BEIRUT, Oct 10 (Reuters) - Israeli troops opened fire at three positions held by U.N. peacekeepers in southern Lebanon on Thursday, according to a U.N. source who was not immediately able to specify the type of fire.
The source said one of the locations fired at was UNIFIL's main base at Naqoura. There was no official statement from UNIFIL or immediate comment from the Israeli military.
UNIFIL had said on Sunday that it was "deeply concerned by recent activities" by the Israeli military near a peacekeeper position in southwestern Lebanon.
In a letter to Israel's military dated Oct. 3 and seen by Reuters, UNIFIL had objected to Israeli military vehicles and troops positioning themselves "in immediate proximity" to U.N. positions, "thereby endangering the safety and security of UNIFIL personnel and premises".
I almost guarantee this turns out the same way. That is, if the world can find it in themselves to have a single moral or ethic, and then act on it.
Nuttonyahoo will be made the sole person responsible for this, like Hitler is villainized, and alllllll the Israeli citizens who cheered for rape and torture will be let off Scott free, out into the world with their twisted and warped and disgusting thoughts.
The issue is, however, the largest superpower is backing and supporting the actions of Israel in this regard. "The World" would have to label the United States as an active participant and begin the process of sanctioning and isolating the US. Either way, it wasn't morals or ethics that ultimately led to turning on Nazi Germany. Before the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the United States was very comfortable in keeping itself out of the conflict. At the time, Anti-Semitism was the soup du jour of domestic policy in Europe and America.
The Franks (of Anne Frank fame) attempted to immigrate into the US leading up to World War II, and despite Otto Frank's connections within the American government, and his connections as a businessman, him and his family were deemed a "security risk" and denied entry. They were one family out of thousands who were turned away by FDR's State Department. It was clear early on that the Third Reich was facilitating mass oppression against their Jewish population. The problem, ultimately, is that the prevailing opinions about the Jewish people were shared
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The issue is, however, the largest superpower is backing and supporting the actions of Israel in this regard. "The World" would have to label the United States as an active participant and begin the process of sanctioning and isolating the US. Either way, it wasn't morals or ethics that ultimately led to turning on Nazi Germany. Before the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the United States was very comfortable in keeping itself out of the conflict. At the time, Anti-Semitism was the soup du jour of domestic policy in Europe and America.
The Franks (of Anne Frank fame) attempted to immigrate into the US leading up to World War II, and despite Otto Frank's connections within the American government, and his connections as a businessman, him and his family were deemed a "security risk" and denied entry. They were one family out of thousands who were turned away by FDR's State Department. It was clear early on that the Third Reich was facilitating mass oppression against their Jewish population. The problem, ultimately, is that the prevailing opinions about the Jewish people were shared within the western powers. From an American perspective, what the Third Reich was doing with its Nuremberg laws wasn't too far off from what America was doing with its Jim Crow laws, in fact, the Nuremberg Laws were heavily influenced by the Jim Crow laws of America. Meanwhile, European countries facilitated the emigration of Jews from their borders through the Third Reich's first solution, which was relocating the Jewish people to "Israel", of which they covered the majority of the costs to do so.
The United States didn't enter into the war until after the attack on Pearl Harbor, which was a form of blowback resulting from the British and American embargo on oil heading to the Japanese Empire. Up to that point, the states had been operating Lend-Lease programs for weapons and supplying the Allied powers with material support in an attempt to allow them to deal with the Axis threat. There were great material interests in pushing the Third Reich back, as they had expansionist ambitions, ones that would see them control land and resources that the Allied forces had ready access to. Ambitions of conquest in Africa and Asia, as well as a colonization scheme into Russia. It wasn't until April 1945 that the Dachau Concentration Camp was discovered and ultimately liberated. The idea that the Allied powers were fighting against the Third Reich on Moral and Ethical grounds rooted in the treatment of the Jews is very much a misunderstanding of the timeline of that war. The European front was effectively finished by May that same year.
So this idea that the world "can find it in themselves to have a single moral or ethic, and then act on it", as if that was what happened in World War II, is idealism, and a revisionist view of the events of that war. I do not see this conflict playing out as the way you imagine it.
Remember what happened first time when they did that ultimatum? Yeah, absolutely fucking nothing and this time we can't even count on the ultimatum target invading the ultimatum issuers which finally forced them to do anything.
Netanyahu has the gaul to tell Biden to his face whilst sitting in the oval office, that he's a Zionist. An Irish American Zionist. Of all the nationalities he could have called out for being a Zionist, Irish sure is a strange one.
Now the IDF opens fire on a UN peacekeeping force where Irish peacekeepers are stationed. Dude is going to put on a Gimp suit and tickle Joe's asshole with his nose whilst wanking him off with rosery beads on live TV next, or something 🤣.
In 2006, during the last major confrontation, a UN Observation Position (OP) came under Israeli artillery and aerial bombardment.
Despite repeated appeals to the IDF to stop firing, throughout 25 July, the OP on the outskirts of the village of Khiam was finally destroyed.
Four UN military observers from Austria, Canada, China and Finland were killed.
Israel’s ambassador to the US, Danny Ayalon, said “Unifil obviously got caught in the middle", and suggested that the deadly fire could have come from Hezbollah.
A UN investigation concluded that the base had been destroyed by a 500kg precision-guided bomb dropped by an Israeli warplane.
Israel concluded that human error was to blame.
In 1996, during an earlier round of fighting, Israeli artillery shells hit another UN compound, at Qana, where around 800 displaced Lebanese civilians were sheltering.
106 civilians were killed and four Fijian peacekeepers were injured.
In the aftermath of Israel’s war in Gaza, Blinken conducted a whirlwind trip through the Middle East, trying to negotiate humanitarian assistance for Gaza.
By the time Blinken arrived in Saudi Arabia to meet MBS, he was exhausted, journalist Bob Woodward writes in his new book, “War,” which was obtained by CNN ahead of its October 15 release.
But the crown prince, a “night owl,” kept Blinken and his team up all night before finally meeting. Woodward quotes Blinken saying, “MBS was nothing more than a spoiled child.”
“Do I want it?” MBS said and tapped his heart, Woodard writes. “It doesn’t matter that much. Do I need it? Absolutely.”
Woodward also recounts a meeting that Graham, the South Carolina senator, had with the crown prince in March.
“Hey, let’s call Trump,” Graham said to MBS while visiting with the Saudi leader in March.
Woodward also writes that the Saudi leader operates and communicates with various world leaders and government officials. Wo
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In the aftermath of Israel’s war in Gaza, Blinken conducted a whirlwind trip through the Middle East, trying to negotiate humanitarian assistance for Gaza.
By the time Blinken arrived in Saudi Arabia to meet MBS, he was exhausted, journalist Bob Woodward writes in his new book, “War,” which was obtained by CNN ahead of its October 15 release.
But the crown prince, a “night owl,” kept Blinken and his team up all night before finally meeting. Woodward quotes Blinken saying, “MBS was nothing more than a spoiled child.”
“Do I want it?” MBS said and tapped his heart, Woodard writes. “It doesn’t matter that much. Do I need it? Absolutely.”
Woodward also recounts a meeting that Graham, the South Carolina senator, had with the crown prince in March.
“Hey, let’s call Trump,” Graham said to MBS while visiting with the Saudi leader in March.
Woodward also writes that the Saudi leader operates and communicates with various world leaders and government officials. Woodward says bin Salman had an aide bring over a bag with about 50 burner phones, pulling out one labeled “TRUMP 45.”
Among the others in the bag, Woodward writes, was a burner labeled “JAKE SULLIVAN.”
Swedish police said on Thursday that they are investigating a shooting near an “Israeli target” in Gothenburg, which the national broadcaster said was a unit of Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit Systems, Reuters has reported. There were no reports of any injuries.
A young suspect was apprehended at the scene and a preliminary investigation into suspected attempted murder and serious weapons crime has been initiated, added police.
A police spokesperson declined to comment on the suspected target. Elbit Systems in Sweden did not immediately respond to a request from Reuters for comment.
Bolivia has formally joined South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), according to the court in The Hague.
The South American nation filed an application on Tuesday to intervene in the case, which accuses Israel of perpetrating “genocidal acts” in violation of the Genocide Convention in its war on Gaza.
08 Oct 2024 - Israeli occupation forces have intensified their siege of the Jabalia camp and the surrounding neighborhoods, including Tal al-Zaatar, al-Sikka, Beit Hanoun, and Beit Lahia. The Israeli forces have also taken up positions in the western region of the Gaza Strip, advancing as far as the Jaffa Cemetery and the Tawam Junction.
With airstrikes, fire belts, and artillery shelling—including bombing homes over the heads of their occupants—the Israeli occupation forces have been occupying large portions of northern Gaza since Saturday evening, 5 October. Dozens of people have been killed and injured as a result of this ongoing invasion.
Initial reports confirmed that five citizens—including a woman, a man, and his son—were executed by the occupation forces for trying to escape the Jabalia camp while waving white flags.
We are excited to announce the release of Mbin v1.7.2! This version is packed with important bug fixes and performance improvements, focused on bug fixes rather than new features.
The main improvements are:
Fixing many PHP undefined, null or other errors that admins might see in their production logs.
Resolving several templating null issues.
Removing CSRF tokens from public forms (when user isn't logged-in), reduce unnecessary large amount of sessions.
Migrating Symfony sessions from Redis to PostgreSQL to avoid race conditions.
Increase session & cookies duration to 4 months (so people stay logged-in).
Adding a down-vote mode in .env.
Add stricter requirements on the routes configuration (reducing invalid requests are making it to the controller).
Introducing a scheduler for removing deleted user messages & pruning the dead letter queue in RabbitMQ.
Various other bug fixes and updating package dependencies and translation improvements.
Just for the people interested in mbin, here are a few magazine/community pointers: - !mbinReleases@gehirneimer.de - !updates@kbin.melroy.org - !mbinmeta@gehirneimer.de
tl;dr — you can now send me DMs. I blatently and unforgivingly abused the NodeBB chat system to make this work.
Ever since I started this project at the start of 2024, I knew that posts with limited visibility were going to be a sore spot. ActivityPub has the concept of "addressing", with the following valid entries:
An actor (as:Person or similar) uri
A followers collection (?!?!?!)
The public collection
However, posts and topics in NodeBB have their privileges and access scoped to the category, which meant that while it is able to restrict visibility/posting/etc. to specific users, the system was not flexible enough to handle individual posts with different user visibilities.
Given that limitation, up until this week, if your object did not contain the public collection https://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams#Public, it was automatically and unceremoniously dropped because there was no way NodeBB could display it to the targeted user without leaking it to other
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tl;dr — you can now send me DMs. I blatently and unforgivingly abused the NodeBB chat system to make this work.
Ever since I started this project at the start of 2024, I knew that posts with limited visibility were going to be a sore spot. ActivityPub has the concept of "addressing", with the following valid entries:
An actor (as:Person or similar) uri
A followers collection (?!?!?!)
The public collection
However, posts and topics in NodeBB have their privileges and access scoped to the category, which meant that while it is able to restrict visibility/posting/etc. to specific users, the system was not flexible enough to handle individual posts with different user visibilities.
Given that limitation, up until this week, if your object did not contain the public collection https://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams#Public, it was automatically and unceremoniously dropped because there was no way NodeBB could display it to the targeted user without leaking it to other users.
I had gone through a couple iterations to try to figure out a way to make this work, but none stuck (see the follow-up technical post for more details), and I had just about relegated it to the "think on this for awhile" pile until a recent post by @scott@authorship.studio got me thinking outside of the box:
and your forums, direct messages, and inbox can have different feature sets.
Emphasis mine.
Unlike topics and posts, NodeBB's chat system is not constrained by the privilege system, and each chat room has its own collection of members, which in many ways made it a better fit!
I put together a proof-of-concept in a couple days, and we're test driving it now. So my apologies if in the past year you tried to DM me, and I didn't respond. I wasn't ignoring you, NodeBB just didn't know how to handle it, promise!
Here's how NodeBB's chat system differs from other ActivityPub implementations that you might be aware of (*ahem hem* Mastodon):
NodeBB will accept and parse all non-public objects, but (for now) only sends out responses directly to recipients (aka "mentioned only")
That means "Followers only" posts are accepted but responses are scoped to the individuals themselves (no followers)
Mastodon has something called "unlisted" or "quiet public". These are still technically public and are parsed the same as any other topic/post.
Mastodon uses "mentions" as a form of addressing, and so the non-public notes are always addressed to the same set of people who are mentioned.
NodeBB does not do this. You can mention whoever you want without the message accidentally leaking out because who you mention is different from who is in the chat room.
If NodeBB receives a response to a chat message and it contains fewer recipients than expected, it will start a new chat room for privacy.
Conversely, if a response contains more recipients, then that user will be added to the chat room.
@jdp23@blahaj.zone I've made this same mistake myself (although not in a leaking way). I removed the mentions in a reply and wondered why they didn't get my response!
The fact that this is a UX stumbling block that gets hit by users again and again and again means it's not a great UX!
yeah, horrible UX. talk about violating the principle of least surprise! it's happened to me more than once.
Sharkey bizarrely has almost the inverse UX problem. The 'to' list is separate, as it should be ... but if it's more than a couple of people it extends off the right side of the screen (at least in Firefox) and there's no way to scroll. So I replied to a DM that had five people in it, deleted their mentions from the main text ... and still replied to them because they were on the To line, just not visible.
And then I'm pretty sure that if you DM reply on Mastodon to the Sharkey message, accounts show up in the reply even though there's absolutely no evidence that they were on the message you were replying to (because the mentions weren't there in the text, and Mastodon doesn't show a separate To line, or something like that). @stefan@stefanbohacek.online I think you ran into this as well?
At Apple’s secretive Global Police Summit at its Cupertino headquarters, cops from seven countries learned how to use a host of Apple products like the iPhone, Vision Pro and CarPlay for surveillance and policing work.
At Apple’s secretive Global Police Summit, cops from 7 countries learned how to use Apple products like the iPhone, Vision Pro and CarPlay for surveillance and policing.
What exactly is the surveillance part of this article? So far it seemed like a normal application developer conference deal but the page reloaded and now I only get paywall. I found myself feeling rather unsurprised.
Who would believe that a business as big as Apple wouldn’t comply with law enforcement requests in the first place? Of course they would when technically possible. They’re in the business of making money first, not defending you.
Yep, the article is about Apple showing cops how to use the tech, what apps the police in other countries is using to support their daily work and the police evaluating the use of more Apple tech in their daily duty (Carplay, Vision, etc.).
There’s nothing about spying on normal Apple users or Apple handing out your personal data to the cops in that article.
Once you get 3/4 through this article, and get to the actual content, it’s pretty underwhelming. Apple was basically just showing cops that they could be querying their existing databases with iOS mobile and or CarPlay experiences.
After reading the article, it doesn’t look like any of this contradicts what they’re been selling. Encrypted data is still locked down. IMHO, this title is fairly clickbaity.
A lot of this looks like iOS / CarPlay versions of policing / public records database software that was previously on platforms like Windows.
I don’t assume they are perfect. But I do absolutely believe they are significantly better on privacy than any other major player in the smartphone space.
Even if you don’t pay any attention to their policies and programs, the mere fact that iPhones aren’t running an OS owned by an advertising company should be enough to demonstrate this.
I agree. And if you want some level of convenience and some level of privacy I think Apple is the way to go.
For example I have the skills to use GrapheneOS but I just don't want to deal with it and I want to still be able to use NFC payments. So iOS is the next best thing.
This title seems kind of clickbaity. Most of the native apps are for querying existing government and police databases. We’re talking about accessing records via CarPlay, as opposed to using a bulky Window’s laptop docked in a center console.
Apple is still not offering governments a backdoor into encrypted content.
They’ll hand over unencrypted cloud data, but they are not decrypting E2EE cloud data. They literally can’t. They don’t have the key. If they had a key, it would be a monumental security vulnerability.
This is why governments and cops have dragging them into courts for years.
Because Apple has had a lot of very prominent court cases about unlocking phones for cops, and they famously haven’t done that. They, like other cloud service providers, have forked over cloud storage data, that isn’t e2ee, when given a warrant.
Sure, here is the legal document from Apple by Apple of what they share with law enforcement.
Included inside is:
III. Information Available from Apple A. Device Registration B. Customer Service Records C. Apple Media Services D. Apple Store Transactions E. Apple.com Orders F. Gift Cards G. Apple Cash H. Apple Pay I. Apple Pay Later J. Apple Card K. Savings L. iCloud M. Find My N. AirTag and Find My Network Accessory Program O. Extracting Data from Passcode Locked iOS Devices P. IP Address Request Q. Other Available Device Information R. Requests for Apple Store CCTV Data S. Game Center T. iOS Device Activation U. Connection Logs V. My Apple ID and iForgot Logs W. FaceTime X. iMessage Y. Apple TV app Z. Sign in with Apple AA. Apple Push Notification Service (APNs)
Has Apple unlocked iPhones for law enforcement in the past?
No.
We regularly receive law enforcement requests for information about our customers and their Apple devices. In fact, we have a dedicated team that responds to these requests 24/7. We also provide guidelines on our website for law enforcement agencies so they know exactly what we are able to access and what legal authority we need to see before we can help them.
For devices running the iPhone operating systems prior to iOS 8 and under a lawful court order, we have extracted data from an iPhone.
We’ve built progressively stronger protections into our products with each new software release, including passcode-based data encryption, because cyberattacks have only become more frequent and more sophisticated. As a result of these stronger protections that require data encryption, we are no longer able to use the data extr
Has Apple unlocked iPhones for law enforcement in the past?
No.
We regularly receive law enforcement requests for information about our customers and their Apple devices. In fact, we have a dedicated team that responds to these requests 24/7. We also provide guidelines on our website for law enforcement agencies so they know exactly what we are able to access and what legal authority we need to see before we can help them.
For devices running the iPhone operating systems prior to iOS 8 and under a lawful court order, we have extracted data from an iPhone.
We’ve built progressively stronger protections into our products with each new software release, including passcode-based data encryption, because cyberattacks have only become more frequent and more sophisticated. As a result of these stronger protections that require data encryption, we are no longer able to use the data extraction process on an iPhone running iOS 8 or later.
Hackers and cybercriminals are always looking for new ways to defeat our security, which is why we keep making it stronger.
This is for non e2ee cloud data. If you turn e2ee cloud encryption on, only you can access your cloud data. A government or police agency can’t access it, but you’re also kind of fucked if you need Apple’s support to access backup. So maybe leave it off for old parents.
Not just clickbait, the title is maliciously wrong.
The article is about Apple holding developers conferences with cops with the purpose of developing apps tailored to them, there's nothing about users privacy.
A business trying to enter a new market, what a weird concept eh?
Took me several reads of the headline to start with.
Then connecting it to the article contents, at least this is "accurate clickbait" (if there is such a thing). It actually describes what's going on, we just interpret it differently initially because of current circumstance (which I suppose you could say is the fldefinition of clickbait).
Still clickbait, but at least it's not an outright lie like so many, just worded to make us want to click!
I'm a bit chagrined to have been taken in by the extreme interpretation of the headline, when the milder interpretation (in a different climate) would be inoffensive.
Ffs, how far have we come when I'm showing appreciation for a clickbait headline's milder interpretation is accurate enough to not be a lie, but just attention-grabbing?
If you use your iPhone to conduct illicit business, the police can subpoena Apple and it will hand over your data (at least in the US).
Privacy in this context means preventing other apps from selling your data to brokers (e.g., location data) or using your phone information to do other stuff (e.g., AI training).
I guess it depends on the client and likely instance. Over here on Startrek.website and using the Voyager client I was able to just put != with no escapes required.
The various police agencies in this county aren't quiet about using surveillance that the STAZI would blush at. The newspapers and local bloggers refuse to push the issue with the police by asking questions or doing long term journalism for the effort is not TikTok-able.
If citizens criticize the police online the police find them using digital tracking and then harass them IRL and online.
The system is broken. And it makes the people that it breaks believe that they are noble for being part of the abuse cycle.
The USA is in a bit of a pickle with privacy, guns, stochastic violence, and system decay.
Am I the only person being confused by the apparent mirroring of the last two frames? Good comic BTW, I spent way too long on X and decided that those guys are either infiltrated by mossad, or they're actually that uninforned/unintelligent
They explained (in a now deleted response on twitter) that they targeted the Internet Archive because the US government is implicated in the ongoing genocide in Gaza and the Internet Archive belongs to the US.
A cursory search could've revealed that that's simply untrue.
Some people on twitter assume this is actually a Russian attack coinciding with the election, because apparently many journalists rely on the Internet Archive for research and sourcing.
What I find odd is that the message that they actually left on the site has nothing to do with Palestine, just childish "lol btfo" sort of message. So I wouldn't be surprised if these guys aren't the ones who actually did it, and it's merely a false flag to make pro-Palestinian protesters look like idiotic assholes.
I can't find the community forum thread where I originally learned about it, but here's a BBC article discussing the downstream fallout for apps that use OSM data.
I've just read about ClubsAll in the Fediverse Report and did some digging. It seems to be another Threadiverse service federating with Lemmy and others.
While I always welcome new platforms into the fediverse, there are some weird things with this one.
It isn't open source, but the developer mentioned on ProductHunt that they want to open source it in the future.
You can't run your own ClubsAll instance at the moment
They want you to join their Discord, but wouldn't it be better to have the conversation around it on ClubsAll itself? I've found a ClubsAll Community on ClubsAll but it only has two posts from 10 months ago without any comments or upvotes.
Their main se
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I've just read about ClubsAll in the Fediverse Report and did some digging. It seems to be another Threadiverse service federating with Lemmy and others.
While I always welcome new platforms into the fediverse, there are some weird things with this one.
It isn't open source, but the developer mentioned on ProductHunt that they want to open source it in the future.
You can't run your own ClubsAll instance at the moment
They want you to join their Discord, but wouldn't it be better to have the conversation around it on ClubsAll itself? I've found a ClubsAll Community on ClubsAll but it only has two posts from 10 months ago without any comments or upvotes.
Their main search bar is just a Google search
They want to finance it through paid accounts, awards and donations according to their about page.
According to their privacy policy they collect interactions with the content, like voting, bookmarking and reporting to improve and personalize the website and to develop new products and services and for marketing and promotional purposes.
I haven't found content that originated on ClubsAll yet, apart from c/ClubsAll. All I'm seeing is content federated from Lemmy communities.
For me there are some red flags in there, like closed source code, paid accounts and data collection for marketing. But, correct me if I'm wrong.
A reddit clone, at least we are starting with that but there is a lot more planned. We have a long list of innovative features we will continue to add one by one.
Mastodon has officially launched a new version, a new Reddit-like with ClubsAll has launched, and IFTAS has started rolling out their content classifier system.
Mastodon launches version 4.3
Mastodon has released version 4.3, and the update comes with a better notification system, design improvements, displaying follow recommendations in the following feed for new accounts, and the ability to highlight the fediverse profile of the authors of shared articles.
There are two updates to the notification system: notifications are now grouped, and the ability to filter notifications. Grouped notifications means that you’ll see a summary of the number of people who liked and boosted your post, instead of getting each notification individually. This is especially helpful for posts that go viral, as your notifications become unusable without grouping. Third party clients also support grouping notifications of new followers, which Mastodon does not do. With notification filters, you can limit specific types of notifications, for example from people who are not following you, from new accounts, or to filter out unsolicited private mentions.
With the new carousel that displays follow suggestions for new accounts, Mastodon leaned on transparency. For each suggestion it is also displayed why an account is suggested. It seems there are four different reasons for an account to be suggested: ‘Popular on your server’, ‘Popular among people you follow’, ‘Similar to profiles you recently followed’ and ‘Handpicked by your server admins’.
For future plans Mastodon mentions three parts: working on adding quote posts, the ability for server admins to subscribe to managed deny-lists and improving how long-form text is displayed in Mastodon. Mastodon also features a request for donations at the end, noting that they are supported by donations and operate on less than 500k per year. It showcases the difficult spot that Mastodon is in: as the post highlights, their competitors have access to significant capital, which allows them to ship features significantly faster. While it is remarkable what Mastodon has accomplished with their budget, the small team also means that it has taken a year to ship this update 4.3, while the competition can move significantly faster. Not taking venture capital, not selling ads, and not selling data are great things to do, but the update cadence of Mastodon versus that of Bluesky or Threads shows that not doing so puts a significant limit on what the organisation can accomplish during this period of protocol wars.
ClubsAll has launched
ClubsAll is a new fediverse project, a Reddit-alternative similar to Lemmy, PieFed and Mbin. ClubsAll main goal is to provide a clean and easily-accessible UI, and explicitly positions itself as a Reddit alternative. The other focus is on live comments and live chat, where new comments that are made on a post flow in directly visible. The comment section includes both the traditional threaded view as well as a chatbox to invite more chat-like realtime reactions. Other features are easy cross-posting of new posts to up to three communities, and having multiple profiles under a simple login.
With their simplified communities, ClubsAll takes in posts from multiple communities from Lemmy, PieFed and Mbin, and brands them under a single club. This does solve a practical problem, namely that communities can get split over multiple servers, creating duplicates without a clear distinction between the different communities. It is unclear what the practical difference is between the fediverse community on lemmy.ml and the fediverse community on lemmy.world. PieFed solves this problem by having both communities (similar to Lemmy), as well as ‘topics’, which aggregates different communities into a single topic. PieFed makes it explicit that it aggregates posts from multiple communities. ClubsAll however, mostly hides this information, making it less clear that posts come from different platforms. I’m curious to see what the response to this by the community will be, as there are no clear norms so far on what is an acceptable use of federation, and what isn’t. When you take in posts from a different platform, what form of attribution is necessary? ClubsAll clearly attributes the original author, but should the original community also be accredited? The answer is unclear to me, and I’m watching to see how this evolves.
The News
IFTAS has been working on a Content Classification System, and the first classifier is now active. A few select server are working together with IFTAS, where all the media of these servers now get scanned for CSAM. In case of a hit, IFTAS handles the mandatory requirement and record-keeping, and issues a takedown. CSAM moderation is a difficult task for server admins to keep track of, both of the toll it takes on the humans, as well for the complex legal requirements that come with it.
NLnet has been a major sponsor of fediverse projects over the years. They announced the results their latest funding round this week in which they sponsor a large variety of open source project. The fediverse project that got funded is Loops, a TikTok-like short video platform by Pixelfed developer Daniel Supernault. Loops was scheduled for a public beta launch on Wednesday the 9th, but this has been delayed for 11 days. Supernault attributes the delay to the rumour that Threads is working on a Communities feature that is also supposedly called Loops, as well as to further polish the app and platform.
The SocialCG, the W3C Community Group for ActivityPub has agreed on starting work to form a charter to transition towards a Working Group. The details require some knowledge of W3C processes (that I don’t fully grok either), but the very short summary is that a Working Group has more impact on making changes to the ActivityPub protocol.
FediMod FIRES is both a protocol for distributing moderation advisories and recommendations and a reference server implementation. Emelia Smith, who is behind the project, has updated the website with more information as well as a general timeline for when work on the project happens.
ActivityPods is a project that combines the Solid protocol with ActivityPub, and they have released their 2.0 version. ActivityPods allows users to create a single account for multiple different apps; with ActivityPub you need a separate accounts for Pixelfed and Mastodon, for example. ActivityPods gives you one place to store your data, your Pod, based on the Solid protocol, and the Inbox and Outbox system of ActivityPub. This update of ActivityPods gives the ability to set granular permission levels for the access to data than an app has that is build on top of ActivityPods.
Seems a bit weird indeed, especially the closed source part and lack of details on how they implement federation (is it possible to follow a clubsall community from elsewhere?)
Reddit thread paints a sad picture. Product founder without a technical co-founder. Isn't able to articulate market fit. Doesn't trust his engineer's work. Yikes
With their simplified communities, ClubsAll takes in posts from multiple communities from Lemmy, PieFed and Mbin, and brands them under a single club. This does solve a practical problem, namely that communities can get split over multiple servers, creating duplicates without a clear distinction between the different communities. It is unclear what the practical difference is between the fediverse community on lemmy.ml and the fediverse community on lemmy.world. PieFed solves this problem by having both communities (similar to Lemmy), as well as ‘topics’, which aggregates different communities into a single topic. PieFed makes it explicit that it aggregates posts from multiple communities. ClubsAll however, mostly hides this information, making it less clear that posts come from different platforms. I’m curious to see what the response to this by the community will be, as there are no clear norms so far on what is an acceptable use of federation, and what isn’t. When you take in posts from a different platform, what form of attribution is necessary
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With their simplified communities, ClubsAll takes in posts from multiple communities from Lemmy, PieFed and Mbin, and brands them under a single club. This does solve a practical problem, namely that communities can get split over multiple servers, creating duplicates without a clear distinction between the different communities. It is unclear what the practical difference is between the fediverse community on lemmy.ml and the fediverse community on lemmy.world. PieFed solves this problem by having both communities (similar to Lemmy), as well as ‘topics’, which aggregates different communities into a single topic. PieFed makes it explicit that it aggregates posts from multiple communities. ClubsAll however, mostly hides this information, making it less clear that posts come from different platforms. I’m curious to see what the response to this by the community will be, as there are no clear norms so far on what is an acceptable use of federation, and what isn’t. When you take in posts from a different platform, what form of attribution is necessary? ClubsAll clearly attributes the original author, but should the original community also be accredited? The answer is unclear to me, and I’m watching to see how this evolves.
I can for sure tell you that !politics@lemmy.world and !politics@lemmy.ml are definitely not the same communities, and hiding that might give users some surprises
My post now federated to ClubsAll, comments seem to federate a little slower. There is no mention that this is content from lemmy.world and clicking on the fediverse "club" just gives a 404.
From a entrepreneur point of view, this looks like a clear monetization attempt. Gather content from federated communities, sell to investors on the name "fediverse". B2C is generally very hard to pull off because there's so much competition so I doubt they'll succeed, but there is that saying about seeing what sticks on the wall.
Also, from both a user and entrepreneur point of view, you need to break into markets by starting small. The fediverse heavily leveraged the open source community to get started. I personally would not be on Lemmy if Lemmy wasn't AGPL. ClubsAll doesn't have that.
With no ill intent, I hope they fail. They're not contributing, and we don't need proprietary cancer in the fediverse.
Any reason why they should be defederated, other than "we don't like closed source around here"?
I really don't mind closed platforms being federated as long as it doesn't hurt the rest of us in any way. If it brings in some users who are drawn in by the interface, that's great.
Of course, being a single site it might draw the wrong crowd, and end up having serious moderation problems. In that case of course defederation is a natural choice.
I don't think this will be much of a problem for the rest of us, as the users over there will also not be interested in posting in communities where they get fewer interactions. It sounds bad for people who want to start a community at cluball, but unless it somehow gets larger than the rest of the threadiverse combined it's not really much of a problem for the rest of us.
Not being able to host your own ClubsAll instance is another issue.
Let's take a hypothetical scenario - As they are on ProductHunt, they manage to raise a few millions, hire devs, develop every feature you can think about under the sun - Fediverse users move massively to ClubsAll to enjoy the new features, Redditors move too because it's better than Reddit - Over time, due to those new features and other "technical reasons",, federation with Lemmy and others becomes clunky, or completely stops - Meta / Google / Reddit buys ClubsAll and start to look how to extract a profit from the large userbase, enshittifies the mobile app, the web interface, etc.
Seems to bring us back to the current Reddit situation with extra steps.
From a entrepreneur point of view, this looks like a clear monetization attempt. Gather content from federated communities, sell to investors on the name "fediverse". B2C is generally very hard to pull off because there's so much competition so I doubt they'll succeed, but there is that saying about seeing what sticks on the wall.
Also, from both a user and entrepreneur point of view, you need to break into markets by starting small. The fediverse heavily leveraged the open source community to get started. I personally would not be on Lemmy if Lemmy wasn't AGPL. ClubsAll doesn't have that.
With no ill intent, I hope they fail. They're not contributing, and we don't need this sort of proprietary cancer in the fediverse.
I would guess it's rather just not implemented as a feature yet, as it's probably not a development priority.
Or maybe they figured the ClubAll-community could be closed off. But in general, it seems to be a project where missing features is the likely result of it still being at an early stage.
I think it'll be hard to be successful with that. Lemmy's userbase is small and not growing. Projects like KBin died. And we already have several frontends. Now someone introduces yet another one, just that it's not open source, not actively developed unless they pay a developer to fix something. It doesn't have a community yet. And I don't see any significant features that'd attract 100k new users or something. They don't seem to be invested for the same reasons the existing Lemmy community mingles here. And they're not eating their own dogfood but rather discussing it on Reddit... So maybe they're good at marketing? I think that'd be the only reason why something like this would take off and be successful.
I don't think it's censorship necessarily. Their approach to combine similar communities into one club could be the cause and maybe they just haven't set up the c/fediverse club yet.
Hi everyone, I’m Vinay, the founder of ClubsAll. I’ve noticed some negative sentiment, and I can understand why. I’ll do my best to clarify all the questions raised here.
clubsall.com/c/fediverse gives a 404, hiding posts such as the one we’re in. Very early censorship? Their approach to combining similar communities into one club could be the cause, and maybe they just haven’t set up the c/fediverse club yet.
Lemmy is too big to show everything. To keep costs low and due to some technical constraints with hosting, we had to prioritize what would be most useful to the broader community. If we show everything, the database won't be able to handle it, and I won't be able to afford the hosting costs.
There is no mention that this is content from lemmy.world. This is intentional. For federated servers to really compete, complexity needs to be eliminated. One of the goals of ClubsAll is to simplify everyt
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Hi everyone, I’m Vinay, the founder of ClubsAll. I’ve noticed some negative sentiment, and I can understand why. I’ll do my best to clarify all the questions raised here.
clubsall.com/c/fediverse gives a 404, hiding posts such as the one we’re in. Very early censorship? Their approach to combining similar communities into one club could be the cause, and maybe they just haven’t set up the c/fediverse club yet.
Lemmy is too big to show everything. To keep costs low and due to some technical constraints with hosting, we had to prioritize what would be most useful to the broader community. If we show everything, the database won't be able to handle it, and I won't be able to afford the hosting costs.
There is no mention that this is content from lemmy.world. This is intentional. For federated servers to really compete, complexity needs to be eliminated. One of the goals of ClubsAll is to simplify everything, so we hide servers, instances, multiple logins etc that can be confusing and overwhelming for a new user. We're innovating and trying something different to help the Fediverse succeed. However, if we’re violating any community guidelines or site policies, please let us know.
This looks like a clear monetization attempt. We just launched. Please give us time to survive and implement features before jumping to conclusions.
They’re not contributing, and we don’t need proprietary cancer in the Fediverse.
Sorry you feel that way. Keep in mind that we built everything from scratch. Federation is not currently implemented, and we’ll need time.
Personally, I hope they open source, because the interface is visually appealing and quite fast. What I expect is most instances defederating from them soon, killing the product in the process.
Thank you for the compliment! I do intend to open source ClubsAll once I get some help. I truly appreciate the feedback and hope we are not defederated.
Being a single site, it might draw the wrong crowd and end up having serious moderation problems.
This is insightful and another reason for us to prioritize federation.
Seems to bring us back to the current Reddit situation with extra steps.
That’s a valid concern. However, I’ll open source the project once I get some assistance, which should alleviate some of these fears.
If you query it like a federated platform would, it returns HTML rather than the required JSON.
Keep in mind, ClubsAll was built from scratch and is funded entirely out of pocket. We’ve done as much as we can with what’s currently online (and a couple of new features are coming soon that I’m testing).
It seems to be a project where missing features are likely due to it still being at an early stage.
That’s exactly right. This is the main reason. Unfortunately, our developer recently left, so we’re at a bit of a feature freeze for now, aside from a couple of things coming soon.
Lack of details on how they implement federation.
We built federation from scratch, so many features are still missing. Currently, we don't federate, so it’s not possible to follow from elsewhere at this time.
Do you have any idea of the timeframe when you’ll be able to open source the project?
I replied in the other thread, copy pasting here: Open sourcing is not time dependent. I just need 1. security review by someone experienced to make sure we do not instantly get hacked as soon as we open 2. and some commitment to fix critical bugs and hacks that will kill ClubsAll or steal resources
what are the languages used to develop ClubsAll Ah, good question. It is typescript, next, React, Cloudflare
security review by someone experienced to make sure we do not instantly get hacked as soon as we open
The source not being open will not prevent attackers from trying to hack your website as it currently online.
If you need help with having a look at the code, you can probably reach out to people here. You might want to shut the website down during the review so that if an issue is discovered it won't be exploited.
It is typescript, next, React, Cloudflare
Interesting, those are all front-end languages. Do you know which one was used for the back-end?
ClubsAll is an interactive online platform that empowers users to connect with people, engage in a wide range of discussions, and share content on a variety of topics.
There is discussion going around right now about if more instances should defederate from this project. If you have any updates on the points you mentioned above, please do share!
I have some feedback, and I hope it doesn't come across as being too hostile.
we had to prioritize what would be most useful to the broader community
How are you planning to do this in the long run? Hand picking communities will be hard to scale I want to find the communities I like, and I'm not sure I'd like a curated feed like that.
A Lemmy instance doesn't show content from every other Lemmy instance out there, nor does it pull all communities from federated instances. For example, lemmy.ca doesn't pull content from every lemmy.world community, only the ones that our users search for and subscribe to. That keeps the server costs low and leaves it up to the users.
If this is a temporary thing for testing, then disregard :)
For federated servers to really compete, complexity needs to be eliminated. One of the goals of ClubsAll is
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There is discussion going around right now about if more instances should defederate from this project. If you have any updates on the points you mentioned above, please do share!
I have some feedback, and I hope it doesn't come across as being too hostile.
we had to prioritize what would be most useful to the broader community
How are you planning to do this in the long run? Hand picking communities will be hard to scale I want to find the communities I like, and I'm not sure I'd like a curated feed like that.
A Lemmy instance doesn't show content from every other Lemmy instance out there, nor does it pull all communities from federated instances. For example, lemmy.ca doesn't pull content from every lemmy.world community, only the ones that our users search for and subscribe to. That keeps the server costs low and leaves it up to the users.
If this is a temporary thing for testing, then disregard :)
For federated servers to really compete, complexity needs to be eliminated. One of the goals of ClubsAll is to simplify everything, so we hide servers, instances, multiple logins etc that can be confusing and overwhelming for a new user.
Having helped some non-technical users get started with the fediverse, it's not actually that bad. Something like this would be more confusing because now you can't see where that user or post is coming from. I am otter@lemmy.ca, but there are other people with the username otter from other instances. Will we all look like the same user? What about similarly named communities from different places, which don't actually deal with the same subject matter.
Instead, would you consider keeping the servers and instances but making them smaller in the UI? That way it's not a distraction, but the information is still there.
Seems to bring us back to the current Reddit situation with extra steps.
That’s a valid concern. However, I’ll open source the project once I get some assistance, which should alleviate some of these fears.
The problem the fediverse is tackling is centralization, not lack of open source. That's what the comment was referring to. If the goal of this project is to be a one stop shop for all threadiverse content, you're not going to find much support here.
Reddit was once open source as well. Having the code available is helpful in some ways, such as by being open about the algorithms used, but it doesn't solve all problems. Similarly, without a way for others to host the software, it's hard to tell if that is the actual code running on the live server.
That’s exactly right. This is the main reason. Unfortunately, our developer recently left, so we’re at a bit of a feature freeze for now, aside from a couple of things coming soon.
That's totally ok, the fediverse has many projects like this in various stages of development. The concern expressed in this thread is less about what the project is doing now, and more about clarity on what the future plans are.
For example:
funding through donations instead of paid accounts, advertising, and user data
a confirmation on what kind of federation it will have
After some discussion with another fediverse developer, he recommended we move to sublinks library. I posted our tech plans here lemmy.world/comment/12922172. This will achieve a number of things - move db to postgres, deployment to docker/k8s, enable lemmy clients, make some security changes so our passwords are not exposed, this in turn will enable open sourcing and self hosting. This seems the best path forward.
2. We almost completed the move when we found out that sublinks library itself does not have federation implemented. I was told it will be picked up in 2025 but it is also being developer by volunteers, so the timeline is not certain. Since we almost finished move to sublinks, as soon as they have federation, we should be able to move very quickly since work on our side is mostly done.
How are you planning to do this in the lo
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Sorry for late reply.
I posted update elsewhere but here it is again
After some discussion with another fediverse developer, he recommended we move to sublinks library. I posted our tech plans here lemmy.world/comment/12922172. This will achieve a number of things - move db to postgres, deployment to docker/k8s, enable lemmy clients, make some security changes so our passwords are not exposed, this in turn will enable open sourcing and self hosting. This seems the best path forward.
2. We almost completed the move when we found out that sublinks library itself does not have federation implemented. I was told it will be picked up in 2025 but it is also being developer by volunteers, so the timeline is not certain. Since we almost finished move to sublinks, as soon as they have federation, we should be able to move very quickly since work on our side is mostly done.
How are you planning to do this in the long run? Hand picking communities will be hard to scale I want to find the communities I like, and I’m not sure I’d like a curated feed like that.
Core idea is to create a frontend for simple users who do not want to learn about servers and navigation to use a product. So we are starting with curated feed, once we have traffic, we can add features for advanced users to let users pick any community from any server.
Instead, would you consider keeping the servers and instances but making them smaller in the UI? That way it’s not a distraction, but the information is still there. A lot of people mentioned it this time around. So we will show the instance name along with username i.e. change from /u/otter to /u/otter@lemmy.ca . This should be live before 2025. Hope this addresses your concern.
The problem the fediverse is tackling is centralization, not lack of open source. That’s what the comment was referring to. If the goal of this project is to be a one stop shop for all threadiverse content, you’re not going to find much support here.
Understood. Not everyone has to or will agree with what others are doing. I am trying something different. I am only asking for not enforcing undocumented rules too hard until we have some minimum traffic like let's say 100 active users in a month (can be easily seen by who makes comments, Comments are federated). That should be reasonable to say "now you have some traction, do participate in community"
That’s totally ok, the fediverse has many projects like this in various stages of development. The concern expressed in this thread is less about what the project is doing now, and more about clarity on what the future plans are. For example: funding through donations instead of paid accounts, advertising, and user data a confirmation on what kind of federation it will have
It will have 2 way federation. As for funding, I am myself not sure, we have to try something different, whatever works. Again, while others may disagree, but are there rules on what not to do? What I see is that donation approach alone has not generated enough money for any server to be a real competitor. So are others free to try other things?
Looking forward to the sublinks migration, I know a lot of people were looking into it for when it becomes ready!
Core idea is to create a frontend for simple users who do not want to learn about servers and navigation to use a product. So we are starting with curated feed, once we have traffic, we can add features for advanced users to let users pick any community from any server.
Well rather, how will you pick which communities go in that feed? It's not a bad plan, but transparency would encourage your users to use that feed
Understood. Not everyone has to or will agree with what others are doing. I am trying something different. I am only asking for not enforcing undocumented rules too hard until we have some minimum traffic like let's say 100 active users in a month
With how new fediverse tech is, a lot of new rules will be "written" based on what people try. Obfuscating or misleading people on where content is coming from (which is the concern people are expressing here), seems like something people w
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Looking forward to the sublinks migration, I know a lot of people were looking into it for when it becomes ready!
Core idea is to create a frontend for simple users who do not want to learn about servers and navigation to use a product. So we are starting with curated feed, once we have traffic, we can add features for advanced users to let users pick any community from any server.
Well rather, how will you pick which communities go in that feed? It's not a bad plan, but transparency would encourage your users to use that feed
Understood. Not everyone has to or will agree with what others are doing. I am trying something different. I am only asking for not enforcing undocumented rules too hard until we have some minimum traffic like let's say 100 active users in a month
With how new fediverse tech is, a lot of new rules will be "written" based on what people try. Obfuscating or misleading people on where content is coming from (which is the concern people are expressing here), seems like something people will push back against.
A simple toggle would fix this issue
show the instances (default)
simplify my feed (removes the instances)
Again, while others may disagree, but are there rules on what not to do?
Nope, no rules on what not to do. Users and other instances are free to decide which ideas to support.
What I see is that donation approach alone has not generated enough money for any server to be a real competitor. So are others free to try other things?
I don't think any one instance is trying to be the replacement alone? That seems to be a big misunderstanding on what people want from the threadiverse. Despite network effects that limit growth, these instances continue to grow, self sustain from donations and grants, and prove how easy it can be to break away from the model big tech companies have adopted.
My view is that most people chose to use Lemmy/Mbin/PieFed/Sublinks over the established alternatives (ex. Reddit) because they didn't like how those alrernatives were being run.
As such, you might find it easier to build a userbase by avoiding what Reddit has done rather than try to emulate it
Well rather, how will you pick which communities go in that feed? It’s not a bad plan, but transparency would encourage your users to use that feed
Homepage should be based on communities with maximum subscribers. But with a login, each user can subscriber/unsubscribe and create their custom homepage. Yes, once we have some stability and traffic, we should publish these choices we made for transparency.
With how new fediverse tech is, a lot of new rules will be “written” based on what people try. Obfuscating or misleading people on where content is coming from (which is the concern people are expressing here), seems like something people will push back against.
Obfuscation was not the objective. Now after many complained, you can see real username and servername on each post.
As such, you might find it easier to build a userbase by avoiding what Reddit has done rather than try to emulate it
That is not my vision and I am ok if users decide this is not what they want and adoption fails.
Question for everyone here, how is everyone paying for hosting and development costs? While profit is not my motive, break even is needed for long term sustainability.
Stort narkotikabeslag vid husrannsakan. Polisen har utfört husrannsakan mot två butiker i Solna och Sundbyberg efter misstanke om att de sålde narkotikaklassade produkter. 100 kartonger togs i beslag.
Mitt på dagen idag sköts en man på en restaurng i ett köpcentrum i Sollentuna centrum. Han ska ha blivit skjuten med två skott. Mannen ska ha blivit skjuten inne i restaurangens kök.
I generally refrain from discussing politics anywhere I'm trying to have a good time. People are really bad at discussing political topics without getting all riled up. It's exactly the same as religious topics, people get weirdly combatant. I find it much easier to have a good time if you just keep that stuff to yourself as much as possible.
I have lost track of the times that a liberal/conservative acquaintance has completely gone off on one at me, completely oblivious to the fact that I'm biting my lip for the sake of politeness. The irony is that it's always "you can't say anything these days" etc etc I KNOW MATE, I CAN'T
Interesting, so based my on my brief reading am I understanding this correctly, that the Barbara Pit is a mass grave of Slovene and Yugoslav Fascists and Nazi collaborators?
People are really bad at discussing political topics without getting all riled up
Understatement of the century, lol. And social media's influence has only exacerbated the overall polarization/radicalization, making civil discussion in that area feel like even more of a pipe dream as time goes on.
I avoid it like the plague. Only a few people know my stance and as far as I am aware of its only people that interact with me outside of the internet. I'm not looking to change my mind and others aren't either. Changing one person to my thinking won't change anything and me changing to someone else's thinking won't change anything.
"This complaint is not only the largest ever submitted to the ICC, but it is also a milestone in documenting Israeli war crimes for future generations."
"This complaint is not only the largest ever submitted to the ICC, but it is also a milestone in documenting Israeli war crimes for future generations."
I've always been amazed that what was done to their people, they do to others. Just now I was shocked by the thought that ran through my mind: why would you be shocked and amazed that these people are doing everything the Father of Zionism advocated being done to his fellow Jews?
"Yes, we watched hundreds of thousands of children being killed, maimed, and starved—and we just kept watching," one writer said in response to the powerful clip.
In a day and age where the people are growing a part from they're own language, your asking alot of them. I guess it literally doesn't effect them much...
"Well, you see son, the perpetrators of that genocide were the victims of the largest genocide of the 20th Century, so nobody felt comfortable doing or saying anything."
The problem is that the minority that is uncomfortable doing or saying anything is backed by half the worlds carrier fleets and thousands of nuclear armed ICBMS.
I don't know, I still want to do something but I don't think street protests are enough. And I am against violence.
With Ukraine I donate money, early on I donated for buying drones. With Palestine it's so bad that I think donations won't reach them.
Source: I grew up in 3rd world countries where pacific protests for teachers salary are common place but won't solve anything. I've also lived in another 3rd world country with strong unions where at least once a month there was a 1000 people protest in the main street in the capital, plus ad hoc protests that are much bigger, and that country is still sinking very fast.
“Begs the question” frustrates me. I know language changes, I know I shouldn’t be prescriptivist about this.
But it always strikes me as someone trying to sound smart and failing. They think it’s a fancy way of conveying something it didn’t mean (though now it does because people used it so much without knowing what it meant).
I've been thinking about this exact question recently.
My Austrian grandmother and her sister were working class teenagers during the war. They couldn't realistically have done anything to stop the Nazis. They didn't really do much to help but since they were seamstresses they secretly snuck the Jewish family in the building some sewing supplies. It wasn't much and they stopped when they were told that someone had reported them to the Gestapo. Their experience during the war was dodging bombs and trying to find something to eat.
None of that matters. When I was a kid growing up in the US people regularly made Nazi jokes as soon as they found out about my heritage. Nobody was willing to entertain any ideas that maybe those civilians shouldn't have been held accountable.
History judged all of Germany and Austria harshly. It judged the civilians harshly and it judged their descendants harshly.
I understand the frustration, but blaming individuals for a government’s actions, especially in 2024, feels misplaced. The reality is, many of us feel powerless to influence our own governments, let alone foreign policies, especially when it comes to complex international conflicts like the one in Gaza.
The U.S. government has entrenched interests and a long history of unconditional support for Israel, sustained by billions in taxpayer dollars. Despite widespread protests and public outcry, these policies seem nearly immune to change. It’s disheartening, but the truth is, most citizens have little say in how their tax money is used, especially on issues where both major political parties are largely aligned.
Voting every four years feels inadequate when the system itself limits real choices and perpetuates the status quo. Yes, we can protest, but even that has its limits. The mechanisms of government and foreign policy are beyond our direct control, leaving many feeling like we’re just along for the ride—forced to watch, speak out, and hope for
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I understand the frustration, but blaming individuals for a government’s actions, especially in 2024, feels misplaced. The reality is, many of us feel powerless to influence our own governments, let alone foreign policies, especially when it comes to complex international conflicts like the one in Gaza.
The U.S. government has entrenched interests and a long history of unconditional support for Israel, sustained by billions in taxpayer dollars. Despite widespread protests and public outcry, these policies seem nearly immune to change. It’s disheartening, but the truth is, most citizens have little say in how their tax money is used, especially on issues where both major political parties are largely aligned.
Voting every four years feels inadequate when the system itself limits real choices and perpetuates the status quo. Yes, we can protest, but even that has its limits. The mechanisms of government and foreign policy are beyond our direct control, leaving many feeling like we’re just along for the ride—forced to watch, speak out, and hope for change that rarely comes.
So while we share the outrage, it’s unrealistic to act as if we, as ordinary people, have the power to stop a war machine fueled by vested interests. The whole system feels like it’s rigged to keep us eating the consequences, whether we like it or not.
Newstart
in reply to geneva_convenience • • •EonNShadow
in reply to Newstart • • •technocrit
in reply to EonNShadow • • •KittyKat007
in reply to geneva_convenience • • •like this
Get_Off_My_WLAN likes this.
小莱卡
in reply to KittyKat007 • • •KittyKat007
in reply to 小莱卡 • • •Nah, that's a lie.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_N… – Green demanded immediate ceasefire
RedWizard [he/him, comrade/them]
in reply to KittyKat007 • • •Crikeste
in reply to RedWizard [he/him, comrade/them] • • •I almost guarantee this turns out the same way. That is, if the world can find it in themselves to have a single moral or ethic, and then act on it.
Nuttonyahoo will be made the sole person responsible for this, like Hitler is villainized, and alllllll the Israeli citizens who cheered for rape and torture will be let off Scott free, out into the world with their twisted and warped and disgusting thoughts.
Operation Paperclip comes to mind.
RedWizard [he/him, comrade/them]
in reply to Crikeste • • •The issue is, however, the largest superpower is backing and supporting the actions of Israel in this regard. "The World" would have to label the United States as an active participant and begin the process of sanctioning and isolating the US. Either way, it wasn't morals or ethics that ultimately led to turning on Nazi Germany. Before the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the United States was very comfortable in keeping itself out of the conflict. At the time, Anti-Semitism was the soup du jour of domestic policy in Europe and America.
The Franks (of Anne Frank fame) attempted to immigrate into the US leading up to World War II, and despite Otto Frank's connections within the American government, and his connections as a businessman, him and his family were deemed a "security risk" and denied entry. They were one family out of thousands who were turned away by FDR's State Department. It was clear early on that the Third Reich was facilitating mass oppression against their Jewish population. The problem, ultimately, is that the prevailing opinions about the Jewish people were shared
... show moreThe issue is, however, the largest superpower is backing and supporting the actions of Israel in this regard. "The World" would have to label the United States as an active participant and begin the process of sanctioning and isolating the US. Either way, it wasn't morals or ethics that ultimately led to turning on Nazi Germany. Before the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the United States was very comfortable in keeping itself out of the conflict. At the time, Anti-Semitism was the soup du jour of domestic policy in Europe and America.
The Franks (of Anne Frank fame) attempted to immigrate into the US leading up to World War II, and despite Otto Frank's connections within the American government, and his connections as a businessman, him and his family were deemed a "security risk" and denied entry. They were one family out of thousands who were turned away by FDR's State Department. It was clear early on that the Third Reich was facilitating mass oppression against their Jewish population. The problem, ultimately, is that the prevailing opinions about the Jewish people were shared within the western powers. From an American perspective, what the Third Reich was doing with its Nuremberg laws wasn't too far off from what America was doing with its Jim Crow laws, in fact, the Nuremberg Laws were heavily influenced by the Jim Crow laws of America. Meanwhile, European countries facilitated the emigration of Jews from their borders through the Third Reich's first solution, which was relocating the Jewish people to "Israel", of which they covered the majority of the costs to do so.
The United States didn't enter into the war until after the attack on Pearl Harbor, which was a form of blowback resulting from the British and American embargo on oil heading to the Japanese Empire. Up to that point, the states had been operating Lend-Lease programs for weapons and supplying the Allied powers with material support in an attempt to allow them to deal with the Axis threat. There were great material interests in pushing the Third Reich back, as they had expansionist ambitions, ones that would see them control land and resources that the Allied forces had ready access to. Ambitions of conquest in Africa and Asia, as well as a colonization scheme into Russia. It wasn't until April 1945 that the Dachau Concentration Camp was discovered and ultimately liberated. The idea that the Allied powers were fighting against the Third Reich on Moral and Ethical grounds rooted in the treatment of the Jews is very much a misunderstanding of the timeline of that war. The European front was effectively finished by May that same year.
So this idea that the world "can find it in themselves to have a single moral or ethic, and then act on it", as if that was what happened in World War II, is idealism, and a revisionist view of the events of that war. I do not see this conflict playing out as the way you imagine it.
PolandIsAStateOfMind
in reply to KittyKat007 • • •CptEnder
in reply to KittyKat007 • • •Tbh we just need to glass Jerusalem. No single place has been the cause of so much death across our species' history. Not the people just the place.
No more space lizard artifacts? Great. Now no need to fight over who gets to live near where some asshole said he saw God while taking a shit.
VeganCheesecake
in reply to geneva_convenience • • •Fucking hell.
Anyway, here's a longer, more up to date Version of the article.
Israeli forces fire at UN peacekeeper positions in south Lebanon, peacekeepers say
reuters.com/world/middle-east/…
mannycalavera
in reply to geneva_convenience • • •Netanyahu has the gaul to tell Biden to his face whilst sitting in the oval office, that he's a Zionist. An Irish American Zionist. Of all the nationalities he could have called out for being a Zionist, Irish sure is a strange one.
Now the IDF opens fire on a UN peacekeeping force where Irish peacekeepers are stationed. Dude is going to put on a Gimp suit and tickle Joe's asshole with his nose whilst wanking him off with rosery beads on live TV next, or something 🤣.
ShimmeringKoi [comrade/them]
in reply to geneva_convenience • • •filister
in reply to geneva_convenience • • •☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆
in reply to geneva_convenience • • •IDF firing at Irish peacekeepers with no response from the administration would be a fitting capstone humiliation for Biden.
irishtimes.com/ireland/2024/10…