#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 […]

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

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

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

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

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.

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

#juniorguru #buttondown

Looking to move my writing off of #Substack. I think a subdomain on my website allows me the flexibility to not use a Wordpress solution, which is what my main site is running on, correct?

I know about #Ghost and #Beehiiv and #Buttondown and Movable Type. What other solutions should I look at? I want to post both longer #newsletter pieces as well as shorter #blog style posts that people only see if they subscribe via #RSS or go directly to the site. I also have a lot of media-heavy archives to import, so doing that with ease would be a priority.

Thanks for indirectly introducing me to #ButtonDown @WeirdWriter. For those who (like me) aren't familiar with it, it's an email newsletter engine, akin to Ghost, who I see are also working on ActivityPub integration. So we'll be able to follow ButtonDown newsletters with our fediverse accounts, and comment on posts;

https://www.theverge.com/2024/4/22/24137296/ghost-newsletter-activitypub-fediverse-support

See also;

https://web.archive.org/web/20250123194019/https://github.com/buttondown/roadmap/issues/2267

#fediverse #ActivityPub

How to migrate your blog off Substack 🤗

Welcome to Buttondown! After you've read through our "Getting Started" guide, we're here to help you with your next step: transferring your subscribers and archives from Substack to Buttondown.

Here's an overview of the migration process:

Export your data from Substack
Import your archives to #Buttondown
Import your subscribers to Buttondown
Importing your paid subscriptions (optional)
Contact Substack to remove the 10% application fee (optional)
Delete your #Substack account 🤗

https://docs.buttondown.com/substack

I'm trying to make my #email #newsletters feed more manageable and started using #Inoreader to check issues in masse. I was able to export a #opnl list of all the WordPress blogs I'm following. But #Substack doesn't have such a feature. Can this be done through other newsletter carriers, such as #beehiiv, #buttondown, etc? I'm still a bit new to #rssreaders.

I really appreciate folks making the #SmallWeb #IndieWeb more capable. @scottandrew has some interesting work implementing a combination of #Eleventy and #ButtonDown to enhance sites with subscriber-only content. https://scottandrew.com/blog/2025/01/integrating-eleventy-with-buttondown-to-create-sub/

@levisan How do you like #buttondown?

Finally reached enough emails that my #Buttondown scripts stopped working 😂 https://github.com/JayCuthrell/buttondown-python-scripts

Did you know that #substack, where MANY folks who post on here maintain there news letters are profiting from #racism, #nazis and other "free speech extremists"?

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/11/substack-extremism-nazi-white-supremacy-newsletters/676156/

Despite backlash, #substack doubled down to protect their nazis, and their right to pay nazis to generate nazi content for their nazi-welcome platform.

https://www.theverge.com/2023/12/21/24011232/substack-nazi-moderation-demonetization-hamish-mckenzie

You left twitter when it became a nazi bar, you can also leave substack.

Instead, try #ghost, #buttonDown, or any of a dozen other options.

Fuck nazis, and fuck substack.

Added #Sublinks, #Buttondown, #ActivityPods, #Hollo, #Smilodon and #Patchwork icons to #FediverseIconography at https://fediverse.wake.st

I chose #Buttondown for my #newsletter due to its open #API. My API use has been limited so far, but I'm improving. If you're starting out, learning from my experiences might be helpful. 🤓👇

https://github.com/JayCuthrell/buttondown-python-scripts

La famiglia del fediverso si allarga sempre più, ora si aggiunge Ghost!
Ghost è una piattaforma per newsletter/blogging che ha aperto ora il primo account fedarato:

✉️ @index

qua l'articolo di @Sarahp su techcrunch:

:fediverso: https://techcrunch.com/2024/07/08/substack-rival-ghost-federates-its-first-newsletter/

Anche Buttondown si federerà, la piattaforma per newsletter è stata scelta dai @devol per la newsletter sul fediverso e potete iscrivervi da qui per riceverla:

:devol: https://buttondown.email/devol

#newsletter #buttondown #ghost #fediverso

When #Musk bought #Twitter and turned it into #X, I was disappointed that he blew up the social network I used most. More than a year later, I view Musk’s acquisition of Twitter as a gift. It brought users to #Mastodon, motivated #Meta to build and federate #Threads, and created momentum for federating newsletter services like #Buttondown and #Ghost. Through #ActivityPub, Musk was instrumental creating federated network effects and a much better ecosystem of third-party apps.

@mmccue @johnonolan

Holy Holefill! I didn't know about this podcast and am deciding between #Buttondown and #Ghost, Thank you!

As I write the new scenes for season 3 of Fern River Club, I am also brainstorming about how to connect more like-minded readers with the project.

I just know there are loads of sensitive and curious readers out there who would love these subtly sexy, aesthetically rigorous, unconventional stories!

How can I connect with them? I am open to any and all ideas, fine people of the fediverse!

#AmWriting #marketing #SerialFiction #indieweb #DIY #newsletter #buttondown #fediverse #advice

I do things other than #gardening. Currently working on a few fair-size projects inc #WoodMeadow & #HopeGarden, so I'm trying to get organised. Can totally recommend #Obsidian note taking app. I use it for managing tasks with Tasks & Obligator plugin, vaguely following "Capture, to do, next action" organisation outlined by Geet Duggal. Also use for writing #Hugo website & #Buttondown newsletter. Everything in #Markdown & #PlainText ✊
https://obsidian.md
https://medium.com/@geetduggal/capture-to-do-d040e1bae4a6

It’s better if your title doesn’t contradict your actual text

#Buttondown #Unsubscribe

"#Ghost says it’s working with #Mastodon and #Buttondown, another newsletter platform,on #ActivityPub support. The company also says it will be working to improve its reading experience as it prepares to let people follow other fediverse authors on its platform. Importantly,the project also says that #paidcontent “should work fine” with ActivityPub as well—something no other platform has really tried yet."
https://www.theverge.com/2024/4/22/24137296/ghost-newsletter-activitypub-fediverse-support

I just mailed issue 178 of The Newsletter Leaf Journal. It includes links to my four new articles, 21 links from around the web with sometimes-punny commentary, and other news and notes.

https://buttondown.email/newsletterleafjournal/archive/178/

#Buttondown #Newsletter #AroundTheWeb

To celebrate the launch I published two posts to my #personalblog.

"Welcome to my Tiny Home on the Internet" (https://www.philipptemmel.com/writings/tiny-home-on-the-internet ) is the story about my journey of building my #personalwebsite.

Inspired by @robb + the #HemisphericViews podcast, I gathered my #AppDefaults in another post (https://www.philipptemmel.com/writings/app-defaults-2023).

I also set up a newsletter on #buttondown called Datest (https://buttondown.email/philipp) which I will write casually to share updates about my site, writings, and interesting links.

My final newsletter of the year includes links to a week's worth of new articles and short posts, 21 links from around the web, and news and notes about what I am working on as we look ahead to 2024.

https://buttondown.email/newsletterleafjournal/archive/167/

#newsletter #buttondown #blogging #anime #reviewsystems

My final newsletter of the year includes links to a week's worth of new articles and short posts, 21 links from around the web, and news and notes about what I am working on as we look ahead to 2024.

https://buttondown.email/newsletterleafjournal/archive/167/

#newsletter #buttondown #blogging #anime #reviewsystems

My final newsletter of the year includes links to a week's worth of new articles and short posts, 21 links from around the web, and news and notes about what I am working on as we look ahead to 2024.

https://buttondown.email/newsletterleafjournal/archive/167/

#newsletter #buttondown #blogging #anime #reviewsystems

Heaux-heaux-heaux! New newsletter (via #Buttondown rather than the Nazi Bar), w/links by/re #BlackCherokee, @gavinsmallbeerpress #MalcolmMargolin (GIVE!), #LeslieStein, #EmilyFlake, #ChrissieHynde, #Rothko, Vyvgart Hytrulo, Essra Mohawk & more, so GO READ! https://buttondown.email/vmspod/archive/hitting-the-links-122423/

Heaux-heaux-heaux! New newsletter (via #Buttondown rather than the Nazi Bar), w/links by/re #BlackCherokee, @gavinsmallbeerpress #MalcolmMargolin (GIVE!), #LeslieStein, #EmilyFlake, #ChrissieHynde, #Rothko, Vyvgart Hytrulo, Essra Mohawk & more, so GO READ! https://buttondown.email/vmspod/archive/hitting-the-links-122423/