Robin Berjon

@robin

Political technologist, bringing democracy to the internet. Brussels, 🇪🇺. tech, governance, science, politics, philosophy, infrastructure, cats, terrible puns DASL, Eurosky/Mu, Modal ex W3C, NYT he/him/Ishmael Signal robin.77

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Robin Berjon@robin· Jul 12

I don't know if people outside the field understand what computer conferences are like these days...

Slide: "What if tensions over Greenland..."

Robin Berjon@robin· Jul 11

The random clipart vomit that serves as the default background for WhatsApp.

Robin Berjon@robin· Jul 10

Sorry Spain, I love you but not tonight! 🇧🇪!!!

The game is on in a room with Belgian flags and a MASSIVE disco ball.

Robin Berjon@robin· Jul 10

But most importantly, it has another major effect on ad funding (which, like it or not, is by far the thing that pays for most of the web). Because Google is in a monopoly position, they can charge much higher prices for search ads — and search ads are necessary. This has an impact on the web…

Three columns showing Google's share of the total web ad revenue:
1) In a competitive environment, a real but small slice.
2) In a monopoly under competitive prices, a bigger slice.
3) In a monopoly, with supracompetitive prices, a very large slice.
The money Google gets the rest of the web doesn't.

Robin Berjon@robin· Jul 10

But as Google began capturing search, the pattern shifted. The more it monopolised search, the less it had to care about publishers. AI is only the most recent step in a trajectory that has been constant for almost twenty years. How did Google break competition in search?

Content flowing from now small publishers to a huge single search engine. A trickle of traffic is sent back, but mostly embed boxes, AMP, voice assistant, substitutive products (like News), and AI are used to keep the value flowing back to the search engine alone.

Robin Berjon@robin· Jul 10

How did we get here? Things used to be mutualistic: search got free content and sites got free traffic. This was enforced by competition. Misbehaving site? De-index. Misbehaving search? Cut off crawler. But this only works if there are enough search engines that sites can afford to do it.

A mutual arrangement, showing content flowing from publishers to search and traffic flowing back, in equal measure.

Robin Berjon@robin· Jul 10

"Things That Make Us Smart" by Donald Norman Interesting tidbits, but not what I was looking for.

Robin Berjon@robin· Jul 8

"The Rational Use of Cognitive Resources" by Falk Lieder, Frederick Callaway, & Thomas Griffiths A very interesting update to rationality, finding optimality not in some impossible abstract but within resources. They don't quite go there but it's a notion of rationality that can include energy.

Robin Berjon@robin· Jul 7

Excellent news to wake up to! 🔥😁

Robin Berjon@robin· Jul 1

Orc: looks like monopolies are back on the menu, boys!

Robin Berjon@robin· Jun 30

I thought of it but his modelling schedule is intense. Also his sister isn't on Mu either.

Tuxedo cat sleeping on cushions, sloping down.

Robin Berjon@robin· Jun 30

If you have a job or internship this coming August for a bright and independent 17yo (depicted on the right), let me know!

My kid cooking while the cat watches with interest.

Robin Berjon@robin· Jun 29

Punting to CNECT is weird. I believe that the behaviour pointed to in @leafplaza.eu's complaint is the one that EU Observer reported on in euobserver.com/223831/eu-pr.... (Link in screenshot goes to www.linkedin.com/posts/rentzh...)

Commission spokesperson Tomas Regnier also responded to the comments about the commission promoting W, by saying “I think it’s important to distinguish between making a public announcement on the one hand and promoting something on the other."

Which is kind of a hard sell when you have Ursula von der Leyen herself stepping out of the G7 conference to, well, promote W.

Robin Berjon@robin· Jun 27

"Venomous Lumpsuckers" by @nedbeauman.bsky.social Dark, in fact pretty fucking grim, and just as hilarious.

Robin Berjon@robin· Jun 25

Did you know? WEB4 is actually short for WHAT EVER BEFUDDLING FUCK?

Robin Berjon@robin· Jun 25

Give me whatever amount of funding the Commission is burning on "Web 4.0" and I will bring tech sovereignty to an entire sector of the digital sphere.

Dear Robin Berjon,

On behalf of the European Commission and PPMI (part of Verian Group), we are pleased to invite you to participate in the upcoming online workshop:

Workshop: Opportunities for Europe in the Web 4.0 and Agentic AI Era

Robin Berjon@robin· Jun 23

Has the risk assessment been published? Also, is their sense of hype and audience based on W's doctored engagement numbers? (Sent to me by another party.)

W's marketing material shows screenshots of posts with highly inflated comments numbers — 687 instead of 11 and 1819 instead of 96.

Robin Berjon@robin· Jun 17

At the Villa Boghossian this late afternoon for the opening of "Shape of Absence", Hrair Sarkissian's exhibition showing a graveyard of Syrian artwork destroyed or looted from the Raqqa museum. Very moving.

A room turned into a sober graveyard for artwork.

A view of the backlit lithophanes that serve as graves.

Robin Berjon@robin· Jun 16

"Les milliardaires ne paient pas d'impôt sur le revenu et nous allons y mettre fin" by @gabrielzucman.bsky.social Short, inescapable, well-documented, and to the point. A future to look forward to. (Available in English as "We Need To Tax Billionaires".)

Robin Berjon@robin· Jun 15

"What We Can Know" by Ian McEwan Enjoyed the structure that keeps you guessing.

Robin Berjon@robin· Jun 13

Tout le monde pense que je m'amuse à déterrer des bambous, mais la vérité est que je rhizome.

Des rhizomes, ainsi que mes pieds munificents.

Robin Berjon@robin· Jun 12

Opening the Eurostack exhibit at DG-CONNECT, @eurosky.social mentioned on stage — sovereignty through infrastructure 🇪🇺💖 I'm also delighted to hear Roberto Viola pushing for the European sovereign tech fund.

Francesca Bria in front of the Eurostack.

Roberto Viola in front of the Eurostack.

Robin Berjon@robin· Jun 11

Mu.social modal showing that I'm verified by npmx, France Atmosphere, and Eurosky.

Thanos holding the gauntlet with Infinity Stones

Robin Berjon@robin· Jun 11

And another great Mu feature: native support for embedded events. RSVP without leaving your social app!

A post (from Bryan) showing a ROOST embedded event to which you can respond directly inline.

Robin Berjon@robin· Jun 8

Spiderman pointing meme except they all say "Claude".

Robin Berjon@robin· May 29

The only thing you need to know about "The European vision of technological sovereignty" that's developed in the Commission's tech sovereignty package is that it includes support for "Web 4.0". That's how serious, visionary, and strategic it is. Web 4.0.

Future Internet architecture: software development & delivery infrastructure and open source building blocks for Web 4.0.

Robin Berjon@robin· May 29

Zuckerberg's cultural pasteurisation machine, as presented by @blaine.bsky.social.

Blaine in front of a slide showing Zuckerberg shooting cultural diversity as microbes with some kind of laser.

Robin Berjon@robin· May 29

#infomocracy mentioned! (Great talk from @r-emrys.bsky.social at the Rewilding the Web workshop.) Cc @older.bsky.social

Ruthanna Emrys in a very cool shirt presenting in front of a slide showing Infomocracy.

Robin Berjon@robin· May 27

Sometimes I imagine a world in which European leaders like @president.europarl.europa.eu spent as much time supporting the European model of tech as they do cosying up to foreign oligarchs with openly anti-democratic projects and anti-European foreign interference activities. 🧵

Roberta Metsola shakes hands with Mark Zuckerberg in front of a bunch of Meta AI Glasses.

Robin Berjon@robin· May 26

"Evolution of the Social Contract" by Brian Skyrms Very interesting, on evolutionary game theory and the evolution of justice, meaning, etc.