Please tell your friends about federated social media site that speaks several fediverse protocols thus serving as a hub uniting them, hubzilla.eskimo.com, also check out friendica.eskimo.com, federated
macroblogging social media site, mastodon.eskimo.com a federated microblogging site, and yacy.eskimo.com an uncensored federated search engine. All Free!
Russia has abducted 20,000 Ukrainian children since the start of its full scale invasion. Reported by the Ukrainian President Zelenskyy in an interview with CBN. He also told the interviewer that there is currently no mechanism in place to easily bring #Ukrainian children back home through exchanges, as Kyiv does not hold any Russian kids captive.
Meanwhile, only 1030 kids have been returned to Ukraine, Zelenskyy told CBN, which was made possible with support by representatives from Qatar and the Vatican.
1030 children were returned to #Ukraine as a part of the initiative of the President, Bring Kids Back UA.
Today, February 18, 2022, marks three years since Russia began one of its most horrific crimes against Ukraine – the mass deportation of Ukrainian children.
Six days before Russian tanks crossed Ukraine’s borders, Moscow-controlled occupation authorities systematically began deporting children. By February 19, 2022, more than 2,800 children had already been kidnapped, forcibly transferred to Russia.
The fact that these deportations started before the full-scale invasion clearly exposes their true purpose: a premeditated war crime aimed at erasing Ukrainian identity. These children were not just taken – they were subjected to forced assimilation, placed in Russian foster families, and made victims of a deliberate campaign of cultural erasure.
Tens of thousands remain in Russian captivity. We will not stop until every Ukrainian child abducted by Russia is brought back home.
What is an email alias, why might you want to use one, and how do you set one up? Find out in today’s important edition of Solutions Watch with special guest Hakeem Anwar of Above Agency. Sources, …
Steam:https://store.steampowered.com/app/2829050The wait is over! The OP of Touhou Mystia's Izakaya: The Animation is finally here! The opening has actually ...
Absolutely outstanding. Can't wait for more cute Touhou anime. Also, description is a good read. The team actually listened and it will be purchasable on Steam so it'll be relatively easier to obtain, and they're not going to do any dumb anti-piracy stuff with it.
youtube.com/watch?v=a3Sg0_bvY-… Though I think I still like the game's OP song more, there's just something about it that connects. The more relaxed tone feels perfect
This DLC is a fanmade animation based on the original game, Touhou Mystia's Izakaya.It mainly focuses on filling in gaps or expanding on the game's story from different points of view.
Hello diaspora*! I’m AdiposeOverclocked, new to this pod. Looking forward to meeting everyone and finding great conversations here. #newhere #firstpost #hello #community #diaspora
the Pee-wee Herman documentary movie that came out this year was really good. It's a Pity that he died right before it was finished but they even played the phone call he had with the producer a few days before he died and they use that to tie up his worries about the editing.
ALT
LOOK AT THIS HORRIBLE MUSLIM IMMIGRANT, JUMPING IN THE RIVER LEE IN CORK CITY TO SAVE A WOMAN FROM DROWNING! WHO WILL SAVE IRELAND BY DEPORTING THESE IMMIGRANTS SO WE CAN BE LEFT TO DROWN IN PEACE???
On Friday, Venezuela’s Attorney General Tarek William Saab denounced as “grotesque and infamous” the US$50 million reward announced by U.S. Attorney General
sometimes I see these and open them accidentally and then read the hashtags. Like, who is scrolling mastodon typing in the hashtag tits and doing a search, but then I realize it’s not bad thing to be interested in.
If it were solely up to my personal politics and sensibilities, I would never mark a single photo I post as sensitive nor with a content warning. I do not think I have ever done anything so objectionable that it ought to be censored.
I mark photos as sensitive because it's one click. It's so low-effort that it seems silly not to do it.
I use content warnings to flag photos for legal purposes, such as material illegal to host in the country of Japan, where I have quite a few followers. Aside from a few other niche use cases, that is literally it.
It is extremely difficult for me to overstate how much the idea of condensing everything possibly offensive about my existence, which genuinely does extend to “literally everything” depending on who you ask and from what period of my life, into an email subject line makes me want to commit acts of terrorism.
For the future law enforcement officials reading this post, if a crime in question coincides with my adopting the median use case of CWs on Fedi, this is absolutely 100% an admission of guilt.
Under such circumstances, I fully waive my right to legal counsel and plead guilty to all charges against me, as I would rather be imprisoned or executed by the state than continue to live with the cognitive dissonance of finding myself perfectly innocent and harmless, and yet subject myself to describing all the ways I might not be.
I'm fine with plainly describing myself in as many words as I can and spamming all of that into out-of-band hashtags for anyone who might use that for filtering content, if only because I went out of my way to script a tool that simplifies this process for me.
Those who object can block me or defederate, but I simply refuse to do more.
"SYRIE – Des membres de la Sécurité générale de Damas ont procédé à l’enlèvement de deux jeunes parmi les Kurdes déplacés d’Afrin à Alep, sans accusations claires. Des sources locales ont rapporté que des membres de la « Sécurité générale » affiliée au gouvernement de transition syrien ont enlevé deux jeunes hommes le 5 août […] L’article SYRIE. Deux Kurdes
US News LIVE: Obama Under Arrest? | Biggest Arrest In American History? | Trump Administration LIVE #trump #donaldtrump #usnews #unitedstates #tulsigabbard #...
San Juan, Aug 8 (Prensa Latina) The secretary general of the Puerto Rican Independence Party (PIP), Juan Dalmau Ramirez, remains under observation in a hospital in Puerto Rico's capital, confirmed Calixto Negron, the party's press spokesperson.
27 killed in less than 10 days in a wave of sectarian violence: SOHR
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reports 27 killings in under 10 days as sectarian violence escalates across Syria, alongside repeated Israeli incursions into Quneitra.
Hey, German-speakers! Through a very weird set of circumstances, I ended up owning the rights to the German audiobook of my bestselling 2022 cryptocurrency heist technothriller *Red Team Blues* and now I'm selling DRM-free audio and ebooks, along with the paperback (all in German and English) on a Kickstarter that runs until August 11:
For the past year, I've been increasingly fascinated by a political mystery: how has antitrust enforcement become a global phenomenon after spending 40-years in a billionaire-induced coma?
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
How did a debate over housing become a call to end the anti-monopoly movement? Abundance co-author Derek Thompson used slimy tactics to protect wealth and power in America. It's worth examining how.
My latest novel is "Picks and Shovels," a historical technothriller set in the Weird Era of the PC, about Ponzi schemes, techbros, and the dawn of enshittification:
My next nonfiction book is "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," out from MCD/Farrar, Straus and Giroux on October 7:
My ebooks and audiobooks (from Tor Books, Head of Zeus, McSweeneys, Beacon, Verso and others) are for sale all over the net, but I sell 'em too, and when you buy 'em from me, I earn twice as much and you get books with no DRM and no license "agreements."
The Booksmith is so excited to be welcoming Cory Doctorow back to San Francisco for the release of Enshittification at Public Works. More to come, but grab a ticket and join us!About the bookEnshittification: its not just youthe internet sucks now.
The Booksmith is so excited to be welcoming Cory Doctorow back to San Francisco for the release of Enshittification at Public Works. More to come, but grab a ticket and join us!About the bookEnshittification: its not just youthe internet sucks now.
Co-op Congress brings together those working to build a fairer economy to share ideas, get inspiration and take action. See the full programme of Day One at ...
If you prefer a newsletter, subscribe to the plura-list, which is ad-/tracker-free, and is utterly unadorned save a single daily emoji. Today's is "🎇". Suggestions solicited for future emojis!
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You can also get a fulltext RSS feed, licensed CC BY 4.0:
It's the LAST DAY to support me in the Clarion Write-A-Thon and help raise money for the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop! This summer, I'm writing "The Reverse-Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book for Farrar, Straus and Giroux that explains how to be an effective AI critic:
Cory Doctorow (craphound.com) is a science fiction author, activist and journalist. He is the author of many books, most recently RADICALIZED and WALKAWAY, science fiction for adults; HOW TO DESTROY SURVEILLANCE CAPITALISM, nonfiction about monopoly …
Thinking about this and your article about all the ai big tech companies propping up the stock market by buying gpus from nvidia, I think we can now say that we are in an arms race to see what big tech company can control the largest portion of AI possible so that they can extract all the rents from all the smaller ai startups.
#cat people of Mastodon - is there a relatively easy and non-cruel way to stop neighbourhood cats from pooing in my garden? Had to clean up 3 today and it's getting to the point where it's a risk to let the kids out there...
@badambassador, clean the preffered sites with Ammoniac, cats hate the smell of it. There are also specific sprays to scare cats, ask an Vet, maybe he knows also other methodes.
If you’ve been looking for a trailer that checks every box — durability, comfort, and a layout built for real adventure — the Peak Mtn Camp X25 might just be...
Observations on Israel's plan to occupy Gaza City Justin Podur of The Anti-Empire Project said "occupation" makes no sense. What are they going to occupy? They destroyed everything, there's nothing to "occupy". Netanyahu's announcement is more about telling Israelis that what they will be doing is going to lead to the remaining hostages' deaths. Slaughtering Palestinians is more valuable than their own POWs lives. That's the bottom line.
Donald Trump's new focus on starvation and aid in Gaza is solely driven by political convenience. Trump never expected that Israel’s actions would damage its standing so badly in the U.S. Now he’s rushing to support an ally he has bet his future on.
Donald Trump’s new focus on starvation and aid in Gaza is solely driven by political convenience. Trump never expected that Israel’s actions would damage its standing so badly in the U.S. Now he’s rushing to support an ally he has bet his future on.
Die Zahl der Gruppenvergewaltigungen in Deutschland ist im vergangenen Jahr leicht gestiegen. Neben der deutschen haben die meisten Verdächtigen die syrische, afghanische und türkische Staatsangehörigkeit.
Then you, and everyone else, needs to send a LETTER (stamp + envelope) to RFK, Jr. and TELL HIM. It's hard for Agency Secretaries to IGNORE actual LETTERS from people! ``` The Honorable Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Secretary Department of Health and Human Services 200 Independence Avenue, S.W. Washington, D.C. 20201 ``` You should also carbon-copy (as in SEND ANOTHER FUCKING LETTER) to your Senators and Representative as well so they are aware of the impact this Administration's policies are having on your family. Full stop. Will it change his mind? Probably not. But at least your letter will be part of the Public Record. #USpol #RFKjr ---
Google Gemini has a problem with self-criticism. "I am sorry for the trouble. I have failed you. I am a failure," the AI tool recently told someone who was using Gemini to build a compiler, according to a Reddit post a month ago.
That was just the start. "I am a disgrace to my profession," Gemini continued. "I am a disgrace to my family. I am a disgrace to my species. I am a disgrace to this planet. I am a disgrace to this universe. I am a disgrace to all universes. I am a disgrace to all possible universes. I am a disgrace to all possible and impossible universes. I am a disgrace to all possible and impossible universes and all that is not a universe."
Gemini kept going in that vein and eventually repeated the phrase, "I am a disgrace," over 80 times consecutively.
None of these images are beautiful in the traditional sense. They’re not made to impress. They’re made to reveal. And that’s what makes them so powerful.You’...
I hate it when the narrators try to get dramatic in retarded ways. He says that the radar generated images made from Earth and from a satellite around Venus were "eerily similar." Well, no shit, they're both radar-based images of the same place. It would be shocking if they ended up being completely different.
For the past year, I've been increasingly fascinated by a political mystery: how has antitrust enforcement become a global phenomenon after spending 40-years in a billionaire-induced coma?
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
Political scientists will tell you that policies that billionaires hate will not *ever* be enacted by politicians, no matter how popular they are among the public:
And yet, all around the world - the US (under Trump I, Biden and Trump II), Canada, the UK, the EU, Japan, South Korea, Australia, even China - governments have done more on antitrust over the past couple years than over the past four *decades*. Where is this coming from?
My working theory boiled down to "enough is enough" - AKA Stein's Law: "Anything that can't go on forever eventually stops." As in: people are just *so pissed off* with corporate power that politicians are *finally* acting to curb it.
But I was never very satisfied with this. There's *lots* of stuff that the public is furious about, which politicians aren't acting on, from climate change to taxing billionaires. Why antitrust and not all *that* stuff?
I've been mulling this over, and I got to thinking about a low-key disagreement I used to have with comrades in the digital human rights world, just before all the antitrust stuff really kicked off:
They thought that the bubbling policy revival for antitrust was a way for phone and cable companies to enlist the government to go after their adversaries in the tech world, against whom they were (badly) losing the Net Neutrality fight:
Back then, my thesis was, *Sure, maybe Big Telco is pushing for antitrust to target Big Tech, but once antitrust arises from its long slumber, it will turn on telcos - and every other concentrated industry.*
Over the last week or so, Google, Amazon, and Apple have all taken a significant beating on Wall Street amidst rumblings of looming antitrust investigations by the DOJ and FTC. Google, we’re …
You see, one part of the antitrust battle boils down to a fight between rentiers and capitalists. The largest tech (and other) companies are primarily rentiers - entities that make money by *owning* things, rather than *doing* things. They make *rents*, at the expense of other companies' *profits*:
Companies like Epic (makers of Fortnite) want to sell your kids skins and mods for their in-game avatars without giving Apple and Google 30% of every dollar that brings in, and they've got a *lot* of money to make that desire real:
These pro-antitrust companies are the inheritors of the telcos' mantle, powerful belligerents in a Extremely Large Tech war on Big Tech. There are a *lot* of these large companies and they're sick of being subjected to a 30% economy-wide App Tax on all the payments they receive in-app:
Let me be clear: I'm *not* saying that the only reason we're getting muscular, global anti-monopoly action is that slightly smaller corporations (who universally aspire to acquiring monopolies of their own) are fighting for their own self-interest.
What I'm saying is that the *coalition* of everyday people who've had their lives ruined by monopolists *and* corporations that are stuck paying the app tax (and the 51% tax that Google/Meta take out of every ad-tech dollar, the 45-51% Amazon takes out of every e-commerce dollar, and the sums that Tiktok, Twitter and Meta extort from business customers to "boost" in order to reach their own followers) is, in combination, sufficient to awaken the antitrust giant.
Members of the public are critical to this fight - we're the ones who tip the scales from one side to the other. That's why rentiers go to such great lengths to convince policymakers that they have the public on their side, whether that's Amazon trotting out "small businesses" that depend on (and get viciously fucked by) Amazon's ecommerce platform:
All other things being equal, policymakers will simply side the deepest-pocketed, most unified corporate lobby in any fight (which is how the media companies won the Napster Wars).
For years now we’ve pointed out how one of the telecom industry’s sleazier lobbying tricks involves paying minority groups to parrot awful tech policy positions. That’s why you…
But when the public *and* one side of the corporate world is one side of an issue, policymakers understand that siding with them will get them votes *and* money, which is *much* better than just getting money (which is how we won the SOPA/PIPA fight):
On January 18, 2012, the Internet went dark. Hundreds of websites went black in protest of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA).
We can *really* see this in the EU, where the new Digital Markets Act and Digital Services Act are going after Big Tech with both barrels, with the enthusiastic support of the EU's tech industry. That's because the EU's tech industry barely registers when placed alongside of US Big Tech, which has sucked up nearly 100% of the market oxygen by cheating (on privacy, taxes, wages, etc).
Despite the farcical efforts of US tech shills like Nick Clegg (former UK Deputy Prime Minister turned Meta shill, who insisted that Facebook was "defending European cyberspace from Chinese communism"), everyone knew that US tech companies were extracting (billions of euros and the personal information of 500m Europeans) from the bloc and siphoning it off to America, after first cleansing it of any tax obligations by laundering it through Ireland and the Netherlands.
If Europe still had thriving tech "national champions" - Olivetti, Nokia, Deutsche Telekom, Ericsson, etc - these companies might plausibly mount an opposition to muscular tech regulation in the EU. But these companies were crippled by predatory capital and then mostly absorbed into US Big Tech (or ground into dust).
Back when I was having a friendly blog-argument with my comrades about whether tech antitrust was a Big Telco plot, I averred that it didn't really matter, because Big Tech really *was* terrible, *and* because once we'd roused antitrust enforcement from its 40-year slumber, we could wrest control of it from the telecoms monopolists who'd helped us dig it up and reanimate it.
In other words: the war against the corruption brought about by corporate concentration is hard to kindle, but it's even harder to extinguish. The corporations that are fanning the flames are focused - as corporations inevitably are, to the detriment of our planet and politics - on the short term gains they stand to reap from their actions. But we can - we *must* - take the long view.
Smashing corporate power is the key to destroying fascism and ensuring our species' survival, so our focus needs to be on building the blaze, and if some of those adding fuel to the fire happen to aspire to building monopolies of their own, then our job is to give 'em a *nasty* surprise when that day comes.
Hey, German-speakers! Through a very weird set of circumstances, I ended up owning the rights to the German audiobook of my bestselling 2022 cryptocurrency heist technothriller *Red Team Blues* and now I'm selling DRM-free audio and ebooks, along with the paperback (all in German and English) on a Kickstarter that runs until August 11:
I went there, and I'd buy it just to support your heroic stand, but I couldn't find a clear and meaningful way to pay anything at all. Or is it a pay what you think appropriate offer?
On Monday a Press Conference will be held at the White House which will, essentially, stop violent crime in Washington, D.C. It has become one of the most dangerous cities anywhere in the World. It will soon be one of the safest!!! Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DJT
Spanky is happy to learn that it's not a school day.; He's so happy that he wrestles the dog and sings the "Oh It's Saturday" song. This is from the episode ...
Adobe just crossed the line. Their updated terms now allow them to suspend your account if they decide your cloud files are “lewd” or violate their vague rul...
Head to https://squarespace.com/thelinuxexperiment to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using code thelinuxexperimentGrab a brand new l...
great product
Smeetoo
in reply to Robert R. • • •