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@EUCommission Could we please stop subsidizing cars? They are immensely harmful to our environment, our planet, our cities and our children. Cars are:

* number one killer of children
* number one source of major trauma in children
* number one source of pollution in cities (exhaust, brake dust, tire dust, etc)
* Two thirds of our street space are taken up by cars

European industry should focus on things we do better than others, and things that the world needs more urgently, like wind mills.

Part three of our legal series is live, and stuff becomes serious.

We spoke with a range of legal experts, software freedom advocates, and maintainers of mature FOSS infrastructure to understand how others manage legal take-down requests.

Free ten minutes for: f-droid.org/2025/09/10/how-fos

It seems that together with civil society and politicians who actually care, this time we managed to prevent #chatcontrol again, luckily. Can we please not have to do that anymore?

@suka_hiroaki @epicenter_works @xot @bpreneel @carmelatroncoso @cascremers @tho

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We (over 50 scientists) have put (yet another) open letter to the EU commission online, detailing while we do not believe anything has changed in the recent iteration of #chatcontrol proposals that would make it any less unsafe: csa-scientist-open-letter.org/

Please boost. Next week there will be (another) decision!

CC @signalapp @suka_hiroaki @epicenter_works @xot @bpreneel @carmelatroncoso @cascremers @tho

We did it: DE 🇩🇪 LU🇱🇺 & SK🇸🇰 just decided to oppose Chat Control! 🥳

Thanks everyone for your help and keep fighting the good fight. 🫶

Chat Control will not get a majority - at least not today.

More on why it is the most criticized law of all times: tuta.com/blog/chat-control-cri

@kwf @funkylab @nblr @entropia @domrim @muccc @bert_hubert anyone can run an F-Droid mirror and any user can add any mirror to their client app. For mirrors that are used by default, we require that they have privacy standards similar to f-droid.org, since F-Droid users expect that level of privacy by default. There is no rule about location per se, but a mirror in country that requires logging and government access to all servers would fit our users expectations.

@funkylab @bkuhn @conservancy @fdroidorg @marcprux @seabass perhaps, but Google is not just going to back down without being pushed. We need to get organized and push them back.

@mnalis @eff I agree that harmful things should be banned from advertising. A key part of this question is: what is politically possible?

Forbidding smoking in specific places has worked quite well around the world, for example. There are drastically fewer places where people actually smoke.

@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. 😊

#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.” 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

fed.brid.gy/r/https://bsky.app

blowing up a 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 age restriction laws are also useful because they restrict related economic activity. If something is legally age restricted, it also can mean that companies can't make money offering such content to minors, they cannot promote it to minors, etc.

Worried about the future of installing your own software on your Android device? @conservancy is hosting a Q&A to update you about sideloading software as well as other tips about how to ensure your phone runs the software you want, without any artificial restrictions. Join us on BigBlueButton this Friday September 5th at 15:00 UTC (08:00 US/Pacific, 11:00 US/Eastern, 17:00 CEST)

https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2025/sep/3/sfc-qa-on-how-to-keep-your-sideloading/

@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 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 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?

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