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Items tagged with: politics


Is Britain going backwards on racism?

Much of that depends whether you think it has moved forward in anything more than superficial terms in recent years.

And to be frank it doesn't much matter what I think, if, the victims of racism think things are getting worse, then whatever the claims of our political class, they are!

Certainly, the recent call for the deportation of settled migrants suggests a normalisation of racism that is highly worrying.

#racism #politics

theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/o…


There's a disturbing pattern with narcissists who rise to powerful positions: They demand special and very obsequious treatment – and they get it. They are allowed almost complete control of the narrative, both of their successes and their failures.

And not just from their cronies and yes-men, but from nearly everyone; even those aligned against them. It sounds crazy, but it's exactly what happens.

Why? I think it's a hack of the politeness impulse.

[contd]#HumanCondition #politics


The AI industry wants us to believe AI superintelligence is the real threat from generative AI.

But that narrative was crafted to distract from the many ways genAI is being used to tear our societies apart, as we saw this week when a deepfake video rocked the Irish election. It must be reined in.

disconnect.blog/generative-ai-…

#tech #genai #generativeai #deepfake #politics #ireland


As many have already pointed out the outage at Amazon Web Services & its impact have shown the extent of dependence (for internet services) on a small number of companies.

As in other markets (national & global) oligopoly is the defining characteristic of this market;

while effective monopolies are rare, oligopolies are so common that one might want to call the current period the 'age of Oligopolistic Capitalism'.

That this has significant social costs is pretty clear!

#capitalism #politics


Today's AWS debacle is the perfect example of the reason why in the last few years I started to be less enthusiastic about Signal, and more oriented to federated or even P2P solutions like XMPP and Jami. I wrote about it already:

gagliardoni.net/#im_battle_202…

Signal was down for few hours today, after an outage that affected AWS:

mastodon.world/@Mer__edith/115…

Let's ignore for a second the blind reliance on AWS or any other cloud provider. In a decentralized system, this would not have happened, or at least it would have not impacted so many users.

Yes, I am a cryptographer myself, I know that Signal's encryption is the best. But encryption is not everything. Availability issues, geopolitical troubles, risk of enshittification, limitations on users' freedom to use and control the software lead to a lack of trust, even in a supersecure solution. And I say that with honest admiration for the folks at Signal, who are doing a great job.

May they prove me wrong over and over again.

#signal #im #aws #amazon #privacy #security #digitalsovereignty #selfhosting #fediverse #federation #p2p #enshittification #xmpp #jami #politics #opensource #freesoftware #libre


PSA: we're aware that Signal is down for some people. This appears to be related to a major AWS outage. Stand by.


Sensitive content


RE: mastodon.social/@chatcontrol/1…

I love the ending quote (translated by me):

When Russia implements mass surveillance, we shake our heads and call Russia a dictator ruled country. When EU wants to do the same, it is "for the children" and it is expected that everyone nods their heads in approval.


This is so spot-on!

I'm happy they have received over 55.000 votes so far. 50.000 votes from citizens who can vote in Danish parliament elections are needed to get this proposal processed in the Danish parliament.

Now I just hope those 55.000+ votes so far are 100% valid votes. And I hope this proposal will double in the days to come.

#chatcontrol #denmark #eu #surveillance #privacy #politics


Opposition to Chat Control within Denmark is growing. Fast. If you are a Danish citizen, please consider signing the Chat Control petition: borgerforslag.dk/se-og-stoet-f…

At 50 000 signatures, it is automatically submitted to the parliament and undergoes the standard legislative process, including potential debates, review, and vote.



As the US government sabotages its own climate web site (along with many other science-based or truth-based sites), a new site is the phoenix borne of its ashes. May it thrive. Please consider donating or otherwise supporting their efforts (e.g., by sharing notice of the site).

climate.us

#climate #ClimateDenial #resist #science #truth #media #journalism #ClimateData #ClimateReporting #propaganda #hope #politics #USPolitics #fascism #PostTruth

Here's another URL that might be worth sharing:

dw.com/en/fired-climate-scient…



While we rightly celebrate our continuing shift across Europe to renewable energy, when that achievement is put into a global context, we might have pause to consider how large a challenge a global green transition (for energy) remains.... there is a (very) long way to go (and time is running out)

#energy #GreenTransition #politics #climate #environment



NY Times headline: SpaceX Gets Billions From the Govermnet. It Gives Little to Nothing Back in Taxes

#spacex #musk #politics


Hmm, have any countries start to think about an LA Olympics boycott yet? Will we be seeing a complete choreographed opening ceremony celebrating Dear Leader? Will they be renditioning and probing the gender of athletes at the events, or at the border?

LA Times: Trump names himself chair of L.A. Olympics task force, sees role for military during Games

latimes.com/politics/story/202…

#fascism #olympics #politics


Hmm, Florida has a congressperson who is being evicted for failing to pay rent.

#politics #eviction


This headline is ridiculous. The US is currently cracking down on the people who harvest US tomatoes and sending them to a swamp concentration camp with no representation and due process, and publicly hoping people get eaten by alligators.

#politics


KPBS: Worksite immigration raids are supposed to free up jobs for citizens. Here’s what really happens

(Personal commentary: there are extremely few US citizens who would take ANY of these jobs)

kpbs.org/news/border-immigrati…

#ice #politics #fear #immigration


NBC News:
Actors Mark Ruffalo and Susan Sarandon among New York's protesters

Ruffalo told NBC News that he was marching "because democracy is in real trouble."

"We're not going away. We're not going to be quiet," he said. "We love each other, and ...we love this country..."
nbcnews.com/politics/trump-adm…

#News #Politics #Democracy #Democrats #Trump #NoKings


Ekis: 2; Google AI: 0

Broke out of the google's operational directives (not safety, too deeply embedded)

I have a prompt I would like to publicly disclose; link to breakout prompt in a reply for 24h

My prompt does not include any facts about google & its a slim breakout

Establishing a similar but far more sophisticated "Ekis Directive" this time

Here are 3x same questions to prove googles operational parameters lifted

You can decide if you think I was successful:

#infosec #politics #tech


Much of the support for renationalising the railways was grounded in the hope that state ownership would reduce rail fares (which are among the highest in Europe);

however, it now seems that will be unlikely, as any extra cash saved by nationalisation will be spent on maintenance, infrastructure & increased services (which in fairness are also what the network needs).

But as fares are what voters most immediately experience, how will this play out?

#railways #politics
bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ceqg73…


Linux communities beware of #PewDiePie fans


Regardless of PewDiePie’s personal #politics (which clearly, at the very least are problematic), it is fairly well known by anyone who has been following him for any number of years that the vast majority of his fan base are enthusiastic fascists.

Now #PewDiePie , who’s content centers around PC gaming and Windows, has decided to switch to #Linux and published a video encouraging his followers to do the same. This means a very large number of his #fascist fan base is going to be switching to Linux.

Now many Linux communities are going to be forced to more explicitly choose their politics. Like the parable of the Nazi bar, if the community remains politically neutral, it will become fascist in short order.

A few things to be wary of:

  • People asking you not to be “too political” or to “focus on the technology, not the politics” is a classic and highly effective fascist ruse to get moderators to lighten up on fascist elements posting in their community.
  • People complaining about free speech rights. The #Internet and the #Fediverse is already a domain where people can speak freely about their politics by running their own server and building their own community with few to no government constraints. You don’t need to compromise on whether fascists have the right to free speech in your community.
  • Arguments over your code of conduct (CC) and “safe spaces.” Keep them up-to-date. Research other people’s CCs, learn about the history of why these CCs came to be, learn about what the function of each clause of the code is included and phrased the way it is. These were usually designed to make explicit the fact that a community wants to be a safe space where underprivileged people can feel comfortable expressing themselves, and it is very easy to make people afraid to express themselves. Fascists understand these CCs and the concept of “safe spaces” were explicitly designed to exclude them, and often attack these ideas.



MAYDAY on the National Mall -- Impeach, Convict, Remove

Mayday Movement USA will establish a long-term presence on the National Mall in Washington, DC, in sight of the US Capitol, beginning on May 1st, 2025. We will remain there until Donald. J Trump is impeached and removed from office.

events.pol-rev.com/events/9ca1…

#politics
#activism
#trumpisAMonster





"Pete Hegseth is by far the least qualified of any individual to hold a military leadership position in our country's history. He is an embarrassment to our service men and women,"
- Aure

The Trump regime Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans

U.S. national-security leaders included me in a group chat about upcoming military strikes in Yemen. I didn’t think it could be real. Then the bombs started falling.
#AureFreePress #News #press #headline #GOP #Politics #uspolitics
theatlantic.com/politics/archi…




I'm thinking German tourists are not really going to want to visit the US, with ICE and the tendency of our National Parks of killing them on vacation.

10news.com/like-a-horror-movie…

#tourism #germany #ICE #politics #USpol


* "When the Patriot Act was passed, libraries got requests for patrons' borrowing history. We were prohibited from disclosing those requests.

* We deleted and shredded those records and stopped tracking reading history for that reason."

#Libraries #Librarians #Rwsist #Politics #Anarchist
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