Back to the Future Part II (1989)
Welcome to the future Marty! How was your ride in the time machine? I think you've got some catching up to do from the web/world of the early 2000's that you've just come from and are describing here.
Let’s fill you in on what has happened. Platform Monopolies are in full swing, and the internet is now a corporate-owned web — with a myriad of apps that are surveilling our every touch and click.
Palantir has terrifying racist policing algorithms, the NSA is plugged into everything and has a dragnet filling a complex database for US 'homeland security', social media/Facebook campaigns can be used by 'Doublespeak'-ing authoritarian childhood-traumatized leaders to win elections, and Crypto AG is a CIA owned company that has been selling back-doored cryptography tools to national governments for many decades.
Oh and you might want to Google 'Edward Snowden' and go back and read some of the great the Guardian articles published about it.
We're building an artificial intelligence-powered dystopia, one click at a time, says technosociologist Zeynep Tufecki. In an eye-opening talk, she details how the same algorithms companies like Facebook, Google and Amazon use to get you to click on ads are also used to organize your access to political and social information. And the machines aren't even the real threat. What we need to understand is how the powerful might use AI to control us -- and what we can do in response.
ℹ️ Reopenings are driving surges in coronavirus cases, particularly in the United States, which has broken daily-case records five times in nine days. More than 59,460 new cases were announced across the country on Thursday. The New York Times is still providing free access to the most important news and useful guidance on the coronavirus outbreak to help us understand the pandemic. Here are the latest updates and maps of the outbreak.
Remote jobs
💯remote design jobs without geo-restrictions.
10up is looking for;
Family Independence Initiative is looking for;
Vimeo is looking for;
Primer is looking for;
Hopin is looking for;
DuckDuckGo is looking for;
Lucid is looking for;
PagerDuty is looking for;
Jsgenesis is looking for;
Timescale is looking for;
Numbrs is looking for;
NewRetirement is looking for;
Jobs for the Future is looking for;
💡 Notion Tip: Stay on top of job applications with this template. (Also great for tracking internship apps!) If you don’t have an account, you can sign up now free for personal use with unlimited pages, blocks, and sync across any devices.
Tools & Resources
⭐️ The 2020 UX Research Tools Map is your freshly updated map to the universe of the best user research tools to find gaps and overlaps in your stack.
⚡️ XMind is a full-featured mind mapping and brainstorming tool, designed to generate ideas, inspire creativity, brings productivity in a remote WFH team.
🌱 évolt helps you to deploy a design thinking approach in your team. Collaborate in real-time on the UX design tools at every step of the project, from user research to prototyping.
🔎 Fonts In Use is a public archive of typography indexed by typeface, format, industry, and period. Supported by examples contributed by the public, they document and examine graphic design with the goal of improving typographic literacy and appreciation. Designers use the site for project research, type selection and pairing, and discovering new ways to choose and use fonts.
🚀 Uxcel provides a different learning experience, with only Only 5 minutes per day will immediately improve your UX/UI design skills.
🤖 The A-Z of AI guide offers a series of simple, bite-sized explainers to help anyone understand what AI is, how it works and how it’s changing the world around us.
💼 Flowcv builds a job-winning resume for free. You can set yourself apart with a modern resume, expert tips and customizable templates. Quick PDF download included.
🍪 metomic_ gets you the most clear and beautiful cookie notice on your website. Compliance with GDPR, ePrivacy, CCPA and more.
📣 Design Project Template organizes your design project at Figma, all with reusable components and AutoLayout.
Bookmark our ever-growing website with 1400+ design tools and resources.
Articles
▪ UX Roadmaps: Definition and Components
Sarah Gibbons | Nielsen Norman Group
▪ Google explains how YouTube search works
Matt Southern | SEJ
▪ On designing and building toggle switches
Sara Soueidan
▪ Inclusive components
inclusicomps
▪ How we launched docs.github.com
Sarah Schneider | The GitHub Blog
▪ Personas – A Simple Introduction
Rikke Friis Dam, Teo Yu Siang | Interaction Design Foundation
▪ Fail like a scientist
Anne-Laure Le Cunff | Ness Labs
▪ Growing the Evergreens
Maggie Appleton
▪ Animals use social distancing to avoid disease
Dana M. Hawley, Julia C. Buck | Scientific American August 2020 Issue
Booklets
Bite-sized, visual learning.
News
What else going on
Illustration: Aïda Amer / Axios
Facebook faces trust crisis as ad boycott grows.
The political and social pressure on Facebook is ramping up, but the tech giant doesn't show any signs of seriously changing its policies in response to the mounting pressure, as most politicians and marketers seem to benefit too much from Facebook advertising to really give it up long-term.
China recently passed a sweeping security law that will cast new digital surveillance over Hongkongers. Tech companies are reacting quickly. Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter, Google, Zoom, and Telegram say they’re pausing cooperation with government requests for user data. Apple says it’s assessing the new law.
Uber announced it’s acquiring Postmates, the SF based food delivery startup, for $2.65B in an all stock deal.
Ranjan wrote a detailed article about the acquisition on Margins.
California may pass a second privacy law similar to the CCPA by year’s end.
Apple released the public beta of iOS 14 to everyone.
After a couple weeks of developer-only testing, Apple has made available a public beta version of iOS 14, the software that will power iPhones starting this fall.
Amie a new productivity app from ex-N26 product manager Dennis Müller, has picked up $1.3 million in pre-seed funding to “kickstart” development and hiring.
TikTok said Monday night that it would pull its social video platform out of the Google and Apple app stores in Hong Kong amid a restrictive new law that went into effect last week.
Hamilton gives Disney+ a holiday weekend bump in the US.
With theaters closed until 2021, "Hamilton" is the biggest litmus test for whether Broadway will ever be able to successfully transition some of its iconic hits. The debut of Hamilton on Disney+ gave the streaming app a 74% boost in downloads.
Sony invested $250 million for a stake in Fortnite parent Epic Games.
Twitter is working on a potential subscription platform.
The company posted a job listing saying it was launching a subscription platform under the code name “Gryphon.”
Events
What's next: This week's schedule
July 13: Reimagine London as a Cyberpunk city using photoshop
July 14: Design Dialogues: Equity in Design
July 14: UX Crunch at home: User Research
July 15-16: UXBristol 2020
So what happens now?
Orwell sought to awaken British and U.S. societies to the totalitarian dangers that threatened democracy even after the Nazi defeat. In letters before and after his novel’s completion, Orwell urged “constant criticism,” warning that any “immunity” to totalitarianism must not be taken for granted: “Totalitarianism, if not fought against, could triumph anywhere.”
Since 1984’s publication, we have assumed with Orwell that the dangers of mass surveillance and social control could only originate in the state. We were wrong. This error has left us unprotected from an equally pernicious but profoundly different threat to freedom and democracy.
In 2019, social media companies deploy vast armies of human and algorithmic moderators that surveil their users 24/7, flagging those that commit thoughtcrimes and deleting their violations from existence. Those that commit too many thoughtcrimes are banished to “unperson” status by these same private companies, without any intervention or even in contradiction with the will of the state and without any right to appeal.
Check out The Atlas of Surveillance, a database of the surveillance technologies deployed by law enforcement in communities across the United States. This includes drones, body-worn camera, automated license plate readers, facial recognition, and more. This research was compiled by more than 500 students and volunteers and incorporates datasets from a variety of public and non-profit sources.
In the end, as we rush towards an ever more Orwellian world of surveillance and censorship, perhaps we might all take the time to reread 1984 in order to better understand the world we are rushing towards.
— That’s it for this edition. Over a thousand IDFA films and projects are free and available to watch in their online collection, here’s how you get started. See you next week.
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