#buttondown — Public Fediverse posts

This article originally appeared on The Fulcrum.

Welcome to this week’s The Programmer’s Fulcrum.

It’s your weekly curation of the essential news in the Open Media Network and Fediverse development communities with a focus on devastating big tech via Techno Anarchism.

As usual, we aim to provide actionable content you can use to destroy Techno Feudalism each week. It has the additional […]

This article originally appeared on The Fulcrum.

Welcome to this week’s The Programmer’s Fulcrum.

It’s your weekly curation of the essential news in the Open Media Network and Fediverse development communities with a focus on devastating big tech via Techno Anarchism.

As usual, we aim to provide actionable content you can use to destroy Techno Feudalism each week. It has the additional […]

This article originally appeared on The Fulcrum.

Welcome to this week’s The Programmer’s Fulcrum.

It’s your weekly curation of the essential news in the Open Media Network and Fediverse development communities with a focus on devastating big tech via Techno Anarchism.

As usual, we aim to provide actionable content you can use to destroy Techno Feudalism each week. It has the additional […]

This article originally appeared on The Fulcrum.

Welcome to this week’s The Programmer’s Fulcrum.

It’s your weekly curation of the essential news in the Open Media Network and Fediverse development communities with a focus on devastating big tech via Techno Anarchism.

As usual, we aim to provide actionable content you can use to destroy Techno Feudalism each week. It has the additional […]

This article originally appeared on The Fulcrum.

Welcome to this week’s The Programmer’s Fulcrum.

It’s your weekly curation of the essential news in the Open Media Network and Fediverse development communities with a focus on devastating big tech via Techno Anarchism.

As usual, we aim to provide actionable content you can use to destroy Techno Feudalism each week. It has the additional […]

This post originally appeared on The Fulcrum.

Welcome to this week’s The Programmer’s Fulcrum.

It’s your weekly curation of the essential news in the Open Media Network and Fediverse development communities with a focus on devastating big tech via Techno Anarchism.

There is a lot of coverage of the shitshow that is ShitHub this week. And that makes me so happy I moved to Codeberg several […]

This post originally appeared on The Fulcrum.

Welcome to this week’s The Programmer’s Fulcrum.

It’s your weekly curation of the essential news in the Open Media Network and Fediverse development communities with a focus on devastating big tech via Techno Anarchism.

There is a lot of coverage of the shitshow that is ShitHub this week. And that makes me so happy I moved to Codeberg several […]

This post originally appeared on The Fulcrum.

Welcome to this week’s The Programmer’s Fulcrum.

It’s your weekly curation of the essential news in the Open Media Network and Fediverse development communities with a focus on devastating big tech via Techno Anarchism.

There is a lot of coverage of the shitshow that is ShitHub this week. And that makes me so happy I moved to Codeberg several […]

This post originally appeared on The Fulcrum.

Welcome to this week’s The Programmer’s Fulcrum.

It’s your weekly curation of the essential news in the Open Media Network and Fediverse development communities with a focus on devastating big tech via Techno Anarchism.

There is a lot of coverage of the shitshow that is ShitHub this week. And that makes me so happy I moved to Codeberg several […]

This post originally appeared on The Fulcrum.

Welcome to this week’s The Programmer’s Fulcrum.

It’s your weekly curation of the essential news in the Open Media Network and Fediverse development communities with a focus on devastating big tech via Techno Anarchism.

There is a lot of coverage of the shitshow that is ShitHub this week. And that makes me so happy I moved to Codeberg several […]

Buttondown introduce le passkey e rinnova la sicurezza con l’aggiornamento di marzo

https://yoota.it/buttondown-introduce-le-passkey-e-rinnova-la-sicurezza-con-laggiornamento-di-marzo/

Buttondown introduce le passkey e rinnova la sicurezza con l’aggiornamento di marzo

https://yoota.it/buttondown-introduce-le-passkey-e-rinnova-la-sicurezza-con-laggiornamento-di-marzo/

Currently pitting semi-self-hosted¹ #Listmonk and #Notifuse against my current newsletter host #Buttondown. Want to know how they fare.

I really like BD but my subscriber base is >1k which means I spend $29 on each monthly mail. Fiscally, that's not a winning proposition right now for me as I'm still not made of money, and all those costs add up.

I need to bring my own mail server for both (or use one of the supported services, like SES or Postmark.)

¹) PikaPods.com FTW! #EU, too

Currently pitting semi-self-hosted¹ #Listmonk and #Notifuse against my current newsletter host #Buttondown. Want to know how they fare.

I really like BD but my subscriber base is >1k which means I spend $29 on each monthly mail. Fiscally, that's not a winning proposition right now for me as I'm still not made of money, and all those costs add up.

I need to bring my own mail server for both (or use one of the supported services, like SES or Postmark.)

¹) PikaPods.com FTW! #EU, too

Currently pitting semi-self-hosted¹ #Listmonk and #Notifuse against my current newsletter host #Buttondown. Want to know how they fare.

I really like BD but my subscriber base is >1k which means I spend $29 on each monthly mail. Fiscally, that's not a winning proposition right now for me as I'm still not made of money, and all those costs add up.

I need to bring my own mail server for both (or use one of the supported services, like SES or Postmark.)

¹) PikaPods.com FTW! #EU, too

Currently pitting semi-self-hosted¹ #Listmonk and #Notifuse against my current newsletter host #Buttondown. Want to know how they fare.

I really like BD but my subscriber base is >1k which means I spend $29 on each monthly mail. Fiscally, that's not a winning proposition right now for me as I'm still not made of money, and all those costs add up.

I need to bring my own mail server for both (or use one of the supported services, like SES or Postmark.)

¹) PikaPods.com FTW! #EU, too

Currently pitting semi-self-hosted¹ #Listmonk and #Notifuse against my current newsletter host #Buttondown. Want to know how they fare.

I really like BD but my subscriber base is >1k which means I spend $29 on each monthly mail. Fiscally, that's not a winning proposition right now for me as I'm still not made of money, and all those costs add up.

I need to bring my own mail server for both (or use one of the supported services, like SES or Postmark.)

¹) PikaPods.com FTW! #EU, too

This post first appeared on The Fulcrum.

Welcome to this week’s The Programmer’s Fulcrum.

It’s your weekly review of the essential news in the Open Media Network and Fediverse development communities with a focus on devastating big tech via Techno Anarchism. We aim to provide actionable content you can use to destroy Techno Feudalism each week. It has the additional benefit of weakening […]

This post first appeared on The Fulcrum.

Welcome to this week’s The Programmer’s Fulcrum.

It’s your weekly review of the essential news in the Open Media Network and Fediverse development communities with a focus on devastating big tech via Techno Anarchism. We aim to provide actionable content you can use to destroy Techno Feudalism each week. It has the additional benefit of weakening […]

Welcome to this week’s The Programmer’s Fulcrum.

It’s your weekly review of the essential news in the Open Media Network and Fediverse development communities with a focus on devastating big tech via Techno Anarchism. We aim to provide actionable content you can use to destroy Techno Feudalism each week. It has the additional benefit of weakening authoritarianism.

IMHO, the best way to do […]

Welcome to this week’s The Programmer’s Fulcrum.

It’s your weekly review of the essential news in the Open Media Network and Fediverse development communities with a focus on devastating big tech via Techno Anarchism. We aim to provide actionable content you can use to destroy Techno Feudalism each week. It has the additional benefit of weakening authoritarianism.

IMHO, the best way to do […]

Welcome to this week’s The Programmer’s Fulcrum.

It’s your weekly review of the essential news in the Open Media Network and Fediverse development communities with a focus on devastating big tech via Techno Anarchism. We aim to provide actionable content you can use to destroy Techno Feudalism each week. It has the additional benefit of weakening authoritarianism.

IMHO, the best way to do […]

Massive thanks to @buttondown for the best customer service ever!

There was a burp with one of my blog posts, where, probably thanks to my botching the publication date, it didn't get picked up by my newsletter. I have a handful of family and friends who don't use RSS and rely on the RSS-to-Email function I get from Buttondown.

When we realized the problem, I could fix the date in future posts, but there seemed to be no way to get my Buttondown account to pick up that one older post and send it out. So some very nice employee named Justin literally coded that option! Probably on a Friday night since I got email about it this morning! So bonkers kind, thank you so much! ❤️

#Buttondown #SubstackAlternatives #CustomerService

Massive thanks to @buttondown for the best customer service ever!

There was a burp with one of my blog posts, where, probably thanks to my botching the publication date, it didn't get picked up by my newsletter. I have a handful of family and friends who don't use RSS and rely on the RSS-to-Email function I get from Buttondown.

When we realized the problem, I could fix the date in future posts, but there seemed to be no way to get my Buttondown account to pick up that one older post and send it out. So some very nice employee named Justin literally coded that option! Probably on a Friday night since I got email about it this morning! So bonkers kind, thank you so much! ❤️

#Buttondown #SubstackAlternatives #CustomerService

Massive thanks to @buttondown for the best customer service ever!

There was a burp with one of my blog posts, where, probably thanks to my botching the publication date, it didn't get picked up by my newsletter. I have a handful of family and friends who don't use RSS and rely on the RSS-to-Email function I get from Buttondown.

When we realized the problem, I could fix the date in future posts, but there seemed to be no way to get my Buttondown account to pick up that one older post and send it out. So some very nice employee named Justin literally coded that option! Probably on a Friday night since I got email about it this morning! So bonkers kind, thank you so much! ❤️

#Buttondown #SubstackAlternatives #CustomerService

Massive thanks to @buttondown for the best customer service ever!

There was a burp with one of my blog posts, where, probably thanks to my botching the publication date, it didn't get picked up by my newsletter. I have a handful of family and friends who don't use RSS and rely on the RSS-to-Email function I get from Buttondown.

When we realized the problem, I could fix the date in future posts, but there seemed to be no way to get my Buttondown account to pick up that one older post and send it out. So some very nice employee named Justin literally coded that option! Probably on a Friday night since I got email about it this morning! So bonkers kind, thank you so much! ❤️

#Buttondown #SubstackAlternatives #CustomerService

Massive thanks to @buttondown for the best customer service ever!

There was a burp with one of my blog posts, where, probably thanks to my botching the publication date, it didn't get picked up by my newsletter. I have a handful of family and friends who don't use RSS and rely on the RSS-to-Email function I get from Buttondown.

When we realized the problem, I could fix the date in future posts, but there seemed to be no way to get my Buttondown account to pick up that one older post and send it out. So some very nice employee named Justin literally coded that option! Probably on a Friday night since I got email about it this morning! So bonkers kind, thank you so much! ❤️

#Buttondown #SubstackAlternatives #CustomerService

Newsletters and Email Clipping

https://social.emucafe.org/naferrell/newsletters-and-email-clipping/

Footnotes in Buttondown

https://social.emucafe.org/naferrell/footnotes-in-buttondown-01-24-26/

I haven't seen many users yet on #PlaneScale for #postgres. Nice of #buttondown trying things for the rest of us. 😅

For migrations like this, spinning up a read replica is key. Use it to do what you need. Primary then gets no impact while migrating.
https://buttondown.com/blog/2026-01-14-how-we-migrated-our-database-to-planetscale

I haven't seen many users yet on #PlaneScale for #postgres. Nice of #buttondown trying things for the rest of us. 😅

For migrations like this, spinning up a read replica is key. Use it to do what you need. Primary then gets no impact while migrating.
https://buttondown.com/blog/2026-01-14-how-we-migrated-our-database-to-planetscale

I haven't seen many users yet on #PlaneScale for #postgres. Nice of #buttondown trying things for the rest of us. 😅

For migrations like this, spinning up a read replica is key. Use it to do what you need. Primary then gets no impact while migrating.
https://buttondown.com/blog/2026-01-14-how-we-migrated-our-database-to-planetscale

I haven't seen many users yet on #PlaneScale for #postgres. Nice of #buttondown trying things for the rest of us. 😅

For migrations like this, spinning up a read replica is key. Use it to do what you need. Primary then gets no impact while migrating.
https://buttondown.com/blog/2026-01-14-how-we-migrated-our-database-to-planetscale

I haven't seen many users yet on #PlaneScale for #postgres. Nice of #buttondown trying things for the rest of us. 😅

For migrations like this, spinning up a read replica is key. Use it to do what you need. Primary then gets no impact while migrating.
https://buttondown.com/blog/2026-01-14-how-we-migrated-our-database-to-planetscale

https://social.emucafe.org/naferrell/buttondown-canonical-urls-11-29-25/

I mentioned in my previous post that I could not send our regular weekly newsletter due to a formatting issue in Buttondown. Fortunately, my support request was answered quickly. It turned out that I had an extraneous tag in the header (it had not caused any issues before this week). I sent the email. In so doing, I learned something interesting about Buttondown. Two reasons I like Buttondown is because it has a full searchable archive and an RSS feed. That is, it functions like a blog which supports my making Newsletter Leaf Journal its own publication. For today’s email, I set NLJ copy as the canonical URL since I published that before sending the email. To my surprise, I learned that when you set an external link as the canonical, the archive link for the newsletter takes you to the original instead of the Buttondown version (I assumed that the Buttondown archive version would be accessable but with the canonical tag pointing search engines to the original).

#buttondown #newsletterLeafJournal #troubleshooting

https://social.emucafe.org/naferrell/what-do-you-do-when-you-cant-mail-your-newsletter-11-29-25/

I use Buttondown to host my weekly newsletter, wherein I share links from this site and The New Leaf Journal as well as 21 links from around the web and other news and notes. I had finished drafting my newsletter. Unfortunately, Buttondown is producing garbled formatting that I would not want to put in anyone’s mailbox. I sent an email to support. In the meantime I published the newsletter on NLJ. Buttondown allows for setting canonical links, so it will not be an issue once I can finally mail the newsletter to our regular subscribers and newsletter followers.

#buttondown #newsletterLeafJournal #troubleshooting

Destroying Autocracy – November 27, 2025

Welcome to this week’s “Destroying Autocracy”.

It’s your source for curated news affecting democracy in the cyber arena with a focus on protecting it. That necessitates an opinionated Butlerian jihad against big tech as well as evangelizing for open-source and the Fediverse. Since big media’s journalism wing is flailing and failing in its core duty to democracy, this is also a collection of alternative reporting on the eternal battle between autocracy and democracy. We also cover the cybersecurity world. You can’t be free without safety and privacy.

FYI, my opinions will be in bold. And will often involve cursing. Because humans. Especially tech bros. And fascists. Fuck ’em.

The Programmer’s Fulcrum is the future (and smaller) home for a fusion of Symfony Station and Battalion. Its tagline is Devs Defending Democracy, Developing the OMN.

You can sign up now and for 2025 get an email with links to each week’s Symfony Station Communiqué and Battalion “Destroying Autocracy” post along with their featured articles. And you’ll be set with TPF after the fusing in January.

We are posting on the Fediverse now at @thefulcrum @thefulcrum.dev and original website content will start in 2026.

Featured Item(s)

The Atlantic writes:

Over the weekend, Elon Musk’s X rolled out a feature that had the immediate result of sowing maximum chaos. The update, called “About This Account,” allows people to click on the profile of an X user and see such information as: which country the account was created in, where its user is currently based, and how many times the username has been changed.

Nikita Bier, X’s head of product, said the feature was “an important first step to securing the integrity of the global town square.” Roughly four hours later, with the update in the wild, Bier sent another post: “I need a drink.”

Almost immediately, “About This Account” stated that many prominent and prolific pro-MAGA accounts, which signaled that they were run by “patriotic” Americans, were based in countries such as Nigeria, Russia, India, and Thailand.

@MAGANationX, an account with almost 400,000 followers and whose bio says it is a “Patriot Voice for We The People,” is based in “Eastern Europe (Non-EU),” according to the feature, and has changed its username five times since the account was made, last year.

On X and Bluesky, users dredged up countless examples of fake or misleading rage-baiting accounts posting aggressive culture-war takes to large audiences. An account called “Maga Nadine” claims to be living in and posting from the United States but is, according to X, based in Morocco. An “America First” account with 67,000 followers is apparently based in Bangladesh. Poetically, the X handle @American is based in Pakistan, according to the feature.

Elon Musk’s Worthless, Poisoned Hall of Mirrors

Just FYI, December 25th will be the day I stop exploring the stupidity of our current timeline and the last Destroying Autocracy post. Again, see the notes above about The Fulcrum.

We start and end with good news to make the middle bearable.

The response to Russia’s War Crimes, Techno Feudalism, and other douchebaggery

EuroNews reports:

Life after chatbots: Meet the ‘AI vegans’ refusing to accept a virtual reality

Kagi is:

Introducing SlopStop: Community-driven AI slop detection in Kagi Search

Orion 1.0 ✴︎ Browse Beyond

Fucking awesome if you use Macs.

TechPolicy Press reports:

Why Civil Society Is Sounding the Alarm on the EU’s Omnibus Rollback

The Guardian reports:

European parliament calls for social media ban on under-16s

The Free Software Foundation Europe shares:

Germany Stack: Only Free Software Enables Digital Sovereignty

Wikimedia announces:

Unifying our mobile and desktop domains

Decidim reviews:

Decidim Fest 2025: Collective energy, digital sovereignty and a common roadmap

The Conversation reports:

Tim Berners-Lee wants everyone to own their own data – his plan needs state and consumer support to work

Mullvad reports:

An important victory – but we still need to stop Chat Control.

Ploum says:

Don’t Do Snake Oil Writing

Fiona Fokus says:

I don’t care how well your “AI” works

Abso-fucking-lutely.

It’s Foss has:

Self-Hosting is Rising and Linux Users are Leading This Revolution

CNBC reports;

Americans are holding onto devices longer than ever and it’s costing the economy

Neutral

The Guardian asks:

Has Britain become an economic colony?

England always makes sure to ape the shitty parts of America.

W3C shares:

Preventing Abuse of Digital Credentials

Ben Werdmuller covers:

The EFF we need now

The Evil Empire (AKA Autocracy) Strikes Back

Heise reports:

Analysis of the Digital Sovereignty Summit: Open Source Gets Scolded

We Are Solomon reports:

Hungry for data: Inside Europol’s secretive AI program

The Intercept reports:

The FBI wants to use Surveillance Drones with Facial Recognition Technology

How Corporate Partnerships Powered University Surveillance of Palestine Protests

The Counter Offensive reports:

Witkoff was secretly giving Russians advice

Pariah States

The Register reports:

CISA warns spyware crews are breaking into Signal and WhatsApp accounts

DarkReading reports:

DPRK’s FlexibleFerret Tightens macOS Grip

Big Media

The Columbia Journalism Review reports:

Could Public Skepticism of the Press Actually Be Good for Democracy?

It could since most Big Media is owned by right-wing c^nts.

ProPublica shares:

ProPublica’s May-August 2025 Impact Report: Independent Investigations That Spur Change

Big Tech

Sage Journals reports:

Algorithms at your service: Understanding how X’s systems of recommendation likely fueled the far-right riots in the United Kingdom by amplifying visual representations of racist conspiracy theories

Renée DiResta reports:

On the internet, nobody knows you’re a MAGA influencer… in Lagos

The Daily Beast reports:

Top MAGA Influencers Accidentally Unmasked as Foreign Trolls

404 Media reports:

America’s Polarization Has Become the World’s Side Hustle

The Register reports:

Meta knows how bad its sites are for kids, say lawyers

MM+M reports:

What healthcare marketers need to know about Meta’s censoring of abortion ads

The Markup reports:

How American Big Tech guards the profits it extracts around the world

Tuta reports:

Google wants to kill Android freedom: Say Goodbye to installing independent apps

Cybersecurity/Privacy

BleepingComputer reports:

Cox Enterprises discloses Oracle E-Business Suite data breach

Hmm, cable companies are literally shit at everything.

Code beautifiers expose credentials from banks, govt, tech orgs

Malicious LLMs empower inexperienced hackers with advanced tools

DarkReading reports:

Infamous Shai-hulud Worm Resurfaces From the Depths

The Register reports:

FCC guts post-Salt Typhoon telco rules despite ongoing espionage risk

GrapheneOS bails on OVHcloud over France’s privacy stance

Fediverse

Connected Places shares:

Fediverse Report – 144

Mastodon announces:

Mastodon Joins Forces with WE AID

Bonfire has:

What is Bonfire? Plural by design.

Buttondown has:

Making social networking more like email

Terence Eden has:

Now witness the power of this fully operational Fediverse!

Ghost has:

Explore the independent web

RadWeb Hosting shares:

How to Host Your Own Mastodon Server on a VPS (5 Minute Quick-Start Guide)

How to Install Pleroma on Ubuntu VPS (5 Minute Quick-Start Guide)

NodeBB announces:

NodeBB v4.7.0 — category boost fixes, remote media/emoji in chats, and more!

Slightly Decentralized Social Media

Connected Places has:

ATmosphere Report – 144

Internet Exchange reports:

‘Composable Moderation’ May Protect Bluesky from Political Pressure

CTAs (aka show us some free love)

• That’s it for this week. Please share this edition of Destroying Autocracy.
• Follow me on the Fediverse. Or this site via the button in the footer. Or via RSS. Or even our future home in 2026, if you want a head start.

Keep fighting!

Ringleader, Battalion
Reuben Walker
Follow me on the Fediverse

#ActivityPub #AI #ATProto #Autocracy #BigJournalism #BigTech #Bonfire #Buttondown #Democracy #Fascism #Fediverse #Ghost #Mastodon #NodeBB #Pleroma #StopChina #StopIsrael #StopRedAmerica #StopRussia #SupportUkraine #TechnoAnarchism #TechnoFeudalism

https://battalion.mobileatom.net/?p=3992

Destroying Autocracy – November 27, 2025

Welcome to this week’s “Destroying Autocracy”.

It’s your source for curated news affecting democracy in the cyber arena with a focus on protecting it. That necessitates an opinionated Butlerian jihad against big tech as well as evangelizing for open-source and the Fediverse. Since big media’s journalism wing is flailing and failing in its core duty to democracy, this is also a collection of alternative reporting on the eternal battle between autocracy and democracy. We also cover the cybersecurity world. You can’t be free without safety and privacy.

FYI, my opinions will be in bold. And will often involve cursing. Because humans. Especially tech bros. And fascists. Fuck ’em.

The Programmer’s Fulcrum is the future (and smaller) home for a fusion of Symfony Station and Battalion. Its tagline is Devs Defending Democracy, Developing the OMN.

You can sign up now and for 2025 get an email with links to each week’s Symfony Station Communiqué and Battalion “Destroying Autocracy” post along with their featured articles. And you’ll be set with TPF after the fusing in January.

We are posting on the Fediverse now at @thefulcrum @thefulcrum.dev and original website content will start in 2026.

Featured Item(s)

The Atlantic writes:

Over the weekend, Elon Musk’s X rolled out a feature that had the immediate result of sowing maximum chaos. The update, called “About This Account,” allows people to click on the profile of an X user and see such information as: which country the account was created in, where its user is currently based, and how many times the username has been changed.

Nikita Bier, X’s head of product, said the feature was “an important first step to securing the integrity of the global town square.” Roughly four hours later, with the update in the wild, Bier sent another post: “I need a drink.”

Almost immediately, “About This Account” stated that many prominent and prolific pro-MAGA accounts, which signaled that they were run by “patriotic” Americans, were based in countries such as Nigeria, Russia, India, and Thailand.

@MAGANationX, an account with almost 400,000 followers and whose bio says it is a “Patriot Voice for We The People,” is based in “Eastern Europe (Non-EU),” according to the feature, and has changed its username five times since the account was made, last year.

On X and Bluesky, users dredged up countless examples of fake or misleading rage-baiting accounts posting aggressive culture-war takes to large audiences. An account called “Maga Nadine” claims to be living in and posting from the United States but is, according to X, based in Morocco. An “America First” account with 67,000 followers is apparently based in Bangladesh. Poetically, the X handle @American is based in Pakistan, according to the feature.

Elon Musk’s Worthless, Poisoned Hall of Mirrors

Just FYI, December 25th will be the day I stop exploring the stupidity of our current timeline and the last Destroying Autocracy post. Again, see the notes above about The Fulcrum.

We start and end with good news to make the middle bearable.

The response to Russia’s War Crimes, Techno Feudalism, and other douchebaggery

EuroNews reports:

Life after chatbots: Meet the ‘AI vegans’ refusing to accept a virtual reality

Kagi is:

Introducing SlopStop: Community-driven AI slop detection in Kagi Search

Orion 1.0 ✴︎ Browse Beyond

Fucking awesome if you use Macs.

TechPolicy Press reports:

Why Civil Society Is Sounding the Alarm on the EU’s Omnibus Rollback

The Guardian reports:

European parliament calls for social media ban on under-16s

The Free Software Foundation Europe shares:

Germany Stack: Only Free Software Enables Digital Sovereignty

Wikimedia announces:

Unifying our mobile and desktop domains

Decidim reviews:

Decidim Fest 2025: Collective energy, digital sovereignty and a common roadmap

The Conversation reports:

Tim Berners-Lee wants everyone to own their own data – his plan needs state and consumer support to work

Mullvad reports:

An important victory – but we still need to stop Chat Control.

Ploum says:

Don’t Do Snake Oil Writing

Fiona Fokus says:

I don’t care how well your “AI” works

Abso-fucking-lutely.

It’s Foss has:

Self-Hosting is Rising and Linux Users are Leading This Revolution

CNBC reports;

Americans are holding onto devices longer than ever and it’s costing the economy

Neutral

The Guardian asks:

Has Britain become an economic colony?

England always makes sure to ape the shitty parts of America.

W3C shares:

Preventing Abuse of Digital Credentials

Ben Werdmuller covers:

The EFF we need now

The Evil Empire (AKA Autocracy) Strikes Back

Heise reports:

Analysis of the Digital Sovereignty Summit: Open Source Gets Scolded

We Are Solomon reports:

Hungry for data: Inside Europol’s secretive AI program

The Intercept reports:

The FBI wants to use Surveillance Drones with Facial Recognition Technology

How Corporate Partnerships Powered University Surveillance of Palestine Protests

The Counter Offensive reports:

Witkoff was secretly giving Russians advice

Pariah States

The Register reports:

CISA warns spyware crews are breaking into Signal and WhatsApp accounts

DarkReading reports:

DPRK’s FlexibleFerret Tightens macOS Grip

Big Media

The Columbia Journalism Review reports:

Could Public Skepticism of the Press Actually Be Good for Democracy?

It could since most Big Media is owned by right-wing c^nts.

ProPublica shares:

ProPublica’s May-August 2025 Impact Report: Independent Investigations That Spur Change

Big Tech

Sage Journals reports:

Algorithms at your service: Understanding how X’s systems of recommendation likely fueled the far-right riots in the United Kingdom by amplifying visual representations of racist conspiracy theories

Renée DiResta reports:

On the internet, nobody knows you’re a MAGA influencer… in Lagos

The Daily Beast reports:

Top MAGA Influencers Accidentally Unmasked as Foreign Trolls

404 Media reports:

America’s Polarization Has Become the World’s Side Hustle

The Register reports:

Meta knows how bad its sites are for kids, say lawyers

MM+M reports:

What healthcare marketers need to know about Meta’s censoring of abortion ads

The Markup reports:

How American Big Tech guards the profits it extracts around the world

Tuta reports:

Google wants to kill Android freedom: Say Goodbye to installing independent apps

Cybersecurity/Privacy

BleepingComputer reports:

Cox Enterprises discloses Oracle E-Business Suite data breach

Hmm, cable companies are literally shit at everything.

Code beautifiers expose credentials from banks, govt, tech orgs

Malicious LLMs empower inexperienced hackers with advanced tools

DarkReading reports:

Infamous Shai-hulud Worm Resurfaces From the Depths

The Register reports:

FCC guts post-Salt Typhoon telco rules despite ongoing espionage risk

GrapheneOS bails on OVHcloud over France’s privacy stance

Fediverse

Connected Places shares:

Fediverse Report – 144

Mastodon announces:

Mastodon Joins Forces with WE AID

Bonfire has:

What is Bonfire? Plural by design.

Buttondown has:

Making social networking more like email

Terence Eden has:

Now witness the power of this fully operational Fediverse!

Ghost has:

Explore the independent web

RadWeb Hosting shares:

How to Host Your Own Mastodon Server on a VPS (5 Minute Quick-Start Guide)

How to Install Pleroma on Ubuntu VPS (5 Minute Quick-Start Guide)

NodeBB announces:

NodeBB v4.7.0 — category boost fixes, remote media/emoji in chats, and more!

Slightly Decentralized Social Media

Connected Places has:

ATmosphere Report – 144

Internet Exchange reports:

‘Composable Moderation’ May Protect Bluesky from Political Pressure

CTAs (aka show us some free love)

• That’s it for this week. Please share this edition of Destroying Autocracy.
• Follow me on the Fediverse. Or this site via the button in the footer. Or via RSS. Or even our future home in 2026, if you want a head start.

Keep fighting!

Ringleader, Battalion
Reuben Walker
Follow me on the Fediverse

#ActivityPub #AI #ATProto #Autocracy #BigJournalism #BigTech #Bonfire #Buttondown #Democracy #Fascism #Fediverse #Ghost #Mastodon #NodeBB #Pleroma #StopChina #StopIsrael #StopRedAmerica #StopRussia #SupportUkraine #TechnoAnarchism #TechnoFeudalism

https://battalion.mobileatom.net/?p=3992

Destroying Autocracy – November 27, 2025

Welcome to this week’s “Destroying Autocracy”.

It’s your source for curated news affecting democracy in the cyber arena with a focus on protecting it. That necessitates an opinionated Butlerian jihad against big tech as well as evangelizing for open-source and the Fediverse. Since big media’s journalism wing is flailing and failing in its core duty to democracy, this is also a collection of alternative reporting on the eternal battle between autocracy and democracy. We also cover the cybersecurity world. You can’t be free without safety and privacy.

FYI, my opinions will be in bold. And will often involve cursing. Because humans. Especially tech bros. And fascists. Fuck ’em.

The Programmer’s Fulcrum is the future (and smaller) home for a fusion of Symfony Station and Battalion. Its tagline is Devs Defending Democracy, Developing the OMN.

You can sign up now and for 2025 get an email with links to each week’s Symfony Station Communiqué and Battalion “Destroying Autocracy” post along with their featured articles. And you’ll be set with TPF after the fusing in January.

We are posting on the Fediverse now at @thefulcrum @thefulcrum.dev and original website content will start in 2026.

Featured Item(s)

The Atlantic writes:

Over the weekend, Elon Musk’s X rolled out a feature that had the immediate result of sowing maximum chaos. The update, called “About This Account,” allows people to click on the profile of an X user and see such information as: which country the account was created in, where its user is currently based, and how many times the username has been changed.

Nikita Bier, X’s head of product, said the feature was “an important first step to securing the integrity of the global town square.” Roughly four hours later, with the update in the wild, Bier sent another post: “I need a drink.”

Almost immediately, “About This Account” stated that many prominent and prolific pro-MAGA accounts, which signaled that they were run by “patriotic” Americans, were based in countries such as Nigeria, Russia, India, and Thailand.

@MAGANationX, an account with almost 400,000 followers and whose bio says it is a “Patriot Voice for We The People,” is based in “Eastern Europe (Non-EU),” according to the feature, and has changed its username five times since the account was made, last year.

On X and Bluesky, users dredged up countless examples of fake or misleading rage-baiting accounts posting aggressive culture-war takes to large audiences. An account called “Maga Nadine” claims to be living in and posting from the United States but is, according to X, based in Morocco. An “America First” account with 67,000 followers is apparently based in Bangladesh. Poetically, the X handle @American is based in Pakistan, according to the feature.

Elon Musk’s Worthless, Poisoned Hall of Mirrors

Just FYI, December 25th will be the day I stop exploring the stupidity of our current timeline and the last Destroying Autocracy post. Again, see the notes above about The Fulcrum.

We start and end with good news to make the middle bearable.

The response to Russia’s War Crimes, Techno Feudalism, and other douchebaggery

EuroNews reports:

Life after chatbots: Meet the ‘AI vegans’ refusing to accept a virtual reality

Kagi is:

Introducing SlopStop: Community-driven AI slop detection in Kagi Search

Orion 1.0 ✴︎ Browse Beyond

Fucking awesome if you use Macs.

TechPolicy Press reports:

Why Civil Society Is Sounding the Alarm on the EU’s Omnibus Rollback

The Guardian reports:

European parliament calls for social media ban on under-16s

The Free Software Foundation Europe shares:

Germany Stack: Only Free Software Enables Digital Sovereignty

Wikimedia announces:

Unifying our mobile and desktop domains

Decidim reviews:

Decidim Fest 2025: Collective energy, digital sovereignty and a common roadmap

The Conversation reports:

Tim Berners-Lee wants everyone to own their own data – his plan needs state and consumer support to work

Mullvad reports:

An important victory – but we still need to stop Chat Control.

Ploum says:

Don’t Do Snake Oil Writing

Fiona Fokus says:

I don’t care how well your “AI” works

Abso-fucking-lutely.

It’s Foss has:

Self-Hosting is Rising and Linux Users are Leading This Revolution

CNBC reports;

Americans are holding onto devices longer than ever and it’s costing the economy

Neutral

The Guardian asks:

Has Britain become an economic colony?

England always makes sure to ape the shitty parts of America.

W3C shares:

Preventing Abuse of Digital Credentials

Ben Werdmuller covers:

The EFF we need now

The Evil Empire (AKA Autocracy) Strikes Back

Heise reports:

Analysis of the Digital Sovereignty Summit: Open Source Gets Scolded

We Are Solomon reports:

Hungry for data: Inside Europol’s secretive AI program

The Intercept reports:

The FBI wants to use Surveillance Drones with Facial Recognition Technology

How Corporate Partnerships Powered University Surveillance of Palestine Protests

The Counter Offensive reports:

Witkoff was secretly giving Russians advice

Pariah States

The Register reports:

CISA warns spyware crews are breaking into Signal and WhatsApp accounts

DarkReading reports:

DPRK’s FlexibleFerret Tightens macOS Grip

Big Media

The Columbia Journalism Review reports:

Could Public Skepticism of the Press Actually Be Good for Democracy?

It could since most Big Media is owned by right-wing c^nts.

ProPublica shares:

ProPublica’s May-August 2025 Impact Report: Independent Investigations That Spur Change

Big Tech

Sage Journals reports:

Algorithms at your service: Understanding how X’s systems of recommendation likely fueled the far-right riots in the United Kingdom by amplifying visual representations of racist conspiracy theories

Renée DiResta reports:

On the internet, nobody knows you’re a MAGA influencer… in Lagos

The Daily Beast reports:

Top MAGA Influencers Accidentally Unmasked as Foreign Trolls

404 Media reports:

America’s Polarization Has Become the World’s Side Hustle

The Register reports:

Meta knows how bad its sites are for kids, say lawyers

MM+M reports:

What healthcare marketers need to know about Meta’s censoring of abortion ads

The Markup reports:

How American Big Tech guards the profits it extracts around the world

Tuta reports:

Google wants to kill Android freedom: Say Goodbye to installing independent apps

Cybersecurity/Privacy

BleepingComputer reports:

Cox Enterprises discloses Oracle E-Business Suite data breach

Hmm, cable companies are literally shit at everything.

Code beautifiers expose credentials from banks, govt, tech orgs

Malicious LLMs empower inexperienced hackers with advanced tools

DarkReading reports:

Infamous Shai-hulud Worm Resurfaces From the Depths

The Register reports:

FCC guts post-Salt Typhoon telco rules despite ongoing espionage risk

GrapheneOS bails on OVHcloud over France’s privacy stance

Fediverse

Connected Places shares:

Fediverse Report – 144

Mastodon announces:

Mastodon Joins Forces with WE AID

Bonfire has:

What is Bonfire? Plural by design.

Buttondown has:

Making social networking more like email

Terence Eden has:

Now witness the power of this fully operational Fediverse!

Ghost has:

Explore the independent web

RadWeb Hosting shares:

How to Host Your Own Mastodon Server on a VPS (5 Minute Quick-Start Guide)

How to Install Pleroma on Ubuntu VPS (5 Minute Quick-Start Guide)

NodeBB announces:

NodeBB v4.7.0 — category boost fixes, remote media/emoji in chats, and more!

Slightly Decentralized Social Media

Connected Places has:

ATmosphere Report – 144

Internet Exchange reports:

‘Composable Moderation’ May Protect Bluesky from Political Pressure

CTAs (aka show us some free love)

• That’s it for this week. Please share this edition of Destroying Autocracy.
• Follow me on the Fediverse. Or this site via the button in the footer. Or via RSS. Or even our future home in 2026, if you want a head start.

Keep fighting!

Ringleader, Battalion
Reuben Walker
Follow me on the Fediverse

#ActivityPub #AI #ATProto #Autocracy #BigJournalism #BigTech #Bonfire #Buttondown #Democracy #Fascism #Fediverse #Ghost #Mastodon #NodeBB #Pleroma #StopChina #StopIsrael #StopRedAmerica #StopRussia #SupportUkraine #TechnoAnarchism #TechnoFeudalism

https://battalion.mobileatom.net/?p=3992

@timkmak
Hey Tim,

I love the work you and your team do. I wonder why you display that work on a website that specifically raises money for literal nazis.

There are several turnkey platforms you could replace #substack with, such as #ghost, #buttondown, and #beehiv.

There are (at least) hundreds of us who will NEVER share a substack link - including all of yours - because we will not willingly raise funds for nazis.

@timkmak
Hey Tim,

I love the work you and your team do. I wonder why you display that work on a website that specifically raises money for literal nazis.

There are several turnkey platforms you could replace #substack with, such as #ghost, #buttondown, and #beehiv.

There are (at least) hundreds of us who will NEVER share a substack link - including all of yours - because we will not willingly raise funds for nazis.

@timkmak
Hey Tim,

I love the work you and your team do. I wonder why you display that work on a website that specifically raises money for literal nazis.

There are several turnkey platforms you could replace #substack with, such as #ghost, #buttondown, and #beehiv.

There are (at least) hundreds of us who will NEVER share a substack link - including all of yours - because we will not willingly raise funds for nazis.

@timkmak
Hey Tim,

I love the work you and your team do. I wonder why you display that work on a website that specifically raises money for literal nazis.

There are several turnkey platforms you could replace #substack with, such as #ghost, #buttondown, and #beehiv.

There are (at least) hundreds of us who will NEVER share a substack link - including all of yours - because we will not willingly raise funds for nazis.

@timkmak
Hey Tim,

I love the work you and your team do. I wonder why you display that work on a website that specifically raises money for literal nazis.

There are several turnkey platforms you could replace #substack with, such as #ghost, #buttondown, and #beehiv.

There are (at least) hundreds of us who will NEVER share a substack link - including all of yours - because we will not willingly raise funds for nazis.

https://buttondown.com/charliejane/archive/how-superman/

Zase to podnikání dělám špatně. Tentokrát dělám zdarma práci pro jiné podnikatele, abych pak za peníze mohl použít jejich produkt 😆

#juniorguru #buttondown

Zase to podnikání dělám špatně. Tentokrát dělám zdarma práci pro jiné podnikatele, abych pak za peníze mohl použít jejich produkt 😆

#juniorguru #buttondown

Zase to podnikání dělám špatně. Tentokrát dělám zdarma práci pro jiné podnikatele, abych pak za peníze mohl použít jejich produkt 😆

#juniorguru #buttondown

Zase to podnikání dělám špatně. Tentokrát dělám zdarma práci pro jiné podnikatele, abych pak za peníze mohl použít jejich produkt 😆

#juniorguru #buttondown

Zase to podnikání dělám špatně. Tentokrát dělám zdarma práci pro jiné podnikatele, abych pak za peníze mohl použít jejich produkt 😆

#juniorguru #buttondown