Roundup: Are we too obsessed with disinformation?

I’m finally in the home stretch of Walter Isaacson’s Elon Musk biography, and once I finally close the cover on it I’m planning to get you some thoughts on how he presents the billionaire technoking. There are certainly some interesting details in there, but it’s how they’re framed and what can be left out where things go wrong. Anyway, more on that soon!

If you do want some ~~Elon content~~, part two of my series on him came out on Thursday over on Tech Won’t Save Us. If you think things have been a little slow on the newsletter front lately, it’s in part because I’ve been so consumed with putting this series together, so I hope you understand and consider checking it out. I’ve been getting a lot of good feedback, including from people who said they couldn’t imagine listening to anything else about Musk but have actually been finding the series really informative. (That’s the goal!)

Anyway, this week I have some thoughts on the recent wave of headlines about disinformation and how I’m getting a bit tired of this whole framing. Plus, the usual recommended reads, labor updates, and other news you might have missed. To get the whole issue, make sure to upgrade to a paid subscription and support the work I put into Disconnect!

Have a great week!

— Paris

Reflections on disinformation

Since the Hamas attack on southern Israel on October 7 and the subsequent (and ongoing) retaliatory bombing campaign with huge numbers of civilian casualties by Israel, it’s hard not to go a day without seeing people despair about all the mis- and disinformation circulating around the conflict, with a particular focus on social media. But, I have to be honest, I feel like this same narrative cycle has been happening for years and nothing ever happens because so much of the discourse doesn’t get below the surface and actually look for root causes.