Qaz
jonny (good kind)Just seeing that they are threatening Wikipedia's tax exempt status. The one good thing on the internet, the one healthy way we have of interacting with information.
https://www.theverge.com/news/656720/ed-martin-dc-attorney-wikipedia-nonprofit-threat
the letter from the DOJ is here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ocNyx34Et19sKtlta0bTPPzSPcpi375T/view
the fascists, of course, aren't concerned with having a legal basis for gutting anything good in the world, so it's not even worth commenting about its obvious illegitimacy. it is worth reading for the schadenfreude because it demonstrates a laughable misunderstanding of what wikipedia is.
for example, wikipedia is maybe the best positioned organization of any kind in the world to answer questions about how its editorial process works because mediawiki, if nothing else, is a transparency machine that makes it almost impossible to hide what happened on it at any point in history. metawiki is an unfathomably large governance document. it is literally possible for them to just link to the thousands of pages of text with thousands of authors that cover all of these questions
the most troubling thing (aside from the Entire Thing) is this idea that seems to be developing that LLMs have some special legal privilege as this unstoppable force, where it is not the fault of the LLM operators if their products cause harm (as they always do), but rather the people who produced the material that the LLM operators scraped to make those products.
the need for fediwiki was always real, but now it is very present.
the reason why that's so bad, of course, is that it is an even more insidious pretext for anything becoming a crime against the state - "you, at some point in your life, have impurified the overmind"
jon r@jonny
Did you have a chance to play with #fedwiki, yet?
It's around since a bit more than a decade and we sure do experience, how different topologies produce different outcomes.
Writing and reading change in one such environment.
I'd love if people from ActivityPub land would come more often over to this much older federation to learn and exhange.
Ward had also offered to assist in integrating ActivityPub, if that sounds useful.
Mayeb you wanna join us in #fedwiki:matrix.org ?
Did you have a chance to play with #fedwiki, yet?
It's around since a bit more than a decade and we sure do experience, how different topologies produce different outcomes.
Writing and reading change in one such environment.
I'd love if people from ActivityPub land would come more often over to this much older federation to learn and exhange.
Ward had also offered to assist in integrating ActivityPub, if that sounds useful.
Mayeb you wanna join us in #fedwiki:matrix.org ?
Hazel Brenado@jonny
While they really shouldn't be used at all, 100% agree. The operator must always be held responsible.
While they really shouldn't be used at all, 100% agree. The operator must always be held responsible.
Lisa Schiff@jonny Censorship!!! https://defendresearch.org
@lschiff yeah definitely, that's all i do all day long
Ambulocetus@jonny When I moved, I debated whether to get rid of my set of Encyclopedia, but now I'm glad I didn't. It might come in handy.
caneToad 
@jonny This sounds as if they should consider to relocate their operations to the European Union.
MAGA USA ist becoming more and more toxic to anyone & any organisation that intends to safeguard free speech & freedom of expression for ALL, not just for F Elon and the Felon, MAGA dickheads, GOP Censors, and their fellow fascists. They have unleashed a culture war on the US, and are propagating that all over the world. It's invasive, political mold threatening freedom anywhere.
Richard Levitte
unexpectedteapot@jonny It is true that state agents in the past have tried to edit and write articles on Wikipedia, as one might find in reports. Wikipedia has been targeted by many totalitarian states, unfortunately. But using this as a way to destroy it rather than protect and fund it is the same slimy tactic capitalists use to destroy public property and services, as seen all over the world.
This strategy of targeting nonprofits is straight out of Project 2025 handbook. They know that capitalism is threatened by successful and sustainable social benefit nonprofit businesses.
Simon Brooke@jonny Wikipedia is not without its problems. Yes, it's a very good thing that it exists, and its governance, while flawed, is not terrible. We should defend it (and I do pay my monthly £10 to support it).
But it isn't perfect and there are many other resources out there which are also good.
MadBytes@jonny Actually I am surprised that this did not start earlier. Hope they have a fallback plan...
Asakiyume@jonny Anything they can't corrupt must be destroyed.