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Topics /
Society, Policy & Culture
The most popular blog posts about society, policy & culture on Hacker News. 4,917 posts.
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How Spotify Killed Lo-Fi Hip Hop
AI and Corporate Interests Gutted an Artist's Oasis
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Google removes all Danish music from YouTube
About Koda's task and where Koda works
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Browsing negative content online makes mental health struggles worse: Study
People struggling with their mental health are more likely to browse negative content online, and in turn, that negative content makes their symptoms worse, according to a series of studies by researchers at MIT.
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How Wikipedia influences judicial behavior
Mixed appraisals of one of the Internet’s great friends (or foes), Wikipedia, are reflected in the slightly dystopian article “List of Wikipedia Scandals”, which sits below a Wikipedia web address. Scrutiny aside, billions of users routinely flock to the online, anonymously editable encyclopedia knowledge bank for…
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FreeBSD Celebrates 25th Anniversary
Join us to celebrate FreeBSD Day! FreeBSD Day, celebrated on June 19, commemorates the launch of the FreeBSD open source operating system and recognizes its pioneering and continued impact on technology. On June 19, 1993, an email thread on an early BSD list proposed project names for a new open source UNIX…
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Exploring alternative funding models for the web
The online advertising ecosystem is broken. The majority of digital advertising revenue is going to a small handful of companies, leaving other publishers with scraps. Meanwhile users are on the ...
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Commercial freedom
It’s easy to take for granted just how good we have it as software makers selling on the internet. This is truly a unique period in human history with unprecedented commercial freedom. It bears celebration and recognition. Let me count the ways I love thee, unregulated internet: Access t…
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€1.2B GDPR fine for Meta
Facebook must stop further transfers of European personal data to the United States, given that Facebook is subject to US surveillance laws (like FISA 702 and EO 12.333).
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Welcome to Echelon 2.0
The NSA isn't spying on you. They don't have to. They just outsource it to businesses. Back 20 years ago, there was a conspiracy theory ...
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Open Source Madness
The Yorba Foundation, a non-profit group that produces open source Linux desktop software, reported last week that it was denied tax-exempt 501(c)(3) status by the IRS. The group had waited nearly five years for a decision. The IRS stated that, because the software Yorba develops can be used...
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The Loading Screen Game Patent Finally Expires
In 1998, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued Patent 5,718,632, on a method for avoiding “unnecessary wastage of time” in video games. What’s transpired in the 17 years since then can best be described as an unnecessary wastage of time. Namco’s patent covers “auxiliary games” that a player...
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“Beyond the limit”: Satellites and mirrors in space pose threat to the night sky
A new European Southern Observatory (ESO) study has found that current proposals to launch over 1.7 million satellites into orbit, including extremely bright ones, would have “devastating consequences for astronomy.” According to the study, no more than 100 000 faint satellites, below naked eye visibility, should…
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Gun Homicide Rate Down 49% Since 1993 Peak; Public Unaware
National rates of gun homicide and other violent gun crimes are strikingly lower now than during their peak in the mid-1990s, paralleling a general decline in violent crime, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of government data. Beneath the long-term trend, though, are big differences by decade: Violence…
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As calls to ban books intensify, digital librarians offer perspective
From Texas to Virginia to Pennsylvania, there is a growing movement to challenge books in schools that some suggest are inappropriate for students. Concern goes beyond explicit content; it now includes opposition to LGBTQIA material, the history of racism, and material that may cause discomfort to readers. While…
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Study: Inflammation drives social media use
Understanding and identifying when and why people use social media can inform intervention strategies that teach people when to seek connections, social support, or strengthen their offline relationships.
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People see it as more acceptable to make passionate employees do extra: study
Love Your Job? Someone May be Taking Advantage of You | Duke's Fuqua School of Business
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We Will Fight Until The End
Buckyballs settled their lawsuit months ago . And news of Magnicube’s settlement comes today . They’re both out of the fight.
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Reverse-engineering Google’s "Skip Button Guarantee"
Since its launch, YouTube’s TrueView skippable in-stream ad product has been underpinned with a single, tantalizing promise: you “don’t pay a dime” if viewers skip your ad. But turns out there’s a catch: they’ve made it almost impossible to skip the ads. This is just one of the revelations that Dr. Krzysztof Franaszek…
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UN Experts Condemn the Human Rights Costs of Secret Trade Agreements
Yesterday, ten United Nations experts and special rapporteurs voiced their concern over the adverse impacts upon human rights posed by secret “free trade” and investment agreements such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and the Trade...
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The Copyright Office Belongs in a Library
It's been an exciting summer for the Library of Congress. Last month, the Librarian Dr. James Billington announced he would soon be stepping down, vacating a seat he's held for some 28 years. That announcement came hot on the heels of a new legislative proposal—the nigh-ungooglable CODE Act, which...