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Alex Pareene:

Hello, welcome. I’m a “VP” (“vice president”) of “Comms” (“communications”) at the newsletter company. Corporate Communications is a tough job: You try to get your brand narrative out there to the public, sometimes battling a hostile press, sometimes struggling just to be heard among a sea of competitors. Your goal, in corporate comms, is to break through the noise and make people understand what your company is about. And, not to brag, but I think I’m pretty good at my job, which is why so many people understand that our company is about conflating the concept of free and open debate with being a braying jackass all the time.

[…]

Every day I log in with one mission: To ensure people understand that we, here at the newsletter company, do not just provide a platform for shitheels and trolls, but that shitheels and trolls are an essential part of our corporate culture. I need people to understand that, as a company, we fundamentally believe that promoting the dumbest and flimsiest thinkers and arguments is, actually, supporting The Marketplace of Ideas.

 

So when I heard that some people might be unhappy at the thought of Elon Musk purchasing a stake in Twitter and joining its board, I knew what I had to do: Communicate publicly that people who work at Twitter and aren’t happy with Elon Musk joining Twitter’s board are unwelcome to work at The Newsletter Company, due to Open Debate(?) and Free Speech(?). The most important way we can protect speech is to jokingly(?) threaten to establish blacklists of people that disagree with the way particular billionaires conceive of “regulating” “speech.”

 

It’s really important to communicate (my job! lol!) that we here at the newsletter company think any objection one might have to working, even indirectly, for a man whose car company negligently produces pedestrian death machines, whose factory floors are hotbeds of racism, who smears critics as pedophiles, and who routinely uses the platform that he purchased a stake in to manipulate share prices of companies he has an ownership stake in or plans to buy, is actually a censorious attempt to cancel debate. Before you ask: Yes, I will blame “context collapse” when people are like, “what the hell are you talking about.” That’s Comms 101, buddy.

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Killian Bell writing for Cult of Mac:

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has acquired a 9% stake in Twitter worth almost $3 billion. The purchase, revealed in a recent regulatory filing, gets Musk a whopping 73,486,938 shares in the popular social media platform.

Despite being described as a passive investment, one analyst believes the move is “just the start” of Musk’s involvement with Twitter.

Just a friendly reminder that you can own your own content on a website like I do or sign up for open-web supported social networks like Mastodon or Micro.blog.

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Via The Guardian:

Around lunchtime on 12 March, Oleh Baturin, a Ukrainian journalist in the occupied region of Kherson, received a phone call from an unknown number. It was the activist Serhiy Tsygipa. “I really need to see you, I’m ready to get to Kakhovka,” he said calmly. They agreed to meet at 5pm at the city’s bus station.

 

Having warned his family where he was going and who he was meeting, Baturin, 43, who works at the independent newspaper Novyi Den (New Day), left his ID and phone at home and went to the meeting place. But Tsygipa was not there. It was a trap. As he turned to go home, he heard a van door slam and the clatter of feet heading towards him.

 

Over the next eight days, he said, he was held captive with little water, food or medicine. Sunday will mark two weeks since his release. Speaking to the Observer, he described how he was interrogated, tortured, threatened with mutilation and death, and told that his family would suffer. He had four ribs broken, he said.

War isn’t something that just soldiers are affected by. Cilvilians, activists, and journalists also bare the brunt of this war as well.

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Longform is a podcast I listen to regularly, but this episode for me is special.

Maya’s story is incredible, and unique in pretty much every way possible. To go from violinist to scientist to a White House employee is a feat no one can ever dream of doing.

That being said, I think her story is both entertaining to listen to and inspiring for everyone. So much of the success she has received was based off the kindness of others to help her learn and grow into what she wanted.

I think it’s important to pull the curtain back a little bit; which is on the number of times that I’ve been told no and rejected in my career is countless. […] I think that a key part of my story is you see the numerator, you see the successes, but you don’t see the denominator. You don’t see all the times that I was totally despondent […] or all the times I felt hopeless and there was no chance ahead.

Maya Shankar

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From Rogue Amoeba’s Blog:

Today, we’re thrilled to unveil a major upgrade to Audio Hijack, our flagship audio recorder and processor. Audio Hijack 4 brings both powerful new functionality and powerful new interfaces, to make its ability to record any audio on your Mac more accessible than ever. With an absolutely ridiculous 107 new features, enhancements, improvements, and bug fixes, Audio Hijack has never been better.

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First up, the powerful new Mixer block is great for podcasters, live streams, and other performers. It makes it easy to mix up to 5 sources together, with useful volume controls and fades.

There are also two new audio effects offering simplified controls for effortless adjustments. Magic Boost can boost quiet audio without increasing louder sounds, great for action movies and other content. Simple Compressor reduces the range between soft and loud sounds, improving microphones and other audio with minimal configuration.

Audio Hijack is my bread and butter for anything audio related on my Mac. I use it for podcasting, watching videos online, and more. For $29 it’s an instant upgrade from version 3 to 4 for me.