Konstantinos Komaitis PhD (@kkomaitis.bsky.social)

@davidgreene.bsky.social Oct 10, 2026, 2:48 AMReposted by @kkomaitis.bsky.social

The Konstantinos of, volume 5

@masnick.com Oct 9, 2026, 4:47 PMReposted by @kkomaitis.bsky.social

Who went through all the major platforms where the Pentagon might stream their barbaric firing squad "livestream" execution to see if it violated their policies? Me. I did it.

Techdirt@techdirt.comOct 9, 2026, 4:23 PM

Hey Platforms: Your Violent Content Policies Are About To Meet The Pentagon’s Firing Squad There is plenty of coverage everywhere you look about how Pete Hegseth and... https://www.techdirt.com/2026/10/09/hey-platforms-your-violent-content-policies-are-about-to-meet-the-pentagons-firing-squad/

techdirt.comHey Platforms: Your Violent Content Policies Are About To Meet The Pentagon’s Firing SquadThere is plenty of coverage everywhere you look about how Pete Hegseth and the Pentagon have announced plans to livestream the firing squad execution of Nidal Hasan, the Army officer who shot up Fort Hood, killing 13 people and wounding dozens more. There is plenty of debate about the moral atrocity that is a firing...

@kkomaitis.bsky.social Oct 9, 2026, 7:05 AM

Well if the DSA is to be enforced, platforms should not even wait for EU regulators to instruct them not to livestream it.

@kkomaitis.bsky.social Oct 9, 2026, 7:00 AM

And the question is: will any of them invoke Section 230 to deny live-streaming it?

@kkomaitis.bsky.social Oct 9, 2026, 6:59 AM

At some point during their growth, big tech companies reduced users to mere data points, believing they truly understood them. Perhaps that was their greatest misconception about user understanding—and the moment metrics became a core part of their mission. Check part V out: 👇👇👇👇

Techdirt@techdirt.comOct 8, 2026, 10:31 PM

The Metric Is Not The Mission: The Illusion Of Knowing Us The Metric Is Not the Mission is a ten-part examination of how Big Tech moved from building and expanding the open internet to increasingly... https://www.techdirt.com/2026/10/08/the-metric-is-not-the-mission-the-illusion-of-knowing-us/

techdirt.comThe Metric Is Not The Mission: The Illusion Of Knowing UsThe Metric Is Not the Mission is a ten-part examination of how Big Tech moved from building and expanding the open internet to increasingly shaping it around its own metrics, incentives and assumptions. Across the series, the argument follows the evolution of the platform economy—from the optimism of the early internet to the growing tensions...

@techdirt.com Oct 8, 2026, 10:31 PMReposted by @kkomaitis.bsky.social

The Metric Is Not The Mission: The Illusion Of Knowing Us

The Metric Is Not the Mission is a ten-part examination of how Big Tech moved from building and expanding the open internet to increasingly...

https://www.techdirt.com/2026/10/08/the-metric-is-not-the-mission-the-illusion-of-knowing-us/

@masnick.com Oct 9, 2026, 2:43 AMReposted by @kkomaitis.bsky.social

Part VI of @kkomaitis.bsky.social series on "the metric is not the mission." This one is on how the data big tech collects about us makes them think they know us, when it just shows how little they know.

The digital age inherited that ambition and expanded it beyond anything previous generations could have imagined. Never before have private organizations possessed such detailed knowledge of everyday human behavior. The major technology platforms know what captures our attention, how long we hesitate before making a decision, which conversations draw us back repeatedly, what time we wake, when we travel, where we shop, what we read, which videos we abandon after twenty seconds and which ones persuade us to remain for twenty minutes. Individually, these fragments appear almost trivial. Collectively, they amount to one of the most ambitious efforts in history to observe human behavior at planetary scale.

The achievement is extraordinary. It is also deeply misleading. Observation and understanding are not the same thing. The distinction is easy to overlook because the predictive power of these systems has become genuinely remarkable. Recommendation algorithms often anticipate our preferences before we consciously recognize them ourselves. Navigation applications predict our journeys with astonishing accuracy. Streaming platforms learn our habits so quickly that their suggestions can feel almost uncanny. The practical success of these systems encourages a subtle but important assumption: if behavior can be predicted with sufficient precision, perhaps behavior itself has been understood.

And this may be the most consequential consequence of the platform age. The more of human behavior platforms learned to measure, the easier it became to believe that human beings themselves had become legible. Clicks became preferences. Networks became communities. Attention became interest. Prediction became understanding. Metrics became meaning. The platforms could see more of us than any institution in history and gradually became less capable of seeing what their measurements left out.

Techdirt@techdirt.comOct 8, 2026, 10:31 PM

The Metric Is Not The Mission: The Illusion Of Knowing Us The Metric Is Not the Mission is a ten-part examination of how Big Tech moved from building and expanding the open internet to increasingly... https://www.techdirt.com/2026/10/08/the-metric-is-not-the-mission-the-illusion-of-knowing-us/

techdirt.comThe Metric Is Not The Mission: The Illusion Of Knowing UsThe Metric Is Not the Mission is a ten-part examination of how Big Tech moved from building and expanding the open internet to increasingly shaping it around its own metrics, incentives and assumptions. Across the series, the argument follows the evolution of the platform economy—from the optimism of the early internet to the growing tensions...

@kkomaitis.bsky.social Oct 8, 2026, 3:46 PM

And here’s another angle of why language matters and how SI will change completely the conversation around AI governance and regulation: kkomaitis.substack.com/p/what-we-ca...

@techdirt.com Oct 5, 2026, 10:20 PMReposted by @kkomaitis.bsky.social

The Metric Is Not The Mission: The Finished Internet

The Metric Is Not the Mission is a ten-part examination of how Big Tech moved from building and expanding the open internet to increasingly shaping it...

https://www.techdirt.com/2026/10/05/the-metric-is-not-the-mission-the-finished-internet/

techdirt.comThe Metric Is Not The Mission: The Finished InternetThe Metric Is Not the Mission is a ten-part examination of how Big Tech moved from building and expanding the open internet to increasingly shaping it around its own metrics, incentives and assumptions. Across the series, the argument follows the evolution of the platform economy—from the optimism of the early internet to the growing tensions...

@kkomaitis.bsky.social Oct 6, 2026, 4:34 AM

Part V is out. the Internet’s most fascinating design feature is that it was intentionally unfinished - people could always contribute. Platforms had us convinced that the Internet was done. That is perhaps one of the worst things they ever did to the Internet and to users! ⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️

Techdirt@techdirt.comOct 5, 2026, 10:20 PM

The Metric Is Not The Mission: The Finished Internet The Metric Is Not the Mission is a ten-part examination of how Big Tech moved from building and expanding the open internet to increasingly shaping it... https://www.techdirt.com/2026/10/05/the-metric-is-not-the-mission-the-finished-internet/

techdirt.comThe Metric Is Not The Mission: The Finished InternetThe Metric Is Not the Mission is a ten-part examination of how Big Tech moved from building and expanding the open internet to increasingly shaping it around its own metrics, incentives and assumptions. Across the series, the argument follows the evolution of the platform economy—from the optimism of the early internet to the growing tensions...

@masnick.com Oct 6, 2026, 4:23 AMReposted by @kkomaitis.bsky.social

We're now halfway through @kkomaitis.bsky.social's amazing 10 part series on "The Metric is Not The Mission" and each piece seems better than the last...

Techdirt@techdirt.comOct 5, 2026, 10:20 PM

The Metric Is Not The Mission: The Finished Internet The Metric Is Not the Mission is a ten-part examination of how Big Tech moved from building and expanding the open internet to increasingly shaping it... https://www.techdirt.com/2026/10/05/the-metric-is-not-the-mission-the-finished-internet/

techdirt.comThe Metric Is Not The Mission: The Finished InternetThe Metric Is Not the Mission is a ten-part examination of how Big Tech moved from building and expanding the open internet to increasingly shaping it around its own metrics, incentives and assumptions. Across the series, the argument follows the evolution of the platform economy—from the optimism of the early internet to the growing tensions...

@masnick.com Oct 4, 2026, 7:25 PMReposted by @kkomaitis.bsky.social

Putting the final touches on an edit of Part V (out tomorrow) of @kkomaitis.bsky.social's series and it's *so* good. If you haven't read the first four parts yet, now's as good a time to start as any...

Scroll down to the bottom here and work your way up.

www.techdirt.com/tag/metric-n...

Mike Masnick@masnick.comOct 2, 2026, 2:36 AM

Part IV of @kkomaitis.bsky.social incredible series on "The Metric is Not the Mission" looking at how the mission of big tech companies drifted over time, in small ways, comparing it to how people focus on the weather rather than the climate, such that they miss the big changes....

techdirt.commetric not mission – TechdirtPosts about metric not mission written by konstantinos.komaitis

@bjkeefe.bsky.social Oct 2, 2026, 3:03 AMReposted by @kkomaitis.bsky.social

From part IV of @kkomaitis.bsky.social's series.

It's not just about this, but it's a nice piece to whet your appetite.

See @masnick.com's post for the link:
bsky.app/profile/masn...

For much of the first decade of social media, the dominant challenge was abundance. The internet was expanding faster than anyone could meaningfully navigate it. There were too many websites, too many videos, too many blogs, too many voices competing for attention. Search engines, recommendation systems and social networks addressed this problem by filtering complexity. Their algorithms reduced uncertainty by pointing users toward content they were likely to find useful, interesting, or entertaining. In a world defined by informational overload, curation felt like liberation.

Today’s challenge is almost the inverse. Few people now struggle to find information. Instead, they struggle to determine which information deserves trust. The scarcity that once characterized knowledge has been replaced by a scarcity of confidence. We inhabit an environment saturated with images, opinions, analyses, commentary, and increasingly synthetic media. Artificial intelligence has accelerated this transformation still further, reducing the cost not only of distributing information but of producing it in almost limitless quantities. The bottleneck has shifted. Discovery matters less than discernment.

Yet the architecture of the dominant platforms remains largely optimized for the earlier age. Systems originally designed to maximize relevance increasingly operate within an environment where reliability has become the more precious commodity. Recommendation engines still reward attention because attention remains measurable. [highlight]Trust, by contrast, is extraordinarily difficult to quantify. It develops slowly, depends on context and often requires forms of human judgment that resist computational simplification.[/highlight] The result is a subtle but increasingly consequential mismatch between what societies need and what platforms are designed to provide.

@kkomaitis.bsky.social Oct 2, 2026, 4:52 AM

Part 4 is out: This part looks beyond individual controversies to the changing environment itself and asks whether the assumptions that once made platforms successful still fit the digital world they helped create.

www.techdirt.com/2026/10/01/t...

Mike Masnick@masnick.comOct 2, 2026, 2:36 AM

Part IV of @kkomaitis.bsky.social incredible series on "The Metric is Not the Mission" looking at how the mission of big tech companies drifted over time, in small ways, comparing it to how people focus on the weather rather than the climate, such that they miss the big changes....

techdirt.comThe Metric Is Not The Mission: The Digital ClimateThe Metric Is Not the Mission is a ten-part examination of how Big Tech moved from building and expanding the open internet to increasingly shaping it around its own metrics, incentives and assumptions. Across the series, the argument follows the evolution of the platform economy—from the optimism of the early internet to the growing tensions...

@masnick.com Oct 2, 2026, 2:36 AMReposted by @kkomaitis.bsky.social

Part IV of @kkomaitis.bsky.social incredible series on "The Metric is Not the Mission" looking at how the mission of big tech companies drifted over time, in small ways, comparing it to how people focus on the weather rather than the climate, such that they miss the big changes....

Techdirt@techdirt.comOct 1, 2026, 10:00 PM

The Metric Is Not The Mission: The Digital Climate The Metric Is Not the Mission is a ten-part examination of how Big Tech moved from building and expanding the open internet to increasingly shaping it... https://www.techdirt.com/2026/10/01/the-metric-is-not-the-mission-the-digital-climate/

techdirt.comThe Metric Is Not The Mission: The Digital ClimateThe Metric Is Not the Mission is a ten-part examination of how Big Tech moved from building and expanding the open internet to increasingly shaping it around its own metrics, incentives and assumptions. Across the series, the argument follows the evolution of the platform economy—from the optimism of the early internet to the growing tensions...

@davidgreene.bsky.social Sep 29, 2026, 7:02 PMReposted by @kkomaitis.bsky.social

I am eagerly await the remaining parts of Konstantinos's excellent series like I eagerly wait the remaining parts of On the Calculation of Volume (not a joke -- I am eagerly awaiting ##5-7!)

Konstantinos Komaitis PhD@kkomaitis.bsky.socialSep 29, 2026, 4:36 AM

Part III is out: In Part II, the story focused on how measuring behaviour is not the same as understanding people. Part III takes that idea further, examining what happens when the platforms' representations of the world begin to substitute for the world www.techdirt.com/2026/09/28/t...

techdirt.comThe Metric Is Not The Mission: When The Maps Became The TerritoryThe Metric Is Not the Mission is a ten-part examination of how Big Tech moved from building and expanding the open internet to increasingly shaping it around its own metrics, incentives and assumptions. Across the series, the argument follows the evolution of the platform economy—from the optimism of the early internet to the growing tensions...

@masnick.com Sep 29, 2026, 1:05 AMReposted by @kkomaitis.bsky.social

Here's Part III in @kkomaitis.bsky.social epic 10-part series on "The Metric is Not the Mission." Highly recommend reading the whole thing...

Techdirt@techdirt.comSep 28, 2026, 10:04 PM

The Metric Is Not The Mission: When The Maps Became The Territory The Metric Is Not the Mission is a ten-part examination of how Big Tech moved from building and expanding the open internet to... https://www.techdirt.com/2026/09/28/the-metric-is-not-the-mission-when-the-maps-became-the-territory/

techdirt.comThe Metric Is Not The Mission: When The Maps Became The TerritoryThe Metric Is Not the Mission is a ten-part examination of how Big Tech moved from building and expanding the open internet to increasingly shaping it around its own metrics, incentives and assumptions. Across the series, the argument follows the evolution of the platform economy—from the optimism of the early internet to the growing tensions...

@kkomaitis.bsky.social Sep 29, 2026, 4:36 AM

Part III is out: In Part II, the story focused on how measuring behaviour is not the same as understanding people. Part III takes that idea further, examining what happens when the platforms' representations of the world begin to substitute for the world www.techdirt.com/2026/09/28/t...

Mike Masnick@masnick.comSep 29, 2026, 1:05 AM

Here's Part III in @kkomaitis.bsky.social epic 10-part series on "The Metric is Not the Mission." Highly recommend reading the whole thing...

techdirt.comThe Metric Is Not The Mission: When The Maps Became The TerritoryThe Metric Is Not the Mission is a ten-part examination of how Big Tech moved from building and expanding the open internet to increasingly shaping it around its own metrics, incentives and assumptions. Across the series, the argument follows the evolution of the platform economy—from the optimism of the early internet to the growing tensions...

@kkomaitis.bsky.social Sep 28, 2026, 5:36 AM

What a contribution to the AI global debate….

@kkomaitis.bsky.social Sep 26, 2026, 5:41 AM

Part II is out — This second part goes back to the beginning, asking what these companies originally understood about people and how the metrics that once measured their success gradually became the definition of it.

www.techdirt.com/2026/09/25/t...

Mike Masnick@masnick.comSep 26, 2026, 12:11 AM

Part II in @kkomaitis.bsky.social epic 10 part series about how and where big tech went wrong. I promise you, you're going to want to read the whole thing...

techdirt.comThe Metric Is Not The Mission: When They Still Understood UsThe Metric Is Not the Mission is a ten-part examination of how Big Tech moved from building and expanding the open internet to increasingly shaping it around its own metrics, incentives and assumptions. Across the series, the argument follows the evolution of the platform economy—from the optimism of the early internet to the growing tensions...