"So if you’re wondering what all the venture money is chasing....it’s not productivity. It’s substitution."
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/trillion-dollar-problem-ai-built-solve-wages-samson-williams-myf5e
@violetmadder @eff sure, there are some governments like that. And there are also some governments built on the concepts of taking care of their people. The idea that governments can do something to improve the online lives of children exists at the same time as authoritarian governments will use popular excuses to do things purely to prop up their own power.
Great real time BBB conversation today about the disturbing cryptic announcement by Google regarding the to the right to load your own packages on devices.
@conservancy's Denver Gingerich hosted and moderated the discussion, & @fdroidorg folks (including @eighthave, @marcprux, @seabass)
In the excitement, I exuberantly volunteered to lead a later session in October or November demoing end-to-end how #SFC procures used devices & installs #LineageOS and #FDroid on them.
Now I have more work. 😊
For anyone who wants to know what #Google's lawyers for the #DigitalMarketsAct think about the law, they publish on it:
“#AI is the ultimate distraction device for the C-suite, since it is now absorbing so much executive headspace & public airtime that there is less space to think about other issues, such as the uglier side of Trump’s policies. It gobbles up bandwidth, literally and metaphorically.” https://on.ft.com/4p6tJXF
TIL that Microsoft Copilot is now trying to show a "face" with different "emotions". That it's not working right now is not my issue. That MS are even more explicitly trying to trick people into thinking they are having a conversation with an actual person, however, most definitely *is*.
Did this "feature" run through an ethics board review? Is the additional emotional deception of users intentional? Who actually wants that sh..?
I am getting happier by the day that my current daily driver (#Framework) laptop didn't come with a Windows license and I'm certainly not going to spend any public university funds on buying this manipulatory adware... Whoever sends me documents to edit in the future: if they don't open correctly in #Libreoffice (without the "help" of Copilot), I won't be able to work on them.
via @tomwarren.co.uk
https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:fbtvg6jxtdroidfvq5z635xu/post/3lxxlpdy3qs2r
#Trump blowing up a #boat in international waters is as absurd as it is scary. They just murdered 11 people and justified it by saying war tactics work. "The War On Drugs" has been going on since 1971, cost $1 trillion and is a miserable failure.
More likely, this was migrants being smuggled. At least Trump & Co are not boasting about killing migrants. But this is looking really scarily close to the opening scene of 1984. US media is happy to just replay all the government's claims and video
@mnalis @eff None of the conditions here are binary, they are all continuums. Any restriction can be circumvented, but that does not make the idea useless. Just all all software insecure, its only a matter of degrees. One clear win is just preventing harmful things like gambling, pornography, addictive software, etc. from being mainstream and socially acceptable. E.g. Its possible to gamble on the internet although its restricted almost everywhere. And now, there is far less gambling online.
@404mediaco Interesting article, but labeling piracy as the root of the problem means you are taking the point of the view of the #copyright maximalists. We should also consider that copyright itself could be part of the problem. Then we can see that better solutions might come from removing some things from copyright eligability. The #USConstitution says it is "to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts". Does pornography really fit in there? Could removing copyright lead to less harm?
@eff I agree that is probably true, but then, I also agree that we need much better age restrictions on the internet. The critical mass of governments also believe there needs to be age restrictions, so if we're to have any chance of keeping anonymity on the internet, we need to accept that age restrictions are required, and focus our work on making sure they get implemented in the best possible way. Even in the #US with its #FirstAmendment, age restrictions are legal and in place for decades.
Element users on the default http://matrix.org homeserver are currently impacted by a serious database outage (https://mastodon.matrix.org/@matrix/115136245785561439)which will take at least 12 hours to recover - many apologies to everyone impacted. Users on their own deployments are of course unaffected.
Did you know there's a German non profit association (Verein) behind #NewPipe? [1]
You can donate to it, or even join the association.
And also, did you know they are looking for two freelancers for android development and sysadmin things? [2]
[1] https://newpipe-ev.de/about.html
[2] https://newpipe-ev.de/opportunities.html
I believe in the rule of law. At the same time, I recognize it is important that people can break the law in order for human societies to develop. When I make software, I aim to guide users to respect the law without forcing them to. Software developers should not enforce the law, they should respect #UserFreedom.
Martin Luther King, Jr explained the guiding principal best in this interview
https://youtu.be/fAtsAwGreyE?feature=shared&t=702
(the whole thing is also worth listening to)
#MLK #ethical #software #law #FOSS
@lightrush @commonsguy yes, they will do that, but then other countries will know that they have already implemented said feature, and it becomes easy to ask them to enable it for them as well.
An app developer has jailbroken Echelon exercise bikes to restore functionality that the company put behind a paywall last month, but copyright laws prevent him from being allowed to legally release it.
> If every author in the class filed a claim, industry advocates warned, it would "financially ruin" the entire AI industry.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/08/authors-celebrate-historic-settlement-coming-soon-in-anthropic-class-action/
Good.
To be clear, copyright maximalism is a problem and I had spent years fighting it.
But in this case I am celebrating. That whole industry is built on the idea that they can take whatever they want without anyone's consent.
At the same time, publishers selling of whole catalogs for training data showed how morally bankrupt copyright is.