#technoanarchism — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #technoanarchism, aggregated by home.social.
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The Keystone Collective says: The Republic Is Not a Platform. You Are a Digital Citizen, Not a User. Act Like It. https://www.keystone-collective.org/the-republic-is-not-a-platform-you-are-a-digital-citizen-not-a-user-act-like-it/ #DigitalDemocracy #TechnoAnarchism
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Welcome to this week's The Programmer's Fulcrum. FYI, this is our first one of 100% TPF curation.
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.
https://www.thefulcrum.dev/the-programmers-fulcrum-02-january-2026/
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Welcome to this week's The Programmer's Fulcrum. FYI, this is our first one of 100% TPF curation.
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.
https://www.thefulcrum.dev/the-programmers-fulcrum-02-january-2026/
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Destroying Autocracy – December 25, 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.
So folks, this is the final edition of Destroying Autocracy. Recently, I ran across a quote that fits with why I ran this project:
“I am absolutely convinced that only a small minority, a very small minority, among us, are seriously reached and profoundly moved by our propaganda of criticism, of doubt, of rebellion, of free investigation, of independent research. On the other hand, it is clear that our first interest lies always in seeking to increase this minority; to keep it, under all circumstances alive, active, refreshed. Our own happiness depends on it.
— Emile Armand”Thanks for following us. Now, on to what’s next.
The Programmer’s Fulcrum is now the home for a fusion of Symfony Station and Battalion. Its tagline is Devs Defending Democracy, Destroying Autocracy, and Developing the OMN.
You can sign up now.
We are posting on the Fediverse now at @thefulcrum
Please copy and paste our handle into you favorite client to follow us. Original website content will start next week.
Featured Item(s)
I ran across these last week.
The Resonant Computing Manifesto
These are principles that should be implementing when developing for the Open Media Network.
Jan Wideboer writes:
Over the past few months, I thought a lot about Digital Sovereignty. I talked to experts, from analysts over legal experts to people running companies and public authorities. I tried to distill what is really at the core of the principle.
OCT – My Framework for Digital Sovereignty, Part 1
This is a good way to look at it.
We start and end with good news to make the middle bearable.
The response to Russia’s War Crimes, Techno Feudalism, and other douchebaggery
TechCrunch reports:
Stanford’s star reporter takes on Silicon Valley’s ‘money-soaked’ startup culture
TechPolicy shares:
Making the Digital Markets Act Developer-Friendly
The Guardian reports:
This is Europe’s secret weapon against Trump: it could burst his AI bubble
The Guardian view on Australia’s social media ban: dragging tech companies into action
MPs question UK Palantir contracts after investigation reveals security concerns
BleepingComputer reports:
Italy fines Apple $116 million over App Store privacy policy issues
Waterfox announces:
No AI* Here – A Response to Mozilla’s Next Chapter
The Register notes:
Waterfox browser goes AI-free, targets the Firefox faithful
You don’t need Linux to run free and open source software
This is one you should read and take action on. 🙂
Airbus to migrate critical apps to a sovereign Euro cloud
Europe gets serious about cutting digital umbilical cord with Uncle Sam’s big tech
It’s FOSS reports:
Denmark Begins its Exit from Microsoft — and This is Just the Beginning
At least the enemies of privacy are slowly telling Microsoft to fuck off.
NextCloud shares:
The Republic of Serbia deploys Nextcloud for compliant, on-premises collaboration
Robert Riemann asks:
EU OS: Which Linux Distribution fits Europe best?
Hamish Campbell asks:
What Did We Learn from Web3, Crypto?
Signal has:
This was 2025 for Signal: strong growth and many new features
CoMaps shares:
CoMaps and its community at the end of 2025
Neutral
The Center for Democracy and Technology has:
TechPolicy Press reports:
The Path to a Sovereign Tech Stack is Via a Commodified Tech Stack
Platforms Report to EU Regulators Under DSA With an Eye on US Politics
Europe Tried to Take Control of Its Digital Stack in 2025. Where Does It Stand Now?
The Evil Empire (AKA Autocracy) Strikes Back
Krebs on Security reports:
Dismantling Defenses: Trump 2.0 Cyber Year in Review
Cory Doctorow says:
America’s collapsing consumption is the world’s disenshittification opportunity
Tech Dadu reports:
EU Prepares Wider Data Retention Rules, VPN Providers Could Be Affected
The Register reports:
Denmark takes a Viking swing at VPN-enabled piracy
Pariah States
And:
Amazon security boss blames Russia’s GRU for years-long energy-sector hacks
China, Iran are having a field day with React2Shell, Google warns
BleepingComputer reports:
France arrests Latvian for installing malware on Italian ferry
Denmark blames Russia for destructive cyberattack on water utility
DarkReading reports:
Russia Hits Critical Orgs Via Misconfigured Edge Devices
Dormant Iran APT is Still Alive, Spying on Dissidents
EuronNews reports:
Pro-Russian hackers claim French postal service cyberattack
Big Media
Ben Werdmuller asks:
Just for brain-dead people.
Nieman Lab’s Predictions for Journalism 2026
Journalists talk about the elephant in the room: our relationship with Big Tech
CyberCultural shares:
My 2025 Indie Web Report and Thoughts on the Open Web
404 Media reports:
Archivists Posted the 60 Minutes CECOT Segment Bari Weiss Killed
Big Tech
The Nerd Reich reports:
Tech Billionaires Flirt With the Guillotine
JD Vance’s Theo Bro Network: Silicon Valley Meets ‘God’
Futurism reports:
Professor Warns That the Wealthy Are Trying to Use AI to Seize Control of Everything
The Rebel Tech Alliance reports on:
404 Media reports:
Hack Reveals the a16z-Backed Phone Farm Flooding TikTok With AI Influencers
SuperBloom examines:
From Content to Interface: Rethinking Platform Transparency Through Design
Wanna-be Big Tech
Mozilla spouts techbro delusions:
Mozilla’s Next Chapter: Building the World’s Most Trusted Software Company
Fuck Firefox.
Pivot to AI has the reality:
Firefox browser falls to AI. What do we do now?
Zen, Waterfox, or LibreWolf, peeps.
Cybersecurity/Privacy
The Register reports:
New React vulns leak secrets, invite DoS attacks
Poisoned WhatsApp API package steals messages and accounts
Krebs on Security reports:
Most Parked Domains Now Serving Malicious Content
DarkReading reports:
Attackers Use Stolen AWS Credentials in Cryptomining Campaign
BleepingComputer reports:
Microsoft 365 accounts targeted in wave of OAuth phishing attacks
Mullvad is:
Announcing GotaTun, the future of WireGuard at Mullvad VPN
Framasoft asks:
Qui suis-je et quelle est mon identité ?
404 Media reports:
Flock Exposed Its AI-Powered Cameras to the Internet. We Tracked Ourselves
Fediverse
Tim Chambres shares:
My 2026 Open Social Web Predictions
Ploum shares:
How We Lost Communication to Entertainment
The Social Web Foundation explores:
Implementing Encrypted Messaging over ActivityPub
Literally, awesome.
Connected Places has:
PeerTube announces:
Publish your videos with PeerTube for mobile!
It’s FOSS reports:
Decentralized YouTube Alternative PeerTube Adds Creator Mode
Holos shares:
ActivityPub for WordPress has:
Jose Murilo shares:
Museums in the Fediverse: Experiments with Tainacan, ActivityPub, and WebSocial
DeadSuperHerson says:
Ghost’s ActivityPub Integration Feels Half-Baked
I feel the same way. And it’s why I am running a backup of The Programmer’s Fulcrum on WordPress to keep Ghost honest. We’ll see where TPF ends up in 2027.
Mastodon shares its:
Piefed announces:
PieFed 1.4 is released – emoji, federated stackoverflow and AI content filters
Empathy Forward announces:
Fedify shares:
Fedify 1.10.0: Observability foundations for the future debug dashboard
Slightly Decentralized Social Media
Connected Places has:
ATmosphere Report 147 – Year’s end reflections
ATProto Community has:
Ændra Rininsland: Supporting and growing ATProto development in 2025 and beyond
I am going to check Leaflet out.
TechCrunch reports:
Bluesky launches a privacy-focused ‘Find Friends’ feature without invite spam
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.
Never stop fighting!
Ringleader, Battalion
#ActivityPub #AI #Autocracy #BigJournalism #BigTech #Bluesky #Democracy #Fascism #Fediverse #Holos #Mastodon #Peertube #RSS #StopChina #StopIsrael #StopRedAmerica #StopRussia #SupportUkraine #TechnoAnarchism #TechnoFeudalism https://battalion.mobileatom.net/?p=4242
Reuben Walker
Follow me on the Fediverse -
Destroying Autocracy – December 11, 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.
This is the penultimate edition of Destroying Autocracy with the final one coming December 25th. We have friends in town so there will not be one next week.
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 and it’s coming soon.
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 next month.
We are posting on the Fediverse now at @thefulcrum https://ghostverse.link/@thefulcrum
Please copy and paste our handle into you favorite client to follow us. Original website content will start in 2026.
Featured Item(s)
Deutche Welle writes:
DW Access is a lightweight app designed to ensure access to independent information in regions where digital freedom is under threat. It provides users with a secure way to reach DW content even under severe censorship.
DW Access: New app counters global censorship
And Ben Werdmuller writes:
When people think about RSS, they most often associate it with the long-departed Google Reader — but it’s far from dead. From direct subscriptions to syndication into apps that aggregate and re-present content, RSS remains the standard for feeds. It’s the glue that holds the timely web together.
Most people know RSS powers blogs and podcasts. But it powers popular news apps too, from aggregated headlines on MSN or in SmartNews to up-to-date headlines in business services like Lexis Nexis or Bloomberg.
It’s also widely used to keep track of status updates of all kinds: weather, software updates, infrastructure uptime, and so on. Most of this activity happens behind the scenes. Publishers often think of feeds as an afterthought, but entire industries rely on them. It’s a workhorse that’s become essential infrastructure for the web.
There are more RSS items below.
We start and end with good news to make the middle bearable.
The response to Russia’s War Crimes, Techno Feudalism, and other douchebaggery
The Kyiv Independent reports:
404 Media reports:
DHS’s Immigrant-Hunting App Removed from Google Play Store
ICEBlock Creator Sues U.S. Government Over App’s Removal
Tech Policy Press reports:
The EU’s Fine Against X is Not About Speech or ‘Censorship’
Cory Doctorow has:
Pluralistic: The Reverse-Centaur’s Guide to Criticizing AI
Speaking of, Josh Collins says:
AI optimism is a class privilege
Speaking as an old affluent white man, I agree.
Fairphone shares:
We’re big fans of open-source buildable code at Fairphone. Here’s why.
Open WebSearch has:
Partner in Focus: Open Search Foundation
The Register reports:
Publishers say no to AI scrapers, block bots at server level
Google’s AI training tactics land it in another EU antitrust fight
Really Simple Licensing spec lets web publishers demand their due from AI scrapers
The Tyee reports:
The Man Who Tracks Silicon Valley’s ‘Nerd Reich’
TechCrunch reports:
The Guardian reports:
Nextcloud reports:
Île-de-France offers 550,000 students and staff a sovereign cloud collaboration platform
6-figure deployments show momentum of sovereignty in France
It’s FOSS opines:
This Could Be The Linux Phone We All Have Been Waiting For
APC shares:
What I shared about digital commons and the NGI0 grant programme during this year’s Global Gathering
NPQ reports:
This Giving Season, Nonprofits Should Address the Chill in the Air
Elena Rossini starts a series:
A newbie’s guide to self-hosting with YunoHost. Part 1: reasons + requirements
Neutral
Tech Policy Press reports:
Europe Fined X, But It’s Still Avoiding the Real Threat to Democracy
Policymakers Overlook How Open Source AI Is Reshaping Global Power
NiemanLab reports:
Public media sees infrastructure as its next act of service
Ars Technica reports:
Big Tech joins forces with Linux Foundation to standardize AI agents
The Evil Empire (AKA Autocracy) Strikes Back
404 Media reports:
Border Patrol Agent Recorded Raid with Meta’s Ray-Ban Smart Glasses
Man Charged for Wiping Phone Before CBP Could Search It
NOYB shares:
Digital Omnibus: First Analysis of Select GDPR and ePrivacy Proposals by the Commission
The Nerd Reich reports:
Financial Times Discovers the Network State Cult
The Gist shares:
Pariah States
The Kyiv Post reports:
Cyberattack on Reporters Without Borders Linked to Russian Security Services
The Register reports:
UK to Europe: The time to counter Russia’s information war machine is now
DarkReading reports:
Feds: Pro-Russia Hactivists Target US Critical Infrastructure
BleepingComputer reports:
North Korean hackers exploit React2Shell flaw in EtherRAT malware attacks
Big Media
NiemanLab reports:
The political journalism that matters most will be built from the ground up
The year journalism stops outsourcing its independence
Big Tech
Platformer reports:
Where Meta’s biggest experiment in governance went wrong
404 Media reports:
Instagram Is Generating Inaccurate SEO Bait for Your Posts
NetzPolitik reports:
All you need to know about how adtech data exposes the EU to espionage
TechDirt reports:
Elon’s Crying Censorship Over An EU Fine That Has Nothing To Do With Censorship
Politico reports:
X axes European Commission’s ad account after €120M EU fine
Fascists are such snowflakes.
The Register reports:
Block all AI browsers for the foreseeable future: Gartner
Forever.
Thomas Rigby shares:
They See Your Photos: 12 months on
Amusing, but unfortunately a real product from the c^nts at Google.
Wanna-be Big Tech
Youssuff Quips looks at:
Terror
The Register reports:
193 cybercrims arrested, accused of plotting ‘violence-as-a-service’
Cybersecurity/Privacy
Freedom of the Press Foundation shares:
Lessons from Defense Department ‘Signalgate’ report
BleepingComputer reports:
Portugal updates cybercrime law to exempt security researchers
DarkReading reports:
Gemini Enterprise No-Click Flaw Exposes Sensitive Data
Fediverse
Connected Places has:
The Digital Services Act and Theories of Power
Linuxiac reports:
PeerTube 8.0 Brings a Modern Video Player and Team Channel Management
José Murilo shares:
Museums in the Fediverse: Experiments with Tainacan, ActivityPub, and WebSocial
Steffen Voß has:
Wie spielen WordPress und Mastodon zusammen?
Events, WordPress und das Fediverse
Mastodon has:
Trunk & Tidbits, November 2025
The world needs social sovereignty
RSS
John Onolan says:
Robert Alexander is:
Discovering the IndieWeb with calm tech
Fantastic.
Peter Ries pursues:
Reading news from non-RSS websites
Slightly Decentralized Social Media
TBD
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 #Autocracy #BigJournalism #BigTech #Democracy #Fascism #Fediverse #Mastodon #Peertube #RSS #StopChina #StopIsrael #StopRedAmerica #StopRussia #SupportUkraine #TechnoAnarchism #TechnoFeudalism #WordPress
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Destroying Autocracy – December 04, 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 next month.
Featured Item(s)
Hamish Campbell writes:
ActivityPub is a shared vocabulary, a public language for moving meaning and connection across the open web. It gives you nouns and verbs, and the community defines the grammar through lived use.
This is why the OMN works with ActivityPub, a metadata and meaning layer, not a platform, flows, not silos. ActivityPub is the widely deployed 4 Opens protocol that treats publishing as a flow, a conversation.
Unlike the more vertical stacks (ATProto is a good example), ActivityPub doesn’t force a worldview. It doesn’t tell you, “this is how your network must be structured.” It doesn’t enforce hierarchy or lock you into one interpretation of identity, authority, or workflow. It’s a KISS path – here’s a shared language, verbs for publishing and receiving, express objects, updates, relationships. The rest is up to the commons.
This flexibility is exactly why the OMN can become a part of this flow.
Why the OMN works with ActivityPub – And why we need a bridge to p2p
We start and end with good news to make the middle bearable.
The response to Russia’s War Crimes, Techno Feudalism, and other douchebaggery
DDEV has:
Power Through Blackouts: How DDEV Community Helped Me in Ukraine
TechPolicy Press shares:
How to Test New York’s Algorithmic Pricing Law
The EU’s Digital Omnibus Must Be Rejected by Lawmakers. Here is Why.
Singapore announced an:
Issuance of Implementation Directives to Apple and Google Under the Online Criminal Harms Act
The MIT Press Reader has:
The Secret History of Tor: How a Military Project Became a Lifeline for Privacy
The Guardian reports:
Irish authorities asked to investigate Microsoft over alleged unlawful data processing by IDF
Neutral
TechPolicy Press reports:
What the European Commission and Civil Society Both Get Wrong on the Digital Omnibus
Why Platforms Don’t Catch Climate Misinformation — and How to Change That
EuroNews asks:
Which European countries are building their own sovereign AI to compete in the tech race?
Numerama reports:
TechCrunch reports:
Mistral closes in on Big AI rivals with new open-weight frontier and small models
Wired reports:
The Age-Gated Internet Is Sweeping the states. Activists Are Fighting Back.
The Evil Empire (AKA Autocracy) Strikes Back
The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports:
Lawmakers Want to Ban VPNs—And They Have No Idea What They’re Doing
EDRi has:
Promises unkept: The EU-US Data Privacy Framework under fire
404 Media reports:
Flock Uses Overseas Gig Workers to Build its Surveillance AI
Pariah States
DarkReading reports:
Tomiris Unleashes ‘Havoc’ With New Tools, Tactics
DPRK’s ‘Contagious Interview’ Spawns Malicious Npm Package Factory
Student Sells Gov’t, University Sites to Chinese Actors
TechPolicy Press reports:
The Gulf’s AI Rise and the Risk of Entrenching Authoritarianism
The Register reports:
China using AI as ‘precision instrument’ of censorship and repression, at home and abroad
Big Media
Axios reports:
Fox News hires Palantir to build AI newsroom tools
Big surprise.
Big Tech
The Guardian reports:
How big tech is creating its own friendly media bubble to ‘win the narrative battle online’
More than 1,000 Amazon workers warn rapid AI rollout threatens jobs and climate
Anti-immigrant material among AI-generated content getting billions of views on TikTok
BleepingComputer reports:
Leak confirms OpenAI is preparing ads on ChatGPT for public roll out
Big surprise here. But, if you’re amoral enough to use it, you deserve all the privacy invading ads you get.
Google deletes X post after getting caught using a ‘stolen’ AI recipe infographic
Nature reports:
Major AI conference flooded with peer reviews written fully by AI
Wow.
The Guardian reports:
The question isn’t whether the AI bubble will burst – but what the fallout will be
National Review reports:
Meta Researchers Privately Compared Instagram to Addictive Drug, Bombshell Court Filing Shows
Wanna-be Big Tech
OMG Unbuntu has:
Mozilla’s ‘Rewiring’ to AI – Saving the Web or Saving Itself?
Cybersecurity/Privacy
TechCrunch reports:
European cops shut down crypto mixing website that helped launder 1.3B euros
DarkReading reports:
New Raptor Framework Uses Agentic Workflows to Create Patches
Bleeping Computer reports:
Fake Calendly invites spoof top brands to hijack ad manager accounts
The Register reports:
Microsoft quietly shuts down Windows shortcut flaw after years of espionage abuse
Fediverse
Coywolf has:
Mastodon creator shares what went wrong with Threads and ponders the future of the fediverse
Ben Werdmuller shares:
Sean Coates explores:
The Fediverse and Content Creation: Monetization
Great and important stuff.
Ploum asks:
Is Pixelfed sawing off the branch that the Fediverse is sitting on?
Wouldn’t the fix to this would be to show a larger version of a user’s profile image with text posts?
RSS
Planet Codigo has:
Mi solución RSS con software libre y autogestionado
Slightly Decentralized Social Media
TBD
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 #Autocracy #BigJournalism #BigTech #Democracy #Fascism #Fediverse #Mastodon #Pixelfed #Roundabout #RSS #StopChina #StopIsrael #StopRedAmerica #StopRussia #SupportUkraine #TechnoAnarchism #TechnoFeudalism #Threads
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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
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:
Mullvad reports:
An important victory – but we still need to stop Chat Control.
Ploum says:
Fiona Fokus says:
I don’t care how well your “AI” works
Abso-fucking-lutely.
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 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
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
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
DarkReading reports:
Infamous Shai-hulud Worm Resurfaces From the Depths
The Register reports:
FCC guts post-Salt Typhoon telco rules despite ongoing espionage risk
Fediverse
Terence Eden has:
Now witness the power of this fully operational Fediverse!
Ghost has:
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:
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 #democracy #fascism #fediverse #mastodon #nodebb #pleroma #stopChina #stopIsrael #stopRedAmerica #stopRussia #supportUkraine #technoanarchism #technofeudalism
-
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. #technoAnarchism #technoFeudalism #democracy #autocracy
https://battalion.mobileatom.net/destroying-autocracy-november-20-2025/ -
Destroying Autocracy – November 20, 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)
Muni Town writes:
I’ve been trying to write this piece for years, really ever since I finished the first version of Open Source Explained (a v2 will drop early next year). Every time I get started I’m just overwhelmed with paralyzing visions of the commentariat accusing me of WrongThink.
So I drop it, because I’m tired to the bone of debating the minutae of open source definitions when the conversation we ought to be having is about power: who has it? (oligarchs), how did they get it? (monopolies & corruption), why is that a problem? (platform autocracy), and how do we the people take that power back? (protocols and open software).
Understanding ownership is power
It’s important to understand the codes in your life, because your life is made up of them. Once you understand which codes you already have access to and even the right to inspect, you can see more clearly which other codes you ought to have insight into.
Nothing makes me more anxious than writing about open source licensing because nothing brings out more opinion-havers, the vast majority of whom are speaking from a point of privilege-blindess in the western world. The widespread ignorance of the deeper power struggle at play (which we’re losing) has brought the free world to the very brink, so I’m pushing past the discomfort to honor the urgency of our moment.
We start and end with good news to make the middle bearable.
The response to Russia’s War Crimes, Techno Feudalism, and other douchebaggery
404 Media reports:
Ukraine Is Jamming Russia’s ‘Superweapon’ With a Song
Radio Free Europe reports:
How Britain’s Disposable Vape Ban Has Boosted Ukraine’s War Effort
TechCrunch reports:
Five people plead guilty to helping North Koreans infiltrate US companies as ‘remote IT workers’
Surveillance Tech Provide Proteir Was Hacked
Software Maxims has:
How FOSS Won and Why It Matters
Open Future announces:
Open Future Joins the European Network for Technological Resilience and Sovereignty
404 Media reports:
Airlines Will Shut Down Program That Sold Your Flights Records to Government
Framasoft has:
Renforcez l’internet du partage en contribuant à la robustesse de Framasoft
The Register reports:
Latest Servo release hints at a real Rust alternative to Chromium
Brussels eyes AWS, Azure for gatekeeper tag in cloud clampdown
Game over: Europol storms gaming platforms in extremist content sweep
The Guardian reports:
French authorities investigate alleged Holocaust denial posts on Elon Musk’s Grok AI
TechPolicy Press reports:
Brazil Supreme Court Ruling Redefines Framework for Platform Liability
Neutral
TechCrunch reports:
Databricks co-founder argues US must go open source to beat China in AI
The Guardian reports:
AI firms must be clear on risks or repeat tobacco’s mistakes, says Anthropic chief
The Center for Democracy and Technology reports:
Architects of Online Influence: How Creators, Platforms, and Policymakers Shape Political Speech
TechPolicy Press says:
If Europe Wants Digital Sovereignty, It Must Reinvent Who Owns Tech
MIT Technology Review reports:
Quantum physicists have shrunk and “de-censored” DeepSeek R1
The Evil Empire (AKA Autocracy) Strikes Back
Corporate Europe reports:
Preparing a roll-back of digital rights: Commission’s secretive meetings with industry
The Brussels Times reports:
Secret EU plans to allow Big Tech to train AI with our personal data
The Guardian reports:
Dark forces are preventing us fighting the climate crisis – by taking knowledge hostage
404 Media reports:
This App Lets ICE Track Vehicles and Owners Across the Country
IRS Accessed Massive Database of Americans Flights Without a Warrant
The Register reports:
Palantir plots NHS skills drive for its controversial data platform
Pariah States
TechCrunch reports:
US, UK, and Australia sanction Russian ‘bulletproof’ web host used in ransomware attacks
Forbes reports:
Has Samsung Installed ‘Unremovable Israeli Spyware’ On Your Phone?
The Register reports:
Tens of thousands more ASUS routers pwned by suspected, evolving China operation
Big Media
TBD
Big Tech
The Guardian reports:
White nationalist talking points and racial pseudoscience: welcome to Elon Musk’s Grokipedia
The Register reports:
Researchers find hole in AI guardrails by using strings like =coffee
404 Media reports:
A Researcher Made an AI That Completely Breaks the Online Surveys Scientists Rely On
The ACLU reports:
Your Smartphone, Their Rules: How App Stores Enable Corporate-Government Censorship
Yep.
TechPolicy Press reports:
How Tech Oligarchs Profit from the Logic of ‘Finitude Capitalism’ and What to Do About It
Cybersecurity/Privacy
Privacy Guides has:
Email Security: Where We Are and What the Future Holds
DarkReading asks:
Can a Global, Decentralized System Save CVE Data?
Heise reports:
3.5 Billion Accounts: Complete WhatsApp Directory Retrieved and Evaluated
Signal or Delta Chat peeps.
Fediverse
Ben Werdmuller reports on:
The State of the Open Social Web
Great Stuff as usual from Ben.
ForBetter explores:
The future of hope on the Social Web
Connected Places has:
Laura Hargreaves has:
Ghost v6 Upgrade + Docker Migration: What I Learned (So You Don’t Have To)
Big news with Mastodon this week:
The Future is Ours to Build – Together
Hopefully the new regime (foundation vs. benevolent dictator) will focus on trust & safety and not trying to be Twitter 2.
Chris Sturmsucht shares:
Fediverse: a new open and social web
Slightly Decentralized Social Media
TBD
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 #autocracy #bigJournalism #bigTech #democracy #fascism #fediverse #ghost #mastodon #stopChina #stopIsrael #stopRedAmerica #stopRussia #supportUkraine #technoanarchism #technofeudalism
-
Destroying Autocracy – November 13, 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 and featured articles for 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.
We are posting on the Fediverse now at @thefulcrum @thefulcrum.dev and original website content will start in 2026.
Featured Item(s)
Wrekage/Salvage writes:
Once you’ve seized the tools of political life to build communal power, it’s hard to forget what a hammer feels like in your hand.
Bonfire Networks is a tiny software org that has spent the past couple of years building a framework for communities on the open social web. At the end of last week, they released Bonfire Social, a microblogging app.
Like Mastodon, Bonfire Social runs on ActivityPub, but it takes differently opinionated approach to sociability.
(It has) features I (and many others) have been advocating for in Fediverse software for years, often while people explained at length that such things simply could not be implemented.
Most exhilarating to me, though, is that they aren’t just building another microblogging app. They’re making a toolkit for internet community software that is healthy and good and designed around real human needs from the start.
As they put it in their crowdfunding campaign, they’re making building blocks for communities on the open social web.
Total awesomeness that needs to blow up. We will cover (and support) Bonfire extensively on The Programmer’s 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
The Kyiv Independent reports:
Ukraine slaps new sanctions on Putin’s team and propagandist publishers
Radio Free Europe reports:
EU ‘Democracy Shield’ Aims To Counter Russian Disinformation
Open Web Advocacy has:
Tim Berners-Lee On Apple’s Browser Engine Ban and Web Apps
Heise reports:
Office alternative from Germany by Ionos and Nextcloud is now available
Great.
Speaking of Germany, The Guardian reports:
ChatGPT violated copyright law by ‘learning’ from song lyrics, German court rules
Meta could face millions in fines for not signing content deals in Australia
Digital Rights Bytes asks:
Can the government read my text messages?
404 Media reports:
Judge Rules Flock Surveillance Images Are Public Records That Can Be Requested By Anyone
TechCrunch reports:
Wikipedia urges AI companies to use its paid API, and stop scraping
Brookings says:
Preach brother.
Poynter reports:
As independent newspapers disappear, a secretive alliance fights to save them
Neutral
Open Knowledge shares:
Open letter: Harnessing open source AI to advance digital sovereignty
The Ringer has:
How Catastrophic Is It If the AI Bubble Bursts? An FAQ.
The Evil Empire (AKA Autocracy) Strikes Back
404 Media reports:
DHS Gives Local Cops a Facial Recognition App To Find Immigrants
TechCrunch reports:
Why a lot of people are getting hacked with government spyware
Lawmakers warn Democratic governors that states are sharing drivers’ data with ICE
Euractiv reports:
EU’s red tape bonfire puts AI ahead of privacy protection
NOYB reports:
EU Commission internal draft would wreck core principles of the GDPR
The Guardian reports:
The EU has let US tech giants run riot. Diluting our data law will only entrench their power.
Tech giants vow to defend users in US as spyware companies make inroads with Trump administration
Freedom of the Press Foundation reports:
Kansas county pays $3M for forgetting the First Amendment
Pariah States
BleepingComputer reports:
APT37 hackers abuse Google Find Hub in Android data-wiping attacks
BitDefender reports:
Russian hacker admits helping Yanluowang ransomware infect companies
The Register reports:
UK asks cyberspies to probe whether Chinese buses can be switched off remotely
Krebs on Security reports:
Google Sues to Disrupt Chinese SMS Phishing Triad
Big Media
The Columbia Journalism Review has:
Editorial Independence Means Technological Independence
The Open Media Network peeps.
The Guardian reports:
EU investigates Google over ‘demotion’ of commercial content from news media
Big Tech
And:
Big Tech’s control freak era is breaking itself apart
The Techno Anarchist Manifesto lists tools to help you avoid most of this AI horseshit.
Lies, damned lies and AI: the newest way to influence elections may be here to stay
Jesus.
Digital colonialism: the new frontier of Latin American dependency.
A side effect of techno feudalism.
PC Mag reports:
Asking ChatGPT About Affairs or Abortion? Be Careful, Marketers Are Peeking at Your Prompts
Cybersecurity/Privacy
The Register reports:
OWASP Top 10: Broken access control still tops app security list
IEEE Spectrum reports:
Your AI Agent Is Now a Target for Email Phishing. New tools can help thwart the attacks.
Like bitcoin, if you use this shit you deserve what you get.
DarkReading reports:
Orgs Move to SSO, Passkeys to Solve Bad Password Habits
GlassWorm Returns, Slices Back into VS Code Extensions
Check out VS Codium friends.
BleepingComputer reports:
Police disrupts Rhadamanthys, VenomRAT, and Elysium malware operations
Fediverse
Elena Rossini shares:
The rebellion will be federated – 2025 edition
A New Social has:
Bonfire explains:
Matters of care – why Bonfire maintenance comes first.
Comciencia has:
A comunicação da ciência no Fediverso
Laura Hargreves shares:
Growing My Own Little Fediverse: The Joy of Going Further Down the Rabbit Hole
Inside My Matrix: How I Reclaimed Messaging from the Cloud
TechCrunch reports:
Threads targets podcasters with new features, aiming to become the home for show discussions
BTW, fuck Threads.
Slightly Decentralized Social Media
The Dabbler has:
Chicken Caesars: they’re messing with your Bluesky feed
TechCrunch reports:
Jack Dorsey funds diVine, a Vine reboot that includes Vine’s video archive
Hmm, this is built with Nostr.
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 #autocracy #bigJournalism #bigTech #bluesky #bonfire #bridgyfed #democracy #fascism #fediverse #matrix #stopChina #stopIsrael #stopRedAmerica #stopRussia #supportUkraine #technoanarchism #technofeudalism #threads #xmpp
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Announcing The Programmer's Fulcrum, our final project. #OMN #TechnoAnarchism #ghost #wordPress #GravCMS
https://symfonystation.mobileatom.net/original-articles/announcing-the-programmers-fulcrum -
Announcing The Programmer's Fulcrum, our final project. #OMN #TechnoAnarchism #ghost #wordPress #GravCMS
https://symfonystation.mobileatom.net/original-articles/announcing-the-programmers-fulcrum -
Destroying Autocracy – September 25, 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.
DA comes out on Thursday and is updated through the end of day on Friday. Then we start over. So take your time in perusing it and check back in over the weekend.
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 and featured articles for 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.
Featured Item
Tuta shares:
Finally some good news: French MPs want to make it illegal to break encryption and limit surveillance.
Is France finally standing up for encryption and privacy?
We start and end with good news to make the middle bearable.
The response to Russia’s War Crimes, Techno Feudalism, and other douchebaggery
The Guardian reports:
Too tricky to cancel: Amazon faces US trial over alleged Prime subscription deceptions
Ars Technica reports:
How to fight censorship, one Disney+ cancellation at a time
I canceled Hulu, ESPN+, and Disney+. And they’re gonna stay canceled. My drinking budget just went up $90 a month. Cheers!
The Verge reports:
Microsoft forced to make Windows 10 extended security updates truly free in Europe
404 Media reports:
We’re Suing ICE for its $2 Million Spyware Contract
The Kyiv Independent reports:
Ukraine hacks Crimea proxy head, uncovers child abduction files, intelligence source says
FSFE reports:
The Digital Markets Act turns 1: one year of pushing for Device Neutrality
Neutral
The Next Web reports:
The EU’s €2T budget overlooks a key tech pillar: Open source
The Evil Empire (AKA Autocracy) Strikes Back
Tech Policy reports:
The Internet Coup Is Here. And the World Is Still Asleep
The Guardian reports:
Documents offer rare insight on Ice’s close relationship with Palantir
Reuters reports:
Exclusive: US could hit entire International Criminal Court with sanctions soon
The EFF reports:
That Drone in the Sky Could Be Tracking Your Car
404 Media reports:
How Surveillance Firms Use ‘Democracy’ As a Cover for Serving ICE and Trump
Pariah States
DarkReading reports:
Chinese APT Leans on Researcher PoCs to Spy on Other Countries
Iran-Linked Hackers Target Europe With New Malware
EuroNews reports:
Inside Russia’s AI-driven disinformation machine shaping Moldova’s election
The Register reports:
SIM city: Feds say 100,000-card farms could have killed cell towers in NYC
Google warns China-linked spies lurking in ‘numerous’ enterprises since March
Big Media
Fuck Disney, fuck ABC, fuck Sinclair, fuck the FCC.
Big Tech
TechCrunch reports:
Meta launches super PAC to fight AI regulation as state policies mount
The Guardian reports:
Parents outraged as Meta uses photos of schoolgirls in ads targeting man
Meta exposé author faces bankruptcy after ban on criticising company
The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports:
Going Viral vs. Going Dark: Why Extremism Trends and Abortion Content Gets Censored
If we stop using products from the c^nts at Meta, we can solve all these problems.
Computer World reports:
OpenAI admits AI hallucinations are mathematically inevitable, not just engineering flaws
Hidde shares:
The politics of AI: we’ll need more sustainability, community and democracy
404 Media reports:
AI ‘Workslop’ Is Killing Productivity and Making Workers Miserable
Cybersecurity/Privacy
Camille Bouvat announces:
Saracroche, le bloqueur d’appels indésirables pour iPhone et Android
I was happy to find this spam blocker and put it to use on my Fairphone.
Between Two Firewalls reports:
Identity Is Still the Perimeter
Wired reports:
How Signal’s Meredith Whittaker Remembers SignalGate: ‘No Fucking Way’
BleepingComputer reports:
Police seizes $439 million stolen by cybercrime rings worldwide
Fediverse
Connected Places has:
Elena Rossini shares:
The Future Is Federated: My Fediverse Starter Guide
Open Journals has some new research:
Kalvin has:
Mastodon and Algorithms: Transparent, Simple, and User-Controlled
PeerTube announces:
PeerTube mobile app v1.1.0 is out!
PieFed announces:
Hackers Pub shows us:
How to Build a Simple ActivityPub Reminder Bot in Python.
Other Slightly Federated Social Media
TechCrunch reports:
Bluesky says it’s getting more aggressive about moderation and enforcement
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 #Democracy #Fascism #Fediverse #Mastodon #StopChina #StopIsrael #StopRedAmerica #StopRussia #SupportUkraine #TechnoAnarchism #TechnoFeudalism
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Destroying Autocracy – September 11, 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.
DA comes out on Thursday and is updated through the end of day on Friday. Then we start over. So take your time in perusing it and check back in over the weekend.
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 and featured articles for 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.
Featured Item
Dave Rupert writes and asks:
I think my answer to “Why would anybody start a website (in 2025)?” is the same answer for the content creator in the age of AI problem: I don’t know, but you gotta want to.
Money sweetens the deal when making content or websites, but we’ve shaken the money tree pretty hard over the last couple decades and it’s looking bare.
Increasingly, you’ve got to find other sources of inspiration to make a website – which by the way are still the coolest fucking things ever.
Why would anybody start a website?
To join the Open Media Network for one.
We start and end with good news to make the middle bearable.
The response to Russia’s War Crimes, Techno Feudalism, and other douchebaggery
Speaking of websites, the Columbia Journalism Review has:
Tom Ley Thinks More People Should Experience Worker-Owned Journalism
The Next Web reports:
Reclaiming the stack: Europe’s bid for digital sovereignty
The Register reports:
Big clouds scramble as EU Data Act brings new data transfer rules
Heisse reports:
400 scientists speak out against chat control
Europe is better than anywhere else, but it isn’t perfect.
The Guardian reports:
‘It is a war of drones now’: the ever-evolving tech dominating the frontline in Ukraine
Lawmaker calls for French criminal investigation into TikTok
EU fines Google nearly €3bn for ‘abusing’ dominant position in ad tech
Speaking of, Tech Policy reports:
Empowered Workers Are a Bulwark Against Illegal Monopoly
Ars Technica reports:
Judge: Anthropic’s $1.5B settlement is being shoved “down the throat of authors”
Pay-per-output? AI firms blindsided by beefed up robots.txt instructions.
Ben Werdmuller examines:
This is the type of content we will feature in The Programmer’s Fulcrum in 2026.
Make Use of shares:
I stopped using Gmail for this built-in client and now Gmail feels stuck
Here is a TAM lite tool for you.
Mojeek announces:
Mojeek is Not an Answer Engine
Tuta shares:
Chat Control is back & we’ve got one month to stop the EU CSAM scanning plans.
The Counterforce has a guide:
Signal For Punks (it has Stories now!)
I describe myself as 25% intellectual, 25% bohemian, 25% hillbilly, and 25% punk so this appeals to me. 😉
Neutral
The Observer reports:
Nick Clegg and Tim Berners-Lee: the battle for the soul of the internet
Tech Policy reports:
Washington and Brussels Vie for Control Over Big Tech
The Evil Empire (AKA Autocracy) Strikes Back
404 Media reports:
ICE Spends Millions on Clearview AI Facial Recognition to Find People ‘Assaulting’ Officers
The Kyiv Independent reports:
US steps back from joint efforts to combat misinformation, FT reports
TechDirt reports:
UK Age Verification Data Confirms What Critics Always Predicted: Mass Migration To Sketchier Sites
Pariah States
BleepingComputer reports:
Czech cyber agency warns against Chinese tech in critical infrastructure
The Christian Science Monitor reports:
Why some Israeli journalists only now are turning a lens on Gaza devastation
DarkReading reports:
Chinese Hackers Allegedly Pose as US Lawmaker
Big Media
The Guardian reports:
‘Existential crisis’: how Google’s shift to AI has upended the online news model
TechDirt reports:
Big Tech
Tech Policy reports:
How Big Tech’s ‘Invisible Hand’ Reaches Latin American Regulators
The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports:
Age Verification Is A Windfall for Big Tech—And A Death Sentence For Smaller Platforms
The Register reports:
It’s AI all the way down as Google’s AI cites web pages written by AI
The Guardian reports:
How thousands of ‘overworked, underpaid’ humans train Google’s AI to seem smart
Impact of chatbots on mental health is warning over future of AI, expert says
Meta hid harms to children from VR products, whistleblowers allege
The BBC reports:
Meta to stop its AI chatbots from talking to teens about suicide
404 Media reports:
Instagram Account Promotes Holocaust Denial T-Shirts to 400,000 Followers
Ars Technica has:
Former WhatsApp security boss in lawsuit likens Meta’s culture to a “cult”
EchoStar to sell spectrum to SpaceX after FCC threatened to revoke licenses
AI vs. MAGA: Populists alarmed by Trump’s embrace of AI, Big Tech
Even blind fascist squirrels find a nut sometimes.
SAN reports:
Not so secret: X’s new encrypted chat feature puts users at risk, experts say
Cybersecurity/Privacy
Signal announces:
Introducing Signal Secure Backups
La Quadrature reports:
In France, the eternal return of facial recognition
The Register reports:
Drift massive attack traced back to loose Salesloft GitHub account
In crypto bro FAFO news, BleepingComputer reports:
Hackers hijack npm packages with 2 billion weekly downloads in supply chain attack
DDoS defender targeted in 1.5 Bpps denial-of-service attack
Fediverse
Connected Places has:
Fedihost looks at:
PeerTube announces:
Mastodon has an update:
NodeBB shares a:
Progress update for Conversational Contexts
A New Social announces:
Launch: Notifications from Unbridged Users
RSS
Buttondown remembers:
The story of how RSS beat Microsoft
Other Slightly Federated Social Media
Connected Spaces opines:
On discourse and decentralisation
Personally I view Bluesky as only slightly better than Shitter (drastically fewer c^nts) with a 97.4% chance of becoming enshittified. However, Blacksky has given me a little hope for ATProto at least.
I would also like to point out 96.525% of people on the Fediverse don’t give a fuck about Bluesky and 99.912% of people on Bluesky don’t give a fuck about the Fediverse.
TechCrunch reports:
Bluesky adds private bookmarks
Bluesky will comply with age-verification laws in South Dakota and Wyoming after exiting Mississippi
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 headstart.
Keep fighting!
Ringleader, Battalion
Reuben Walker
Follow me on the Fediverse#ActivityPub #AI #ATProto #Autocracy #BigJournalism #BigTech #Bluesky #Democracy #Fascism #Fediverse #Mastodon #NodeBB #Peertube #RSS #Signal #StopChina #StopIsrael #StopRedAmerica #StopRussia #SupportUkraine #TechnoAnarchism #TechnoFeudalism
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Destroying Autocracy – August 28, 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.
DA comes out on Thursday and is updated through the end of day on Friday. Then we start over. So take your time in perusing it and check back in over the weekend.
FYI, my opinions will be in bold. And will often involve cursing. Because humans. Especially tech bros. And fascists. Fuck ’em.
As noted before, starting next year I am willing to spend 10 hours weekly on The Programmer’s Fulcrum. It’s the future (and smaller) home for a fusion of Symfony Station and Battalion. Its tagline is Devs Defending Democracy.
You can sign up now and for 2025 get an email with links to and featured articles for 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. I appreciate all of you.
Featured Item
In a late addition, Connected Places writes:
Building a decentralised network like the fediverse thus means not only building a social network that spreads out over many different nodes, but also building an infrastructure for the network to run on that is itself decentralised. What’s happening to SocialHub is symptomatic of this broader tension, where these decentralised systems promise to distribute power, but they still need coordination mechanisms to function.
SocialHub and the Substrate of Decentralised Networks
Nate Matias has this great story of perseverance:
That’s when I got an email from Enel X Way, an Italian power company, that the software in the boxes that charge our cars would be disconnected in just a few short weeks. I immediately thought of Mark, whose medical care required reliable travel to the nearby city of Syracuse.
Across our entire neighborhood, forty homes had exactly the same box, many supported by a New York State electric charging grant. And now all of us were about to have tens of thousands of dollars in critical infrastructure lose functionality – infrastructure we relied on to get to work, access medical care, and live our daily lives.
Escaping the chains of tethered products: the Juice Rescue project
Great stuff!
We start and end with good news to make the middle bearable.
The response to Russia’s War Crimes, Techno Feudalism, and other douchebaggery
The Kyiv Independent reports:
Deutsche Welle reports on:
AI’s role in Ukrainian wartime media
ic3 announces:
404 Media reports:
Attorneys General To AI Chatbot Companies: You Will ‘Answer For It’ If You Harm Children
EuroNews reports:
EU defends sovereign right to regulate tech against Trump’s latest tariff threat
TechPolicy reports:
Perspective Europe Cannot Wait to Fight Trump’s Assault on Democracy
In fuck up Techno Feudalism news, XDA Developers share:
Syncthing ruined cloud storage for me in the best possible way
And OMG Ununtu reviews:
Zen Browser — What Mozilla Firefox Should Be?
I use it and love it.
And Ars Technica reports:
Framework Laptop 16 update brings Nvidia GeForce to the modular gaming laptop
They also have:
Authors celebrate “historic” settlement coming soon in Anthropic class action
APC reports:
Full disclosure: Marking a legal victory for big tech transparency in South Korea
TechCrunch reports:
Microsoft headquarters go into lockdown after activists take over Brad Smith’s office
Boycotting all Microsoft and Israeli products will achieve more than stunts. But publicity from them could result in more boycotts.
US sanctions fraud network used by North Korean ‘remote IT workers’ to seek jobs and steal money
Neutral
TechPolicy has:
Why We Need a Carnegie Moment for the Age of AI
To Create Transparency Regulation for Digital Platforms, Look to Lessons from Other Sectors
The Guardian asks:
Is the AI boom finally starting to slow down?
If only hopes and prayers worked.
TechCrunch reports:
OpenAI co-founder calls for AI labs to safety-test rival models
The Evil Empire (AKA Autocracy) Strikes Back
The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports:
Face Scans to Estimate Our Age: Harmful and Creepy AF
Cloud68 reports:
Chat Control: A Threat to Privacy that Does not Solve the Core Issue
The Intercept has:
Accepted at Universities, Unable to Get Visas: Inside Trump’s War on International Students
The Dissenter reports:
ACLU Demands US Court Immediately Order Release Of Journalist In ICE Detention
404 Media reports:
CBP Had Access to More than 80,000 Flock AI Cameras Nationwide
Flock Wants to Partner With Consumer Dashcam Company That Takes ‘Trillions of Images’ a Month
TechCrunch reports:
DOGE uploaded live copy of Social Security database to ‘vulnerable’ cloud server, says whistleblower
The Guardian reports:
Trump threatens tariffs on countries that ‘discriminate’ against US tech
TechPolicy reports:
Ars Technica reports:
FCC chairman helps AT&T cement dominance with $23 billion spectrum deal
Pariah States
BleepingComputer reports:
New Android malware poses as antivirus from Russian intelligence agency
Silk Typhoon hackers hijack network captive portals in diplomat attacks
Poynter reports:
Five more journalists were killed covering the war in Gaza
Big Media
NiemanLab reports:
The next internet for news? Publishers gather to discuss protocols over platforms
Staying true to American media technical incompetence traditions, they advocate for ATProto. The Open Media Network advocates for ActivityPub.
Big Tech
OS News reports:
Have I ever said, fuck Google. Peeps, please get a Linux or de-googled Android device and only use f-droid apps.
TechCrunch reports:
Security researcher maps hundreds of TeslaMate servers spilling Tesla vehicle data
Infrequently reports:
Forbes reports:
Intel Worked With Chinese Firms Sanctioned For Enabling Human Rights Abuses
TheNextWeb has:
Opinion: Trusting an unverified AI agent is like handing your keys to a drunk graduate
Cybersecurity/Privacy
Rebecca Williams shares:
Ars Technica reports:
Senator castigates federal judiciary for ignoring “basic cybersecurity”
The Register reports:
ZipLine attack uses ‘Contact Us’ forms, White House butler pic to invade sensitive industries
Microsoft can’t guarantee data sovereignty – OVHcloud says ‘We told you so’
Putin on the code: DoD reportedly relies on utility written by Russian dev
Crims laud Claude to plant ransomware and fake IT expertise
Fediverse
Connected Places has:
Some thoughts on Bsky, age verification and Mississippi law
Hamish Campbell has:
The stubborn few who show up with shovels, laptops, and trust
Other Slightly Federated Social Media
NiemanLab reports:
TechCrunch reports:
Bounce launches a service for moving accounts between Bluesky and Mastodon
The New Public reports:
Social media’s next evolution: decentralized, open-source, and scalable
I don’t usually share items from the Nazi bar but since this is by the founder of Blacksky, I’m making an exception.
Ars Technica reports:
Bluesky now platform of choice for science community
At least it’s not Shitter.
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 headstart.
Keep fighting!
Ringleader, Battalion
Reuben Walker
Follow me on the Fediverse#131 #ActivityPub #AI #ATProto #Autocracy #BigJournalism #BigTech #Bluesky #Democracy #Fascism #Fediverse #Mastodon #StopChina #StopIsrael #StopRedAmerica #StopRussia #SupportUkraine #TechnoAnarchism #TechnoFeudalism
-
Destroying Autocracy – August 21, 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.
DA comes out on Thursday and is updated through the end of day on Friday. Then we start over. So take your time in perusing it and check back in over the weekend.
FYI, my opinions will be in bold. And will often involve cursing. Because humans. Especially tech bros. And fascists. Fuck ’em.
As noted last week, I am willing to spend 10 of my retirement hours weekly on The Programmer’s Fulcrum. It’s the future (and smaller) home for a fusion of Symfony Station and Battalion. Its tagline is Devs Defending Democracy.
*You can sign up now and for 2025 get an email with links to and featured articles for each week’s Symfony Station Communiqué and Battalion “Destroying Autocracy” post. And you’ll be set with TPF after the fusing.
Featured Item
Hamish Campbell writes:
The geek answer (bad faith or blindness): “If only everyone learned to code, then society would be fairer.”
The activist answer: Code is part of the landscape, but culture, governance, and lived practice matter more. We don’t escape domination by teaching more people to type commands, we escape by changing what we do together with the tools.
Why “teach everyone to code” has become a dead-end slogan – it’s been tried, it’s been funded, and yet it hasn’t shifted power one bit. If anything, it’s reinforced the tech priesthood instead of breaking it.
Why “teach everyone to code” has become a dead-end slogan
Remember, as I mentioned in the TechnoAnarchist Manifesto, tech is now the major religion on earth.
As far as what programmers should do, he has:
Activist tech has been stuck in a defensive crouch
We start and end with good news to make the middle bearable.
The response to Russia’s War Crimes, Techno Feudalism, and other douchebaggery
NextCloud reports:
Schleswig-Holstein’s “Deutschland-Stack” vision for a digitally independent Germany
EuroNews reports:
Cash is king: Why does the eurozone need a digital euro?
The San Francisco Public Press reports:
California Pushes AI Regulation as Experts Reveal Looming Dangers
The Guardian reports:
Microsoft workers occupy HQ in protest against company’s ties to Israeli military
The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports:
Victory! Ninth Circuit Limits Intrusive DMCA Subpoenas
Victory! Pen-Link’s Police Tools Are Not Secret
TechPolicy reports:
The TAKE IT DOWN Act Is US Law. Platforms Must Do More Than The Bare Minimum
BleepingComputer reports:
U.S. seizes $2.8 million in crypto from Zeppelin ransomware operator
The Conversation reports:
Poytner reports:
Poynter’s MediaWise launches new initiative to combat extremism in online gaming spaces
The Register reports:
Someone’s poking the bear with infostealers targeting Russian crypto developers
US cops wrap up RapperBot, one of world’s biggest DDoS-for-hire rackets
TechCrunch reports:
Hackers who exposed North Korean government hacker explain why they did it
Ecosia has offered to take ‘stewardship’ of Chrome. And it’s not a bad idea.
Great idea, hence it will go nowhere.
Fortune reports:
MIT report: 95% of generative AI pilots at companies are failing
🙂
EuroNews reports:
Austrian newspaper’s pay or consent model violates EU privacy rules: court
The Association of Progressive Communications reports:
Brazil explores ways to hold platforms accountable in court and beyond
Bom!
Neutral
TechPolicy reports:
We Need to Control Personal AI Data So Personal AI Cannot Control Us
The Next Web reports:
Europe can lead the world in legal AI — by out-regulating everyone else
The Evil Empire (AKA Autocracy) Strikes Back
TechPolicy reports:
How US Officials Are Pressuring Europe Over Its Platform Regulations
The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports:
President Trump’s War on “Woke AI” Is a Civil Liberties Nightmare
The Register reports:
End well, this won’t: UK commissioner suggests govt stops kids from using VPNs
United Kuntdumb tech logic: if something is shite, let’s fix it by making it worse.
TechCrunch reports:
Judge says FTC investigation into Media Matters ‘should alarm all Americans’
404 Media reports:
The Government Just Made it Harder for The Public to Comment on Regulations
Global Voices reports:
The politics and people behind Balochistan, Pakistan’s internet shutdowns
Hide Me reports:
“Chat Control”: The EU is about to read every message you send
Pariah States
Politico reports:
Russia is quietly churning out fake content posing as US news
And plenty of American stooges are spreading the shit.
Radio Free Europe reports:
Report: Russian Sabotage Operations In Europe Have Quadrupled Since 2023
DarkReading reports:
Europe’s Ransomware Surge Is a Warning Shot for US Defenders
BleepingComputer reports:
XenoRAT malware campaign hits multiple embassies in South Korea
Big Media
The Guardian reports:
How German media outlets helped pave the way for Israel’s murder of journalists in Gaza
I think fascism is just in the water in Germany. Like racism in America.
EuroNews reports:
Finland’s war on fake news starts in schools. AI could make that a lot harder.
Big Tech
The Atlantic reports:
Wok reports:
Google is killing the open web
Not a Tech Bro reports:
The Register reports:
Google yet to take down ‘screenshot-grabbing’ Chrome VPN extension
The Markup reports:
We caught companies making it harder to delete your personal data online
Data brokers face new pressure for hiding opt-out pages from Google
The Guardian reports:
Meta faces backlash over AI policy that lets bots have ‘sensual’ conversations with children
404 Media reports:
Grok Exposes Underlying Prompts for Its AI Personas
TikTok Shop Sells Viral GPS Trackers Marketed to Stalkers
Jimmy Wales Says Wikipedia Could Use AI. Editors Call It the ‘Antithesis of Wikipedia’
Cybersecurity/Privacy
The Register reports:
Every question you ask, every comment you make, I’ll be recording you
Nice song reference. 😉
BleepingComputer reports:
Okta open-sources catalog of Auth0 rules for threat detection
Mozilla announces:
CRLite: Fast, private, and comprehensive certificate revocation checking in Firefox
Factorial reports:
DDoS Attacks on NGOs: When Digital Infrastructure Becomes a Vulnerability
Heisse reports:
Copyright: Springer vs Adblock Plus enters another round
Socket reports:
Researcher Exposes Zero-Day Clickjacking Vulnerabilities in Major Password Managers
Fediverse
Applied Social Media Lab reports:
We Distribute reports:
CrowdBucks is a new payment system for the Fediverse
It needs some.
Hamish Campbell explains:
Why Most Fediverse Codebases Are Languishing
The London School of Economics asks:
Are newsletters the new academic social media?
Niche, but interesting.
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 headstart.
Keep fighting!
Ringleader, Battalion
Reuben Walker
Follow me on the Fediverse#ActivityPub #AI #ATProto #Autocracy #BigJournalism #BigTech #Bluesky #Democracy #Fascism #Fediverse #Mastodon #StopChina #StopIsrael #StopRedAmerica #StopRussia #SupportUkraine #TechnoAnarchism #TechnoFeudalism
-
Destroying Autocracy – August 15, 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.
DA comes out on Thursday and is updated through the end of day on Friday. Then we start over. So take your time in perusing it and check back in over the weekend.
FYI, my opinions will be in bold. And will often involve cursing. Because humans. Especially tech bros. And fascists. Fuck ’em.
There is some news about us this week. We are definitely retiring next year and sooner than expected. Once we move to Europe, I don’t want to spend 30 hours a week working on Symfony Station and Battalion. Producing short documentaries will be my main hobby.
But, I am willing to spend 10 hours weekly on The Programmer’s Fulcrum. It’s the future (and smaller) home for a fusion of Symfony Station and Battalion. Its tagline is Devs Defending Democracy.
For now its built with Ghost though WordPress is still in the running as a long-term site/newsletter/fediverse account solution. Sorry Drupal CMS you are dead in the water.
In any event, you can sign up now and for 2025 get an email with links and featured articles for each week’s Symfony Station Communiqué and Battalion “Destroying Autocracy” post. And you’ll be set with TPF after the fusing. I appreciate all of you.
Featured Item
The Sunday Times has an interview with my hero:
Meredith Whittaker, boss of WhatsApp rival Signal, says the UK’s Investigatory Powers Act could create a weakness that threatens users’ private data.
Signal boss: ‘disturbing’ laws show the UK doesn’t understand tech
Fuck Meta, and fuck What’s App.
We start and end with good news to make the middle bearable.
The response to Russia’s War Crimes, Techno Feudalism, and other douchebaggery
TechCrunch reports:
US government seized $1M from Russian ransomware gang
BleepingComputer reports:
North Korean Kimsuky hackers exposed in alleged data breach
TechCrunch reports:
Australian court finds Apple, Google abused app store market power
The Association for Progressive Communications reports:
Every Door on going from a map user to an open source map creator
Grenoble, France announces:
Access kit Open source software
Commons DB has:
Connecting the Commons: Shared Benefits for Wikimedia Commons and CommonsDB
The Center for Democracy and Technology shares:
Neutral
The Next Web reports:
Opinion: Europe can regulate its way to a better fintech future
Infrequently reports:
How Do Committees Fail To Invent?
Renée DiResta reports:
No Clapping Allowed: A Social Media Free Speech Debate Without the Usual Theater
Stateline reports:
More than half the states have issued AI guidance for schools
Dries Buytaert has:
Funding Open Source like public infrastructure
I disagree with 88.2% of Dries’ AI stance, but he’s 100% correct about this. 😉
The Evil Empire (AKA Autocracy) Strikes Back
The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports:
Americans, Be Warned: Lessons From Reddit’s Chaotic UK Age Verification Rollout
Unfortunately, our fools will follow in their fools’ footsteps. And btw fuck Reddit.
The Register reports:
Wikimedia Foundation loses first court battle to swerve Online Safety Act regulation
404 Media reports:
Trump Is Launching an AI Search Engine Powered by Perplexity
If there was any doubt that c^nts attract c^nts, now you know. Especially Clownish ones who want to buy Chrome.
Feds Used Local Cop’s Password to Do Immigration Surveillance With Flock Cameras
LAPD Eyes ‘GeoSpy’, an AI Tool That Can Geolocate Photos in Seconds
Euractiv has:
Palantir is well on its way to conquering Europe
Pariah States
The Register reports:
Russia’s RomCom among those exploiting a WinRAR 0-day in highly-targeted attacks
TechCrunch reports:
Russian government hackers said to be behind US federal court filing system hack: Report
BleepingComputer reports:
Pro-Russian hackers blamed for water dam sabotage in Norway
Curly COMrades cyberspies hit govt orgs with custom malware
Dark Reading reports:
REvil Actor Accuses Russia of Planning 2021 Kaseya Attack
EuroNews reports:
Russia blocks calls via WhatsApp and Telegram as it tightens control over the internet
Signals, peeps.
Israel faces widespread condemnation after Al Jazeera correspondent killed in Gaza
TechPolicy reports:
Artificial Intelligence and the Orchestration of Palestinian Life and Death
Big Media
Poynter says:
And have.
The Racket reports:
Substack’s extremist ecosystem is flourishing
They are on Beehiiv, which like Ghost is a moral alternative to SubStack.
NiemanLab reports:
Can nonprofit news mix with local TV? A Pennsylvania partnership aims to find out
Local TV news is shit. But, this is interesting.
Seeking Alpha reports:
Companies find new avenues to drive up sessions as Google’s AI Search tools reduce web traffic
404 Media reports:
Trump Administration Outlines Plan to Throw Out an Agency’s FOIA Requests En Masse
Big Tech
The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports:
Data Brokers Are Ignoring Privacy Law. We Deserve Better.
Ben Werdmuller reports on:
TechPolicy reports:
In an Age of Information Gatekeeping, Don’t Just Google It
Fuck Google.
TechPolicy reports:
‘Big Cloud’ is Building Power via Pervasive Investments
TechCrunch reports:
Leaked Meta AI rules show chatbots were allowed to have romantic chats with kids
How to Save the World asks:
Has the Internet Succumbed to the Tragedy of the Commons?
Platformer has:
Three big lessons from the GPT-5 backlash
Ars Technica reports:
LLMs’ “simulated reasoning” abilities are a “brittle mirage,” researchers find
AP reports:
Students have been called to the office — and even arrested — for AI surveillance false alarms
Cybersecurity/Privacy
The Register reports:
The inside story of the Telemessage saga, and how you can view the data
DEF CON hackers plug security holes in US water systems amid tsunami of threats
Deepfake detectors are slowly coming of age, at a time of dire need
Fediverse
Connected Places has:
Hopefully the link is fixed now.
IFTAS says:
The 2025 Fediverse Needs Assessment is Open: Have Your Say
Salvatore Noschese shares:
We Distribute reports:
Big Updates Are Coming to Loops
tchncs has:
We Distribute asks?
Is Meta Scraping the Fediverse for AI?
Did I say fuck Meta?
TechCrunch reports:
Threads now has more than 400 million monthly active users
Fuck Threads too.
Arxiv is:
Exploring Left-Wing Extremism on the Decentralized Web: An Analysis of Lemmygrad.ml
The proper term is Tankies not left-wing. And it’s why you should use Mbin or Piefed.
Paths & Patches has:
Third Spaces in the Fediverse: FediCon thoughts Part II
Newsmast unplugged: FediCon Part III
The Register reports:
Secure chat darling Matrix admits pair of ‘high severity’ protocol flaws need painful fixes
Slightly Federated Social Media
TBD
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 headstart.
Keep fighting!
Ringleader, Battalion
Reuben Walker
Follow me on the Fediverse#ActivityPub #AI #ATProto #Autocracy #BigJournalism #BigTech #Bluesky #Bonfire #Democracy #Fascism #Fediverse #Lemmy #Loops #Mastodon #Reddit #Signal #StopChina #StopIsrael #StopRedAmerica #StopRussia #SubStack #SupportUkraine #TechnoAnarchism #TechnoFeudalism #Telemessage #WhatsApp #Wikimedia
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Destroying Autocracy – July 31, 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.
DA comes out on Thursday and is updated through the end of day on Friday. Then we start over. So take your time in perusing it and check back in over the weekend.
FYI, my opinions will be in bold. And will often involve cursing. Because humans. Especially tech bros. And fascists. Fuck ’em.
Featured Item
Drew Lyton
Great stuff that ties in nicely with what we are advocating here on Battalion.
We start and end with good news to make the middle bearable.
The response to Russia’s War Crimes, Techno Feudalism, and other douchebaggery
TechCrunch reports:
Proton releases a new app for two-factor authentication
Flights grounded as Russia’s largest airline Aeroflot hacked and systems ‘destroyed’
The Kyiv Independent reports:
The Register reports:
Europe’s AI crackdown starts this week and Big Tech isn’t happy
Italy says Meta may be violating law with AI in WhatsApp
Edge case: Opera claims Microsoft still playing dirty with defaults
US Navy won’t torpedo hurricane forecast satellite feed after all
Open Future opines:
A Step Forward, But Not Far Enough: the EU’s AI Transparency Template
The European Commission reports:
The Cradle reports:
Netherlands labels Israel ‘threat to national security’ for first time
They are a threat to every nation on Earth’s national security, as are all pariah surveillance states.
The European Commission announces:
Commission proposes partial suspension of Israel’s association to Horizon Europe
Unfortunately, the German and Italian pseudo-fascists blocked it.
EuroNews reports:
EU fails to agree Israeli suspension from research fund over Gaza
Ars Technica reports:
Google confirms it will sign the EU AI Code of Practice
Bleeping Computer reports:
Internet Archive is now a US federal depository library
CISA open-sources Thorium platform for malware, forensic analysis
W3C announces:
Vision for W3C is a W3C Statement
Media Revolution announces:
The Media Revolution countdown campaign is LIVE!
IMHO, this ties in with the Open Media Network idea featured in our Techno Anarchist Manifesto.
Murena shares:
What is a VPN (virtual private network)?
Nextcloud reports:
The Nextcloud Include initiative: How Nextcloud supports diversity in open source
Cory Doctorow has:
You can’t fight enshittification (But we can.)
In addition to the tactics in the Techno Anarchist Manifesto, we have to fight in the political realm as well.
Neutral
Bert Hubert looks at:
Europe’s Self Inflicted Cloud Crisis
The Guardian reports:
Why did thousands of adult titles just disappear from the biggest PC gaming marketplaces?
The Evil Empire (AKA Autocracy) Strikes Back
Breach Media reports:
Mark Carney’s AI agenda is a gift to Big Tech
Canada is 1,010 times better than the U.S. but it ain’t perfect.
404 Media reports:
UK Users Need to Post Selfie or Photo ID to View Reddit’s r/IsraelCrimes, r/UkraineWarFootage
The United Kuntsdumb is now only 1.46 times better than the United States of Assholes and getting worse by the minute.
The MIT Technology Review reports:
What you may have missed about Trump’s AI Action Plan
TechDirt reports:
Trump Threatens To Withold Billions From States That Try To Make Broadband Affordable To Poor People
Pariah States
So-called newspaper, The Washington Times reports:
Hackers breach intelligence website used by CIA
BleepingComputer reports:
French telecom giant Orange discloses cyberattack
Microsoft: Russian hackers use ISP access to hack embassies in AiTM attacks
DarkReading reports:
Russia’s Secret Blizzard APT Gains Embassy Access via ISPs
The Register reports:
Silk Typhoon spun a web of patents for offensive cyber tools, report says
Big Media
404 Media reports:
Patreon reports:
Substack sent a push alert promoting a Nazi blog
I am sorry, but if you are on SubStack at this point you are either an uninformed amoral moron or a c^nt. Thankfully, you can still avoid being reincarnated as a cockroach by moving to Ghost or Buttondown.
ArsTechnica reports:
Substack’s “Nazi problem” won’t go away after push notification apology
The Columbia Journalism Review reports:
Traffic Apocalypse: Google’s AI Overviews are killing click-throughs to news sites.
Big Tech
The Register reports:
‘Impossible hill to climb’: US clouds crush European competition on their home turf
Publishers cry foul over W3C crusade to rid web of third-party cookies
Ars Technica reports:
Meta pirated and seeded porn for years to train AI, lawsuit says
TechCrunch reports:
Zuckerberg signals Meta won’t open source all of its ‘superintelligence’ AI models
BTW, their current ones are in no way opensource.
Bikepacking shares:
Terror
The Guardian reports:
Far-right extremists using games platforms to radicalise teenagers, report warns
Cybersecurity/Privacy
TechPolicy asks:
Is There Any Way Forward for Privacy Legislation in the United States?
BleepingComputer reports:
Post SMTP plugin flaw exposes 200K WordPress sites to hijacking attacks
DarkReading shows us:
How to Spot Malicious AI Agents Before They Strike
ChatGPT, GenAI Tools Open to ‘Man in the Prompt’ Browser Attack
Tuta reports:
Switzerland plans surveillance worse than U.S.
BitDefender reports:
French submarine secrets surface after cyber attack
Platformer reports:
Trust and safety workers on why they’re not speaking out
And here’s the previous post he referenced.
404 Media reports:
Tea App Turns Off DMs After Exposing Messages About Abortions, Cheating
FYI, Platformer and 404 Media are on Ghost and thus part of the Open Media Network.
RSS
The wonderful Citation Needed reports:
Curate your own newspaper with RSS
Fediverse
Connected Places has:
For Better has:
Mastodon Defence Command: The Scam Wave
Fedify announces:
Implementing custom collection dispatchers
QCB asks:
So Your Black Ass Still Wants to Get on Mastodon
ActivityPub for WordPress announces:
Slightly Federated Social Media
Connected Places has:
Blacksky has:
Infrastructure for Interdependence: Building technology in service of collective power
Blacksky is what Bluesky would be if it wasn’t created and run by tech bros.
404 Media reports:
This Company Wants to Bring End-to-End Encrypted Messages to Bluesky’s AT Protocol
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.
Keep fighting!
Ringleader, Battalion
Reuben Walker
Follow me on the Fediverse#ActivityPub #AI #Autocracy #BigJournalism #BigTech #Bluesky #Democracy #Fascism #Fediverse #Mastodon #Nextcloud #StopChina #StopIsrael #StopRedAmerica #StopRussia #SupportUkraine #TechnoAnarchism #TechnoFeudalism #WordPress
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Destroying Autocracy – July 24, 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.
DA comes out on Thursday and is updated through the end of day on Friday. Then we start over. So take your time in perusing it and check back in over the weekend.
FYI, my opinions will be in bold. And will often involve cursing. Because humans. Especially tech bros. And fascists. Fuck ’em.
Featured Item
TechDirt writes:
Over the last year or so I’ve seen a disturbing tendency in tech/startup/VC worlds to buy into the neoreactionary view that for startups to be successful they need to get on board the Trump train.
Yes, there are the big name folks who everyone knows about and who didn’t really surprise anyone—Peter Thiel, Marc Andreessen, David Sacks, Elon Musk (pre-fallout)—but the more troubling trend has been watching younger entrepreneurs and VCs listen to their podcasts, read their posts and books, and slowly nod along to the idea that democracy is holding back innovation.
Fascism For First Time Founders
We start and end with good news to make the middle bearable.
The response to Russia’s War Crimes, Techno Feudalism, and other douchebaggery
BleepingComputer reports:
Ukraine arrests suspected admin of XSS Russian hacking forum
Radio Free Europe reports:
Drone Attacks Even The Odds For Ukrainian Frontline Units
BitDefender reports:
Europol targets Kremlin-backed cybercrime gang NoName057(16)
Bruce Lawson reports:
CMA designates Google and Apple, proposes measures
TechCentral reports:
Italy takes Meta, X and LinkedIn to court over unpaid tax
404 Media reports:
Hacker Plants Computer ‘Wiping’ Commands in Amazon’s AI Coding Agent
Archivists Recreate Pre-Trump CDC Website, Are Hosting It in Europe
The Register reports:
Radio geeks reveal how to access crucial hurricane data after US Department of Defense cut it off
The Register reports:
AI data-suckers would have to ask permission first under new bill
Laptop farmer behind $17M North Korean IT worker scam locked up for 8.5 years
TechPolicy reports:
The Case for Europe’s Backing of Digital Civil Society Groups
Open_Future shares:
Licensing, Levies, and the Limits of Copyright
Open Forum Europe announces:
DarkReading reports:
Stop AI Bot Traffic: Protecting Your Organization’s Website
Speaking of your websites, LocalGhost has:
This page is under construction: a love letter to the personal website
Hamish Campbell has:
The Open Media Network: More Than Just a Tech Project
This is what your site could be a part of.
Neutral
TechPolicy reports:
Brazil Has a Bridge to Defending the Internet
The Financial Times:
UK government seeks way out of clash with US over Apple encryption
When you have three sets of c^nts involved, it’s hard to know who to route for.
TechPolicy opines:
Enforcement of EU’s Tech Laws Should Not Be Traded Away
And they are right.
The Evil Empire (AKA Autocracy) Strikes Back
So-called newspaper, The Wall Street Journal reports:
White House Prepares Executive Order Targeting ‘Woke AI’
MIT Technology Review reports:
America’s AI watchdog is losing its bite
The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports:
Axon’s Draft One is Designed to Defy Transparency
EuroNews reports:
UK online legislation could threaten Wikipedia volunteer safety, group to argue in court
Pariah States
The Register reports:
UK uncovers novel Microsoft snooping malware, blames and sanctions GRU cyberspies
Silicon Valley engineer admits theft of US missile tech secrets
Four new Android spyware samples linked to Iran’s intel agency
TechCrunch reports:
A surveillance vendor was caught exploiting a new SS7 attack to track people’s phone locations
Hackers exploiting SharePoint zero-day seen targeting government agencies
BleepingComputer reports:
Microsoft links Sharepoint ToolShell attacks to Chinese hackers
Big Media
Today in Tabs reports:
Billionaires Destroyed American News Media On Purpose
Mother Jones reports:
Colbert’s Cancellation Is a Dark Warning
Akademie shares:
Investigating AI datasets: A journalist’s guide
Big Tech
Where’s Your ‘Ed shares:
The Hater’s Guide To The AI Bubble
🙂
The Next Web reports:
ChatGPT advises women to ask for lower salaries, study finds
404 Media reports:
A Startup is Selling Data Hacked from Peoples’ Computers to Debt Collectors
Spotify Publishes AI-Generated Songs From Dead Artists Without Permission
Google’s AI Is Destroying Search, the Internet, and Your Brain
Grindr Won’t Let Users Say ‘No Zionists’
EuroNews reports:
Meta ran ads that fundraised for Israeli Defence Forces, analysis shows
Meta won’t sign EU’s AI Code, but who will?
The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports:
Amazon Ring Cashes in on Techno-Authoritarianism and Mass Surveillance
Ars Technica reports:
Researcher threatens X with lawsuit after falsely linking him to French probe
xAI workers balked over training request to help “give Grok a face,” docs show
TechCrunch reports:
Microsoft says it will no longer use engineers in China for Department of Defense work
For privacy and security, think twice before granting AI access to your personal data
Terror
The Register reports:
IRL Com recruits teens for real-life stabbings, shootings, FBI warns
Cybersecurity/Privacy
TechCrunch reports:
Serial spyware founder Scott Zuckerman wants the FTC to unban him from the surveillance industry
BleepingComputer reports:
CISA and FBI warn of escalating Interlock ransomware attacks
DarkReading reports:
Translating Cyber-Risk for the Boardroom
Fediverse
Connected Places has:
Fediverse Report – #126 July 22, 2025
Bonfire is:
Exploring a Bonfire Geosocial Extension
MarkWrites reflects on:
Mastodon announces:
If you are on the Fediverse please donate to your instance’s maintainers. Especially if they ask nicely.
Aphyr opines:
The Future of Forums is Lies, I Guess
Fediverse favorite, Elena Rossini shares:
The Future is Federated: Year 2
ActivityPub for WordPress has an update:
We Distribute has details:
WordPress-ActivityPub v 7.1.0 Introduces Following Capabilities
Randall Black show us:
How to Install and Set Up Castopod for Your Podcast
TechCrunch reports:
Threads adds improved content performance metrics for creators
Slightly Federated Social Media
The Register reports:
Selling your digital soul to use Bluesky’s DMs isn’t just a bad idea, it’s the law
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.
Keep fighting!
Ringleader, Battalion
Reuben Walker
Follow me on the Fediverse#126 #ActivityPub #AI #Autocracy #BigJournalism #BigTech #Bluesky #Castopod #Democracy #Fascism #Fediverse #Mastodon #StopChina #StopIsrael #StopRedAmerica #StopRussia #SupportUkraine #TechnoAnarchism #TechnoFeudalism #Threads #WordPress
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Destroying Autocracy – July 17, 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.
DA comes out on Thursday and is updated through the end of day on Friday. Then we start over. So take your time in perusing it and check back in over the weekend.
FYI, my opinions will be in bold. And will often involve cursing. Because humans. Especially tech bros. And fascists. Fuck ’em.
We are back from holiday and brief respite from Fascism Friendly Florida.
Featured Item
Hamish Campbell writes:
Capitalism’s invisible hand has always relied on hidden data. In the digital age, that data is metadata the overlooked, under-the-hood information that tells us who, where, when, how often, and what next. It doesn’t matter what you say or do if someone else controls the context around it. That’s where the power lies. Let’s be clear: the battle for metadata is the battle for the future.
Capitalism: Metadata is hoarded by the dotcons. This is the tech-feudalism of today—soft fascism in algorithmic form.
Chinese Communism: Here, the state doesn’t outsource metadata – it owns it. Surveillance is centralised. Social credit systems reduce people to patterns and can be used to penalise deviation.
Liberalism: Wants to privatise metadata to the individual, to revive the mythical free market of rational actors with perfect information. But this is a fantasy—metadata’s power comes from aggregation, and no individual can match corporate or state capacity to hoard it. The liberal path leads to a slightly less abusive cage.
Anarchism and the Commons: A Fourth Way
What does anarchism want? It wants the social conditions for free association. It wants autonomy, not just individual, but community autonomy.
In commons vs. the market, capitalism uses metadata to target, extract, and sell. We use metadata to share, trust, and build. The Open Media Network proposes a radical shift to replace the market with metadata commons. In capitalism, knowledge is hoarded for advantage. In the commons, it is shared for coordination. The market’s “invisible hand” becomes the commons’ visible knowledge, messy, partial, human, but rooted in mutual aid, not profit.
Metadata and the OMN Path: Who Controls the Invisible Hand?
We start and end with good news to make the middle bearable.
The response to Russia’s War Crimes, Techno Feudalism, and other douchebaggery
TechCrunch reports:
Ukrainian hackers claim to have destroyed servers of Russian drone maker
The Kyiv Independent reports:
EU slaps new sanctions on Russia over hybrid threats, disinformation
BleepingComputer reports:
Europol disrupts pro-Russian NoName057(16) DDoS hacktivist group
ETH Zurich announces:
A language model built for the public good
Open Future reports on:
It’s FOSS reports:
Europe on a Roll: Plans Open Source Alternative to Confluence and Jira
OpenProject shares:
Empowering the Public Sector with OpenProject: An Open Source alternative for project management
Bloomberg Law reports:
States Target AI Hiring Tools as Federal Freeze Attempt Fails
404 Media has:
The Open-Source Software Saving the Internet From AI Bot Scrapers
Immigration Raid Tracking App ‘ICE Block’ Keeps Your Data Private, Researcher Finds
Open Ice is a new resource:
TechPolicy reports:
States Are Fighting Back To Defend Medical Privacy and Safeguard Democracy
The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports:
Despite Supreme Court Setback, EFF Fights On Against Online Age Mandates
Neutral
TechPolicy reports:
How the EU’s Voluntary AI Code is Testing Industry and Regulators Alike
Making Media Pluralism Work in the Age of Algorithms
The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports:
EFF’s Guide to Getting Records About Axon’s Draft One AI-Generated Police Reports
The Evil Empire (AKA Autocracy) Strikes Back
Platformer reports:
The campaign to make it illegal for ChatGPT to criticize Trump
Krebs on Security reports:
DOGE Denizen Marko Elez Leaked API Key for xAI
404 Media reports:
ICE Is Searching a Massive Insurance and Medical Bill Database to Find Deportation Target
TechPolicy reports:
The US Just Logged Off from Internet Freedom
ProPublica has:
The IRS Is Building a Vast System to Share Millions of Taxpayers’ Data With ICE
A Little-Known Microsoft Program Could Expose the Defense Department to Chinese Hackers
Ars Technica reports:
Trump sues Corporation for Public Broadcasting directors who refused to be fired
Pariah States
BleepingComputer reports:
North Korean XORIndex malware hidden in 67 malicious npm packages
DarkReading reports:
China-Backed Salt Typhoon Hacks US National Guard for Nearly a Year
4 Chinese APTs Attack Taiwan’s Semiconductor Industry
Noyb has:
How TikTok, AliExpress & WeChat ignore your GDPR rights
Big Media
404 Media reports:
The Media’s Pivot to AI Is Not Real and Not Going to Work
TechPolicy reports:
Old Tricks, New Tech: How Legacy Media Capture Fuels Today’s Digital Authoritarianism
Mediations in an Emergency reports:
Please Shout Fire. This Theater Is Burning
Big Tech
Ars Technica reports:
New Grok AI model surprises experts by checking Elon Musk’s views before answering
TechCrunch reports:
Of course, Grok’s AI companions want to have sex and burn down schools
OpenAI and Anthropic researchers decry ‘reckless’ safety culture at Elon Musk’s xAI
The Verge asks:
Where are the iPhone’s WebKit-less browsers?
Pluralistic by Cory Doctorow has:
Where are the iPhone’s WebKit-less browsers?
404 Media reports:
a16z-Backed AI Site Civitai Is Mostly Porn, Despite Claiming Otherwise
The Markup reports:
AI is helping students be more independent, but the isolation could be career poison
This times 1,000.
Terror
404 Media reports:
3D Printing Patterns Might Make Ghost Guns More Traceable Than We Thought
Cybersecurity/Privacy
Bleeping Computer has:
Google Gemini flaw hijacks email summaries for phishing
Malicious VSCode extension in Cursor IDE led to $500K crypto theft
Sounds like a win-win.
Police disrupt “Diskstation” ransomware gang attacking NAS devices
Ars Technica reports:
Hackers exploit a blind spot by hiding malware inside DNS records
DarkReading reports:
Military Veterans May Be What Cybersecurity Is Looking For
Beats being in the National Guard.
Women Who ‘Hacked the Status Quo’ Aim to Inspire Cybersecurity Careers
The Next Web reports:
Whisper emerges from stealth with ‘God Mode’ to tackle cybercrime
Fediverse
Connected Places has:
Age Verification Laws: Are the New Social Networks Different, Or Not At All?
Steve Bate has:
ActivityPub Client API: A Way Forward
The Social Web Foundation has:
Seeking interop testing for geosocial ActivityPub client
Mastodon has:
Privacy Guides has:
Privacy and Security on Mastodon
Bandwagon has an update:
Elena Rossini has:
My adventures in self-hosting: day 211 (CDN edition)
Forgejo announces:
TechCrunch reports:
Meta appoints generative AI VP to run Threads
I guess it wasn’t shitty enough.
Slightly Federated Social Media
Connected Places has:
Reuters reports:
European project Eurosky aims to reduce reliance on US tech giants
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.
Keep fighting!
Ringleader, Battalion
Reuben Walker
Follow me on the Fediverse#125 #ActivityPub #AI #ATProto #Autocracy #Bandwagon #BigJournalism #BigTech #Bluesky #Democracy #Fascism #Fediverse #Forgejo #Mastodon #StopChina #StopIsrael #StopRedAmerica #StopRussia #SupportUkraine #TechnoAnarchism #TechnoFeudalism #Threads
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Destroying Autocracy – July 3, 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.
DA comes out on Thursday and is updated through the end of day on Friday. Then we start over. So take your time in perusing it and check back in over the weekend.
FYI, my opinions will be in bold. And will often involve cursing. Because humans. Especially tech bros. And fascists. Fuck ’em.
Next week I will be on holiday so there won’t be an issue. I will probably boost some things on the Fediverse though.
Featured Item
DevCollaborative writes:
The Trump administration and its supporters are attacking dissenting views on a terrifying scale. With so much of online communications compromised and censored, independent websites are a critical piece of social movement infrastructure that we need to promote and defend.
If your nonprofit has a website, you are part of this essential communications work.
There are looming threats of financially independent nonprofits being censored under the guise of fighting “terrorism” or “sedition.”
Protecting Nonprofit Websites from a Hostile Government
We start and end with good news to make the middle bearable.
The response to Russia’s War Crimes, Techno Feudalism, and other douchebaggery
Time has a profile:
How Signal President Meredith Whittaker Took on Signal-Gate
The Register reports:
Proton bashes Apple and joins antitrust suit that seeks to throw the App Store wide open
The Register reports:
Huawei can’t wriggle out of Iran sanctions trial, judge rules
Tara Tarakiyee explores:
Digital Sovereignty in Practice: Web Browsers as a Reality Check
TechPolicy reports:
EU Disinformation Code Takes Effect Amid Censorship Claims and Trade Tensions
Politico reports:
The first American ‘scientific refugees’ arrive in France
BleepingComputer reports:
Hikvision Canada ordered to cease operations over security risks
Germany asks Google, Apple to remove DeepSeek AI from app stores
Raconteur has:
‘You need to be a little bit crazy’: Nextcloud CEO on confronting the hyperscalers
Nextclound reports on:
Why organizations migrate from Microsoft 365 in 2025
TechCrunch reports:
ICEBlock, an app for anonymously reporting ICE sightings, goes viral overnight after Bondi criticism
Ars Technica reports:
Meta, TikTok can’t toss wrongful death suit from mom of “subway surfing” teen
Ted Cruz plan to punish states that regulate AI shot down in 99-1 vote
The Markup has more:
State AI regulations safe after Senate strips moratorium from ‘big, beautiful bill’
MIT Technology Review reports:
Cloudflare will now, by default, block AI bots from crawling its clients’ websites
Cloudfare has the details:
The crawl before the fall… of referrals: understanding AI’s impact on content providers
Neutral
CNBC reports:
The AI-boom’s multi-billion dollar blind spot: Reasoning models hitting a wall
Dries Buyaert (of Drupal fame) writes:
The web’s broken deal with AI companies
Dries, you say you may be naive. You are if you think anything other than politics (regulation or huge boycotts) are going to fix the problem.
The Evil Empire (AKA Autocracy) Strikes Back
The Guardian opines:
Peter Thiel’s Palantir poses a grave threat to Americans
TechDirt reports:
Supreme Court Cripples FCC Further, Making Robocall Enforcement Likely Impossible
The Supreme C^nts strike again.
The Guardian reports:
Trump officials create searchable national citizenship database
TechPolicy reports:
Countering the Politics of Deservingness in the Fight for Digital Equity
How US Firms Are Weakening the EU AI Code of Practice
Pariah States
TechCrunch reports:
US government takes down major North Korean ‘remote IT workers’ operation
DarkReading reports:
Scope, Scale of Spurious North Korean IT Workers Emerges
Silver Fox Suspected in Taiwanese Campaign Using DeepSeek Lure
Russian APT ‘Gamaredon’ Hits Ukraine With Fierce Phishing
The Kyiv Independent reports:
US sanctions Russian IT company Aeza Group over ransomware operations
Big Media
The PressGazette reports:
How SFGATE is making local news pay and filling California’s news gaps
Ars Technica reports:
NYT to start searching deleted ChatGPT logs after beating OpenAI in court
Torment Nexus reports:
Why Substack shouldn’t be the future of online publishing
CNN reports:
After settling with Trump, CBS News staffers fear what comes next
There are cowards, and then there are cowardly c^nts.
Big Tech
TechPolicy reports:
Tech Oligarchs and the Rise of Silicon Valley Pronatalism
The Guardian reports:
Fears AI factcheckers on X could increase promotion of conspiracy theories
Ars Technica reports:
Everything that could go wrong with X’s new AI-written community notes
TikTok is being flooded with racist AI videos generated by Google’s Veo 3
Android Authority reports:
You’re not alone: This email from Google’s Gemini team was concerning (Updated: Google statement)
Tuta asks:
“Sovereign cloud” or “sovereign washing”? A Trojan Horse at Europe’s digital gates.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports:
Flock Safety’s Feature Updates Cannot Make Automated License Plate Readers Safe
The Register reports:
AI agents get office tasks wrong around 70% of the time, and a lot of them aren’t AI at all
AI models just don’t understand what they’re talking about
The Verge reports:
Facebook is starting to feed its AI with private, unpublished photos
TechCrunch reports:
Meta users say paying for Verified support has been useless in the face of mass bans
TechCrunch reports:
Meta has found another way to keep you engaged: Chatbots that message you first
I guess if you are amoral enough to use Meta products and you are a moron who talks to AI, this is what you deserve.
PC Gamer reports:
Cybersecurity/Privacy
The Verge asks:
How vulnerable is critical infrastructure to cyberattack in the US?
Bleeping Computer reports:
FBI: Cybercriminals steal health data posing as fraud investigators
BleepingComputer reports:
Spain arrests hackers who targeted politicians and journalists
Fediverse
Connected Places has:
Mastodon has:
Dead Superher looks at:
Mitigating the “7 Deadly Fediverse UX Sins”
Jaz-Michael King shares:
Digital Belonging: Why Language and Locality Matter
Viger has:
TechCrunch reports:
Automattic puts Tumblr migration to WordPress on hold
Ghost has:
The Longformers: Ghost, WordPress, Flipboard, Fediverse
NodeBB asks:
Longform content has the best chance to grow the Fediverse, IMHO.
IT Notes shares:
FediMeteo: How a Tiny €4 FreeBSD VPS Became a Global Weather Service for Thousands
Forgejo has its:
Forgejo monthly report – June 2025
ActivityPub for WordPress announces:
HTTP Signature Upgrades Coming Soon
TechCrunch reports:
Not everyone is thrilled with Threads’ DMs
RSS
Preslav Rachev shares:
From Outbound to Inbound and Back Again: The Hidden Power of RSS Feeds
Great stuff. RSS is still my main curation source. So, get an RSS feed on your blog, handle, etc. 🙂
Slightly Federated Social Media
Connected Places has:
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.
Keep fighting!
Ringleader, Battalion
Reuben Walker
Follow me on the Fediverse#123 #ActivityPub #AI #Autocracy #BigJournalism #BigTech #Democracy #Fascism #Fediverse #Forgejo #Ghost #Mastodon #NodeBB #RSS #StopChina #StopIran #StopIsrael #StopRedAmerica #StopRussia #SupportUkraine #TechnoAnarchism #TechnoFeudalism #WordPress
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Destroying Autocracy – June 26, 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.
DA comes out on Thursday and is updated through the end of day on Friday. Then we start over. So take your time in perusing it and check back in over the weekend.
FYI, my opinions will be in bold. And will often involve cursing. Because humans. Especially tech bros. And fascists. Fuck ’em.
Featured Item
Hamish Campbell writes:
It’s good to see events like NGIFORUM2025 as it’s trying to be on the path of the Fediverse and the wider Open Web reboot which are real forces for social good, messy, hopeful, and grounded in decades of grassroots digital culture, which we do need to support. BUT, we also need to speak honestly, as these spaces are not healthy by default.
Too often, they are co-opted by NGO and institutional actors who bring with them a dangerous kind of “common sense”, what I’ve long described as the parasite class. We see this clearly at NGIFORUM and similar NGO events.
NGIFORUM2025 is timidly touching sense
We start and end with good news to make the middle bearable.
The response to Russia’s War Crimes, Techno Feudalism, and other douchebaggery
Numerique reports:
C’est un grande headline. 😉
The Conversation reviews:
Is AI a con? A new book punctures the hype and proposes some ways to resist
The U.K. governmnet announce:
CMA takes first steps to improve competition in search services in the UK
Le Monde reports:
Lyon délaisse la suite Office de Microsoft pour l’open source
Nextcloud reports:
A sovereign Microsoft 365 alternative: Nextcloud and IONOS join forces
Senator Blackburn announces:
The Verge reviews:
The smaller Fairphone 6 introduces swapable accessories
404 Media reports:
‘FuckLAPD.com’ Lets Anyone Use Facial Recognition to Instantly Identify Cops
Ars Technica reports:
Media Matters sues FTC, says agency is retaliating on behalf of Elon Musk
Neutral
Politico reports:
Trump can pull the plug on the internet, and Europe can’t do anything about it
Ars Technica reports:
Judge denies creating “mass surveillance program” harming all ChatGPT users
TechCrunch reports:
And another just sided with Meta. Fuck!
The Evil Empire Strikes Back
The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports:
EFF to European Commission: Don’t Resurrect Illegal Data Retention Mandates
How Cops Can Get Your Private Online Data
Politico reports:
Top Pentagon spy pick rejected by White House
The Kyiv Independent reports:
Trump administration sends layoff notices to 600 Voice of America staff, NYT reports
The Gray Zone reports:
US Army appoints Palantir, Meta, OpenAI execs as Lt. Colonels
The Center for Democracy and Technology reports:
New Orleans’ Dragnet Facial Recognition Program Threatens Innocent People
404 Media reports:
Flock Removes States From National Lookup Tool After ICE and Abortion Searches Revealed
Pariah States
DarkReading reports:
How Geopolitical Tensions Are Shaping Cyber Warfare
Bleeping Computer reports:
Russian hackers bypass Gmail MFA using stolen app passwords
APT28 hackers use Signal chats to launch new malware attacks on Ukraine
Canada says Salt Typhoon hacked telecom firm via Cisco flaw
The Register reports:
Typhoon-like gang slinging TLS certificate ‘signed’ by the Los Angeles Police Department
Big Media
The Columbia Journalism Review reports:
AI Search Has A Citation Problem
Atoms vs. Bytes has:
Fuck the Nerd Reich’s S.S.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports:
New Journalism Curriculum Module Teaches Digital Security for Border Journalists
Big Tech
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has:
Protect Yourself From Meta’s Latest Attack on Privacy
The BBC reports:
Musk’s X sues New York state over social media hate speech law
Frontiers reports:
Some of your AI prompts could cause 50 times more CO2 emissions than others
Zero prompts = zero emissions.
Neural Trust reports:
Echo Chamber: A Context-Poisoning Jailbreak That Bypasses LLM Guardrails
Computer Weekly reports:
Beyond the AI hype: How data laws quietly handed power to government and Big Tech
Axios has:
Publishers facing existential threat from AI, Cloudflare CEO says
The Register reports:
The AIpocalypse is here for web sites as search referrals plunge
Hey you AI lovers, these are the sites you build. No traffic equals no money for you. Plus, the AI c^nts stole the info from the people whose traffic they are destroying. And maybe your code. Not to mention devastating the environment. Look in the fucking mirror. And avoid being reincarnated as a cockroach.
The Register reports:
Top AI models – even American ones – parrot Chinese propaganda, report finds
Psylo browser tries to obscure digital fingerprints by giving every tab its own IP address
If you want to do something about the next article.
Texas A&M University reports:
Websites Are Tracking You Via Browser Fingerprinting
noyb reports:
Bumble’s AI icebreakers are mainly breaking EU law
EuroNews reports:
Big Tech isn’t doing enough to fight disinformation, EU body says
Cybersecurity/Privacy
TechCrunch reports:
US House bans WhatsApp from staff devices
You’ve got to be clowns if these mofos ban you.
Dark Reading reports:
How the US Military Is Redefining Zero Trust
Hundreds of MCP Servers Expose AI Models to Abuse, RCE
BleepingComputer reports:
New FileFix attack weaponizes Windows File Explorer for stealthy commands
3 key takeaways from the Scattered Spider attacks on insurance firms
Earth reports:
China breaks RSA encryption with a quantum computer, threatening global data security
Tommy Mysk announces:
Introducing Psylo — A New Kind of Private Web Browser
Fediverse
Connected Places (rebrand) has:
Hamish Campbell has:
This is a story of power, plain and simple
And he’s correct.
Actors, Power, and Collective Publishing: Rethinking Fediverse Architecture for Grassroots Media
On a similar note, Jeremy Herve explores:
WordPress, WordLand, and the Open Web
Dave Winer has the details on WordLand:
Timothy Chambers has:
The Seven Deadly Fediverse UX Sins Part 2: The Road To Redemption
Bless his soul.
Jaz-Michael King introduces:
Ghost hosting platform, MagicPages shares:
ActivityPub Federation Issue (June 21, 2025)
Activity Pub for WordPress reports:
What we shipped so far in 2025
NLnet Foundation announces:
62 new projects contribute to digital commons
There are other Fediverse grants in this article including WordPress, Activity Pub, Funkwhale, and Node BB.
Slightly Federated Social Media
Connected Places has:
The Globe and Mail reports:
Tech leaders ready launch of Canadian social-media platform Gander to buck U.S. dominance
Basically Blacksky for Canadians.
TechDirt has:
Community And Choice Are Not Bubbles
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.
Keep fighting!
Ringleader, Battalion
Reuben Walker
Follow me on the Fediverse#122 #ActivityPub #AI #Autocracy #BigJournalism #BigTech #Democracy #Fascism #Fediverse #Funkwhale #Ghost #Mastodon #StopChina #StopIran #StopIsrael #StopRedAmerica #StopRussia #SupportUkraine #TechnoAnarchism #TechnoFeudalism #WordPress
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Destroying Autocracy – June 19, 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.
DA comes out on Thursday and is updated through the end of day on Friday. Then we start over. So take your time in perusing it and check back in over the weekend.
FYI, my opinions will be in bold. And will often involve cursing. Because humans. Especially tech bros. And fascists. Fuck ’em.
Featured Item
404 Media reports:
AI Scraping Bots Are Breaking Open Libraries, Archives, and Museums
When you use AI, you contribute to this c^ntitry.
We start and end with good news to make the middle bearable.
The response to Russia’s War Crimes, Techno Feudalism, and other douchebaggery
Micah Flee explores:
Using Signal groups for activism
The Guardian reports:
Makers of air fryers and smart speakers told to respect users’ right to privacy
Spy ships, cyber-attacks and shadow fleets: the crack security team braced for trouble at sea
TechCrunch reports:
The ‘OpenAI Files’ push for oversight in the race to AGI
The Register reports:
LibreOffice adds voice to ‘ditch Windows for Linux’ campaign
Microsoft brings 365 suite on-prem as part of sovereign cloud push
France 24 reports:
‘We’re done with Teams’: German state hits uninstall on Microsoft
TechPolicy shares:
What the EU Needs to Do to Challenge Big Tech Cloud Dominance
The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports:
Apple to Australians: You’re Too Stupid to Choose Your Own Apps
BleepingComputer reports:
Police seizes Archetyp Market drug marketplace, arrests admin
The Register reviews:
/e/ OS 3.0: Slightly less clunky, slightly more private
Vox reports:
He’s the godfather of AI. Now, he has a bold new plan to keep us safe from it.
Neutral
The Register reports:
The launch of ChatGPT polluted the world forever, like the first atomic weapons tests
Euronews reports:
Dutch online platform watchdog struggling to connect with other EU member states
The Register reports:
MiniMax M1 model claims Chinese LLM crown from DeepSeek – plus it’s true open-source
Dems hyperventilate about Palantir’s work with the IRS in letter to CEO Karp
I would trust Palantir as far as I could kick their CEO.
The Evil Empire Strikes Back
404 Media reports:
Emails Reveal the Casual Surveillance Alliance Between ICE and Local Police
California Cops Investigate ‘Immigration Protest’ With AI-Camera System
The Markup reports:
California police are illegally sharing license plate data with ICE and Border Patrol
The Kyiv Independent reports:
Open Rights Group reports:
Police forces to get authoritarian powers to extract data from online accounts
False alarm: fake news and the right fuel attack on NGOs
EuroNews reports:
Ukrainian journalists fear USAID cuts opened up space for Russian disinformation campaigns
Pariah States
DarkReading reports:
‘HoldingHands’ Acts Like a Pickpocket With Taiwan Orgs
Iran-Israel War Triggers a Maelstrom in Cyberspace
Paragon Commercial Spyware Infects Prominent Journalists
The Register reports:
Amazon CISO: Iranian hacking crews ‘on high alert’ since Israel attack
404 Media reports:
The AI Slop Fight Between Iran and Israel
EuroNews reports:
Israel’s spy agency used AI and smuggled-in drones to prepare attack on Iran, sources say
Bleeping Computer reports:
North Korean hackers deepfake execs in Zoom call to spread Mac malware
Telecom giant Viasat breached by China’s Salt Typhoon hackers
Citizen Lab reports:
Same Sea, New Phish: Russian Government-Linked Social Engineering Targets App-Specific Passwords
Big Media
The Guardian reports:
The mainstream media has enabled Trump’s war on universities
BleepingComputer reports:
Washington Post’s email system hacked, journalists’ accounts compromised
Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting reports:
Working Hard to Justify Israel’s Unprovoked Attack on Iran
One Man and his Blog reports:
Digital News Report 2025: exponential media change is here
Big Tech
Ars Technica reports:
OpenAI weighs “nuclear option” of antitrust complaint against Microsoft
How surprising. Two big tech c^nts can’t get along.
The Register reports:
Salesforce study finds LLM agents flunk CRM and confidentiality tests
‘AI is not doing its job and should leave us alone’ says Gartner’s top analyst
Absolutely.
noyb reports:
WhatsApp is getting ads using personal data from Instagram and Facebook
The Guardian reports:
(AI)‘It’s terrifying’: WhatsApp AI helper mistakenly shares user’s number
TechCrunch reports:
xAI is facing a lawsuit for operating over 400 MW of gas turbines without permits
Tumblr’s content-filtering systems have been falsely flagging posts as ‘mature,’ users blame AI
Instagram users complain of mass bans, pointing finger at AI
BleepingComputer reports:
Instagram ‘BMO’ ads use AI deepfakes to scam banking customers
BellingCat reports:
Ludic Mataroa schools the AI Bros:
Contra Ptacek’s Terrible Article On AI
Wired reports:
How Much Energy Does AI Use? The People Who Know Aren’t Saying
The BBC reports:
Is Google about to destroy the web?
Antitrust Intelligence reports:
Microsoft Could Repeat its Teams Strategy, this time with Bing and Edge
The Markup reports:
We caught 4 more states sharing personal health data with Big Tech
Terror
404 Media reports:
The People Search Sites in the Suspected Minnesota Killer’s Notebook Are a Failure of Congress
Cybersecurity/Privacy
Krebs on Security reports:
Inside a Dark Adtech Empire Fed by Fake CAPTCHAs
The Register reports:
Sitecore CMS flaw let attackers brute-force ‘b’ for backdoor
Fuck corporate CMSs.
BleepingComputer reports:
DuckDuckGo beefs up scam defense to block fake stores, crypto sites
Fediverse
The Fediverse Report reports:
The W3C Community Group looks at:
Messaging Layer Security over ActivityPub
Timothy Chambers shares:
The Seven Deadly UX Sins of the Fediverse Web Experience (To Fix)
Mastodon has:
Mastodon is a digital public good
Emily McClue has a bone to pick with them:
New Terms of Service IP clause cannot be terminated or revoked, not even by deleting content
PeerTube announces:
App crowdfunding — Let’s go live!
Elena Rossini shares a valuable asset:
Ghost is:
Bonfire announces:
ActivityPub for WordPress announces:
New Look, Faster Blocks in ActivityPub 6.0.0
TechCrunch reports:
Mastodon updates its terms to prohibit AI model training
Threads is testing spoiler text, Zuckerberg says
Threads expands open social web integrations with fediverse feed, user profile search
Remember to block the instance, threads.net.
Other Slightly Federated Social Media
The Fediverse Report has:
Mathew Ingram says:
Reports of Bluesky’s death have been greatly exaggerated
Tedium shares:
Again, none of this would matter if Bluesky were not a company trying to make money and in debt to VCs.
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.
Keep fighting!
Ringleader, Battalion
Reuben Walker
Follow me on the Fediverse#121 #ActivityPub #AI #Autocracy #BigJournalism #BigTech #Bluesky #Bonfire #Democracy #Fascism #Fediverse #Ghost #Mastodon #Peertube #StopChina #StopIran #StopIsrael #StopRedAmerica #StopRussia #SupportUkraine #TechnoAnarchism #TechnoFeudalism #Threads #WordPress
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Destroying Autocracy – June 12, 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.
DA comes out on Thursday and is updated through the end of day on Friday. Then we start over. So take your time in perusing it and check back in over the weekend.
FYI, my opinions will be in bold. And will often involve cursing. Because humans. Especially tech bros. And fascists. Fuck ’em.
Featured Item
Fediverse favorite and video pro, Elena Rossini has done the ecosystem an outstanding favor by producing a phenomenal promotional video. She is:
Introducing the Fediverse: a New Era of Social Media
I make a cameo appearance at the end. 😎
We start and end with good news to make the middle bearable.
The response to Russia’s War Crimes, Techno Feudalism, and other douchebaggery
The Kyiv Independent reports:
US accuses Russian of laundering millions, helping Moscow obtain sensitive technology
DarkReading reports:
‘Librarian Ghouls’ Cyberattackers Strike at Night
OpenAI Bans ChatGPT Accounts Linked to Nation-State Threat Actors
Open_Future has:
Europe Talks Digital Sovereignty
Heise reports:
Digital sovereignty: EU launches its own DNS service with practical functions
Tech Policy has:
Public Sector Triage of the Federal Government’s Data Hemorrhage
Tech Oligarchy Imperils Democratic Information Flows
And everything else to do with democracy.
The Register reports:
Apple AI boffins puncture AGI hype as reasoning models flail on complex planning
Nordjyske reports:
Digitaliseringsminister vil mindske brug Microsoft i eget ministerium
Denmark tells Microsoft to get fucked. Well half-fucked for now.
Bloomberg Law reports:
DOGE Access to Government Personnel Data Blocked by Judge
Until the SupremeC^nts reverse it.
404 Media reports:
Wikipedia Pauses AI-Generated Summaries After Editor Backlash
Neutral
Balfour Jarnasob says:
Trusting your own judgement on ‘AI’ is a huge risk
The Guardian reports:
The Evil Empire Strikes Back
TechCrunch reports:
Trump administration takes aim at Biden and Obama cybersecurity rules
404 Media reports:
Airlines Don’t Want You to Know They Sold Your Flight Data to DHS
GitHub is Leaking Trump’s Plans to ‘Accelerate’ AI Across Government
Pariah States
The Guardian reports:
Frequent TikTok users in Taiwan more likely to agree with pro-China narratives, study finds
DarkReading reports:
China-Backed Hackers Target SentinelOne in ‘PurpleHaze’ Attack Spree
The Register reports:
Chinese spy crew appears to be preparing for conflict by backdooring 75+ critical orgs
AP New reports:
US-backed Israeli company’s spyware used to target European journalists, Citizen Lab finds
Big Media
The Nerd Reich reports:
Politico’s $50M Peter Thiel Problem
The San Francisco Standard reports:
The ICE agents disappearing your neighbors would like a little privacy, please
Citation Needed opines:
Indeed!
Big Tech
The Guardian reports:
Misogyny in the metaverse: is Mark Zuckerberg’s dream world a no-go area for women?
The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project reports:
Telegram, the FSB, and the Man in the Middle
Verso Books asks:
Is the AI Bubble About to Burst?
If only.
Dutch News reports:
Dutch government websites still reliant on US cloud services
Fortune reports:
‘Sovereign AI’ is political branding. The reality is closer to digital colonialism
404 Media reports:
A Researcher Figured Out How to Reveal Any Phone Number Linked to a Google Account
Senators Demand Meta Answer For AI Chatbots Posing as Licensed Therapists
Zero Party Data reports:
“Localhost tracking” explained. It could cost Meta 32 billion.
Business Insider reports:
Mark Zuckerberg has created the saddest place on the internet with Meta AI’s public feed
And the least private. What a c^nt.
Cybersecurity/Privacy
DarkReading reports:
Next-Gen Developers Are a Cybersecurity Powder Keg
GitHub: How Code Provenance Can Prevent Supply Chain Attacks
Gartner: How Security Teams Can Turn Hype Into Opportunity
The Conversation reports:
Tracking apps monitor remote employees’ performance — and invade their privacy
The Register reports:
Peep show: 40K IoT cameras worldwide stream secrets to anyone with a browser
DeepSeek installer or just malware in disguise? Click around and find out
This is what happens when you use Chinese software and AI. You get what you deserve.
Fediverse
Elena Rossini has this regarding the video in our featured item section:
My Fediverse Promo Video: Frequently Asked Questions
The Fediverse report has:
Bounce, and how the Open Social Web is continually changing
Hamish Campell asks:
ActivityPub for WordPress has:
The IT Blog shares:
Peertube starts a series:
Flutter application development: feedback (1/2)
This is very interesting if you are a developer.
TheNewStack reports:
Bringing Joy Back to the Web: Fediverse vs. Centralized Apps
Mastodon has:
We Distribute reports:
Bandwagon is Bringing Music Sales to the Fediverse
Fedihost shares:
I would recommend PieFed or mbin.
ActivityPub for WordPress announces:
Our 2025 Roadmap: Building the Future of WordPress Federation
This has the potential to double the size of the Fediverse (or more) in the long run.
Ben Werdmuller says:
Other Slightly Federated Social Media
The Fediverse Report has:
Is Bad Behaviour Spoiling the Move from Big Tech?
TechCrunch reports:
Bluesky backlash misses the point
None of this would matter if Bluesky were not a company trying to take money and in debt to VCs.
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.
Keep fighting!
Ringleader, Battalion
Reuben Walker
Follow me on the Fediverse#120 #ActivityPub #AI #Autocracy #Bandwagon #BigJournalism #BigTech #Bluesky #Democracy #Fascism #Fediverse #Ghost #Lemmy #Mastodon #Nextcloud #Peertube #StopChina #StopIsrael #StopRedAmerica #StopRussia #SupportUkraine #TechnoAnarchism #TechnoFeudalism #WordPress
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The Techno Anarchist Manifesto aka Let’s fuck up Techno Feudalism
This practical and profanity-laced manifesto provides the loose philosophy, strategies, battleplans, tactics, and weapons to destroy Techno Feudalism via the practice of Techno Anarchism. It explains the war we are in, the Techno battle’s place in it, and what Techno Feudalism and Techno Anarchism are.
Don’t worry, I not going to start capping tech CEOs anytime soon. I’m not a 1914 anarchist or advocating for it in general.
Introduction
The same day I started writing this article about some ideas floating in my head, Joan Westenberg kind of beat me to the punch on its premise.
This piece will now be more expansive and a sort of manifesto.
I want to focus my thoughts regarding the battle against Techno Feudalism. And narrow my scope. And be systemic.
I will build whatever this ends up being in public. And put my masters degree in Political Science to work. So, this is just the start of a living document. I will update it with more of the philosophy of Techno Anarchism (and other points) in the coming weeks.
It’s also the first thing I’ve written that needs a table of contents.
Here’s what we’re exploring:
- Introduction
- Late Stage Capitalism / Techno Feudalism
- The War
- Enshittification
- The Winnable Battle
- Resources
The Mission
As supporters of democracy we need to engage in a positive fight against this timeline’s bullshit in a manner we can control ourselves.
Our goal should be to destroy autocracy rather than protect democracy. Simply because most of us live in autocracies unfortunately.
Still, we must reform both democracy and neuter it’s biggest threat, Big Tech.
I aim to make this writing more actionable than academic. We need action on the individual level and in small groups – neighborhoods, communities (geographical or digital), libraries, companies, unions, teams, non-profits, associations, clubs, schools, real churches, credit unions, local governments, the arts, independent media, etc. These groups have always been the building blocks of democracy. And they must be nurtured through use and membership.
I call the solution I propose to combat autocracy and Techno Feudalism, Techno Anarchism. While political anarchism as defined by Wikipedia is currently unlikely if not impossible. You will see that in the tech arena, it is possible.
“Major definitional elements of anarchism include the will for a non-coercive society, the rejection of the state apparatus, the belief that human nature allows humans to exist in or progress toward such a non-coercive society, and a suggestion on how to act to pursue the ideal of anarchy.”
It’s idealistic but not 100% practical. But we can build its practicality via our interactions with tech.
Now, Wikipedia defines a manifesto as:
“A manifesto is a written declaration of the intentions, motives, or views of the issuer, be it an individual, group, political party, or government. A manifesto can accept a previously published opinion or public consensus, but many prominent manifestos—such as The Communist Manifesto (1848) and those of various artistic movements—reject accepted knowledge in favor of a new idea.”
Is that what this will be? I think it mostly will.
The Problem
But, before going into the details of this manifesto, let’s explore our major problem as humans, what and who we are fighting, and the bigger war that the techno feudalism versus anarchism battle takes place in.
First, let’s look at the problem, ourselves. We have not evolved enough as humans to keep up with the culture, economies, and technology we’ve developed. That’s why we feel alienated and a little lost.
We need a purpose be it one dictated by religion (for the weak-minded) or philosophy. Or a very strong personal moral framework which is difficult. We might even get by with a manifesto. 😉 What we want to avoid is ideologies.
In general our overwhelmed brains need structure for things we don’t understand or can’t explain. We want simple, not the truth, which is why autocrats have an advantage. We’re mostly uneducated, unaware, unobservant, and intellectually lazy so we want easy answers.
Greg Epstein’s book, Tech Agnostic: How Technology Became the World’s Most Powerful Religion, and Why It Desperately Needs a Reformation has this:
“Today technology is the water in which we swim, whether on not we notice we are fish. Tech provides contemporary Western lives, so polarized and divided in countless ways, with a universal organizing principle… It offers myriad rites, capturing our attention and transforming our consciousness, connecting us with a community of people who spend their days…indeed their entire lives engaging in the same repetitive behaviors with the same fervent intensity.
Naturally, we all hope our devotion to this community of fellow travelers will bear fruit: surely tech will lead to a better future! Even a kind of paradise! But the truth is many of us fear, more than we’d like to admit, this may all be heading to a deeply dark place.
In other words: technology has become a religion.”
As you see, Big Tech now functions as a religion. It provides answers as more people reject the horseshit of traditional religion.
But, there’s no putting the genie back in the bottle so it needs to be reformed into a more satisfying religion. More the Tao of Pooh than the Old Testament and Revelations. More philosophy and morality for how to live life and less damnation, doctrine, and hate. One grown by us not tech oligarchs. More good, less evil. Ok.
More on this will follow in future updates.
Late Stage Capitalism / Techno Feudalism
Next let’s take a look at economics. Currently we are stuck in the economic model of capitalism. The problem is that it’s not really capitalism. It’s rigged, crony, oligarchic capitalism headed back toward feudalism. Some argue persuasively that it has already fully evolved into Techno Feudalism.
So, let’s define Techno Feudalism.
Is it a malign denomination of the Tech religion?
The child of Big Tech and Late Stage / Crony Capitalism?
Or just a bunch of cunts in Silicon Valley?
Yanis Varoufakis coined the term Techno Feudalism. So, here’s his hypothesis:
“… capitalism is dead, in the sense that its dynamics no longer govern our economies. … that role … has been replaced by something fundamentally different, which I call techno feudalism.
… the thing that killed capitalism is capital itself. Not capital as we have known it since the dawn of the industrial revolution, a new form of capital, a mutation of it that has arisen in the last two decades, so much more powerful that its predecessor that like a stupid, overzealous virus it has killed off its host.”
How’s that for an academic sentence. 😉
He continues:
“… capital’s mutation into what I call cloud capital has demolished capitalism’s two pillars: markets and profits.
Markets, the medium of capitalism, have been replaced by digital trading platforms, which look like, but are not markets, and are better understood as fiefdoms. And profit, the engine of capitalism, has been replaced with its feudal predecessor, rent.
… the owners of tradition capital … have become vassals in relation to a new class of feudal overlord, the owners of cloud capital.
… the rest of us have returned to our former status a serfs … contributing to the wealth and power of the new ruling class with our unpaid labor – in addition to the waged labor we perform, when we get the chance.”
Does this sound familiar? I think so.
And who wants to be a fucking serf? Not me.
More on this will follow in future updates.
The subject of equality is obviously relevant to feudal overlords and serfs.
In his book, A Brief History of Equality, Thomas Piketty writes:
“…since the end of the eighteenth century there has been a historical movement toward equality. The world of the early 2020s, no matter how unjust it may seem, is more egalitarian than that of 1950 or that of 1900, which were themselves more egalitarian than those of 1850 or 1780. ..over the long term, no matter the criterion we employ, we arrive at the same conclusion. Between 1780 and 2020 we see developments tending toward greater equality…
To continue… crises and power relations are necessary, as was the case in the past, but we will also need processes of learning and collective engagement, as well as mobilization around new political programs and proposals for new institutions.
Resistance by elites is a reality, in a world in which transnational billionaires are richer than states, much as in the French revolution. Such resistance can be overcome only by powerful collective mobilization during moments of crises and tension.
To ensure that everyone can contribute… in a decentralized way, we must develop new forms of sovereignism with a universalist vocation.”
I maintain that Techno Feudalism is contributing to the current slow to non-existent grow of equality. And I also maintain that Techno Anarchism can reverse the trend and grow equality via small-scale social mobilization and personal-data-sovereignty among other strategies to destroy Techno Feudalism.
Politics aka The War
Now, on to politics. Let’s begin with a few points. And a quick note, this isn’t about parties, but policies and exercising political rights.
Autocracy is a threat to democracy. Authoritarianism is a threat to human rights. Fascism is a threat to minorities. Autocrats, Fascists (secular or religious), and Communists are the bad guys.
However, unregulated capitalism and digital technology are a deadlier threat to democracy. Big Money and Big Tech equal the really bad guys. Oligarchs suck.
These two threats to human freedom go hand in hand. Unbound capitalism leads to fascist / authoritarian governments which lead to corrupt, crony capitalism or state capitalism aka hypocritical communism. Both of which erode and eventually destroy democracy, the environment, and human rights.
So, we need to reform and regulate large-scale capitalism and keep autocracy at bay. And again, reform democracy to function in the world we now live in.
Tech both in its Silicon Valley incarnation and the tools of repression Chinese / Israeli model are destroying democracy. One via corrupt, oligarchic capitalism / Techno Feudalism. And one via authoritarianism.
In we want democracy to survive we must fight these two tech models along with autocrats, autocratic political parties, autocratic nations, and autocratic ideologies.
More on this will follow in future updates.
The War’s Combatants
To reiterate, the larger war which I think of as WWIII is one between supporters of democracy and what I call the Evil Empire (Reagan is dead and I have commandeered the term!):
- Unregulated Capitalists / Techno Feudalists
- Big Tech in general
- Autocrats
The Evil Empire
Unregulated capitalist oligarchs, and Techno Feudalists
We’ve seen who they are.
More on this will follow in future updates.
Big Tech which is mostly Techno Feudalists, and some Techno Fascists
In her book, The Tech Coup: How to Save Democracy from Silicon Valley, Marietje Schaake writes:
“…the fact that our social, professional, and civil lives are increasingly digitized and, essentially, all aspects of digitation are in the hands of private companies; that certain technologies have inherent antidemocratic characteristics, while laws to protect democratic values and the rule of law are lagging; and that, most important, democratic governments’ outsourcing of key functions has led to a hollowing out of government’s core capabilities.
These systemic problems are now undermining the core principles of democracy: free and fair elections, the rule of law, the separation of powers, a well-informed, public debate, national security and the protection of civil liberties such as freedom of expression, the presumption of innocence, and the right to privacy.
As digitization progresses, we see a gradual shift in responsibility and power away from democratic leaders. This shift accelerates two trends: growing digital authoritarianism and a wholesale decline in democratic governance.”
We are the frogs being slowly boiled in the pot as the temperature rises. But, it’s not a fucking joke.
More on this will follow in future updates.
Autocrats
You are probably most familiar with these villains. They either rule your country or are a political party(ies) in it.
In her book, Autocracy Inc: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World Anne Applebaum writes:
“Unlike military or political alliances from other times and places, (today’s Autocrats) operates not like a bloc but rather like an agglomeration of companies, bound not by ideology but rather by a ruthless, single-minded determination to preserve their personal wealth and power, Autocracy, Inc.
Their bonds with one another, and with their friends in the democratic world, are cemented not through ideals but through deals – deals designed to take the edge off sanctions, to exchange surveillance technology, to help one another get rich.
Autocracy, Inc., offers its members not only money and security but also something less tangible, impunity.
Their enmity toward the democratic world is not merely some form of traditional geopolitical competition… (It) …has its roots in the very nature of the democratic political system, in words “accountability,” “transparency,” and “democracy.” They hear that language coming from the democratic world, they hear the same language coming from their on dissidents, and they seek to destroy them both.”
More on this will follow in future updates.
Democracy Supporters / Enlightened Humans
This is short. It’s us. At least the intelligent ones in the “Western World”, Oceana, Japan, and South Korea rules-based world. Plus a few other countries in the global south and various dissidents everywhere.
Enshittification
Before moving on to Techno Anarchism, here’s a quick note about Enshittification. It is part of techno feudalism. Chicken or the egg first? I don’t know.
But, Cory Doctorow describes enshittification like this:
“Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die. I call this enshittification, and it is a seemingly inevitable consequence arising from the combination of the ease of changing how a platform allocates value, combined with the nature of a “two-sided market”, where a platform sits between buyers and sellers, hold each hostage to the other, raking off an ever-larger share of the value that passes between them.”
So, not only are Techno Feudalists part of the evil empire, their products suck as well.
Ok, enough about the cunts. Let’s move on the good guys.
The Winnable Battle
Will democracy win the war against autocracy? Who knows? It’s an eternal war that the bad guys currently have the upper hand in. And have had for the last decade or two. And have had for 99.99% of human history. Make what you will of that.
But, one of the war’s largest current battles can definitely be won. Equality can continue to grow. And our lives can be improved. And the world’s apocalypse can be delayed.
This battle is the one where Techno Anarchism opposes Techno Feudalism.
It is winnable because this victory can be achieved at the personal and small group level. It also has the advantage that the bad guys can’t defeat it (only resist it). Only apathy (which is also hard to overcome) can defeat Techno Anarchism. If you have a hundred million of drops of water you might drown an elephant. If you have a hundred you can’t even get one toe wet.
It’s also winnable because it’s more of a matter of changing habits (difficult) than political beliefs (extremely difficult). Anarchists and libertarians can be partial allies here along with many other freedom lovers.
And partial is important because this battle’s tactics are modular. It’s not all or nothing. You can take it one step at a time. It’s easy to be a soldier and not too hard to be an officer. You can increase your efforts over time as you get in the martial groove. Hopefully, you can even become a general.
Techno Anarchism
Finally, let’s move on to Techno Anarchism / Digital Distributism and Digital Sovereignty (which is slightly different). This is the philosophy, strategies, and actions needed to defeat Techno Feudalism.
As I mentioned before, Joan Westenberg published something similar to my gestating thoughts. So, let’s not reinvent the wheel and look as her points.
The article in question is The Revolution Will Be Decentralized. It’s not really a revolution, but more a radical adjustment of habits. But, if it happens it will be decentralized. Anyway, take a break and go read her article now! You may need to eat lunch too.
You’re back. Great.
She uses the terms Digital Democracy and Digital Feudalism versus Techno Anarchism and Techno Feudalism.
Westenberg’s central idea addresses both distribution and personal data sovereignty:
“The implementation of Digital Distributism rests on three foundational pillars: infrastructure commons, data sovereignty, and algorithmic democracy. Each pillar requires specific technical and organizational structures to function effectively.
The revolution toward digital democracy begins with individual choices. Every person who moves to decentralized platforms weakens the grip of tech monopolies. Every contribution to open source projects builds alternative infrastructure. Every act of resistance against surveillance and control helps shift the balance of power.
But individual action is not, is never enough. It must be coupled with collective organization. We need coordinated efforts to build and promote alternatives. We need political movements that understand the connection between digital and democratic power. We need communities dedicated to practicing digital distributism in their own operations.
The infrastructure of freedom won’t build itself. But neither did the infrastructure of control. Every system of power depends on the daily choices of millions of individuals. Will we shape the change toward digital democracy or submit to digital feudalism?”
That’s the question. And fortunately you can answer it.
How? With a blast from the past.
Joan and I both propose a similar idea, the Digital Distributist Alternative (Joan) and Techno Anarchism (me).
But FYI, these are not new ideas. They existed before as an alternative to capitalism and socialism. Unfortunately, they didn’t win out.
Distributism
Traditional Distributism is summarized by Wikipedia as:
”Distributism is an economic theory asserting that the world’s productive assets should be widely owned rather than concentrated. Developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, distributism was based upon Catholic social teaching principles, especially those of Pope Leo XIII in his encyclical Rerum novarum (1891) and Pope Pius XI in Quadragesimo anno (1931). It has influenced Anglo Christian Democratic movements, and has been recognized as one of many influences on the social market economy.
Distributism views laissez-faire capitalism and state socialism as equally flawed and exploitative, due to their extreme concentration of ownership. Instead, it favors small independent craftsmen and producers; or, if that is not possible, economic mechanisms such as cooperatives and member-owned mutual organisations, as well as small to medium enterprises and vigorous anti-trust laws to restrain or eliminate overweening economic power.”
Techno Distributism / Anarchism is the modern equivalent fighting Techno Feudalism as opposed to unregulated capitalism and state socialism. And it has a better chance of coming out on top. It’s more about the means of computation and consumption versus the means of production.
We’re digital serfs here, not the proletariat.
More on this will follow in future updates.
So, we now have our nebulously defined movement, Techno Anarchism. How do we win the war against its all to real foe?
By slowly killing Techno Feudalism with weapons of course.
The Arsenal of Techno Anarchism
Okay, so what are the weapons we can use to destroy Techno Feudalism?
Open Source Technology
We start by using open-source technology. Again, it has the advantage that it can’t be bought and enshittified at scale.
Let’s examine the arsenal in detail. Please explore and start using these tools while dropping their enshittified, corporate, feudalistic alternatives. Obviously, all of these are not for everyone. But, do what you can.
They will also boost the privacy and security of your personal data aka your digital sovereignty.
More details on these individual tools will follow in future updates. For now please use the links.
Password Manager
VPN
Browser
Search Engine
Cloud
Office Suite
Chat / Messaging
eMail
Personal Websites via opensource publishing software
- Drupal CMS (integrates with Fediverse)
- WordPress.org not .com (integrates with Fediverse)
- Joomla)
- Microwebber
- Publi)
RSS
Your website should have it. And you should follow your allies’ websites with it.
App Building
Operating Systems
Computers – Linux. But very user-friendly, similar to Chromebooks.
Mobile devices
Hardware
Fediverse
In the home stretch, let’s look at the most powerful weapon against techno feudalism, The Fediverse.
Corporate social media is even worse than mass media. Millions of morons can get on it and pontificate as much as they want. It is used by extremists and conspiracy theorists to devastating effect. And it’s run by the motherfuckers behind techno feudalism. Today’s true rulers control the algorithms that show all this horseshit, encourage it, and addict us to following it.
In her book, Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies into Reality, Renee DiResta writes:
“My focus is on a profound transformation in the dynamics of power and influence, which have fundamentally shifted, and on how we, the citizens, can come to grips with a force that is altering our politics, our society, and our very relationship to reality. For sure, companies and governments must bear their burden of figuring out how to regulate this new space, and how to restore trust and shore up institutions, but we as citizens, have a responsibility to understand these dynamics so we can build healthy norms and fight back. This is the task of a new civics.”
Well said, though I have no faith in the companies doing shit and little faith in governments doing their part competently. So it falls to us as Techno Anarchists to unfuck this. We can do this by leaving corporate social media and moving to the Fediverse.
In his book, Governable Spaces: Democratic Design for Online Life, Nathan Schneider writes:
“The ways people can and cannot collectively self-govern in daily online life, furthermore, have been constrained in dominant social networks… the constraints on governance in online spaces have contributed to the peril of democratic politics in general. It is not enough to merely defend existing governmental institutions, healthy democracy depends on enabling creative new forms of self-governance, especially on networks.
If democracy is on the horizon (for humanity), self-governance is a plausible practice for moving in that direction. Governable Spaces, then, are where democratic self-governance can happen.
…the design of online social spaces has contributed to the atrophy of everyday democratic skills. (Fortunately) …the future of democracy can begin at the level of ordinary community, wherever we find ourselves together, where each of us has a chance to make a difference.”
You and I can make have a profound impact on the governance of the Fediverse in addition to the good it does in the world. Pick a platform and get involved.
We covered the enshittification of corporate social media above.
For its The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation page, Cory Doctorow’s publisher wrote:
“When the tech platforms promised a future of “connection,” they were lying. They said their “walled gardens” would keep us safe, but those were prison walls.
The platforms locked us into their systems and made us easy pickings, ripe for extaction. Twitter, Facebook and other Big Tech platforms hard to leave by design. They hold hostage the people we love, the communities that matter to us, the audiences and customers we rely on. The impossibility of staying connected to these people after you delete your account has nothing to do with technological limitations: it’s a business strategy in service to commodifying your personal life and relationships.
We can – we must – dismantle the tech platforms. (We must) …seize the means of computation, by forcing Silicon Valley to do the thing it fears most: interoperate. Interoperability will tear down the walls between technologies, allowing users leave platforms, remix their media, and reconfigure their devices without corporate permission.
Interoperability is the only route to the rapid and enduring annihilation of the platforms. The Internet Con is the disassembly manual we need to take back our internet.”
To counteract enshittification (and speed up the death of these feudal social platforms) we must seize the means of communication / computation via self-publishing with open-source tech. This is provided by personal websites built with open-source technology and distributed with RSS as seen earlier and via the Fediverse. Decentralization and interoperability are key. We must work for these results politically as well.
The Fediverse is the most formidable weapon of Techno Anarchy because it is unbuyable. It is unseizable if hosted in Europe. And it lets us focus on localism (again small groups) vs globalism. It’s distributed not siloed. And open-source not corporate. No ads, less harassment, and less bullshit greet you there. It’s also quite anarchic in general.
Learn more about the technical aspects and platforms of the Fediverse from these Symfony Station articles.
- You say you want a revolution: help the free, fair, and friendly Fediverse destroy Big Social
- Intrigued by the Fediverse – Traverse our Accounts to Map your Journey
And more details on these individual tools will follow in future updates. For now please use the links.
Publishing – Distribution
Publishing – Personal Websites / Blogging
Microblogging
- MastodonDo join Mastodon, but don’t join the mastodon.social instance.
- Friendica – Follow me on the Friendica.
- GoToSocial
- And more.
Photos
Do join Pixelfed, but don’t join the pixelfed.social instance.
Videos
Podcasting
Forums / Link Aggregators
Music
Curation
Surf Dawn Patrol from Flipboard
It’s a critical tactic to use these weapons. It’s also important to support them financially and to be active in their communities.
Tactics
Here are some more easy and local tactics.
Support the Independent Non-profit Press
The mass media is an unreliable ally in the war against autocracy much less the battle against Techno Feudalism.
Traditional journalism is flailing and failing. And it’s slowly going out of business. Plus, they are too spineless to save themselves. It’s because they are corporate and thus cowards. And they are mostly owned by cunts.
Instead, we need to support and patronize independent non-profit journalistic organizations. That means giving them money directly my fellow anarchists.
Like this publication the following examples are tech-oriented or political-oriented. But there are many for every issue you care about.
- Propublica
- 404 Media
- The Markup
- CalMatters
- The 19th News
- good internet magazine– coming soon
- Investigative Journalism Foundation
- Tech Policy
- Newsletters, unless they are on SubStack
- Public Media
Think Global, Buy Local
Before spending your capital, think about that decision’s impact on our planet and your fellow humans. That’s basic morality. And please buy physical products from a local brick and mortar store. And only if you need them.
More relevant to Techno Anarchism, buy digital products from small tech suppliers or open-source suppliers or non and not-for-profits. Donate as much money as you can to open-source technology and other non-profit service providers.
This is easy, it just takes a little conscious thought and avoiding lazy thinking. Or a lack of thinking.
Battleplan
I am sure you’re ready to kick some ass. So, what can you do? I think you mostly know by now. It’s not complex. We’re not invading Normandy here.
Digital Sovereignty
You must own your communications, own your data, own your digital identity, own your digital devices, and own your own online real estate. Use the open-source technology featured here. Use open-source hardware. Each time you do you place a nail in Techno Feudalism’s coffin. The more you use, the faster that death occurs.
Choose Your Weapons and Kill Techno Feudalism
Use the weapons in Techno Anarchism’s arsenal. Again, the battle against Techno Feudalism is modular. It’s not all or nothing. You can take it one step at a time or one weapon at a time. Put more nails in. And add as many as you can over time. Let’s shut that fucker tight.
You’re the General
Again, proceed at your pace. Rome wasn’t built or destroyed in a day and these corporate shits are difficult to leave. Intentionally.
We’re in WWIII here and its going to take a while to kill these fucks and cripple their allies. But, they are going to die. Inglorious bastards style but via Techno Anarchism not bullets or baseball bats. That’s the final resort I hope we never see.
Thanks for reading my semi-manifesto. Please share it, bookmark it, and come back to it later as a reference and to see its updates.
Keep Fighting Anarchists! We can win this. The power is yours.
Resources
To begin with, follow us each week for the latest happenings in this battle via Battalion’s Destroying Autocracy posts.
Follow me via the Fediverse. Or follow this site via the button in the footer. Or via RSS. Or follow Battalion on Bluesky.
If you are of an academic bent, feel free to take a deep dive into the resources inspiring this manifesto.
Tech as a Religion
The War
The Tech Coup: How to Save Democracy from Silicon Valley
Autocrats
Autocracy Inc: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World
Techno Feudalism
Welcome to the Age of Technofeudalism
How Silicon Valley Unleashed Techno-feudalism:The Making of the Digital Economy
Critique of Techno-Feudal Reason
Techno Feudalism: What Killed Capitalism
Governable Spaces book: Democratic Design for Online Life
Techno Anarchism/Digital Distributism
The Revolution Will Be Decentralized
The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation
Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies into Reality
Capital in the Twenty-First Century
Governable Spaces: Democratic Design for Online Life
CTAs (aka show us some free love)
- Please share this article.
- Follow me on the Fediverse. Or this site via the button in the footer. Or via RSS.
- Or follow Battalion on Bluesky.
Ringleader, Battalion
Reuben Walker
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