Look, the song was OK, if nothing special, but coming a tight second in the televote (only just losing to #Croatia), and gaining the number one vote in countries like Finland is just really suspect.
I don’t necessarily mean bot votes, though it wouldn’t surprise me, but at least an orchestrated pro-Israel campaign.
@meraord I think #Finland started doing better at #Eurovision when they realised they don’t need to try so hard to be Sweden. But instead to be Finland. In other words completely bonkers, and proud of it.
@MastodonEngineering@Gargron@renchap@Claire despite all the hype about full stack I have very rarely, if ever, bumped into someone who is truly good at frontend and backend frameworks and techs. I wonder if you should consider splitting those roles? (Not for me, I might add, but I’d struggle to come up with anyone I could honestly recommend for both).
@loke@remotevoices — got anything? I saw #Lustmord had a free album on Bandcamp. Also on my list I have ‘Black Earth’ by #Bohren and Der Club of Gore as a dark ambient jazz thing. But need to relisten.
Every time. Media outlets share lies, the world buys into it, then no one notices when they admit it was all false. Yet, it took 4 months for media outlets to just start talking about hundreds of women, men, boys and girls raped and slaughtered on October 7th by Hamas as well as many hundreds of literal Palestinian civilians, some of those women are still held in Gaza by Hamas but also by civilians who use them as rape slaves and Hamas can't find them for hostages deals because of it. #israel
@skaly I’m not exactly sure what you’re talking about. The media covered the slaughter on Oct 7th immediately and added to it as details emerged. I don’t think anyone was anything less than appalled by those events. But #Israel has lost almost all good will by the rhetoric and actions it has followed with since then.
@immibis@skaly I’m not sure what reality you live in, but the media has constantly been posting negative news about Israel’s actions. General opinion has greatly soured towards the country and even the UN Security Council now passed a resolution. I don’t think Israel has done itself many favours over the last few months.
@skaly the attacks were extensively covered in the media, immediately after they took place. Wall to wall coverage. Obviously not all details were known immediately. I tend to like following media that actually does the work and verifies things rather than report rumour. I think the BBC did a pretty good job. And back then, everyone was horrified and supportive of Israel. It’s Israel’s own actions which have lead to diminishing support.
@skaly I don’t read Al Jazeera much, but I don’t recall wide reporting of rape by IDF. But yes, media do get things wrong. The good outlets generally try to get several sources but even then it’s sometimes wrong. The overall tone was of horror of the attacks on Israel. Which is why there was a lot of sympathy for the country at the time.
There has also been examples of the opposite (the aid convoy shooting) where Israel was not very open about the details.
@skaly this is the first time I’ve heard anyone claim #Hamas was firing on their own citizens, and I find that statement to be improbable, but I honestly don’t know. Initially #Israel stated something different and then that they had fired on ‘suspects’ (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-68509794.amp).
Regardless, shit happens in war. Individual bad decisions. The big picture is that over a million people have been displaced from their homes and 10000s kills, many civilians, possibly even most.
I wonder if, with #Threads opening up its Fediverse federation, people will start to move their presence away from other #Mastodon instances and onto Threads.
Pity it’s not available to test with Finnish accounts (of course…).
@BeAware I agree it will work both ways. At least when it becomes possible for Threads users to follow other Fediverse accounts. If people then want onto a more ad free experience or on a special instance, they can.
@ErikJonker@geopolitics another thing that struck me from the report was that #Russia GDP grew by more than the G7 in 2023. Sanctions don’t really seem to be having much of the desired effect.
#AI is allowing completely new forms of creativity, just like many innovations before it. I’m sure there were those who frowned upon cameras back in the day. There will be those who embrace the possibilities and always those who oppose anything new that threatens to shake things up.
Come on, would defense contractor really orchestrate death between testimonies of whistleblower when individuals there could face financial & criminal consequences for things they testify about?
Suggesting it is ludicrous. Boeing would never have any part in killing a whistleblower. Literally last thing they’d do. No movies even about that sort of thing, total crazy fantasy.
@darnell it’s a little bonkers when you consider that for the same price as the #Tesla#Cybertruck tent you can get a whole camper setup for the #VW#IDBuzz. Kitchen, cooker, fridge, bed, the lot.
One thing I noticed on BlueSky is people who used to be on Twitter drumming up outrage for whatever some well-known troll posts on X, thereby doing exactly what the troll wants on their site too.
It's like these people are either congenitally incapable of learning anything, or they just enjoy the engagement no matter what.
