Yep. Wisconsinite here (and a teacher as well). I have mixed feelings on this. I’d be fuming if a Republican governor pulled something like this and I generally think it’s a power governors shouldn’t have. However, when held against the context of the way GOP has operated within the letter of the law to entrench themselves within Wisconsin politics, I’m all for Democrats using tactics like this. GOP will use them and it’s unfair for everyone to expect Dems to take the high road at the expense of our policy priorities.

In my perfect world I’d get rid of both this power and the GOP gerrymander in Wisconsin

Handsome kitties :)

We have two cats and our name for this phenomenon is “other brother”. As in, each cat is convinced their brother has been replaced with a doppelganger that isn’t quite right. Hence, “other brother”.

I find the “digital commons” and the “online town square” metaphors to be poor ones when thinking about moderation on social networks. It’s shoehorning analog concepts onto digital information transmission systems. The two are not the same. Harassment and misinformation spread happen very differently digitally than they do in the analog world. “Digital commons” metaphors are prominent amongst “free speech” hardliners like Dorsey and Musk who simply don’t want to go through the hassle of developing, funding, and creating policy for online speech moderation. Anyone who uses phrases like digital commons loses a fair amount credibility in my eyes.

American high school teacher here (Midwest region). We implemented a policy this year banning cellphones in instructional spaces during instructional time. Enforceable by confiscation if teachers saw or heard a phone. We have a strong set of administrators who supported teachers in any case where there was student pushback. It has been a huge success in terms of limiting distractions during instructional time. All of our students are provided Chromebooks so there really isn’t much of an instructional reason to have phones anyway. It has also contributed to a drop in student-on-student behavior problems.

I do feel for the girl in this article for whom it was used as a coping mechanism for bullying. No policy comes with zero downsides. However, it sounds like she was allowed exceptions in certain cases, which is exactly what should happen.

I stopped subscribing a few months ago to catch up on my reading backlog, but Book of the Month Club was really good at getting me to read books I wouldn’t normally pick up. You can subscribe if you want, but you can also see their picks of the month just by going to their website.

This is a big one, one of the biggest tech forums on the web. Between this and a few other subs, my Reddit feed looks quite different right now.