Trump looks increasingly out of touch and his disapproval rating is at an all-time high – which partly explains Tuesday’s election results
It’s the economy, stupid, as the timeworn saying goes, and affordability in particular. The age of aspiration has given way to the age of anxiety. The price of incumbency is that restless voters always believe that the grass is greener on the other side.
A year ago Democrats were punished for “bad vibes” around the cost of living for the middle class, however much they protested that the economic data was positive. In that climate Trump represented change: at rally after rally, he promised to lower prices from day one. Many voters felt it was worth taking a gamble in case he was right.
Now the tables are turned. Trump occupies the White House but inflation remains hard to crack. The period from July to August saw the biggest month-to-month jump in grocery prices in three years. And average grocery prices in September were about 2.7% higher than they were a year earlier. There have been especially steep increases in the prices of coffee (up 18.9%) and beef and veal (up 14.7%).
When thousands of people illegally download books, music, or films, and their internet service provider knows about it but keeps collecting monthly fees from the pirates anyway, should the company face consequences? That’s the question at the heart o…
The dye industry, heavy on the use of petrochemicals, is one of the world's biggest polluters. Now dyes can be made by microorganisms that -grow- colors.
FBI Tries to Unmask Owner of Infamous Archive.is Site
The FBI is attempting to unmask the owner behind archive.today, a popular archiving site that is also regularly used to bypass paywalls on the internet and to avoid sending traffic to the original publishers of web content, according to a subpoena posted by the website. The FBI subpoena says it is part of a criminal investigation, though it does not provide any details about what alleged crime is being investigated. Archive.today is also popularly known by several of its mirrors, including archive.is and archive.ph.
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Nolan's Batman film repeated a line that didn't land with me at the time but I have since understood: "it's not who you are, it's what you do that defines you."
At the time, I thought myself a temporarily embarrassed progressive, thinking all these good thoughts and waiting for my sleeper-cell handler to activate me. I'm a good person, I am ready to do good when the need arises, as long as I have nothing else scheduled that day.
But the malaise of the socially progressive 90s lulled me (and other Gen Xers) into a false optimism that things were just going to get better on their own. Our brains were also cooked by decades of deregulation propaganda. And TVs were getting bigger and cheaper, so who were we to complain?
Weiss is the next generation of this detached ideology. She's been simmering in absurdism and pageantry so long that I don't think she has a handle on what she really wants to do. I'm not excusing her behavior, but I can't devine a coherent platform for her. I'm not sure any of her contemporaries actually have one, either. Just for the grift? It doesn't make them less dangerous, but hopefully it makes them less intimidating for those of us who have felt the tap on the shoulder to enlist.
In conclusion, she sucks, she says inane things. Don't be surprised but also don't roll your eyes and move on. Find what you can do, no matter how small, and do it. You will instantly be steps ahead of the performative competition.
If you’ve been following the story so far, with the rise of the second Trump administration, renewable energy is out, fossil fuels are back, in particular fossil gas, personified by the selec…
first, i am not very notable so don’t bother trying to determine who i am lol. i am very close to 100,000 followers—just to demonstrate my minor success and relevancy to the topic.
i hate every algorithm-driven video sharing app. they are absolutely fantastic for the consumer; finding their likes and interests and exploiting them, but terrible if you are a creator whose content others regularly consume. i struggle to be seen by 10% of my audience. most days i wont crack beyond 400 views. Four hundred. And you might be thinking that’s 400 of my audience; maybe some new people in there as well, so at least a few are coming back regularly.. right? no lol. according to my analytics, about 98% of my viewers are not following me. they’re from recommend pages and outside of my followers.
…so… what the hell? these people followed me because they wanted to see what i had to make. these companies are keeping viewers distracted with their recommended feed so they never check out who they’re following and only consume whatever the algorithm demands be seen. 2% of my audience are followers. that’s about it. i’ve seen it as high as 3% but never beyond.
i make content because i genuinely enjoy it and always will do it. i love the art of comedy and spreading laughter. i want a big audience to make more people happy. truly, i primarily create for myself as personal enrichment. the money aspect is enticing and makes me long for a chance at making this work professionally.
but it’s so unreliable.. these algorithms are not rewarding, and they will zap you of your humanity and creativity. the cash i’m paid is like a reward i get for playing their game. it isn’t something i earn. i happened to do it their way accidentally to my benefit and theirs.
which app, exactly? Are you experiencing this with long-form platforms like Twitch and YouTube, or are you more active on short-form platforms like Tiktok and Insta? I would expect this issue to be more endemic to short-form video, but I wouldn't be surprised if the long-form platforms are screwing you over, as well. It seems like users on the shorter-form platforms are more likely to let the algorithm decide what they should watch. Personally I'm spending most of my video-consuming time on the longer form platforms, but i also tend to just stick with the 5 creators that I'm always watching. Good for those creators, not so much for new ones. I'll let the algo guide me every once in a while when I have a lot of extra time, but I am very leery of any short-form platform. They just seem so tailor-made to addict you, and I don't need another addiction.
i am on TikTok and Shorts, so yes, short-form videos. it is a huge problem over here and it suuuuuucks ass.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the long-form platforms are screwing you over
not yet but YouTube has its own headaches! lol
They just seem so tailor-made to addict you, and I don’t need another addiction.
you aren't wrong. they know what you like very, very well. it's disturbing. but if i'm gonna be forced into this dystopia can an online comedian get a little break here, eh????
ahhhhh i'm sorry to hear it. Those spaces are so calcified these days. Used to be that anyone with a half-decent online presence could break through as a creator, so online entertaining had that grassroots advantage over traditional venues and broadcast platforms. These days, it kind of feels like we've ended up right back where we started: platforms are dominated by the most popular (or most wealthy) entertainers, and everyone else is fighting like crabs in a barrel in the hopes that they'll get lucky and break through.
I guess that's a half-decent motivation to try making a name for yourself in your local community? It seems to me that creators that do break through do so by becoming popular in their local community first. People love to find a new, local comedian that they vibe with - it's a source of local pride. You build connections and get exposed to new audiences that never would have found you on TikTok. I don't know if you have any disability or other physical barriers to achieving that, but if not, and you aren't already doing open mics or whatever, that could be one way to go?
Don't use sideloading. It's gaslighting word they planted.. we own the device.. should be just called installing.. they are stoping you from installing what you want.
Downloading is copying a file from the network onto the local device. Installation extracts files to the appropriate directories, makes config changes, etc.. "Installed from a local source" doesnt make sense, as any file you would install you would first need to download or pull off of some other media.
You don't say "downloaded from a cd" do you? No, you install from a cd. If the primary delivery method for PC was via app store, you'd say "sideloaded" there too.
Downloading from an app store doesn't place an installer APK from an app store on the device's storage, like you do when downloading on a PC.
This difference is why the term "sideloading" was coined, to differentiate from using the primary delivery mechanism, the app store.
No it not. If I have a local .exe file on my HD and install it on my PC you don't say " I side loaded this software " you usually say " Iinstallled this piece of software ". Don't succumb to the conditioning these companies want us to believe.
I'm gonna keep using the word "sideloading" because it is a perfectly legitimate act and I refuse to let them redefine it to demonize us. I'm not sure why you're helping them.
If you're wondering if you would still be able to plug your phone into your computer to put files on it, let me ask you a related question: Do you think Google would kill the ability to plug your phone in and take pictures and video off of it? I think the answer to that is pretty obvious.
I'm not sure about the medium-term future, but in the short-term you'll still be able to install APK files after the changes go through. Google is retaining installation via ADB for now, and applications like anyapk make it so that you don't need to plug your phone into a PC and open up the terminal.
I know there's many people who cannot understand why others like to watch media on their phones, but that is how it is. You basically have that device anywhere with you, screens are big enough to watch stuff on.
Especially if you have saved movies/series on it, no matter if piracy or not, you got sonething to watch on that long train ride to work, or in your lunch break, or when you wait for some appointment.
Source: me, I am one of those. I am not taking my laptop everywhere. Even the smallest feasibly usable laptop is much bigger than my phone.
Ogni tanto, nonostante le cose marce… insomma le mattinate marce che promettono e professano giornate marce per intero e persino più (nel senso che poi il malumore facilmente si trascina addirittura ai giorni dopo, sopravvivendo persino il grande sonno a cui mi sottopongo… a cui in realtà non tutti i giorni posso sottopormi, ahimè e […]
Ogni tanto, nonostante le cose marce... insomma le mattinate marce che promettono e professano giornate marce per intero e persino più (nel senso che poi il ma
Tu souhaites découvrir le mouvement et savoir comment t’engager ? Nous organisons une réunion d’accueil des nouveaux et nouvelles en présentiel. Le RDV sera à l'adresse suivante : La ressourcerie Le Poulpe - 4B Rue d'Oran, 75018 Paris. La salle est accessible via l'escalier en entrant à gauche, monter les escaliers et juste à la sortie des escaliers à droite il y a la porte de la salle.
Pour t'inscrire ne clique pas sur Participer mais clique sur ce lien !
Nexperia, Chinese-owned but based in the Netherlands, makes billions of simple but ubiquitous chips that auto suppliers use in parts ranging from brakes and electric windows to lights and entertainment systems.
Nissan Motor will cut production of its top-selling Rogue SUV in Japan by about 900 vehicles from next week due to a short supply of chips from Nexperia, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Germany, home to major automakers such as Audi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz, said it was lobbying China in the interests of German customers of Nexperia through all available channels.
European carmakers and suppliers have rushed to apply to China for Nexperia chip export exemptions, which need to be paid for in Chinese currency, or have sought alternative suppliers.
Nissan will reportedly trim production of its top-selling Rogue SUV in Japan due to a shortage of Nexperia chips, while Germany said it is discussing the matter with affected companies.
The whole trade situation taken over the news and missed why the company was nationalized in the first place. It was mismanaged and used a personal fund by the CEO. It was under investigation long before the trade war.
The move followed an emergency hearing by the Dutch Enterprise Chamber on October 7, which concluded that there may be “valid reasons to doubt sound management at Nexperia under the leadership of former CEO Zhang Xuezheng”, a statement from the company said.
New court records published by the paper allegedly show that Chinese executive and founder of Nexperia's parent company, Wingtech, Zhang Xuezheng, forced Nexperia to place an order with his privately owned chip factory, WingSkySemi in Shanghai, worth over $200 million. That, despite it actually requiring less than $100 million worth for its own production needs.
Sure and when was the last time a company in Europe was nationalized for similar reasons? That's right, it never happens, except to targets of the empire. Mismanagement? Corruption? Tax fraud? They are ubiquitous. European politicians see it as their foremost duty to protect the guilty CEOs, stakeholders and companies.
So-called Cum-Cum and Cum-Ex tax schemes are still costing many European countries billions in lost revenue. In Germany, questions are mounting why the state is doing so little to stop them.
I'm not disputing that company being tied China had an impact in the assessment, but presenting it as the only reason is disingenuous and that seems to be the narrative the media.
To give a few examples: Talvivaara Sotkamo Ltd in Finland, Parex Bank in Latvia, Snoras in Lithuania.
[em]Apologies in advance if I misrepresented anybody or missed any crucial bits of information.[/em]
[hr] [ul]
[li]Julian (myself) and Ted ([url=https://mastodon.social/@TallTed]@tallted@mastodon.social[/url]) began the session discussing moderation tool
Apologies in advance if I misrepresented anybody or missed any crucial bits of information.
Julian (myself) and Ted (tallted@mastodon.social) began the session discussing moderation tools in USENET
There are comparable systems to how the threadiverse propagates content. Messages are sent to a remote server who is then responsible for distribution.
In relation to moderation, there was more ambiguity. Local users could set up their own kill file but whether moderation could be done from the remote server was not discussed.
We discuss more about actions done to contexts (aka topics, threads)
Dmitri (dmitri@social.coop) joins at or before this point, and points out that there continues to be confusion over the context property and @context.
Example actions are offered: Removing a context from an audience, and locking a context from new contributions
Re: crossposting, Ted discusses the need for implementor changes to allow for contexts to be a part of multiple audiences
ed: much of the discussion at this point shifts away from ForumWG terminology and toward email nomenclature for ease of understanding. ForumWG nomenclature is used for these minutes
Dmitri points out that a breaking change to AP might be needed in order to break apart header (addressing/recipients) and body
Julian asks why, and Dmitri mentions signing difficulties wrt bto and bcc.
Julian asks if anybody uses bto and bcc, and Dmitri says "yes, absolutely", and said we should check out darius@friend.camp's Fediverse Observatory for the answer
Julian says that as currently implemented, resolvable contexts do not necessarily need to be inherited. Lemmy explicitly does not want to inherit contexts, and their published contexts always refer to a local representation (ping nutomic)
Julian steps through an example. NodeBB A federates context /topic/1, NodeBB B receives the topic and assigns it /topic/4bdffa. A later Removes the context. B doesn't know what A/topic/1 is so needs to resolve it, get its' root post, and see if it matches any know context on B, then act on it.
Ted and Dmitri caution that this is difficult and messy, and strongly recommend that the root-level context must be inherited
For what it's worth, Ted and Dmitri convinced me that we need to move toward a strict inheritance of the root object's context. It means a little more work upfront but will make it easier down the line.
This post is where we continue that discussion, asynchronously, so stay tuned!
> The object SHOULD inherit a context other than its own. It is RECOMMENDED that the object inherit the context of the object it is in reply to. Doing so will allow for all members of a context collection (per FEP f228) to refer to the same context. > > The object MAY inherit context further up the chain.
to
> The object MUST inherit the context from the root node, if one is reported. Otherwise the object MUST NOT publish a context. Doing so will allow for all members of a context collection (per FEP f228) to refer to the same context. > > Implementors SHOULD map that inherited context to a local identifier (if applicable) to support future use-cases/activities.
California-based startup Reflect Orbital aims to build a swarm of 4,000 giant mirrors in low Earth orbit to "sell sunlight" to customers at night. Experts warn that the mirrors could mess with telescopes, blind stargazers and impact the environment.
Reflect Orbital, which was founded in 2021, has recently taken the first step in a scheme to sell sunlight at night by bouncing solar rays off giant "reflectors" that can redirect the vital resource almost anywhere on our planet. By doing this, the company aims to extend daylight hours in specific locations, thus allowing paying customers to generate solar power, grow crops and replace urban lighting.
But experts say it is a wildly impractical plan that should never get off the ground. What's more, the resulting light pollution could devastate ground-based astronomy, distract aircraft pilots and even blind stargazers.
"Woah, woah, woah, those previous patents were earned through very hard work from our "lobbyist". If you do that, I want the bribe money back... I mean lobby money!"
The company said it is currently testing new interactive video ad formats in the U.S. and Canada, with a goal of zeroing in on subscribers’ viewing behavior and letting advertisers rely on templates built from that behavior. Citing positive early results from testing, Netflix said it will roll out the formats globally by the second quarter of 2026.
The Netflix user interface has become a mess to navigate, and mostly only ever shows me things I've already watched. If they'd put even a tiny bit of the effort they're putting into driving people to watch certain content they produced or are paid to promote and their ad framework into making it possible to find new content and improving the content they do produce (damn the "AI"-based effects and skin smoothing nonsense and shitty writing in the second season of Wednesday pissed me off), I might be willing to stick around but at this point I've rarely been using it anymore. Sad to see the fall...
Most of them are built around lazy algorithmic feeds like this. It's very hard to search for specific things, you're just expected to eat whatever they serve up to you.
A bipartisan pair of US Senators has introduced a bill that would require companies and government agencies to report AI-related layoffs, and it couldn't come at a better time. October jobs data suggests AI is driving the largest wave of layoffs headed into the end of the year that we've seen since 2003.
Senators Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Mark Warner (D-VA) on Wednesday announced plans to introduce the AI-Related Job Impacts Clarity Act. If passed, the law requires public companies and pretty much every single federal government agency to hand quarterly layoff data over to the Department of Labor, indicating how many jobs they cut due to automation.
The act would also require employers to report on a quarterly basis how many people they hired related to AI and automation, how many jobs they decided not to fill thanks to AI, and numbers on retraining due to artificial intelligence. The end goal, said Warner, is to help Congress understand how the labor market is changing and how to prepare for the future.
Dopo aver annunciato i rappresentanti lo scorso 23 settembre, oggi è stato rivelato il brano che canteranno Rafaella & Christos in rappresentanza di Cipro allo Junior Eurovision 2025 a Tbilisi. Il brano è stato pubblicato stamattina alle 8:30 durante il programma “Omorfi Mera” su RIK1, l’emittente principale dell’isola del Mediterraneo. È stato scritto da un team interamente non cipriota, ovvero da Andy...
This is a deep cut. There’s a solo John Lennon track called “Remember” off the Plastic Ono Band album. He closes it by screaming “Remember the 5th of November!” followed by an explosion.
It was a reference to Guy Fawkes Day, marking an infamous plot to blow up the British Parliament in 1605 that ended with the perpetrator’s head on a spike.
But that lyric hits a bit different after last year’s presidential election. Because on November 5, 2024, America rewarded a man who tried to blow up our system of government by pushing election lies that incited an attack on our capital.
Seen through the eyes of history, it looks like an act of self-immolation by our nation. That’s exactly why we need to be firefighters rather than arsonists to counteract its impact.
American democracy is an outlier. We are the world’s longest-lasting large democracy and the first nation founded upon an idea rather than a tribal identity. We’ve always been imperfect people working to form a more perfect union.
Afunny thing happened to our political blowhard class on its way to its next appointed bout of savvy prognosticating. As breathless pundits looked to this week’s handful of off-year elections for telltale signs of the country’s mood swings, the news broke that President Donald Trump has reached a new low in his national approval ratings. In a CNN poll released Monday, 63 percent of respondents disapproved of his performance in office, leaving just 37 percent approving. As polling analyst G. Elliot Morris notes, the 26 point net gap in disapproval is the lowest Trump has ever clocked—even in the aftermath of the January 6 insurrection, when many observers predicted his political demise. By comparison, an enfeebled and marginalized Joe Biden sported a 40 percent approval rating when he left office. A plurality of 42 percent approval would show Trump holding on to the 2024 coalition that elected him, but this latest swoon indicates that independents and even traditional GOP supporters are turning against him. Meanwhile, The Economist’s poll tracker shows that Trump’s approval is underwater in all seven of the swing states he carried last November, as well as in Texas. That’s right: The state that’s frantically (and secretively) redrawing its congressional maps to suit Trump’s whims—and has even filed an actual lawsuit against Tylenol based on Trump and RFK Jr.’s fabricated claims that the pain suppressant promotes autism in utero—has soured on Trump’s agenda.
It’s easy to make too much of snapshot surveys of presidential approval, but, as Morris also notes, polling averages have been trending strongly away from Trump over the past two weeks. The intensity of that disapproval is also striking: “Depending on the polls you pick for your average,” Morris writes, “between 46 and 50 percent of U.S. adults tell pollsters they “strongly disapprove” of the job Trump is doing as president. That is double the percent that strongly approve…. Put another way, less than half of the people who voted for Trump in 2024 currently ‘strongly approve’ of his presidency.” When you factor in disapproval among respondents who didn’t vote in the last election, the MAGA picture gets grimmer still, with less than a third of American adults approving of Trump, and 53 percent disapproving—48 percent of them doing so “strongly.”
For low-income people and their families, it’s been a hard, complicated week. On November 1, more than 40 million users of SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, did not receive their monthly payments after the Trump administration refused to pay full benefits through emergency funding during the ongoing government shutdown. It would be better, the administration has decided, to weaponize hunger against Democrats, blaming the government shutdown, than to feed people.
On Monday, a court ordered that the Trump administration use contingency funds to fund SNAP, although the Trump administration said it would only fund half the regular amount. It’s unclear whether the White House, which has flip-flopped on SNAP several times in recent weeks, will pull a similar stunt in December if the government shutdown continues—or when the funds for this month will reach people.
And it’s not like the system was perfect. A recent report from the National Domestic Workers Alliance found that in September, 91 percent of domestic workers who responded to the survey—including nannies, home health care aides and house cleaners—said their households struggled with food insecurity in September, when SNAP payments were still in effect.
Airports in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago are among 40 of the busiest across the U.S. where flights will be cut starting Friday due to the government shutdown, according to a list distributed to the airlines and obtained by The Associated Press.
The Federal Aviation Administration announced Wednesday it would reduce air traffic by 10% across “high-volume” markets to maintain travel safety as air traffic controllers go unpaid and exhibit signs of strain during the shutdown.
The affected airports in more than two dozen states include the busiest ones across the U.S., including Atlanta, Denver, Dallas, Orlando, Miami, and San Francisco. In some of the biggest cities — such as New York, Houston and Chicago — multiple airports will be affected.
I ended up in Captcha hell trying to archive this, so I'm afraid I can't provide a link.
Meta internally projected late last year that it would earn about 10% of its overall annual revenue – or $16 billion – from running advertising for scams and banned goods, internal company documents show.
A cache of previously unreported documents reviewed by Reuters also shows that the social-media giant for at least three years failed to identify and stop an avalanche of ads that exposed Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp’s billions of users to fraudulent e-commerce and investment schemes, illegal online casinos, and the sale of banned medical products.
On average, one December 2024 document notes, the company shows its platforms’ users an estimated 15 billion “higher risk” scam advertisements – those that show clear signs of being fraudulent – every day. Meta earns about $7 billion in annualized revenue from this category of scam ads each year, another late 2024 document states.
Much of the fraud came from marketers acting suspiciously enough to be flagged by Meta’s internal warning systems. But the company only bans advertisers if its automated systems predict the marketers are at least 95% certain to be committing fraud, the documents show. If the company is less certain – but still believes the advertiser is a likely scammer – Meta charges higher ad rates as a penalty, according to the documents. The idea is to dissuade suspect advertisers from placing ads.
The documents further note that users who click on scam ads are likely to see more of them because of Meta’s ad-personalization system, which tries to deliver ads based on a user’s interests.
Forget the medium and focus on the New York City mayor-elect’s message – centrists can’t compete with rent freezes, free buses and support for Palestine, says writer Rohan Sathyamoorthy
The automaker announced on Wednesday as part of its “AI Day” that it is launching three robotaxi models. The vehicles will use four of Xpeng’s self-developed “Turing” AI chips. Xpeng claims the chips represent the combined highest in-car computing power in the world, at 3,000 TOPS, an industry measure.
Meta projected 10% of its 2024 revenue would come from ads for scams and banned goods, documents seen by Reuters show. And the social media giant internally estimates that its platforms show users 15 billion scam ads a day. Among its responses to suspected rogue marketers: charging them a premium for ads – and issuing reports on ’Scammiest Scammers.’
The mayor-elect built the greatest field operation by any political campaign in the city’s history – by getting New Yorkers to talk to eachother. Can Democrats learn from his success?
The Internet faces an existential crisis as nearly 50% of all traffic is now non-human, with AI-generated content and bots threatening to overwhelm authentic human interaction[^1]. According to recent studies, this includes automated programs responsible for 49.6% of web traffic in 2023, a trend accelerated by AI models scraping content[^1].
The problems are stark: - Search engines flooded with AI-generated content optimized for algorithms rather than humans - Social media platforms filled with AI "slop" and automated responses - Genuine human content being drowned out by machine-generated noise - Erosion of trusted information sources and shared truth
However, concrete solutions exist:
Technical Defenses:
- Open-source spam filtering tools like mosparo for protecting website forms - AI scraper blocking through systems like Anubis - Content authenticity verification via the CAI SDK[^1]
Community Building:
- Supporting decentralized social networks (Mastodon, Lemmy) - Using open-source forum platforms that emphasize human moderation - Participating in curated communities with active fact-checking[^1]
Individual Actions:
- Using privacy-focused browsers and search engines - Supporting trusted news sources and independent creators - Being conscious of data sharing and digital footprint[^1]
"While exposure to AI-generated misinformation does make people more worried about the quality of information available online, it can also increase the value they attach to outlets with reputations for credibility," notes a 2025 study by Campante[^1].
Anyone recommending Anubis which default so requiring JavaScript to pass as a solution to the dying internet is insane. JavaScript is the primary fingerprinting tool used inside the browsers.
Eurovision 2026, c'è la prima artista ufficiale: Antigoni in gara per Cipro. La cantante di origine britannica ha una popolarità televisiva nel Regno Unito
The Internet faces an existential crisis as nearly 50% of all traffic is now non-human, with AI-generated content and bots threatening to overwhelm authentic human interaction1. According to recent studies, this includes automated programs responsible for 49.6% of web traffic in 2023, a trend accelerated by AI models scraping content1.
The problems are stark: - Search engines flooded with AI-generated content optimized for algorithms rather than humans - Social media platforms filled with AI "slop" and automated responses - Genuine human content being drowned out by machine-generated noise - Erosion of trusted information sources and shared truth
However, concrete solutions exist:
Technical Defenses:
- Open-source spam filtering tools like mosparo for protecting website forms - AI scraper blocking through systems like Anubis - Content authenticity verification via the CAI SDK1
Community Building:
- Supporting decentralized social networks (Mastodon, Lemmy) - Using open-source forum platforms that emphasize human moderation - Participating in curated communities with active fact-checking1
Individual Actions:
- Using privacy-focused browsers and search engines - Supporting trusted news sources and independent creators - Being conscious of data sharing and digital footprint1
"While exposure to AI-generated misinformation does make people more worried about the quality of information available online, it can also increase the value they attach to outlets with reputations for credibility," notes a 2025 study by Campante1.
In a historic breach of China’s censorship infrastructure, internal data were leaked from Chinese infrastructure firms associated with the Great Firewall (GFW) in September this year. Researchers now estimate that the data has a volume of approximately 600 GB.
The material includes more than 100,000 documents, internal source code, work logs, configuration files, emails, technical manuals, and operational runbooks. The number of files in the dump is reported to be in the thousands, though exact totals vary by source.
[...]
An unexpected but critical component of the breach is the metadata embedded within documents and logs. Authorship tags, file paths, and computer hostnames have linked hundreds of documents to individual users, systems, and organizations. These human fingerprints offer unprecedented visibility into the organizational structure behind the GFW’s operation. Engineers, data analysts, lab researchers, and regional technicians are all traceable by name or system alias. Many entries refer to known ISPs, national labs, or university-affiliated nodes, suggesting that the enforcement apparatus spans a wide constellation of public-private partnerships, military-academic collaborations, and centralized policy deployment.
Together, these findings constitute a unique technical cross-section of the Chinese censorship-industrial complex, revealing not just what is filtered or how, but who enforces it, who maintains the infrastructure, and how decisions flow through the layered topology of digital control.
[...]
The current report represents only the first installment in a three-part investigative series into the unprecedented breach of China’s censorship apparatus. While this Part 1 has centered on exposing the dataset’s contents and evaluating its technical, organizational, and strategic significance, it is only the beginning. The sheer scale and complexity of the leak, over 500GB of internal GFW infrastructure data, demands a methodical, layered approach to fully grasp its implications.
The next two parts in this series will delve even deeper, uncovering the architecture of China’s censorship regime and examining the wider consequences for global digital governance.
Part 2 of the series will look into the architecture and will offer a forensic reconstruction of how the Great Firewall actually works at the technical level, mapping the core design of the censorship stack. This includes how packets are intercepted, filtered, redirected, or dropped; how apps like Psiphon and V2Ray are detected at the protocol level; and how traffic shaping is deployed based on geography, ISP, or session context.
Part 3 will the geopolitics and the fallout will address the broader implications. This breach does more than just reveal technical controls, it changes the strategic calculus of censorship resistance. We will assess how the exposure reshapes China’s ability to sustain its domestic information control and international cyber operations, and how it informs countermeasures by VPN developers, privacy advocates, and democratic governments. Ethical and legal questions will also be raised: what does responsible engagement with such data look like?
[...]
With this series, we aim to present not just the most complete picture yet of the GFW, but a roadmap for pushing back against the machinery of state censorship.
Dissenting from the court’s majority, one judge sounded the alarm about ignoring recanted forensic testimony, saying the medical examiner’s reversal “calls into doubt the foundation of the trial.”
In a historic breach of China’s censorship infrastructure, internal data were leaked from Chinese infrastructure firms associated with the Great Firewall (GFW) in September this year. Researchers now estimate that the data has a volume of approximately 600 GB.
The material includes more than 100,000 documents, internal source code, work logs, configuration files, emails, technical manuals, and operational runbooks. The number of files in the dump is reported to be in the thousands, though exact totals vary by source.
[...]
An unexpected but critical component of the breach is the metadata embedded within documents and logs. Authorship tags, file paths, and computer hostnames have linked hundreds of documents to individual users, systems, and organizations. These human fingerprints offer unprecedented visibility into the organizational structure behind the GFW’s operation. Engineers, data analysts, lab researchers, and regional technicians are all traceable by name or system alias. Many entries refer to known ISPs, national labs, or university-affiliated nodes, suggesting that the enforcement apparatus spans a wide constellation of public-private partnerships, military-academic collaborations, and centralized policy deployment.
Together, these findings constitute a unique technical cross-section of the Chinese censorship-industrial complex, revealing not just what is filtered or how, but who enforces it, who maintains the infrastructure, and how decisions flow through the layered topology of digital control.
[...]
The current report represents only the first installment in a three-part investigative series into the unprecedented breach of China’s censorship apparatus. While this Part 1 has centered on exposing the dataset’s contents and evaluating its technical, organizational, and strategic significance, it is only the beginning. The sheer scale and complexity of the leak, over 500GB of internal GFW infrastructure data, demands a methodical, layered approach to fully grasp its implications.
The next two parts in this series will delve even deeper, uncovering the architecture of China’s censorship regime and examining the wider consequences for global digital governance.
Part 2 of the series will look into the architecture and will offer a forensic reconstruction of how the Great Firewall actually works at the technical level, mapping the core design of the censorship stack. This includes how packets are intercepted, filtered, redirected, or dropped; how apps like Psiphon and V2Ray are detected at the protocol level; and how traffic shaping is deployed based on geography, ISP, or session context.
Part 3 will the geopolitics and the fallout will address the broader implications. This breach does more than just reveal technical controls, it changes the strategic calculus of censorship resistance. We will assess how the exposure reshapes China’s ability to sustain its domestic information control and international cyber operations, and how it informs countermeasures by VPN developers, privacy advocates, and democratic governments. Ethical and legal questions will also be raised: what does responsible engagement with such data look like?
[...]
With this series, we aim to present not just the most complete picture yet of the GFW, but a roadmap for pushing back against the machinery of state censorship.
There is a petition, e6679, on the official ourcommons.ca website for the government of Canada, which address is misinformation in Canadian politicians.
If you ask me, this is a very important petition, because I believe that the threat to Canadian sovereignty and democracy is indeed misinformation that is being spread by Canadian politicians. Sure, misinformation from social media is annoying, and when it comes from the traditional media it's disturbing, but when it comes from Federal politicians, it's downright dangerous.
It has almost 40,000 signatures. Please sign it, there's only three weeks left. The more signatures, the more weight it will have when it's read in parliament
We need to send a message to Parliament and let them know that we're concerned and frustrated with misinformation.
I should note that the website has had lots of problems recently. Please be patient and try until you succeed. You need to receive a validation email, click on that, and then you get a confirmation email. Until you get that second email, your signature has not been counted.
Semisimian
in reply to silence7 • • •DINO? LINO? One of those is correct.
Nolan's Batman film repeated a line that didn't land with me at the time but I have since understood: "it's not who you are, it's what you do that defines you."
At the time, I thought myself a temporarily embarrassed progressive, thinking all these good thoughts and waiting for my sleeper-cell handler to activate me. I'm a good person, I am ready to do good when the need arises, as long as I have nothing else scheduled that day.
But the malaise of the socially progressive 90s lulled me (and other Gen Xers) into a false optimism that things were just going to get better on their own. Our brains were also cooked by decades of deregulation propaganda. And TVs were getting bigger and cheaper, so who were we to complain?
Weiss is the next generation of this detached ideology. She's been simmering in absurdism and pageantry so long that I don't think she has a handle on what she really wants to do. I'm not excusing her behavior, but I can't devine a coherent platform for her. I'm not sure any of her contemporaries actually have one, either. Just for the grift? It doesn't make them less dangerous, but hopefully it makes them less intimidating for those of us who have felt the tap on the shoulder to enlist.
In conclusion, she sucks, she says inane things. Don't be surprised but also don't roll your eyes and move on. Find what you can do, no matter how small, and do it. You will instantly be steps ahead of the performative competition.