aral

aral, 8 months ago to random

“Nice people made the best Nazis. My mom grew up next to them. They got along, refused to make waves, looked the other way when things got ugly and focused on happier things than “politics.” They were lovely people who turned their heads as their neighbors were dragged away. You know who weren’t nice people? Resisters.”

– Naomi Shulman

aral, 2 months ago to firefox

Mozilla fires 60 people to “focus on bringing ‘trustworthy AI into Firefox.’”

Fuck you, Mozilla. No one is asking for AI in Firefox. Sadly, you’re the best we can hope for under capitalism. So if we want something better, we should look into alternative models.

https://techcrunch.com/2024/02/13/mozilla-downsizes-as-it-refocuses-on-firefox-and-ai-read-the-memo/

#mozilla #firefox #ai

aral, 9 months ago to random

Closing libraries is how you burn books without lighting a match.

aral, 5 months ago (edited 5 months ago) to climate

These fuckers are content to watch us die.

This bullshit is going to condemn our species to extinction unless we find a way to depose these sociopaths.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/dec/03/back-into-caves-cop28-president-dismisses-phase-out-of-fossil-fuels

#cop28 #copOut #ClimateEmergency #ClimateCrisis #ClimateChange

aral, 9 months ago to ads

Whenever you see the words “ads”, “cryptocurrency”, “blockchain”, “web 3”, or “AI”, just replace them with “farts” and you’ll know whether you want them or not.

“Can the fediverse survive without farts?”

Yes, perfectly well.

“Will farts replace people?”

I hope not.

“The European Commission embraces farts.”

That’s unfortunate.

“This new startup wants to improve your life with farts.”

I’m good, thanks.

#SiliconValley #BigTech #farts #buzzword #bullshit #ads #adtech #blockchain #ai #web3

aral, 10 months ago to fediverse

Some fediverse instance admins: “How cool, Meta invited us to the adult table.”

Yes, they did.

Because you’re what’s for dinner.

#fediverse #mastodon #meta #Project92 #BigTech #SiliconValley #SurveillanceCapitalism

aral, 8 months ago to twitter

Your Twitter/X account is a microphone connected to a mixer controlled by a fascist. You can speak all you want. The fascist controls your volume and can mute you whenever he wants. And you might not even know you’ve been muted because you can still hear yourself in your headphones.

It’s not called resistance when your volume knob is in someone else’s hand.

#twitter #x #algorithmicTimeline #elonMusk #fascism

aral, 10 months ago to random

Stop anthropomorphising billionaires.

aral, 2 months ago (edited 2 months ago) to technology

Freedom in technology must include freedom from technology.

We must not create societies where the price of admission is owning a device controlled by one of two trillion-dollar US corporations.

We must safeguard people’s access to public services and the everyday necessities of life via alternate methods.

Technology should always be a progressive enhancement.

Do not let Silicon Valley privatise your access to modern life.

https://mastodon.ar.al/@lrvick@mastodon.social/112079059430275102

#technology #society #access #humanRights

aral, 9 months ago to mastodon

Direct messages (DMs) on #Mastodon / #ActivityPub / the #fediverse are not end-to-end encrypted (#e2ee) and you should never include sensitive/private information in them.

Until they are e2ee, this is all we should be telling people. Anything else is irresponsible and could cause vulnerable people harm.

Specifically, it doesn’t matter:

• if your instance admin is ethical or not
• whether Elon Musk can read DMs easier on Twitter
• etc.

It’s not end-to-end encrypted. It’s not private. End of.

aral, 6 months ago to Bulgaria

🚨 Another EU mass surveillance attempt. Will kill privacy on web. Must not pass. 🚨

“[A]ll web browsers distributed in Europe will be required to trust the certificate authorities and cryptographic keys selected by EU governments.

These changes radically expand the capability of EU governments to surveil their citizens by ensuring cryptographic keys under government control can be used to intercept encrypted web traffic across the EU.”

https://last-chance-for-eidas.org

#eu #privacy #surveillance #eidas

aral, 5 months ago to random

What’s sad is realising you live in a world where every exaggerated analogy you used to make a point is actually happening:

Having Google in schools is like having McDonalds in nutrition class. (I find out that McDonalds does, in fact, sponsor nutrition classes in US schools.)

Having a surveillance capitalist sponsor a conference on free and open source/human rights is like having an oil company sponsor a climate conference. (Forget sponsoring, turns out head of #Cop28 runs an oil firm.)

🤬

aral, 5 months ago to random

“So it’s over for you, Elon Musk. You are a public failure of a man. You’ll still be rich, but you no longer matter. That’s all you really wanted out of this, wasn’t it? You bought Twitter because you thought that owning it would make you the most special person in the whole wide world, only to reveal yourself as an unremarkable shithead with no good ideas … Go fuck yourself, Elon. Go. Fuck. Yourself. Is that clear?”

https://www.sfgate.com/sf-culture/article/elon-musk-nyt-interview-18524602.php

aral, 3 months ago (edited 3 months ago) to random

The problem is we expect incontrovertible proof from scientists yet accept any old bullshit from politicians.

aral, 3 months ago to random

I can’t believe I’m having to write this but please don’t let Elon Musk anywhere near your brain.

aral, 7 months ago to random

Never do something so terrible you get Elon Musk to defend you.

aral, 1 month ago to threads

Dear @Gargron,

A fediverse server called Threads is violating mastodon.social’s second server rule:

“2. No racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia…
Transphobic behavior such as intentional misgendering and deadnaming is strictly prohibited.”

https://glaad.org/smsi/report-meta-fails-to-moderate-extreme-anti-trans-hate-across-facebook-instagram-and-threads/

Can you please defederate from this server to protect the trans people on mastodon.social?

Thank you.

PS. It’s run by these guys: https://techcrunch.com/2024/03/26/facebook-secret-project-snooped-snapchat-user-traffic/

#mastodonSocial #fediblock #threads #meta #mastodon #transphobia

aral, 8 months ago to ai

We call it AI because no one would take us seriously if we called it matrix multiplication seeded with a bunch of initial values we pulled out of our asses and run on as much shitty data as we can get our grubby little paws on.

#AI #ArtificalIntelligence #MachineLearning #LLM #LargeLanguageModels

aral, 6 months ago (edited 6 months ago) to Israel

Wix fires Irish employee for Gaza support, tells staff to “join a company initiative to create videos and creative campaigns”, to “support Israel’s narrative” … “show Westernity” in posts, as “unlike the Gazans, we look and live like Europeans and Americans”. It’s “very important to emphasise this in texts and images so that they feel close to us”

https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2023/10/24/internal-wix-chat-encouraged-staff-to-support-israels-narrative-in-hamas-conflict/

#wix #israel #gaza #ireland #genocide

aral, 8 months ago to uk

It would appear that “former Tory MP Antoinette Sandbach has threatened the University of Cambridge with legal action after a historian named her as a descendant of merchants who enslaved his ancestors.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/31/ex-tory-mp-threatens-sue-cambridge-university-slavery-research-antoinette-sandbach

Oh, my… It would be a damn shame if more people knew of this so please do not boost this post.

#AntoinetteSandbach #SamuelSandbach #Sandbach #british #slavery #britain #slaveOwners #tories #tory #conservatives #uk #cambridge #colonialists #colonialism

aral, 8 months ago to technology

If the thing you’re making wouldn’t exist if people had to opt in instead of having to opt out, maybe the thing you’re making shouldn’t exist.

#technology #humanRights #consent #respect

aral, 8 months ago to twitter

Twitter/X is a Nazi bar.

If you’re still on Twitter/X, you frequent a Nazi bar.

You might say, “But I’m not a Nazi!”

So the question remains: Then why are you drinking at a fucking Nazi bar?

https://mastodon.lawprofs.org/@coreyrayburnyung/110997938267873087

#twitter #x #naziBar #fascism #elonMusk

aral, 2 months ago to ai

You steal from one person and you’re a thief. You steal from everyone and you’re an AI company.

#ai

aral, 10 months ago to climate

Whenever someone tells you that the climate crisis is a personal responsibility issue, show them this:

https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jul/10/100-fossil-fuel-companies-investors-responsible-71-global-emissions-cdp-study-climate-change

The climate crisis is a billionaires crisis, a trillion-dollar corporations crisis, a capitalism crisis, a systemic inequality crisis.

#climateChange #climateCrisis #climateCatastrophe #climate #corporatocracy #capitalism

aral, 2 months ago (edited 2 months ago) to mastodon

Folks on Mastodon, to hide the current deluge of spam:

1. Settings -> Filters
2. Add new filter
3. Add a title (e.g., Spam)
4. Select all the context checkboxes
5. Set Filter Action to Hide Completely
6. Add the following keyword with a hash (#) before it: 診断メーカー

#mastodon #fediverse #spam