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

Between July and September 2025, 23 more international companies finalised their exit from the Russian market, according to Leave Russia/KSE Institute.

#leaverussia #stoprussia #sanctionsrussia

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

Destroying Autocracy – September 25, 2025

Welcome to this week’s “Destroying Autocracy”.

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

DA comes out on Thursday and is updated through the end of day on Friday. Then we start over. So take your time in perusing it and check back in over the weekend.

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

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

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

Featured Item

Tuta shares:

Finally some good news: French MPs want to make it illegal to break encryption and limit surveillance.

Is France finally standing up for encryption and privacy?

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

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

The Guardian reports:

Too tricky to cancel: Amazon faces US trial over alleged Prime subscription deceptions

Amazon to pay $2.5bn to settle FTC lawsuit over Prime ‘subscription traps’

Ars Technica reports:

How to fight censorship, one Disney+ cancellation at a time

I canceled Hulu, ESPN+, and Disney+. And they’re gonna stay canceled. My drinking budget just went up $90 a month. Cheers!

The Verge reports:

Microsoft forced to make Windows 10 extended security updates truly free in Europe

404 Media reports:

We’re Suing ICE for its $2 Million Spyware Contract

The Kyiv Independent reports:

Ukraine hacks Crimea proxy head, uncovers child abduction files, intelligence source says

FSFE reports:

The Digital Markets Act turns 1: one year of pushing for Device Neutrality

Neutral

The Next Web reports:

The EU’s €2T budget overlooks a key tech pillar: Open source

The Evil Empire (AKA Autocracy) Strikes Back

Tech Policy reports:

The Internet Coup Is Here. And the World Is Still Asleep

The Guardian reports:

Documents offer rare insight on Ice’s close relationship with Palantir

Reuters reports:

Exclusive: US could hit entire International Criminal Court with sanctions soon

The EFF reports:

That Drone in the Sky Could Be Tracking Your Car

404 Media reports:

How Surveillance Firms Use ‘Democracy’ As a Cover for Serving ICE and Trump

Ars Technica reports:

Senate staff probes DOGE, finds locked doors and windows covered with trash bags

Pariah States

DarkReading reports:

Chinese APT Leans on Researcher PoCs to Spy on Other Countries

Iran-Linked Hackers Target Europe With New Malware

EuroNews reports:

Inside Russia’s AI-driven disinformation machine shaping Moldova’s election

The Register reports:

SIM city: Feds say 100,000-card farms could have killed cell towers in NYC

Google warns China-linked spies lurking in ‘numerous’ enterprises since March

North Korea’s Lazarus Group shares its malware with IT work scammers

The Guardian reports:

Microsoft blocks Israel’s use of its technology in mass surveillance of Palestinians

A small part of it.

Big Media

Fuck Disney, fuck ABC, fuck Sinclair, fuck the FCC, and fuck the orange hate baboon.

Ben Werdmuller has:

Building distributed media for a democratic breakdown

Big Tech

TechCrunch reports:

Meta launches super PAC to fight AI regulation as state policies mount

The Guardian reports:

Parents outraged as Meta uses photos of schoolgirls in ads targeting man

Meta exposé author faces bankruptcy after ban on criticising company

France24 reports:

EU rejects Apple demand to scrap landmark tech rules

The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports:

Going Viral vs. Going Dark: Why Extremism Trends and Abortion Content Gets Censored

If we stop using products from the c^nts at Meta, we can solve all these problems.

Computer World reports:

OpenAI admits AI hallucinations are mathematically inevitable, not just engineering flaws

Hidde shares:

The politics of AI: we’ll need more sustainability, community and democracy

404 Media reports:

AI ‘Workslop’ Is Killing Productivity and Making Workers Miserable

Cybersecurity/Privacy

Camille Bouvat announces:

Saracroche, le bloqueur d’appels indésirables pour iPhone et Android

I was happy to find this spam blocker and put it to use on my Fairphone.

Between Two Firewalls reports:

Identity Is Still the Perimeter

Wired reports:

How Signal’s Meredith Whittaker Remembers SignalGate: ‘No Fucking Way’

BleepingComputer reports:

Police seizes $439 million stolen by cybercrime rings worldwide

Fediverse

Connected Places has:

Fediverse Report 135

Elena Rossini shares:

The Future Is Federated: My Fediverse Starter Guide

Open Journals has some new research:

Pin the tail on the researcher: From distributed to meshy accountability in decentralized social media

Kalvin has:

Mastodon and Algorithms: Transparent, Simple, and User-Controlled

PeerTube announces:

PeerTube mobile app v1.1.0 is out!

PieFed announces:

PieFed 1.2 is released

Hackers Pub shows us:

How to Build a Simple ActivityPub Reminder Bot in Python.

Other Slightly Federated Social Media

TechCrunch reports:

Bluesky says it’s getting more aggressive about moderation and enforcement

CTAs (aka show us some free love)

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

Keep fighting!

Ringleader, Battalion
Reuben Walker
Follow me on the Fediverse

#ActivityPub #AI #ATProto #Autocracy #BigJournalism #BigTech #Democracy #Fascism #Fediverse #Mastodon #StopChina #StopIsrael #StopRedAmerica #StopRussia #SupportUkraine #TechnoAnarchism #TechnoFeudalism

https://battalion.mobileatom.net/?p=2522

10 years ago russians were violating Turkish air space, and got warned, and they ignored. Then Turkey shot down their jet, killing one pilot. And russians stopped.

#stopRussia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Russian_Sukhoi_Su-24_shootdown

Destroying Autocracy – September 18, 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

Bogdan (the man) the Geek shares:

Hosting a Website on a Disposable Vape

Well motherfuck. 🤯 That’s anarchic as hell. 😈

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:

Ukrainian ‘cyber revenge’ hack disrupts Russian election systems, HUR source claims

Ukraine tests new kamikaze drones resistant to Russian jamming

El Pais reports:

Signal president Meredith Whittaker: ‘In technology, it’s way too easy for marketing to replace substance. That’s what’s happened with Telegram’

xWiki reports:

Europe’s digital sovereignty blueprint: from dependency to autonomy

Open_Future reports:

How data center expansion risks derailing climate goals and what to do about it

The Torment Nexus reports:

On Nepal’s Discord election and social-media driven uprisings

Ethan Marcotte shares:

Against the protection of stocking frames.

This regards viewing AI as the failed technology that it is.

Neutral

TechCrunch reports:

California lawmakers pass AI safety bill SB 53 — but Newsom could still veto

MIT Technology Review reports:

The looming crackdown on AI companionship

Gothamist reports:

TikTok, Instagram may request selfie to verify age under proposed NY rules

The Evil Empire (AKA Autocracy) Strikes Back

Break Through News reports:

Meet Flock: The Surveillance Company Building America’s ‘Authoritarian Tracking Infrastructure’

TechCrunch reports:

Here’s the tech powering ICE’s deportation crackdown

The Register reports:

Trump backpedals as Hyundai factory ICE raid enrages South Korea

The incompetent left hand doesn’t know what the asshole right hand is doing because the c^nt skull between them is empty.

UK Lords take aim at Ofcom’s ‘child-protection’ upgrades to Online Safety Act

Maybe they can unfuck it.

404 Media reports:

DOJ Deletes Study Showing Domestic Terrorists Are Most Often Right Wing

Sigh.

Forbes reports:

ICE Just Spent Millions On Surveillance Tech Banned By Facebook

Ars Technica reports:

FCC derided as “Federal Censorship Commission” after pushing Jimmy Kimmel off ABC

TechDirt reports:

TikTok To Be Sold To Trump’s Right Wing Billionaire Buddies And Converted Into A Propaganda Mill

Pariah States

The Register reports:

Nork snoops whip up fake South Korean military ID with help from ChatGPT

Russian fake-news network, led by an ex-Florida sheriff’s deputy, storms back into action with 200+ new sites

Ars Technica reports:

Two of the Kremlin’s most active hack groups are collaborating, ESET says

Inter SecLab shares:

The Internet Coup

TechCrunch reports:

Israel announces seizure of $1.5M from crypto wallets tied to Iran

C^nts on c^nts action.

Speaking of, DarkReading reports:

Iranian State APT Blitzes Telcos & Satellite Companies

Big Media

Free Software Foundation Europe reports:

Legal Corner: The War on Ad Blockers – Axel Springer’s Assault on User Freedom

TechPolicy reports:

How Google Paid the Media Millions to Avoid Regulatory Pressure

Deutsche Welle reports:

ChatEurope: What’s the Status of Europe’s AI-driven News Bot?

TechDirt reports:

The Washington Post Fires Its Last Black Opinion Columnist For Directly Quoting A Bigot

90% of newspapers suck now. Isn’t that sad. TV has always sucked but you used to find decent papers everywhere.

Big Tech

TechCrunch reports:

Karen Hao on the Empire of AI, AGI evangelists, and the cost of belief

EuroNews reports:

French streamer Deezer reveals that 28 per cent of music uploaded to platform is AI-generated

WTF. At least they hide it.

The EEF reports:

Our Stop Censoring Abortion Campaign Uncovers a Social Media Censorship Crisis

BleepingComputer reports:

Google nukes 224 Android malware apps behind massive ad fraud campaign

Please use open-source F-droid apps not Android ones.

New FileFix attack uses steganography to drop StealC malware

Don’t use Meta, bitches.

Ars Technica reports:

“China keeps the algorithm”: Critics attack Trump’s TikTok deal

So corporate America gets to further enshittify the user experience while supposedly maintaining privacy (ha!) and China gets to continue the misinformation and propaganda with the algorithm. Great deal.

Cybersecurity/Privacy

404 Media reports:

Airlines Sell 5 Billion Plane Ticket Records to the Government For Warrantless Searching

There’s nothing we can do about this type of c^ntness.

ChatGPT Will Guess Your Age and Might Require ID for Age Verification

You can control this. Don’t use AI horseshit.

Microsoft and Cloudflare disrupt massive RaccoonO365 phishing service

DarkReading reports:

‘ShadowLeak’ ChatGPT Attack Allows Hackers to Invisibly Steal Emails

Fediverse

Connected Places has:

Fediverse Report – 134

IFTAS has:

IFTAS Responds to the European Commission’s Review of the Digital Markets Act

ActivityPub for WordPress has:

Help Shape the Future of Moderation in the Fediverse

This poll may be closed now, but please join me and donate to IFTAS.

7.4.0 – More Control, Less Waiting

Mastodon.world has:

September 2025: Updates for the .worlds and call for donations

Donate to your instances. The reason they don’t suck is that they aren’t monetized and thus enshittified.

Mastodon has:

Service offerings from Mastodon

Other Slightly Federated Social Media

Connected Places has:

‘Blueskyism’, Political Violence, and Open Social Networks Under Authoritarianism

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 #RSS #Signal #StopChina #StopIsrael #StopRedAmerica #StopRussia #SupportUkraine #TechnoAnarchism #TechnoFeudalism

https://battalion.mobileatom.net/?p=2510