“The Etymology Nerd” Adam Aleksic on Algospeak, AI Slop, and the End of Writing
Adam Aleksic, known to his social media followers as the “Etymology Nerd,” has built a massive audience by decoding the origins of words, accents, and memes. In his new book Algospeak: How Social Media is Transforming the Future of Language, he talks about the ways our social media algorithms have accelerated the “context collapse” that changes the words we use.
“You perceive this creator using a word like, I dunno, rizz, ate, slay, served,” Adam says. “These are all from the ballroom scene in the 1980s, this gay, Black, Latino space. But these words are now just being used by white girls. It's because you see this being used by somebody online … It's on your For You page. It feels like it's personalized.”
Today on Revolution.Social, Adam and Rabble talk about the rise of words like “unalive” and “lowkey,” the shift away from human gatekeepers, and why the popularity of video and podcasts threatens the cultural power of writing. They also discuss the dangers of banning cell phones in schools and how social media algorithms can encourage racist AI slop.
Read Algospeak: How Social Media is Transforming the Future of Language
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This episode was produced and edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm, and executive produced by Alice Chan from Flock Marketing.
To learn more about Rabble’s social media bill of rights, and sign up for our newsletter, visit https://revolution.social/
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Rudy Fraser on Blacksky, Mutual Aid & Reclaiming Social Media
Rudy Fraser is the founder of Blacksky, a community-driven project building on top of the AT Protocol while remaining independent of Bluesky, where that protocol originated. At Blacksky, he and his team are applying the principles of mutual aid and community ownership to algorithms, moderation teams, and governance tools for the Black community, giving users more control over their means of communication.
“For me, community really means mutual accountability between the one and the many,” Rudy says. “Once you get a group of people together and they start working together, that is its own kind of entity. And so for me, I was like, How can I live that out in technology form?”
Today on Revolution.Social, Rudy and Rabble talk about how Blacksky empowers users to control their feeds, moderation policies, and economic infrastructure, why he wants everyone and their mothers to be able to use Blacksky, and how community-owned networks could change the future of the internet.
Read more about mutual aid
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This episode was produced and edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm, and executive produced by Alice Chan from Flock Marketing.
To learn more about Rabble’s social media bill of rights, and sign up for our newsletter, visit https://revolution.social/
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Techdirt’s Mike Masnick on Growing Bluesky, Clueless Regulators & the Case for Optimism
Techdirt founder & editor Mike Masnick has long argued that the internet’s power should lie with its users. In his landmark 2019 essay, Protocols, Not Platforms, he laid out a vision for how decentralized systems could preserve free speech while avoiding the pitfalls of centralized control. That vision has since helped inspire Bluesky, where Mike now serves on the board.
“Your right to free speech does not include the right to put a billboard on my front lawn or to come into my living room and yell whatever it is that you want to yell,” he explains. “The question is, how do you balance these different factors so that we actually get more free speech, but we're not compelling people to host speech, we're not compelling people to take down speech?”
Today on Revolution.Social, Mike and Rabble discuss how Bluesky’s AT Protocol is putting that vision into practice, the problems with heavy-handed regulations like age verification laws, and what today’s builders can learn from the history of open protocols. Plus: How do we align economic incentives with user freedom, and can AI be a part of the solution?
Read about the social media bill of rights on Techdirt
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This episode was produced and edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm, and executive produced by Alice Chan from Flock Marketing.
To learn more about Rabble’s social media bill of rights, and sign up for our newsletter, visit https://revolution.social/
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Bonus: Cory Doctorow on Sci-Fi Influences & the Social Media Bill of Rights
We had more to talk about with Cory Doctorow than we could fit in this week’s episode. In this bonus ep, the science fiction author and internet rights activist talks to Rabble about being raised by science fiction in Toronto, and his one objection to the social media bill of rights: the right to “own” your connections to other people.
“I think ownership's a really bad model for it because property frameworks don't work well on things that are not rivalrous,” he says. “Who owns the relationship that you and I know each other and met on an airplane? Is it me or is it you?”
Don’t miss the full interview with Cory from earlier this week where they talk about escaping from Big Tech and fighting for a better future for the web. Available wherever you’re seeing this.
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This episode was produced and edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm, and executive produced by Alice Chan from Flock Marketing.
To learn more about Rabble’s social media bill of rights, and sign up for our newsletter, visit https://revolution.social/
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Cory Doctorow on Escaping Big Tech, Privacy Battles & “Enshittification”
Sci-fi isn’t about hypothetical technologies, but rather about challenging the social impact of that tech, says author and activist Cory Doctorow. And in the real world, we must be just as conscious of the societal impact of the tech products we use.
“Apologists for Big Tech would like you to think that all of the properties of their platforms are ... inevitably coterminal,” he says. “You cannot have a conversation with your friends without someone like Mark Zuckerberg spying on you from asshole to appetite, and imagining that you could is like imagining that you could make water that isn't wet … Resistance is futile.”
Today on Revolution.Social, Cory and Rabble talk about how we can, in fact, chart a freer & fairer path for the internet. Real freedom online means not just building better platforms but making it easy to leave broken ones. They also discuss the concept of “adversarial interoperability,” the history of digital surveillance, and the future of more open platforms like Bluesky.
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This episode was produced and edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm, and executive produced by Alice Chan from Flock Marketing.
To learn more about Rabble’s social media bill of rights, and sign up for our newsletter, visit https://revolution.social/
A podcast about the future of social media and reclaiming our digital communities.
Revolution.Social is hosted by technologist and community advocate Rabble, a.k.a. Evan Henshaw-Plath — who was Twitter’s first employee and hired Jack Dorsey. In weekly interviews, Rabble will interview thought leaders, technologists, academics, and more about the need for a new social media "bill of rights."
Just as the original Bill of Rights protected individual freedoms from government overreach, we need fundamental protections from corporate control and surveillance capitalism. This is the start of a conversation about what developers are building, how they're building it, and what consumers need to be asking for.
Guests will include Jack Dorsey (former CEO & co-founder of Twitter); Kara Swisher (host of On with Kara Swisher, co-host of Pivot); Cory Doctorow (science fiction author & former editor of Boing Boing); and Taylor Lorenz (founder of User Mag, host of Power User).
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