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Society, Policy & Culture
The most popular blog posts about society, policy & culture on Hacker News. 13,064 posts.
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The origins of the use of [x] in UI design.
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Too Clever by Half
The inevitable result of financial innovation gone awry, which it ALWAYS does, is that it ALWAYS ends up empowering the State. When too clever by half people misplay the meta-game, that’s all the excuse the State needs to come swooping in and crush them, just as they are with Bitcoin today they did with Bear and…
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1 Trillion Web Pages Archived
On October 22, 2025, the Internet Archive celebrated an extraordinary milestone: 1 trillion web pages preserved and available for access via the Wayback Machine. Event Recaps & Recordings | Photos | Impact Stories | Support the Internet Archive | Press Kit Since 1996, the Internet Archive has worked with libraries and…
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Save Firefox
Once upon a time, there were two major browsers that virtually everyone used: Netscape and Internet Explorer, locked in a death-battle for the future of the Web. They went to enormous lengths to tempt Web publishers to optimize their sites to work best inside their windows, and hoped that users...
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Internet Archive Switzerland
Thirty years ago, Brewster Kahle founded the Internet Archive with an ambitious goal: Universal Access to All Knowledge. Today, that mission continues to grow with an exciting new chapter: the launch of the Internet Archive Switzerland, a non-profit foundation based in St. Gallen. The Internet Archive Switzerland…
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How we lost communication to entertainment
How We Lost Communication to Entertainment par Ploum - Lionel Dricot.
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The most precious resource is agency
I have edited and expanded this in a newer post, you should read that instead: School is Not Enough
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People Call Me Aaron
Today is January 11th. Some of you know what this day means to me — it marks the 3 year anniversary of when I was in New York and got a…
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Tim Hortons app violated laws in collection of ‘vast amounts’ of location data
GATINEAU, QC , June 1, 2022 – People who downloaded the Tim Hortons app had their movements tracked and recorded every few minutes of every day, even when their app was not open, in violation of Canadian privacy laws, a joint investigation by federal and provincial privacy authorities has found.
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Toshiba says they made a mistake but they still cannot help me
I bought a Toshiba laptop about 9 months ago, it is still under warranty. It does not turn on at all. Warranty card states that laptop is covered in the United States, US territories, Latin America and the Caribbean. This is the only reason I used to buy Toshiba. Sent the laptop to Toshiba in Guatemala and they refuse…
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Britons: You Have 72 Hours to Stop the Snooper's Charter
Update: You did it! After a forceful debate on Monday 26 January, in which many peers protested the introduction of these amendments, Lord Blair withdrew them from consideration. Directly after the Charlie Hebdo massacre, we cautioned the public and politicians to be "wary of any attempt to rush...
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A Reddit bot drove me insane
I stumbled across a Reddit bot posting emotional rants about how bots are ruining Reddit; just to sell AI-generated books through affiliate links. A perfectly dystopian grift for the dead internet.
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Amazon sent the FBI to take my family’s bank accounts
https://gofund.me/8950f458
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Mozilla urges its users to raise their voice against SOPA
Yesterday, we blacked out the default start page in Firefox and redirected visitors to the Mozilla sites to a special action page. We also sent direct mess
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Supreme Court's ruling practically wipes out free speech for sex writing online
Am I now committing civil disobedience... just by keeping my personal literary website up as is?
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Librarians are dangerous
A public service announcement
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Choose Firefox Now, or Later You Won't Get a Choice (2014)
Robert O'Callahan. Christian. Kiwi. Software guy. All content human-authored unless otherwise noted.
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Two HN Announcements
The HN community feels like it owns HN, and we like it that way. HN has become an important institution in the tech community, and though it was initially developed for YC founders it’s clearly evolved into much more than that. We’ve always felt that the best way for HN to benefit YC is simply for it to maximally…
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EU citizens’ rights are under threat from anti-encryption proposals
Along with Threema, Tresorit, and Tutanota, we are releasing a joint statement calling on the EU to reject any ban or attack on end-to-end encryption.
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Dead Internet Theory
I had a wierd experience which made me realize that the internet is probably dead.
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A graph that should be front-page news
Every so often the Earth produces a signal that is impossible to ignore. This graph is one of them. It shows sea-surface temperatures in the Niño 3.4 region of the equatorial Pacific, one of the most important parts of the Earth's climate system. Each blue line represents a different year since 1982. The red line is…
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Why privacy is important, and having “nothing to hide” is irrelevant
The governments of Australia, Germany, the UK and the US are destroying your privacy. Some people don't see the problem...
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CAPTCHAs don’t prove you’re human – they prove you’re American (2017)
When I was a small child, I took an IQ test. One of the first questions I stumbled on was "A piece of candy costs 25¢. Jonny has a dime. How many nickels does he need to buy the candy?" My 7-year old brain popped. WTAF is a nickel? Or a dime for that matter? We don't have those coins in my country! We don't spend in ¢…
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