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:

Control content use for AI training with Cloudflare’s managed robots.txt and blocking for monetized content

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

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

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

PC Gamer reports:

‘AI is no longer optional’: Microsoft is allegedly pressuring employees to use AI tools through manager evaluations

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:

Fediverse Report – #123

Mastodon has:

Mastodon 4.4 for Developers

Dead Superher looks at:

Mitigating the “7 Deadly Fediverse UX Sins”

Jaz-Michael King shares:

Digital Belonging: Why Language and Locality Matter

Viger has:

Flipboard Surf

TechCrunch reports:

Automattic puts Tumblr migration to WordPress on hold

Ghost has:

The Longformers: Ghost, WordPress, Flipboard, Fediverse

NodeBB asks:

What drew you to ActivityPub?

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

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

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.

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

https://battalion.mobileatom.net/?p=2072

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:

Le Cigref soutient la démarche de résilience numérique portée par la France, l’Allemagne et les Pays-Bas pour construire une Europe numérique durable et de confiance dans le cadre d’Eurostack

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

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:

A federal judge sides with Anthropic in lawsuit over training AI on books without authors’ permission

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

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:

Substack’s Secret

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

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:

Fediverse Report – #122

Welcome to Connected Places

Hamish Campbell has:

Actors, Power, and Collective Publishing: Rethinking Fediverse Architecture for Grassroots Media

This is a story of power, plain and simple

And he’s correct.

Timothy Chambers has:

The Seven Deadly Fediverse UX Sins Part 2: The Road To Redemption

Bless his soul.

Jaz-Michael King introduces:

StartHereSocial

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:

Mastodon for institutions

62 new projects contribute to digital commons

There are other Fediverse grants in this article including WordPress, Activity Pub, Funkwhale, and Node BB.

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

https://battalion.mobileatom.net/?p=2027

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 New Surveillance State: Why Data Privacy Is Now Essential to Democracy

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.

Zenodo shares:

The Anti-Autocracy Handbook: A Scholars’ Guide to Navigating Democratic Backsliding

Read it, live 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:

US group designed to pressure Russia into peace in Ukraine disbanded by Trump administration, Reuters 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:

Meta’s Suit Against Hong Kong Firm Was Just the Beginning – More Companies Linked to CrushAI ‘Nudify’ Apps

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

The Electronic Frontier Foundation shows us how to:

Protect Yourself From Meta’s Latest Attack on Privacy

Better yet, don’t use their shit.

Fediverse

The Fediverse Report reports:

Fediverse Report – #121

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 in 2025

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:

Introducing the Fediverse

Ghost is:

Surfacing discussions

Bonfire announces:

Bonfire Custom Feeds: Events

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.

Matrix fires a volley:

Dispelling myths and misinformation

Other Slightly Federated Social Media

The Fediverse Report has:

Bluesky Report – #121

Mathew Ingram says:

Reports of Bluesky’s death have been greatly exaggerated

Tedium shares:

The Narrative

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

https://battalion.mobileatom.net/?p=1984

İran, İsrail'de sivilleri hedef alıyor dünya sessiz kalıyor! #StayWithIsrael #StopIran!

Destroying Autocracy – May 29, 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

Anil Dash writes:

The concept of consent doesn’t exist on the modern internet.

You didn’t read the terms of service. You didn’t agree to accept cookies. I didn’t consent to having my site pulled into the training model for that artificial intelligence system that’s going to use to sell the fruit of my labor for profit. I didn’t agree to have my activity tracked across all these different websites and cobbled together into a creepy and inaccurate profile of my preferences that gets sold without my permission.

Nobody asks for anything, they just take it. There’s not even an acknowledgement, that any of this stuff is happening let alone a conversation about it.

The Internet of Consent

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

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

CyberNews reports:

Massive security blunder: Russian nuclear site blueprints exposed in public procurement database

The Register reports:

Europe warns giant e-tailer to stop cheating consumers or face its wrath

Tuta reports:

Are cookie banners illegal?

In Europe, there’s good news.

404 Media reports:

Flock Decides Not to Use Hacked Data in People Search Tool

Yeah, but for how long?

Civitai Ban of Real People Content Deals Major Blow to the Nonconsensual AI Porn Ecosystem

John Onolan reflects on:

12 years of Ghost

DarkReading reports:

Danabot Takedown Deals Blow to Russian Cybercrime

How to Geek has:

After Switching to Linux, This App Helped Me Drop Google for Good

The Next Web reports:

Elon Musk’s Grok chatbot banned by a quarter of European firms

Be sure to see the Signal article below.

The Register reports:

Poll of 1,000 senior techies: Euro execs mull use of US clouds

Apple has only 30 days to comply with EU DMA rules

Ars Technica reports:

It’s too expensive to fight every AI copyright battle, Getty CEO says

That’s why we need laws and regulations.

Tech Policy shares:

Debunking Myths About AI Laws and the Proposed Moratorium on State AI Regulation

AI Monopolies Are Coming. Now’s the Time to Stop Them.

18F announces:

18F files legal challenge

TechCrunch reports:

Hugging Face unveils two new humanoid robots

Neutral

TechPolicy reports:

The GDPR Shake-Up: What You Need to Know

Vox reports:

The new pope has strong opinions about AI. Good.

Our Techno Anarchist Manifesto looks into similar ideas from other Popes.

The Center for Democracy and Technology has:

This is Not An #Ad: Political Influencers, Elections, and Information Integrity on Social Media

The Evil Empire Strikes Back

TechCrunch reports:

Why a new anti-revenge porn law has free speech experts alarmed

Tech Policy reports:

The Big Beautiful Bill Could Decimate Legal Accountability for Tech and Anything Tech Touches

404 Media reports:

ICE Taps into Nationwide AI-Enabled Camera Network, Data Shows

Developer Builds Tool That Scrapes YouTube Comments, Uses AI to Predict Where Users Live

The Register reports:

Ex-CISA employee: ‘This culture of fear started permeating the agency’

Renée DiResta reports:

A Comment on the Comment Call: Dissecting the FTC’s Inquiry Into Content Moderation

New Republic reports:

Trump Taps Palantir to Create Master Database on Every American

Pariah States

BleepingComputer reports:

Russian Laundry Bear cyberspies linked to Dutch Police hack

Iranian pleads guilty to RobbinHood ransomware attacks, faces 30 years

Czechia blames China for Ministry of Foreign Affairs cyberattack

APT41 malware abuses Google Calendar for stealthy C2 communication

Reuters reports:

India’s alarm over Chinese spying rocks the surveillance industry

TechCrunch reports:

Report: TuSimple sent sensitive self-driving data to China after US national security agreement

The Register reports:

Why is China deep in US networks? ‘They’re preparing for war,’ HR McMaster tells lawmakers

Big Media

Joan Westenberg looks at:

From Penny Press to Protocols

The Daily Beast reports:

Bezos’ WaPo Gives Staff Ultimatum as It Pushes Them Out

The NewGuild reports:

Washington Post Tech Guild overwhelmingly votes to certify union in historic election

And, that’s how you deal with a c^nt.

Big Tech

The Register reports:

Some signs of AI model collapse begin to reveal themselves

The International Journal of Law and Information Technology asks:

The EU Digital Services Act: what does it mean for online advertising and adtech?

Jacobin reports:

Big Tech Wants to Become Its Own Bank

TechSpot reports:

Duolingo CEO backtracks on AI push, says human workers still needed

Ben Werdmuller looks at:

The Substack Election

Fuck Substack.

Jae shares:

Yet another reason you should use Signal

And fuck these two c^nts.

Travel Lemming notes:

Google is Using AI to Censor Thousands of Independent Websites Like Mine (And to Control the Flow of Information Online)

Well, shit.

Cybersecurity/Privacy

ZDNet reports:

Une fuite de données massive expose 184 millions de mots de passe pour Google, Microsoft, Facebook et d’autres services

BleepingComputer reports:

Apple Safari exposes users to fullscreen browser-in-the-middle attacks

ConnectWise breached in cyberattack linked to nation-state hackers

Google reports:

Text-to-Malware: How Cybercriminals Weaponize Fake AI-Themed Websites

Fediverse

The Fediverse Report has:

Fediverse Report – #118

The Social Web Foundation shares its:

ap-components

Hamish Campbell is:

Thinking about news on the Fediverse

We Distribute reports:

FediForum is Back!

PeerTube announces a fundraising effort:

PeerTube from your pocket!

Other Slightly Federated Social Media

The Fediverse Report has:

ATmosphere Report – #118

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

#118 #ActivityPub #Ad #AI #Autocracy #BigJournalism #BigTech #Bluesky #Democracy #Fascism #Fediverse #Ghost #Mastodon #Nextcloud #Peertube #StopChina #StopIran #StopRedAmerica #StopRussia

https://battalion.mobileatom.net/?p=1877

Destroying Autocracy – May 08, 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(s)

Hamish Campbell writes:

The world we live in is shaped, created by 40 years of entrenched pushing of #neoliberalism and #postmodernism, both of which have systematically dismantled radical change and challenge paths that used to exist.

To reclaim our path, we now need to reject the illusions of “common sense” fed to us by the #deathcult and reboot our social view from a place of clarity.

This is where the #hashtags come into use, acting as conceptual tools for navigating, understanding, and breaking free from the mess we’re in.

Decoding the Hashtags: A Roadmap for Social Change

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

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

The Christian Science Monitor reports on:

Origins of Ukraine’s drone creativity

The Kyiv Independent reports:

Book on Soviet dissidents wins Pulitzer Prize

DarkReading reports:

Countries Begin NATO’s Locked Shields Cyber-Defense Exercise

Euronews reports:

‘Choose Europe,’ von der Leyen tells US scientists threatened by Trump’s policies
Ursula von der Leyen at La Sorbonne.

‘We are less protected’ due to AI, says Cambridge Analytica whistleblower on protecting our data

Libre Office announces:

Germany committing to ODF and open document standards

Benjamin Hollon envisions:

A Secret Web

The Guardian reports:

OpenAI reverses course and says non-profit arm will retain control of firm

TechCrunch reports:

FTC bans hidden fees for live events and short-term rentals, effective May 12

US DoJ wants Google to sell two of its ad products

MacRumors reports:

Apple Faces Developer Lawsuit After Defying App Store Injunction

404 Media reports:

GlobalX, Airline for Trump’s Deportations, Hacked

Tuta announces:

Open letter against ProtectEU

Bert Hubert has a European:

Cloud Overview

The Evil Empire Strikes Back

Gizmodo reports:

With Its Destruction of Government Data Silos, DOGE Is Building a ‘Surveillance Weapon’

The Register reports:

India ready to greenlight Starlink – as long as it lets New Delhi censor, snoop

Fascist capitalism at its finest.

Signal chat app clone used by Signalgate’s Waltz was apparently an insecure mess

Unicorn Riot reports:

SignalGate Meets WordPress: Outgoing National Security Adviser’s Phone Dumps Messages via Israeli App

Pariah States

Micah Flee shares:

Despite misleading marketing, Israeli company TeleMessage, used by Trump officials, can access plaintext chat logs

The Register reports:

Super spyware maker NSO must pay Meta $168M in WhatsApp court battle

From Russia with doubt: Go library’s Kremlin ties stoke fear

The Kyiv Independent reports:

Poland faces ‘unprecedented’ Russian interference ahead of presidential election, minister says

The Guardian reports:

Pro-Russian hackers claim to have targeted several UK websites

DarkReading reports:

‘Lemon Sandstorm’ Underscores Risks to Middle East Infrastructure

Big Media

The World Association of News Publisher reports:

Media outlets worldwide join call for AI companies to help protect news integrity

Yeah, right.

Big Tech

The Register reports:

Infosec guru Schneier worries corp AI will manipulate us

Futurism reports:

Facebook Allegedly Detected When Teen Girls Deleted Selfies So It Could Serve Them Beauty Ads

Cory Doctorow has:

Mark Zuckerberg announces mind-control ray (again) (07 May 2025)

People wonder why I’m a misanthrope.

Tech Crunch reports:

NSO Group must pay more than $167 million in damages to WhatsApp for spyware campaign

Forbes reports:

200 Million X User Records Released — 2.8 Billion Twitter IDs Leaked

If you are on shitter at this point, you get what you deserve.

Terror

Tech Policy reports:

From Incels to Mercenaries: When Online Hate Becomes Real-World Violence

Cybersecurity/Privacy

404 Media reports:

The Signal Clone the Trump Admin Uses Was Hacked

Senator Demands Investigation into Trump Admin Signal Clone After 404 Media Investigation

The Register reports:

Altman’s eyeball-scanning biometric blockchain orbs officially come to America

RSA Conf wrap: AI and China on everything, everywhere, all at once

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has:

Beware the Bundle: Companies Are Banking on Becoming Your Police Department’s Favorite “Public Safety Technology” Vendor

BleepingComputer reports:

Police takes down six DDoS-for-hire services, arrests admins

Fediverse

The Fediverse Report has:

Fediverse Report – #115

Tim Bray looks at:

Censoring Social Media

Mastodon has:

Trunk & Tidbits, April 2025

Coxy has:

Reclaiming the web: Mastodon and the decentralised social movement

Ghost has:

Blocking users

NodeBB asks:

What would cross-posting between instances look like in ActivityPub?

Peertube has:

App v1 is out!

AlternativeTo reports:

Kagi adds PeerTube video search results, enhanced Assistant UI, and translation upgrades

The Social Web Foundation is:

Reflecting on Our First Year: The Social Web Foundation’s 2024 Annual Report

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

#115 #ActivityPub #AI #ATProtocol #Autocracy #BigJournalism #BigTech #Bluesky #deathcult #Democracy #Fascism #Fediverse #hashtags #Mastodon #neoliberalism #NodeBB #Peertube #postmodernism #StopChina #StopIran #StopIsrael #StopRedAmerica #StopRussia #SupportUkraine

https://battalion.mobileatom.net/?p=1804

Destroying Autocracy – April 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.

Featured Item

Heydonworks shares:

Poisoning Well

AI can’t do spite. 😈

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

The response to Russia’s War Crimes and other douchebaggery

The Kyiv Independent reports:

Moscow Metro website displays appeal from recently hacked Ukrainian Railways

The Register reports:

Ukraine’s techies a ‘pillar of support’ for national economy after Russian invasion

EuroNews reports:

Help us develop non-English/Chinese AI models, Japan asks EU

French antitrust watchdog fines Apple €150 million over data collection tool

Google’s AI feature on hold in most EU member states due to ‘strict rules’

The Reframe has:

1 Year After Substack

404 Media reports:

Open Source Genetic Database Shuts Down to Protect Users From ‘Authoritarian Governments’

Big Tech Backed Trump for Acceleration. They Got a Decel President Instead.

This would be funny if it only impacted these c^nts.

Reuters reports:

Elon Musk must face fraud lawsuit over disclosure of Twitter stake

He’s not allowed to fuck over rich people.

Tech Policy reports:

As Brazil Seeks to Enforce Competition Law Against Digital Platforms, Here’s What it Could Learn from the EU

The UK announces:

Foreign Influence Registration Scheme implementation

Gaël Duval shares:

Practical Payment Solutions for Murena and /e/OS Users

That’s surveillance and Google-free Android if you aren’t familiar.

Geo Coop reports:

Worker-Owned News Outlets Are Changing the Media Industry

The Wrap has:

In Praise of Laurene Powell Jobs, Owner of The Atlantic, Superhero of Signalgate

The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports:

Judge Rejects Government’s Attempt to Dismiss EFF Lawsuit Against OPM, DOGE, and Musk

Neutral

The Guardian reports:

Data protection bill leaves room for governmental abuse, campaigners warn

Open Source Initiative reports on:

Overcoming barriers to Open Source procurement in the European Union

The Evil Empire Strikes Back

TechDirt reports:

The Real Cost Of DOGE: Musk’s Government Cuts Creating Massive New Expenses

NBC News reports:

Denied, deported, detained: U.S. border incidents have travelers thinking twice

The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports:

Site-Blocking Legislation Is Back. It’s Still a Terrible Idea.

The Next Web reports:

European tech warns Trump tariffs will hit both hardware and software

Pariah States

The Next Web reports:

The day a Russian missile hit a Ukrainian tech giant

BleepingComputer reports:

North Korean hackers adopt ClickFix attacks to target crypto firms

The Register reports:

North Korea’s fake tech workers now targeting European employers

DarkReading reports:

Israel Enters ‘Stage 3’ of Cyber Wars With Iran Proxies

The Verge reports:

Microsoft employee disrupts 50th anniversary and calls AI boss ‘war profiteer’

Big Media

Tech Policy reports on:

Technology, Democracy, and Power: Journalism’s Role in a Time of Crisis

The Guardian reports:

‘I can’t cope with it any more’: newsrooms scramble to retain audiences amid the big switch-off

Big Tech

Tech Policy reports:

Where Does Trump’s Takeover of the FTC Leave the Regulation of Big Tech?

Practically non-existent.

Robots.txt Is Having a Moment: Here’s Why We Should Care

The Verge reports:

It’s the moment of truth for Zuckerberg’s Trump bet

Epicenter reports:

EU Commission Undermines eIDAS Protections, again!

Pivot to AI reports:

AI in the enterprise is failing over twice as fast in 2025 as it was in 2024

Cybersecurity/Privacy

The Register reports:

UK threatens £100K-a-day fines under new cyber bill

BleepingComputer reports:

CISA warns of Fast Flux DNS evasion used by cybercrime gangs

DarkReading reports:

Minnesota Tribe Struggles After Ransomware Attack

Fediverse

The Fediverse Report has:

Fediverse Report – #110

We Distriube reports:

FediForum Has Been Canceled

TechCrunch reports:

A new security fund opens up to help protect the fediverse

Emelia Smith has:

Open-source tools needed for the future of decentralized moderation

Moving Beyond the False Dichotomy for Federation Management

The Nexus of Privacy shares:

More notes on Organizing, Mutual Aid, and Activism on decentralized social networks

Ghost has an announcement:

Social web (beta)

Funkwhale announces:

Funkwhale 2.0 Alpha candidate

Steven Berson has:

Thoughts on Diaspora

Other Slightly Federated Social Media

The Fediverse Report has:

Bluesky Report – #110

TechCrunch reports:

Beyond Bluesky: These are the apps building social experiences on the AT Protocol

Mark Cuban backs Skylight, a TikTok alternative built on Bluesky’s underlying technology

Rudy of Blacksky fame shares:

An internet of many autonomous communities

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 follow Battalion on Bluesky.

Keep fighting!

Ringleader, Battalion
Reuben Walker
Follow me on the Fediverse

#110 #ActivityPub #AI #ATProtocol #Autocracy #BigJournalism #BigTech #Democracy #Diaspora #Fascism #Fediverse #Ghost #Mastodon #StopChina #StopIran #StopIsrael #StopRedAmerica #StopRussia #SupportUkraine

https://battalion.mobileatom.net/?p=1681

Destroying Autocracy – 27 March 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

The Register reports:

EU OS is a proposal for an immutable KDE-based Linux distribution with a Windows-like desktop, designed for use in European public-sector organizations.

Rather than a new distro, it’s a website that documents planning such a thing, what functions the OS might need, how to deploy and manage it, and how to handle users.

EU OS drafts a locked-down Linux blueprint for Eurocrats

This needs to be implemented quickly and then exported to non-EU, non-fascist states as well.

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

The response to Russia’s War Crimes and other douchebaggery

The Kyiv Independent reports:

Italy suspends Starlink purchase negotiations with SpaceX amid Musk controversy

Voice of America journalists sue Trump administration following president’s order to gut free press

The Register reports:

OTF, which backs Tor, Let’s Encrypt and more, sues to save funding from Trump cuts

US defense contractor cops to sloppy security, settles after infosec lead blows whistle

Wired reports:

How to Avoid US-Based Digital Services—and Why You Might Want To

Trump’s Aggression Sours Europe on US Cloud Giants

MIT Technology Review reports on:

Why the world is looking to ditch US AI models

In news sure to make Cory Doctorow happy, Tech Policy reports:

Interoperability in the EU: A Judgment Opens the Door

NPR reports:

As the Trump administration purges web pages, this group is rushing to save them

California announces:

Attorney General Bonta Urgently Issues Consumer Alert for 23andMe Customers

404 Media reports:

Mozilla Foundation Calls on Tech Industry to Block ICE Contractor

The Guardian reports:

A French university is offering ‘scientific asylum’ for US talent. The brain drain has started

The Huffington Post reports:

Pete Hegseth Sued Over Signal Text Debacle

The Kyiv Post reports:

First Surveillance Satellite of Planned Czechia-Ukrainian Constellation in Orbit

The Kyiv Independent reports:

’89 hours of non-stop work’ — Ukrainian Railways’ battle against a cyberattack by ‘the enemy’

TechCrunch reports:

Open source devs are fighting AI crawlers with cleverness and vengeance

The Reader makes:

The Anti-Capitalist Case for Standards

Neutral

Tech Policy has:

Scientists Respond to FTC Inquiry into Tech Censorship

The Evil Empire Strikes Back

The Verge asks:

Is it safe to travel with your phone right now?

It’s not safe to travel to the U.S. period. Or even within it by air.

DarkReading reports:

US Weakens Disinformation Defenses, as Russia & China Ramp Up

Heisse reports:

US-Behörde stoppt Gelder für Let’s Encrypt und Tor ‒ Open Tech Fund wehrt sich

Tech Policy reports on:

AI Surveillance on the Rise in US, but Tactics of Repression Not New

How the White House is Gaslighting the World About Europe’s Digital Laws

On a related note to The Guardian article above, Not a Tech Bro has:

Not invented here

Pariah States

BleepingComputer reports:

Cyberattack takes down Ukrainian state railway’s online services

DarkReading reports:

Meet the Low-Key Access Broker Supercharging Russian State Cybercrime

FCC Investigates China-Backed Tech Suppliers for Evading US Operations Ban

Iran’s MOIS-Linked APT34 Spies on Allies Iraq & Yemen

Big Media

America2 reports:

The Substack Dilemma: How Creators Are Inadvertently Fueling America’s Failure

Nothing personal but if you are on Substack, you’re a fascist or uninformed or an amoral c^nt.

Vanity Fair reports:

Trump’s Attacks on Press Freedom Are Paving the Way for Authoritarianism

The Washington Examiner reports:

Kari Lake withdraws cancellation of Radio Free Europe funding

Big Tech

Politico reports:

Musk’s X suspends opposition accounts in Turkey amid civil unrest

How surprising. Two set of c^nts work together.

MIT Technology Review reports:

Why handing over total control to AI agents would be a huge mistake

Tech Policy asks:

Will Ireland be Big Tech’s Lapdog Yet Again?

Blood in the Machine opines:

OpenAI’s Studio Ghibli meme factory is an insult to art itself

Smashing Frames calls it a:

Vulgar Display of Power

Cybersecurity/Privacy

The Register reports:

As nation-state hacking becomes ‘more in your face,’ are supply chains secure?

BleepingComputer reports:

New VanHelsing ransomware targets Windows, ARM, ESXi systems

TechCrunch reports:

How to tell if your online accounts have been hacked

404 Media reports:

When Your Threat Model Is Being a Moron

You Need to Use Signal’s Nickname Feature

The Verge reports:

Vivaldi bundles Proton VPN into its web browser

Fediverse

The Fediverse Report has:

Fediverse Report – #109

Arxiv has a research paper:

FediverseSharing: A Novel Dataset on Cross-Platform Interaction
Dynamics between Threads and Mastodon Users

Letterbook has a:

Development Update

Fedihost has some how to videos:

Creating A GoToSocial Instance on FediHost

Configuring A PeerTube Instance

Reset Digital for Good has:

Dezentrale YouTube-Alternative PeerTube: Nachhaltiger dank Peer-to-Peer?

Elena Rossini shares:

PeerTube: the Fediverse’s decentralized video platform (part 2: creator edition)

Other Slightly Federated Social Media

The Fediverse Report has:

ATmosphere Report – 2025march.b

TechCrunch reports:

A world without Caesars: How the ATProto community is rebuilding the web to return power to the people

Hmm. Are they really? They sure as fuck aren’t as social media. The web, let’s hope so.

Geekwire reports on:

The under-the-radar tech revolution that could change how the internet works

I think this is more accurate.

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 follow Battalion on Bluesky.

Keep fighting!

Ringleader, Battalion
Reuben Walker
Follow me on the Fediverse

#109 #ActivityPub #AI #ATProto #ATProtocol #Autocracy #BigJournalism #BigTech #Bluesky #Democracy #Fascism #Fediverse #GoToSocial #Mastodon #Peertube #Signal #StopChina #StopIran #StopIsrael #StopRedAmerica #StopRussia #SupportUkraine #Threads

https://battalion.mobileatom.net/?p=1650

Destroying Autocracy – 20 March 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

Hans-Peter Schulenberg shares:

The DEEPSEEK Effect: How a Chinese AI Startup Is Reshaping the Global Tech Landscape

Let’s hope that things like Open-R1 will become ethical alternatives.

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

The response to Russia’s War Crimes and other douchebaggery

The Register reports:

Euro techies call for sovereign fund to escape Uncle Sam’s digital death grip

Vivaldi 7.2 browser wants to topple tech’s feudal lords

Reuters reports:

Dutch parliament calls for end to dependence on US software companies

Freedom of the Press Foundation reports:

Wired is dropping paywalls for FOIA-based reporting. Others should follow

I know 404 Media does the same.

DarkReading reports:

Duke University & GCF Partner to Identify Pathways for Advancing Women’s Careers in Cybersecurity

TechCrunch reports:

Apple loses appeal against Germany’s special abuse control for Big Tech

ArsTechnica reports:

UK online safety law Musk hates kicks in today, and so far, Trump can’t stop it

Apple and Google in the hot seat as European regulators ignore Trump warnings

Neutral

Tech Policy reports on:

Middle Powers Digital Antitrust Efforts in the Age of Trump

404 Media reports:

Public Records Reveal How Agencies Complied With Trump’s Anti-Trans Order

The Evil Empire Strikes Back

404 Media reports:

TSA Says Its Credit Cards for Bomb-Sniffing Dogs Are Cut Off

The Guardian reports:

How an obscure US government office has become a target of Elon Musk

Radio Free Europe reports:

Trump Signs Executive Order For Major Cuts To 7 Agencies, Including RFE/RL Overseer USAGM

TechCrunch reports:

CISA scrambles to contact fired employees after court rules layoffs ‘unlawful’

Pariah States

DarkReading reports:

Denmark Warns of Increased Cyber Espionage Against Telecom Sector

Black Basta Leader in League With Russian Officials, Chat Logs Show

BleepingComputer reports:

Ukrainian military targeted in new Signal spear-phishing attacks

Big Media

NPR reports:

‘Bloody Saturday’ at Voice of America and other U.S.-funded networks

NBC News reports:

The Trump administration axed Voice of America, and China’s state media are delighted

Radio World reports:

RFE/RL Sues the USAGM to Get Its Grant Back

The Kyiv Independent reports:

RFE/RL sues Trump administration over funding cuts

Big Tech

Cory Doctorow writes:

Amazon annihilates Alexa privacy settings, turns on continuous, nonconsensual audio uploading

The Guardian reports:

Careless People: A Story of Where I Used to Work by Sarah Wynn-Williams review – a former disciple unfriends Facebook

The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports on:

California’s A.B. 412: A Bill That Could Crush Startups and Cement A Big Tech AI Monopoly

The Register reports:

Amazon accused of using algorithms to push warehouse workers to breaking point

404 Media reports:

Meta Promises to Fight Misinformation in Australia With Same Strategy It Killed in the U.S. to Appease Trump

The Cradle reports:

Google to acquire Israeli firm staffed by former Unit 8200 officers

Two sets of c^nts who deserve each other.

Cybersecurity/Privacy

The Register reports:

UK wants dirt on data brokers before criminals get there first

Cloudflare reports:

Password reuse is rampant: nearly half of observed user logins are compromised

404 Media reports:

Facial Recognition Company Clearview Attempted to Buy Social Security Numbers and Mugshots for its Database

Fediverse

The Fediverse Report has:

Fediverse Report #108

The Conversation has:

The Fediverse promises social media without Big Tech – if it can avoid familiar pitfalls

The Social Web Foundation reports:

Fediverse House 2025 Wrap-up

IFTAS announces:

IFTAS 2.0 – Rescoping and Refocusing

Do the world a solid and make a donation to IFTAS, preferably a monthly one.

Fred Rocha explains:

How I use Mastodon in 2025

Ghost announces:

The social web beta is here

I’m looking forward to this being perfected and being available on regular Ghost.

Peertube announces:

PeerTube v7.1 is out!

A New Social is:

Breaking Ground

We Distribute reports:

Website League and the Rise of Island Networks

Forgejo has its:

Forgejo monthly update – February 2025

Other Slightly Federated Social Media

The Fediverse report has:

ATmosphere Report – 2025march.b

TechCrunch reports:

Bluesky users debate plans around user data and AI training

The Libre has:

Why I recommend against Bluesky

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 follow Battalion on Bluesky.

Keep fighting!

Ringleader, Battalion
Reuben Walker
Follow me on the Fediverse

#108 #ActivityPub #AI #ATProto #ATProtocol #Autocracy #BigJournalism #BigTech #Bluesky #Democracy #Fascism #Fediverse #Mastodon #StopChina #StopIran #StopIsrael #StopRedAmerica #StopRussia #SupportUkraine

https://battalion.mobileatom.net/?p=1615

Welcome to last week’s “Destroying Autocracy”

https://friendica.me/display/78ea265d-1067-d9c8-d46f-543798792874