The footage of the person Israel identified would be the first to surface publicly of any of the individuals Israel accused of participating in the Oct. 7 attack.
Should Mastodon-compatible clients have posts private-by-default on the UI?
This argument against bridges is beyond stupid. If you are posting on a public network, it’s more than reasonable to work with the expectation that your content will be visible outside of original channel.
I don’t get the problem. It’s just syncing public information back and forth. I mean, the information is fully public for anyone to access. If you mind who accesses it, you shouldn’t make it public.
JERUSALEM, Feb 12 (Reuters) - The Israeli military said on Monday it freed two hostages during a raid by special forces in Gaza's southern Rafah neighborhood....
In which he shows that civilian casualties are actually quite low when put in context compared to other conflicts, and Israel is being held to a different standard than other nations....
Merry Christmas (to those who celebrate) and Happy Holidays (for everyone else) from #tilvids 🎄 ❄️
In the spirit of holiday giving, consider donating to the @joinpeertube organization. They are trying to raise funds to advance the cause of freedom from large tech companies. Their work helps make #PeerTube instances like TILvids possible. If you're able to contribute, check out the following link:
The underground headquarters consists of two subterranean levels, spanning over half a square mile, and includes emergency rooms with AC units, all connected to the residence of the late Hamas senior official, Ahmed Randor
So everyone gives Jack Dorsey credit for #Bluesky, but he doesn't even have an account. He has zero presence on his own site.
But he posts on #Nostr multiple times every day, mostly about Bitcoin.
Hard to imagine he has much faith in Bluesky as a decentralized Twitter alternative when he's clearly chosen his preferred decentralized Twitter alternative.
Greece’s center-right government says it will fulfill a commitment to legalize same-sex marriage, sidestepping political dissent and staunch opposition from the country’s influential Orthodox Church.
I think it’s pretty safe to say that the majority of us are here to avoid another corporate takeover of our preferred platforms. It would seem to me to be a tad irresponsible to allow Facebook into our space with open arms, allowing them to hoover up our data. I would love to keep using Lemmy.world, but will happily change...
Unfortunately American youths sympathizing with Hamas and the Palestinians more than Israel as the election approaches means that there is a time limit. I hope Israel is able to achieve meaningful peace by either deposing Hamas completely or changing the situation by annexing north Gaza before time runs out.
It seems that all or nothing is the kind of reasoning Palestinians have exhibited, endless intifada until Israel is destroyed and a one-state solution is achieved where they are in charge, this is what polls show they want, and is the kind of leadership they keep choosing. And yet people treat them like they are the plucky heroic underdog simply because they do not have the military capability of pulling off the genocide they openly call for, I find it rather disgusting.
I wish young people would remember they are defending a group that oppresses women, throws LGBT people off buildings, and celebrates when their hordes murder innocent civilians up close and personally. They see no irony when they call Israel genocidal despite behaving much more civilly than Palestinean forces did when they had the upper hand. Palestinian forces were not shy about ethnic cleansing when they annexed the west bank and Jerusalem..
55 ships have been routed away from the Red Sea over the past month but with major shipping companies now sailing around Africa, the number of ships rerouted is set to soar.
Former IDF Maj.-Gen. Yaakov Amidror discussed the need to regulate the IDF's open-fire policy, but stressed the difficulties in urban combat in Gaza, where visibility is poor.
EXPOSED: The biggest Hamas terrorist tunnel discovered.This massive tunnel system branches out and spans well over four kilometers (2.5 miles). Its entrance ...
It’s been quite a week for news in the fediverse, with the news that Threads has started their process of incrementally adding federation to Threads taking most of the attention. But lots of other great stuff happened in the fediverse as well:
Threads
Threads has started their implementation process of federation and adding ActivityPub to Threads. The first careful step is that a few Threads profiles are now visible in the fediverse, and that posts made by them can be viewed from fediverse servers. For now only the accounts for the profiles of Threads head Adam Mosseri and 2 Threads engineers are visible. Replies to their post made by a fediverse account does not federate back yet. Mosseri says that the process of adding federation will be done gradually in steps, and that he expects that this process will take most of the year. In another post, Mosseri also notes that federation will likely be opt-in for Threads accounts. This is in contrast with most fediverse software, which federates with all other fediverse servers by default, and federation is opt-out (blocking).
PeerTube
Framasoft announced their plans for PeerTube for the next year, in an extensive blog. I also hosted a livestreamed AMA with Framasoft for the community to ask all their questions about PeerTube, and it turned out amazing, with lots of great information. The entire AMA can be rewatched here. I’ll do a larger writeup on all the PeerTube news next week, but for now already the highlights: PeerTube is doubling their dev team, creating a mobile app, and will work on better moderation tools, and a review and redesign of the user interface. Stay tuned!
In other news
Lemmy has released their latest big update, v0.19. In this blog post they go over all the changes they’ve made. Two major new features are improved post ranking and instance blocking for individual accounts. With the new feed sorting of scaled sort, the community size where the post is made gets taken into account. This allows for smaller communities to have better visibility, and should increase their reach. People can now block entire instances as well, which should provide a significant increase in the ability for people to curate their digital spaces.
Discourse has been working on joining the fediverse for a while, and their latest update shows how far along they are. A Discourse category can now follow any actor in the fediverse. Check out their video to show this in practice, with federation between both different Discourses as well as Mastodon. This is a major step in expanding the fediverse, and worth keeping your eyes on.
The links
FediForum, the online unconference about the fediverse, has opened registrations for the third edition, on March 19-20, 2024. More information and registration on the website.
Mozilla.social, the fediverse server by Mozilla, is slowly opening up the server, and have added the first group of people from the waitlist.
Mastodon is experimenting with a new recommendation algorithm for finding interesting accounts to follow. The experiment is only available on the mastodon.online server.
Event Federation is a project that aims to federate WordPress events with the rest of the fediverse, and make it interoperable with programs like Mobilizon and Gancio. They just showed a sneak peak on the interoperability between WordPress Events and Mobilizon.
Bonfire has released documentation on their framework, that further explains how it is both a social network as well as a toolkit for communities to (re)design their digital spaces.
IFTAS has announced a sandbox server intended for moderators to practice moderation in a safe environment.
Owncast has started their own monthly newsletter, the first edition is available here.
Other articles
I wrote other articles as well this week, check it out!
Radio Free Asia closes Hong Kong bureau, citing security law concerns (www.nbcnews.com)
Video is said to show U.N. relief worker taking Israeli shot on Oct. 7 (www.washingtonpost.com)
The footage of the person Israel identified would be the first to surface publicly of any of the individuals Israel accused of participating in the Oct. 7 attack.
Mozilla downsizes as it refocuses on Firefox and AI: Read the memo | TechCrunch (techcrunch.com)
Bridgy Fed, a bridge between the Fediverse and other protocols such as BlueSky, is using an opt-out model and that raises a lot of discussion (github.com)
Github ticket: github.com/snarfed/bridgy-fed/issues/835
Israeli military says two hostages freed by special forces raid in Rafah, Gaza (www.reuters.com)
JERUSALEM, Feb 12 (Reuters) - The Israeli military said on Monday it freed two hostages during a raid by special forces in Gaza's southern Rafah neighborhood....
An analysis of civilian casualties in Gaza by Dean of Perdue, Martin Pritikin
In which he shows that civilian casualties are actually quite low when put in context compared to other conflicts, and Israel is being held to a different standard than other nations....
We Aren’t Posting on Social Media as Much Anymore. Will We Ever? (www.wsj.com)
Users say excessive ads, bots and misinformation have sucked the fun out of sharing publicly.
IDF commandeers underground Hamas HQ, retrieving bodies of five slain soldiers and hostages (www.ynetnews.com)
The underground headquarters consists of two subterranean levels, spanning over half a square mile, and includes emergency rooms with AC units, all connected to the residence of the late Hamas senior official, Ahmed Randor
IDF, Shin Bet assassinate key Hamas weapons smuggler, Hassan Atrash (jpost.com)
The IDF has been focused on taking out key players in Hamas during the war, often launching targeted attacks on them.
Greek government says it stands by same-sex marriage pledge even after opposition from the Church (apnews.com)
Greece’s center-right government says it will fulfill a commitment to legalize same-sex marriage, sidestepping political dissent and staunch opposition from the country’s influential Orthodox Church.
Israel-Hamas hostage deal: Did the IDF misjudge Sinwar's desire to live? - Analysis (jpost.com)
What if negotiations are destined to fail – unless Israel changes its premise of who Sinwar is and how far he is willing to go?
I absolutely love VideoLAN's stance regarding patents (lemmy.dbzer0.com)
How Verified Accounts on X Thrive While Spreading Misinformation About the Israel-Hamas Conflict (www.propublica.org)
Hamas kills bid to revive ceasefire deal, hostage release -WSJ (jpost.com)
Part of the Hamas leadership was in Cairo to discuss the now-axed ceasefire deal.
Lemmy.world Should Defederate with Threads
I think it’s pretty safe to say that the majority of us are here to avoid another corporate takeover of our preferred platforms. It would seem to me to be a tad irresponsible to allow Facebook into our space with open arms, allowing them to hoover up our data. I would love to keep using Lemmy.world, but will happily change...
Israel-Hamas war: Ismail Haniyeh to hold Gaza ceasefire talks in Egypt (jpost.com)
Israel focused on release of Gaza hostages, Netanyahu tells families • Herzog: Israel is ready for another humanitarian pause
Suez Canal reveals damage caused by Houthis (en.globes.co.il)
55 ships have been routed away from the Red Sea over the past month but with major shipping companies now sailing around Africa, the number of ships rerouted is set to soar.
IDF soldiers who killed hostages disobeyed orders to hold fire (m.jpost.com)
Former IDF Maj.-Gen. Yaakov Amidror discussed the need to regulate the IDF's open-fire policy, but stressed the difficulties in urban combat in Gaza, where visibility is poor.
The Biggest Hamas Tunnel Ever Exposed (www.youtube.com)
EXPOSED: The biggest Hamas terrorist tunnel discovered.This massive tunnel system branches out and spans well over four kilometers (2.5 miles). Its entrance ...