The internet has always financialized our lives. Web3 just makes that explicit.
Twitter has begun allowing its users to showcase NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, as profile pictures on their accounts. It’s the latest public victory for this form of … and, you know, there’s the problem. What the hell is an NFT anyway?
There are answers. Twitter calls NFTs “unique digital items, such as artwork, with proof of ownership that’s stored on a blockchain.” In marketing for the new feature, the company offered an even briefer take: “digital items that you own.” That promise, mated to a flood of interest and wealth in the cryptocurrency markets used to exchange them, has created an NFT gold rush over the past year. Last March, the artist known as Beeple sold an NFT at auction for $69.5 million. The digital sculptor Refik Anadol, one of the artists The Alantic commissioned to imagine a COVID-19 memorial in 2020, has brought in millions selling editions of his studio’s work in NFT form. Jonathan Mann, who started writing a song every day when he couldn’t find a job after the 2008 financial collapse, began selling those songs as NFTs, converting a fun internet hobby into a viable living. Read More
Daily Archives: February 8, 2022
It’s Back: Senators Want EARN IT Bill to Scan All Online Messages
People don’t want outsiders reading their private messages —not their physical mail, not their texts, not their DMs, nothing. It’s a clear and obvious point, but one place it doesn’t seem to have reached is the U.S. Senate.
A group of lawmakers led by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) have re-introduced the EARN IT Act, an incredibly unpopular bill from 2020 that was dropped in the face of overwhelming opposition. Let’s be clear: the new EARN IT Act would pave the way for a massive new surveillance system, run by private companies, that would roll back some of the most important privacy and security features in technology used by people around the globe. It’s a framework for private actors to scan every message sent online and report violations to law enforcement. And it might not stop there. The EARN IT Act could ensure that anything hosted online—backups, websites, cloud photos, and more—is scanned. Read More
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