Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

"In the heart of West Africa, a resistance movement has taken form—not through guerrilla warfare, but through governance. President Ibrahim Traoré of Burkina Faso stands as perhaps the most targeted African leader today, facing an unprecedented 15 assassination attempts in just two years...Traoré has committed what the imperial powers consider the ultimate transgression—pursuing genuine sovereignty. His crime? Refusing to be controlled by Western imperialism."

https://bettbeat.substack.com/p/anti-imperialists-really-need-to

"Privacy on Trial: Meta’s DOJ Battle vs. Purism’s User-Centric Philosophy"

Meta claims it’s not a monopoly.

The FTC disagrees.

At the center of the case: Meta’s acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp—moves the FTC argues were calculated to "neutralize competitive threats" and consolidate power across the digital landscape.

For those who reject Surveillance Capitalism—where your data is the product—Purism offers a bold alternative.

Full Article at Purism: https://puri.sm/posts/privacy-on-trial-metas-doj-battle-vs-purisms-user-centric-philosophy/

Harry Potter fans tend to argue for the seperation of art from the artist.

That's a maybe.

But unlike, say, Lovecraft, your money is going to an alive person that is trying to eradicate my people *using* that money.

I wouldn't be able to look myself in the mirror if I did that to any minority.

SB 2880 out of Texas has the goal to wipe information about abortion pills from the internet. It is carefully designed to scare people into silence and will chill free speech. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/04/texass-war-abortion-now-war-free-speech

🔇🔇🔇 Join us on for the virtual launch of @emilymbender & @alex's book, The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech’s Hype and Create the Future We Want.

⏰Thursday May 8th @ 2pm PT
📕 Preorder the book @ https://thecon.ai.

▶️ Register for the event @ https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-ai-con-virtual-book-launch-tickets-1330295943979?aff=oddtdtcreator

Ok, so I'm (still) in the throes of upgrading my venerable Drupal 7 block to a modern Drupal... I spent *ages* trying to get things working with Drupal 10 (note, I ran a Drupal dev shop for over a decade, so this *should* be easy-as. Heh)... It occurred to me, why go to D10 if D11 is stable. & given that, why not the new 'Drupal CMS' (based on D11) 🤔... So I've installed an instance with the aim of migrating my D7 to it... anybody else try this? Recommended? (I've already got a D10 theme...)

“Good intentions alone are not enough to make good policy,” EFF told AP News of the TAKE IT DOWN Act. “Lawmakers should be strengthening and enforcing existing legal protections for victims, rather than inventing new takedown regimes that are ripe for abuse.” https://apnews.com/article/take-it-down-deepfake-trump-melania-first-amendment-741a6e525e81e5e3d8843aac20de8615

Recently I received an AI-written email from a friend. It wasn’t sent to test AI, or to show it off, as in “ha ha check this out”; ....
https://mrgan.com/ai-email-from-a-friend/

ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

Not only is one German state moving from Microsoft to LibreOffice, but the whole federal government is committing to move to open standards by 2027: https://blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2025/04/29/germany-committing-to-odf-and-open-document-standards/

@reiunion is calling on all REI members to vote no on corporate's hand picked, union busting slate.

So I just did that. You have until May 1st to vote! A great way to take action for #MayDay

https://www.ourrei.com/2025-rei-board-elections

#union #coop

Enjoyed this from @_elena.
https://mastodon.social/@_elena/114348001009857066

As a journalist on the Fediverse with a Ghost site and newsletter, I don't need the adoption option, but I'd LOVE IT if more people signed up to my free newsletter.

Being niche and not being a mega Ghost success story like 404 or Molly W (both of whom I think are great) I can't really say that avoiding the big social media channels is a great plan for reach, but I do it anyway because it's what I believe in.

https://tansyhoskins.org/

In other news, I'm desperate enough for work at this point that I'm willing to consider freelance software work again. If you know anyone who needs scripts, tools, integrations, etc. and want an expert in Open Source, XMPP, Go(lang), Rust, PostgreSQL, and other tools, LMK.

I won't work on or with AI or blockchain related products or companies.

#Trump 100 days: delusions of monarchy coupled with fundamental #ineptitude - https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/29/trump-100-days-doge-trade-wars-economy what a fab headline

#DOGE could help #Musk firms avoid $2.3B in government penalties, Democrats say - https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/04/doge-could-help-musk-firms-avoid-2-3b-in-government-penalties-democrats-say/ " Senate memo: DOGE can help Musk stop investigations and make lawsuits disappear."

50 years later, #Vietnam’s environment still bears the scars of war - https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/04/50-years-later-vietnams-environment-still-bears-the-scars-of-war/ " Degraded ecosystems and dioxin-contaminated soils and waters reflect the long-term ecological impact." grim stuff #ecocide

Europe’s Devastating Power Outage in Photos - https://www.wired.com/gallery/europes-devastating-power-outage-in-photos/ if, as seems likely, this was caused by #climate issues, expect to see it happen elsewhere and more often

Good morning Fedi friends!

The day starts on a bright note, seeing the results of the Canadian elections 🇨🇦

Yesterday was the 1st day of pre-production for the Fediverse promo video. FASCINATING discussions with my interns. I understood so many things about the Fediverse from the POV of people not familiar with it.

The concept of servers / instances and software can be confusing. I finally got a breakthrough thanks to FediDB.

Today we’re reworking the script.

Have a great day everyone!

From the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker:

In the first 100 days of President Donald Trump’s second term, his appointees and allies in Congress have joined his campaign against the press, and are endeavoring to defund, defang and silence independent and critical reporting:

https://pressfreedomtracker.us/blog/trump-allies-pursue-multipronged-campaign-against-the-press/

If more people decline face scans, TSA might rethink “whether it’s actually effective to roll out programs like these,” EFF’s Saira Hussain told @huffingtonpost. Without pushback, they're "just going to keep instituting more and more invasive techniques.” https://www.huffpost.com/entry/why-you-can-and-should-opt-out-of-tsa-facial-recognition-right-now-goog_l_680a673ae4b0b1be33560c93

#Temu adds ‘import charges’ after #Trump #tariffs - https://techcrunch.com/2025/04/28/temu-adds-import-charges-after-trump-tariffs/ "Temu is adding “import charges” of around 145%" maybe this will teach people how tariffs actually work...