NEW: For decades, oil companies have funded universities’ research into climate change “solutions” that would not require the public to stop using oil and gas.
As global leaders look to tech advances to solve climate change, one leading idea involves capturing carbon pollution from the air and burying it underground forever. While carbon capture may sound practical, there is no conceivable way it can work.
"Our environmental problems originate in the hubris of imagining ourselves as the central nervous system or the brain of nature. We're not the brain, we are a cancer on nature." Dave Foreman
W Social's tagline is "Trust Your Feed" but the company's landing page displays inflated engagement metrics - a misrepresentation that contradicts its own promise.
Dear Elena, I'd love to read your post, but your website brings my Macbook nearly to a full halt. The background animation in the header completely kills my Macbook Pro 2021 with Firefox 153 (using an external 4k screen). Can barely scroll the website anymore. Using reader mode now, but maybe you should take a look into this.
This entry was edited (Thursday, June 25, 2026, 8:19 AM)
@preya Thas really interesting. Your MacBook should be more powerful than that, despite its age yeah? Does it do the same thing if you run the site in Safari?
@aaronmccollum @preya someone else complained about this, so I turned off the wave effect. I'm having a HUGE number of visitors these days, I wonder if it contributes to it? (the site has used this theme for 2 years and today is the first time I got two complaints about the wave effect)
@aaronmccollum Thanks! It's much better now. It's definitely the theme, I can recreate this by visiting the Theme's example page (estudiopatagon.com/projects/wa…). It also seems to only affect Firefox. Chrome and Safari are fine. Seems like the background svg animation performs very poorly in Firefox and on large screens.
@aaronmccollum I've looked into the animation and it's done in a very performance-hungry way (huge SVG files, three layers on top of each other). Firefox handles this differently than Chrome. Would love to contribute a fix, but unfortunately the theme isn't open source :(
@preya @aaronmccollum no worries! I never noticed because I'm on Vivaldi and have Safari as fallback... they render the site pretty well. I haven't used Firefox in years 🥲
plus they’d have to prove you wrong in court by providing evidence you’re right, so can’t imagine they’ll be that motivated to open that Pandora’s box 😂
@tanavit I think Bluesky PBC doesn't like them so much right now, as they pulled a Trumpian Truth Social and took the ATproto code closed-source... but who knows? 🤷🏻♀️
So the European Commission website links in its footer to a website that inflates (i.e. falsifies) the engagement of its president with the public. 😡 @Marloezovic
I assume this is not similar to the issue we have on the fediverse. Where one server has different (lower) stats as it only sees a subset of the like, boosts, etc compared to the post's host server?
Damn, I lost the link, but did you also see the page where they "explain" where Euro political figures are with two categories. One is X, the other one is "ATProto / W Social" implying that they're on WSocial when really they're on Bluesky/Eurosky... Of course, once again, the Fediverse doesn't exist for them.
This entry was edited (Thursday, June 25, 2026, 9:34 AM)
are you sure it's fake, not due to some comments/reactions from other servers not being displayed correctly? IDK and I'm not defending W in any way, just a purely technical question.
@kalisz79 yes I tripled checked with all available sources and even asked dev friends experienced in ATproto to confirm. Fabricated number of comments, but likes and boosts seem accurate
I really wonder why they only changed the amount of comments and left reposts and likes untouched. Do they believe that comments are the more important metric because they want to highlight actual interaction?
Trust. So many terms and words have gotten tainted in the last decade, being hijacked by bad actors, who have learned from lawyers how to get away with it.
Remember that DMCA takedown requests can be served on the Wayback Machine. Investigative reporters have found that out the hard way. There's one story I remember but can't find the details, probably because all trace of it has vanished! This one summarises:-
The Internet Archive's Wayback Machine is a service that preserves web pages. But the site has been deleting evidence of companies selling malware to illegally spy on spouses, highlighting the need to diversify digital archives.
Update: the #WSocial landing page STILL shows the wrong metrics under recent posts by prominent users - like European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen.
82 comments shown on W Social's homepage; 4 on ATproto.
I have multiple developer friends double-checking data for me - one is verifying things from INSIDE the W Social portal.
The comment count is inaccurate.
Update: an user on ATproto came up with an interesting explanation, so I have updated my article with his theory.
W Social's tagline is "Trust Your Feed" but the company's landing page displays inflated engagement metrics - a misrepresentation that contradicts its own promise.
They need to ask the American right wing sites like Truth Social, Parler, Rumble and so om how well fake it until you make it works, or those who bought into Facebook's pivot to video.
Perhaps the EU should use resources on pushing existing decentralized networks, or platforms that are EU based. Instead of making something new that raises a number of new privacy concerns.
thanks for this. My name is Alberto, an expat like you (Brussels, in my case) and a long-time open data activist. Your post references "the power of open data": could you say more about the sources of open data you have used to verify the number of comments per post? I wanted to share the story with my war buddies back in Italy, but realized I was unclear about specifics.
AI is often framed as a clean, weightless revolution of software and efficiency. But in reality, every large language model has a physical footprint of chips, data centers and power plants built in real places and affecting real people. We can't ignore these impacts. asia.nikkei.com/opinion/the-ai…
Briar is a chat application that keeps working even when the Internet is shut down by using Bluetooth and USB flash drives. Let's meet to set up Briar and test it during DWeb Camp.
> Briar runs on Android and desktop devices and works totally autonomous. [...] Briar is a chat application that keeps working even when the Internet is shut down by using Bluetooth and USB flash drives.
does this mean bluetooth and USB drive delivery works on desktop now?
🟢 Tor 0.4.8 has reached End of Life. If you run a #relay, maintain an Onion Service, or bundle C-Tor in an app, please upgrade to #Tor 0.4.9 by September 1, 2026.🧅🌐 Read more: blog.torproject.org/sunsetting…
I have seen some posts that seem to imply that people's discomfort with code generated by AI is an matter of identity, that is, the threat that outsiders will be able to make code, and thus those in the know, the "elites" feel threatened. That the only way to move forward is to accept that coders need not be experts anymore, and that the role of the software developer will change.
But this is not how I view the practice of writing code at all. I want code to be more accessible and understandable by more people. My complaint with LLMs is that they are actually antithetical to this goal. Yes, someone who doesn't know how to code can now create an app that solves a problem stated in plain English, and it may work correctly most or all of the time. But that is not actually making code more accessible. Indeed, if everyone relies on LLMs to write software, nobody will know how the software works anymore!
As someone with over 10 years of experience coding, I know that reduced understanding of code always results in bad outcomes. There's bad performance, bad functionality, all sorts of things. People get apathetic and assume that the performance issues are inevitable. But computers are absurdly fast! Very few computations these days have any reason to take longer than an instant. The solution is knowing how to read code to find the problems! This can't be done reliably by a machine. I want more people to develop this skill, not fewer! LLMs just allow people to bypass any ability to identify issues. So my concern with them is that we will have more code to sift through, and less careful consideration at play.
This isn't about a threat to my identity, it's about a threat to the stability of all software, and the abilities of all software developers. This deskilling will only fossilize software and prevent us from developing something that is actually more democratizing.
rephrasing your first para onto a different topic, for effect
Sensitive content
> I have seen some posts that seem to imply that people's discomfort with cars generated by AI is an matter of identity, that is, the threat that outsiders will be able to make cars, and thus those in the know, the "elites" feel threatened. That the only way to move forward is to accept that airbag manufacturers need not be experts anymore, and that the role of the seatbelt designer will change.
I loathe LLM code and coding out of a deep and abiding laziness -- these things spew out huge amounts of crappy code that I need to review, try (and fail) to understand, that will work slowly and poorly, and I *know* I am going spend massive amounts of time fixing later because it's slow crappy over-verbose nonsense.
That's on top of it being expensive and ethically compromised, and making my personal computing cost more.
#Mastodon 4.6 is here! It's been a long time in the works, but it's finally ready. In this release, we're introducing Collections—a way to share curated collections of profiles to help old and new users discover more of the #Fediverse. We're also updating the look of profiles, alongside many quality of life and accessibility improvements. Read more here:
In Mastodon 4.6, we are introducing a way to create and share curated collections of profiles. We've also reworked profiles and the profile editing experience, added some institutional features, and fixed many accessibility issues.
Yay! Congratulations, and a big thank you to all volunteers who contributed.
Now please please please please please for the love of $deity give us the option to have a different default visibility setting between posts and answers, that would save so many clicks and thus so many hours of our precious lives ♥
before I open a bug report, I'd like to ask here, if someone also observing this behaviour, that emoji suggestions are broken after the update 4.5.11 -> 4.6.0 ?
EDIT: Problem seem to be solved. Looks like a cache problem on my client side. But forced reload on Firefox didnt helped (ctrl+shift+r) but in chromium in a private session, it works.
'You can now opt-in to allow anonymous visitors to subscribe to your posts via e-mail, so even people who don’t have a Mastodon or Fediverse account and don’t wish to get one can keep up to date with you.'
And a reminder to SUPPORT YOUR ADMIN:
'We chose not to make this available for everyone by default as sending e-mail newsletters can significantly rack up the costs of operating a Mastodon server.'
A big new release after months of work is a good time to mention that #Mastodon is crowdfunded. Unlike many other platforms out there, we don’t take venture capital, we don’t sell ads, and we don’t sell your data. We rely on your donations to pay our team. Please consider chipping in:
Sorry, but I'm paying to much on a monthly basis to help decentralize the fediverse , while you feel comfortable to fxxk up the spirit of federation by hording 3.3M users on your poorly moderated mothership instance daily.
THANK YOU for the option to add alt text on profile picture and banners, that is so cool. As far as I know, no other social network offers this option, and it's about time!
thanks for the new features. The section about collections could use some additional information about what purpose they serve or how people use them; I only see the demo of how to set one up. Are these intended as like "starter kits" where following a collection automatically follows everyone in that collection, or is it distinct from your home feed?
I love the new arrival page admins can set for Mastodon servers. So clean (I wish the timeline pages could be so simple). Makes the banner pop.
My only problem is there is no "Create Account" button like on other landing pages. You can press login, and then find a sign up link. But that is small and out of the way.
#WSocial will open up their beta program today… and I have a SCOOP for you: it appears that they have quietly gone closed-source!
This is ironic, considering that the @EUCommission just unveiled their Tech Sovereignty Package, emphasizing the importance of #OpenSource. And yet they have migrated their main ATproto accounts to W Social - whose code can no longer be inspected!
European public institutions are betting big on digital sovereignty and open source software. And yet they recently moved their Bluesky accounts to W Social, a private, for profit network owned by Swedish entrepreneurs that has quietly gone closed-so…
them going closed source isn't that surprising and something Bluesky has chosen to make possible for themselves and others from the beginning via their licensing choices that stand in stark contrast to Mastodon's.
Personally I don't really find Eurosky all that much better because they're only contributing to the overall Bluesky ecosystem anyway and their messaging and how they are set up doesn't really make me very confident about how European they are either.
I read your article, pretty nice investigation are you in ! - in fact I keeping reading your posts also the info and adventures from Gina too.
As always politician and big guys trying to use the miss information to achieve their stupid stuffs - It's funny and curious what EU commission statement publishes vs reality !
They think they can hide it by adding # "commented" character or as we noted here by deletion or setting as private an entire project - no cool no good no sovereignty
This entry was edited (Wednesday, June 17, 2026, 8:19 AM)
This is worrisome. Just like OOXML is not really a good format for the European open office initiative. The lobbyists are probably moving in the background.
This was definitely NOT on my bingo card for this year:
European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen taking a moment between G7 meetings to promote the launch of the closed-source, for-profit network #WSocial.
Kind of cool to see Ursula von der Leyen warming up the audience for our W launch tomorrow. 😉 Posted between her G7 meetings on Instagram (today). Perfect timing.
@sanzky It's Ursula von der Leyen. Here in Germany, she epitomizes - perhaps more than anyone else - a combination of corruption and utter incompetence. She has never won a single popular vote anywhere - quite the opposite: she lost constituencies that had previously been considered safe seats for her party - and has built her entire career exclusively on her corrupt networks, while scandals would always catch up with her just in the nick of time, before she was promoted to the next post
The European Commission Spokesperson for tech sovereignty Thomas Reigner just migrated his ATproto account from Bluesky (open source) to W Social (closed-source). How ironic!
And now excuse me as I go pick up my child from daycare. I'll be intermittently online for the rest of the day. Thank you for all your boosts and comments!
Unbelievable, and really disheartening. What a farce. I just commented yesterday that "sovereignty" had become this new fad, a business buzzword to indicate where the low-hanging revenue is for the big enterprises, like earlier the hollow phrase of "digital transformation" (digital transformation for the purpose of what?). This more anecdotal proof that this is indeed the case..
@fluidlogic I am afraid "sovereignty" has become a business-world hype cycle word, like "digital transformation" was not long ago, but has lost its shine now. Vapid marketing words that indicate where the money is, and that *must* be used to win a pitch, esp. with gov institutions. The more the better.
Das. Ich halte dieses „Digitale Souveraenitaet“-Meme fuer so unglaublich schaedlich. Es ist per Definition ein „magisches Konzept“, d.h. auch jeder Versuch, das mit „sinnvollen“ Inhalten zu fuellen, ist von vorneherein zum Scheitern verurteilt.
Man erkauft sich damit auch nichts, was etwas wert waere. „Open Source“ wurde dadurch zwar populaerer – aber in einer komplett weichgewaschenen Umdefinition. Und gleichzeitig strotzt DigiSouv vor lauter haesslicher Nationalismus-Facetten und dergleichen.
Seit diesem Post denke ich darüber nach wie bescheuert es von mir war kurz danach die öffentliche Debatte um dieses ganze Thema quasi aufzugeben. Weil to be fair war es damals vermutlich wirklich für die meisten Leute schwieriger zu erkennen in was für ne Richtung wir mit diesem digitalen Nationalismus rennen werden und was dieses Meme aus diesem Teil der Gesellschaft für Folgen haben wird. Bin gleichzeitig ziemlich sauer das viele Leute sich davon nochimmer nicht so wirklich distanziert haben.
Yesterday, I watched this video videos.assemblee-nationale.fr/… with @renchap where he explained how public administrations just want an access to the service, not operate it and it grinds my gear so fuckin much
- Table ronde, ouverte à la presse, sur le logiciel libre réunissant :
- M. Renaud Chaput, directeur technique de Mastodon
- MM. Loïc Dayot, membre du conseil d’administration de l’April, et Étienne Gonnu, chargé de mission affaires publiques
- M.
OK, we should send some letters and organise some public "demonstration" to show that we already have a much better alternative in place.
Otherwise she and the other politicians will never know that the Fediverse is already relevant and is much more democratic and digitally independent than Bluesky/W Social could ever be.
Or maybe they already know and it's all due to lobby, but than it would be even more important.
It is coming to the UK. They say for new accounts #ageverification will be necessary. Old accounts will become valuable, think twice before closing them. Old account credentials will become valuable too I should think. Set up 2FA. #privacy
They can't be bothered to #plusOne the open free democratic social web. But they can cuddle up with weird business people in Davos? What's the point in believing in our representatives like von der Leyen anymore? Who advices them?
in the US, we have the Democrats who pretend to want all the good things and have great PR but somehow never seem to fight hard enough when it matters or provide what the people really need and want. they are bought off. I'm sure this exists in other countries too but at least you guys have universal health care :p
anyway I think that game is getting played in the tech world too. bluesky etc. the same excuses get made, while they retain power and profit.
I never really trusted Ursula van der Leyen since she suggested that anyone who knows how to change a dns server is a pedophile. It was during her time as German family minister where a proposed dns block was criticized by experts that it won’t work, since people could just change dns when she stated something similar to that. She was very stubborn to not listen to IT experts. Only source I could find:
Fast alle Internet-Inhalte mit „Kinderpornografie“ lassen sich zeitnah und problemlos löschen. Das belegt auch der aktuelle Bericht der Bundesregierung mit Statistiken.
Somehow, I'm not surprised... The EU commission likes the corporate world, they just prefer the European one... Open source is for "those leftist hippies", not for respectable right-wing people. Capitalism helps capitalism, always.
reminds me of the #Luca app that was pitched at the start of #Covid in Germany: The app was marketed heavily by #Smudo, frontman of a famous band here. The company and Smudo seemed very undiscerning to criticism about its closed-source nature (now seems to be #OpenSource). The hole practice seemed shady.
My conclusion then was maybe Smudo / #Fanta4 had good intentions, allowing concerts, helping people. But didn't get OpenSource + were used by a company. Maybe similar w. #VonDerLeyen...
is Ingmar wearing a stupid maga hat? Edit: i zoomed in the original, it is make science great again... still has that stupid maga vibe which is despicable.
This entry was edited (Thursday, June 18, 2026, 11:59 AM)
Damit ist eigenlich alles zur neuen Naziklitsche W Social gesagt:
https://www.blick.ch/digital/anna-zeiter-bringt-twitter-alternative-w-social-auch-alice-weidel-ist-willkommen-id22026157.html
#FCKNZS #WSocial #W #Nazis #AfD
Of course, because the EU has never had a problem with what the US does domestically in terms of things like surveillance, information control, censorship etc, they just want to be able to do it for themselves.
hmm. I get it is not great. But is it better than meta? Most of my family and friends use meta services. So if it could be an alternative I could leave meta for a better option. Even though it isnt perfect
The same nonsense we saw with #Mistral. It says on the official Wikipedia page that it’s down to Google, Meta and the usual hedge funds. Then billions are thrown at it; Mistral is utterly incompetent – in other words, rubbish. But everyone made money. I reckon there’s no getting round reading Rosa Luxemburg’s *The Accumulation of Capital*. That’s what it’s always about. Always.
😄 oh no. In a year or two everything requires ID verification. You want to open a fridge to get a beer. ID control. You use the lighter. Boom age verification. It is just satire (for now) but it is getting out of hand
This is a tactic that is getting more and more common. It's especially so in the VC funded, quick growth bullshit going on.
Crypto is a big one When I was researching blockchain a bit I bought a couple sets of Tensor cards. This was Open Source when I got it and they were still peddling themselves as Open Source last I saw after they'd quietly changed all their licenses in all their repositories.
Happens in the services too though. Hashicorp. Bait and switch.
When something this fishy is going on you can be sure that a lot of money is changing hands and a "not-for-public-knowledge" agenda is being implemented behind the scenes.
IMO the answers to your top 3 questions are probably something like: 1) shhh of course but I won't acknowledge that to you.
2) irrelevant--the image of being "the" European alternative is the important thing, and besides (shhh) some components need to be hosted in places where certain inconvenient EU privacy laws don't apply, and
3) Because we wouldn't be able to manipulate it or any other open source platform to our goals.
@leadore "You don't need a formal conspiracy when interests converge. These people went to the same universities, they're on the same boards of directors, they're in the same country clubs, they have like interests, they don't need to call a meeting, they know what's good for them and they're getting it." - George Carlin
Also:
"It's a large club, and you're not invited." -George Carlin
Attached: 1 image
OCCRP has today announced a strategic partnership with W Social.
“W” is a social media network designed to counter the rise of bot-driven disinformation and data privacy erosion on mainstream platforms.
European public institutions are betting big on digital sovereignty and open source software. And yet they recently moved their Bluesky accounts to W Social, a private, for profit network owned by Swedish entrepreneurs that has quietly gone closed-so…
@XavCC they are a solid investigative journalism outlet, and reporters and journalists working there are wonderful people publishing important stories and working their fingers to the bone.
Top-down decisions, however… are a separate matter.
Yes it is sad. And they will finance by Advertisement. So the roles seem clear: the payers are the directors, not the directors and not the users. No one can see inside the code and they connect to bluesky US. At the moment I cannot see too many differences. Maybe they have to change sth or communicate differently. Let s have a look.
I'm recently digging in the topic. Did anyone already asked @EUCommission the question why it's members are promoting closed-source Big-Tech-wannabe-company platform? Or maybe @EUCommission already responded somewhere?
The European Commission doesn’t “respond” – they either post memes or regurgitate talking points.
“Responding” would involve critically engaging with the criticism. Which is not a behaviour have seen from that particular entity. I’m not entirely sure they’re capable of it.
This entry was edited (Thursday, June 18, 2026, 9:00 AM)
how I remember the calcified "communist" party in Czechoslovakia operated in the 80's:
- toxic positivity - surveillance - ignoring obvious problems - ignoring of all criticism (justified or otherwise) - criminalizing and excessive punishment of dissent - treating the population as the enemy or at least with suspicion - culture wars - corruption - stagnation
Looking at what the western governments are doing I'm getting a strong sense of deja'vu.
This entry was edited (Thursday, June 18, 2026, 9:22 AM)
@matus_chochlik I mostly agree - but the "alternative" in the form of Trumpism, AfD, etc. is really no better: it would be all of this, but with added incompetence (think 1970's marginally competent aparatchiks and engineers, with their vision of nuclear powered industrial society, replaced by 1980''s incompetent nepotist aparatchiks)
I am preparing article for certain paper-printed zine, itself keeping kontinuity with 1980's underground disent media, about Fediverse. I want to use title "Digital samizdat", emphasizing similarities between Fediverse approach and former eastern blok #samizdat movement. I want to attract attention of aging members of former disent and try to explain them what is going on in western digital society.
Lot of what we were thinking were going on in 1980's was just wild imagination, because these governments were no technically capably of processing huge amounts of surveillanc
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@matus_chochlik I mostly agree - but the "alternative" in the form of Trumpism, AfD, etc. is really no better: it would be all of this, but with added incompetence (think 1970's marginally competent aparatchiks and engineers, with their vision of nuclear powered industrial society, replaced by 1980''s incompetent nepotist aparatchiks)
I am preparing article for certain paper-printed zine, itself keeping kontinuity with 1980's underground disent media, about Fediverse. I want to use title "Digital samizdat", emphasizing similarities between Fediverse approach and former eastern blok #samizdat movement. I want to attract attention of aging members of former disent and try to explain them what is going on in western digital society.
Lot of what we were thinking were going on in 1980's was just wild imagination, because these governments were no technically capably of processing huge amounts of surveillance data; their terror was limited to their Bastillas, which were not invincible. But this time, the surveillance is not government, but corporate operated, and the corporations are now really the government.
The discussion what really happened in our era, would take some time - but we need platform, where this discussion can take place.
Yes, and this very clearly shows that descent to "authoritarianism" whatever that even means isn't some inherent trait of communism, there are quite a few examples of that same thing happening to countries claiming to have a liberal system.
It is a symptom of an entrenched system and its ruling class feeling threatened.
@matus_chochlik there are multiple parallel entrenched "castes", from my point of view. The problem is, that even the relative power of corporate caste is diminishing, compared to power of the new hyperscalers.
I can't really speculate about the balance of power in today's world, but while I am all pro-Fediverse, hoping to reach as many as 20 000 mostly non-mainstream users in Czech republic, I can see the reasons, why EC is not betting on it, as what they really need is communication channel towards mainstream.
Were have not even reached status of "mainstream alternative" or "mainstream underground" channel... we are not mainstream cassette tape sharing in 1980's, we are cassette tape sharing in 1970's! We are real "digital samizdat" and of course, you can't count on structures viewing themself as new superpowers for 21st century to take us seriously.
I think the main value of Fediverse is not replicating all the para-social relations of mainstream me
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@matus_chochlik there are multiple parallel entrenched "castes", from my point of view. The problem is, that even the relative power of corporate caste is diminishing, compared to power of the new hyperscalers.
I can't really speculate about the balance of power in today's world, but while I am all pro-Fediverse, hoping to reach as many as 20 000 mostly non-mainstream users in Czech republic, I can see the reasons, why EC is not betting on it, as what they really need is communication channel towards mainstream.
Were have not even reached status of "mainstream alternative" or "mainstream underground" channel... we are not mainstream cassette tape sharing in 1980's, we are cassette tape sharing in 1970's! We are real "digital samizdat" and of course, you can't count on structures viewing themself as new superpowers for 21st century to take us seriously.
I think the main value of Fediverse is not replicating all the para-social relations of mainstream media. The main value is, that we are collections of real people, not AI personalities.
In my vision, Fediverse instances are going to be run by communities, which already have some business models of memberships. Pubs, sport clubs, music clubs, whatever. Schools, of course (I mean: for students over 16 years) - my first usable e-mail address was provided by university, in cca 1995 or so.
the problem with this is, that there already are at least hundreds of thousands if not millions of active users in the Fediverse, there isn't/recently wasn't anyone on W. EU could have chosen to support the Fediverse (which already implements their proclaimed goals and "values"), instead they chose to support our "local" techno-feudal lords.
yes, but the Fediverse is hard to regulate easily, because there is no central authority. On the other hand, because Mastodon is dominant platform and there is single source of official releases, the age verification method supported by the official Mastodon release channel would be quickly adopted by most of european Fedi (and yes, there are probably ways to do it - like the DeepL verifies credit card numbers without charging them, or so).
The problem are us, instance admins. We are going always to be the single source of truth about about our instance accounts. We are like dangerous landlords, who need to be kept in line. We are the keepers of the private keys. And some people, including security policy advisors to politicians, are smart enough. We are more like confederation, not real federation. At the same time, anything centralized won't stay resilient.
I really don't know, what is the right strategy. Maybe I don't even believe in Fedi as the dominant, major mainstream channel, like e-mail was: maybe it would destroy us. Instead, it would be strategic to be very
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yes, but the Fediverse is hard to regulate easily, because there is no central authority. On the other hand, because Mastodon is dominant platform and there is single source of official releases, the age verification method supported by the official Mastodon release channel would be quickly adopted by most of european Fedi (and yes, there are probably ways to do it - like the DeepL verifies credit card numbers without charging them, or so).
The problem are us, instance admins. We are going always to be the single source of truth about about our instance accounts. We are like dangerous landlords, who need to be kept in line. We are the keepers of the private keys. And some people, including security policy advisors to politicians, are smart enough. We are more like confederation, not real federation. At the same time, anything centralized won't stay resilient.
I really don't know, what is the right strategy. Maybe I don't even believe in Fedi as the dominant, major mainstream channel, like e-mail was: maybe it would destroy us. Instead, it would be strategic to be very strong and resilient alternative, which is well known, maybe too hard to use for some parts of population, but definitely channel, which can't be ignored and which is perfectly able to sustain itself even without venture investors or so.
I won't really boost posts about W social, because I don't actually want anybody to be aware of it. And I have *some* impact (perhaps small). I will rather promote new Mastodon features, like account collection, and will try to debunk the "empty timeline syndrome" myth.
@xChaos @matus_chochlik I like the idea of school instances. The thought need some refinement and planning but it could be one of possible tries of resolving teenagers/YA problems with (anti)social media while providing real social media experience. Do you know any situation in which school provides such programme?
I was mentioning early Internet in 1990's, when every university provided students with e-mail addresses, on servers maintained by that university, on their own domain.
The logic of ActivityPub is very much like early e-mail - just with added public interaction. If you showed ActivityPub to 1990's server admin, he would mostly recognize what it is about.
Explaining universities, that instead of maintaining presence on corporate social media they should run their own ActivityPub instances should be easier, than starting from top layer, like EC.
I believe that we should build Fediverse from bottom: schools, newspapers, cities, regions, various voluntary organizations...
It would be even chance to resolve scaling issues (which will happen) before moving to higher level and more official organizations.
@krystian_kulesz maybe interesting to ask your national press to attend this press conference and ask why the EC migrated from an open source platform (Bluesky) to a closed source one (W Social):
Following the vote on the report of the Special Committee on the European Democracy Shield, the rapporteur and the committee chair will brief journalists on its findings.
So WSocial is a closed, profit driven service with infrastructure " in the EU.
Hmmm..yeah...nope
I have no interest in supporting an EU Alternative to the same shit Meta does, only worse, because they also have my iD- Certificate info and biometrical Fotos of my face.
I put on my WSocial Bingo Card:
- WSocial Servers get hacked. Userdata sold in darknet - Scamsites of WSocial do phishing for UserData - US infrastructure used in data storage
Whoo-hoo! I just searched for "is wsocial federated with bluesky" on No AI DDG and your blog post regarding Wsocial and how the company is organised came up second in the list of results.
After a brief look at the archived repo, this was just a fork of the ATProto reference implementation originally from Bluesky. Can be clearly seen near the title: "forked from bluesky-social/atproto". This is not the actual app or website.
I can’t remember that the actual website (or app) has been free software at any time ever.
So even if this repo would still be up, it would still be bullshit to claim that #WSocial is or ever was an "open source project".
And even ATproto could get closed-sourced if Bsky corporate either decides to be a bunch of pricks or for when they need to start turning profit by paywalling self-hosted and third-party PDSes among other things whenever their VC funds eventually run out.
#SpaceX #IPO will make the world's richest man the first trillionaire in history!
How does that compare with an average #American? The median #wealth is $193 K. If you convert that to fresh 100 #dollar bills & stack it, it will be ~ 21 cm tall - about as tall as a toaster.
And what about a #Trillionaire? A stack of 100 $ bills worth 1 trillion $ will be ~ 1100 km tall! Laid on its side, that's the distance between #Chicago & #Philadelphia!
That #median includes the youth who often start with negative worth due to #StudentLoans.
Your highest #NetWorth is achieved in your 60s as you approach your #retirement. The #debts are gone. The median is now $ 410 K. Your stack has slightly more than doubled in height to 45 cm.
At this rate, when will you become a #trillionaire? It will take ~ 108 million years! The #dinosaurs perished only 65 million years ago, you dolt!
So much for #HardWork! But what propelled him past the #trillion dollar #milestone? Your #410k #pension account! You didn't know? They didn't ask you!
#PensionAccounts are invested in #IndexFunds - usually a safe bet. But #Musk engineered a deal where #SpaceX becomes part of the index quite early. Combined with the high #valuation, that gives him access to a big chunk of the pension accounts.
Unless his #space #datacenter works. #SpaceX's own #Starlink internet service is their only profitable service and the largest customer of their #launch services. It generates 61% of their #revenue. But starlink market won't grow forever.
So the only way to overcome the loss is if #Musk's #SpaceDatacenter is deployed on a massive scale. But don't hold your breath! I'm a space engineer. Here's my take on the idea: fosstodon.org/@goku12/11576915…
#Space fans seem excited about the emerging plans to launch and operate #AIDataCenters in orbit. Sincerely, does anybody realise how difficult that actually is? Did they genuinely have a massive breakthrough in #spacecraft design? Or is this yet anot…
Now? The realistic scenario is that world's richest man will tank your #pensions, after condemning millions of poor and sick people to death by cutting aid. You can look forward to working for every plate of food, when you're old and your bones are aching. You don't even get the cash you invested.
NOTE: Musk needed a justification for the merger of X, xAI and SpaceX. So he created the concept of a Space AI datacenter - one that combines the function of all 3 divisions. Check my linked thread to see why this is largely a fantasy.
Also note that many of these will require the Starship, which is struggling with technical issues, despite a recent success. The ship is yet to enter orbit after 12 fights. That's unusual in space industry.
An upcoming release of the #Chrome #browser (ver. 150 or 151) will either disable all #adblockers, or render them ineffective. Those who gifted Chrome and its derivatives an overwhelming market dominance have two options:
1. Switch to a non-Chrome based browser. That's limited to #Firefox and its derivatives for now. Hopefully more in the future.
Some websites have issues sometimes, like mouse cursor position is not where it is shown or it needs a restart after keeping it open for a long time, misses plugins like pass.
But I still use it as my primary browser. I hope these gets solved eventually.
This is backed by #Apple, but they don't have as much power on the web as #Google.
Google calls its intelligent AI-powered Search box the "biggest upgrade in over 25 years," but we must consider what is happening to the open web (yes, the one that trained the AI). Let's look at why it's bad, and what we can do about it.
the problem is that we need more people that start to leave these giants and go for alternative, unless they see a vertical drop in their graphs, everything is fine. I'm trying to switch my close friends/relatives to alternatives, but i'm a drop in the ocean. And now more than ever we need to show them numbers going down vertically. Not only the search engine, because remember the next big thing is #Android and their kill switch on sideloading. Google is killing everything open
I am actually: I think it's worth paying for (for me). I get a list of actual website links with a short description, and it seems pretty good. Rather like Google once was. There's the option of a search assistant/ AI summary for those that wish.
Just keep calm and carry on migrating :) But jokes aside, yes it's a problem among non-technical people. But it's on us to help them to cut their dependency to companies like google.
@inguin Google might still play by the rules (I actually don't know) , others certainly do not. you cant stop crawlers if they don't voluntarily identify themselves as crawlers. to block crawlers, you'd have to mandate user authentication on your page — and even then, ppl may use user agents that serve their data to an AI company @Tutanota
very insightful article, mind you there are people who might choose to ignore the dangers you are highlighting in the article, either way thanks I'm gonna "duck and go" if you catch my drift.
Gosh, I remember the "I'm feeling lucky" bit. And how Google was so much better than Magellan, LookSmart, AltaVista, Yahoo etc. I used to use Dogpile, which submitted your search query to multiple engines, then you could chase down the most promising. Now Google is a pile of dog doo.
Google does not hold a monopoly on Search. (I have had all Google's URLS uBlocked for years.) But as long as people *believe* it is and go there without a 2nd thought, they are handing it their lives & livelihoods.
To give Google the "killed the internet" title is shifting responsibility away from the biggest blow against the internet, and the company behind the destruction of the net. Google isn't killing the net with their AI search. The net was already dead.
This is something you notice exceptionally well when you shut the door on Meta and their services.
I cannot find opening hours for several things, I miss all sorta event information, I am locked out of most any community information.
Google isn't killing the internet.
Meta already did
Or rather, we did.
We are letting tech giants simplify us away from the "horrible complexity of the internet".
What Google is doing is giving a final blow to the little left that made us feel that we could call it "internet".
We can only hope that this will be a wakeup, that we can look back and think "Google was the final straw that broke the trust, and we finally took the internet back"
@lettosprey Having just attended a short course from the estimate @tansy , keen to learn about Tuta (gave up on Proton last winter, maybe too quickly but...)
@SusiArnott I almost went for Proton, but after a bit more checking, landed on Tuta. It feels like a better option.
They seem a bit more community focused.
I still have a lot of email coming to gmail, it takes a while to switch everything. I think a common mistake is to get a service like Tuta with the intent of doing a "quick switch".
Lately I have been moving my workflows away from Microsoft Office and onto LibreOffice. For a while, I couldn't figure out how to manage images in a Writer document like I did in Word, but finally figured it out.
I did a quick write up of what I experienced and how I was able to setup Writer to work like Word -- and keep my workflow the same. It was an easy change.
I use two apps in Microsoft Office: Word and Excel. I have been moving away from relying on Office and using LibreOffice instead. The switch from Excel to Calc was easy.
I will definitely give this a read, but as someone who used Microsoft Word for 35 years, the switch to Libre Writer has been an uphill battle. On the surface, it seems remarkably similar, but when you dig down deep into the "power user" features for formatting, etc., it's an exercise in frustration to get it to work the way I expect it to.
You can read the entire thing here - Over 400 Arch Linux AUR Packages Hijacked to Deploy Infostealer and eBPF Rootkit But basically it seems that hundreds of AUR packages that were not maintained in a while got “updated” with a malicious code.
If you bought the hardware, you should have the final say on the software. Google's plan to block unverified apps is a direct attack on user sovereignty. keepandroidopen.org @keepandroidopen #KeepAndroidOpen
Android's strength was its decentralized nature. Google's plan to mandate central registration for every single app developer destroys that. We must resist this centralization of power. @keepandroidopen #KeepAndroidOpenkeepandroidopen.org
Auf YouTube findest du die angesagtesten Videos und Tracks. Außerdem kannst du eigene Inhalte hochladen und mit Freunden oder gleich der ganzen Welt teilen.
I hitchhiked from the info center at Þingvellir National Park to Geyser and the waterfall Gullfoss. Gullfoss runs down two faults through an incredible canyon, and geyser is the one that gave the name "geyser" to all geysers ☺️ (though its neighbor Strokkur is the one erupting more often these days). Both are very touristy but incredible sights; definitely worth seeing. I didn't wait long to catch a lift and I met some interesting people on my way, including a British geologist who gave me some fascinating insight. I'll explain it all later in my peertube videos 😉
![vv 💫 [follow my new artist profile!]](photo/contact/80/553987?ts=1773008049)
, while you feel comfortable to fxxk up the spirit of federation by hording 3.3M users on your poorly moderated mothership instance daily.
Petra van Cronenburg
in reply to Kyle Memoir 🍉🐧 • • •Hana
in reply to Kyle Memoir 🍉🐧 • • •chuffed.org/project/178829
@aral
#SaveMyLeg 🦵 #MedicalEmergency 🚑 #UrgentHelp 🚨 #Gaza 💔 #PleaseShare 📢 #HumanityFirst 🤝 #DontIgnoreMyCry 😭 #SupportMyTreatment ❤️ #Palestine #HopeForHealing 🙏 #SaveALife 🕊️ #EmergencyAppeal 🚨 #StandWithMe 🤲 #ShareMyStory
Four Children One Tent No Food Please Help ..From Bombs to Hunger Help My Family Stay Alive
ChuffedDeborah Pickett
in reply to Kyle Memoir 🍉🐧 • • •For previous discourse, see: oslo.town/@luftvaffel/11532770…
Luftvaffel
2025-10-06 14:32:59