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It’s so important to get yourself out of environments that aren’t serving you.
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Arun Shah ha ricondiviso questo.


Zen Z


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in reply to Arun Shah™

Who cares. Analog audio, video, phones, all out the window. Next people will be complaining people don't even know anything about vacuum tubes. Digital clocks are easier to read and make more fuckin sense. Leave the kids alone. 🙄🙄🙄

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Arun Shah ha ricondiviso questo.


DOGE cuts Nepal's funds


Trump administration cuts million dollars donation for Nepal.

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in reply to SinningStromgald

I’d rather my tax dollars be spent on these things, than more cyber trucks or whatever.
in reply to Photuris

Ooh, ooh, look at the price of a single Tomahawk missile or anything else we regularly blow up, even in training exercises!

You can either aid democracy in South Africa, or have 1 Tomahawk. I wonder which does the most good...


Arun Shah ha ricondiviso questo.


Success behind ✋

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While Putin is filmed dreaming about going to Mars (picture 1), numerous reports show Russian soldiers are being issued donkeys for transportation of military equipment — yes, the actual donkey animals — because the Russian army is falling apart (picture 2).

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in reply to Randahl Fink

God, those poor donkeys.
I don't care about the soldiers getting hurt because well, this is a human-made hell. But the donkeys, those poor things.

Okay, I am completely sick about all of this.

in reply to Randahl Fink

read below the PR report. This means the old dictator is restarting his nuclear programs. Which is not good, very very not good. THE only hope was that all that terror was uninspected, and stolen out throughout the years, now he is redirect money and the eye of the Sauron to the old arsenal…


Nepal, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is known for its rich cultural heritage and the vast diversity in its geography, which includes the Himalayan mountain range. Here are some key points about Nepal:

Geography


  • Location: Nepal is bordered by China (Tibet) to the north and India to the south, east, and west.
  • Topography: The country is home to eight of the world's ten highest peaks, including Mount Everest, the highest peak in the world. The landscape varies from the fertile Terai plains in the south to the towering Himalayas in the north.
  • Climate: Nepal experiences a wide range of climates, from the tropical heat of the Terai to the freezing temperatures of the Himalayas.


Culture


  • Ethnic Diversity: Nepal is a multi-ethnic and multi-lingual country with over 125 ethnic groups and 123 languages spoken.
  • Religion: The majority of Nepalis are Hindu, but there is also a significant Buddhist population. The country is known for its religious tolerance and harmony.
  • Festivals: Nepal celebrates numerous festivals throughout the year, including Dashain, Tihar, Holi, and Buddha Jayanti.


History


  • Ancient History: Nepal has a rich history dating back to the Neolithic period. The Kiratis are believed to be the first rulers of Nepal.
  • Modern History: Nepal was ruled by the Shah dynasty from 1768 until 2008, when the monarchy was abolished, and the country became a federal democratic republic.


Economy


  • Agriculture: Agriculture is the mainstay of Nepal's economy, employing about 65% of the population.
  • Tourism: Tourism is a significant contributor to the economy, with trekking, mountaineering, and cultural tours being major attractions.
  • Challenges: Nepal faces economic challenges due to its landlocked status, political instability, and underdeveloped infrastructure.


Tourism


  • Trekking and Mountaineering: Nepal is a paradise for adventure seekers, offering numerous trekking routes and mountaineering expeditions.
  • Cultural Sites: The country is home to several UNESCO World Heritage Sites, including the Kathmandu Valley, Lumbini (the birthplace of Buddha), and Chitwan National Park.


Politics


  • Government: Nepal is a federal democratic republic with a multi-party system.
  • Constitution: The current constitution was adopted in 2015, establishing Nepal as a secular and inclusive democratic republic.


Challenges


  • Natural Disasters: Nepal is prone to natural disasters such as earthquakes, landslides, and floods.
  • Development: The country faces development challenges, including poverty, lack of infrastructure, and limited access to education and healthcare.

Nepal is a country of immense beauty and cultural richness, offering a unique blend of ancient traditions and modern aspirations.



Arun Shah ha ricondiviso questo.


Funding Challenges and the Future of Our Work


Over the past two years Independent Federated Trust and Safety (IFTAS) has provided crucial support to independent, decentralised social media moderators, administrators, and community managers. Our mission has been to equip these individuals with the knowledge, resources, and services needed to create and nurture safe, civil, and inclusive online spaces.

However, despite our best efforts to secure sustainable funding, IFTAS is now facing a critical financial shortfall. Without immediate support, we will be forced to severely curtail our activities in the next 60 days. With our current commitments we will be unable to pay our bills in April.

Therefore we are preparing to scale back our activities and reduce our ability to advocate for better trust and safety standards across decentralised platforms.

At this juncture we are committed to continue fundraising until February 28. If by then we have still failed to source funds, we will begin closing down some of our activities. Any formal announcement of our plans will happen on or after March 1, 2025.

The Funding Challenge


Our founding plan was to source three years of external support from corporate and institutional funders while we built toward self-sustainability. The list of companies we would accept money from is shrinking, and the charitable funding landscape in general has proven to be harder to access than we had hoped.

Like many non-profit organisations operating in the civil society landscape, IFTAS has relied on grants, donations, and partnerships to sustain its work. However, shifts in funding priorities, economic uncertainties, and increased competition for limited resources have made securing financial support increasingly difficult. While our work remains as vital as ever, we have struggled to find long-term funding commitments that would allow us to continue operating at our current capacity.

We are not a research group, we don’t focus on any particular demographic or harm, we are a general purpose charity with routine bills to pay, and this is not the kind of activity most institutional funders want to support.

We have met with dozens of foundations and civil society organisations. We have submitted grant applications and letters of enquiry. We have reached out to hundreds of companies and charities and others that operate in the Fediverse with accounts or their own servers.

For 2024 this outreach raised just short of $10,000, mostly from our community crowdfunding campaign, with about $400 a month in recurring donations.

While we have two grant applications pending, both of them will require us to have matching funds to properly put those grant funds to work. Despite our conversations with companies and nonprofits over the past nine months, we have zero committed funding that we can use to properly sustain our services.

Our 2025/2026 budget plan with Content Classification Service (CCS) included is $1.2M of which we have $300,000 in grants applied for. A large portion of this budget is for the extremely complex legal and content review work that needs to happen to assure this activity’s legality and compliance. If we close CCS we can survive with significantly less funding (but would forego the two grants as they are CSAM-specific), but will then be unable to respond to what our annual surveys consistently tell us is the highest need for Fediverse providers – detecting and reporting CSAM.

There is a possible outcome that includes a significantly reduced IFTAS providing core community services and little else, we will need to carefully examine our ongoing costs and determine what we may be able to support over a longer term.

What This Means for IFTAS and the Communities We Support


If we cannot secure immediate funding, IFTAS will need to:

  • Halt new activities and policy guidance: Our ability to analyse emerging threats, develop best practices, and publish guidance for community moderators will be significantly reduced. This includes our work to help manage compliance with the UK’s Online Safety Act.
  • Suspend CCS: CCS and its CSAM detection and reporting service online is the most expensive project we operate, and will likely close between March 15 and March 30. The core technology requirements to simply operate the service exceed $60,000 per year, and that doesn’t include the legal advisory and content review support we need to bring this service to the Fediverse in a broader fashion.
  • Reduce advocacy efforts: IFTAS has been a voice for decentralised communities in broader trust and safety discussions. Without funding, our participation in these critical conversations will diminish.
  • Rethink our scope: Significantly reduce our fundraising goals to support and sustain a much smaller portfolio of activities.

These cuts will leave many independent communities without the resources they need to handle complex trust and safety challenges. It will also reduce the visibility of decentralised networks in discussions about the future of online safety, making it harder to ensure that their needs are considered in policy decisions.

For the time being we anticipate FediCheck and IFTAS Connect staying online for at least the next several months. Our hope is to prepare FediCheck to be open-sourced so the tool can be used independently, and to find a way to sustain the Connect community for as long as possible.

We will never share or in any way disclose the personal data and conversations that we host, so either we keep it online or it will be gracefully shut down with plenty of time to help find a new home for the community.

How You Can Help


Spread the word: Raising awareness about our funding challenges can help us connect with potential funders, partners, and supporters. Share our fundraising overview. We know most funders cannot move quickly, so for now, we are accepting pledges.

Pledge a donation: If you or your organisation can contribute financially, let us know. We are not accepting donations at this time, but we will take your pledges to see if we can reach our funding goals. We need pledges by February 28 so we can make an informed decision about our next steps. Contact us.

Connect us with potential funders: If you know of philanthropic organisations or individuals interested in trust and safety for decentralised communities, we would love to connect. If you know anyone going to RightsCon who might be a good connection, tell us.

Advocate for trust and safety funding: The broader trust and safety field needs more sustainable funding mechanisms. By advocating for increased support for this work, we can help ensure that independent communities are not left behind.

Vote with your feet: Use social networks that are well-moderated and bring you the safety you need online. Support that service financially if you can. Say “thank you” to your moderators.

The Road Ahead


(a note from IFTAS Director Jaz King)

I believe there is no social network that has any sustaining, meaningful value outside of the trust and safety it brings to the table.

There are hundreds of apps and platforms, multiple protocols. Our society is extremely willing to fund the creation of yet more apps and platforms, repeating the cycle of build something new, attract people, wait until they find out it’s an unmanaged mess, watch them leave, build something new – but funding the trust and safety that provides much, if not most of the value is a tough nut to crack.

I started IFTAS with the idea that we can break this cycle and help identify and share the collective wisdom of what works and what doesn’t work so that apps and platforms can benefit from best practice, build a healthy and safe network, and then have IFTAS pay for the bits independent operators can’t afford themselves.

Over the past 18 months IFTAS has raised over $400,000 which has supported Fediverse moderators and administrators with our projects, our advocacy, our services, direct support to Fediverse moderators and developers, and more. In case it needs to be said, I’ve never been paid by IFTAS (or anyone or anything else since 2022), my wife works and it’s her support that has allowed me to take on this work full-time.

Trust and safety sounds boring, often is boring – except for when it’s traumatic – and is not something that I’ve been able to convince anyone to pay for in any meaningful way. Everyone I speak to thinks the work is vital, that our achievements to date are meaningful, but is “not aligned with our current funding goals”.

We’re down, but not out. The above is my signal to all who use our services that we are reaching the end of the road, but we’re not quite there yet. Stay tuned for March 1 or so to hear what I think we can continue to do to support our community. I have to put this notice out now so that people who rely on our services can begin to plan for alternative support.

Given the tilt we are seeing in the large corporations that operate the biggest networks, I believe it has never been more important to sustain the open social web. I commit to working with any and all other groups in the space who are able to continue building safety into our shared spaces.

I will do everything I can to sustain the community we’ve built for as long as I can. I am working non-stop through end of February to see what can be done, and come March I’ll announce where we are at and what we think we can do going forward. It’s been a privilege to work with so many dedicated teams and individuals in this space, and I hope to continue contributing in any way I can regardless of the outcome for IFTAS.

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Arun Shah ha ricondiviso questo.


The next Pixelfed app build has been submitted and is pending review, here is the changelog:

- Added in-app registration
- Added double tap to like
- Added oAuth scope options
- Added share intents
- Improved error handling
- Fixed pinch to zoom on carousels
- Improved like state across screens
- Several bug fixes and performance improvements

#pixelfed

in reply to Daniel Supernault

Any plans for Dark Mode? My eyes are bleeding in the evening 😅
in reply to Daniel Supernault

Is this update publishing to Google Play? I haven't had an update since the initial release. Wondering if I'm having an issue on my end.





Arun Shah ha ricondiviso questo.


American Airlines jet collides with army helicopter while landing in Washington
https://flipboard.com/video/euronews/5db694acf2?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub

Posted into News Videos @news-videos-euronews

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in reply to rottingleaf

Ideally when an instance goes down, all its posts and comments and users are replicated in the network and possible to get.


Federation allows this, no? Provided your instance is old enough to have federated with the content in the first place.

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in reply to can

Instance A goes down, you can't post as your user registered on instance A.

With cryptographic identities it's possible that instance A should be up only when you are registering your user. It's even possible with some delegated rights to another A user that only that user should be up when you are registering your user, the instance itself - not required.

I'm against the whole idea of federation like in XMPP or like in ActivityPub. It's stone age. It requires people to set up servers. It ties users to those servers. And communities are unnecessarily ties to servers. And their moderators.

Ideologically Retroshare looks nicer, for example.

You need to have messages, containing all the data I've described (who messages whom or who messages which communities and time of a message should be used to reduce the amount of data, ahem, stored and transferred by nodes, and also messages should list their dependencies, like - if you are giving some user some mod rights and taking them away a few times in a row, you need to know what the previous message was and the one before it), and shared storage. Shared storage here kinda breaks the beauty, because storage is finite and in fact probably those machines contributing it would function a lot like instances, replicating only communities they want.

Above that messages layer there'd be the imagined social network itself. I suppose it comes down to CRUD signed by user, user signed by an instance root or better a user delegated that right by an instance root. So everyone can send CRUD messages on anything, but what of all this the client considers depends on what they trust and the logic of processing rights. DoS protection and space conservation here are a case of dependency management, kinda similar to garbage collection.

Then entity types - I guess it's instance (people like that crap), community (I think this can be many-to-many with instances, instances are used for moderating users, communities for moderating posts), user (probably a derived user, from what I've heard but not understood about blind keys), public post (rich text with hyperlinks to entities by hash, everything is addressable by hash), blob (obvious), personal message (like public post, but probably encrypted and all that).

OK, dreams again