If there's one lesson you'd hope governments would take away from the pandemic and the lockdown, it's that good internet policy - universal access at fair prices, managed in the public interest - is a prerequisite for *all* good policy.
Canada didn't get the memo.
Last week, the CRTC - Canada's telecoms regulator - released its long-awaited decision on the wholesale prices paid by small, innovative ISPs to access the facilities of Canada's telecoms monopolists.
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New York: Now is the time to speak up for your right to repair. https://act.eff.org/action/new-york-stand-up-for-your-right-to-repair
We’re excited to announce the Dark Patterns Tip Line with @consumerreports and friends @AccessNow @PenAmerica @DarkPatterns. Anyone can submit deceptive design patterns they see in everyday products and services. Submit one today! https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/05/help-bring-dark-patterns-light
This is so cool https://vimeo.com/551468278
Interesting article that directly compares Tesla's lock-in and remote control tactics to Apple's: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/05/14/tesla-apple-tech/
AirTags can enable stalking--especially for users who don't have an iPhone. "Apple’s failure to take seriously the safety of people who exist outside of the Apple ecosystem is inexcusable," write EFF's @evacide and @FoxCahn in @wired. https://www.wired.com/story/opinion-apples-air-tags-are-a-gift-to-stalkers/
Why is it so hard for people to have #privacy? Because a TV company can make almost as much profit selling customer data as it can selling the TVs. https://www.engadget.com/vizio-q1-earnings-inscape-013937337.html
Signal created targeted ads for Instagram that show the personal data that Facebook collects about you and sells access to.
They were blocked.
https://signal.org/blog/the-instagram-ads-you-will-never-see/
World's biggest jeweller, Pandora, to drop mined diamonds
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-56972562
(submitted by kasperni)
Very excited to announce that #NGI DAPSI will be funding user account data export and migration in #Snikket and #XMPP! This project will give people more control over their data and ensure they are never locked into a specific XMPP provider.
Back in November, we learned that Disney had pulled a breathtakingly criminal wage-theft manuever on one of science-fiction's most beloved authors, Allan Dean Foster, an elderly cancer-patient caring for his sick wife.
https://pluralistic.net/2020/11/19/disneymustpay/#disneymustpay
Foster is the bestselling author of some of the most successful movie novelizations ever, from the first STAR WARS novel to ALIENS novels and more.
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I like the new #kdenlive 21.04! I just finished the edit of a new video tutorial with it (about 'shading', I'll post it later today) and the new auto-generated subtitle feature with speech recognition saves me 2h of work! (and surprisingly this one recognise my heavy French accent with a high percentage of success). Such a typing burden I did weekly to do less... Thanks again devs! And new keyframe actions are also lovely to use. 💜
More info about the release: https://kdenlive.org/en/2021/04/kdenlive-21-04-released/
The #librem5 becomes so much nicer to use after opening a terminal and "sudo apt install firefox-esr". Nice to have smooth scrolling, ability to long press links to open in new tab, Privacy Badger, and uBlock Origin to make web browsing comfortable again.
Hope it gets improved and vetted enough to be put in the PureOS Store soon.
Also looking forward to the looming upgrade from Amber to Byzantium to get the convergence improvements.
Excited to announce that The Intercept now has a Tor onion service version of its website, giving users a more anonymous option for reading the site
https://theintercept.com/2021/04/28/tor-browser-onion/
https://27m3p2uv7igmj6kvd4ql3cct5h3sdwrsajovkkndeufumzyfhlfev4qd.onion/2021/04/28/tor-browser-onion/
Users should have the right and ability to fix their own stuff—or have a trusted person do it for them. Right to repair legislation will help. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/25/opinion/iphone-apple-electronics-technology.html