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:

To AI or Not To AI: A Practice Guide for Public Agencies to Decide Whether to Proceed with Artificial Intelligence

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:

Is the article dead?

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:

Surveillance Pricing

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:

Fediverse Report – 147

PeerTube announces:

Publish your videos with PeerTube for mobile!

It’s FOSS reports:

Decentralized YouTube Alternative PeerTube Adds Creator Mode

Holos shares:

How It Works

ActivityPub for WordPress has:

7.8.0 – Happy Holidays

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:

Annual Report 2024

Piefed announces:

PieFed 1.4 is released – emoji, federated stackoverflow and AI content filters

Empathy Forward announces:

Charities.Place

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
Reuben Walker
Follow me on the Fediverse

#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

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.

Why RSS matters

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:

‘Happy Ukrainian Armed Forces Day’ — hackers deface website of Russian company delivering military goods, HUR source claims

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:

Elon Musk’s Blue Tick scam

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:

State attorneys general warn Microsoft, OpenAI, Google, and other AI giants to fix ‘delusional’ outputs

The Guardian reports:

‘Don’t pander to the tech giants!’ How a youth movement for digital justice is spreading across Europe

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:

Waving the Ban Hammer

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:

Mozilla’s Betrayal of Open Source: Google’s Gemini AI is Overwriting Volunteer Work on Support Mozilla

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:

I’m making an RSS reader

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 https://battalion.mobileatom.net/?p=4213

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

Elon Musk’s X fined €120m by EU in first clash under new digital laws

The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports:

After Years of Controversy, the EU’s Chat Control Nears Its Final Hurdle: What to Know

FSFE announces:

Opening the cage: the FSFE flies away from X (Twitter)

Better late than never and what anyone with any morality should do.

Signal announces:

Major expansion of Signal for Linux, announces AppImage

TechCrunch reports:

Chicago Tribune sues Perplexity

The Center for Democracy and Technology announces:

A Framework for Assessing AI Transparency in the Public Sector

Collabora announces:

Collabora Online now available on Desktop

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:

Mistral AI dévoile Mistral 3 et Ministral : des modèles qui replacent la France sur la scène open source

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

TechCrunch reports:

Sanctioned spyware maker Intellexa had direct access to government espionage victims, researchers say

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:

Stealthy browser extensions waited years before infecting 4.3M Chrome, Edge users with backdoors and spyware

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.

Nieman Lab reports:

Publishers will finally learn to truly value news creators

The OMN can greatly influence this trend.

The Ecologist shares:

‘We need a media consumers union’

This times 1,000.

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

The question isn’t whether the AI bubble will burst – but what the fallout will be

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.

404 Media reports:

Scientists Are Increasingly Worried AI Will Sway Elections

Current Affairs reports:

AI is Destroying the University and Learning Itself

Time reports:

Court Filings Allege Meta Downplayed Risks to Children and Misled the Public

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:

Introducing Roundabout

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?

Connected Places has:

Fediverse Report – 145

FediForum shares:

FediForum/Fediverse Track at SFSCon, November 2025, in Bolzano, Italy

SVDJ has:

‘Stapje voor stapje de controle terugpakken’: hoe media hun publiek kunnen heroveren op Big Tech

Beautiful site design for a news website, btw.

Deemlog has a bizarre experiment:

Git as Federation Transport — Rethinking How Small Social Networks Talk to Each Other

Jose Murilo shares:

“Museus no Fediverso” – Apresentação do Ibram-Museus no 1º WebSocialBR

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

https://battalion.mobileatom.net/?p=4147

Destroying Autocracy – November 27, 2025

Welcome to this week’s “Destroying Autocracy”.

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

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

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

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

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

Featured Item(s)

The Atlantic writes:

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

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

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

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

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

Elon Musk’s Worthless, Poisoned Hall of Mirrors

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

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

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

EuroNews reports:

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

Kagi is:

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

Orion 1.0 ✴︎ Browse Beyond

Fucking awesome if you use Macs.

TechPolicy Press reports:

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

The Guardian reports:

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

The Free Software Foundation Europe shares:

Germany Stack: Only Free Software Enables Digital Sovereignty

Wikimedia announces:

Unifying our mobile and desktop domains

Decidim reviews:

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

The Conversation reports:

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

Mullvad reports:

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

Ploum says:

Don’t Do Snake Oil Writing

Fiona Fokus says:

I don’t care how well your “AI” works

Abso-fucking-lutely.

It’s Foss has:

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

CNBC reports;

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

Neutral

The Guardian asks:

Has Britain become an economic colony?

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

W3C shares:

Preventing Abuse of Digital Credentials

Ben Werdmuller covers:

The EFF we need now

The Evil Empire (AKA Autocracy) Strikes Back

Heise reports:

Analysis of the Digital Sovereignty Summit: Open Source Gets Scolded

We Are Solomon reports:

Hungry for data: Inside Europol’s secretive AI program

The Intercept reports:

The FBI wants to use Surveillance Drones with Facial Recognition Technology

How Corporate Partnerships Powered University Surveillance of Palestine Protests

The Counter Offensive reports:

Witkoff was secretly giving Russians advice

Pariah States

The Register reports:

CISA warns spyware crews are breaking into Signal and WhatsApp accounts

DarkReading reports:

DPRK’s FlexibleFerret Tightens macOS Grip

Big Media

The Columbia Journalism Review reports:

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

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

ProPublica shares:

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

Big Tech

Sage Journals reports:

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

Renée DiResta reports:

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

The Daily Beast reports:

Top MAGA Influencers Accidentally Unmasked as Foreign Trolls

404 Media reports:

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

The Register reports:

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

MM+M reports:

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

The Markup reports:

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

Tuta reports:

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

Cybersecurity/Privacy

BleepingComputer reports:

Cox Enterprises discloses Oracle E-Business Suite data breach

Hmm, cable companies are literally shit at everything.

Code beautifiers expose credentials from banks, govt, tech orgs

Malicious LLMs empower inexperienced hackers with advanced tools

DarkReading reports:

Infamous Shai-hulud Worm Resurfaces From the Depths

The Register reports:

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

GrapheneOS bails on OVHcloud over France’s privacy stance

Fediverse

Connected Places shares:

Fediverse Report – 144

Mastodon announces:

Mastodon Joins Forces with WE AID

Bonfire has:

What is Bonfire? Plural by design.

Buttondown has:

Making social networking more like email

Terence Eden has:

Now witness the power of this fully operational Fediverse!

Ghost has:

Explore the independent web

RadWeb Hosting shares:

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

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

NodeBB announces:

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

Slightly Decentralized Social Media

Connected Places has:

ATmosphere Report – 144

Internet Exchange reports:

‘Composable Moderation’ May Protect Bluesky from Political Pressure

CTAs (aka show us some free love)

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

Keep fighting!

Ringleader, Battalion
Reuben Walker
Follow me on the Fediverse

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

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

Destroying Autocracy – November 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.

Open Source Power

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

a16z-backed super PAC is targeting Alex Bores, sponsor of New York’s AI safety bill — he says bring it on

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

Elon Musk Could ‘Drink Piss Better Than Any Human in History,’ Grok Says

Literally, pathetic.

Framasoft has:

Renforcez l’internet du partage en contribuant à la robustesse de Framasoft

Support our 2026 campaign!

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

The Center for Democracy and Technology has:

What Kids and Parents Want: Policy Insights for Social Media Safety Features

The Center for Democracy and Technology has:

What Kids and Parents Want: Policy Insights for Social Media Safety Features

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

Cops Used Flock to Monitor No Kings Protests Around the Country

The Register reports:

Palantir plots NHS skills drive for its controversial data platform

Trump, Republicans try again to stop states from regulating AI

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

DarkReading reports:

Chinese APT Infects Routers to Hijack Software Updates

Big Media

TBD

Big Tech

The Guardian reports:

White nationalist talking points and racial pseudoscience: welcome to Elon Musk’s Grokipedia

MalwareBytes reorts:

Gmail can read your emails and attachments to train its AI, unless you opt out

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:

Fediverse Report – 142

Fediverse Report – 143

Laura Hargreaves has:

Ghost v6 Upgrade + Docker Migration: What I Learned (So You Don’t Have To)

Big news with Mastodon this week:

My next chapter with Mastodon

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

Connected Places has:

ATmosphere Report 143 – Eurosky Live

TechCrunch reports:

Bluesky announces moderation changes focused on better tracking, improved transparency

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

https://battalion.mobileatom.net/?p=3954

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.

Sparks fly up

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

Ars Technica reports:

Google will let Android power users bypass upcoming sideloading restrictions

As they say, the proof will be in the pudding.

LibreOffice has:

The role of ODF in digital sovereignty (digital freedom)

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:

We should all be Luddites

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

The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports:

Lawmakers Want to Ban VPNs—And They Have No Idea What They’re Doing

Tech Policy Press reports:

Global Internet Freedom Declines for 15th Consecutive Year

The Center for Democracy and Technology

The Border Search Device Database and AI: How Emerging Tech Could Supercharge the Dangers of an Outdated Warrant Exception

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

Chinese spies told Claude to break into about 30 critical orgs. Some attacks succeeded

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:

Lies, damned lies and AI: the newest way to influence elections may be here to stay

The Register reports:

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.

Jesus.

Vivaldi has:

“A.I.” browsers: the price of admission is too high

GAD Insider reports:

Meta may read your DMs soon: Here’s what you need to know

Low Culture reports:

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 and A New Social

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

Connected Places has:

ATmosphere Report 142

ATmosphere Report 142 – more new apps

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

https://battalion.mobileatom.net/?p=3838

Destroying Autocracy – November 06, 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.

We’re back from France scouting locations for The Fulcrum’s worldwide HQ. 😉 Occitanie won out for the region (department). We’re still working on the town. Nimes, Montpellier, and Toulouse are in the final.

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)

The Authoritarian Stack writes:

Under the banner of “patriotic tech”, this new bloc is building the infrastructure of control—clouds, AI, finance, drones, satellites—an integrated system we call the Authoritarian Stack. It is faster, ideological, and fully privatized: a regime where corporate boards, not public law, set the rules.

Our investigation shows how these firms now operate as state-like powers—writing the rules, winning the tenders, and exporting their model to Europe, where it poses a direct challenge to democratic governance.

How Tech Billionaires Are Building a Post-Democratic America — And Why Europe Is Next

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

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

Open Future notes:

Europe doesn’t need new laws for Public AI—it needs to activate the untapped legal basis it already has in the Article 3 TDM exception.

Open SSF says:

Open Infrastructure is Not Free: A Joint Statement on Sustainable Stewardship

NGI Commons reports:

DC – EDIC: The EU’s New Step Toward a Sovereign Digital Infrastructure

EuroNews reports:

Here are the digital changes EU candidate countries are making to align with the bloc

French investigators open criminal probe into TikTok over impact on children’s mental health

France suspends access to Shein as retailer opens first Paris store

Heisse reports:

International Criminal Court Kicks Out Microsoft

Open Project reports:

Digital sovereignty in Government: German State Premiers and the International Criminal Court choose openDesk

That’s an awesome stack.

/e/OS announces:

/e/OS 3.2 is here!

Nextcloud announces:

Nextcloud Hub 25 Autumn: Your digital workspace, ready in no time

Open Web Advocacy reports:

What Apple’s UK Strategic Market Status Designation means for Browsers and Web Apps

Tuta reports:

Microsoft sued for misleading millions of customers into paying a 45% increase for AI add-ons.

The Guardian reports:

Facebook’s job ads algorithm is sexist, French equality watchdog rules

The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports on:

The Legal Case Against Ring’s Face Recognition Feature

404 Media reports:

How to Opt-Out of Airlines Selling Your Travel Data to the Government

Free Software Foundation Europe reports:

Legal Corner: Apple’s “notarisation” – blocking software freedom of developers and users!

TechCrunch reports:

Lina Khan to co-chair NYC mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s transition team

Tech Policy reports:

Mayor-Elect Mamdani Can Build a Tech Agenda for New York and a Model for the Country

Let’s fucking hope so.

The Markup reports:

Why a new California law could change the way all Americans browse the internet

Neutral

The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports:

Age Verification, Estimation, Assurance, Oh My! A Guide to the Terminology

Internet Exchange reports on:

Protecting Kids Without Breaking the Internet

The Evil Empire (AKA Autocracy) Strikes Back

Tech Policy reports:

Next Steps for Mitigating Harm in the UN Cybercrime Convention

404 Media reports:

Flock Logins Exposed In Malware Infections, Senator Asks FTC to Investigate the Company

DHS Gives Local Cops a Facial Recognition App To Find Immigrants

ProPublica reports:

DHS Wants States to Hand Over Driver’s License Data for Citizenship Checks

TechCrunch reports:

Italian political consultant says he was targeted with Paragon spyware

Pariah States

BleepingComputer reports:

Russian hackers abuse Hyper-V to hide malware in Linux VMs

Sandworm hackers use data wipers to disrupt Ukraine’s grain sector

The Register reports:

Russian spies pack custom malware into hidden VMs on Windows machines

EuroNews reports:

AI chatbots are spewing Russian propaganda, study finds

DarkReading reports:

APT ‘Bronze Butler’ Exploits Zero-Day to Root Japan Orgs

Kimsuky Debuts HTTPTroy Backdoor Against South Korea Users

Iran’s Elusive “SmudgedSerpent’ APT Phishes Influential US Policy Wonks

This Week in Security reports:

Thousands of North Koreans have secretly infiltrated US and European companies as remote IT workers

Big Media

Byline Times reports:

How the Not-So Independent Media Censors Criticism of Its Billionaire Owners

Tech Dirt reports:

60 Minutes Edits Donald Trump Telling Them 60 Minutes Should Edit Donald Trump Talking About How 60 Minutes Paid Him For Editing Kamala Harris

NiemanLab reports:

Journalists are souring on social media platforms, an analysis of 11 years of Nieman Lab predictions suggests

Big Tech

The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports:

Application Gatekeeping: An Ever-Expanding Pathway to Internet Censorship

404 Media reports:

The Future of Advertising Is AI Generated Ads That Are Directly Personalized to You

AI Is Supercharging the War on Libraries, Education, and Human Knowledge

ArsTechnica reports:

Bombshell report exposes how Meta relied on scam ad profits to fund AI

FTM reports:

How Google fooled Brussels

The Intercept reports:

YouTube Erased 700 Videos of Israeli Human Rights Violations

The Guardian reports:

In Grok we don’t trust: academics assess Elon Musk’s AI-powered encyclopedia

Cybersecurity/Privacy

BleepingComputer reports:

Fake Solidity VSCode extension on Open VSX backdoors developers

DarkReading reports:

‘TruffleNet’ Attack Wields Stolen Credentials Against AWS

The Register reports:

AN0M, the backdoored ‘secure’ messaging app for criminals, is still producing arrests after four years

Krebs on Security reports:

Cloudflare Scrubs Aisuru Botnet from Top Domains List

Fediverse

Connect Places has:

On the coordination for better moderation systems

Fediverse Report – 140

Fediverse Report – 141

TechPolicy reports on:

Public Service Social Media as a Democratic Safeguard

Be It Me Not You reports on:

The Hidden Damage of Social Media & Why Decentralisation Matters

The Social Web Foundation shares:

FOSDEM 2026 – Social Web Devroom – Call For Participation

The Privacy Nexus has:

Media Liberation Day: how can we help newcomers get started and have a good experience on Fedi?

Bonfire has:

Bonfire: building blocks for communities on the open social web

Fan-fucking-tastic!

PeerTube announces:

We’ve just released version 1.2.0 of the official #PeerTube app!

Mastodon announces:

Mastodon 4.5: Featuring Quote posts, a solution to missing replies, and more

XMPP

Movim has:

The difference between XMPP and ActivityPub, explained through the Blog feature

P2P

Korben has:

SendMe – Pour partager des fichiers en P2P comme au bon vieux temps

Slightly Decentralized Social Media

Connected Places has:

Decentralisation and blogging on atproto

This is why I say that although Bluesky will 100% become enshittified, ATProto has potential.

A New Social announces:

Launch: New Blocking Features on Bridgy Fed

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 #Bonfire #BridgyFed #Democracy #Fascism #Fediverse #Mastodon #Peertube #StopChina #StopIsrael #StopRedAmerica #StopRussia #SupportUkraine #TechnoAnarchism #TechnoFeudalism #XMPP

https://battalion.mobileatom.net/?p=3809

Destroying Autocracy – October 16, 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.

We’re off to France to scout locations for The Fulcrum’s worldwide HQ. 😉 So, there will not be a post for the next two weeks.

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)

EuroNews writes:

Artificial intelligence is a matter of design – not destiny.

That’s the message from 10 philanthropic foundations aiming to loosen the grip that the technology’s moneyed developers, fueled by an investing frenzy, hold over its evolution.

Launched Tuesday under the name Humanity AI, the coalition is committing $500 million (€427 million) across the next five years to place human interests at the forefront of the technology’s rapid integration into daily life.

“The future belongs to those who actively create it, and that shan’t be a few leaders in Silicon Valley. It’s all of us,” Mozilla Foundation Executive Director Nabiha Syed said in an emailed statement.

Philanthropists to invest €427 million to curbs tech giants’ influence on new AI

Let’s hope they are successful.

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

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

Ars Technica reports:

Why Signal’s post-quantum makeover is an amazing engineering achievement

Feds seize $15 billion from alleged forced labor scam built on “human suffering”

Inside the web infrastructure revolt over Google’s AI Overviews

EuroNews reports:

Netherlands invokes rare emergency law to take charge of Chinese chipmaker

Free Software Foundation Europe reports:

Refund of pre-installed Windows: Lenovo must pay 20,000 euros in damages

DMA litigation against Apple: a quick recap

The Register reports:

Librephone battles the proprietary binary blob

Fantastic.

Lemonde Informatiqué reports:

Microsoft 365 Education traque illégalement les données des élèves

The Guardian reports:

Italian news publishers demand investigation into Google’s AI Overviews

The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports:

Victory! California Requires Transparency for AI Police Reports

Labor Unions, EFF Sue Trump Administration to Stop Ideological Surveillance of Free Speech Online

Signal reports:

Signal Desktop introduces Notification profiles

Tor Browser has an update:

Tor Browser will remove all of the Firefox AI features that Mozilla has been recently adding

Neutral

Ben Werdmueller advises:

News Orgs: Build what makes you special. Buy the rest.

NiemanLab shares:

“How can we help?” The Engaged Journalism Exchange aims to create belonging through media

Tech Policy reports:

To Have Democracy, We Must Contest Data

Government Technology reports:

CDT: Growing AI Use in Schools Brings Benefits and New Risks

The Evil Empire (AKA Autocracy) Strikes Back

Poynter reports:

A united media stands up against the Pentagon’s press restrictions

404 Media reports:

ICE, Secret Service, Navy All Had Access to Flock’s Nationwide Network of Cameras

Pariah States

The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports:

EFF and Five Human Rights Organizations Urge Action Around Microsoft’s Role in Israel’s War on Gaza

TechCrunch reports:

Spyware maker NSO confirms acquisition by U.S. investor

404 Media reports:

Senators Warn Saudi Arabia’s Acquisition of EA Will Be Used for ‘Foreign Influence’

BleepingComputer reports:

North Korean hackers use EtherHiding to hide malware on the blockchain

DarkReading reports:

China Hackers Test AI-Optimized Attack Chains in Taiwan

The Register reports:

Chinese cyberspies snoop on Russian IT biz in rare east-on-east attack

Big Tech

Ars Technica reports:

Trump admin pressured Facebook into removing ICE-tracking group

Infrequently Noted reports:

The App Store Was Always Authoritarian

MDR reports:

Windows-Umstellung kostet Sachsen-Anhalt mehr als vier Millionen Euro

404 Media reports:

The End of Windows 10 Support Is an E-Waste Disaster in the Making

Scott Larson reports:

Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft’s move towards a surveillance state

BertHub has:

The AI-collapse pre-mortem

The Torment Nexus has:

Should we be afraid of AI? Maybe a little

Personally I think of AI as a hammer and humans as nails. 95% of the time, it’s hammering us into a pile of shit. 5% of the time it can be turned around to pull us out.

Speaking of, The Verge reports:

OpenAI allegedly sent police to an AI regulation advocate’s door

Tuta shares:

How GoDaddy hollowed out Host Europe & DomainFactory (plus better European web hosting providers)

Terror

Politico reports:

‘I love Hitler’: Leaked messages expose Young Republicans’ racist chat

Cybersecurity/Privacy

BleepingComputer reports:

Spain dismantles “GXC Team” cybercrime syndicate, arrests leader

Wired reports:

Satellites Are Leaking the World’s Secrets: Calls, Texts, Military and Corporate Data

The Register reports:

British govt agents demand action after UK mega-cyberattacks surge 50%

Internet Exchange shares:

A Shield in Uncertain Times: The Role of Encryption

Fediverse

Connected Places has:

Fediverse Report – 138

Ben Werdmueller tells us:

Why the open social web matters now

For Better reflects on:

Defining a new kind of social app

Media CCC shares:

Decentralising Freedom: Open Source for Sovereignty

Fedify announces:

Fedify 1.9.0: Security enhancements, improved DX, and expanded framework support

Loops has:

Loops Joins the Fediverse

Loops Docs

We Distribute has:

Wafrn is for People Who Miss Tumblr’s Chaotic Energy

Mastodon announces:

The first beta release of Mastodon 4.5.0 is ready for testing!

TechCrunch reports:

Threads is getting group chats as messaging rolls out to the EU

Forgejo announces:

Forgejo v13.0 is available

Slightly Decentralized Social Media

ATProtocol Dev is:

Announcing ATmosphereConf: Vancouver, March 2026

Remember Bluesky is half-ass but ATProto has potential.

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 #Fedify #Fediverse #GoDaddy #Loops #Mastodon #Newsmast #Signal #StopChina #StopIsrael #StopRedAmerica #StopRussia #SupportUkraine #TechnoAnarchism #TechnoFeudalism #Threads #WARFN

https://battalion.mobileatom.net/?p=3789

Destroying Autocracy – October 09, 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.

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

Featured Item(s)

Open Media Network writes:

A central thesis of Tolkien’s books is that evil provides the means of its own defeat. Sauron forged the One Ring that destroyed him. Shelob impaled herself on Sam’s blade. Smaug exposed his belly to Bilbo and revealed the weak point that brought him down. Tolkien’s world is full of this pattern: the seed of destruction lies buried inside the will to dominate. Power over others always carries its own undoing.

But there’s a second truth, less often spoken. Good must still act. The Ring did not cast itself into the fires of Mount Doom, it had to be carried, inch by inch, through the mud and terror, by two small Hobbits who refused to give up. Shelob could only fall because Sam held his arm firm when it would have been easier to drop the blade. Smaug was slain not by fate, but by the hand that fired the black arrow.

Even when evil weakens itself, the act of courage still has to be taken. The small people still have to step up. And there’s a third lesson here, one that feels painfully relevant to our time: good only loses when it surrenders to hopelessness. Denethor’s despair nearly doomed Minas Tirith.

Frodo would have fallen without Sam’s stubborn love. Bilbo’s small act of faith. In Tolkien’s world, hope is not naïve optimism, it’s an act of defiance.

A Tolkien view of OMN

Join us and become a hobbit in the Open Media Network.

Speaking of OMN, we have an announcement this week:

Announcing The Programmer’s Fulcrum, our retirement project

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:

The military branch behind Ukraine’s battlefield apps turns to weapons bureaucracy

Ukraine’s parliament backs creation of cyber forces in first reading

The Christian Science Monitor reports:

How Ukrainian drones are slowing Russia’s advance in the east

The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports:

What Europe’s New Gig Work Law Means for Unions and Technology

Eiffair shares:

Kagi Love

Its FOSS News reports:

Wikidata Launches Free Vector Database as Open Alternative to Closed AI Systems

NiemanLab reports:

Nonprofit news is growing strong — especially local nonprofit news, a new report shows

And the Columbia Journalism Review reports:

Too Small to Mess With

Heisse reports:

A defeat at the Supreme Court: Google must prepare changes to the Play Store

Nextcloud has:

Nextcloud vs Microsoft interoperability: how open source gets it right

Open letter to EU Member States on the proposed CSA Regulation or “Chat Control” law

Tuta announces:

Europe’s future is at stake: Open letter against Chat Control

Patrick shares the good news that pressure still works:

Citizen Protest Halts Chat Control; Breyer Celebrates Major Victory for Digital Privacy

404 Media reports:

Data Hoarder Uses AI to Create Searchable Database of Epstein Files

Help Us Investigate Book Bans and Educational Censorship Around America

Igalia announces:

Igalia, Servo, and the Sovereign Tech Fund

The Guardian reports:

You won’t believe what degrading practice the pope just condemned

Clever headline.

The Register reports:

Pro-Russia hacktivist group dies of cringe after falling into researchers’ trap

UK slaps ‘strategic market status’ on Google, unlocking power to pry open search

Burning Web shares:

Five Beliefs

Great Stuff.

Neutral

CyberCultural shares:

What the Internet Was Like in 2000

Homestar Runner 🙂

The Brookings Institute says:

We should all be Luddites

The Guardian reports:

Governments are spending billions on their own ‘sovereign’ AI technologies – is it a big waste of money?

Poynter announces:

Poynter launches AI Innovation Lab to house its growing AI portfolio

CommonsDB is:

Exploring CommonsDB’s role in AI training data

The Evil Empire (AKA Autocracy) Strikes Back

TechCrunch reports:

ICE bought vehicles equipped with fake cell towers to spy on phones

Italian businessman’s phone reportedly targeted with Paragon spyware

Pariah States

The Kyiv Independent reports:

Russia’s digital Iron Curtain descends as Kremlin chokes remaining internet freedoms

IFTAS reports:

Coordinated Pro-Russian Propaganda Network Targeting ActivityPub and ATProto Services

Bleeping Computer reports:

Russian Hacktivists target critical infrastructure, hit decoy plant

North Korean hackers stole over $2 billion in crypto this year

The Columbia Journalism Review reports on:

Israel’s Influencer Insiders

DarkReading reports:

Chinese Gov’t Fronts Trick the West to Obtain Cyber Tech

China-Nexus Actors Weaponize ‘Nezha’ Open Source Tool

The Register reports:

OpenAI bans suspected Chinese accounts using ChatGPT to plan surveillance

The Columbia Journalism Review reports:

How Anti-Cybercrime Laws Are Being Weaponized to Repress Journalism

Big Media

FAIR reports:

MAGA’s Little Helpers: Sinclair, Nexstar and the Consolidation of Broadcast TV

Poynter reports:

The leader of a major press association resigned after his board opposed a lawsuit defending journalists’ rights

Big Tech

404 Media reports:

Apple Banned an App That Simply Archived Videos of ICE Abuses

CNET reports:

The Hidden Dangers of the Digital ‘Yes Man’: How to Push Back Against Sycophantic AI

The Guardian has:

Way past its prime: how did Amazon get so rubbish?

LitHub has more Cory Doctorow action:

How American Tech Cartels Use Apps to Break the Law

TechDirt reports:

Apple Decides ICE Agents Are A Protected Class, Because Apparently Government Accountability Is Now “Hate Speech”

And evidently make the law.

NOYB shares:

noyb win: Microsoft 365 Education may not track school children

Cybersecurity/Privacy

The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports:

Tile’s Lack of Encryption Is a Danger for Users Everywhere

FBI takes down BreachForums portal used for Salesforce extortion

Fuck Salesforce, BTW.

Fediverse

Social Experience Design says:

Welcome to Social coding commons

Hamish Campbell has:

Live at c-base a #fluffy Fediverse conference

STAR WARS: The Soft Empire

Riley Testut reports:

Evolving AltStore PAL

The New Stack reports:

Everything Big Starts Small: Building Open Social Web Apps

The Social Web Foundation has an:

Interview with John O’Nolan about Ghost 6

Connected Places has:

Fediverse Report – 137

Fedify announces:

The Sovereign Tech Fund is investing €192,000 in Fedify’s development over 2025–2026 to strengthen the fediverse ecosystem

Fedify 2.0—the CLI now runs natively on Node.js and Bun, not just Deno

Go To Social announces:

We’ve just made the proper release of v0.20.0 of GoToSocial, aka Sinister Sloth

TechCrunch reports:

Alternative app store AltStore raises $6M, connects with the Fediverse

Mastodon is taking cues from Bluesky with plans for its own starter ‘Packs’

Mastodon has:

Community consultation: new Terms of Service (for mastodon.social and mastodon.online)

It’s cool to join Mastodon but not these two instances.

Our ideas about Packs

Trunk & Tidbits, September 2025

Terence Eden explores:

Getting started with Mastodon’s Quote Posts – technical implementation details for servers

NHAM announces:

NHAM Update Opus 10 (Fedi Music Television Edition)

Super awesome.

Castopod announces:

The Official Castopod Plugin Repository

RSS

InEssential explains:

Why NetNewsWire Is Not a Web App

Lighthouse has:

A deep dive into the rss feed reader landscape

Other Slightly Federated Social Media

Azhdarchid has:

Delusions of a protocol

TechCrunch reports:

Waffles eat Bluesky

Niko Mara-McKay goes into the nitty-gritty:

Bluesky’s CEO meltdown: How leadership continues to fail its most marginalized users

I have said from day one that Bluesky will become enshittified. But, ATProto has some potential.

And to be fair, some of the leaders of ActivityPub and its largest platform (who value growth over safety) are egotistical pissy ass fucks when they are even slightly criticized.

But we are all fighting technofascism so let’s try to work together on the protocols front at least. Its okay to have debates and disagreements with allies. But treat them like allies when doing so. If they are your friends you can even call them pissy ass fucks. 😉

Speaking of, A New Social announces:

Bounce from Mastodon to Bluesky

Why would you? Although maybe its works with Blacksky, Northsky, or Eurosky.

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 #AltStore #ATProto #Autocracy #BigJournalism #BigTech #Bluesky #Castopod #Democracy #Fascism #Fediverse #fluffy #GoToSocial #IFTAS #Mastodon #NHAM #StopChina #StopIsrael #StopRedAmerica #StopRussia #SupportUkraine #TechnoAnarchism #TechnoFeudalism

https://battalion.mobileatom.net/?p=2587

Destroying Autocracy – October 02, 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

Cory Doctorow writes:

(I just gave) my first-ever speech about AI and I wasn’t sure how it would go over, but thankfully, it went great and sparked a lively Q&A. One of those questions came from a young man who said something like “So, you’re saying a third of the stock market is tied up in seven AI companies that have no way to become profitable and that this is a bubble that’s going to burst and take the whole economy with it?”

I said, “Yes, that’s right.”

He said, “OK, but what can we do about that?”

The real (economic) AI apocalypse is nigh

Just adjusted my investments as these c^nts are going to drag down everyone else with them.

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 has a guest editorial:

Why I gave the world wide web away for free

LibreOffice celebrates:

LibreOffice turns 15: a celebration of freedom, collaboration and open technologies and standards

It’s FOSS News has:

Austria’s Armed Forces Gets Rid of Microsoft Office (Mostly) for LibreOffice

Framablog has:

Fin de Windows 10 : faisons le point

TechCrunch reports:

DJI loses lawsuit over classification as Chinese military company

California Governor Newsom signs landmark AI safety bill SB 53

BleepingComputer reports:

EU probes SAP over anti-competitive ERP support practices

NOS reports:

Judge: Instagram and Facebook should be given algorithm-free option

Tangle says:

It’s time to embrace the tech backlash.

TechDirt reports:

Disney’s Stupid, Pointless Ban Of Jimmy Kimmel Lost Them 1.7 Million Streaming Subscribers

NPR reports:

Hundreds of celebrities relaunch a McCarthy-era committee to defend free speech

The Daily Northwestern reports:

Flock contract termination talks persist after cameras reinstalled, city orders cease-and-desist

404 Media reports:

404 Media and Freedom of the Press Foundation Sue DHS

The Register reports:

EU funds are flowing into spyware companies, and politicians are demanding answers

Signal announces:

Signal Protocol and Post-Quantum Ratchets

DIY Conspiracy has:

The Counterforce: Building a DIY Punk Infrastructure Against Corporate Platforms

The Evil Empire (AKA Autocracy) Strikes Back

404 Media reports:

ICE to Buy Tool that Tracks Locations of Hundreds of Millions of Phones Every Day

The Register reports:

ICE plans to scour Facebook, TikTok, X, and even defunct Google+ for illegal immigration leads

The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports:

EFF, ACLU to SFPD: Stop Illegally Sharing Data With ICE and Anti-Abortion States

Mexican Allies Raise Alarms About New Mass Surveillance Laws, Call for International Support

TechPolicy reports:

Control for Whom? Keeping an Eye on the Dark Side of America’s New Wearables Campaign.

US State Age Verification Efforts Threaten Online Speech and Privacy – The Supreme Court Seems Ready to Allow Them

This tracks for the Supreme C^nts.

The Guardian reports:

Starmer to unveil digital ID cards in plan set to ignite civil liberties row

TechCrunch reports:

UK government tries again to access encrypted Apple customer data: Report

The United Kuntdum is at it again.

The Association for Progressive Communications shares:

“We’re in survival mode”: Women human rights defenders on digital repression and movement sustainability

Pariah States

The Register reports:

Fake North Korean IT workers sneaking into healthcare, finance, and AI

Most HR types I have run into are stupid, but this is approaching ridiculous.

Hunt for RedNovember: Beijing hacked critical orgs in year-long snooping campaign

DarkReading reports:

New China APT Strikes With Precision and Persistence

BleepingComputer reports:

Dutch teens arrested for trying to spy on Europol for Russia

The Kyiv Independent reports:

Moldova casts blame on Russia for attempts to disrupt pivotal parliamentary elections

Big Media

Columbia Journalism Review reports:

The Pentagon Press Gears Up for a Fight

The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports:

Wave of Phony News Quotes Affects Everyone—Including EFF

NiemanLab reports:

Scammers are using video deepfakes of journalists to peddle products online

Kagi announces:

Introducing Kagi News

Big Tech

Open Media Network says:

The #AI bubble might be nastier than the Dot.com crash

The Guardian reports:

Leading UK tech investor warns of ‘disconcerting’ signs of AI stock bubble

Again, see the featured article.

TikTok ‘directs child accounts to pornographic content within a few clicks’

DarkReading reports:

‘Trifecta’ of Google Gemini Flaws Turn AI Into Attack Vehicle

F-Droid needs our help:

F-Droid and Google’s Developer Registration Decree

Fuck Google.

Cybersecurity/Privacy

The Register reports:

Feds cut funding to program that shared cyber threat info with local governments

Tile trackers are a stalker’s dream, say Georgia Tech researchers

BleepingComputer reports:

Sendit sued by the FTC for illegal collection of children data

Ben Werdmuller says:

Your private data isn’t as private as you think

Fediverse

Connected Places has a late:

Fediverse Report – 136

NHAM announces:

How Indie Video Killed The Spotify Star

This looks awesome.

IFTAS announces:

Sunsetting IFTAS Connect

The Social Web Foundation previews:

Cooperative Social Networks Berlin Fediday

The Applied Social Media Lab has:

Introducing the ASML ActivityPub Fuzzer: Improving Testing in the Fediverse

Great, great stuff.

Newsmast announces:

Building apps for social spaces

This is exactly the type of content The Programmer’s Fulcrum will cover. And we need more Fediverse businesses like this.

Mastodon has:

Bringing Quote Posts to Mastodon

Speaking of, Terence Eden has:

Getting started with Mastodon’s Quote Posts – technical implementation details for servers

Activity Pub for WordPress announces:

7.5.0 — Follow the Feed, Quote the Lead

TechCrunch reports:

Threads takes on X with new communities feature

Other Slightly Federated Social Media

TechCrunch reports:

Bluesky rolls out age verification for users in Ohio

The Social Web Foundation says:

The BlueSky Patent Non-Aggression Pledge is Good for The Social Web

Internet Exchange reports:

Bluesky Adopts More Flexible Model for Content Moderation

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 #Bluesky #Democracy #Fascism #Fediverse #IFTAS #Mastodon #Newsmast #StopChina #StopIsrael #StopRedAmerica #StopRussia #SupportUkraine #TechnoAnarchism #TechnoFeudalism #Threads #WordPress

https://battalion.mobileatom.net/?p=2549