn and feel rather lost or are afraid of making mistakes using digital tools. As public services are also moving online, the need for a society-wide comprehensive mastering of digital information and tools have become a sheer necessity. It is much more than just nice to have.
As public services move online like registrations, payments or tax declarations, the need for training and/or assistance of millions of people in a country become a real challenge. This is where the innovative project “digital zebra” in Berlin comes into play. Through the network of public libraries you can get support in person to master your digital challenges.
The name of the project refers to the “zebra crossing” of a road, which assists persons to move from one side to the other side, just like crossing the digital divide. We shall need a lot of those guides and other multiplyers who can assist people to move safely online. Only through this form of taking people with you on the move towards online public services we shall close the gap of the digital divide. It is probably going to widen before we can narrow it again, unless we breeding digital zebras in a rapid way.
(Image: SCCON 2024-10, Berlin) 
Digital Museum
Paris has lots of museums to visit. At times, this can lead to a kind of mental overload. The ” Musée Marmottan Monet, in Paris allows to take home a digital and printed copy of your preferred, your own curated collection of images from the museum. This is a great learning experience. You scan the number of the item you want to include and a specialized application retrieves the image of the painting or object from their database into the App. After the visit you take a break in the café in the garden and sort your collection and if you like have it printed within a couple of minutes after you paid for the print or digital version. Upon special request I was told that I am allowed to share the link to the small booklet even on the web (Link to pdf below).
Since the visit to the Musée Marmottan Monet we have come back to the digital and printed versions several times and reading of accompanying texts and perfect quotations of origin make learning about art a fun experience. Going back to lived experiences makes more lasting impressions on our memories. Knowledge coupled with emotions is a powerful way to memorize. Sharing the experience with other persons like the readers of this blog is an additional advantage. Attentive readers of the blog entries will find references to many of the themes dealt with over the years in this series of blog entries. Such topics are: gender and art, technology and society, reflections on time, life courses, inequality, art history, funding of artists, lifelong learning or beauty.
(Booklet below in German LINK-pdf of 6MB. The app allows many language versions. You can produce those yourself from you collection within the App) 
Page Turner
Modern digital technologies turn pages for you. Just with one touch.
Search functions that are implemented in the software allow you to search for any keyword you are keen to follow-up on. These are valuable advantages of digital versions of books or other content. Once you adapt the brightness of the screen you can scroll comfortably through hundreds of pages. These books are called flipbooks and there are a number of editors specialised on these versions.
In combination with a blog format of publishing online first and then transforming content into flipbooks or even printed versions, www.MPL-publisher.com offers a nice feature to host such flipbooks. It is comfortable to know that the content has a unique address on the web, which you can share freely and use from all sorts of devices including your smartphone, tablet, desktop or notebook. The collection of my images I even watch sometimes on an even larger TV-screen or a beamer for teaching purposes.
Yes, we can (!) teach from a smartphone. Learners have opted for the small screens a long time ago. -“hey – teachers, leave us kids alone. We don’t need no education, we don’t need no thought control“. Flipbooks combine the classic form and feeling to turn a page as accomplished progress with the fast access to keywords that spread over several pages of the book.
My latest version of blog entries from 1st of January to 30th of June 2024 is at your fingertip now. (here, allow for a really long download time!). A screenshot is provided below of page 114 of a total of 390 (OMG) on a notebook screen. The search list is shown for the keyword “wage” as an example.
A shorter reader on “Society and AI” is available here as flipbook (29 pages).
Library Search
Libraries have not only lots of books on shelves and in storage places, but scientific research makes use of lots of scientific journals as well. The direct access to these journals shortens the search for information. We tend to focus on certain sets of journals, which we follow regularly as well as some random choices. Libraries like the Staatsbibliothek in Berlin have the advantage of access to multiple scientific disciplines under the same roof. This facilitates cross-disciplinary research with access to the best available knowledge. This resembles university libraries where also a broad spectrum of disciplines is taught.
Moving from paper-based publishing to electronic publishing, it is obvious that libraries are part of this move. Printed journals disappear and the electronic versions are made available to the readers. 2 issues arise: (1) adapt your search strategy to e-search and reading on screens and (2) accept that your research leaves traces (and potential tracking of your activities) of what information is really used. User statistics are likely to have consequences in the medium term. All libraries want to know who are my readers and what kind of search strategies do they apply. Similar to some of the best scientific results that are an outcome of by chance findings the search in libraries is enriched through „random effects“ of search. On-shelf access to printed copies allows a rapid overview of a whole year of issues beyond the abstracts always available online anyway. It is so much faster than the online search that we shall miss the paper-based issues of journals for quite some time. At the time of artificial intelligence everywhere reading and writing might be overvalued as economists might say. Our search algorithms and use of libraries is evolving at the same time. The by-chance or random inspiration might move to other places.
Digital Estonia
The progress of Estonia in going digital is quite advanced. The electronic identity card which allows data to be linked to health data and accounts or banking gives an impression of how far-reaching digitalization may go. Great steps have been taken to guide the population on the way to move towards the digital (only) world. Learning and coaching of a huge amount need to take place so that people do not abandon or get lost on the path towards “everything digital”. For the so-called digital natives, who have grown up with the sound of their smartphone at the bedside all the time, this move feels “natural”. Some experienced or silver workers got on track, if they were accompanied in suitable forms. The 65+ population might find it harder to adapt to the permanent use of digital devices for not only getting around in your city, but also to do your tax declaration, pay your dues and vote in elections.
Digitalization is not a goal in itself. It has advantages to reach communities in remote places or islands, but it might alienate older persons that have no other person around to assist them in the digital only world. An easy way to get some social science data to inform the debate is to refer to Eurostat and the surveys with information about the “overall life satisfaction” of people (EU-SILC). Checking for some major countries of the EU and neighbours of Estonia with less digitalization the differences are rather small. In terms of overall life satisfaction (16+ years old) Estonia has been catching up to the EU-average mainly between 2013 and 2021. Since then, stagnation at the EU-average is what the data tell. A quick testing of the hypothesis that the older persons (65+) might not see the past evolution as rosy is reflected in the EU-data as well. Good pensions seem to drive the “happiness” of older persons in the EU more than good digitalization. Eventually the two features of a society will have to go hand in hand to improve life satisfaction to higher levels. (Image: Data Eurostat EU-SILC Life satisfaction 65+, selected countries 2013-2023, retrieved on 2024-4-23, comparison with table all ages here, Data source)
AI Reader
In the middle of the hype around AI it is useful to take stock of the reflection and evolution of AI. In my own analyses and writings on AI it evident that a narrowing of focus has taken place. Whereas before 2022 the writing dealt more with digital technologies in general. The links to the literature on the social construction of technologies was obvious. Algorithms and AI was a part of the broader topic of society and technology.
This has changed. The public debate is focused on “everything AI now”. We look at technological developments largely through the lens of AI now. Hence, my focus of assessments of technology from a societal perspective follows this trend. In a collection of blog entries on AI we try to demonstrate the far reaching changes that have started to have an impact on us. In the last few months the all encompassing concern about AI’s effect on us needs full attention of social scientists, policy makers, companies and the public at large. We can no longer leave this topic to the software engineers alone. By the way, they themselves ask us to get involved and take the latest advances in AI more seriously.
As a “flipbook” the online reading is rather comfortable (Link to flipbook publisher MPL). The pdf or epub files of the blog entries allow to directly follow the links to sources in webpages or other publications (AI and Society 2p 2024-4-18). The cycles of analyses and comments have become faster. Traditional book writing suffers from time lags that risk to make pubications outdated rather quickly. Dynamic ebook writing might bridge the gap between time to reflect and speed to publish or inform the wider public. The first update as .pdf-file is available here: AI and Society(2).
AI by AI
It has become a common starting point to use electronic devices and online encyclopedias to search for definitions. Let us just do this for artificial intelligence. The open platform of Wikipedia returns on the query of “artificial intelligence” the following statement as a definition: “AI … is intelligence exhibited by machines, particularly computer systems …“. It is not like human intelligence, but tries to emulate it or even tries to improve on it. Part of any definition is also the range of applications of it in a broad range of scientific fields, economic sectors or public and private spheres of life. This shows the enormous scope of applications that keeps rapidly growing with the ease of access to software and applications of AI.
How does AI define itself? How is AI defined by AI? Putting the question to ChatGPT 3.5 in April 2024 I got the following fast return.
(See image). ChatGPT provides a more careful definition as the “crowd” or networked intelligence of Wikipedia. AI only “refers to the simulation” of HI processes by machines”. Examples of such HI processes include the solving of problems and understanding of language. In doing this AI creates systems and performs tasks that usually or until now required HI. There seems to be a technological openness embedded in the definition of AI by AI that is not bound to legal restrictions of its use. The learning systems approach might or might not allow to respect the restrictions set to the systems by HI. Or, do such systems also learn how to circumvent the restrictions set by HI systems to limit AI systems? For the time being we test the boundaries of such systems in multiple fields of application from autonomous driving systems, video surveillance, marketing tools or public services. Potentials as well as risks will be defined in more detail in this process of technological development. Society has to accompany this process with high priority since fundamental human rights are at issue. Potentials for assistance of humans are equally large. The balance will be crucial.
AI Collusion
In most applications of AI there is one system of AI, for example a specialized service, that performs in isolation from other services. More powerful systems, however, allow for the combination of AI services. This may be useful in case of integrating services focusing on specialized sensors to gain a more complete impression of the performance of a system. As soon as two and more AI systems become integrated the risk of unwanted or illegal collusion may occur.
Collusion is defined in the realm of economic theory as the secret, undocumented, often illegal, restriction of competition originating from at least two otherwise rival competitors. In the realm of AI collusion has been defined by Motwani et al. (2024) as “teams of communicating generative AI agents solve joint tasks”. The cooperation of agents as well as the sharing of of previously exclusive information increase the risks of violation of rights of privacy or security. The AI related risks consist also in the dilution of responsibility. It becomes more difficult to identify the origin of fraudulent use of data like personal information or contacts. Just imagine using Alexa and Siri talking to each other to develop another integrated service as a simplified example.
The use of steganography techniques, i.e. the secret embedding of code into an AI system or image distribution, can protect authorship as well as open doors for fraudulent applications. The collusion of AI systems will blur legal borders and create multiple new issues to resolve in the construction and implementation of AI agents. New issues of trust in technologies will arise if no common standards and regulations will be defined. We seem to be just at the entry of the new brave world or 1984 in 2024.
(Image: KI MS-Copilot: Three smartphones in form of different robots stand upright on a desk in a circle. Each displays text on a computer image.)
AI input
AI is crucially dependent on the input it is built on. This has been already the foundation principle of the powerful search engines like Google that have become to dominate the commercial part of the internet. The crawling of pages on the world wide web and classifying/ranking them with a number of criteria has been the successful business model. The content production was and is done by billions of people across the globe. Open access facilitates the amount of data available.
The business case for AI is not much different. At the 30th anniversary of the “Robots Exclusion Standard” we have to build on these original ideas to rethink our input strategies for AI as well. If there are parts of our input we do not AI to use in its algorithms we have to put up red flags in form of unlisting parts of the information we allow for public access. This is standard routine we might believe, but everything on the cloud might have made it much easier for owners of the cloud space to “crawl” your information, pictures or media files. Some owners of big data collections have decided to sell the access and use to their treasures. AI can then learn from these data.
Restrictions become also clear. More up-to-date information might not be available for AI-treatment. AI might lack the most recent information, if it a kind of breaking news. The strength of AI lies in the size of data input it can handle and treat or recombine. The deficiency of AI is not to know whether the information it uses (is in the data base) is valid or trustworthy. Wrong or outdated input due to a legal change or just-in-time change will be beyond its scope. Therefore, the algorithms have a latent risk involved, i.e. a bias towards the status quo. But the learning algorithms can deal with this and come up with a continued learning or improvement of routines. In such a process it is crucial to have ample feedback on the valid or invalid outcome of the algorithm. Controlling and evaluating outcomes becomes the complementary task for humans as well as AI. Checks and balances like in democratic political systems become more and more important. 
Sepsis
Sepsis is a major cause of mortality. Therefore, early detection of sepsis is of high importance. Antibiotics constitute a powerful antidote. However, the application of antibiotics without need, i.e. for purely risk reduction in general, has side effects in antibiotics losing their effectiveness later on.
The paper published in The Lancet Digital Health by van der Weijden et al. (2024) reports on the effort to provide an open source access to a calculator of early onset of sepsis (Link). The Neonatal early-onset sepsis calculator developed by Kaiser Permanente builds on the use on the risk carried by mothers like time since membrane rupture, regional infection risks of mothers per 1000 population and the infants presentation at birth. It is important to point out the combination of risks put into the calculator. New systems of artificial intelligence might equally make predictions or recommendations about the application of antibiotics implicitly making use of such a calculator without disclosure.
From a sociological point of view it is interesting to scrutinize the indicators used in the calculation. The approximation of mothers carrying a sepsis risk relies on national, regional or better local indicators. This information is rarely accessible to the public. The choice of a hospital, speed of access to it in case of membrane rupture as well as staffing come into the calculation of an overall risk of sepsis.
It is great to follow the progress of digital health and the increased transparency of critical health decisions at the earliest stages of the life course. Inflammation as a precursor of sepsis should be taken serious at all stages of the life course. (Image calculation based on Kaiser Permanente digital tool Link)
Election Re-election
Politics is a lot about decision making, coalition building and communication strategies. Therefore, there have been well established election and re-election cycles in all democracies, even the so-called illiberal pseudo-democracies. The time span between elections is itself a constituent part of democratic practice. 4 years of office for an elected parliamentarian seems to be common sense across many countries. More intensive participation and election schedules have advantages in tighter checks and balances, but may have disadvantages with respect to democratic fatigue, i.e. the time and effort needed to stay informed and cast votes. “Liquid democracy” is a concept of decision making which requires highly engaged persons willing to get involved beyond average commitments. Delegation to politicians within parties and parliaments remains an effective version of democratic practice. Checks against corruption and illegal practices is a necessary condition of each system of delegation. Rapidly changing governments are similarly perceived as a risk to democracies as the repeated call to the ballot box might be unsettling more than calming the spirits.
Berlin in 2024 (like 2023) provides another lesson on the sense of elections and re-elections. The repetition of parts of the federal election in parts of Berlin was required by the constitutional court. Due to failures in correct provision of access to voting and voting material results might have been biased. According to an online reporting by the local radio station (rbb24) based on the official electoral statistics, the participation in the re-election decreased from 75% to 51% in the 455 out of 2.256 districts that repeated the election. There seems to be a high level of democratic fatigue in these districts where the re-election in general accounts of participation in elections marks a low point in achievement. It appears worthwhile to question the judicial decision to repeat the election to the drastic reduction of representativity of the re-election. In statistical terms we trade one form of bias against another form of bias with an unclear overall outcome.
Organising elections is a professional task and requires specific competences. As this is at the heart of democracies, we need to improve our organisation and surveillance of this fundamental democratic process. Repetition seems to be worse than other second or third best solutions. Investing in democracy starts also at the ballot box. Electronic voting is not a panacea, but might be part of the solution. (Image source: Landeswahlleiter Berlin, left: Erststimmenmehrheit, right Wahlbeteiligung, combined election + re-election) 
Digital organising
Since the digital innovations continue to broaden our scope of how to organise, we have to make conscious choices which way to choose. The traditional form of sending out newsletters and waiting for responses is still a feature that is prevalent across Europe. Most organisations have shifted to digital plus physical versions by now, just like newspapers. Young organisations by founding year have started or shifted to digital only for speed of delivery, CO2 and cost saving mainly. We may derive a first dimension of organising between the digital and physical. 
A second dimension consists in the central versus decentral forms of organising. Similar to the franchise principle of organising companies, organisations have a choice to keep a central structure with varying degrees of freedom at the regional, sectoral or local level. Organisation theory is helpful in this respect. Various hybrid forms are equally possible. Centralised in financial aspects, but scope for local decisions on content.
Bohn et al. (2023) define digital organising as “collective purposeful alignment and distributed action fostered through digital technologies”. Centralisation and/or Decentralization become a matter of conscious choice. The processes of datafication and connectification, whereby every bit of information becomes a data point and any electronically enabled device can be connected with each other. Organisations now have a choice of how to organize including digital organising. The opportunities are within the space opened up by the 2 dimensions (figure below). A specific subject matter may require more physical presence and maybe centralised structure, but digital only forms with highly decentralised forms are powerful tools in the 21st century. New as well as established social movements may well take advantage of these digital technologies as well. (Image: Digital Organising 2024 Protest Berlin). 
Flotow CH
Noch 20 Jahre nach seinem Tod wurde Friedrich von Flotow recht prominent aufgeführt. Im Stadt- und Aktien- Theater der Stadt St. Gallen stand seine Oper “Martha” an einem Mittwoch 26.4.1905 auf dem Programm (Anfang 8 Uhr präzis), gefolgt von Mozarts Zauberflöte 2 Tage später. Was für eine Konkurrenz. Das Plakat zur Aufführung ist in der Digitalen Bibliothek der Kunstbibliothek in Berlin anzusehen (Link).
Die Geschichte des Theaters in St. Gallen ist aus ökonomischen, gesellschaftlichen und architektonischen Gründen interessant. Das Tagblatt berichtete in 2007 über den Abriss der historischen Städte und den sehr verspäteten Neubau einer moderneren, größeren und wirtschaftlicheren Spielstätte. Damals zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts schon standen populäre Werke wie die Martha und die Zauberflöte auf dem Spielplan. Die Aktionäre des Stadt- und Aktien- Theaters der Stadt St. Gallen haben wohl schon immer etwas mehr auf das Geld geschaut, auch wenn es um Kunst geht. Mehr Zuschauende und Zuhörende ist demokratisch und nebenbei gut für’s Geschäft. Der Abriss war beklagenswerter Weise im Jahr 1971. Ein Neubau an anderem Ort startete bereits 1968. Dieser Bau musste ebenfalls nach 40 Jahren Spielzeit grundsaniert oder abgerissen werden. Heute findet sich darin ein lebhaftes Programm mit Musicals als ausgezeichnetem Schwerpunkt und beispielsweise des Theaterstücks „Gott“ von Ferdinand von Schirach . Die Stadt und die Aktionäre sind wohl aus der finanziellen Verantwortung, aber das Kanton St.Gallen und der Lotteriefond sind eingesprungen. 
Bildquelle und Großansicht Kunstbibliothek SPK Berlin.
Mastodon
In the Post-Twitter-world there is room for other platforms to take over the information function and opinion exchange on an international level. Mastodon has made a good start to fill this gap. The number of registered users has surpassed the 10 million users by large. If the anger about the union-busting and Trump supporter Elon Musk increases further, more and more people will join Mastodon as users and content providers. Advertisers will follow where they can reach their appropriate audiences. If you sell seats on a spacecraft to the moon you will advertise on eXit-Twitter. If you care about responsible investment you advertise on elsewhere or on Mastodon, because that is where your audience will be. Ethically responsible advertisers started to make such moves already. The decentralised structure to potentially filter human rights violating hate messages will need to grow accordingly on this platform. This is a challenge for all platforms and involves costs. To better understand the idea behind Mastodon, think of a platform which connects many other local networks or platforms. Yes, it is a platform of platforms. Decentralised instances provide and can remove access to the local platform. Even whole sub-platforms might be shut out. This increases the potential to build a “caring platform”. Decentralised organisation often incurs higher costs than a central instance that decides and administers a one-size fits all solution. But it is worth a try.
An example makes is more clear, what are the advantages of such decentral organisation to achieve more shielded privacy. For example, a small local chess club targeting primarily youth can open its own server on mastodon and admit only its known members to the network. It is easy to control who gets access to your posts of solutions to riddles or innovative game and learning strategies. Access to other Mastodon instances is an additional option. For enterprises or larger organisations, it needs the communication department to talk to the IT-service to get such a structure on its way. A dedicated person needs to monitor what content gets posted and what kind of “traffic” is generated. But this can largely be automated. In case you know your members of the local platform it is much less likely to occur than on the eXit-Twitter or other centralised huge international platforms.
Many federated structures will find it useful and part of their social-DNA to join the FEDIVERSE. We shall have to wait for some more time to get the so-called social media platforms civilised. These are social investments and learning processes which deviate from the profit-maximising rationale of other platforms. (Image: screenshot from @mastodon-user on 2023-11-30). 
Twitter Retreat
There are many migrating species in nature. Birds form a large part of the them. This follows a kind of annual or seasonal pattern. Depending on the migration experience and dangers some, sometimes many don’t come back. This seems to describe the migration experience of the tweeting bird called twitter. Changing the name from Twitter to X, whereby X for maths-oriented people stands for a variable name that can be filled with any value. For the cinema industry X stands for x-rated adult only content and has rather obnoxious content. This might hold for web content as well.
Online through “https://netzpolitik.org/2023/x-odus-immer-mehr-medien-machen-schluss-mit-twitter/ the disastrous consequences of harsh human resource policies and lack of political sensitivity can be followed. Multiplying biased opinions of right-wing extremists, the platform has been highjacked and many tweeting birds leave or have left already.
Leaving is not easy though. People and enterprises have invested substantial amounts of money into tweeting and software developers have created specialised features to make it easy to spread press releases or info via these add-on services. I myself benefitted from services to show my tweets on my webpage or to easily publish info or links to the webpage. As of now, with migrating away most of these investments will be lost. It was smooth and easy, but now we start this all over again with other comparable platforms and assistance from developers. Mastodon and Bluesky are on the rise as alternative platforms and most likely we shall use both for some time just like Netzpolitik and many others. If already 1/3 of users intend to leave Twitter/X the impact of big advertisers leaving the platform has even more impact. After all they pay for reaching potentially millions of platform users, but now they reach only a steeply biased subset of previous users. Deleting the Twitter/X app saves you from other potential unwanted monitoring or tracking. Only the addresses on Mastodon for example are a bit longer like @mastodon.social@klausschoemann. Decentral monitoring of illicit undesirable content has advantages and disadvantages. We shall have to monitor this a bit ourselves and contribute more actively to save such platforms from bad weather or seasonal migration. 
Over a generation the association with the word mail or AI has changed. Younger generations will automatically think of email as the obvious association with “you have got mail”. Asking people for their mail address, most people will respond immediately with their email account. That has certainly changed over the last 20 years. Email has become extraordinarily important for contacts, content and “crime”. The original set-up of mail servers were supposed to exchange data and information between trusted and trusting individuals. Nowadays we have become “anyone” on an email-list or part of a cascading email-chain. Pishing emails that try to lure us to potentially fake webpages to enter personal information is widespread. A whole new industry of cybersecurity has evolved in parallel with ever faster pingpong of new threats and costly remedies. Most critical remains the human factor to protect email and vital information from abuse. All training to better manage email should therefore begin with awareness building on the need to take cybersecurity seriously right from the beginning. It is not an issue to deal with towards the end of learning about it. Some general points have become common practice. Think carefully if you need to open the mail. Check whether there are external links in it. Do you really need this extra information? Be careful about the number of persons you forward or put in the copy field of your mail.
Unfortunately the simple mail transfer protocol (SMTP) makes it technically fairly easy to abuse email addresses and send an email from a domain name which you do not own. Same holds true for the content of emails. Originally only basic letters and numbers were allowed, no Umlaut etc. But then the “multipurpose internet mail extensions” (MIME) enabled more formats of attachments and illicit links and files within the email content.
In consequence it became necessary to scan emails en masse for malware and obnoxious content. Hence the quality of your email programs reveals itself with the amount of spam you still receive. Next come the email filters that sort your inbox for spam and other modern plagues like unwanted newsletters or notifications.
In consequence we sometimes wonder that we never received certain emails albeit the person sending it reiterated that the email was sent. Even checking your spam folder in the email program might not solve the issue because your receiving email server has been instructed not to accept emails from previously unknown mail servers. Not much you can do about this as an individual person, you mail server is just not on the so-called white list from which to accept incoming emails.
With a mail address from the big national or international companies you have little to worry about in this respect. Smaller companies or organizations might suddenly face a thorny issue if their i@xy.z address appears on a dubious list. You will end up sending but nobody receives your emails. It might take you quite some time to find out about it and even more to fix the issue. Hence the take home message is, have more than one email address registered on different mail servers to check that sending out and receiving emails works properly for you. Managing an own webpage with email service for members or employees is a nice service, but beware of the implications for cyber security as well.
Digital Egal
In den deutschen Amtsstuben geht es Ende 2023 oft noch erschreckend analog zu. Für einen Grundbuchauszug, beispielsweise, hatte ich das außerordentliche Vergnügen das Grundbuchamt am Amtsgericht in Berlin Ringstraße aufzusuchen. Sonst nimmt man sich ja nicht die Zeit, solche Sehenswürdigkeiten von innen zu besuchen. Die Überraschungen waren vielfältiger Art. 3 Personen Wachpersonal und Metalldetektor, wie bei der Flugabfertigung. Für den Auszug aus dem Grundbuch ist selbstverständlich eine Gebühr fällig, die nur bar entrichtet werden kann. Auf zur Zahlstelle, immerhin auf dem gleichen Flur. Die nächste Amtsstube hat zwar noch einen richtig historischen Tresor, aber die Erfassung der Zahlung läuft wohl noch auf alten Geräten. Vielleicht per relativ unsicherem WLAN verbunden. Das LAN-Kabel ist jedoch schon mitgeliefert, das dann irgendwann einmal eine sicherere Netzanbindung ermöglichen wird.
Über einen Dienstleister lässt sich der Verwaltungsakt auch online erledigen unter Herausgabe der Kreditkartendaten und sonstiger Daten (Cookies) samt Unterschrift per Maus (!). Das ganze für die doppelte Verwaltungsgebühr. Dank des 49 € Tickets wollte ich mir diesen Spaß jedoch live gönnen. Wahrscheinlich werde ich das nochmals mit den Enkelkindern so als lebendigen Museumsbesuch nachvollziehen. Wer weiß, wie lange das noch möglich sein wird. Das Personal trägt es mit Fassung und dem nötigen Humor.
Bisher kannte ich die Diskussion über die Digitalisierung der Verwaltungen mehr aus wissenschaftlichen und technischen Diskursen. Jetzt kann ich so richtig in das Jammern darüber einstimmen. Produktivitätsfortschritte lassen sich hier in ungeahntem Maße erzielen. Einer geht noch: Was ist das längste Wort in dem Amtsvorgang und wie viele Buchstaben hat es?
Gerichtskassenstemplerabdruck (auf der Quittung).
Barbie explore
The film on Barbie after more than 60 years of the first puppets to arrive on the market is a huge money spinning exercise. Hitting more than 1 billion $ is really a huge box office success. More interesting even is the banning of the film in some countries like Algeria. This gives the film an interesting subversive touch to it, which we in the Western countries no longer see as something special. Emancipated women pose a threat to authoritarian regimes.
However, we see in the stereotypes of beauty-driven dolls not that much of an emancipatory chance. To view emancipation independent of the looks of a person is another interesting twist to the role in stereotypes of beauty. It is not only fun to play around with stereotypes, that is mostly, if you are not negatively affected by them (age, gender, ethnicity, extraordinary persons). A nice task for sociology and psychology to explain the working of stereotypes in society and possible remedies. Tolerance is a competence that needs to be learned and updated continuously, from early age onwards.
Therefore, the website created by the US Design Agency Rvnway offers an entertaining way to play around and learn about stereotypes. Perceived, generalized beauty or gender roles can be explored using the tool. Maybe some see themselves differently after such explorations. Everybody is a model. This is the message. www.bairbie.me will let you explore other formats of yourself. After 3-D rendering and printing your children or grandchildren will decide what role they would like you to play in their playfull, or virtual “real” life. I suppose many of us will be up for a big surprise. Go on and imagine in 4D. In the age of selfies all around us, all the time, we believe we are very modern, but the artists of the 19th and 20th century following all great painters before, frequently started their careers with an “autoportrait” or “Selbstbildnis” or series of those as they were aging. 
Work Remote
Since the COVID-19 crisis we witness a steep increase in the interest to working from home or from remote places. Originally during the pandemic spread of the virus, remote work was the only way to stay in contact with employers and fellow employees for all those not considered as essential workers. Many employees and employers, for the first, experienced that working remotely can have multiple positive effects. First of all, saving time and stress as well as CO2 reduction due to less commuting is beneficial not only for individual employees, but also for society at large. These benefits are substantial.
In my opinion the most substantial consequence is the rethinking of several fundamentals related to work that have gone unquestioned for decades or even centuries, which is: Work happened predominantly at the work place. Digitalisation had changed this partially already, but the willingness to implement far reaching reforms related to work for millions of employees remained rather limited before the Covid-19 pandemic. Nobody had to go on strike to force employers to accept remote work. Suddenly employers, in some instances, were begging employees to please do your work from home or anywhere else. Now we are in the historically rather unique situation that both employers as well as employees try to reap the benefits of the unexpected revolution of remote work potentials including new digital tools to organise remote work (example “scoopforwork”). Employers found out they can do with much less office space than they previously thought they would need to accommodate all employees. Employees found out that saving on commuting time saves energy and frees time resources for other, potentially more healthy ways of life. A new balance of work and private life could be arranged at home. So much for the theoretical expectations.
In practice many women realised that they suddenly found themselves thrown back into working at home and in the home all the time again, with men still less willing to share household work equally. Unsuitable work spaces at home, arranged rather ad hoc, became a health and safety issue usually considered to be part of the employers’ responsibilities.
The results of the real-life experiment of forced remote work are still under scrutiny. To turn them into beneficial arrangements of voluntary remote work which is empowering, emancipating, increasing degrees of freedom for employees would be a huge step ahead. The full spectrum of negotiations is involved. Legislation, collective agreements and 1-on-1 solutions are needed to reap the benefits on all levels. Comparable to the industrial revolution during the 19th century, drawing millions of workers into factories and coal mines, we are at the beginning of a new era of digital and remote work that governs solar and wind farms for energy provision as well as 3D printing of industrial components.
It seems that we shift from the blue collar to the white collar to the no collar world of work. Working remotely in my t-shirt under the cherry tree is not the worst of a revolution (guard against cherry picking by employers and new layers of inequality). It might take a generation or two to accomplish this. With threatening, pervasive climate change we probably have to make it happen sooner rather than later.