{ "version": "https://jsonfeed.org/version/1", "user_comment": "This feed allows you to read the posts from this site in any feed reader that supports the JSON Feed format. To add this feed to your reader, copy the following URL -- https://pxlnv.com/feed/json/ -- and add it your reader.", "home_page_url": "https://pxlnv.com", "feed_url": "https://pxlnv.com/feed/json/", "title": "Pixel Envy", "description": "Pixel Envy is a sassy weblog written by Nick Heer about topics concerning technology and policy, Apple, Silicon Valley, and privacy.", "items": [ { "id": "https://pxlnv.com/linklog/sign-in-with-google-prompts/", "url": "https://pxlnv.com/linklog/sign-in-with-google-prompts/", "external_url": "https://mastodon.social/@marcoarment/112169887968732967", "title": "Those Obnoxious \u2018Sign in With Google\u2019 Prompts", "content_html": "
\n\n\n\n\nIf I ran a website that supported Google-account login, I’d be pretty pissed at how they’re suddenly putting up an obnoxious overlay over my site’s layout.
\n \nWhy is this not bothering more people? Does anyone give a shit about their websites anymore?
\n
This aggressive dialog has been present since last year and it sucks. It looks horrible, it covers a large part of the page, and it effectively functions as an ad for Google on any third-party website that has implemented its authentication feature. Complete contempt for users.
\n\nI blocked these universally with my user stylesheet in Safari, and you can use a similar rule to mine in an ad blocker. StopTheMadness also hides this gross dialog.
\n\n", "date_published": "2024-03-27T22:43:58-06:00", "date_modified": "2024-03-27T22:43:58-06:00", "author": { "name": "Nick Heer" } }, { "id": "https://pxlnv.com/linklog/oregon-right-to-repair/", "url": "https://pxlnv.com/linklog/oregon-right-to-repair/", "external_url": "https://www.oregonlive.com/silicon-forest/2024/03/oregon-passes-expansive-right-to-repair-law-defying-tech-industry-concerns.html", "title": "Oregon Passes Right-to-Repair Law Restricting Parts Pairing", "content_html": "Mike Rogoway, Oregon Live:
\n\n\n\n\nOregon became the fourth state to pass a bill giving consumers a legal right to fix their own home electronics Monday with legislation that requires manufacturers provide access to the tools, parts and manuals required to repair their gadgets.
\n \n[…]
\n \n\u201cWe remain very concerned about the risk to consumers imposed by the broad parts-pairing restrictions in this bill,\u201d John Perry, principal secure repair architect for Apple, said at a legislative hearing last month.
\n \nWhile Apple supports consumers\u2019 right to repair their devices, Perry \u2014 who works at an Apple office in Beaverton \u2014 said the language in Oregon\u2019s bill is too broad. He said it could introduce vulnerabilities to biometric security and battery safety and could potentially increase theft.
\n
Quick note: the bill (PDF) specifically exempts restrictions on parts pairing related to battery safety in paragraph 3(f). Of course, Apple has made the same dire warnings for years in protest of right-to-repair legislation, and it is hard to know how seriously to take these claims. Oregon’s law does impose some new rules about the ways parts pairing can be used which appear to address some gaps in Apple’s repair policies. It was signed into law today.
\n\nOne thing we do not know yet is how many people are using resources like Apple’s Self Service Repair Store or Google’s Pixel parts store on iFixit. I could not find a press release from either party about how many products have been repaired, how many kits have been sold, or similar celebrations.
\n\nA lack of uptake, however, is not a reason to argue about whether laws like these ought to exist. Right-to-repair legislation is imposed as a baseline expectation for how businesses ought to approach products. It should be possible to repair things and, where pairing or calibration are needed, those practices ought to be justified. If they are legitimate, there should be no problem.
\n\n", "date_published": "2024-03-27T22:05:51-06:00", "date_modified": "2024-03-27T23:15:22-06:00", "author": { "name": "Nick Heer" } }, { "id": "https://pxlnv.com/linklog/view-source-web/", "url": "https://pxlnv.com/linklog/view-source-web/", "external_url": "https://viewsource.info", "title": "A View Source Web", "content_html": "Garry Ing, writing for the third issue of the HTML Review:
\n\n\n\n\nOn my personal websites view source meant being able to adapt and remix ideas. Like drawing a map, elements and pages acted as landmarks in the browser to be navigated between. As a self-initiated learner, being able to view source brought to mind the experience of a slow walk through someone else\u2019s map.
\n \nThis ability to \u201cobserve\u201d software makes HTML special to work with. In particular, it\u2019s sense of \u201ctransparency\u201d as Clay Shirky wrote in April, 1998, numerating on what makes for \u201cgood\u201d software: [\u2026]
\n
This is a lovely article, with meaningful presentation; I encourage you to view it on a device which supports hover better than your smartphone browser likely does.
\n\nThis world is unfortunately becoming lost or, at least, degraded \u2014 not because it is no longer possible to view the source of a webpage, but because that source is often inscrutable, even on simple webpages. There are still the familiar building blocks of paragraph tags, blockquote
s, and all-purpose div
s, but markup is oftentimes dense and littered with utility CSS classes. I am not dumping on new ways of doing things just because they are unclear to me; I am dumping on them because they are unclear for everyone. Markup is structure visible to all.
Apple has announced WWDC 2024 for June 10, with a rumoured focus on A.I. in operating system updates, including VisionOS. But fear not: 6 (June) + 10 + 2 (A.I.) = iOS 18 confirmed.
\n\n", "date_published": "2024-03-26T20:36:25-06:00", "date_modified": "2024-03-26T20:36:25-06:00", "author": { "name": "Nick Heer" } }, { "id": "https://pxlnv.com/linklog/meta-snapchat-onavo-snooping/", "url": "https://pxlnv.com/linklog/meta-snapchat-onavo-snooping/", "external_url": "https://techcrunch.com/2024/03/26/facebook-secret-project-snooped-snapchat-user-traffic/", "title": "Meta Snooped on Users\u2019 Snapchat Traffic With the Onavo VPN It Owned", "content_html": "Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai, TechCrunch:
\n\n\n\n\nIn 2016, Facebook launched a secret project designed to intercept and decrypt the network traffic between people using Snapchat\u2019s app and its servers. The goal was to understand users\u2019 behavior and help Facebook compete with Snapchat, according to newly unsealed court documents. Facebook called this \u201cProject Ghostbusters,\u201d in a clear reference to Snapchat\u2019s ghost-like logo.
\n \n[\u2026]
\n \nLater, according to the court documents, Facebook expanded the program to Amazon and YouTube.
\n
It is worth underscoring that this happened between 2016 and when Meta shut down Onavo in 2019. Meta \u2014 then Facebook \u2014 was not a small company at this time. Yet what it was doing with Onavo is so unethical it feels criminal: one of the world’s biggest corporations spying on millions of users through something it presented as a VPN for their privacy and security.
\n\n", "date_published": "2024-03-26T15:57:31-06:00", "date_modified": "2024-03-26T15:57:31-06:00", "author": { "name": "Nick Heer" } }, { "id": "https://pxlnv.com/linklog/twitter-ccdh-lawsuit-tossed/", "url": "https://pxlnv.com/linklog/twitter-ccdh-lawsuit-tossed/", "external_url": "https://www.cnbc.com/2024/03/25/lawsuit-filed-by-elon-musks-x-against-ccdh-thrown-out-by-judge.html", "title": "Judge Dismisses Twitter Lawsuit Against Center for Countering Digital Hate", "content_html": "Lora Kolodny, CNBC:
\n\n\n\n\nJudge Charles Breyer in the Northern District of California wrote in his ruling that while X claimed the case was about breach of contract and unlawful data scraping, it was clearly about speech.
\n \n[\u2026]
\n \nMusk is pursuing similar cases against other groups.
\n \nIn one instance, X has sued an Israeli web data collection company called Bright Data over its allegedly unauthorized scraping of data from its social media platform. And in Texas, X sued Media Matters for America and one of its staff members over an investigative report the watchdog published titled, \u201cAs Musk endorses antisemitic conspiracy theory, X has been placing ads for Apple, Bravo, IBM, Oracle, and Xfinity next to pro-Nazi content.\u201d
\n
I briefly mentioned this lawsuit when it was filed in July but, as it was one of several similar cases \u2014 as noted above \u2014 I have found it difficult to keep track.
\n\nThe judge’s direct response (PDF) is quite something to read. This is from page 40\u201341:
\n\n\n\n\nHere, CCDH is alleged to have used Twitter\u2019s own search tool to collect 9,615 public tweets from ten Twitter users, [\u2026] It is not plausible that this small-scale, non-commercial scraping would prompt X Corp. to divert \u201cdozens, if not over a hundred personnel hours across disciplines,\u201d [\u2026] of resources toward the repair of X Corp.\u2019s systems. [\u2026]
\n \nIt is clear to the Court that if X Corp. was indeed motived to spend money in response to CCDH\u2019s scraping in 2023, it was not because of the harm such scraping posed to the X platform, but because of the harm it posed to X Corp.\u2019s image. [\u2026]
\n
It goes on like this: paragraph after paragraph dismantling Twitter’s nonsense.
\n\n", "date_published": "2024-03-25T22:47:29-06:00", "date_modified": "2024-03-25T22:47:29-06:00", "author": { "name": "Nick Heer" } }, { "id": "https://pxlnv.com/linklog/semafor-launders-industry-lobbyists/", "url": "https://pxlnv.com/linklog/semafor-launders-industry-lobbyists/", "external_url": "https://www.semafor.com/article/03/21/2024/doj-sues-apple-over-iphone-antitrust-issues", "title": "Without Context, Semafor Launders Tech Industry Lobbying", "content_html": "Semafor published in a new format it calls Signals \u2014 sponsored by Microsoft, though I am earnestly sure no editorial lines were crossed \u2014 aggregated commentary about the U.S. iPhone antitrust case:
\n\n\n\n\nIf the government wins the suit, \u201cthe walls of Apple\u2019s walled garden will be partially torn down,\u201d wrote New York Times opinion columnist Peter Coy, meaning its suite of products will be \u201cmore like a public utility,\u201d available to its rivals to use. \u201cThat seems to me like stretching what antitrust law is for,\u201d Coy wrote. Tech policy expert Adam Kovacevich agreed, writing on Medium that people have long gone back and forth between iPhones and Android devices. \u201cPeople vote with their pocketbooks,\u201d Kovacevich said. \u201cWhy should the government force iPhones to look more like Androids?\u201d
\n \nMany argue that this is an issue of consumer choice, and the government shouldn\u2019t intervene to help companies such as Samsung gain a better footing in the market. The Consumer Choice Center\u2019s media director put it this way: \u201cImagine the classroom slacker making the case to the teacher that the straight-A student in the front of the class is being anti-competitive by not sharing their lecture notes with them.\u201d
\n
The Kovacevich article this links to is the same one I wrote about over the weekend. His name caught my eye, but not nearly as much as the way he is described: as a “tech policy expert”. That is not wrong, but it is incomplete. He is the CEO of the Chamber of Progress, an organization that lobbies for policies favourable to the large technology companies that fund it.
\n\nIt also seems unfair to attribute the latter quote to the Consumer Choice Center without describing what it represents \u2014 though I suppose its name makes it pretty obvious. It positions itself at the centre of “the global grassroots movement for consumer choice”, and you do not need the most finely tuned bullshit detector to be suspicious of the “grassroots” nature of an organization promoting the general concept of having lots of stuff to buy.
\n\nIndeed, the Center acknowledges being funded by a wide variety of industries, including “energy” \u2014 read: petroleum \u2014 nicotine, and “digital”. According to tax documents, it pulled in over $4 million in 2022. It shares its leadership with another organization, Consumer Choice Education. It brought in $1.5 million in 2022, over half of which came from the Atlas Network, a network of libertarian think tanks that counts among its supporters petroleum companies and the billionaire Koch brothers. The ostensibly people-centred Center just promoting the rights of consumers is, very obviously, supported by corporations either directly or via other pro-business organizations that also get their funding either directly from corporations or via other \u2014 oh, you understand how this works.
\n\nNone of that inherently invalidates the claims made by either Kovacevich or Stephen Kent for the Consumer Choice Center, but I fault Semafor for the lack of context for either quote. Both people surely believe what they wrote. But organizations that promote the interests of big business exist to provide apparently independent supporting voices because it is more palatable than those companies making self-interested arguments.
\n\n", "date_published": "2024-03-25T18:34:45-06:00", "date_modified": "2024-03-25T18:37:38-06:00", "author": { "name": "Nick Heer" } }, { "id": "https://pxlnv.com/blog/chamber-of-progress-pre-buttal/", "url": "https://pxlnv.com/blog/chamber-of-progress-pre-buttal/", "title": "The Chamber of Progress Scuttles Its Pre-Buttal", "content_html": "The U.S. antitrust case against Apple was not a closely guarded secret. Stories in the New York Times and Bloomberg spoiled not just the general timing of the case, but its contours as well. That gave Adam Kovacevich, of Chamber of Progress, the confidence to dispute the government’s arguments before the lawsuit was filed \u2014 a risky choice, I think.
\n\nKovacevich is the CEO and co-founder of Chamber of Progress, a nominally progressive lobbying organization for large technology companies. It was launched in 2021, and is funded by corporations you know like Amazon, Apple, Google, and Uber; Kovacevich used to work on public policy at Google. The Chamber uses its support of progressive causes like voter rights and universal health care as cover for its main activity, which is reflecting the priorities of its funders. The Chamber routinely argues on its blog and in legal filings in defence of big business as usual.
\n\nKovacevich begins his attempt at front-running the government’s arguments by transforming a possibility into an definite:
\n\n\n\n\nThis suit has been rumored for months, so we have a good idea of what it will include. It will likely force iPhones to work more like Android devices.
\n \nIf you\u2019re among the millions of Americans who have purchased an iPhone because of integrated features like Find My Phone, Apple Pay, iMessage, or integration with Airpods and Apple Watch, you better hope that this lawsuit fails.
\n \nBecause if it succeeds, there will no longer be any difference between your iPhone and an Android device.
\n
This is flagrantly untrue. Maybe you are willing to cut Kovacevich some slack because this article was written before the complaint was filed, but I am not, because Kovacevich could have just waited one extra day to see if he was right. But, even on Wednesday, it would have been outside reasonable grounds to think the case would pitch enough stuff that, if successful, would remove “any difference between” iPhones and Android phones. Even the E.U.’s Digital Markets Act, for how comprehensive it is, will not have that result.
\n\nIn a press release published after the suit was filed \u2014 otherwise known as the correct time to react to something: after it has happened \u2014 Kovacevich did pull back to a more cautious position of saying it “would make iPhones more like Androids”, emphasis mine. But that is so vague, even in its full context of “forc[ing] Apple to open up its software and hardware”, it is almost meaningless. Is a private API for the NFC chip really part of what makes an iPhone so different from an Android phone? That seems like a pretty flimsy argument when there is so much about iOS that is actually meaningfully different from Android and not for reasons hostile to competition.
\n\nKovacevich:
\n\n\n\n\nThis lawsuit wasn\u2019t spurred by consumer or voter complaints. Instead, companies like Tile, Beeper, Spotify, Match Group (a former client of DOJ Antitrust Chief Jonathan Kanter), banks, and payment apps have all spent months pushing the DOJ to bring this lawsuit. They would be the largest beneficiaries of the lawsuit.
\n
Whether Americans’ complaints “spurred” the Department of Justice to act is a good question, but it is untrue to argue there have been no complaints. Most people in the U.S. have, for years, responded favourably to polls asking if they support regulating the largest technology firms, though they have not ranked it as a top priority. Even the Chamber of Progress’ own polling found support for regulations, somewhat undermined by the specific examples of consequences.
\n\nIt is probably true that business complaints were the primary drivers of the DoJ’s action, though. An annotation I wrote for one part about payment apps in my copy of the complaint reads “sounds like a bank wrote this”. But protesting this on the grounds of corporate involvement is pretty rich coming from the guy who runs a lobbying firm arguing for the positions of even bigger corporations. Are we really supposed to be mad if Tile benefits?
\n\nKovacevich:
\n\n\n\n\nMore than 135 million Americans own an iPhone. And for many of them, the ease and simplicity of iPhone\u2019s integrated experience is why they purchased the device in the first place.
\n \nI have owned Tile tracking devices. Apple\u2019s AirTags and Find My Phone work much better.
\n \nI have owned Android Watches. But the connection between my Apple Watch and my iPhone is seamless.
\n \nWhen I pop in my AirPods, my iPhone recognizes them right away. And iMessage just works across my phone, computer, and iPad.
\n \nWhen I purchase an app on my phone, it\u2019s automatically available on my iPad too.
\n \nDespite years of hype over \u201cmobile payments,\u201d I never even considered leaving my traditional wallet at home until I started using Apple Pay.
\n
Why, specifically, are these third-party products less capable on an iPhone compared to first-party options, Adam?
\n\nMore to the point, what is the goal here? The government’s position is not that Apple should reduce the capabilities of its own products, but that Apple should not so aggressively restrict third-party capabilities. What if other smartwatches or tracking devices or headphones worked better with iPhones? Maybe not entirely to Apple’s first-party standards but, you know, better. That sounds like a more preferable situation than one in which consumers are compelled to remain within the confines of first-party products allegedly because of deliberate attempts to avoid competition.
\n\nKovacevich:
\n\n\n\n\nI understand fully why Tile, Beeper, and Match Group have agitated for this lawsuit. It would surely benefit them. But US competition law is designed to help consumers, not competitors. And this suit will force Apple to break the seamless experience that millions of customers have chosen.
\n
That is one perspective on U.S. competition law. But it is not an argument shared by everybody, and it is disingenuous to claim that is how the law has been “designed” so much has how it has been shaped since the 1970s.
\n\nThe argument in favour of also balancing a desire for competition has been criticized by lobbyists for large technology firms, but it is a discussion worth having: what problems are created by the mere existence of uniquely large businesses? The Chamber and the CCIA say their size is what lets them offer things like comprehensive services and free shipping, which consumers like and, therefore, there is no need to intervene. But are there negative outcomes, too, especially if smaller businesses struggle to compete due to those apparently inherent advantages of being big? That is a core question of newer perspectives on antitrust.
\n\nKovacevich then takes on the question of whether the iPhone has “market power” or “monopoly power”, which are different things that he seems to conflate. The title of this section is “Courts Have Found that iOS Doesn\u2019t have Market Power”, and I wanted to focus on this:
\n\n\n\n\nFurthermore, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers found in the Epic v. Apple case that:
\n \n\n\nApple\u2019s market share is below the general ranges of where courts found monopoly power under Section 2\u2026[the] Court cannot conclude that Apple\u2019s market power reaches the status of monopoly power in the mobile gaming market.
\n
I am always suspicious when I see mashed-together quotes like these. Indeed, the first part of the quote comes from two pages before the second. While it was fair to eliminate some of the discussion and assessment of the market, this mashup eliminates significant context from before and after.
\n\nFor background, on page 87, the judge notes that this is a calculation of the global mobile gaming market, of which Apple’s share is apparently nearly 60% by dollar value despite the iPhone’s 16% share of global devices. Whether this global share will be relevant to the 2024 trial is a question for the courts.
\n\nImmediately before the first part of that mashup quotation, the judge writes on page 137:
\n\n\n\n\n[\u2026] That Apple has more than a majority in a mostly duopolistic, and otherwise highly concentrated, market indicates that Apple has considerable market power.
\n
So to Kovacevich’s section title \u2014 “Courts Have Found that iOS Doesn\u2019t have Market Power” \u2014 I would note that courts have also found iOS does have market power. And here is what the judge wrote immediately following the second part of that mashed-up quote, as it appears on page 139:
\n\n\n\n\nThat said, the evidence does suggest that Apple is near the precipice of substantial market power, or monopoly power, with its considerable market share. Apple is only saved by the fact that its share is not higher, that competitors from related submarkets are making inroads into the mobile gaming submarket, and, perhaps, because plaintiff did not focus on this topic.
\n
The impression you might get if you read Kovacevich’s summary is that Apple is definitely not a monopoly. But the actual argument made by the judge in this case is that if Apple’s share grows only a little more, it may be have a monopoly position.
\n\nKovacevich wraps by comparing the duopoly of device options to Disneyland and Yosemite National Park:
\n\n\n\n\nIt\u2019s great for consumers that we have these two alternative models of mobile devices \u2014 one closed and integrated, one open and flexible. People vote with their pocketbooks \u2014 and have switched back and forth between Androids and iPhones.
\n \nSo why should the government force iPhones to look more like Androids?
\n \nI enjoy visiting the safe, sanitized environment of Disneyland and the wild of Yosemite National Park. But I would hate to see the government force Disneyland to look more like Yosemite (or vice versa).
\n
Tourist attractions are a poor analogy for owning a smartphone. A better one, if you want an analogy, is something like a really powerful company town compared to a normal city. Everything you can buy and do is filtered through a paternalistic owner, there are seemingly arbitrary rules, and despite all the bureaucracy, it is unwise for businesses to ignore setting up shop there because its residents seem to spend more money.
\n\nPeople make all kinds of trade-offs when they buy something as complex and convergent as a smartphone, and it is difficult to know how much of that is a fair vote with their wallet and how much of it is a side effect of the platform owner’s impositions.
\n\nWe saw this play out before the iPhone 6 was introduced. Apple still sold plenty of iPhones even though its models had smaller displays than competing products, and it was unclear whether people were buying iPhones because they were small or in spite of their size. The still-unbeaten unit sales of the iPhone 6 models shows lots of people wanted a bigger iPhone. Some of those buyers formerly used an Android phone, but others were existing iPhone customers who bought previous models even though they wished they could be bigger. Still others were like me: people who still bought an iPhone because of other factors, even though they were now \u2014 and remain \u2014 too big.
\n\nQuestions like these are far too complicated to simplify into the catchy but wrong claim that “government [will] force iPhones to look more like Androids”. There are undoubtably some \u2014 many, probably \u2014 who really like the way their iPhone works today. But I know people who have other smartwatches who wish they worked better with their iPhone. There are iPhone features which I bet would work better if Apple had meaningful competition within its own platform.
\n\nThat lots of people buy iPhones is not inherently a vote of confidence in each detail of the entire package. If some of those things changed a little bit \u2014 the U.S. government’s suit is not a massive overhaul of the way the iPhone works \u2014 I doubt people would stop liking or trusting the product.
\n\nWhether they will like or trust their bank’s attempt at a wallet app is another discussion entirely.
\n", "date_published": "2024-03-23T15:21:54-06:00", "date_modified": "2024-03-26T19:19:44-06:00", "author": { "name": "Nick Heer" } }, { "id": "https://pxlnv.com/linklog/pitchfork-lived-died/", "url": "https://pxlnv.com/linklog/pitchfork-lived-died/", "external_url": "https://www.theverge.com/24070565/pitchfork-gq-conde-nast-music-industry-change", "title": "Pitchfork Lived and Died by the Internet", "content_html": "In January, Semafor\u2019s Max Tani obtained a memo from Anna Wintour announcing Pitchfork would become part of GQ. Though Wintour emphasized “our coverage of music can continue to thrive within” Cond\u00e9 Nast, it is hard not to see this as the beginning of an ending for the version of Pitchfork many of us grew up with.
\n\nCasey Newton, of Platformer, argued one of the main reasons Pitchfork lost relevance is because of streaming services:
\n\n\n\n\nThe most important change arrived in 2006, when Spotify was born. (It arrived in the United States five years later.) Spotify was Napster, but legal: a celestial jukebox that let you listen to almost anything you could imagine, on demand and for pennies a day.
\n \nBefore Spotify, when presented with a new album, we would ask: why listen to this? After Spotify, we asked: why not?
\n \nIt\u2019s hard to overstate what a challenge this posed to music criticism. As consumers of music, we came to Pitchfork to ask one question \u2014 is this worth listening to? \u2014 and got an entire education in return. But with the arrival of streaming music that question lost its meaning, and suddenly we had fewer and fewer reasons to seek out criticism.
\n
I have been ruminating on this conclusion for two months and I think I have figured out why it makes me uneasy: the problem, as it were, is not the delivery system but how it is used. Trent Reznor, in an interview with Rick Rubin, is right in saying “Spotify’s homepage [feels] like I’m at the mall walking past the same shit I would see the billboards of going down Sunset Boulevard”; Newton is right in arguing it commoditized music and transformed it to be “consumed at the point of curation”.
\n\nFrank Rojas, New York Times:
\n\n\n\n\nHave your Sunday scaries ever given way to a \u201cNervous Ocean Monday Morning\u201d? Does the weekend truly begin on Friday, or on a \u201cWild and Free Chaotic Thursday Afternoon\u201d? How should one dress for a \u201cParanormal Dark Cabaret Evening\u201d?
\n \n[\u2026]
\n \nSo who is responsible for the peculiar titles? Spotify users who have been amused by these thrice-daily servings of word salad might be surprised \u2014 or, just as likely, not \u2014 to learn that the playlist names are ginned up by A.I.
\n
If your music listening experience is mostly driven by playlists and suggestions, you might be less interested in reviewers and critics. That is not a denigration of how anyone listens to music, mind you \u2014 I am not a prescriptivist about this kind of stuff. You should experience art in the way you choose.
\n\nBut streaming music is ultimately just a catalogue into which anyone can dive. It reduces the bar to entry and, on the other side of the same coin, reduces the cost of exiting. If you do not like an album, there is not a $20 sunk cost compelling you to keep going. But you also do not need to spend $20 to experiment with something you are unsure if you will like. This was always the selling point of high quality piracy and it continues to be the thing that makes streaming alluring \u2014 if you want it to be. Critics still exist, even if Pitchfork seems to have lost its relevance, and they can help you navigate the overwhelming amount of new music released each week.
\n\nElizabeth Lopatto, of the Verge, wrote a great profile of the site’s rise and fall. This part, in particular, was brutal to read:
\n\n\n\n\nWhat\u2019s more, Cond\u00e9 has long seemed confused about the difference between traffic and a loyal audience. Pitchfork\u2019s homepage attracts far more visitors than those of GQ or Vogue, three people familiar with Cond\u00e9\u2019s traffic told me. As referrals from social media and Google decline, a loyal audience is more important than ever \u2014 but only if you\u2019re smart enough to cultivate one. Anna Wintour, global chief content officer of Cond\u00e9 Nast, doesn\u2019t care about music and doesn\u2019t understand the internet, two former Pitchfork staffers told me. She didn\u2019t even take her sunglasses off when she fired Pitchfork\u2019s employees.
\n
It probably does not help that, at some point over the past year, Pitchfork moved the reviews on its homepage to below a section of fairly generic music news.
\n\nFor what it is worth, I was never a huge Pitchfork reader, but I appreciate the mark its critics left. Its elevation of independent music has been a uniquely important contribution to my life, and many of those highly rated albums soundtracked my early-to-mid 2000s. It is a shame it appears to be on its way out.
\n\n", "date_published": "2024-03-22T22:41:48-06:00", "date_modified": "2024-03-22T22:42:21-06:00", "author": { "name": "Nick Heer" } }, { "id": "https://pxlnv.com/linklog/microsoft-bing-chrome-ads/", "url": "https://pxlnv.com/linklog/microsoft-bing-chrome-ads/", "external_url": "https://www.windowslatest.com/2024/03/15/microsoft-confirms-bing-pop-up-ads-in-chrome-on-windows-11-windows-10/", "title": "Microsoft Is Running Pop-Up Ads for Bing in Chrome on Windows", "content_html": "Mayank Parmar, Windows Latest:
\n\n\n\n\nWhile using Google Chrome, I encountered a Bing pop-up on the right side of the browser. For a moment, I thought Chrome was infected with malware, but it turned out to be a new Microsoft campaign.
\n \nIn a statement to Windows Latest, Microsoft confirmed the company is testing a \u201cone-time\u201d notification that encourages people to use Bing as a default search in Google Chrome. The pop-up also advertises Bing\u2019s free access to ChatGPT-4, where users can get \u201chundreds of daily chat turns with Bing AI\u201d.
\n
Speaking of things first-party platform vendors can do, this is an ad delivered by Windows within Chrome. Many things have changed since that antitrust trial, but something that remains the same is the contempt for users shown by corporate attempts to grab market share.
\n\n", "date_published": "2024-03-22T17:37:33-06:00", "date_modified": "2024-03-22T17:37:33-06:00", "author": { "name": "Nick Heer" } }, { "id": "https://pxlnv.com/linklog/history-of-us-v-microsoft/", "url": "https://pxlnv.com/linklog/history-of-us-v-microsoft/", "external_url": "https://www.wired.com/2000/11/microsoft-7/", "title": "A History of United States v. Microsoft", "content_html": "John Heilemann, for Wired in November 2000, wrote a sprawling play-by-play of Microsoft’s antitrust trial. There is an awful lot here to digest \u2014 close to fifty thousand words \u2014 and much of it rhymes with Apple’s situation, as David Piece put it.
\n\nThis, though, is a core issue in both cases:
\n\n\n\n\nMonopoly or no, Windows was unquestionably an enormous asset for Microsoft. (“An asset of the shareholders of Microsoft,” as Gates put it.) And it was one over which the company had claimed total freedom \u2014 the freedom to add a ham sandwich, for instance. Was there any limit to how far he was willing to press the advantage of owning the dominant operating system?
\n \n“I don’t know what you mean by ‘advantage,'” he said, inspiring in me the brief fantasy that I was David Boies. “It is one of the more proven things that just because we put something in the operating system doesn’t mean people will use it,” Gates went on, citing the early, failed versions of IE, as well as the MSN client software. “Putting new features in the OS is a very, very good thing. Some of those features will end up being used heavily and some won’t. All you have to do is look at the growth of the software industry to say this is an industry that’s delivering for consumers in a fantastic way. So, yes, innovation is OK.”
\n \nGates hadn’t answered the question, so I asked it again, this time more precisely: “Is there any limit to what you regard as appropriate to put into the operating system?”
\n
In other words, how much is it okay for a first party to advantage themselves over third parties? If there is a line, where should it be, and who should establish it? There is obviously deep resistance to government intervention among the industry and its commentators, but there is also little incentive for operating system vendors to restrain themselves from prioritizing their own products and services. Gates, at this time, could not articulate any reason why Microsoft should not follow any competitive path it chose, even if that meant doing things third-party developers could not.
\n\nThis is an obviously daunting article but, if it makes you feel any better, it is illustrated with pictures of Microsoft executives in \u201990s corporate chic.
\n\n", "date_published": "2024-03-22T17:26:57-06:00", "date_modified": "2024-03-22T17:29:58-06:00", "author": { "name": "Nick Heer" } }, { "id": "https://pxlnv.com/linklog/usa-v-apple-antitrust/", "url": "https://pxlnv.com/linklog/usa-v-apple-antitrust/", "external_url": "https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/68362334/united-states-v-apple-inc/", "title": "United States Department of Justice Plus Fifteen States Sue Apple", "content_html": "While the U.S. Department of Justice has not yet issued its press release, its complaint has been filed. Attorneys General from fifteen states and Washington D.C. have co-signed.
\n\nUpdate: The title and second sentence have been changed to recognize that Washington D.C. is not, in fact, a state. This Canadian says sorry.
\n\n", "date_published": "2024-03-21T09:08:37-06:00", "date_modified": "2024-03-21T20:39:06-06:00", "author": { "name": "Nick Heer" } }, { "id": "https://pxlnv.com/linklog/us-data-broker-privacy-bill/", "url": "https://pxlnv.com/linklog/us-data-broker-privacy-bill/", "external_url": "https://www.politico.com/news/2024/03/20/lawmakers-privacy-bill-tiktok-00148070", "title": "U.S. Lawmakers Approve Bill Limiting Data Brokers\u2019 Sales to Foreign Adversaries", "content_html": "Alfred Ng, Politico:
\n\n\n\n\nThe data-privacy bill passed Wednesday, the Protecting Americans\u2019 Data from Foreign Adversaries Act, H.R. 7520, is highly targeted: It prevents any companies considered data brokers \u2014 third-party buyers and sellers of personal information \u2014 from selling that information to China, Russia or other \u201cforeign adversaries.\u201d
\n \nThough far narrower than previous bills, it would establish a precedent as the first federal law to govern data privacy in years.
\n
Unlike the TikTok bill, this is meaningful privacy legislation for people in the United States \u2014 and it passed without a single negative vote. It is also likely to make its way to a Senate vote, according to Ng. It is similar to the executive order signed last month and therefore has similar caveats. Data brokers can still sell U.S. data to another broker in any non-adversarial country, for example, and it could be re-sold from there.
\n\nThis may not be stellar legislation which limits the activity of data brokers within the U.S. or restricts the kind of mass data collection which permits these kinds of data sales, but it is progress.
\n\n", "date_published": "2024-03-20T16:08:58-06:00", "date_modified": "2024-03-20T16:11:36-06:00", "author": { "name": "Nick Heer" } }, { "id": "https://pxlnv.com/linklog/clearing-space-on-mac/", "url": "https://pxlnv.com/linklog/clearing-space-on-mac/", "external_url": "https://tidbits.com/2024/03/18/follow-these-steps-to-clear-space-on-your-mac/", "title": "Freeing Up Disk Space on Your Mac", "content_html": "Adam Engst, TidBits:
\n\n\n\n\nLongtime Mac users often get caught up in looking at the amount of free space reported by the Finder. We\u2019ll check the storage numbers shown in a Get Info dialog, delete something, and check again. Don\u2019t waste your time! Space management on the Mac is now largely indeterminate thanks to APFS, Time Machine snapshots, purgeable space, and more, as Howard Oakley explains. These technologies render the Finder-reported number unreliable at any given point in time. Even after you empty the Trash, it may take macOS several hours or more to update its free space reports. Restarting may or may not help trigger a recalculation.
\n \nInstead of stressing about exact numbers, I want to offer you a set of steps that will clear space quickly and easily on most Macs. Apple has advice here, and it\u2019s not wrong, but it\u2019s far from comprehensive. macOS also provides tools to help reduce unneeded drive usage at System Settings > General > Storage. Some are worthwhile; others do little or are incomplete. I\u2019ll cover the helpful ones below.
\n
Via Michael Tsai:
\n\n\n\n\nRemoving local copies of iCloud Drive files is not great because then they are no longer backed up. You can do this in a pinch, but I don\u2019t think it\u2019s a good long-term plan.
\n
I would also be reluctant to delete local copies of iCloud-stored files, either automatically or manually, especially given a bug affecting file versions in the latest release of MacOS Sonoma in certain conditions.
\n\nIn light of the way APFS and “purgeable” stored files work, Engst is right that it is better to focus on an overall picture of a Mac’s drive rather than specific numbers. I do not know that I will ever get used to the mismatch between what is reported in Finder and the numbers in Disk Utility, but I guess that is just how things will be.
\n\nAnyway, I recently wanted to clear up some space on my iMac, and here are two things that worked and one which, for many, will not:
\n\nFor whatever reason, when iTunes was replaced with Music, MacOS did not remove the now-irrelevant cached Apple Music files from iTunes. Deleting that folder freed up 38 GB of space.
While my photo library is stored on an external disk in Photos, I export selected RAW files to a folder on my local disk and edit those ones in Lightroom. It turns out those files are able to be losslessly compressed through a Lightroom feature called “Update DNG Previews & Metadata”. It is poorly documented and ambiguously named, but running it on my library resulted in a 40% disk space savings \u2014 huge, across thousands of photos.
The one thing which did not work for me \u2014 and this will depend on your specific situation \u2014 was sorting applications by size and, in theory, removing the largest unused ones. The problem I have is that virtually all of those really big applications are the ones I need for work. They are typically made by massive and dominant vendors like Adobe, Cisco, Google, and Microsoft, and none of them respect you or your disk space.
\n\nGoogle Chrome retains old versions in its application file. Microsoft\u2019s OneDrive client for MacOS is 1.2 GB, and all the files for Cisco\u2019s WebEx client occupy around 2 GB, for a file transfer application and a video calling app, respectively. Installing just one of the core Microsoft 365 applications, like Word, will install about 9 GB of shared frameworks.
It feels like users should simultaneously not need to think about disk space and be able to have more direct command over what is stored on it. But there are enough reporting discrepancies, long-expired caches, and uncivil developers making products which are core to many users’ careers to make it seem like we control far less than we would like to believe.
\n\nUpdate: I updated the description of the iCloud bug in Sonoma based on Adam Engst’s feedback to reduce its apparent severity.
\n\n", "date_published": "2024-03-19T17:21:33-06:00", "date_modified": "2024-03-21T13:37:41-06:00", "author": { "name": "Nick Heer" } }, { "id": "https://pxlnv.com/linklog/dma-compliance-workshop-apple/", "url": "https://pxlnv.com/linklog/dma-compliance-workshop-apple/", "external_url": "https://sixcolors.com/post/2024/03/apples-still-thinking-about-the-core-technology-fee-in-europe/", "title": "The European Commission Is Holding DMA Compliance Workshops, Beginning With Apple Today", "content_html": "Foo Yun Chee, Reuters:
\n\n\n\n\nApple on Monday fended off criticism that it has not done enough to open up its closed eco-system as required under the European Union’s Digital Markets Act, saying it has complied with the landmark legislation.
\n \n[\u2026]
\n \nThe company told apps developers, business users and rivals at a day-long hearing organised by the European Commission that it has redesigned its systems to comply with the DMA.
\n
Dan Moren, Six Colors:
\n\n\n\n\nDuring the workshop, [Riley] Testut used his time to ask about the Core Technology Fee. Under Apple\u2019s new business terms in Europe (required for apps looking to be distributed via non-Apple app marketplaces or the web), there\u2019s a \u20ac0.50 fee per app install over the first million. Testut rightly points out that a free app, such as the one he made in high school, that becomes popular could easily accrue enough costs to ruin a young developer\u2019s life.
\n \nApple VP of Legal Kyle Andeer responded sympathetically, saying that the company is continuing to try and find a good solution, and to \u201cstay tuned.\u201d
\n
Even with this softened tone, I am certain the Core Technology Fee is just about the last thing Apple will meaningfully relax due to either regulatory pressure or developer outcry. Still, a flash of hope, and something to check in on later.
\n\nOther, similar compliance workshops are coming up all week long. Meta’s begins just a few hours from the time I am writing this.
\n\nUpdate: Steve Troughton-Smith ran the hearing through MacWhisper to create an unofficial transcript. It may not be wholly accurate but it is on my reading list anyhow.
\n\n", "date_published": "2024-03-18T22:44:28-06:00", "date_modified": "2024-03-18T23:01:44-06:00", "author": { "name": "Nick Heer" } }, { "id": "https://pxlnv.com/linklog/tiktok-bill-murthy-mirror/", "url": "https://pxlnv.com/linklog/tiktok-bill-murthy-mirror/", "external_url": "https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/03/supreme-court-conservatives-5th-circuit-dumb-case.html", "title": "The TikTok Bill and Today\u2019s SCOTUS Case Are Funhouse Mirror Versions of Each Other", "content_html": "In 2022, the Biden administration was sued by two Attorneys General because it said the government had overstepped in opining on the moderation of social media platforms. A narrowed version of that case \u2014 after removing incidents from before the Biden administration existed \u2014 made its way to oral arguments before the Supreme Court of the United States today.
\n\nMark Joseph Stern, Slate:
\n\n\n\n\nWhat happens when a lawless judge and a terrible appeals court embrace the dopiest First Amendment claim you\u2019ve ever heard out of pure spite toward a Democratic president? That would be Murthy v. Missouri, a brain-meltingly dumb case that the Supreme Court was unfortunate enough to hear oral arguments in on Monday. Murthy poses a question so asinine that to ask it is to answer it: Can government officials encourage social media companies to moderate certain content that they deem harmful\u2014most importantly, disinformation about COVID-19 in the middle of the pandemic?
\n \nYes, of course they can [\u2026]
\n
There is some kind of cosmic poetry at play landing this case in the spotlight less than a week after the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a bill which, if passed by the Senate and signed into law, would create the ability to force an application’s divestiture or ban it. The two circumstances look like funhouse mirror versions of each other. In the case of TikTok \u2014 the current target of the bill passed by the House \u2014 the problem lawmakers have is a “foreign adversary” seems to be leaning on the company \u2014 a situation the U.S. would like to rectify by giving it the power to lean on the company. In Murthy, a U.S. state is arguing the U.S. government should not be able to communicate with social media companies about policy at all because doing so is inherently coercive.
\n\nBut the resolution of the two cases could be in seemingly opposing decisions. In Murthy, it seems likely the court will side with the Biden administration \u2014 see the analyses from Amy L. Howe and Mike Masnick. But in the TikTok bill, lawmakers are clamouring to give the government the power to suppress an app and its speech, and arguing that will be a tall order. I have been writing more about the latter as it seems it is suddenly locally relevant.
\n\n", "date_published": "2024-03-18T22:20:08-06:00", "date_modified": "2024-03-18T22:20:08-06:00", "author": { "name": "Nick Heer" } }, { "id": "https://pxlnv.com/linklog/typography-palette-sonoma/", "url": "https://pxlnv.com/linklog/typography-palette-sonoma/", "external_url": "https://c.im/@nickheer/112111864231807304", "title": "The Typography Palette in MacOS Got Some Nice New Icons", "content_html": "Even for a Mac user who prides themselves on refined taste in typography, one would be excused for missing the rather buried Typography palette in MacOS. It is available in any application that supports the Fonts selector and allows you to enable all manner of features, depending on what the specific font file permits. You can set which ligatures are supported, toggle specific alternate characters, and enable old-style numbers which flow more nicely in body text.
\n\nFor a long time, this palette was a dry list of checkboxes and disclosure triangles. A user would need to first know this palette exists, and then know what each option did. But, in a recent version of MacOS, the palette has been updated with icons that more clearly display what will change. Depending on the font file in question, there are many different options available, and the numerically differentiated “stylistic sets” have never been clear. This is much nicer.
\n\nI have not seen this documented anywhere and I do not remember it launching with MacOS Sonoma. I am running MacOS 14.3.1 as of writing. I have not seen anything relevant in Howard Oakley’s documentation. Regardless of when it was updated, it is a very nice change that helps everyone understand typography a little better. Now, if only Pages defaulted to old-style figures when writing paragraph-level text.
\n\n", "date_published": "2024-03-17T10:41:54-06:00", "date_modified": "2024-03-17T10:41:54-06:00", "author": { "name": "Nick Heer" } }, { "id": "https://pxlnv.com/linklog/web-35/", "url": "https://pxlnv.com/linklog/web-35/", "external_url": "https://webfoundation.org/2024/03/marking-the-webs-35th-birthday-an-open-letter/", "title": "The Web Turns 35", "content_html": "\n\n\n\n\nThree and a half decades ago, when I invented the web, its trajectory was impossible to imagine. There was no roadmap to predict the course of its evolution, it was a captivating odyssey filled with unforeseen opportunities and challenges. Underlying its whole infrastructure was the intention to allow for collaboration, foster compassion and generate creativity \u2014 what I term the 3 C\u2019s. It was to be a tool to empower humanity. The first decade of the web fulfilled that promise \u2014 the web was decentralised with a long-tail of content and options, it created small, more localised communities, provided individual empowerment and fostered huge value. Yet in the past decade, instead of embodying these values, the web has instead played a part in eroding them. [\u2026]
\n
Ed Zitron, in a post provocatively titled “Are We Watching The Internet Die?”:
\n\n\n\n\nRight now, the internet is controlled by a few distinct platforms, each one intent on interrupting the exploratory and creative forces that made the web great. I believe that their goal is to intrude on our ability to browse the internet, to further obfuscate the source of information while paying the platforms for content that their users make for free. Their eventual goal, in my mind, is to remove as much interaction with the larger internet as possible, summarizing and regurgitating as much as they can so that they can control and monetize the results as much as possible.
\n
There are some things in Zitron’s post which one could quibble over \u2014 too much handwaving around algorithms and generative A.I., for example, and Zitron conflates the web and the internet. But both these pieces are related and worth your time.
\n\n", "date_published": "2024-03-15T17:08:11-06:00", "date_modified": "2024-03-15T17:22:08-06:00", "author": { "name": "Nick Heer" } }, { "id": "https://pxlnv.com/linklog/sponsor/magic-lasso-mar-15/", "url": "https://pxlnv.com/linklog/sponsor/magic-lasso-mar-15/", "external_url": "https://www.magiclasso.co/", "title": "Sponsor: Magic Lasso Adblock \u2014 YouTube Ad Blocker for Safari", "content_html": "Do you want to block all YouTube ads in Safari on your iPhone, iPad, and Mac?
\n\nThen download Magic Lasso Adblock \u2014 the ad blocker designed for you.
\n\nIt\u2019s easy to setup, doubles the speed at which Safari loads and blocks all YouTube ads.
\n\n\n\nMagic Lasso is an efficient, high performance and native Safari ad blocker. With over 4,000 five star reviews, it\u2019s simply the best ad blocker for your iPhone, iPad and Mac.
\n\nIt blocks all intrusive ads, trackers, and annoyances \u2014 letting you experience a faster, cleaner and more secure web browsing experience.
\n\nThe app also blocks over 10 types of YouTube ads; including all:
\n\nvideo ads
pop up banner ads.
search ads
plus many more
And unlike some other ad blockers, Magic Lasso Adblock respects your privacy, doesn\u2019t accept payment from advertisers and is 100% supported by its community of users.
\n\nSo, join over 300,000 users and download Magic Lasso Adblock today.
\n\nMy thanks to Magic Lasso Adblock for sponsoring Pixel Envy this week.
\n\n", "date_published": "2024-03-15T11:32:13-06:00", "date_modified": "2024-03-11T20:01:02-06:00", "author": { "name": "Nick Heer" } }, { "id": "https://pxlnv.com/blog/white-house-dodges-burns-heals-clones/", "url": "https://pxlnv.com/blog/white-house-dodges-burns-heals-clones/", "title": "White House Dodges, Burns, Heals, Clones", "content_html": "During a White House press briefing on March 12, CBS News\u2019 Ed O\u2019Keefe asked press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre if photos of the president or other members of the White House are ever digitally altered. Jean-Pierre laughed and asked, in response, “why would we digitally alter photos? Are you comparing us to what’s going on in the U.K.?” O’Keefe said he was just doing due diligence. Jean-Pierre said, regarding digital photo manipulation, “that is not something that we do here”.
\n\nIt is unclear to me whether Jean-Pierre was specifically declining the kind of multi-frame stacking apparent in the photo of the Princess of Wales and her children, or digital alterations more broadly. But it got me thinking \u2014 there is a strain of good-faith question to be asked here: are public bodies meeting the standards of editorial photography?
\n\nWell, first, it depends on which standards one refers to. There are many \u2014 the BBC has its own, as does NPR, the New York Times, and the National Press Photographers Association. Oddly, I could not find comparable documentation for the expectations of the official White House photographer. But it is the standards of the Associated Press which are the subject of the Princess of Wales photo debacle, and they are both representative and comprehensive:
\n\n\n\n\nMinor adjustments to photos are acceptable. These include cropping, dodging and burning, conversion into grayscale, elimination of dust on camera sensors and scratches on scanned negatives or scanned prints and normal toning and color adjustments. These should be limited to those minimally necessary for clear and accurate reproduction and that restore the authentic nature of the photograph. Changes in density, contrast, color and saturation levels that substantially alter the original scene are not acceptable. Backgrounds should not be digitally blurred or eliminated by burning down or by aggressive toning. The removal of \u201cred eye\u201d from photographs is not permissible.
\n
If I can summarize these rules: changes should minimize the influence of the camera on how the scene was captured, and represent the scene as true to how it would be seen in real life. Oh, and photographers cannot remove red eye. Those are the standards I am expecting from the White House photographer to claim they do not digitally “alter” photos.
\n\nHappily, we can find out if those expectations are met even from some JPEG exports. Images edited using Adobe Lightroom carry metadata describing the edits made in surprising detail, and you can view that data using Photoshop or ExifTool. I opened a heavily manipulated photo of my own \u2014 the JPEG, not the original RAW file \u2014 and found in its metadata a record of colour and light correction, adjustment masks, perspective changes, and data about how much I healed and cloned. It was a lot and for clarification, that photo would not be acceptable by editorial standards.
\n\nTo find out what was done by the White House, I downloaded the original-sized JPEG copies of many images from the Flickr accounts of the last three U.S. presidents. Then I examined the metadata. Even though O’Keefe’s question pertained specifically to the president, vice president, and other people in the White House, I broadened my search to include any photo. Surely all photos should meet editorial standards. I narrowed my attention to the current administration and the previous one because the Obama administration covered two terms, and that is a lot of pictures to go through.
\n\nWe will start with an easy one. Remember that picture from the Osama Bin Laden raid? It is obviously manipulated and it says so right there in the description: “a classified document seen in this photograph has been obscured”. I think most people would believe that is a fair alteration.
\n\nBut the image\u2019s metadata reveals several additional spot exposure adjustments throughout the image. I am guessing some people in the back were probably under-exposed in the original.
\n\nThis kind of exposure adjustment is acceptable by editorial standards \u2014 it is the digital version of dodging and burning. It is also pretty standard across administrations. A more stylized version was used during the Trump administration on pictures like this one to make some areas more indigo, and the Biden administration edited parts of this picture to make the lights bluer.
\n\nAll administrations have turned some colour pictures greyscale, and have occasionally overdone it. The Trump administration increased the contrast and crushed the black levels in parts of this photo, and I wonder if that would be up to press standards.
\n\nThere are lots more images across all three accounts which have gradient adjustments, vignettes, and other stylistic changes. These are all digital alterations to photos which are, at most, aesthetic choices that do not meaningfully change the scene or the way the image is interpreted.
\n\nBut I also found images which had more than those simple adjustments. The Biden administration published a photo of a lone officer in the smoke of a nineteen-gun salute. Its metadata indicates the healing brush tool was used in a few places (line breaks added to fit better inline):
\n\n<crs:RetouchInfo>\n <rdf:Seq>\n <rdf:li>\n centerX = 0.059098, \n centerY = 0.406924, \n radius = 0.011088, \n sourceState = sourceSetExplicitly, \n sourceX = 0.037496, \n sourceY = 0.387074, \n spotType = heal\n </rdf:li>\n <rdf:li>\n centerX = 0.432986, \n centerY = 0.119173, \n radius = 0.010850, \n sourceState = sourceAutoComputed, \n sourceX = 0.460986, \n sourceY = 0.106420, \n spotType = heal\n </rdf:li>\n <rdf:li>\n centerX = 0.622956, \n centerY = 0.430625, \n radius = 0.010763, \n sourceState = sourceAutoComputed, \n sourceX = 0.652456, \n sourceY = 0.430625, \n spotType = heal\n </rdf:li>\n <rdf:li>\n centerX = 0.066687, \n centerY = 0.104860, \n radius = 0.011204, \n sourceState = sourceAutoComputed, \n sourceX = 0.041687, \n sourceY = 0.104860, \n spotType = heal\n </rdf:li>\n </rdf:Seq>\n</crs:RetouchInfo>\n
\n\nI am not sure exactly what was removed from the image, but there appears to be enough information here to indicate where the healing brush was used. Unfortunately, I cannot find any documentation about how to read these tags. (My guess is that these are percent coordinates and that 0,0
is the upper-left corner.) If all that was removed is lens or sensor crud, it would probably be acceptable. But if objects were removed, it would not meet editorial standards.
The Trump administration also has photos that have been retouched (line breaks added to fit better inline):
\n\n<crs:RetouchInfo>\n <rdf:Seq>\n <rdf:li>\n centerX = 0.451994, \n centerY = 0.230277, \n radius = 0.009444, \n sourceState = sourceSetExplicitly, \n sourceX = 0.431994, \n sourceY = 0.230277, \n spotType = clone\n </rdf:li>\n <rdf:li>\n centerX = 0.471218, \n centerY = 0.201147, \n radius = 0.009444, \n sourceState = sourceSetExplicitly, \n sourceX = 0.417885, \n sourceY = 0.264397, \n spotType = clone\n </rdf:li>\n <rdf:li>\n centerX = 0.912961, \n centerY = 0.220015, \n radius = 0.009444, \n sourceState = sourceSetExplicitly, \n sourceX = 0.904794, \n sourceY = 0.254265, \n spotType = clone\n </rdf:li>\n <rdf:li>\n centerX = 0.097888, \n centerY = 0.603009, \n radius = 0.009444, \n sourceState = sourceSetExplicitly, \n sourceX = 0.069790, \n sourceY = 0.606021, \n spotType = clone\n </rdf:li>\n <rdf:li>\n centerX = 0.044445, \n centerY = 0.443587, \n radius = 0.009444, \n sourceState = sourceAutoComputed, \n sourceX = 0.076612, \n sourceY = 0.451837, \n spotType = clone\n </rdf:li>\n <rdf:li>\n centerX = 0.388536, \n centerY = 0.202074, \n radius = 0.009444, \n sourceState = sourceAutoComputed, \n sourceX = 0.274036, \n sourceY = 0.201324, \n spotType = clone\n </rdf:li>\n <rdf:li>\n centerX = 0.744251, \n centerY = 0.062064, \n radius = 0.012959, \n sourceState = sourceAutoComputed, \n sourceX = 0.794084, \n sourceY = 0.158064, \n spotType = clone\n </rdf:li>\n <rdf:li>\n centerX = 0.715719, \n centerY = 0.155432, \n radius = 0.012959, \n sourceState = sourceSetExplicitly, \n sourceX = 0.782736, \n sourceY = 0.190757, \n spotType = clone\n </rdf:li>\n <rdf:li>\n centerX = 0.667622, \n centerY = 0.118204, \n radius = 0.012959, \n sourceState = sourceAutoComputed, \n sourceX = 0.659455, \n sourceY = 0.078204, \n spotType = clone\n </rdf:li>\n <rdf:li>\n centerX = 0.631788, \n centerY = 0.082258, \n radius = 0.012959, \n sourceState = sourceAutoComputed, \n sourceX = 0.643121, \n sourceY = 0.120008, \n spotType = clone\n </rdf:li>\n <rdf:li>\n centerX = 0.768446, \n centerY = 0.089400, \n radius = 0.012959, \n sourceState = sourceAutoComputed, \n sourceX = 0.786446, \n sourceY = 0.124150, \n spotType = clone\n </rdf:li>\n <rdf:li>\n centerX = 0.805172, \n centerY = 0.059118, \n radius = 0.012959, \n sourceState = sourceAutoComputed, \n sourceX = 0.810672, \n sourceY = 0.100618, \n spotType = clone\n </rdf:li>\n <rdf:li>\n centerX = 0.525624, \n centerY = 0.138548, \n radius = 0.012959, \n sourceState = sourceAutoComputed, \n sourceX = 0.482791, \n sourceY = 0.162548, \n spotType = clone\n </rdf:li>\n <rdf:li>\n centerX = 0.509623, \n centerY = 0.182811, \n radius = 0.012959, \n sourceState = sourceAutoComputed, \n sourceX = 0.482790, \n sourceY = 0.175061, \n spotType = clone\n </rdf:li>\n <rdf:li>\n centerX = 0.417535, \n centerY = 0.076733, \n radius = 0.012959, \n sourceState = sourceAutoComputed, \n sourceX = 0.373202, \n sourceY = 0.076483, \n spotType = clone\n </rdf:li>\n <rdf:li>\n centerX = 0.223111, \n centerY = 0.275574, \n radius = 0.012959, \n sourceState = sourceAutoComputed, \n sourceX = 0.256444, \n sourceY = 0.275574, \n spotType = clone\n </rdf:li>\n <rdf:li>\n centerX = 0.201020, \n centerY = 0.239967, \n radius = 0.012959, \n sourceState = sourceAutoComputed, \n sourceX = 0.216353, \n sourceY = 0.204467, \n spotType = clone\n </rdf:li>\n <rdf:li>\n centerX = 0.097134, \n centerY = 0.132270, \n radius = 0.010959, \n sourceState = sourceAutoComputed, \n sourceX = 0.121134, \n sourceY = 0.138270, \n spotType = clone\n </rdf:li>\n <rdf:li>\n centerX = 0.045526, \n centerY = 0.096486, \n radius = 0.010959, \n sourceState = sourceAutoComputed, \n sourceX = 0.020859, \n sourceY = 0.137486, \n spotType = clone\n </rdf:li>\n <rdf:li>\n centerX = 0.062159, \n centerY = 0.113695, \n radius = 0.010959, \n sourceState = sourceAutoComputed, \n sourceX = 0.039326, \n sourceY = 0.140945, \n spotType = clone\n </rdf:li>\n <rdf:li>\n centerX = 0.058762, \n centerY = 0.134971, \n radius = 0.010959, \n sourceState = sourceAutoComputed, \n sourceX = 0.042762, \n sourceY = 0.161471, \n spotType = clone\n </rdf:li>\n <rdf:li>\n centerX = 0.413132, \n centerY = 0.425824, \n radius = 0.010959, \n sourceState = sourceAutoComputed, \n sourceX = 0.439799, \n sourceY = 0.425824, \n spotType = clone\n </rdf:li>\n </rdf:Seq>\n</crs:RetouchInfo>\n
\n\nEven though there are lots more edits to this photo, it seems plausible they were made to remove lens or sensor dust made more obvious by the heavy use of the dehaze (+14), contrast (+50), and clarity (+2) adjustments.
\n\nFor what it is worth, this does not seem like a scandal to me \u2014 at least, not unless it can be shown edits to White House photos were made to alter what was actually in the frame. But, to review: does the White House digitally alter images? Yes, at least a little. Does the White House conform to accepted editorial standards? I am not sure. Should it? In my view, yes, always \u2014 and so should the products of any government photographer. Has the White House done anything remotely close to that Princess of Wales image? Not that I have seen. Should I stop writing this as a series of rhetorical questions? Oh, hell, yes.
\n", "date_published": "2024-03-14T22:01:37-06:00", "date_modified": "2024-03-14T22:14:10-06:00", "author": { "name": "Nick Heer" } } ] }