For those of us not in the US, I think this also highlights the real need to loosen the US's stranglehold on the Internet at large. The US has disproportionate power to control content on the Internet as a whole, because so many services and so much infrastructure resides there.
This highlights the importance of building redundant services elsewhere in the world, and moving content outside the US in general. So if the US tries to remove LGBTQ+ content in some cultural crusade, you laugh at them. Make them firewall it, like China, if they don't like it.
As an American I couldn’t agree more. Since our government won’t and can’t (because courts keep siding with corporations) pursue any antitrust action or legislation; I beg other countries throughout the world to come up with alternatives and force competition into these market spaces.
I would love it if there were a social media platform that didn’t reside in the US, and possibly Europe so they have to follow GDPR regulations and the like.
At the same time it doesn’t seem likely because why build a platform that has to follow the regulations and cost more money when you can just build it in America instead? Sigh
People getting aware of themselves, their oppression and connected in their communities are a huge threat, i guess. Combine that with the Internet as educational tool instead of a marketing machine and you get some desperate counter meassures, yay
I'm all for arming the resistance, but I feel it's important to point out that if someone doesn't feel able and/or safe handling a firearm that's ok too, there are other ways to support those on the front lines and the rest of the community.
I would disagree. I say that everyone should take a first aid class, but to be useful in any real situation in general you need a shitton of training. Honestly, from experience, I want fewer people who think they are useful when being everything but useful in emergency situations. It leads to situations where I need to babysit them and work. At worst, they endanger themselves and/or others.
I know a lot of people who are not used to these situations feel like an extra pair of hands is always a plus but I have not met any first responders, health care workers, military or aid workers that agree with that statement. It is a common subject of discussion as it really is driving most of us up the wall.
See if you have a local CERT chapter. They will train you on incident response logistics, search and rescue, and advanced first aid. It will also connect you to a community of volunteers and professionals in the area.
Of course, don’t lay down. Really learn and train to become useful in those situations. You don’t need to be professional, just properly trained. There are multiple ways to do it but you need more than a couple of days a year to also keep that training up to date.
I just have a lot of experience with people making things worse because they think the basic to medium first aid courses will make you able to help properly. And then make things worse. So my comment might have come out too harshly. But advanced first aid with the psychology of emergencies and scene management with the right attitude (mostly listening to those more experienced) will actually be useful.
I disagree - I have been involved in civilian emergency prep communities for a while now, and it is the formal, published stance of FEMA that having civilians who understand incident response logistics and advanced first aid is absolutely critical to managing the first hours of an incident. We teach advanced trauma first aid (wound packing, field dressing, tourniquets, chest wounds, triage etc), as well as field command hierarchy and management to be handled until professional help arrives.
Teaching civilians how to stabilize, log and report on incidents has a huge multiplier effect on the effectiveness of emergency services. The idea that people should not get involved because they are not professionals is very outdated. It takes about two weeks to go over the basics of incident management, S&R, and first aid/triage. Once you’ve done that and established a local CERT volunteer corps, FEMA will literally give you grants to hand out equipment, hold practice exercises and recruit more volunteers.
I am a humanitarian aid worker working in emergencies with a decade under my belt. I am not saying civilians are not useful if they are properly trained. First aid courses that are not advanced, often repeated can help but it really is nowhere near enough to think you are ready to even halfway towards the front lines. Often simple first aid courses can also make you think you know more than you do. That also commonly coincides with attitudes where people are not listening.
I just have absolutely too much experience with people making bad situations worse with their actions. And even some people causing emergency situations because of what they don’t know. But I do not disagree with you. I think we are talking about two different things. I am talking about normal first aid courses people take every couple of years what you are talking about is actual advanced first aid courses that properly teach emergencies, how they work and how you need to act.
Most people aren’t aware of Project 2025, or its playbook, “Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise”—but you need to be. In stark terms, Project 2025 reveals the conservatives’ plan to enact a sweeping “Don’t Say Gay” policy that will effectively blot out all LGBTQ content on the internet as well as any published material with LGBTQ content, no matter how benign.
Project 2025 is a coalition of prominent conservative organizations that includes the Claremont Institute, Alliance Defending Freedom, Family Research Council, Hillsdale College, Heritage Foundation, Freedom Works, American Legislative Exchange Council, American Principles Project, and dozens of others. The organization’s goal is to lay out a “first 180 days” agenda for the next administration, and to recruit conservatives to fill positions within the federal government appointed by the executive branch.
The Heritage Foundation alone is a massive, well-connected think tank with an annual budget of $38 million. Mike Pence joined in 2021. They were instrumental in staffing the Trump administration and directing his policies, with at least 66 Heritage Foundation employees and alumni given positions in the administration.
News orgs setting up shop with their own fediverse instances that they run and control (like the swiss govt just did with mastodon) seems like a natural situation.
Definitely a good idea, but at least so far no part of the fediverse has a fraction of the reach of posting on twitter. Journalists can go elsewhere easily enough, the issue is getting the audience to follow.
Fuck Twitter, they don’t have any monopoly on “news” or journalism. Blogging, and many other forms of independent journalism existed before Twitter and they still work. Twitter is not the Internet, and it’s not a newspaper or magazine. The Internet will be just fine without it and the world wide web can host any journalism that anybody wants to publish.
I believe the problem isn’t the place where journalist can write, but place to get exposure.
Yes, one can write a blog but how many of the netizens read blogs without a social media link? Independent journalist aren’t newspaper nor magazine. When they investigated something and reported it, yet no one reads it, that’s waste of effort. Social media is the perfect place for them to get exposure.
Twitter of course not the only social media in the world. But in reality, we consume less and less textual but visual information. And Twitter is one of the few platform that focused on text, rather images or videos.
As it turned out, people in Utah County, a place that often boasts of being the most conservative area in the nation, were disproportionately large consumers of the very videos that prosecutors had labeled obscene and illegal. And far more Utah County residents were getting their adult movies from the sky or cable than they were from the stores owned by Larry Peterman.
Republican anti-abortion activist Howard Scott Heldreth is a convicted child rapist in Florida.
Republican County Commissioner David Swartz pleaded guilty to molesting two girls under the age of 11 and was sentenced to 8 years in prison.
Republican judge Mark Pazuhanich pleaded no contest to fondling a 10-year old girl and was sentenced to 10 years probation.
Republican anti-abortion activist Nicholas Morency pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography on his computer and offering a bounty to anybody who murders an abortion doctor.
Republican legislator Edison Misla Aldarondo was sentenced to 10 years in prison for raping his daughter between the ages of 9 and 17.
Republican Mayor Philip Giordano is serving a 37-year sentence in federal prison for sexually abusing 8- and 10-year old girls.
Republican campaign consultant Tom Shortridge was sentenced to three years probation for taking nude photographs of a 15-year old girl.
Republican racist pedophile and United States Senator Strom Thurmond had sex with a 15-year old black girl which produced a child.
Republican pastor Mike Hintz, whom George W. Bush commended during the 2004 presidential campaign, surrendered to police after admitting to a sexual affair with a female juvenile.
Republican legislator Peter Dibble pleaded no contest to having an inappropriate relationship with a 13-year-old girl.
Republican activist Lawrence E. King, Jr. organized child sex parties at the White House during the 1980s.
Republican lobbyist Craig J. Spence organized child sex parties at the White House during the 1980s.
Republican Congressman Donald “Buz” Lukens was found guilty of having sex with a female minor and sentenced to one month in jail.
Republican fundraiser Richard A. Delgaudio was found guilty of child porn charges and paying two teenage girls to pose for sexual photos.
Republican activist Mark A. Grethen convicted on six counts of sex crimes involving children.
Republican activist Randal David Ankeney pleaded guilty to attempted sexual assault on a child.
Republican Congressman Dan Crane had sex with a female minor working as a congressional page.
Republican activist and Christian Coalition leader Beverly Russell admitted to an incestuous relationship with his step daughter.
Republican governor Arnold Schwarzenegger allegedly had sex with a 16 year old girl when he was 28.
Republican congressman and anti-gay activist Robert Bauman was charged with having sex with a 16-year-old boy he picked up at a gay bar.
Republican Committee Chairman Jeffrey Patti was arrested for distributing a video clip of a 5-year-old girl being raped.
Republican activist Marty Glickman (a.k.a. “Republican Marty”), was taken into custody by Florida police on four counts of unlawful sexual activity with an underage girl and one count of delivering the drug LSD.
Republican legislative aide Howard L. Brooks was charged with molesting a 12-year old boy and possession of child pornography.
Republican Senate candidate John Hathaway was accused of having sex with his 12-year old baby sitter and withdrew his candidacy after the allegations were reported in the media.
Republican preacher Stephen White, who demanded a return to traditional values, was sentenced to jail after offering $20 to a 14-year-old boy for permission to perform oral sex on him.
Republican talk show host Jon Matthews pleaded guilty to exposing his genitals to an 11 year old girl.
Republican anti-gay activist Earl “Butch” Kimmerling was sentenced to 40 years in prison for molesting an 8-year old girl after he attempted to stop a gay couple from adopting her.
Republican Party leader Paul Ingram pleaded guilty to six counts of raping his daughters and served 14 years in federal prison.
Republican election board official Kevin Coan was sentenced to two years probation for soliciting sex over the internet from a 14-year old girl.
Republican politician Andrew Buhr was charged with two counts of first degree sodomy with a 13-year old boy.
Republican politician Keith Westmoreland was arrested on seven felony counts of lewd and lascivious exhibition to girls under the age of 16 (i.e. exposing himself to children).
Republican anti-abortion activist John Allen Burt was charged with sexual misconduct involving a 15-year old girl.
Republican County Councilman Keola Childs pleaded guilty to molesting a male child.
Republican activist John Butler was charged with criminal sexual assault on a teenage girl.
Republican candidate Richard Gardner admitted to molesting his two daughters.
Republican Councilman and former Marine Jack W. Gardner was convicted of molesting a 13-year old girl.
Republican County Commissioner Merrill Robert Barter pleaded guilty to unlawful sexual contact and assault on a teenage boy.
Republican City Councilman Fred C. Smeltzer, Jr. pleaded no contest to raping a 15 year-old girl and served 6-months in prison.
Republican activist Parker J. Bena pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography on his home computer and was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison and fined $18,000.
Republican parole board officer and former Colorado state representative, Larry Jack Schwarz, was fired after child pornography was found in his possession.
Republican strategist and Citadel Military College graduate Robin Vanderwall was convicted in Virginia on five counts of soliciting sex from boys and girls over the internet.
Republican city councilman Mark Harris, who is described as a “good military man” and “church goer,” was convicted of repeatedly having sex with an 11-year-old girl and sentenced to 12 years in prison.
Republican businessman Jon Grunseth withdrew his candidacy for Minnesota governor after allegations surfaced that he went swimming in the nude with four underage girls, including his daughter.
Republican director of the “Young Republican Federation” Nicholas Elizondo molested his 6-year old daughter and was sentenced to six years in prison.
Republican benefactor of conservative Christian groups, Richard A. Dasen Sr., was charged with rape for allegedly paying a 15-year old girl for sex. Dasen, 62, who is married with grown children and several grandchildren, has allegedly told police that over the past decade he paid more than $1 million to have sex with a large number of young women
Donald Trump walked into Miss Teen USA change rooms with girls as young as 14 changing. He has been accused of raping a 13 -year-old with an independent witness.
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