Fediverse Report 137 - this week’s fediverse news
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[li]altstore joins the fediverse, and you can interact with apps on the alternative iOS app store now via your fediverse accounts. Altstore also made a 500k USD donation to various fediverse platform
Fediverse Report 137 - this week's fediverse news
altstore joins the fediverse, and you can interact with apps on the alternative iOS app store now via your fediverse accounts. Altstore also made a 500k USD donation to various fediverse platforms
Mastodon is getting Starter Packs, with more details on the design, soliciting feedback
A New Social announced a new version for Bounce, which allows you to transfer your account from the fediverse to #bluesky
AltStore, an alternative app store for iOS, is joining the fediverse. The store launched early last year as an alternative to Apple’s own App Store, thanks to the EU’s Digital Markets Act. AltStore has been growing over the last year, and is now taking the next steps. AltStore is now connecting to the fediverse via their own Mastodon server. The integration that AltStore has build consists of every app on the store automatically also becoming a fediverse account, hosted on their AltStore Mastodon server. They explain: “Using ActivityPub, we plan to federate apps, app updates, and news alerts from AltStore to the open social web. Each AltStore source will receive its own ActivityPub account, which can then be followed by any other open social web account. You’ll be able to like, boost, and reply to everything, and most importantly all these interactions will appear natively in AltStore.” For now, they are using the microblogging format (ActivityPub ‘Notes’), but AltStore plans to publish new native ActivityPub objects specifically for software releases, that can be used by other fediverse app market places.
The organisation also has raised 6M USD in VC funding for further development. They believe that the long-term success of the AltStore is tied closely to the success of the open social web, and they are donation 500k USD to various fediverse projects. AltStore is donating 300k USD to Mastodon, and the other 200k USD is split across various fediverse projects: the bridging software Bridgy Fed (which AltStore uses to also connect their store to Bluesky), the fediverse clients Ivory, Phoenix and Tapestry, the mastodon server mstn.social (as operator Stux is also a regular publisher to the AltStore), and the platforms Akkoma, PeerTube and Bookwyrm, as well as the Fedify ActivityPub software framework.
Recently I wrote about how the app stores are the most likely choke point that authoritarian governments will use to apply pressure to force open social web platforms into compliance. Alternative ways of distributing apps that fall outside of the control of two Big Tech platforms is a crucial part of keeping the open social web open. AltStore connecting their marketplace to the fediverse is a great step into taking back control from these two gatekeepers, although much more work remains to be done. Over on ATProto people are also experimenting with distributing apps and software packages via the protocol, and the space of app distribution via open protocols is primed for more experimentation and projects.
Mastodon has shared more information on their upcoming plans to introduce ‘Packs’ to Mastodon. The design is based on Bluesky’s Starter Packs, which is a list of accounts you can create and share for other people to easily follow. Mastodon is taking a careful approach to designing the feature, and is actively soliciting feedback from the community. The main change that Mastodon is making is in giving people control over if and when they can appear in a Pack, as well as giving people the ability to easily remove their account from a Pack if they so desire.
One of the pain points for Starter Packs on Bluesky is that people got included on Starter Packs with no easy way to remove them from the list. When the Starter Pack got popular, that resulted in an account getting lots of new followers, but in a way that collapsed the context of the account, resulting in conflict. One of the challenge points with Starter Packs is that the identity of an account does not always match with what they are actually posting about. For example, if someone has a PhD in philosophy and sometimes posts about that, they might get added to a philosophy Starter Pack. But in practice they might mostly post about US politics, or reposts anime, which creates a mismatch in expectation and friction between the original account and the new follower from a Starter Pack.
Bluesky’s Starter Pack have gotten a lot of praise for their effectiveness in onboarding entire communities at the same time during migration waves, when entire communities move from one platform to another all at once. This seems to be one of the major reasons for Mastodon to also adopt a similar feature with Packs. But for Bluesky, the feature has turned out to be a mixed bag, with the developer who created Starter Packs being decidedly mixed on the feature herself. She says that Starter Packs are indeed highly valuable during migration waves, but that in other times they are susceptible to abuse for engagement-hacking, as well as the context collapse earlier. Mastodon is taking a careful approach with their Pack feature, and they are actively engaging with the learnings from Bluesky, so it’ll be interesting to see how the feature will turn out in Mastodon.
You can soon transfer your social graph from Mastodon to Bluesky, with the new version of Bounce. Bounce is a tool by A New Social, the organisation behind the bridging software that connects various open social web protocol. With Bounce, you can move your account from one social networking protocol to another. The organisation earlier released a version which allows you to port your Bluesky account to the fediverse. With the new update, which will be available on October 20, you can now do the same in reverse: move from the fediverse to Bluesky.
The projects by A New Social, both Bounce and Bridgy Fed, represent an effort to give people more control over their own digital identity and social graph. Both ActivityPub and ATProto give people the option to move their account to a different platform on the same protocol. With tools like Bounce, this capability is enhanced even more, with the ability to move an account to a different protocol as well. For people more interested in moving from Bluesky to the fediverse, the tool Slurp now allows you to import your Bluesky posts into your fediverse account.
Fediverse podcasting platform Castopod now has a repository for plugins for the platform. With plugins people can customise their Castopod instance to their own needs. As anyone can create plugins, this allows for greater diversity in development of the software. Castopod also announced during this week’s Fediforum that there are now over 1000 podcasts using Castopod.
A pro-Russian propaganda network has targeted the fediverse and Bluesky, “promoting pro-Russian narratives and linking to Telegram channels associated with known state-aligned disinformation operations”, IFTAS reports. Their findings are based on the work of the antibot4navalny research team, which notes that the campaign makes use of the Bridgy Fed to get their accounts that impersonate news organisations into Bluesky.
The ActivityPub framework Fedify has gotten a 192K EUR grant by the Sovereign Tech Fund to further strenghten the ecosystem. The grant will be used for further development of the framework. Fedify is already in use by Ghost, and is also supported by Ghost.
Mastodon is soliciting feedback for their new Terms of Service for their mastodon.social and mastodon.online servers. The organisation originally proposed a new ToS in June, but retracted those after criticism from the community.
China is increasing military activities near Taiwan and honing its ability to stage a surprise attack, as well as seeking to undermine trust in the government with "hybrid" online warfare tactics, the defense ministry said today.
Taiwan has faced increased military pressure from Beijing during the past five years, including at least seven rounds of major war games around Taiwan since 2022.
"The Chinese communists have adopted routine grey zone harassment tactics, combined with joint combat readiness patrols, targeted military exercises and cognitive warfare, posing a comprehensive threat to us," the defense ministry said in a report released every two years.
[...]
Beijing is also using "hybrid warfare" to weaken people's trust in the government and support for defence spending, and using artificial intelligence tools to weaken Taiwan's cybersecurity and to scan for weak points in critical infrastructure, it added.
"Through both conventional and unconventional military actions, it aims to test its capabilities for attacking Taiwan and confronting foreign forces," the ministry said.
[...]
The report said China is using a "professional cyber army" to manipulate social media accounts and flood them with misinformation to sow division in Taiwanese society and weaken trust in the government.
Chinese state media outlets and collaborators have also worked to weaken the will to fight, it said.
The ministry added China has also been using deepfake technology to make videos and utilising AI to "generate polarising political rhetoric".
[...]
The report was released one day before Lai gives his key national day speech. China last year held war games after that same event in what it said was a warning to "separatist acts".
China won't get a damn thing if they invade. Taiwan has bombs strapped to every server, computer, and machine. The moment China steps one foot on the island, everything they are invading for goes up in smoke. It'll cost them a million fighters lives for a bombed out island. Sadly, China isn't going to let that stop them. They have 3 years to take the Taiwan while America continues to crumble under Trump. Right now I doubt our military is prepared for any boots on the ground war because Trump just insulted every general and military personnel.
At the time of his arrest in 2015, Gui Minhai held only Swedish citizenship. Chinese officials have frequently stated that foreign passports do not protect individuals who were born in the People’s Republic of China, an interpretation that violates the Vienna Convention.
In February 2020, a Chinese court sentenced Gui Minhai to 10 years in prison on charges of ‘illegally providing intelligence abroad’, after a secret and unfair trial where he has been denied proper legal representation and access to Swedish consular services.
His current whereabouts are still unknown.
On 9 October, an overwhelming majority of 546 out of 593 Members of the European Parliament voted of a resolution calling on the European External Action Service (EEAS), the European Commission and EU member states to urge China to release Swedish publisher Gui Minhai.
JOINT MOTION FOR A RESOLUTION pursuant to Rules 150(5) and 136(4) of the Rules of Procedure replacing the following motions: B10-0412/2025 (The Left) B10-0414/2025 (Verts/ALE) B10-0429/2025 (Renew) B10-0431/2025 (S&D) B10-0433/2025 (PPE) B10-0435/202…
In February 2020, a Chinese court sentenced Gui Minhai to 10 years in prison on charges of ‘illegally providing intelligence abroad’, after a secret and unfair trial
The first sign of the American order came when a Houston TV station aired video showing people in the courtyard of the consulate apparently burning documents on Tuesday night.
Demonstrations went ahead despite calls from politicians and police leaders for the protests to be postponed in wake of the Manchester synagogue attack.
Americans will believe this about a Swede distributing anti-Communist agitprop, then lose their fucking minds if they see a Confucius Center or a Mosque open up in their neighborhood.
As the world observes the 36th International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction under the theme Fund Resilience, Not Disasters, China emphasizes the importance of science and technology in strengthening its disaster prevention and response capabilities.
However, it is that seemingly arbitrary three-times-a-year limit applied to the People section that is most concerning. Why not four? Why not as many times as a user wants?
Possibly because deleting or recreating the data is resource-intensive on the servers. It might actually be a good sign that Microsoft really removes the data, not just mark it inactive, when you turn the feature off.
"Microsoft OneDrive is rolling out AI face recognition for your photos." To disable (for now), go to Privacy & Permissions → People section. (if you are in EU, maybe it is deactivated by default) source: https://x.com/ProtonDrive/status/1978109833690665463
Yeah but they are taking your data from the laptop your mum bought yesterday and put all the family vacation pictures on. Mum didn't know she had to kill off OneDrive or Microsoft will hoover up and monetise your memories.
Fortunately not... I'm generally the one responsible for IT maintenance with my parents' as they get older. Disabled OneDrive long ago since they don't use it.
No, you really, truly can’t “rugged individualism” your way out of a societal problem. Remember that wedding you went to a few months ago? Someone uploaded this photos and now your social graph has been recorded. When your friend’s kid had a birthday party a few weeks ago? You were uploaded and graphed again. When you were out at that restaurant and you were in the background of someone’s date selfie? Graphed again.
The only solution to this problem is real data protection law, like the GDPR in the EU.
Oh, I definitely agree. We need better privacy and data protection laws here in Australia too. In the meantime, however, I do what I can to minimise my footprint. I'm well aware that other people are going to be the weak link!
I'm having computer issues in that after a couple of minutes of running windows crash, I get a blue screen and windows forces a restart.
That's NOT my problem.
it's a very good feature. if you have too much work and need a longer break, just restart a few times. i may need to change my work laptop from macbook to a windows
This is why I decided to dual-boot Ubuntu and Win10 until I'm fully comfortable on Linux. Every single thing about Win11 just makes my skin crawl.
Last week it was the news that they're eliminating methods to install the OS at all without being signed into a MS account. The degree of snooping had no plausible explanation other than for Microsoft to harvest and sell your data.
As someone who was in your exact position several years ago, nice!
I'd recommend Linux Mint to newcomers though. It's based on Ubuntu and is even easier to get comfortable with (much better GUI for updates and app "store"), but it strips out all the Microsoft-like stuff that Canonical have been doing in recent years.
Pop!_OS (also based on Ubuntu) and Bazzite are also meant to be beginner friendly, and are particularly geared towards gaming on Linux, especially the latter.
Great thing about Linux is you can change your distro whenever you want.
If you're uncertain, or not ready to go through the process just yet, you can always just boot Bazzite off a USB drive and play around with it for now.
Preventing their shitty brute force protection from allowing someone to get a users MS account password because they are FORCING users to use a non-local account?
The computer would have to store a hash locally to authenticate that account offline, so this is very likely why this is here. Because they've enabled a path to brute forcing their cloud accounts without their servers knowing.
The windows shithole is just layers of bad design all the way down.
I think that’s why it’s recommended to encrypt files containing personal information with a separate tool before uploading them to any cloud service. It prevents big data from automatically processing your Information and protects you from leaks.
Why do you think no one asks for stuff like this? Facial recognition is one of the best features of photo storage systems as it lets you easily find all of your photos that have certain people in them. It’s fantastic for making shared albums with family members where any pics of certain people are automatically added once recognized.
Onedrive having it makes using Onedrive for photo storage and sharing a much better experience.
Only if it can be done locally. I don't want my fucking face going out to a bunch of asshole corporations databases any more than absolutely necessary. Shit like this is why I don't let people take my picture.
Not sure why people are talking about the “you can only enable or disable it 3 times a year” as if it’s an issue? This is generally a thing you’d either turn off or on once, depending on what it defaults to. Why would anyone need to turn it on or off 3 times in a year?
I would assume that the "arbitrary limit" is actually based on something like the amount of processing power that it could take to go through every single photo/file that is uploaded.
Anyway, even if it is arbitrary - what reason would anyone have to turn it on and off more than 3x a year? It's something you'd decide you either want or you don't.
However, it is that seemingly arbitrary three-times-a-year limit applied to the People section that is most concerning. Why not four? Why not as many times as a user wants?
If it works the same way Immich does, probably because they have to retrain the models every time you turn it back on and want to aboid poeple turning it on when they need it, then off again, then back on, ... Although a less shitty mehod would be to limit the amount of times you can turn it on but I guess that iterferes with their goal of harvesting your data.
A simple, lightweight PowerShell script to remove pre-installed apps, disable telemetry, as well as perform various other changes to customize, declutter and improve your Windows experience. Win11D...
One of the best-known photographers in Mexico. Her work looks away from the sensational images of violence that have for years defined the nation, and instead looks inwards, to the traditions, faces, and unusual sights seen everyday.
Iturbide came to photography later in life. She was the eldest daughter of a wealthy, conservative couple. In 1962, she married the photographer Pedro Meyer and had three children. It was after the death of her daughter in 1970, aged just 6, that Iturbide turned to photography.
The 5th image is perhaps her best-known photograph. Nuestra Señora de Las Iguanas (Our Lady of the Iguanas), it was originally published as part of her photo essay Juchitán de las Mujeres (1979-86), a project which began with Iturbide's support of feminist causes.
Iturbide was also involved in documenting the indigenous cultures of Mexico. This image, Mujer Ángel, in which a woman carries a tape recorder on her journey to ancient cave paintings. was shot in 1979 in the Sonora desert, when Iturbide was living with the Seri Indians.
In many of her photographs there is a sense of playfulness and strangeness. These qualities are at odds with many people's expectations or experiences of Mexico. Iturbide has always strived to look beyond the lurid headlines, to the absurdity of life.
Folk stories and religious themes are common throughout her work. Particularly when the visual language of the catholic church meets ancient native traditions and the realities of contemporary life.
Iturbide started photographing landscapes and birds. She had heard the Seri Indians talk of the significance of birds, and she began to incorporate living and dead birds into her art; symbolic of strength and fragility, freedom and vulnerability.
In the mid-1980s she photographed Mexican-Americans in Eastside Los Angeles, many of whom were involved in street gangs. The cholos and cholas of the White Fence Gang would later feature in the anthology A Day in the Life of America (1987).
With just $800 in basic equipment, researchers found a stunning variety of data—including thousands of T-Mobile users’ calls and texts and even US military communications—sent by satellites unencrypted.
With just $800 in basic equipment, researchers found a stunning variety of data—including thousands of T-Mobile users’ calls and texts and even US military communications—sent by satellites unencrypted.
Reminds me of from 1995. It was built from behind-the-scenes footage captured from live satellite feeds from the 1992 Presidential election and the 1992 Rodney King LA riots.
I just watched that for the first time a couple weeks ago. Very enlightening. The bits with Larry King were also completely insane. I would love to see the debate he moderated between Clinton and 'Poppy' Bush in an alternate timeline. That could have been pure chaos.
The Green party of England and Wales, at its conference last week, passed a landmark – and long overdue – motion backed by the Greens’ new, Jewish party leader Zack Polanski demanding the proscription, or banning as a terrorist group, of the so-called ‘Israel Defence Forces’ (IDF), in reality an arm of the terror state occupying Palestine, as well as calling for an apology by the UK to the Palestinian people for the ‘Balfour Declaration’ that paved the way for the theft of their land to create Israel as an ethnostate.
The Green Party: IDF are terrorists
It is the first time a UK political party has named the IDF as a terror group, despite the Israeli regime’s genocide and endless crimes against the Palestinians for the past two years and for decades before that.
The motion calls for:
The Israeli military (IDF) to be banned under UK counter-terrorism law, so that participation in or praise of its operations could be criminalised;A formal apology from the British government to the people of Palestine for the Balfour Declaration;An immediate cease of Israeli military operations in Gaza, a withdrawal of forces, and the guarantee of humanitarian access – food, water, medical supplies – to civilians;Support for the International Criminal Court’s case of genocide, and a full arms embargo on Israel;The end of British training, intelligence sharing, and spy-plane flights over Palestinian territory;Use of British shipping resources to deliver aid to Gaza and the West Bank;Deployment of a UN peacekeeping force into Gaza and the West Bank to protect Palestinian lives.
There is, of course, zero chance of the Starmer government classifying the IDF – and therefore itself for aiding it – as terrorists, or of either Reform or the Tories, both strongly Zionist, doing so either. All the more reason to do everything to ensure a Green/Your Party coalition is in government after the next general election.
Now that I know what's really going-on: it's a policy of Netanyahu's "Israel".. it makes much more sense.
( Thank you Lemmy.World for informing me of that doctrine, the other day )
It also makes-obvious that you have to meet force with force proportionately, such that any player who always throws-around disproportionate-destruction so as to always-increase their control-of-the-world, you HAVE to hit them with force-equal-to-what-they're-throwing-around, XOR you are accommodating-their-gaining-control-of-our-world.
Same as always, G-D's law is reflective, and that means equal-and-opposite-force. ( yes, same as physics )
The really-sad thing about Netanyahu's "Israel" is that their own scripture, like Jeremiah & Isaiah, identify that their relationship with their god is cyclical: with-god then against-god .. and when they go against-their-god, then their-god torches them.
So, IF their scripture holds-true, and their god is as it/"he" stated in their scripture, THEN Netanyahu's "Israel" should be toast, shortly.
if their god won't torch them, or enforce-their-torching, THEN their god is .. evil, apparently, or intermittent, or .. periodic, or something.
So, the Scientific thing to do, is simply .. wait & see.
Let's see if their scripture is right, & they're getting torched, shortly..
If so, then maybe their god is someone of integrity..
( for a bit more context, Jews are ordered to NOT read all of Isaiah, apparently, by their rabbis:
1 entire chapter of it is forbidden because it looks too-much like it backs the root-guru of the Christians, benJoseph.
The whole concept of rabbis outranking the prophets of Judaism .. I find that hard to reconcile with logic, you know?
but ideological-contortionism is normal, among humans.. )
whatever. From what I've read, zionists insist that Ezekiel .. iirc it is 39 .. vetoes all Jeremiah & Isaiah, & blesses their genociding of ALL peoples around them..
Therefore genociding Palestinians is just the beginning, right?
Rabies is rabies.
Ideological-rabies is ideological-rabies, it doesn't matter whether it is "zionist" or "christian" or "islamist" or "capitalist"/moneyarchist/oligarchist or "buddhist" or "hindutva" or "atheist" or "confucian" or "marxist" or "leninist" or "right-wing" or "fascist" or mass-shooter or ANY ideological-rabies:
we've got the inherent right to fight against ideological-rabies!
Same as the right to fight against the biological rabies, & ebola, too.
Healthiness is a right!
Always was, always will be.
Anyone opposing healthiness-is-a-right is .. representing wrongness.
With just $800 in basic equipment, researchers found a stunning variety of data—including thousands of T-Mobile users’ calls and texts and even US military communications—sent by satellites unencrypted.
“Generally, our users choose the encryption that they apply to their communications to suit their specific application or need,” says a spokesperson for SES, the parent company of Intelsat. “For SES’s inflight customers, for example, SES provides a public Wi-Fi hot spot connection similar to the public internet available at a coffee shop or hotel. On such public networks, user traffic would be encrypted when accessing a website via HTTPS/TLS or communicating using a virtual private network.”
Can't decide the side of the fence I am on for this. Of course the vast majority of Internet traffic across the world is unencrypted. Anyone could be on the line between me and this Lemmy instance, just as they could if there was a satellite between us. However, you're also broadcasting it to like 25% of the globe and not even making any kind of physical infrastructure efforts.
Quest can't entirely guarantee nobody will snoop a fiber line, but they do bury them.
At the start of 2023, we sunsetted the HTTPS Everywhere web extension. It encrypted browser communications with websites and made sure users benefited from the protection of HTTPS wherever possible.
I mean, some parts of the protocols we use for the Internet need to be in the clear to work, DNS comes to mind. If you want that kept private as well you need to use something like tor.
But regardless, what people generally actually care about keeping secret is the content, not the protocol.
I mean, some parts of the protocols we use for the Internet need to be in the clear to work, DNS comes to mind. If you want that kept private as well you need to use something like tor.
Not really. We also have DNS over HTTPs, DNS over TLS, and DNSCrypt which are all becoming more popular. But that's still application level data that I'm not really talking about.
But regardless, what people generally actually care about keeping secret is the content, not the protocol.
A lot of information can be gleaned from protocol metadata though. Source, destination, which applications are being used, maybe more depending on protocols. Not exactly information I want to be easily available to the public, but also not exactly critical either.
Typically satellites have beams they turn on and off to service different areas, with one beam pointing towards the RAN that receives the data rather than just repeating a broadcast out to everywhere the satellite can theoretically reach. For mobile telecom backhaul via satellite it is standardized that the data should be encrypted for untrusted transport links so this seems to me like an issue of not following specs.
I remember reading that drug cartells in South America are using disused military communications satellites.
These satellites simply takes a signal recieved on one band and rebroadcast it on another band over a wide area, so as long as the satellite can pick up your signal you can basically talk to an entire continent at once, all while remaining anonymous.
Nope, lol. These suckers are fucking ancient. There isn’t any processing, you can’t overload something that isn’t actually reading the data or using a protocol.
They still use energy, no? To relay signals on another frequency. That should come from somewhere, and also the more different signals, the more noise. And without their input frequency being regulated, there must be lots of noise.
I'm not talking about technical things, just that IRL on regulated frequencies one can do something because people using it for bullshit are legally prosecuted. Depends on wavelength, of course.
But OK, now I think I get what you are talking about.
Well the biggest steps I'm going to assume are having a satellite dish, knowing where to point it, knowing what to send, then hope that someone is listening. Much easier for a hooligan to throw a rock at someone or find a can of spray paint
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Saatvik Green Energy, one of India's biggest solar module makers by capacity, said on Thursday it is shunning the once-promising U.S. export market as it is no longer "worth the risk" due to the thorny tariff issue
Are these likely to be used to get people off home coal though? To do that you need to replace the infrastructure that uses coal with electric. That's no small undertaking.
There's the tarrifs and theres the bizarre anti-renewable energy sentiment harbored by the current administration.
Personally, I think that's just coming from power utilities pushing the idea that, "it's cool if WE build a solar array but it's not cool if YOU do it."
No, it's stupidier and more nakedly corrupt. Fossil fuel companies gave Trump over a billion dollars in political donations, and fossil fuel jobs look "manly" and have "big trucks."
That's about it. He can appeal to rural voters in rural states working dying jobs while the companies he gives trillions in subsides to give him billions in donations back. For that, he'll kill the planet faster and trap millions in low wage, dangerous jobs instead of just letting solar and wind naturally ramp up.
If 4chan continues to ignore Ofcom, the forum could be blocked in the UK. And 4chan could face even bigger fines totaling about $23 million or 10 percent of 4chan’s worldwide turnover, whichever is higher. 4chan also faces potential arrest and/or "imprisonment for a term of up to two years," the lawsuit said.
Legislative and regulatory changes or actions at the state, federal, or international level may adversely affect the use, transfer, exchange, and value of virtual currency.
That means they agree their business can be affected by international regulations.
I know, its hard to believe your eyes, but it does say they can be adversely affected by international legislation and regulations if they want to do business there.
They could always opt to use a US-based payment processor that doesn't deal with international payments.
It specifically talks about the value of crypto currency, which can be affected by any number of external events. I'm going to assume you're simply trolling now.
Your company’s policies, procedures, and activities which relate to the Services, in each case to the extent reasonably necessary for Coinbase to comply with any applicable laws, rules, and regulations (including money laundering statutes, regulations and conventions of the United States or other jurisdictions), or the guidance or direction of, or request from, any regulatory authority or financial institution.
Not you again... genuinely convinced this user is a bot. He made this same argument a month ago on a now deleted post almost verbatim. I disputed his claims with evidence and they continuously moved the goalpost through the entire argument. either braindead or just software please ignore.
Not who you replied to, but: there is no legal, ethical, or moral, requirement for a business of one country to comply with the laws of another. If there was, all business would be beholden to the most overbearing government on any one subject. And just to specifically state it before it’s brought up, being tied into the international banking system doesn’t change that; if a state doesn’t want its citizenry doing business with a particular entity, it’s on them to stop it on their side or come to an agreement with the other’s government. Which does happen, especially with the conglomerate hegemony of components of the international banking system, but naturally that means that the only time any entity of a state is forced to comply with the laws of another is when their home-state demands it, which ultimately isn’t the laws of the other.
4Chan doesn’t have their own personal payment processor that they’re responsible for. They’re tied into processors like stripe and accept all payments that make it to them on the US side. So long as it is legal, which is typically the only way that a payment actually goes through as processors refuse the obviously illegal cases like encompassing embargoes. If the UK doesn’t want payments going to 4chan through a processor that operates in their country, it’s on them to stop the payment processor on their end.
The UK knows this, the fines are just one step towards them petitioning processors.
Imagine for a moment that 4chan is a business that sells alcoholic beverages in the US. Now imagine the UK has instituted prohibition and banned the consumption of alcohol.
now, some enterprising individuals have taken it upon themselves to buy, smuggle, and then sell those beverages inside the UK.
Clearly, the government has intended to ban the consumption of alcohol, not the sale of it.
Now the UK government is trying to shackle hefty fines against an American company for having the "audacity" of selling a product to an individual within the confines of the US.
again, the UK banned the consumption of alcohol, not the sale of. 4Chan isn't forcing UK citizens to drink the alcohol. They are simply selling the product, within their country of origin, to individuals who want to purchase it.
now, do you still think the UK government has a right to fine 4chan or do you think maybe the UK government should elaborate on their prohibition regulations to ensure their citizens are properly "protected"?
So in your scenario here, some enterprising individuals start off by smuggling alcohol into the UK. By definition according to Merriam-Webster, smuggling is: "to import or export secretly contrary to the law and especially without paying duties imposed by law".
According to UK laws, this has the following consequences:
Penalties for Drug Smuggling The legal consequences of drug smuggling in the United Kingdom are robust and intricate. These penalties are designed to deter and punish those involved in the illicit trade of controlled substances, and they vary significantly depending on the nature and scale of the offense.
Prison Sentences Convictions for drug smuggling can result in substantial prison sentences. The duration of imprisonment varies based on factors such as the type and quantity of drugs involved, the defendant’s role in the operation, and any previous criminal history. For Class A drugs like heroin or cocaine, sentences can range from several years to life imprisonment. The courts take a particularly stern stance on those involved in large-scale drug trafficking operations, often imposing the harshest sentences.
Fines In addition to imprisonment, courts may impose hefty fines on individuals convicted of drug smuggling. These financial penalties are meant to act as both a punishment and a deterrent. Fines can be substantial and are typically proportional to the severity of the offense and the defendant’s financial means.
Confiscation Orders The UK’s legal system has mechanisms to prevent criminals from profiting from their drug smuggling activities. Courts can issue confiscation orders requiring the defendant to surrender any assets or wealth acquired through drug smuggling. This means that criminals face prison time and fines and risk losing ill-gotten gains.
Forfeiture of Assets In cases where assets such as vehicles, boats, properties, or other possessions were used to commission drug smuggling offenses, law enforcement agencies can seize these assets through forfeiture proceedings. This serves as a punishment for the offender and a means to disrupt criminal enterprises.
Travel Restrictions Convictions related to drug smuggling can result in travel restrictions imposed on the individual. These restrictions may include bans on leaving the country to prevent the convicted person from continuing their criminal activities abroad. Such measures are implemented to ensure that those involved in drug smuggling cannot easily evade justice by fleeing the country.
Lets move to the selling of the illegally imported alcohol:
You can be stopped, fined or arrested by police if you’re under 18 and drinking alcohol in public.
If you’re under 18, it’s against the law: - for someone to sell you alcohol - to buy or try to buy alcohol - for an adult to buy or try to buy alcohol for you - to drink alcohol in licensed premises (such as a pub or restaurant)
However, if you’re 16 or 17 and accompanied by an adult, you can drink (but not buy) beer, wine or cider with a meal.
If you’re 16 or under, you may be able to go to a pub (or premises primarily used to sell alcohol) if you’re accompanied by an adult. However, this isn’t always the case. It can also depend on the specific conditions for that premises.
It’s illegal to give alcohol to children under 5.
For the sake of your argument, we'll remove the law that says its illegal to sell alcohol to children, I guess? Regardless, it might be some enterprising individuals that are selling it, but they are selling the alcohol in the UK. In UK currency, To UK residents. In the UK. We are getting into possibly exchanging UK currency for US currency, which is a whole new can of worms, but we can save that for later.
Now to your question:
now, do you still think the UK government has a right to fine 4chan or do you think maybe the UK government should elaborate on their prohibition regulations to ensure their citizens are properly “protected”?
Easy answer is yes. They should be fined for smuggling alcohol into the UK, which is what the current law calls for.
Now hypothetical for you.
Imagine for a moment that the UK has banned looking at alcohol if you are under 18. Doesn't matter if you look at alcohol if you are over the age of 18, but you just can't legally look at alcohol if you are under 18.
Now someone comes along named 4chan and builds a giant building in the UK that has a ton of alcohol inside of it. There isn't anything outside of the building. Its only inside where the alcohol is. They don't have protections in place that prevent anyone under 18 from going inside the building. Anyone can come in and look. You can be 5 years old, or 100 years old. As a matter of fact, tons of people from all over the UK come and visit this building daily, even children.
Now the UK government comes along and says, "Hey 4chan, you need to verify that anyone that goes into your building is at least 18 years old, because if someone under 18 looks at the alcohol in there, thats against the law."
4chan ignores the UK and continues letting anyone inside, not verifying anyone's age. Not only that, but they're actually selling alcohol to children in there, and letting children make their own alcohol as well.
Should the UK be allowed to fine/arrest 4chan until they meet the demands?
now, do you still think the UK government has a right to fine 4chan or do you think maybe the UK government should elaborate on their prohibition regulations to ensure their citizens are properly “protected”?
I went ahead and edited it for you so it says enterprising individuals.... which you end up asking about 4chan anyways
now, some enterprising individuals have taken it upon themselves to buy, smuggle, and then sell those beverages inside the UK
Wouldn't it be more akin to those individuals putting the alcohol into 4chan's trucks that are taking other stuff to the UK? (and worse with 4chan's knowledge)
In that case do you think it's unreasonable that the uk government imposes penalties for 4chan refusing to remove the alcohol that they know is there from the trucks.
And then if 4chan then refuses to pay said penalties start to not allow them to bring any trucks into the uk at all?
the "trucks" in your example are the users computers/phones.
the highways are the Internet, which is owned and maintained by the UK government after their "gate".
the alcohol is the content.
4chans trucks deliver to the UKs "gate" and the UK user does the rest from there on the UK highways.
if the UK doesn't want the alcohol in their country, they need to stop their citizens from purchasing it and block it from entering their country at their "gate".
this is what any reasonable country would do. they (UK) already do it for actual physical products like potassium bromate, azodicarbonamide, and certain artificial food dyes like Yellow 5 and Yellow 6.
Are they going to sue or fine the companies that manufacture those products? no. They're going to ban the products that use them and then go after the individuals that smuggle them in.
the "trucks" in your example are the users computers/phones.
No it's the packets being sent from the 4chan server.
Stopping every single packet (or in the real world truck) to check it isn't feasible, do that and you get 20 mile queues up the m20 (and the digital version of that). Plus any government trying to so it like that would get accused of tax payers money due to the insane amount of resources that would be needed.
Placing the responsibility on the company makes sense, so does issuing penalties for non compliance. The company that has a fine issued against them can of course ignore it if they're set up outside the country that issues the fine. But they should then expect the country issuing the fine to escalate. If they don't pay and don't comply they can expect to have any assets in the uk seized and eventually get blocked from operating entirely. And probably have any executives arrested of they enter the country. Ofcom can't just jump to getting a court order though because they need to be fair and give 4chan a chance to comply if they want to.
The problem with the online safety act is that it exists at all, and that they expect people to use third party authentication services many of which are operating from countries with poor data protection regulations. That said, as iit does exist the logic of saying that companies are the ones responsible for what people access from their servers does make sense.
It's a process. They need to issue the fine first to give them a chance to pay rather than jumping to blocking it. If they continue to refuse to pay that's where it'll go.
I guess thats not a threat? Not sure what else youd classify that as. "If you step on our turf you're going to be jailed" is just peaceful language haha
You have to obey the law of whatever country you are currently occupying, even if the rule is bad shit crazy, actually especially if the rule is bat shit crazy. There are plenty of people who have done nothing wrong who would be arrested if they step foot in China, but that doesn't really bother anyone because they don't step foot in China.
Also it would be interesting to see what they would even be charged with, since offcom don't really have authority to issue arrest warrants. Ofcom barely have the authority to enforce UK law in the UK. Otherwise the likes of GB news wouldn't exist.
You have to obey the law of whatever country you are currently occupying.
They're not "occupying" or even operating here. all the servers have been in Texas since 2008. The British gov are attempting to legislate feature implementations for companies that aren't operating in britain. it's ridiculous.
Apparently they are operating in the UK though apparently they are selling some kind of pro service, so they are operating in the UK. To be clear it's a stupid law, but it is the law.
Well, they are operating in britain, their website is accessible in britain and as such the UK can decide whether the website is accessible or not. The uk can't really punish them other than blocking their site if they don't comply, though.
I agree the law is stupid but them not having servers in britain is mostly irrelevant.
It's an interesting idea that countries could only fine websites that operate in said country. Could get away with a lot by finding a permissive country to do what would otherwise be illegal and worth of fines.
"Selling user's private information illegally? Buddy, Tuvalo don't care"
Then get your asses in order. If you have doubts, the French across ye pond taught pretty well how to use guillotines to achieve it. Didn't you guys also have a mask guy do the same?
Profitez des vidéos et de la musique que vous aimez, mettez en ligne des contenus originaux, et partagez-les avec vos amis, vos proches et le monde entier.
The thing is, an indeterminable amount of users (and admins!) are feds, so despite giving the appearance of lawlessness, it’s actually fully compliant!
Imagine running a website for 20 years, changing absolutely nothing, and one day you're being targeted because someone else on the other side of the planet changed something at their end.
“Block us then. We’re not paying your fines and you’ll never arrest us as we’ll never step foot in your country. Get fucked.” That’s about the response I’d have I think… attached with a photo of tubgirl or something for the classic lawls.
Yeah, and a county could say "you can't do business in our county anymore" and block them
A country can ban dildos, but they don't get to tell a foreign factory they can't make dildos. If an importer orders dildos anyways, that's between the importer and customs. Which in this case the importer is the ISP
Otherwise the internet as we know it is very much over, and what we have instead is a mesh of country-nets.
which, TBH, doesn't seem so bad to me. as an european, i'm personally sick of all the sick (as in, unwell) culture from america swapping over via the internet and poisoning people's minds.
i mean, all the culture war is literally instigated by american capitalists to disrupt society and to disrupt the people's coherence, to make them weaker and therefore easier to exploit.
If it wasn't for continuous exposure to american influence, europe would long have drastic left-wing political reforms, i guess.
Oh yes, because it's not like Nigel Farage, Victor Orban and a bunch of other populists didn't make use of US companies and advisors (and russian funds...) on how to best fracture societies to their end. Clearly nuking the internet would put an end to that, and all would be well.
My server is in the corned of my bedroom. How the hell can I be operating in China, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Brazil, Norway, or The UK if my bedroom is in none of those countries?
Yes. You can impose as much laws as you can enforce them. Don't want your citizens to buy anything from me, stop shipments at your border. Want to stop payments, talk to your banks. Want to stop access to my servers, block them at your routers.
Why the fuck should I enforce your rules for you? You made them, you figure out how you will make them work.
GDPR can only be enforced if the business wants to continue to do business in Europe. There are lots of non-European businesses that do not enforce GDPR rules but they can't sell products or services in Europe.
But of course 4chan doesn't sell any products or services anywhere, it's not a business, so it's a bit hard to see exactly how this could be enforced.
More likely than dining then for calls I don’t want to get they they facilitate by selling my data. Linda of like the scale car warrantee mail you get because the DMV sold your data.
This is a case of stupid laws that still don't understand the internet (35+ years in to wide use, mofos)
If an http GET request initiated from country A traverses routers and wires around the globe to grab some data from a server in country B, then we have to accept that the owners of the server are not "operating in country A" and in fact the user in country A is responsible for import.
If some laws in country A have a problem with this, then they should unplug their internet wires at the border, or at least learn how to use them and/or govern their citizens.
All that is tongue in cheek to say they can fuck right off.
Also why the fuck would you piss off 4chan with their years of stalking, ddosing, swatting, etc of successful campaigns against anything they felt wrongged or even just annoyed them.
Because these people have never even heard of it. The whole party is a bunch of absolute technophobes. You should see that online advertising it's pathetic.
Yeah it's a stupid law and they were told it wouldn't work by industry experts. But the politicians that were in power when all this was first been decided were Conservatives and therefore arrogant and of the opinion that if they don't like something, it's realities responsibility to reconfigure itself.
Then Labour got in and for some reason implemented the stupid law anyway despite having heard none of the consultations, and of course now it turns out that the consultations told them not to do it. Now I'm sure the industry experts would have been ignored anyway but Labour look really daft now.
They have basically accepted that this law is unworkable and is basically going to be ignored by everyone, but they still have to go through all of the pantomime of trying to enforce it. I'm sure eventually they'll quietly kill it because the whole thing has been such an embarrassment for them.
Th US has taken it to step further. Somehow they've managed to convince a significant junk of the population that a tariff is not a tax, and that the tariff is paid by the importing country, even though that's not how tariffs work. They don't require reality to actually do anything, they just require the populace to be mind numbingly stupid. Fortunately, they are.
It's pretty ironic, the United States was founded on the back of unfair taxation, and yet financial literacy is probably lower in the US than it is in any other country in the world.
I think it's well established by now that this bunch of Labour politicians too are "arrogant and of the opinion that if they don’t like something, it’s realities responsibility to reconfigure itself".
That would amongst other things neatly explain why they went around and implemented the stupid law.
It also doesn't help that they're being advised by people who don't understand the world anymore and who's last real contribution was probably in the 1970s. The fact that they can't even capitalise on the fact that Boris Johnson has been found guilty of misappropriation of government funds is just ridiculous and shows how incompetent they are as politicians.
If some laws in country A have a problem with this, then they should unplug their internet wires at the border, or at least learn how to use them and/or govern their citizens.
What used to be called The Great Firewall of China. It used to be unthinkable for western countries.
You can't blame this on old people. This is only happening now that the Boomers are on the way out. People who sent international letters or made international phone calls were aware that they were communicating with a different country with different laws. I think we are seeing this now, because now we have people who experience the internet as something happening on their own phone, at their location.
The UK didn't ban leaded petrol until 1999 meaning most millenials will suffer from the boomer-loony disease as they were poisoned during their childhood.
Let's also not forget that fuel for light aircraft still contains lead :/
Funnily enough the CIA (yes, the CIA) was largely involved in keeping the internet a free and open space for all, heck they even contributed encryption algorithms to keep data private and such ...
The reason why the free internet existed for so long was because it was a big ideological project for the US. (the internet is the space of all ideas and as such represents the platonic/christian concept of heaven). It's only now ending because it's served its purpose. The people have exchanged ideas worldwide, and that only needs to happen twice, similarly to how you can only infect yourself with the same virus once (because the second infection does way less impact), you can only infect yourself with the same idea once. So, once the worldwide ideas are exchanged, the internet serves very little purpose anymore.
If 4chan make revenue by advertising UK goods and services to UK users, then they are very much operating in the UK. It's not reasonable to make the argument that you should be able to do business with a country and opt out of its laws simply by running the physical servers abroad. We don't tolerate it for wire fraud or CSAM, but nobody's rushing out to defend the sovereign rights of child abusers and scammers.
I don't agree with the Online Safety Act on its own terms, but this is a dud of an argument.
By your logic, any website with advertising is operating in EVERY country worldwide.
No. Every ad platform out there has the advertiser choose what region to advertise in. Nobody wants to pay to advertise in countries where they don’t sell their products. Likewise websites have the option not to serve countries they don’t want to comply with the laws of, and indeed many do this exact thing.
The whole argument being presented is being intentionally naive about both the technology and the law. Y’all are arguing based on how you WANT the world to be rather than how it is.
And as a website you don't deal with any of that, you just implement an ad platform's ad window and they serve whatever regional ads are relevant to your visitors. So yes, practically all websites with advertising would be operating in every country worldwide, by your logic.
Again you’re just factually wrong. The website operator has a wide degree of control over what can appear on their site in the admin panel. They even have the choice of which platform to go with if they don’t. And even if they didn’t, it’s still an argument that relies on “everyone does it ergo it must be ok”, which wouldn’t stand on its own terms either.
To repeat, I'm not supporting the Online Safety Act, but this whole argument seems to rely on the fictional notion that innocent website operators don't know where their data packets are being sent, which hasn't been true since the 1990s.
it’s still an argument that relies on “everyone does it ergo it must be ok”, which wouldn’t stand on its own terms either.
Given that's how the entire Internet works, it does stand on its own terms. The UK isn't influential enough to force the entire Internet to follow suit. They can take it or leave it.
I think this sentiment is common but misses some important things. First: the UK is a big market of internet users, so losing it is not insignificant. Second: most people will not bother with a VPN because it's annoying or costs money. Third: from the UK's perspective, banning non-compliant sites is a good thing.
Recognising all this is important, because it's part of resisting such censorious laws.
It's the 4th largest country of origin for 4chan from what I can find. It doesn't sound like you're actually responding to what I said is being missed. Guess you don't want to.
The argument 4chan uses is laughable. "Freedom of speech of every American?" Tere is no such protection in the US right now.
No one is watching the news? Trump is killing freedom of speech. Anyone dares to advocate equality is getting fired or estorcised. All rainbow, trans or minority rights signs are being eliminated. Our rainbow sidewalk in my city was repainted. Diversity programs are dismantled. Any minority names program is being renamed. Less black people are being hired in the white house than ever.
Even now som states require you to prove your identity before your can log into Internet.
I agree, but letting a foreign government dictate what you can and cannot say on your site is dangerous. If 4chan capitulates then countless other sites are on the chopping block.
I agree, but letting a foreign government dictate what you can and cannot say on your site is dangerous. If 4chan capitulates then countless other sites are on the chopping block.
British government fines an American company, based in America, for serving data from American servers that was compliant with American law.
This whole law is complete overreach. It's like banning a book and then getting mad at the author when one of your citizens buys one on holiday and brings it back with them
Yeah, how come the EU gets to regulate American services with all their data privacy laws? The EU is a tool of the governments to assert control over us, the common people. Plain and simple
Ignoring that the UK isn't part of the EU, the EUs privacy laws extend to all European citizens, and it has treaties with most of the world (including the US) allowing it to enforce those.
Capital punishment is a legal penalty in Iran.[2] The list of crimes punishable by death includes murder; rape; child molestation; homosexuality; drug trafficking; armed robbery; kidnapping; terrorism; burglary; incest; fornication; adultery; sodomy; sexual misconduct; prostitution;[3][4] plotting to overthrow the Islamic government; political dissidence; sabotage; arson; rebellion; apostasy; blasphemy; extortion; counterfeiting; smuggling; recidivist consumption of alcohol; producing or preparing food, drink, cosmetics, or sanitary items that lead to death when consumed or used; producing and publishing pornography; using pornographic materials to solicit sex; capital perjury; recidivist theft; certain military offences (e. g., cowardice, assisting the enemy); "waging war against God"; "spreading corruption on Earth"; espionage; and treason.[5][6] Iran carried out at least 977 executions in 2015, at least 567 executions in 2016,[7] and at least 507 executions in 2017.[8] In 2018 there were at least 249 executions, at least 273 in 2019, at least 246 in 2020, at least 290 in 2021, at least 553 in 2022, at least 834 in 2023,[9] and at least 901 executions in 2024.[10] In 2023, Iran was responsible for 74% of all recorded executions in the world, with the UN confirming that at least 40 people were executed in one week in 2024.
Frankly, 4chan users or operators would probably have violated some of those, were they under jurisdiction of Iranian law.
Pretty sure 4chan is Japanese owned now so I'm confused. I guess they still operate out of the USA. Idk. Currently owned by Hiroyuki Nishimura, who also owns 2channel. He acquired 4chan from Christopher Poole 2015. Good Smile Company is a major investor but he's still in charge.
Lots of corpo structures are just large parent companies that actually just own a bunch of smaller companies so that the parent company gets the profits while the smaller companies make the risky products and can be bankrupted at any minute.
The company I work for does that. We just bought a couple companies that were competitors in a risky but profitable market. The full idea is that if one company gets sued to oblivion, we let that company die, move all the employees and customers to the backup company, and call it a day.
They could go after the owner. I believe he lives in Japan, all the UK has to do is send an extradition request to the Japanese government, bing bang boom all done.
Which they would laugh at. Even the Chinese government would laugh at such a request. It isn't something that is considered universally a crime, like robbery and murder, but the type of shit they are asking for is so fucking unprecedented and unreasonable it's stupid.
It would be like if the UK demanded that France immediately extradite all legal handgun owners in France (where handguns are legal) because it is a crime to possess one in Great Britain and therefore they are criminals. Makes no sense.
Damn fucking straight. I hope it starts an privacy movement so big they realize that all the laws passed since 2000 against terrorism were abject failures and repeal all of them.
Canada is trying to pass major surveillance shit on par with the patriot act on steroids and effectively nullify the need for warrants, all in the name of 'strong borders' and anti terrorism even though it literally gives many US owned and operated companies full and complete access to digital information on Canadians, ironically weakening borders in every way.
And for what? What is the terrorism threat? Al-Qaeda was a always a joke, and the fact that 9/11 happened was far more due to a monumental failure of all intelligence services combined and not due to a lack of resources. Terrorist schemes have been thwarted in the past without the need for extensive surveillance... and most plots are still thwarted primarily by informants and insiders speaking to authorities. The whole 'we need to be super proactive ' has yielded shit results.
Most of the stuff that they claim was 'prevented proactively ' was literally entrapment. They found some mentally ill and/or lonely people who would have done nothing on their own, but ended up being goaded into stupid crap when undercover agents flirted with them, encouraged them, and even offered weapons and explosives for them to use, and if they agreed... well, that's when they nabbed them. No terrorism would have occurred if agents didn't do shit.
Have you ever wondered why so many people are highly distrustful of people talking about doing violent shit? Fed posting? Its because agents have such a long ass history of doing that that you cannot tell who is and who isn't a Fed.
4chan's actual legal response to this can be summarized as "We are incorporated in Delaware which has not been subject to UK law since 1783. See the Treaty of Paris".
Offcom has been drinking, came home in a blackout and committed domestic abuse of 4chan. Does Offcom even internet? Alternative plot twist, Offcom is trolling 4chan.
I wanna say that Offcom is doing a good job and trying to protect British people in good faith but I feel like they are being used as a cudgel by the British ruling class to advance an anachronistic agenda. Don't forget, they fired their expert drugs advisor for telling them that MDMA is comparable to horse riding in terms of safety. They want certain things to be true, regardless of the scientific accuracy.
Probably why they didn't do it in the first place.
They barely pay for moderation. Who is going to pay for that survey? And also why would they? Obviously most of the people on that site are under 18. That's when I used it.
What other demographic clicks the horny ads they run?
Access to Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat on mobile phones is currently restricted in Afghanistan. This comes after the Taliban cut internet and telecommunications services for two days last week.
The apps don't do anything useful if the government blocks connectivity to the servers that the software needs to talk to at the national network infrastructure level.
According to police data, domestic violence reports rose 62.3 per cent and dating violence, 30.5 per cent, during 2024’s holiday compared to non-holiday periods.
Ms Song Ran-hee, representative of the Korea Women’s Hot Line, said that entrenched patriarchal customs also heighten tensions during the holiday. “Family rituals such as ancestral rites remain male-centred in many households, with women shouldering most of the preparations. Even trivial criticisms over food or ingredients can trigger disputes,” she noted.
^^ Ah, there it is, folks.
“In some homes, men and women still eat at separate tables, with men served comfortably while women eat in the kitchen.
Quite disgusting, really.
There are patriarchal customs found in many cultures. We need to be progressive and take them all down.
unfortunately, there is a consistent harmonic of male-bullying-female among babboons, chimps, & humans, throughout known history.
unfortunately, "waiting until prejudice decides, of its own volition, to cease to exist", as the people who push that ALL cultural-alternatives are equally-valid, .. well, the evidence is that prejudice fights for its perpetual dominion instead.
I don't find it "disgusting" that such prejudice is still normal in the majority of the world's population: I find it DEPRESSING, instead.
Apparently male-bullying-female ( while gaslighting: pretending that male-"protects"-female ) has right to perpetuate itself, instead of equal-validity having the right to break/displace such male-bullying-female?
You have your position, I've got mine.
Because I've had it with karma: & I want to chop my continuum/soul out from getting-caught-in-any-more-lives, I'm sticking to mine.
I once came across a blog what was only photo-images of the 1920's..
Eventually I noticed that nearly none of the women in the images were happy.
They all looked either depressed, worn-down, fearful, infringed-from-having-validity, or otherwise harmed.
I don't care that some cultures have "established" that kind of asymmetry of human condition: it isn't a right to do that to any entire-category of humankind, & it especially isn't male right to do that to female-lives, while gaslighting about it.
The more competent one becomes at seeing through appearances, the more clear it is that it's still normal, among North American celebrities, too..
Finally, the adulteration of the story in the book of Genesis probably sets the standard for machiavelianism/dishonesty/gaslighting..
It's plainly visible even now that the text states that women "ate of the fruit of the knowledge of good & evil" WHICH MEANS MORAL-UNDERSTANDING, & then shared that with men.
That is rooted in hard fact: altruism is generalized mothering .. in wasps, in mammals, in anything we've found it in.
A Western philosopher has noted that nihilism's more common among men-philosphers: mothers can't afford to sell-out their children's lives that way, can they?
That the Judeo-Christian tradition twisted "women earned moral-understanding & shared it with men" to the perversion/prejudice-basis "women committed original-sin, downfalling our entire race" .. is unconscionable, yet established.
No matter: IF humankind WON'T get upright, THEN humankind won't survive The Great Filter, & next-century this world will be silent of our dishonesty/abuse/gaslighting, permanently.
This-century, our kind gets cornered into either growing-all-the-way-up XOR force-exterminating-our-species.
All the ideologies/prejudices/"religions" fighting for exclusive supremacism, still-accelerating-ClimatePunctuation, food-insecurity-migrations, war-produced-migrations, accelerationism, mass-shootings, civil-wars, every kind of machiavellianism imaginable, all of it, all together, until there's no rationality left, & only rampaging-ideological-BUTCHERING-tantrum is going-on, that's what it looks like humankind's epitaph is going to be.
But that's every-bit as fine as other-cultures-have-the-right-to-their-prejudices, isn't it?
There's no objective standard for judging anything, is there?
Maybe there isn't to you, but there is to me: objective-morality is a valid-concept, though only for a subset of questions ( not cultural-stuff, but things like equal-validity, yes )
Yes, I get your point , though you make some colorful extrapolations. I'm not saying I'd be agreeing to others morality or condoning differences in our own morality, because they are all different, everybody has their own views. What I don't like is when people claim the higher moral ground, without understanding any of the other's cultural context and by proclaiming their culture should be like ours. Other cultures are other cultures. You can disagree with (some) of their practices, and equally other cultures will probably say similar things of yours.
But when femicide. and domestic abuse in the West is on the rise it's an increasing problem. So, that's why I said; maybe lets focus first on fixing our own shit, before pointing the finger on someone else.
A sobering report released by UN Women and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) on Monday reveals that in 2023, 140 women and girls died every day at the hands of their partner or a close relative, which means one woman killed every 10 minutes.
A ( metaphoric ) point that I find humankind is ignoring/denying:
WHEN you're on a bus that's being driven by 1 or another gang, & those gangs are fighting each-other for supremacism/dominion, & they don't care whether anyone survives, because it is their ruling that is the only thing that matters to them,
AND THE PATH THEY'RE TAKING IS FATAL TO THE WORLD,
it doesn't matter "who" drives the bus when it leaves the cliff: the "stampeding off the cliff" is fatal to the whole herd, see?
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is something that needs to be having ALL gov't policies tied to it, when judging what is authorized, & what isn't.
AND it needs to be the test for moralities, too.
Does something amplify the still-accelerating ClimatePunctuation?
IF so, THEN it has to have sooo much benefits that it's worth it.
Does it protect the millenia-established male-bullying-female?
THEN it costs both current & future lives, and rights, and our species' real-viability.
As many have pointed-out, male-bullying-female automatically shuts-down 50% of our brains being allowed to contribute to our surviving this-century, & that is idiotic or worse.
ALL the problems have to be seen, & balanced against each-other.
What Russia's doing to Ukraine ( & soon to the EU as a whole ), what Trump will shortly be doing to Canada ( same as Russia->Ukraine, for the same colonial-imperial motivations ) are survival-grade problems.
Different election-systems/processes have long-term-morality consequences.. making particular-futures more or less likely..
There's an English mathematician ( redhead, kinda roundish, moved to Glasgow for professional reason, it was a yt video of his, aweful video, stupendous insight ) who identified that there is exactly 1 thing that all the most-successful complex-projects do, that none of the unsuccessful ones do:
create a functionally-complete visual-spacial model of the required system, leaving no kind of function out,
and only then begin the scaling of that model into implimentation.
Even questions of morality can be dealt-with this way, identifying that some choices extinguish us, & when people can SEE that, then our thinking changes.
It isn't hearing-about this-issue, or that-issue, or whatever, it isn't being reminded and holding-everything-in-our-heads,
it is SEEing it, as a visual-spacial model, so that the consequences become implied in how the representation looks, and then we can begin judging things objectively.
Now consider 2 allowed-futures, 1 where 50% of the human-lives have their life-potential stomped-on by male-supremacism, & the other where ALL humans are allowed contributing to our viability..
Which is more-likely to survive this-century's Great Filter ( when a species that won't grow-up has nuclear-level technologies, & does a multi-stage global tantrum-pogrom to beat/break/smash "god" into obeying unconscious-ignorances "godly" ENTITLEMENT, as the tantrum-toddler it is, that OUR OWN unconscious-mind is now enacting )?
That's objective, not mere-opinion/cultural-opinion.
Here's an example of competing-moralities:
Some want all internal-combustion-engines killed, today, no matter the cost.
Others want a phased switch.
I'm with the phased, but aggressive switchover people, simply because I know that if you kill all of them, immediately, then you've just executed the economic-viability of remote-regions, & their people.
City people don't have a problem with policies which butcher rural lives: this is consistently proven..
& the remote lives of people who live .. say in the Aussie outback, or in Canada's north, or offshore .. why should international-policy respect/value them, when they're not where the money is, right?
But to me, you have to look at the whole overall, & consider all the effects, & balance the whole.
You can't hold that women's lifeworth "isn't important enough to count in the world's balance-sheet, because men never counted it in the past" .. that isn't good-enough.
Here's another example of competing-moralities:
Which should we do?
Oppose the genociding of Palestinians, XOR oppose the genociding of Ukranians, XOR oppose genociding in Sudan, XOR oppose genociding in the Congo region, XOR oppose femicide in either China, XOR India, XOR here in the West?
The framing is the problem: it presumes that only 1 can be chosen.
Caving on ANY of these is .. disintegrity, to be polite.
& caving on any of these will have strategic-survival consequences for our future.
The leaving-Somalia-to-piracy, and not providing them with any alternative, meant that they did convert to piracy, & now that piracy-economy can't be removed: it's now a whole world shipping problem.
The leaving-northern-Mexico-to-the-drug-cartels and not breaking that from ruling that country's civilization, means that now those drug-cartels can't be removed.
What we allow to set-deep-roots bites our future in the face, with venom, consistently..
All this to say, that .. yeah, sometimes morality is objective, in spite of what the absolute-relativists pretend.
Red-meat based diet isn't only economically strategic-suicide, & health ( yes, the heart-attack-rate is increased by eating red meat, no matter which country one is from ), but it's also ecologically-suicide.
Opposing those facts is ideological/moral for some factions.
But objectivity must override ideology, XOR we, as a species, are .. finished, this-century.
In Science there is a fundamental-principle: IF the experiment contradicts the theory, robustly, & it isn't some confounding-factor, THEN the theory's falsified.
Feynman was big on that.
Ideology-based "science" IS NOT Science, see?
All who hold that all questions of morality are only-cultural-opinion, & that there is no objective-standard that can validly be applied.. the evidence contradicts that.
"it's all relative" is an ideological position, but the fact that some choices produce greater-slaughter whereas other choices reduce harm .. is real, is objective, is fact.
So, no, I do not accept that morality is only opinion/culture-habit, and is not in any way objectively-testable or objectively-measurable..
The problem is in finding which values are long-term, vs which aren't,
in finding which values are concentration-of-benefits-to-few/eradication-of-benefits-from-many & forcing the measurement-system to correctly-identify that as narcissism, as it objectively is ( instead of the propaganda-is-"journalism" system we now have, brainwashing all the discussions )
in finding which values uphold the LivingPotential in all lives, vs the values which only value some lives' potential..
etc..
Eventually patterns of bias become visible, & then one has to remember that universe's Natural Selection law is going to be the final judge.
Our opinion isn't what kills us when we stampede-off-a-cliff, right?
It's the fact that we indulged in making-believing & now our bones & body-lives are broken, right?
The question of whether incompetence/intentional-ignorance is a socially valid decision, however: certainly it's socially valid.
Stupid, but socially valid.
Humankind has every right to force its own extinguishment, while making-believing in ego-games, all it wants!
But there is "morality" in that snuffing-of-all-future-generations, too, isn't there?
No, I do not stand with the "it's all relative: no objective-standard for any moral-question exist, nor can it ever exist, & we ought just accommodate prejudice until it ceases perpetuating-itself, that's the proper moral stand".
Exactly as Martin Luther King, Jr, stated: accommodating injustice anywhere, is a moral crime: it means that fundamentally, one is accommodating injustice, & that has consequences everywhere.
Our world's in a survival-of-the-fittest stage, natural for this level of population-saturating-the-planet, & which morality survives this-century will be decided by questions of moral-darwinism AND by questions of did-humankind-survive-or-not.
Women having equal-validity increases the odds of humankind-surviving this-century.
Women not being allowed equal-vality decreases the odds of humankind-surviving this-century.
The same is true of the question about oligarchy/corporate-feudalism/monarchy/etc .. various concentration-of-rights-and-exclusion-from-rights paradigms.
Objective-morality requires that civil-rights stand against such privilege-rules-exclusively paradigms.
This, itself, is objective morality, in action.
( everybody, feel free to block me, as all logged-in people can do .. see only what you want to be seeing, right? )
On October 13, a court outside Paris will put on trial Dr. Dilnur Reyhan, a prominent French-Uyghur scholar and activist, and the president of the European Uyghur Institute, for the criminal offense of “degradation of property belonging to others.”
Three employees of China’s embassy in Paris had filed a complaint against Dilnur Reyhan for her participation in a protest against the Chinese government at a Paris-area music festival in September 2022. During the festival, she allegedly threw red paint on an embassy banner, which, one plaintiff reported, resulted in a €25 shoe-cleaning fee.
The Chinese government alleged that Dilnur Reyhan had caused “damage to property” and that it was a “racist attack” -- a charge later dropped. Dilnur Reyhan was publicly protesting Chinese government crimes against the Uyghurs in northwest China, including mass arbitrary detention and imprisonment, torture, enforced disappearances, mass surveillance, cultural and religious persecution, separation of families, and forced labor. Human Rights Watch and others have concluded that some of these acts amount to crimes against humanity.
“For the Chinese embassy, the aim is not to win or lose the case, but to impose a psychological and financial cost [on me] to silence [my] criticism,” Dilnur Reyhan said during a hearing in March. “I should not be prosecuted by the French courts but, instead, protected against China’s attempts to silence me.”
[...]
The prosecutor initially dismissed the Chinese government’s complaint in 2023. But the prosecutor reopened it on appeal a month after Chinese President Xi Jinping made an official visit to France in May 2024 and hundreds of Uyghurs, Tibetans, and others protested. A hearing scheduled for March 2025 was postponed until October when neither the Chinese embassy representatives nor its employees showed up.
In recent years the Chinese government has escalated its harassment of critics abroad and members of the diaspora, acts of abuse beyond China’s borders known as “transnational repression.” For instance, in July Chinese authorities arrested a Chinese student, Tara Zhang Yadi, for the grave crime of “inciting separatism,” all because she advocated for Tibetan rights while studying in Paris.
Not OP and not particularly knowledgeable, but under Modi India has shifted into something closer to old-school, early 1900s fascism than almost any other country currently. For example, his rise to power was largely on the back of inciting mob violence against Muslims while giving the perpetrators impunity. He continued that policy on the national level, and his party's paramilitary wing is much like the Brownshirts.
Coordinated Pro-Russian Propaganda Network Targeting ActivityPub and ATProto Services
Update October 25: Accounts are still being created (571 observed so far), and a number of servers are either unwilling or unresponsive in removing these accounts. A list of servers recommended for limiting or defederating is now available at about.iftas.org/library/known-…
Update October 14: Accounts are still being created, and unused accounts registered earlier are being activated.
Since 15 September, IFTAS has been tracking a coordinated network of over 300 accounts operating across Mastodon. These accounts are engaged in a high-volume propaganda campaign, promoting pro-Russian narratives and linking to Telegram channels associated with known state-aligned disinformation operations. We became aware of a related investigation by the Antibot4Navalny research team that observed these accounts bridging to Bluesky, and we have since collaborated to enhance our investigations and share our findings. Their public post provides further context.
Antibot4Navalny’s observations identified additional impacted services we were unaware of, and highlighted that accounts were still being created. Furthermore, thanks to their specific expertise in this area, this helped clarify and confirm that what we were seeing was indeed the work of a coordinated campaign with an increased likelihood of it being a state-sponsored or state-approved campaign.
We have been contacting affected Mastodon administrators, and are now moving to a public advisory to inform the broader network.
The network includes accounts impersonating reputable news outlets such as BBC News, Euronews, and Meduza, designed to give credibility to Telegram propaganda links. We believe it may be connected to the “Pravda/Portal Kombat” pro-Russia propaganda network.
Accounts are hosted across numerous Mastodon instances and bridged into Bluesky, creating the appearance of independent sources. Activity on Bluesky helped reveal aggregate patterns, identical usernames, posting schedules, and content themes more clearly than across decentralised Mastodon services.
This campaign appears to mimic tactics observed in earlier influence operations, blending low-cost automation with impersonation and volume-based amplification.
Remember every time we find Putin backed propaganda outside of Russia in the wild, it's nearly always boosting predominantly conservative viewpoints versus anything else.
Outside of their borders they're more interested in people fighting with each other than anything like coming together. Right wing politics is how they do that
Sorry, but this is wrong. They're also actively sponsoring "left wing" propaganda, to further sow discord. Depending on which group you yourself belong to, it's just easier to spot "the others".
And of that propaganda being created, that conservative inclined people are most likely to fall for it: journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/…
There seem to be plenty of other papers that more or less reach those same conclusions with a good number of citations, but I can't find anything really at all on Google Scholar concluding the opposite with a quick search, let alone something also credible.
The closest some papers come is saying that they try groups all over the political spectrum, as their goal is disunity ultimately, but they seemingly don't really have any kind of continued success with misinforming those groups anywhere near as effectively. They more or less all end up concluding that most of the propaganda targets conservatives, because they're the ones that fall for it.
I think one of the problems with citing that first study as evidence Russian disinfo is targeted at conservatives more than liberals is that it only studied one case, and Russian disinformation campaigns tailor their disinfo to different demographics, often through brute force/trial and error. So it is quite possible that the particular case they studied happens to be tailored to (or more successfully resonated with) conservatives, while another specific case would have resonated with liberals more thus resulting in more liberal exposure by their metrics.
Your assertion that more is conservative is a meaningless assertion in the context of this discussion.
More can be conservative on average but you don't see an average view of the internet, you see your filter bubble, and that source backs up the original assertion that yes, Russia is targeting leftists too.
Rumors and smears are part of free speech. To the extent that right-wing trolls and their audience are actual voters, it's essentially just a coarse form of ordinary political speech.
The extent to which a foreign government acting coverly is either creating or artificially boosting such content is scandalous.
True enough. But even a tyrannical government at least has a presumable intent of working for the betterment of its country. (Albeit through wrongheaded and small-minded means )
A.foreijgn power, especially a historical adversary and bad actor, is instead presumably working to harm or diminish us.
No, they have the intent of working for themselves. That's it. They don't give a shit about the country and you should never presume the ruling class of your country has your country's best interests in mind.
You presented it as proof that Russia is supporting misinformation on the left. To be that, it has to both include all three parts of the claim -- that there is disinformation on the left, that Russia is covertly supporting disinformation, and that some of the disinformation on the left was supported by Russia.
If your wife sleeps around, and I engage in casual sex, it does not necessarily follow that I slept with your wife.
A common suspicion in America is that Vladimir Putin believes that Trump as POTUS is good for Russia, and that Putin interferes with US politics with a specific goal of helping Trump.
If you have some reporting that directly links Russia to left-wing disinformation I'd love to read it. But the BBC article I read after following your link didn't have any such link.
When you make a statement it's your responsibility to provide proof because what if you're talking out of your ass? How would we find any proof in that scenario when it literally wouldn't exist? How would we know if you misinterpreted a source? How would we know we misinterpreted the correct source? What if we think what you're saying is so stupid we don't want to waste our time looking for proof? There are a lot of reasons the burden of proof shouldn't fall on us, which means the burden of proof should fall on the person who made the statement. They know if what they said is factual and if it's factual they know where they found this fact and thus it would be significantly less effort for them to find and present the source.
Better. That actually supports the assertion that Russia does engage in left-targeted disinformation (in Canada, on Twitter.)
It also supports the original point you dismissed as "wrong" -- of the 90 "most influential" accounts, only 9 were subjectively identified as "Canadian far left".
Maybe you should spend more time reading the actual articles, and not just their headlines?
Absolutely and utterly false. They try and promote fighting, anger, and distrust of government to everyone.
They target leftists with things that will upset them, make them angry at the right and the government and other leftists and sow further discord and polarization.
Less extreme Leftists generally aren't nearly as likely to be control freaks as the right (although there are always exceptions), so getting them (as a group) angry enough to fight takes much more effort than it does the right.
A source for my lived experience? Or do you mean an example?
I have been banned from .ml twice for stating that Russia shot down a civilian airliner over Ukraine - a matter of incontrovertible fact which has absolutely nothing to do with any leftist theory, as far as my masters degree in political science can discern.
.ml is moderated to be ideologically one sided. Pro-capitalism is literally not allowed and will deleted. Making a pro-west or anti-China or Russia comment is like a bat signal for .ml admins and users alike to dogpile on your comment.
It’s their right to moderate their instance how they see fit, but removing content on ideological grounds is going to result in people thinking what’s left is propaganda.
For the most part I like .ml users, I don’t care for the admin team and moderator decisions and that’s why I’m not on that instance. I could care less about the fact my instance is defederated from hexbear users or grad users. They do want to be polarizing and live in a propaganda bubble
I wouldn't call them that. Most if not all of them are genuine people with some having accs for many years before Reddit crossed the line for most of us and them becoming anyhow relevant to interfere. In a recent hexbearean post about fediverse negativity I've read a couple of opinions with a notion that federating with others wasn't that great, and they were pretty happy just by themselves. I assume, it's the same for other two too. That's a game too long and effortful to be a psyop imho. Their positions and where they get their info are things to argue, but let's not get as far as dehumanizing them.
Almost everywhere I soundly proclaim that I am a russian dummy anarchist, that I live in that state for I have no options, and I angrily disagree with their fascination, mystification of what it is, I hold a grudge with anyone who wants that russki mir to be the model the whole world should share.
I, nevertheless, find a lot of points, like personal stuff and grieveancies, theoretical things, sympathy to protesters, to Gazan survivors that I share with them. Unlike transparently racist/fascist troll comms that were there, unlike their campaigns I've noticed, there is a huge population of real people worthy of talking, arguing with.
Call me any names and ban me, but as long as any person or community is supportive of basic pillar causes like body autonomy, you, like, can at least talk to them and find something in common.
What I missed though, is that Diva said the same, but misleadingly doubted the existence of russian bot networks. Them and state suppression ruined the rusophonic space to that degree I dropped it altogether. I don't know how their actions affected other countries, but as a nolifer shitposting addict trying to trust them just a bit, I came through fire, water and copper tubes before dropping them altogether. They are like current Twitter, but worse. And, well, fuck, I wasn't abandoning that to find the next option already corrupted.
To be honest I didn't understand the thrust of most of what you wrote, but if you are against the Rusky Mir, you are probably on the right side to begin with. If you are an anarchist, you probably have no place on .ml to begin with.
Drunktexting and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.
The main point why I wrote it was that I don't find them either bots or artifical influencers. They do probably want to have some reach or fresh blood, but don't want their local culture to be spread too thin like it's reddit 2.0. They are anything but cancer that I've met seeing real botfaming ops.
And, although I don't share many of their thoughts, most of the posts I see in my feed discuss common issues where we aren't that far from each other. Closer, than to maga/zionist/z-crowd. And in that context I find it alright to not draw any lines and just talk.
When things start to get overly political, well, that's a whole another thing, where different bestest solutions are incompatible, historical betrayals are dugged up and the internet infighting ensues. It's exhausting and pointless with just 2mil mostly irrelevant nerds on Fediverse. It's easier to just scroll through some amuzing takes, and instead focus on things where we can cooperate.
"I have to admit, I'm always so impressed by Soviet propaganda. You really know how to get people worked up," the CIA agent says.
"Thank you," the KGB agent says. "We do our best but truly, it's nothing compared to American propaganda. Your people believe everything your state media tells them."
The CIA agent drops his drink in shock and disgust. "Thank you friend, but you must be confused... There's no propaganda in America."
Lots of people can not stand the fact that you don't agree with them. They will accuse you of being a bot or something, rather than to accept the fact that people have different opinions on things.
The fact the comments here are so contentious is just funny. I will block as is appropriate but so far have not had to do to much of it on the fediverse. Man it needs to be reciprical though so their training is limited.
There are obviously agents from elsewhere, and some of them may be pretty effective, but it's nothing compared to Trump and Co getting money from the likes of Saudis and acting like they own the place. If the main concern is american politics, well, the real worms aren't theoretical or real foreign enemies, but corrupted fuckheads that ignore human, state rights, shutdown government, pack people from the streets to deport. No enemy could've done such damage so-called friends are doing.
The rise in right-wing nationalism has been notable across Europe, as well. It's a good guess that the Russians have been pushing that, too. The US is just ahead of the curve.
The network includes accounts impersonating reputable news outlets such as BBC News, Euronews, and Meduza, designed to give credibility to Telegram propaganda links. We believe it may be connected to the “Pravda/Portal Kombat” pro-Russia propaganda network.
Accounts are hosted across numerous Mastodon instances and bridged into Bluesky, creating the appearance of independent sources. Activity on Bluesky helped reveal aggregate patterns, identical usernames, posting schedules, and content themes more clearly than across decentralised Mastodon services.
If your first reaction was to post "posts I dislike are Russian bots", then you haven't actually grasped the argument. It has nothing to do with anyone disagreeing with specific posts.
It's also very telling that you're reflexively posting that when it says nothing about the data being presented.
The Grayzone has geolocated the underground bunker of an important military command and control center nestled within a densely populated Tel Aviv neighborhood. Known as ‘Site 81,’ the U.S.-built facility houses a hyper-secretive intelligence base.
When Iran struck a series of targets in the heart of north Tel Aviv with ballistic missiles on June 13, Israeli authorities immediately cordoned off the area to prevent journalists from filming the damage. “The building on this compound was just hit,” Trey Yingst of Fox News reported as he arrived that evening at the site of HaKirya, Israel’s Defense Ministry headquarters, and the nearby Azrieli Center. But within seconds, Israeli police officers arrived to aggressively shunt Yingst away from where he was standing, just north of the HaKirya Bridge on the west side of Menachem Begin Road.
That day, Iranian missiles struck the north tower of the Da Vinci apartment complex roughly 550 meters southwest of Yingst’s location. The Grayzone has determined that the building sits immediately south of the “Canarit” / “Kannarit” Israeli Air Force towers and above an underground military intelligence bunker jointly administered by the US and Israeli militaries. According to an analysis of leaked emails, public documents, and Israeli news reports, the location is host to a highly secretive, electromagnetically shielded intelligence facility known as “Site 81.”
Israel aggressively censors information relating to its urban military and intelligence facilities while simultaneously accusing its adversaries of engaging in ‘human shielding’ – a practice of protecting military targets with civilian populations that is prohibited by international humanitarian law. While the existence of a U.S. Army project to expand Site 81 to a 6,000 square-meter facility was widely reported from government records circa 2013, the specific location remained unknown...
It's always projection with fascists. "Khamas is using human shields!!!1!" "oh shit, pay no attention to our super secret spy base we built with the American Nazis right under apartment buildings in the middle of a residential area. We just really liked the location for other less illegal reasons."
ttbomk, India did an official execution/hit/assassination of a Canadian Sikh man, sometime in the last couple of years..
it isn't "just Muslims" that Modi's modeled-on-Republican-religious-polarization is cutting: it's everybody not-Hindutva, apparently.
No matter: His fake-protection against China is going to get his Hindutva-India butchered by China, when Russia refuses to lift a finger against its puppetmaster China, .. perhaps as soon as next-year.
( ever seen an addict fighting against their own unconscious-mind's addiction, for their own life & losing?
The whole world looks like that, to me, now.
Addicted-to-ideologies, "no time for" things like still-accelerating-ClimatePunctuation, or strategically-required quality-of-education & child-nutrition, or absolute-epidemic-mitigation, or international-state-backed-terrorism..
ideology's always 1st..
it will be, until there's nobody left, apparently.
I believe it's common there to celebrate with gunfire. It probably wasn't especially chosen to celebrate ceasefire with gunfire. I could be midtown though.
When I visited Jerusalem with my wife several years ago we were also standing upright in our hotel room when we suddenly heard yelling and gunfire and when we spoke to the hotel guys they told us we shouldn't worry, it was just a wedding celebration.
Wouldn't that not be just another reason to not fire weapons randomly in populated areas?
But what you are saying is basically exactly what I am trying to get at: War has become so much normalized in the region, that people just don't know otherwise any more. Quoting the somewhat fitting Cranberries song: "In your head, they're still fighting". Even while a glimmer of peace is shining across the horizon.
I'm from the region and this is a thing even in places that aren't and have historically not erupted into violent outbursts. It's just a local culture thing, and according to Wikipedia isn't even an exclusively Middle Eastern thing.
Even as initial celebrations unfolded, details of the agreement remained unclear on Thursday, including whether the parties in Egypt had made any progress on thornier questions about the future of the conflict, such as whether Hamas will demilitarise, as Trump has demanded, and how the war-torn territory will be governed in future.
So it isn't even conclusive. There's no way to make sure Israel won't break the cease fire. There's only hostage trade. Hopefully there's more detail coming out soon.
They'll probably wait until the hostages are exchanged and return to annihilation
Probably won't even wait that long.
While the broader population seem to genuinely consider the hostages extremely important, the decision makers in the government don't care about them except as a convenient excuse for doing what they've always wanted to do.
I mean, I can see that some people are easily fooled by him when he speaks like an idiot, makes silly faces and tells all the possible lies he can, but yeah, he didn't do shit.
If Harris has won and took the exact same actions as Trump as it relates to Israel, which doesn't seem too unlikely given the way all of Washington on both sides kowtows to Israel, would you be taking the same stance that "she didn't do anything to help bring this about?"
Look, I hate Trump as much as the next guy, but I find it unlikely people would be coming out of the woodwork to slam Harris, even if she did the exact same things.
Just because someone is a villain, it doesn't mean that literally every single thing they do is villainous. I'm not gonna stop drinking Coke, just because Donald Trump drinks Coke. And I can recognize the the US was positively involved in this ceasefire negotiation, even if I hate the guy heading the US.
Trump can still be evil, even if he's right sometimes, and even if he does the right thing sometimes. He's not a comic book character. He's a very real, human kind of evil. And just because he's not stomping on puppies every day doesn't mean he's not bad.
And if you're not willing to admit when he does a good thing, your hatred isn't founded in reality, it's founded on purest tribalism.
Some of those gathered in the city’s hostage square said Trump should be recognised for his role in brokering the deal, calling for a “Nobel prize to Trump” as they gathered in the early hours of the morning to celebrate.
Oh, he'll love to hear that. I, for one, find it hard to give him any credit beyond 'he was there'. Then again, Biden was so incredibly weak stopping Israel, fighting under him might have dragged on for longer.
Technically a ceasefire is just a pause in hostilities. Like if you stop bombing to refuel the bombers. And there is a good chance that Bibi will do just that.
I really loved when, a few years ago, he fell ill and flew to France (IIRC) for medical treatment. His family was so sure he wouldn't make it, they filled a commercial airliner with people ready to flee the country.
Then he bounced back! GD Methusala over here. And they all had to go home and pretend like nothing happened.
As the central African country prepares for Sunday's presidential election, he said he would not be heading out to vote. [... ] “He is already too old to govern, and it’s boring knowing only him as president," Nghobo told The Associated Press
The British government’s refusal to testify that China is a national security threat in a major espionage trial has signalled to Beijing that “the UK can be bullied”, according to a former senior diplomat who was due to be a prosecution witness in the now-collapsed case.
The warning comes after Stephen Parkinson, the director of public prosecutions (DPP), revealed that his team had repeatedly tried and failed to obtain witness statements from the government that said China was a threat to UK national security.
Prosecutors had to abandon the trial of two British men charged with spying on parliamentarians for China, just weeks before it was due to start, because of the government’s refusal to provide the evidence, Parkinson said in a letter to MPs on Tuesday.
Charles Parton, a former UK diplomat who spent more than two decades working on China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, had been due to appear as a prosecution witness in the trial.
“In broad fashion, this [collapse] says to the Chinese, ‘yes, we can bully the British, they will crumble if we play hard ball in whatever the negotiation is’ — that’s the worrying thing to me”, he told the Financial Times.
The failed prosecution was, he added, “a missed opportunity to demonstrate clearly China’s espionage efforts, and to say to anyone thinking of betraying our national interest, that you will be caught and punished”.
Parton, now an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, said: “There is absolutely no doubt China is a threat, and it’s a common sense point. A threat equals hostility, intent and capability. Well, each of those is very easy to prove.”
Their main purpose is enabling their users to consume content from various sources in one place.
Uh, no? RSS/Atom only contains a summary. It's to inform you about news, a alternative to E-Mail newsletters. Website scraping is extra functionality some clients do.
RSS/Atom can contain a summary, or it can be the full article. It's the choice of the website what to put in it. They only put a summary to force you to visit their webpage to serve ads.
I have tried all sorts of RSS feeds. All the same painful to navigate through a painful, outdated email-like interface that makes it vastly inferior to, you know, scrolling through a website.
FFS, RSS people must have grown up on being desk jockeys stuck in Outlook all day and they don't know how to navigate anything else.
I don't know if it's Lemmy not standing different opinions than: A) some opinions don't add much value to any conversation except to say "I disagree" and that's both not super helpful and in a small community I'd argue it's healthy for positive engagement to be more prevalent than negative engagement. B) some comments disagree or tear down a solution without offering up a good alternative - which leaves the people with solutions feeling worse for their solution, the problem unaddressed in a different way, and if someone likes their solution or even knows it's superior to alternatives it becomes very easy to down vote a subjectively wrong opinion.
In this instance "going to the website" is not a helpful alternative for a tool who's purpose is to aggregate many desired websites into one location only when they have new content. "Going to the website" would be less efficient both in time and effort. This person saying they don't get them, while being on Lemmy - a site aggregator - is to me very funny.
My instinct was to down vote because it was already down voted and for the reasons above, but your comment gave me pause so now I won't down vote but I also won't upvote because it's not content I think anyone should waste their time reading.
Should there be a neutral response on site aggregators for this very circumstance? Never thought about that before.
I think that's a very common and logical instinct/bias. I'm fairly confident you and everyone else does this as well. If someone told you two compare two drinks and that one was expensive, the expensive one gets a statistical boon. If someone says this book sucks and the author is an asshole, you're primed to take previously neutral statements and skew them towards a negative understanding.
I always read before voting but ya, we have bias my guy and talking about them is good.
I’ve liked using FreshRSS in the past, but has the developer finally capitulated and allowed users to sort entries by publication date?
It was probably the most requested feature and they always insisted it didn’t make sense or wasn’t possible despite being a common feature among other RSS feed readers.
my problem with these was that id have one website filling up the feed with a lot of posts and another interesting website that only makes a post every once in awhile and i almost never see it
I have a firehose folder on freshrss that has its own rotation rules such that posts are only retained for a couple days and are then deleted. It is also excluded from the “main” feed listing. Works great for news sites.
I’ve been using FeedBin after Google Reader sunset… so, a long time now. Every year I say I’ll bring it in-house, then I get billed for another year and say fuck it. It works fine. And now they have a minimalist podcast app called Airshow that lets me use my FeedBin account to synch my podcasts across devices. So, whatever… take my money. 25$ a year isn’t going to break me.
Edit: want to add that I use Netnewswire (free) to read my feeds. Integrates Feedbin and isn’t overkill on ridiculous feature that turn it into a p.o.s. subscription app.
Abdel Qader Sabbah and Sharif Abdel Kouddous Oct 13, 2025
In Khan Younis, thousands of people gathered to greet the freed detainees, who arrived in dozens of buses operated by the Red Cross and in Red Crescent ambulances. The crowds gathered in the courtyard of Nasser Hospital and on rooftops and balconies overlooking the medical complex where the freed captives were taken for medical checks. Nasser hospital, which has been repeatedly bombed by the Israeli military, is one of only 13 out of 38 hospitals still partially functioning in Gaza.
Freed detainees wearing gray jumpsuits leaned out of bus windows and waved to the crowds. Family members and friends embraced them through the windows as they drove by.
VIDEO: Hundreds of Palestinian Captives Released in Khan Younis From Israeli Detention
Abdel Qader Sabbah and Sharif Abdel Kouddous Oct 13, 2025
In Khan Younis, thousands of people gathered to greet the freed detainees, who arrived in dozens of buses operated by the Red Cross and in Red Crescent ambulances. The crowds gathered in the courtyard of Nasser Hospital and on rooftops and balconies overlooking the medical complex where the freed captives were taken for medical checks. Nasser hospital, which has been repeatedly bombed by the Israeli military, is one of only 13 out of 38 hospitals still partially functioning in Gaza.
Freed detainees wearing gray jumpsuits leaned out of bus windows and waved to the crowds. Family members and friends embraced them through the windows as they drove by.
Abdel Qader Sabbah and Sharif Abdel Kouddous Oct 13, 2025
In Khan Younis, thousands of people gathered to greet the freed detainees, who arrived in dozens of buses operated by the Red Cross and in Red Crescent ambulances. The crowds gathered in the courtyard of Nasser Hospital and on rooftops and balconies overlooking the medical complex where the freed captives were taken for medical checks. Nasser hospital, which has been repeatedly bombed by the Israeli military, is one of only 13 out of 38 hospitals still partially functioning in Gaza.
Freed detainees wearing gray jumpsuits leaned out of bus windows and waved to the crowds. Family members and friends embraced them through the windows as they drove by.
CNN will host a live town hall with progressive lawmakers Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Wednesday, October 15, the network announced Friday.
The town hall will air at 9 p.m. ET and will be moderated by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins from Washington, DC.
The event comes as the government shutdown is set to enter a third week, leaving roughly 1.4 million federal employees furloughed or working without pay. The funding lapse has already affected travel, and its impact could soon be seen on food assistance programs and the economy overall.
Mark Elliott, Professor of Public Law at the University of Cambridge, provides a good analysis on Starmer's comments.
The Prime Minister insists that the dropping of China-related espionage charges occurred for reasons entirely outwith the control of his government — but his argument that his hands were tied by the previous government’s position on China is, at best, highly contestable ...
The reality is that it is open to the government today to say that it considers that China was a threat to national security in 2021–23 and to offer that view as evidence for the purpose of criminal proceedings ...
The Prime Minister has claimed that his government’s hands are tied in relation to whether China constituted an ‘enemy’ for the purpose of a now-dropped criminal prosecution under…
During Friday's massive strike action in support of the Palestinians, demonstrators went to the Italian national team's training centre in Florence to demand the match against Israel be called off.
As of Tuesday only around 4,000 tickets had been sold for the game in Udine, a small city in Italy's far north-east, which was picked specifically to help limit the potential for disorder.
Italy are struggling to qualify automatically for next year's World Cup finals and the pressure on the team is exacerbated by the tension surrounding next Tuesday's qualifier with Israel in Udine.
All children – wherever they are in the world – deserve to be children: to explore, laugh and play, especially since play is a vital path to their learning and growth. But what about Palestinian children’s play time – or lack thereof? This is a human right taken from them by Israel.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Israel and Hamas have agreed to the “first phase” of his peace plan to pause fighting and release at least some hostages and prisoners, U.S. President Donald Trump said Wednesday in announcing the outlines of the biggest breakthrough in months in the two-year-old war.
“This means that ALL of the Hostages will be released very soon, and Israel will withdraw their Troops to an agreed upon line as the first steps toward a Strong, Durable, and Everlasting Peace,” Trump wrote on social media. “All Parties will be treated fairly!”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on social media, “With God’s help we will bring them all home.” Hamas said separately that the deal would ensure the withdrawal of Israeli troops as well as allow for the entry of aid and exchange of hostages and prisoners.
Hamas plans to release all 20 living hostages this weekend, people familiar with the matter told The Associated Press, while the Israeli military will begin a withdrawal from the majority of Gaza.
So what are the odds this lasts, and how does Trump react if his grand plan falls apart? The 20 point plan seems like it'll be a very hard sell in Israel in general, let alone to the far right partners in Netanyahu's coalition.
The reason I don’t think that will happen is he needs his evangelical base and they’re obsessed with full support for Israel because they desperately want the temple in Jerusalem rebuilt because they think it’ll bring about the end times.
It's possible. And then how does Israel react? There's already been talk of autarky over there, and they have a nuclear arsenal. The pieces are there for a last-ditch attempt at becoming a rogue state if US backing disappears.
A nation like North Korea, for example, has good relations with one neighbour, and their relations with the other entirely depend on how much they've pissed them off lately.
Israel isn't so fortunate. Without support from countries like the US, they'd likely cease to exist, given how they've systematically pissed off every neighbour they have.
It's not an exact analogy, though, because they're actually stronger than their neighbors, who don't really have superpower allies of their own. If Israel were to take that path, they'd start by expanding (more), and rely on the weakening of the world order to get away with it. The economics would be straight out of the historical empires.
I think that's plausible just because of how deep into the hate Israeli society has gotten, and how they've already set up economic and legal mechanisms like that on a small scale, through their settlement movement.
The other option is basically that, however it shakes out through domestic politics, they give up and do whatever the US makes them. Which would be less frightening, but leaves another chapter to be written whenever the US fully loses interest in having anything to do with them, since the shift away from Zionism crosses party lines there.
The whole regime lies twice every time they open their mouth once. Sorry Diaper Donnie, you still haven't earned that Nobel Prize, now release the Epstein files.
This is like the third time we've been at the "both sides agree!" Portion of things, only for it to never actually happen, Israel just continues the murdering...
IanTwenty
in reply to wisdomchicken • • •