ophiocephalic

ophiocephalic, 1 month ago to random

Grimly hilarious that disinformation and brainrot has so subsumed humanity, that Daesh has to work overtime to claim responsibility for the Crocus terror attack; while the Russians try to believe the Ukrainians did it, the Americans try to believe the Russians did it, and the tankies try to believe the Americans did it

ophiocephalic, 2 months ago to FediPact

The only reason the algorithmic biases of the Zuckerberg entity are not dominating fedi discourse at this very moment is because they began to federate with "sharing" opt-in. If/when they switch that toggle over, 160 million accounts governed by these censorship algorithms will flood in and algorithmic creep could quickly destroy the journalistic prospect of the fediverse. Why would journalists show up here if less than 1% of the network can see their posts?

https://journa.host/@w7voa/112142365993675150

#FediPact #DefederateMeta #Meta #Facebook #Threads #Instagram

ophiocephalic, 2 months ago to random

"Between 2018 and 2021 sixteen new cooperatives were formed by Sharaka [Youth Forum] members. They mostly focus on agriculture, while one is a grocery store. They are spread throughout the West Bank, mainly in the central mountain villages around Ramallah and Nablus… The core values the Sharaka cooperatives have defined for dealing with society, the environment, and with each other are care, justice, equality, and independence… the cooperatives maintain a horizontal structure and experiment with management and remuneration models that fit their egalitarian principles. For them, the cooperative is an attempt at living out the freedom they seek for Palestinians."

The Land of Despair Sprouts with Hope - article at @antidotezine https://antidotezine.com/2024/02/29/the-land-of-despair-sprouts-with-hope/

"Al-Ouna (العونة) is the historical term used for cooperativism in Palestine, it has always been a part of our Palestinian character, especially in farming. Families would cooperate in their olive harvests and sing folk songs sending gratitude and good wishes to each other."

The Palestinian Social Fund https://www.palestiniansocialfund.com/

ophiocephalic, 2 months ago to random

Is Mitch McConnell dead yet, @IsMitchMcConnellDeadYet ?

ophiocephalic, 2 months ago to random

"The political project of normalizing transmitting COVID and casting basic, scientific mitigations as bad, weird, mean, stupid, and impossible is a fantastic coup for the right. It is the utter rejection of state responsibility for public welfare, paired with the complete shredding of an early-pandemic solidarity that bound those at risk (everyone) together. That solidarity was replaced with a poisonous “us vs them” worldview whereby those who have been and are harmed are weak, lying, lame, unlucky, unusual, uncool, rare, stupid, bad, mean, aggressive, psychologically disturbed and/or crazy. This schism seeps into the bloodstream of leftist organizing and splinters our coalition, shattering our incipient power as, unsurprisingly, the popularity of the fascists surges globally. I would argue it is the most thorough victory of the far-right in living memory, and it has embedded its eugenicist logic into the very foundation of public beliefs about health, disability, and who deserves safety."

https://www.thegauntlet.news/p/how-the-press-manufactured-consent (h/t @Jeannho )

ophiocephalic, 2 months ago to random

"Tyler Perry halts $800m studio expansion after being shocked by AI

US film and TV mogul says he has paused his plans, having seen demonstrations of OpenAI video generator"

…except that, who then will produce the films OpenAI needs to steal and regurgitate for its faked-up demos?

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/feb/23/tyler-perry-halts-800m-studio-expansion-after-being-shocked-by-ai

#cinemastodon

ophiocephalic, 3 months ago to random

I'M HIT! I'M HIT! (by an acorn)

ophiocephalic, 3 months ago to bluesky

It's been a bit surprising to see some of the folks who understand the threat posed by Meta wave off the nonconsensual intrusion of Bluesky into the fediverse as no big deal. Some perceptions of the problematic data processing and moderation issues follow.

At the moment the network is centralized on a single server controlled by the corporation. It launched with almost no moderation at all, but currently there is a small mod team, which may be a stopgap plugged in after early disasters in racist harassment produced bad press.

However, that doesn't appear to be the long-term plan. The Bluesky whitepaper linked here reveals a hyper-neoliberal architectural vision that could almost be understood as a belief system - a Cult of the Algorithm, as foretold by glassy-eyed guru/antivax billionaire Bitcoin Rasputin. https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.03239

1/3 #Bluesky

ophiocephalic, 3 months ago to bluesky

It seems that when Bluesky "decentralizes" there will be no real way for instance operators to block or moderate other instances, and that the entire (anti-)moderation scheme depends on the prospect of end-users "consuming" filters which silo various types of content into or out of their own personal view.

Recall that Facebook-linked elements were able to fabricate a moral panic and smear the fediverse in the international press by publicizing the longstanding fact that CSAM instances exist while barely mentioning that everyone else blocks them. What do you think will happen with a protocol in which instances can't be blocked at all?

And how much do you think spittle-flecked rightwing politicians and self-appointed guardians of morality will be willing or able to grasp all this stuff about "labelers" and "app views"? The entire gambit rests on the assumption that Silicon Valley shitheads can continue to get away with anything and everything

Bluesky is cosplaying decentralization - essay by @rysiek https://rys.io/en/167.html

Bluesky whitepaper (screenshots below) https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.03239

#Bluesky #Meta #Facebook #Threads

Screenshot of text passage from the Bluesky whitepaper which reads: Our open architecture allows a pluralistic system in which there is no global consensus on what content is acceptable. A user on a self-hosted or loosely moderated PDS may post controversial content, but they are not entitled to the attention of others: App Views may choose not to index the content, and clients may ignore it depending on the user’s moderation settings. This philosophy is sometimes described as “free speech, but not free reach”.

ophiocephalic, 3 months ago to random

AI Power Consumption Surge Strains US Electricity Grid, Coal-Powered Plants Make a Comeback

"Unable to keep pace, some utilities are scrambling to revise projections and reconsider previous plans of closing fossil fuel plants… Some older coal power plans will stay online, until the grid adds more power production capacity. The result could be increased emissions in the near term and risks of rolling blackouts if infrastructure continues lagging behind demand."

So now, on a burning planet, we're going to center all of our energy resources and human ingenuity on tech for incels to synthesize nonconsensual pop-star porn

https://www.techpowerup.com/318326/ai-power-consumption-surge-strains-us-electricity-grid-coal-powered-plants-make-a-comeback

ophiocephalic, 4 months ago to random

"In Yemen, whenever a problem is out of control, we say khalas – it’s done – the donkey has entered the market and is running havoc, and we can say the same thing after these strikes: the donkey has entered the market." - Farea Al-Muslimi, research fellow at Chatham House’s Middle East and North Africa programme

https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2024/jan/12/middle-east-crisis-live-updates-yemen-houthi-rebels-joe-biden-us-uk-airtstrikes-red-sea-crisis-israel-gaza-war

ophiocephalic, 4 months ago (edited 4 months ago) to random

The Free Fediverse:

The Intentional Federation
https://kolektiva.social/@ophiocephalic/111664803569662584
Fediverse Communalism
https://kolektiva.social/@ophiocephalic/110980369577922721
The Fedifam
https://kolektiva.social/@ophiocephalic/110793531238090472
The Free Fediverse, Decentralization and Democracy
https://kolektiva.social/@ophiocephalic/110707704222855712

Meta and the FediPact:

Authorized Fetch
https://kolektiva.social/@ophiocephalic/111602259275182233
Two kinds of FOSS-folk
https://kolektiva.social/@ophiocephalic/111592831463152085
They're not scraping
https://kolektiva.social/@ophiocephalic/111586046431041276
A landfill for fascism
https://kolektiva.social/@ophiocephalic/111574015616239424
The FediForum and a surveillance scheme
https://kolektiva.social/@ophiocephalic/111444288361255808
PhotoDNA
https://kolektiva.social/@ophiocephalic/110782738969976772
The Facebook Mafia
https://kolektiva.social/@ophiocephalic/110772380949893619
The FediPact and "gatekeeping"
https://kolektiva.social/@ophiocephalic/110680030293653277
Zuckerberg won't meet you in the lobby
https://kolektiva.social/@ophiocephalic/110646998900527296

ophiocephalic, 4 months ago to FediPact

The Intentional Federation

We have recently been advocating the activation of a function which is present but usually off in Mastodon and other fedi services called Authorized Fetch. As we plead with the major development projects to take safety more seriously and make it a default, we have learned that Meta itself didn't think twice about it and has activated it in their own ActivityPub implementation against us.

We know this because of news that a fascist has devised a way to evade it and force federation with Threads. They promise to then turn their technique upon us and coerce unblockable federation with fascist and cryptospam instances: https://soapbox.pub/blog/threads-server-blocking/

1/7

#FreeFediverse #FediPact #DefederateMeta #Meta #Facebook #Threads #Instagram #Democracy #Community #Decentralization #Prefiguration #Fedifam #AuthorizedFetch #AllowList

ophiocephalic, 4 months ago to random

A whole lotta people on the fedi today helping spread fascist disinfo on FOSS projects. "Lunduke" wants to undermine open source because it's woke. Please keep your bullshit detectors on at maximum strength

ophiocephalic, 5 months ago to random

Watch African queer organizer and refugee @Claire_Defender describe how helpful Mastodon was for her fundraising efforts, and how account suspensions caused by scammers have intensified the hardships for her community:

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8w-H5EeTO8
Invidious: https://yewtu.be/watch?v=Y8w-H5EeTO8

Help at this verified legitimate fundraiser: https://fundrazr.com/LGBTKakuma

More on Claire: https://kolektiva.social/@ophiocephalic/111613729146762419

ophiocephalic, 5 months ago to LGBTQ

In recent months there have been a few scammers on the fedi claiming to be inhabitants of a refugee camp in Kenya. Those accounts have rightly been reported and suspended. However, there is a friend among us who really does live in Kenya Kakuma refugee camp, queer organizer @Claire_Defender

Claire was driven from her own country by homophobic repression mobs and now helps organize other LGBTQ folk in the camp who have suffered similar persecution. Unfortunately, her account here has itself been repeatedly reported and suspended, but Claire is the real deal.

Claire's situation has been verified by multiple observers, including @perkoch , a Norwegian activist and editor of a prestigious journal. In the video linked below, Claire discusses the realities of life in the camp, how helpful Mastodon was for her fundraising efforts, and how the account suspensions have intensified the hardships for her comrades and herself.

Understand the extent of the evil of the grifters. They are not just stealing money from the well-intentioned; they are actively making it harder for those on the edge of survival to endure. And everyone who has grumbled about mutual aid efforts on the fedi, watch this video and see if your heart is still hard to those who have the least and suffer the most.

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8w-H5EeTO8
Invidious: https://yewtu.be/watch?v=Y8w-H5EeTO8

Please help @Claire_Defender make her stand in the fediverse and sustain and defend her community.

Fundraiser, with extensive information about life and struggle in the camp: https://fundrazr.com/LGBTKakuma

Amnesty International report on the Kakuma camp: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/05/kenyas-kakuma-refugee-camp-not-yet-safe-for-lgbti-asylum-seekers

#LGBTQ #BlackMastodon #MutualAid #LGBT #BlackFedi #Kenya #Africa

ophiocephalic, 5 months ago to FediPact

Did you know that, if you or your Mastodon instance is blocking Meta, your posts and account can still be data-mined by them? That is, unless your instance has Authorized Fetch activated. More info here: https://kolektiva.social/@ophiocephalic/111602259275182233

#FediPact #DefederateMeta #Meta #Facebook #Threads #Instagram #AuthorizedFetch

ophiocephalic, 5 months ago to FediPact

With the Zuckerberg takeover impending, there's a lot of confusion circulating about the use of user-level and instance-level blocks, and how our online expressions can be secured against Meta. Everyone who objects to their accounts being mined by the Zuckerberg entity for data collection, AI ingestion, monetization, and possible ghost-profile building needs to understand this problem. Here's information to clarify.

Neither a user-level block, or an instance-level block, will protect our posts from Meta data-mining by default on a Mastodon instance. Posts won't be delivered directly, but can be ingested by other means; if, for example, users on Meta-federated instances boost them.

However, both user and instance blocks will totally prevent post delivery in all cases IF your host instance has enabled the functionality called Authorized Fetch.

By default, Authorized Fetch is off on Mastodon instances and most haven't turned it on. If this concern is important to you, you might want to respectfully reach out to your admins and let them know. Remember that they are working hard to provide and sustain online community at no charge. It's likely they won't be very familiar with it and will need time to look into it.

For more information on Authorized Fetch, check out this blog post by @brook : https://hub.sunny.garden/2023/06/28/what-does-authorized_fetch-actually-do/ Please untag Brook from replies unless you specifically intend to address him

#FediPact #DefederateMeta #Meta #Facebook #Threads #Instagram #AuthorizedFetch

ophiocephalic, 5 months ago to FediPact

There are some hot and appropriate takes going around about the "leadership" at the top of major fediverse projects, and its imminent failures. One of those leaders literally describes himself as a "dictator". Well, now his technology has a new dictator, one who has no credible pretense to benevolence.

It seems there are two kinds of FOSS-folk among us. One contextualizes their technical work with a political understanding; be it anarchism, socialism, or some variant of an oppositional outlook, which posits FOSS in an anticapitalist, antiracist or liberatory context. They know there's something out there to stand against, and aspirationally, replace. I salute them and hope we can all build together.

The other, while more-or-less into FOSS, seems to be motivated by nothing deeper than a "tech is neato" ethos. One could argue that it's this second type that has brought us to the crisis.

If tech has any chance to facilitate liberatory - or even alternative - agency (and it's arguable if that chance exists), it has to be about something more than itself. As we watch ActivityPub, Mastodon and Pixelfed get recuperated into the Zuckerverse, here's hoping we can figure out a way to sustain and support those developers of next-gen decentralized and peer-to-peer social networking who understand this

#FediPact #DefederateMeta #Meta #Facebook #Threads #Instagram #FOSS #Anarchism #Socialism #Anticapitalism

ophiocephalic, 5 months ago to FediPact

What do you mean we won't be able to see ads from Threads? I've spotted one already

#FediPact #DefederateMeta #Meta #Facebook #Threads #Instagram .

ophiocephalic, 5 months ago to FediPact

FediPact advocates are again seeing the argument "they're scraping" dredged up and thrown into their faces.

No, they're not. Meta doesn't run a general web-wide crawler (like, say, a search engine would). Meta surveils the general web with the Facebook Pixel and other trackers installed directly on websites. No need to run a global crawler when the most of the world's existing websites willingly host your surveillance tech for you.

There's also no need to guess about the unknowable mysteries of cryptoid scrapers. That activity would appear in logs, and if persistent, incur performance penalties, especially on small-to-moderate sized instances.

Why would Meta bother manually scraping 14000 separate fedi instances while they're building an ActivityPub service that will "scrape" all of them at once through federation? Answer, they wouldn't.

Offered as raw material for your own tangles with Meta collaborators. However, keep in mind what will happen on this network if you start raising points of a technical nature. Ultimately, the scraping argument is a defeatist one, like saying "privacy is dead, so why bother protecting yourself?" Whether "they're scraping" or not, we won't throw up our hands and allow this space of refuge and community to be absorbed into surveillance capitalism without a fight. Scrape this Zuckerbros

#FediPact #DefederateMeta #Meta #Facebook #Threads #Instagram #TheyreNotScraping .

ophiocephalic, 5 months ago to FediPact

Very depressing to see prominent admins reneging on their FediPact pledges. For months users have been migrating - with all the associated difficulties - to instances they thought would be safe from Meta. Do we forget all our promises and convictions just to read the vapid marketing posts of Instagram's asshole CEO?

#FediPact #DefederateMeta #Meta #Facebook #Threads #Instagram .

ophiocephalic, 5 months ago to FediPact

The rash of mysterious error messages recently encountered on Meta-owned services when attempting to post fediverse links would seem to be erratic. Some links work and others produce the error. So far, We've seen reports of errors with links to the instances mas.to, tech.lgbt, and musicians.today.

There would seem to be no pattern. mas.to has 19k active users, musicians.today has 164. But there is one commonality: All three are part of the FediPact.

Moreover, the https://fedipact.online site provides a one-stop shop for a FediPact-based blocklist, so implementing such a thing would be a snap.

Folks with accounts on networks owned by the Zuckerberg entity can help to confirm the hypothesis by attempting to post any link to any FediPact instance. Let us know! cc: @FediPact

#FediPact #DefederateMeta #Meta #Facebook #Threads #Instagram .

ophiocephalic, 5 months ago to FediPact

Interesting new details have emerged concerning planned machinations for Meta's takeover of the fediverse. The information was revealed at a "data dialogue" in San Francisco on the subject of "Meta’s Threads Interoperating in the Fediverse".

An account at this blog post: https://reb00ted.org/tech/20231208-meta-threads-data-dialogue/

And more info in this Masto thread: https://mastodon.cloud/@joemcl/111566221062518491

It seems that the plan is to gradually roll federation out in stages over the next year. The most telling reveal is in the screenshotted toot by Meta advocate Evan:

"Also, as far as I could tell, the most important use case for them is that a creator could move from Threads to their own server, even if they get de-platformed. I think the major motivator here is Mark Zuckerberg having to go testify in front of Congress twice a year or whatever, and getting grilled by conservative Congresspeople about de-platforming. Being able to say, you can get kicked off Threads but keep your followers, is a big win in this situation."

If correct, the impression here is that Meta is interested in ActivityPub's account portability, so they can offload problematic fascists to the fediverse without too much disgruntlement. They see the fedi as a dumping ground into which they can externalize toxic users without having to either moderate them on their own server, or provoke them by wiping out their social graph.

In Zuckerberg's scheme, our community is to become a landfill for fascism.

#DefederateMeta #FediPact #Meta #Facebook #Threads #Instagram .

ophiocephalic, 5 months ago to FediPact

FediPact alert: @FediPact has turned up this post from Zuckerberg on Threads. All FediPact instances should make sure their blocks are in place.

threads.instagram.com
threads.net

cc: @admin @subMedia

#FediPact #DefederateMeta #Meta #Facebook #Threads #Instagram