eloquence

eloquence, 5 months ago (edited 5 months ago) to threads

There's a common false dichotomy about #Threads: cut them off, or leave it to user choice.

I can't speak to other software, but Mastodon offers a third option: limiting Threads. This can be done for all users of a server.

• You can follow Threads accounts after clicking through a warning.

• You have to manually approve followers from Threads.

Note, however, that boosted posts will continue to appear in your home timeline:

https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/26301#issuecomment-1868240966

eloquence, 10 months ago to random

With Twitter rebranding itself out of existence, millions of websites will have to update their "follow" and "share" buttons.

A perfect opportunity to finally add Mastodon or Fediverse buttons.

eloquence, 6 months ago to mastodon

Honestly, using #Phanpy feels a lot like using the #Mastodon web UI if it had been in 2 years of additional development. Lots of stuff people have been asking for, beautifully implemented.

Give it a try if:

• you've been overwhelmed by a reply thread on Mastodon because it's all just a big flat mess
• you'd like to see quoted posts actually unwrapped
• you'd like to see threads as threads
• you'd like to see notifications bundled

And yeah, it's all open source.

https://phanpy.social/

eloquence, 7 months ago to random

@sovtechfund (funded by the German government) just announced a €1M grant towards the @gnome project, an open source desktop environment.

Imagine a world in which governments don't spend billions of dollars in licensing fees every year to make Microsoft richer, and that money instead goes towards public code that belongs to all of us.

That may seem utterly implausible - but every example like this brings us one step closer to it being inevitable.

https://foundation.gnome.org/2023/11/09/gnome-recognized-as-public-interest-infrastructure/

eloquence, 7 months ago to wordpress

So, what are some good #WordPress blogs one can follow from here already? Are there any?

eloquence, 1 month ago to random

I've contributed a fair bit to free content (CC licenses) & open source projects over the years.

Personally, I want "my" stuff to be used to make AI models better. I use open licenses precisely because I want people to come up with interesting & hopefully beneficial new uses.

I understand why lots of folks feel differently, of course.

However, it's not a clear-cut legal situation, either. Training != inference; it's only model output that violates licenses that's unambiguously infringing.

eloquence, 10 months ago to random

Noticing Twitter account all over our organizational letterhead - it's hard to overstate just how institutionally ingrained this is.

It'd be nice for there to be a both human and machine-readable "linktree" equivalent to aggregate all our socials in one place, but without relying on, well, Linktree. Is there a good open standard way to do that? Custom page with schema.org markup?

Would like to just point people to something like "freedom.press/social" and never worry about it again ..

eloquence, 5 months ago to random

A common refrain is that the web is turning into garbage because of LLMs.

But that's not really true. It's just that the garbage is drowning out everything else, especially in search engines that themselves have decided to go into the garbage generation business.

What can we do? We can promote the #IndieWeb right here. Highlight the good, perhaps obscure websites and blogs you come across, especially the ones that aren't loaded with ads & trackers.

The web is still full of awesomeness.

eloquence, 7 months ago (edited 7 months ago) to random

I'm working on a spreadsheet to monitor which organizations, celebrities and other major accounts have truly made the exit from X, and where they're going.

I'm not tracking dual-posters, or people who've said they'll quit but actually haven't.

As this list fills up, I hope it'll make it easier for others to do the same.

https://bit.ly/eXit (redirects to Google Spreadsheet)

If you'd like to help & get edit access, send me a private mention. Or just reply with any additions!

eloquence, 6 months ago to random

X has taken its stance. Nazis on the platform are allowed. Pro-Hitler posts are allowed. Holocaust denial is allowed.

If you stay on a platform like that, you can't escape this creeping normalization. Even if you think you can.

"Oh, there goes another Holocaust denier. Just part of being online, I guess."

"Oh, another transphobe calling people dehumanizing slurs. Well that's the Internet for you."

Creeping normalization is like advertising. Even if you think it won't influence you, it will.

eloquence, 8 months ago to random

Germany's federal anti-discrimination agency has pinned a departure notice on their X account.

"As a state institution, the anti-discrimination agency has a role model function. Therefore, staying on X is no longer justifiable for us. All ministries and other public bodies should ask themselves whether it is still acceptable to remain on a platform that has become a disinformation network and whose owner spreads anti-Semitic, racist and populist content."

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/germanys-anti-discrimination-agency-quits-x-over-anti-minority-posts-2023-10-11/

eloquence, 8 months ago to gaming

If you're into #gaming, here are some indie legends you can follow:

• @maddy - Celeste; Towerfall

• @dukope - Papers, Please; Return of the Obra Dinn

• @christinelove - Analogue: A Hate Story; Ladykiller in a Bind

• @terry - Dicey Dungeons; Super Hexagon

• @Hempuli - Baba Is You

• @DoomCube - Darkside Detective

• @octavinavarro - Midnight Scenes; The Supper; incredible #PixelArt

• @zarfeblong - Hadean Lands & other #InteractiveFiction works and organizing

#FollowFriday

eloquence, 8 months ago to random

There have been so many "final straws" but I hope that if you still have a personal account on his terrible website, Musk promoting a German political extremist party with literal nazi ties is it. Especially looking at #journalists that for some reason seem to feel like they have to continue to maintain a personal presence there. (I understand that organizations will be the last to go, but individuals - if you have any control at all, delete your :birdsite: account.)

https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-immigration-migrants-germany-far-right-extremism-twitter-x-2023-9

eloquence, 7 months ago to random

@wikimediaDE may be the biggest conventional nonprofit to have shut down their X account so far (not counting NPR in that definition). The org had a EUR 12.7M budget last year, so not small potatoes.

As a Wikimedian that makes me very proud, though I'd love to see more Wikimedia chapters and @wikimediafoundation follow suit.

Which will be the next major US nonprofit to shut down their X account to stop enabling hate and misinformation?

eloquence, 6 months ago to opensource

Whether you know @davidrevoy's work or not, if you have any interest in the intersection of #OpenSource and #art, check out this fantastic interview by @perephoneia:

https://perephoneia.art/blog/david-revoy-interview/

Favorite quote:

"I also don’t like tools that are only available to the part of the population that can afford them. It excludes many creatives from many countries because they simply cannot pay."

David also shares a list of the many free tools he uses, including some I had never heard of.

eloquence, 11 months ago to random

With https://pi.ai/talk there's another LLM with billion dollar scale funding. UX is certainly impressive; if you turn on voice, the low latency and emotive voices make it a very natural seeming conversation partner.

Probably not an accident that one of the voices sounds a bit like ScarJo; the whole product evokes the movie "Her" or a Black Mirror episode.

eloquence, 6 months ago to random

The German eXit from Musk's hate platform is real and ongoing.

I'm seeing accounts for newspapers, courts, libraries, radio stations, cities, nonprofits, etc. getting shut down permanently or moved into maintenance mode. This is all very organic, e.g., the city of Cologne had a vote on withdrawal from X:

https://ratsinformation.stadt-koeln.de/getfile.asp?id=956920&type=do

I can barely keep up. Many of these accounts are now on the fediverse. The ones I've tracked so far are in the eXit spreadsheet:

https://bit.ly/eXit

eloquence, 7 months ago to infosec

#infosec community, what general security news RSS feeds do y'all monitor beyond, e.g.,

Ars Technica
Threatpost
Krebs on Security?

eloquence, 6 months ago to opensource

Dear #OpenSource and #privacy friends, when others post about something they've made, don't reply with "do this thing you're doing on a platform I like, or using the tool I prefer". :levburdislike:

If it's nor for you, just ignore it. Don't alienate others by jumping on something they're excited about sharing with the world. If people want that feedback or help, they'll ask for it.

Our own projects & posts are the best way to grow awareness & expand possibility spaces. :levburlike:

eloquence, 5 months ago to twitter

Hi #twitter / #x folks checking your trusty Mastodon account while the deadbird site is down because Elon chewed on the wrong wires:

If you leave by December 31, you can still say that you left the nazi bar behind in 2023. ;-) Join all the folks who've done so already.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1p5crRGK0Y9MuFsfkyOBEC--3wXxFTd71fPCUcIFPXK0/edit#gid=0

eloquence, 6 months ago to random

"Stand with X", says Musk's CEO.

What speech does Musk want you to defend on X?

@KarlRadl account featured in Media Matters article still active after review: Holocaust denial
https://archive.is/7sHmo

@The_National1 account featured in Media Matters article still active after review: "Long live Europa. NS is the way forward! ࿕"
https://archive.is/VE2mt

Accounts which X suspended (they're here):
@igd_news
@CrimethInc
@elonjet

If you still post on X, after all this - who do you stand with?

eloquence, 7 months ago to mastodon

The #Mastodon web UI built-in image viewer is pretty nice nowadays:

1. Click double arrow icon in the top right to few full-size image (when available)

2. Pan around

3. Click image to toggle visibility of controls

4. Hover for ALT text (which often also serves as a caption)

It can be easy to miss the double arrow icon in the top right though -- if you've never noticed it, be aware when looking at nice photos, drawings or posters that there's often a higher resolution view available!

eloquence, 5 months ago to threads

Remember, the first part of "divide & conquer" is "divide".

Every instance will find its way to deal with #Threads. It'll be okay. Keep calm and fedi on.

eloquence, 7 months ago to random

Some of today's additions to the https://bit.ly/eXit spreadsheet.

These are notable accounts that have left the hate platform known as X:

• @emilygorcenski: data scientist, anti-fascist, writer 📊

• @AbandonedAmerica: photos & stories of abandoned spaces 🥀

• @GreenLegal_EU: German access to environmental justice nonprofit 🤝🏻

• @justmoney: scholarship of money & how to fix it 💸

• @hnnng: German science communicator & podcast founder 👩‍🔬 👨‍🔬

eloquence, 5 months ago to meta

If you want to see how #Meta's bias towards boosting emotive content regardless of harm is already reflected in how they build Threads, this post is a good example (CW: transphobic comments in screenshot).

A transphobic post is used to advertise #Threads to an Instagram user.

It looks like that account has been deleted. But we'll see more examples, and I hope that underscores why many here want to, at the very least, be cautious in how we interact with Threads.

https://mastodon.gamedev.place/@hdyar/111632358618964024