aral

aral, 1 year ago to fediverse

Dear @Gargron,

Please reevaluate your decision to incentivise centralisation on mastodon.social in the official app.

This is the sort of design a VC-funded startup would implement, not a non-profit acting in the interests of a healthy commons.

I’m sure you don’t want mastodon.social to become mini-Twitter and you don’t want to become mini-Musk.

That’s not how we win this.

More instances, not larger instances is the key.

https://mastodon.ar.al/@feditips@mstdn.social/110233282943673558

#decentralisation #fediverse #staySmall

aral, 8 months ago to random

The only legitimate use of privilege is to help bring about the kind of world where you would not have had it to begin with.

#privilege

aral, 11 months ago to random

It’s very interesting to see who in the fediverse is falling in line behind Silicon Valley and Big Tech and who is not.

And no, we can’t all just get along.

Big Tech is the antithesis of the cooperative and humanitarian values of federation and decentralisation. You can either be an apologist for surveillance capitalists or support the nascent ethical alternatives to their toxic business model that’s detrimental to human rights and democracy.

Pick a side. History will remember your choice.

aral, 11 months ago to random

That’s funny, the words “Elon Musk” are considered a slur on this platform.

aral, 10 months ago (edited 10 months ago) to random

We’re looking to buy a place in #Ireland (because renting here is nigh on impossible these days) so I approached a mortgage broker and they just got back to me with this gem:

“Bank of Ireland will not consider your mortgage application because you run a not-for-profit.”

How bloody lovely.

Congratulations on creating a system that rewards the worst of the worst and fucks over those striving to work for the common good. I, for one, won’t be shedding a tear should it burn to the ground.

#boi

aral, 6 months ago to Israel

According to Israel:

The UN Secretary General is “supporting terrorism” and should resign.

https://www.rte.ie/news/world/2023/1024/1412756-israel-calls-on-un-chief-to-resign-over-comments/

Amnesty International is “antisemitic.”

https://www.politico.eu/article/israel-calls-amnesty-international-antisemitic-and-biased-after-it-criticized-war-crimes-by-all-parties/

The president of Ireland is “misinformed” and “legally wrong.”

https://independent.ie/irish-news/israeli-ambassador-overstepped-line-in-criticising-president-michael-d-higgins-over-gaza-war-comments/a536624053.html

Y’know, maybe if you think everyone is in the wrong but you, it’s time to consider what the chances of that are versus the chances that you’re the one in the wrong.

#israel #palestine #gaza #genocide #colonialism #un #amnesty

aral, 3 months ago to fediverse

#FediBlock snarfed.org and brid.gy for bridging fediverse folks to Bluesky against their will (and in likely contravention of GDPR in the EU) with typical Silicon Valley techbro sense of entitlement:

“[O]pt in results in far fewer users, and users are critical for a bridge to be useful.”¹

Relevant GitHub issue: https://github.com/snarfed/bridgy-fed/issues/835

¹ https://snarfed.org/2023-11-27_re-introducing-bridgy-fed

HT @homegrown

#bridgy #snarfed #fediverse #mastodon #bluesky #bridging #optOut #optIn #consent #gdpr #eu #SiliconValley #techbros

aral, 5 months ago to Israel

“7,000 children and minors have died in Gaza, which the UN secretary general has styled ‘a graveyard for children’. Nothing can justify this massacre of the innocents. No politics. No grievance. No strategy. No history. No revenge. Every day that it continues, our collective humanity dies a little bit more. To accept that this massacre is justifiable self-defence by Israel is to abdicate all conscience.”

https://12ft.io/https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2023/12/15/justine-mccarthy-nothing-can-justify-this-massacre-of-the-innocents-no-politics-no-history-no-revenge/

#israel #palestine #gaza #genocide #ethnicCleansing #ceasefireNow

aral, 2 months ago to mastodon

“Meta is now automatically muting all posts that mention PixelFed, so its users can’t read about any alternatives to its services.”

https://mastodon.ar.al/@queue@todon.eu/112130436367389679

But I’m confused… Mastodon gGmbH and Meta Platforms, Inc. are besties according to Mastodon gGmbH CEO.¹

There must be some mistake.

¹ https://www.platformer.news/mastodon-interview-eugen-rochko-meta-bluesky-threads-federation/

#mastodon #meta #facebook #pixelfed #surveillanceCapitalism #peopleFarmers #SiliconValley #BigTech #monopolies #fediverse

aral, 2 months ago to random

I just love that we live in a system where all the free work you do for the common good has absolutely zero value and you’re only deemed successful if what you do makes money.

And then you wonder why you’ve ended up with the Elon Musks of the world.

aral, 11 months ago to fediverse

“Some of your posts have been reported by a user and I resolved it so far.

In the future. Please make sure not to insult others and be rude.”

Here’s my suggestion to the moderators of mstdn.social: Stop tone policing people on other instances. I’m not on your instance and I’ll speak my mind as I like on my own one. If anyone has a problem with that, they can block me. It’s not your job to tone police the fediverse even if you are a mega instance.

#fediverse #mastodon #moderation #tonePolicing

aral, 8 months ago to random

Be yourself… you’ll attract the kind of people who you actually want to be around.

aral, 5 months ago to random

Reposted from @MostlyHarmless with alt-text.

aral, 6 months ago to random

“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”

– George Orwell, 1984

aral, 6 months ago to Israel

Mehdi Hasan to Mark Regev, senior Netanyahu advisor:

“If Hamas gunmen were hiding out in a school in Tel Aviv or in an apartment block in Haifa, would you be OK with the Israeli military dropping bombs on those buildings, leveling them, killing the innocent Israelis inside in order to get the Hamas gunmen? Would you do that?”

He doesn’t answer the question.

https://www.msnbc.com/mehdi-on-msnbc/watch/-that-was-a-mistake-mehdi-challenges-israeli-adviser-mark-regev-on-false-israeli-claims-198054981873

#israel #palestine #gaza #ethnicCleansing #genocide #markRegev #netanyahu #mehdiHasan #ceasefireNow

aral, 10 months ago to random

When wolves say to sheep “Can’t we all just get along?”, it’s not because they want to be friends but because they prefer obedient prey.

aral, 11 months ago (edited 11 months ago) to random

There’s No Such Thing As a Smart Fascist

“The ideology itself is about as clever and complex as a rock to the face … Fascists, and their larval form, conservatives, simply do not give one single lonely fuck for rules or conventions or the system in which they flourish.”

https://catvalente.substack.com/p/theres-no-such-thing-as-a-smart-fascist

1. Read this blisteringly powerful article.
2. Shout it from the rooftops.
3. Follow @catvalente and support her work.

Should be required reading in schools.

Please boost.

#fascism

aral, 5 months ago to random

Just because you can program a computer doesn’t mean you have the first fucking clue about what’s going on in the world.

aral, 3 months ago to Germany

The organisers of the Berlin international film festival have disinvited five politicians from the far-right party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) from next week’s opening gala in the German capital, citing recent reports on the AfD’s alleged mass deportation plans.

https://www.inkl.com/a/logYprtvnxv

Nicely done. Fascists are persona non grata. You don’t invite them to your events. You don’t have champagne and canapés with them. Tolerance cannot tolerate intolerance.

#AfD #germany #neoNazis #fascists

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

If you see the AGPL licenses on my free and open source work and you think “damn you, I can’t use this to enrich myself or my corporation without sharing back what I’ve built on top of what you’ve freely shared and thus contribute to cultivating a healthy commons where others might enjoy the same benefits from my work that I want to obtain from yours” (a) you really have long-winded thoughts and (b) well, you already see the flaw in your reasoning.

#foss #licenses #freedom #copyleft #gpl

aral, 6 months ago to Israel

“Palestinians are forbidden from gathering rain water for domestic or agricultural needs.”

– Third Periodic Report of Israel’s violations of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights with regard to the human rights to water and sanitation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory

(September 2011)

https://www.un.org/unispal/document/auto-insert-195880/

But, yes, this all started on October 7, 2023.

#israel #palestine #gaza #westBank #occupation #apartheid #ethnicCleansing #genocide #water

aral, 3 months ago to random

Hey folks, @nullagent is getting harassed by his landlord and needs to move – please help if you can.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/ygznur-get-away-from-abusive-landlord

“He's been opening (and stealing) my mail, blocking my path when I leave my home, stalking me, verbally harassing my friends & I, harassing my family, starting rumors, and encouraging me to commit suicide. Recently he's begun entering my apartment without permission and I am now urgently looking for help moving.”

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

There goes the neighbourhood.

#threads #meta #facebook #fediverse #mastodon #surveillance #capitalism #PeopleFarming

aral, 1 month ago to Bulgaria

EU leaving Fediverse (Mastodon & PeerTube) because no one wants to operate the servers

“In recent years, a total of 40 institutions have opened an account with EU Voice, including the EU Data Protection Supervisor, the European Court of Justice and the EU Commission. The video platform, on the other hand, was used by six institutions … the EU institutions were thus the largest group of public institutions in the Fediverse worldwide.”

https://netzpolitik.org/2024/mastodon-und-peertube-eu-macht-fediverse-dicht-weil-niemand-die-server-betreiben-will/

#eu #fediverse #mastodon #peertube

aral, 2 months ago to random

Just been blown away by how good Narrator and Live Captions are on Windows and it makes me even angrier that they aren’t just building an OS but an ad-and-AI infested surveillance nightmare. Mainly because it shows, yet again, what we could achieve in technology if everything wasn’t tied to a toxic business model and a suicidal system of perpetual growth with finite resources.

This should also shame the Linux folks (not volunteers, multi-billion/trillion-dollar corporations who profit from it).