Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

I think the dirty little secret here is that the Democratic Party really, really, really wants the Zionists to like them -- and way more than they want Palestinians, Muslims, or college students to like them.

I remember not too long ago when anyone advocating for free speech was assumed (my many) to be a right-winger. My how things change.

"President Trump’s unprecedented crackdown on constitutionally-protected speech has solicited crickets from key Democratic Party leaders and self-described ​“free speech” advocates in the U.S. media."

https://inthesetimes.com/article/democratic-party-free-speech-trump-deportation-mahmoud-khalil

The Wikimedia Foundation, which owns Wikipedia, says its bandwidth costs have gone up 50% since Jan 2024 — a rise they attribute to AI crawlers.

AI companies are killing the open web by stealing visitors from the sources of information and making them pay for the privilege

The "United States Disappeared Tracker' is brilliant, though we should be sickened that it is needed. Huge kudos to Prof. Danielle Harlow.

https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/danielleharlow/viz/UnitedStatesDisappearedTracker/Map

Here's her explainer:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielle-harlow-9a543a91?miniProfileUrn=urn%3Ali%3Afsd_profile%3AACoAABN2vA0B7h8s6epajj2aERAymBK-Mfl7Jds

The #Forgejo monthly update was published ✨ It is a high level overview of the project activities.

Forgejo v11.0 is on track for release on 16 April 2025. New versions of v7.0 and v10.0 have been released. Improvements to the availability of Forgejo actions have been completed and the Forgejo runner has received new versions. The DDoS attack on code.forgejo.org has ceased and precautions have been taken for the future.

https://forgejo.org/2025-03-monthly-update/

Just saw a link to 'Cities Coalition for Digital Rights' on my feed. Looked at their site (with lots of participating cities, globally) trumpeting a checklist of good digital behaviours: https://citiesfordigitalrights.org/checklist mentioning good stuff like privacy-respecting IT, use of open source & open standards, etc. Then, at the bottom, they tell you to follow them... on Twitter & LinkedIn. No mention of the Fediverse. Even as I yank, I can appreciate that deep irony. I gently suggesting they get Fediwise.

Corporate executives are tempted to settle Trump’s frivolous lawsuits against their news companies to get on the administration’s good side. But they’re reportedly scared of getting sued if they do.

They should be. We explain why.

https://freedom.press/issues/how-shareholders-can-stop-media-outlets-from-bribing-trump/

Good news! Prosecutors have dropped their unconstitutional case against Chicago photojournalist Matthew Kaplan for covering an ICE protest in Gary, IN.

We're proud that our advocacy helped make this happen.

https://www.instagram.com/mkaplanphoto/p/DHuMXpYP5QI/?img_index=11

Happy birthday to Samuel R. Delany, born April 1, 1942. A visionary in science fiction, Delany redefined the genre. His explorations of language, identity, and queerness continue to influence writers and readers alike - a true literary pioneer. Check out The Atheist in the Attic here: https://pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_detail&p=897

SignalGate has gotten lots of attention.

But an important point is being lost. A strong argument can be made that the chat is a presidential record.

This would be the clearest proof yet that the White House isn’t appropriately saving its records (again).

https://freedom.press/the-classifieds/the-signalgate-problem-nobody-is-talking-about/

Why is Illinois State going on strike? Because the admin is all in on "AI," from the sounds of it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOWHWiYOnHU

@lwriemen The theme song for the present age:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_7Bmz73w-U

"As we hand over more and more of the learning process to artificial systems, we risk training a generation of humans who are informationally saturated but cognitively underdeveloped...This creates a dangerous recursive feedback loop: AI teaches children, children lose depth, and the AI of tomorrow is trained on their shallow thinking. The result is a slow but accelerating decline in the quality of both human and machine cognition"

Supporting AI=supporting senescence.

https://substack.com/inbox/post/160268470

A reminder that France brought out the guillotines right about now.

it brings me no pleasure to inform you that the AI bros are still on their bull shit

@williampietri

@blogdiva @raganwald @davidgerard just delete your LinkedIn profile. I once fell victim to the thought that LinkedIn was somehow a legitimate platform to be on. It's not.

Some thoughts about Mastodon compared to other social media platforms that I posted in response to a thread by myrmepropagandist / futurebird:
#^https://hub.netzgemeinde.eu/display/a458a5a0-a1f6-4e71-a2d8-aa4e35926c36

dynamic_hubzilla wrote the following post Mon, 31 Mar 2025 14:36:22 +0200 @damon @AJ Sadauskas @myrmepropagandist

Mastodon was designed as a Twitter replacement.  In my opinion, it does *very* well in that capacity.

But Twitter was never designed for the kinds of social interactions that can be had on Livejournal or even Facebook, so Mastodon wasn't either.  Friendica is designed as a Facebook replacement, with Facebook-like ways of interacting.  If you add and change enough features on Mastodon, you could eventually get something better engineered for social relationships, but ultimately it's taking a tool intended for one thing and trying to turn it into a tool intended for something else.

Happy Transgender Day of Visibility!

#TDOV #TransVisibilityDay

"Should Americans face devastating legal, financial, and emotional consequences simply for speaking out on a matter of public concern?"

Nope. Every state needs a strong anti-SLAPP law like the one that protected this journalist in Indiana.

https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/opinion/columnists/iowa-view/2025/03/26/iowa-anti-slapp-bills-free-speech-protections/82671223007/