Erik Moeller

Personal: https://lib.reviews/ and other projects under the https://permacommons.org/ umbrella.

Professional: Programs @ Sovereign Tech Agency, Berlin. Previously Wikimedia (2008-2015), Freedom of the Press (2018-2025).

Opinions my own.

GitHub: https://github.com/eloquence
Pronouns: he/him
Bluesky (only lightly active): https://bsky.app/profile/eloquence.bsky.social

Public Key

npub1qm9ke6lksjn8ushquf5hule7zydxnrkr0gcl5k856lcv5zw5032sygl0lg

NIP-05 Address

[email protected]

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsqdjmva0mgffn7gtswy6t70ulpzxnf3mph5v06tr6d0ux2p828c4gpz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0dsq9j6z2

Publishing to

relay.damus.io

nos.lol

Author Public Key

npub1qm9ke6lksjn8ushquf5hule7zydxnrkr0gcl5k856lcv5zw5032sygl0lg

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Last Notes

2026-08-27 17:21:35 CEST

If you're in Berlin or willing and independently able to move & work there, we just opened an incredibly important role for prioritizing public investments in critical open source infrastructure -- and for making the case for these investments to reach the scale they truly need to.
This is a key time as we are preparing for a pilot of an EU Sovereign Tech Fund.
https://www.sovereign.tech/jobs/director-of-technology
#GetFediHired

2026-08-11 16:52:25 CEST

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Yup, sadly MediaWiki tends to be only a good in-house solution for folks who are already MediaWiki-pilled. But I would still implement it over Notion any day.

2026-08-10 12:49:33 CEST

New Sovereign Tech Agency job opening just went live.
If you live in Berlin or are able to independently relocate & work there, this is an opportunity to give #opensource maintainers access to deep human expertise: security audits, post-quantum encryption work, Cyber Resilience Act conformance, and more.
Alongside our direct investments in maintainers, this program focuses on paying for resources that keep projects secure & make them more maintainable over time.
Learn more about the job here:
https://www.sovereign.tech/jobs/program-manager-resilience
Feel free to DM me here if you have Qs.
#GetFediHired

2026-08-04 09:57:59 CEST

I don't think I will get used to #Notion's weird UX. Block-level editors seem like a major UX regression to me, not a step forward, putting far more of the cognitive load for basic layout, selection and editing operations on the user.

2026-06-21 22:17:09 CEST

Dear @npub1rk6…hv4q, your Talk icon looks way too much like a magnifying glass. I constantly land on Talk when I want to land on Search. #UX

2026-06-18 22:50:00 CEST

RE: https://chaos.social/@netzpolitik_feed/116766173035110604
Besides Dubya, W Social reminds me of Post News, which was similarly hyped by Very Important People, only to be quickly shut down for lack of users. If the EU wants to actually advance a positive vision of social media, open source and decentralized governance are non-negotiable.
#note1mtq…6qd7

2026-06-18 11:18:49 CEST

* If you are in Berlin or willing & independently able to move there, and
* You have a program management (or reasonably comparable) background, and
* You have deep, technically grounded understanding of open source and free culture ...
I would really like to hear from you about this role on my team.
Both of these programs are really powerful ways to invest in the people behind the code -- and to grow the understanding of why public investment in critical open source infrastructure matters:
https://www.sovereign.tech/jobs/program-manager-fellowship-standards

2026-05-12 19:10:27 CEST

Not sure that there's a better illustration for the relationship between capitalism and the commons than searching for "Wikipedia" in the app store and being presented, above the Wikipedia app, with a paid knock-off app that seeks to monetize the volunteer labor that makes Wikipedia possible.
https://social-coop-media.ams3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/media_attachments/files/116/562/700/414/874/635/original/6ace59fd49d1ec34.png

2026-03-14 22:48:48 CET

Worst compliment?

2026-03-14 02:37:40 CET

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what does the LLM do in this context?

2026-01-22 18:54:36 CET

RE: https://fedi.simonwillison.net/@simon/115940010397209167
Quote: "It's important that everyone understands that voice cloning is now something that's available to anyone with a GPU and a few GBs of VRAM... or in this case a web browser that can access Hugging Face."
#note12w9…hmyh

2026-01-21 21:48:07 CET

Departures from X have occurred in many waves since Musk took over in November 2022.
Every departure filters the network down to the people who are comfortable with everything he does to amplify hate.
Whatever Twitter once was, X Is now just a test for what people are willing to tolerate.
https://social-coop-media.ams3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/media_attachments/files/115/935/047/315/427/307/original/0fb17a7c775c0a12.mp4

2025-12-24 22:16:50 CET

It's gotten to the point where an Epstein face blocker would be helpful, as his smirking visage shows up several times a day in various news stories.
In the meantime, if you want to help, you may find this PNG useful to attach to posts, overriding whatever they chose for the teaser image. As an added bonus, it also works for stories about Donald Trump, Kristi Noem, or Elon Musk.
https://social-coop-media.ams3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/media_attachments/files/115/776/609/844/837/905/original/d1a4beebc16d9c4c.png

2025-11-12 22:39:02 CET

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His blog post here is very explicitly white supremacist and praising fascist Tommy Robinson. The only thing wrong with calling him a nazi is that it doesn't suit his preferred branding.
https://world.hey.com/dhh/as-i-remember-london-e7d38e64

2025-11-06 20:40:33 CET

Detailed investigation from Sky on how X boosts extreme right-wing content into user's feeds. Unsurprising, of course. The bigger question is why so many journalists, politicians and institutions (including SkyNews) feel the need to continue to legitimize X through their presence -- a platform that puts new accounts on a steady feed of hate the moment they sign up.
https://news.sky.com/story/the-x-effect-how-elon-musk-is-boosting-the-british-right-13464487

2025-11-05 06:17:54 CET

Gee, I wonder why billionaires want to control the encyclopedia.
(Kudos to the contributors of this very astute section of Zohran Mamdani's Wikipedia bio.)
https://social-coop-media.ams3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/media_attachments/files/115/495/383/032/852/155/original/58e38114050dd3ee.png

2025-11-01 08:29:26 CET

Managing focus and scrolling in a terminal UI (TUI) is tricky, but I think I landed on a reasonable approach for Chabeau (https://github.com/permacommons/chabeau).
It's very subtle, but you can see it in this video:
- "›" indicates focus, "·" indicates out of focus (left-aligned in title bar and input area)
- focused element gets control of cursor keys, PgUp/PGDn, and so on
- focus is _not_ set immediately, but the moment the user starts typing non-control keys, they automatically get focus
#AI #LLM #Rust
https://social-coop-media.ams3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/media_attachments/files/115/473/257/558/699/833/original/f0eac523489469fc.mp4

2025-10-11 20:00:39 CEST

People tend to think of ALT text as a "good thing to do for people with disabilities". That is true, but also reductive. It is useful for everyone, as is generally the case with accessibility.
I sometimes see posts with screenshots of text in a language I don't speak. If they had ALT text, I could use the "Translate" feature, and it would translate both the post and the transcription.
If you post in English, everyone who doesn't speak English fluently will benefit from ALT text.

2025-10-08 21:10:34 CEST

At this rate it's honestly surprising that none of the major #AI players have issued an "AICoin" yet (aside from Altman's aspirational spycoin). Maybe that's the final step after institutional investment dries up.
(Graphic from Bloomberg: https://archive.is/Pagn7)
https://social-coop-media.ams3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/media_attachments/files/115/340/104/730/940/646/original/63219ce9bd77ef93.png

2025-10-03 22:50:26 CEST

It's pretty clear from the #Bluesky CEO's shitposting that she really would rather not have all those uppity trans folks and their friends on the platform. Instead she'd prefer to proudly talk to investors about how even J.D. Vance has an account.
It's the digital town square! Everyone is empowered to moderate their own feed, except if you say mean things about Charlie Kirk.
It that doesn't make you want to build over here instead, I don't know what will.

2025-10-03 18:53:01 CEST

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For many years, activists and the annoying free software people in your area have warned that the power of app stores enables turnkey censorship. And of course there have been many examples of this, especially with repressive non-US governments getting apps removed from app stores.
This is why alternative "stores" like https://f-droid.org/ are essential for free expression - and Google may soon make it impossible to meaningfully operate those, as well:
https://f-droid.org/2025/09/29/google-developer-registration-decree.html

2025-10-03 18:49:11 CEST

Apple: And you'll see why 2025 will finally be like 1984.
Think ... identically.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/02/us/politics/apple-iceblock-app-store-trump.html

2025-09-30 19:27:02 CEST

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Yep, I just had to deal with the secret questions. I was lucky enough I still remembered what I had put for one of them!

2025-09-30 18:35:38 CEST

Apple has built this mythology of a user-friendly OS. But as I'm setting up a test Mac for development builds, I'm struck by the many tiny UX papercuts.
Case in point:
1) Erase Mac -> connect to WiFi and enter password.
2) Install: select WiFi again, enter password you just typed again (!); no password reveal option
3) "New Apple Account" - no password reveal option; short input field with poor scrolling behavior; doesn't tell me early that an account already exists with my email address

2025-09-30 01:51:40 CEST

I don't really think it makes sense to talk about "protecting democracy" in a two-party system where one party has fully given up on the idea of democracy and is steadily building out authoritarian rule.
Nor does success at pushing that party out of power while it remains fundamentally anti-democratic magically "restore democracy".
At this point, the goal must be to _create_ democracy in the United States.

2025-09-07 18:34:10 CEST

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freedom.press implemented WKD for staff accounts years ago. For a lot of email to those addresses, it's literally the only reason it gets encrypted - often from Protonmail users who may not even know it. WKD works.

2025-08-05 22:29:03 CEST

Some days it's hard to keep up with everything happening in #AI. Today is one of those days - gpt-oss, Genie 3, Opus 4.1, Gemini Storybook... I know what I'll be doing this evening.

2025-08-05 19:55:50 CEST

Keir Starmer is keeping Britain safe from encyclopedias.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62j2gr8866o

2025-07-28 23:46:20 CEST

As someone mainly working in open source land, I can't tell you how under-appreciated it is to be able to _look at what some piece of code does_ to shortcut troubleshooting.
So much corporate "software as a service" stuff is poorly and incorrectly documented, and you have to take wild guesses at what any of it actually does.
(I'm mostly griping again about Mailchimp today, which is terrible no-good awful software, but it applies to so many things.)

2025-07-18 19:22:51 CEST

Thank you to the journalists who are continuing to investigate the monstrous treatment of the hundreds of human beings who were sent by the US government to El Salvador's #CECOT concentration camp.
404 Media has examined flight manifests and identified dozens of previously unknown deportees:
https://www.404media.co/flight-manifests-reveal-dozens-of-previously-unknown-people-on-three-deportation-flights-to-el-salvador/
ProPublica documents how people who entered the country legally, with no criminal records, were torn away from their families:
https://www.propublica.org/article/venezuelan-deportees-trump-immigration-asylum-el-salvador

2025-07-16 19:49:51 CEST

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Yup. I think the best that can be said about BlueSky from an openness perspective is that it's fairly supportive of third party developers building against the centralized platform -- sort of like Twitter used/aspired to be.
Which is to say, in every respect it feels like a re-run of a show that used to be popular.

2025-07-15 01:48:37 CEST

Dear #UX designers, if your web app opens composer windows (looking at you GitHub issue creation dialog), please consider updating the page `<title>`. Those of us hunting across many browser tabs will thank you.

2025-07-03 21:53:58 CEST

The location in the Fastmail web UI is a bit weird, but this kind of "What's New" tray is the correct way to handle changes to your website or app, maybe with a "Show me" action for more details.
Please don't throw a boatload of "We just changed our UI we're so excited BLA BLA BLA" pop-ups in my way if I haven't used your product in a while.
https://social-coop-media.ams3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/media_attachments/files/114/791/046/332/712/186/original/ab33be1c4491be0e.png

2025-06-18 21:35:19 CEST

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I personally would much rather see AI built in the public interest, benchmarked and tested for its biases, than endorse a Butlerian Jihad against it. The latter will please people's egos, inevitably fail, and the instrument will still be used.

2025-06-18 21:32:40 CEST

AI is an instrument of power.
https://social-coop-media.ams3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/media_attachments/files/114/706/019/585/352/666/original/809ddf093bf9a3aa.png

2025-06-01 20:58:20 CEST

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Here's the Youtube version without the cropping:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyaSVBXF1K8

2025-04-29 07:29:12 CEST

Pretty good breakdown of OpenAI o3's (quite good) performance at guessing locations based on photos, by way of the "GeoGuessr" game (metadata stripped). It scored better than a very highly ranked human.
A tendency of some AI critiques is to treat _all_ such evidence as "smoke and mirrors". That is unhelpful; it occludes awareness of capabilities that are actually improving (and can present real #opsec and surveillance risks in this case).
https://sampatt.com/blog/2025-04-28-can-o3-beat-a-geoguessr-master

2025-04-23 08:06:38 CEST

> “We’re disappearing people,” Dexter said. “I’m here to vouch for every American citizen’s right, as well as anyone within our borders right, to due process.”
It's good to see more reps shine a light on the forced disappearances. It is also the direct result of public pressure to act. We must keep up that pressure.
Due process is a fundamental right, and it must never result in imprisonment in a concentration camp.
https://oregoncapitalchronicle.com/2025/04/22/oregon-rep-dexter-returns-from-el-salvador-were-disappearing-people/

2025-04-15 02:51:34 CEST

An epistemological reminder.
Fascists lie, lie, lie, and lie some more.
They plant drugs and other false evidence.
They burn buildings, and worse, and then claim their enemies did it.
By all means, ask people chronicling the regime's crimes for sources. Remember, of course, that they may _be_ the sources: witnesses, friends, victims.
But do not trust anything the fascist shitheads or their defenders and enablers say. If they claim the sky is blue, look outside -- it may be on fire.

2025-04-14 21:29:56 CEST

Fox News is now calling Garcia, a dude who was harassed by gangs before fleeing to the US, only to be kidnapped and sent into a concentration camp _by_ the US, an "MS-13 leader".
This is the sort of unadulterated lying that gets pushed into #MAGA people's brains every day -- America's version of "Der Stürmer" or the "Völkischer Beobachter".
If you want to have any hope for people in the fascist MAGA cult, you gotta get them off those feeds first. (And that includes X, of course.)

2025-04-14 19:45:43 CEST

If you're in the US and sat out the last #HandsOff protest, make sure to be there on April 19. This is no time to sit things out. Cancel appointments if you have to.

2025-04-11 09:20:02 CEST

“The cruelty of the US and Salvadoran governments has put these people outside the protection of the law and caused immense pain to their families.”
Human Rights Watch -- a US organization originally founded to monitor human rights violations in the Soviet Union -- reports on the enforced disappearances and arbitrary detention under the Trump regime:
https://www.hrw.org/news/2025/04/11/us/el-salvador-venezuelan-deportees-forcibly-disappeared

2025-04-11 06:00:38 CEST

As a German, I've been careful to avoid the term "concentration camp" for El Salvador's #CECOT rent-a-gulag, because the term directly connotes genocide.
But when you threaten to put people in camps under horrific conditions forever, with no due process of recourse (often, as we've seen, on the basis of hearsay or tattoos), those camps become concentration camps. This is nazi talk; this is concentration camp talk. No other term does it justice.
https://www.axios.com/2025/04/09/kristi-noem-migrants-trump-ice-prison

2025-04-03 20:29:03 CEST

One weird thing that happens with authoritarian leaders is that they make stupid decisions that make no sense, and nobody can tell them no.
I understand why people want to read some big master plan into Trump's tariffs, but IMO it's as simple that it's a fixed set of dumb beliefs in protectionism that nobody can talk him out of. He's been saying the same nonsense since the 1980s.
All authoritarian leaders do stupid shit like this. That's why you don't want to end up with authoritarian leaders.

2025-03-29 20:50:08 CET

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Of course, because Bluesky is only cosplaying as decentralized, users don't really have a choice but to make excuses for such business decisions, or just have to accept them as a tradeoff of being on the platform.
And so the platform degrades, one step at a time, to satisfy business concerns.

2025-03-29 20:48:48 CET

#Bluesky now redirects links through "go.bsky.app".
This is a kludge similar to Twitter's "t.co" to pass on referer information (already available on the open web) from mobile apps, to make Bluesky look better in analytics reports.
Intercepting clicks is always problematic from a privacy/security perspective; in addition, it introduces a technical layer that can fall over (the redirection service).

2025-03-18 17:33:39 CET

Reporting that's based on public records shouldn't then be put behind a paywall.
This also makes sense from a revenue perspective for many paywalled publications. It's a great way to establish an area of freely available reporting that can draw people into buying subscriptions.
Really proud of my colleagues' advocacy here, and glad to see WIRED taking the lead on implementing this recommendation.
https://freedom.press/issues/wired-is-dropping-paywalls-for-foia-based-reporting-others-should-follow/

2025-03-01 22:46:55 CET

Good to see @npub1lu8…v9tm still host these massive charity bundles, in this case for California fire relief (I hope they'll do another Ukraine bundle soon).
This one includes Tunic, which was a 2022 GOTY contender.
(I see this as a great way to chip in to a cause together and sampling games you'd otherwise probably never see, but please don't skip supporting indie devs of titles you enjoy.)
https://itch.io/b/2863/california-fire-relief-bundle

2025-03-01 20:46:03 CET

I find Trump as repulsive as most people here, but as a German, one thing I want to push back on is focusing only on one man.
Hitler's rise was possible because he was able to exploit the racial hatred and conspiratorial thinking that already existed.
It's MAGA acolytes that see Trump as an extraordinary figure. He was a reality show grifter with a crumbling business; Hitler was an undisciplined drifter with delusions of grandeur.
It's the soil that matters, not just the rotten harvest.

2025-02-17 07:29:33 CET

Nowhere is the new reality of X as a state media platform more obvious than on https://doge.gov/ -- the main page is a feed of posts from their X account.
Expect more of this as Musk worms himself into the government, including "DM us on X" and similar nonsense (of course it won't be a human that responds, but a state AI bot based on Grok).
This is why viewing X as a tool for persuading anyone of anything makes no sense. It's not a tool for you. It's a tool for them.

2025-02-17 07:21:32 CET

Elon Musk says the journalists at CBS 60 Minutes "deserve a long prison sentence".
The reporting that has him so upset includes this line: "The world's richest man had cut off assistance to the world's poorest families."
You can view it in full here (first ~15 minutes):
https://www.cbs.com/shows/video/w_Zoxuc1ZnjigRqeKhYpum3ZFHIf2Rbs/

2025-02-15 02:13:20 CET

Dismantle public safety → Cause tragic loss of life → Blame scapegoat → Seek greater authoritarian power
DOGE is a central part of this playbook. Call it what it is: a threat against public safety.

2025-02-14 23:41:55 CET

> As before, all cases are in unvaccinated people or people with unknown vaccination status.
The RFK Jr. appointment will put the pedal to the metal for future outbreaks.
We are all witnesses to the decline of a nation. Whether we will be witnesses to its fall remains up to us.
https://arstechnica.com/health/2025/02/texas-measles-outbreak-climbs-to-48-cases-almost-all-kids-13-hospitalized/?utm_brand=arstechnica&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social

2025-02-14 23:09:21 CET

It'll take a while for organizations that remain active on X to fully internalize that being on the platform is no different from being in Russia Today's comments section.
So we have to keep saying it.
X is state media.

2025-02-12 20:44:09 CET

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I think requesting a hashtag is a more reasonable ask; otherwise I would just suggest unfollowing accounts which are posting frequent not-CW'd USPOL content.
CWs interfere with discussion and wanted visibility and are, especially for vast categories like this, a subjective choice.

2025-02-12 06:32:49 CET

"Please let us roll over in peace already" - US Democratic Party mission statement
Keep calling.
https://www.axios.com/2025/02/12/democrats-jeffries-move-on-indivisible-trump

2025-02-01 18:54:58 CET

A couple of weeks ago, several reputable outlets confidently explained how DOGE would be most likely a paper tiger, an advisory committee that won't achieve anything, much like previous ones. In fact, a similar such story by @npub1gpe…88e5 just came across my feed again.
Good reporting here from Reuters, but media should take it as a wake-up call. Authoritarian governments _break the fucking law_ to do what they want. They don't follow precedents; they create them.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/musk-aides-lock-government-workers-out-computer-systems-us-agency-sources-say-2025-01-31/

2025-01-31 22:22:15 CET

Do you want to introduce the fediverse and/or Bluesky to your organization -- in addition to, or instead of, X & Meta?
Through Feb, Mar and Apr, I'll be offering free one-hour sessions on Fridays to talk to your org. For-profit, non-profit, gov, edu, etc. This is not a consultancy; this is volunteer advocacy and support for building our collective independence from X & Meta.
If you are interested, book a slot through this link (starting Feb 7). Time is not movable. :)
https://calendar.google.com/calendar/u/0/appointments/schedules/AcZssZ1moWG0f_wJqMz-rO0OkD27MBJpj1LR4W9SJQnIYIEe8lvb1UbbTXTYQw7cBbc4SuybqByqTjqh

2025-01-31 21:56:43 CET

Amidst descending darkness across Europe and the United States, solidarity -- protest, collective action, mutual aid, and more -- is the source of light & hope.
Whatever form that takes for you, if you find yourself in despair with all that's happening, seek that light.
Others will try to diminish it, or tell you that you're focusing on the wrong thing. That way leads paralyzing self-doubt, infighting, and more despair.
Always seek out the light.

2025-01-24 08:02:28 CET

Seeing #pixelfed photos in my Mastodon feed will never not be cool. Thank you, @npub1xsv…q6he, for showing what the fediverse can be.

2025-01-24 01:17:44 CET

Not that we need more examples of Elon being a lying piece of shit, but just a nice textbook case, with the image flipped as well. And of course no Community Notes on those tweets. (Both of these accounts are right-wing hate-bait accounts he retweets all the time and may well control directly.)
I know I'm a broken record, but I'll say it again: civil society must get off X.
https://social-coop-media.ams3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/media_attachments/files/113/880/442/115/736/475/original/5427242a6eda1ac3.mp4

2025-01-24 01:17:44 CET

Not that we need more examples of Elon being a lying piece of shit, but just a nice textbook example, with the image flipped as well. And of course no Community Notes on those tweets. (Both of these accounts are right-wing hate-bait accounts he retweets all the time and may well control directly.)
I know I'm a broken record, but I'll say it again: civil society must get off this platform.
https://social-coop-media.ams3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/media_attachments/files/113/880/442/115/736/475/original/5427242a6eda1ac3.mp4

2025-01-23 02:05:07 CET

We're hiring a Senior Software Engineer on the @npub1vvy…4kzm team at @npub1hxa…caxd.
SecureDrop is open source whistleblowing software. The project is at a critical inflection point as we get ready to build the next-gen version based on a modern cryptographic protocol.
100% remote, full-time, $110-$120K base salary with comprehensive benefits for US-based employees. (If you're not in the US, we can discuss consultancy models.)
Hmu for questions.
https://grnh.se/813b998c5us
#GetFediHired

2025-01-23 01:09:06 CET

- unblocks nazis on his platform while suspending antifa
- calls claim that jews push hatred against whites "the actual truth"
- weaponizes platform to get white supremacist elected president
- wears "dark gothic" maga hat at rally
- promotes neo-nazi affiliated far-right in Germany and UK
- does Heil Hitler salute twice at inauguration
actual NYT headline: "Elon Musk Ignites Online Speculation Over the Meaning of a Hand Gesture"

2025-01-22 22:36:49 CET

The refusal to be gaslit into believing Musk was just overflowing with love when he did his Heil Hitler -- it reminds me of the refusal to be gaslit into thinking that health insurance industries like United aren't inherently parasitical institutions.
In both cases, media that are playing along with the gaslighting are destroying their own credibility.

2025-01-21 19:35:47 CET

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I think @npub1nn0…qf5k's argument here is exactly correct: it all starts with reclaiming the spaces of discourse and information.
Any news organizations (and civil rights organizations, and other NGOs) interested in preserving democracy & facts should be making that same argument, more loudly, and put it into practice.
https://www.404media.co/decentralized-social-media-is-the-only-alternative-to-the-tech-oligarchy/

2025-01-21 19:32:51 CET

How does an oligarchy remain in power in the 21st century? Is it by shutting down newspapers, and arresting political opponents? Why bother, if you can:
- capture major attention fiefdoms ("social media") and align them politically
- "flood the zone" with misinformation
- directly control some remaining news/information outlets by way of acquisition
- bully/penalize anyone with influence who steps out of line
- reward those who bend the knee with access & amplification.

2025-01-21 07:46:21 CET

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It's worth noting that there are now _many_ international campaigns to organize civil society & individual migration away from X (and sometimes also Meta). I've heard of:
https://helloquittex.com/ (French + more)
https://vamonosjuntas.org/ (Spanish + more)
https://leavex.eu/ (Europe; multilingual petition)
https://campagnes.degoedezaak.org/campaigns/detox (Netherlands)
@npub19tf…ahrh (helped organize academia migration off X in Germany)
Plus lots of individuals helping people, setting up servers, etc.

2025-01-21 07:27:01 CET

I'm still maintaining the #eXit spreadsheet as best I can, (https://bit.ly/eXit → GDoc), but -- a good problem to have! -- the rate of notable account deactivations, especially in Europe, is difficult to keep up with.
If folks still find it useful (I'm at this point mainly tracking the specific Mastodon/Bluesky accounts folks set up), I'd appreciate any volunteers willing to co-maintain it :)

2025-01-20 20:34:31 CET

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Next up is Jarvis Cocker with "Running the World". As a member of Gen X, its cynicism is as familiar to me as a cozy blanket. It's not enough, of course.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=deiWnZK-duM

2025-01-20 20:33:34 CET

Let's see if we can create our own soundtrack to accompany US inauguration day. Let me start with a few suggestions; replies with more are appreciated!
Kicking things off with a classic: All You Fascists Bound to Lose by Woody Guthrie. 🧵
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlgXghaJCK0

2025-01-20 05:54:37 CET

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Listen appears to have started within Google Labs; the launch blog post is still up and was written by Bill Schilit and Sam Roweis:
https://googlemobile.blogspot.com/2009/08/knowledge-speaks-but-wisdom-listens.html
Bill and Sam were also very active in the Google Group during those launch days, so they were likely at least principal developers:
https://groups.google.com/g/listen-discuss/c/LzjBZxniFAY

2025-01-19 06:13:30 CET

Pretty surreal to not be able to access Freedom of the Press Foundation's (!) TikTok account as a result of a government order.
https://www.tiktok.com/@freedomofthepressfdn

2025-01-17 08:48:04 CET

Praising Trump for his antitrust pick, as @npub19kd…t56d CEO Andy Yen did (https://archive.is/l1WYU), reveals wilful ignorance of the slide towards authoritarianism. That's disappointing for a product that journalists and human rights defenders rely on.
It's not complicated: All Trump is interested in is to implement rewards for CEOs who bend the knee (tax breaks, deregulation, etc.) and punishments (investigations, bullying, antitrust) for those that step out of line.

2025-01-17 01:26:58 CET

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Good question. I think Wikimedia-l is probably still a decent place to reach folks affiliated with many different orgs:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/postorius/lists/wikimedia-l.lists.wikimedia.org/
Individual affiliates also often have their own lists, many of which can be found here:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Overview#
But I'm not very involved these days - maybe other Wikimedia folks seeing this thread have other suggestions for places that are more likely to reach the right folks, or to have good/constructive vibes.

2025-01-17 01:15:23 CET

Looks like @npub1hdk…eh5e is at least pausing its use of X "for now".
https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Social_media&diff=prev&oldid=28106844
Now would be a good time for additional #Wikimedia chapters to explicitly exit X (and why not Meta, while you're at it :-) to keep the momentum going.

2025-01-13 19:20:26 CET

Oh boy, @npub1xsv…q6he is going to get a lot of Streisand effect traffic 😅
https://www.404media.co/meta-is-blocking-links-to-decentralized-instagram-competitor-pixelfed/

2025-01-11 19:35:34 CET

An Open Letter to All European Politicians and Leaders to Abandon X/Twitter:
"By abandoning X/Twitter, leaders can reduce its credibility, promote fairer alternatives, and take a stand against the spread of disinformation, ensuring democratic principles are upheld."
H/T to @npub1ltk…w7z8 for organizing this - already close to 1,000 signatures:
https://www.openpetition.eu/petition/online/an-open-letter-to-all-european-politicians-and-leaders-to-abandon-x-twitter
#Europe #EU

2025-01-10 09:43:48 CET

One good thing is coming off Musk's nazi propaganda: civil society use of X in Germany is well and truly collapsing.
Among those who remain active on X in good faith, there's a confusion between a strategic goal (wanting to reach and persuade conservatives) and the method chosen to achieve it.
Not only does being active on X not achieve the goal, it actively works against it by fueling the site's core purpose: spreading fear, misinformation and hate to enable oligarchic authoritarianism.

2025-01-08 01:41:28 CET

The Meta developments make it even clearer why so many of us are wary of #bluesky, while welcoming the migration off X in principle.
It's very much born from the same Silicon Valley soup as Facebook and Twitter, with some decentralization cosplay masking that they are absolutely in charge of who can speak and who can't.
Early test cases include Jesse Singal (see https://glaad.org/gap/jesse-singal/ - still not banned on Bluesky), Vagina Museum (forced "adult content" labeling), and probably more.

2025-01-06 08:05:03 CET

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Musk is a con-man like Trump, and he's fooled plenty of well-meaning people into thinking that they have a shot at persuading some "undecideds" to their point of view on his turf.
He may even let them win a few fights here and there. But it's his show. Civil society will not win ground on a platform that's designed for it to lose.
Anyone still posting on X thinking otherwise is playing a mug's game.

2025-01-06 08:00:41 CET

Musk is now weaponizing X to promote far-right narratives and leaders in the UK, Germany, and Canada. He knows that every time he does this, X bleeds some users. But he is moving quickly, and he counts on the bleeding to be too slow to matter.
So far, most politicians, journalists and civil society organizations have proven him right, hemming and hawing about having to "maintain a presence" and "make our case" or similar such rubbish, legitimizing the platform with their continued presence.

2025-01-04 02:12:09 CET

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What's astonishing to me about that WaPo editorial decision is how fucking tame that cartoon is. No offense to the artist, of course. But if WaPo isn't willing to publish an inoffensive cartoon of billionaires bending the knee to Trump, that says a _lot_ about where they draw the line.
(This is re: https://anntelnaes.substack.com/p/why-im-quitting-the-washington-post)

2025-01-04 02:04:01 CET

https://social-coop-media.ams3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/media_attachments/files/113/767/386/159/005/962/original/11106cf06dfa926d.png

2024-12-29 07:15:24 CET

If there is one political principle every child, every human being should be taught to understand and recognize -- to feel in their bones! -- it is "divide and rule".
It is a phrase repeated so often that it has lost some of its sharpness. It shouldn't.
".. un-American activities .. "
"There are only two genders!"
".. the woke mind virus .."
"Mass deportations now!"
Time and again, it is the method by which oppressors gain power, and keep it.

2024-12-27 09:22:16 CET

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For sure, though the gap isn't as big as it might seem, IMO -- fediverse development just doesn't benefit from VC or blockchain funding to address known shortcomings faster, but both the Mastodon project and other fedi apps/servers _are_ getting better.
For now, I'll take it as a win when orgs phase out legacy social media links in favor of Bluesky _and_ Mastodon. Bluesky for quick/easy adoption; Mastodon for folks willing to try something fundamentally new with some added hurdles.

2024-12-27 08:26:35 CET

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We can imagine a world where every news organization has a fediverse server just like they have a webserver; where governments communicate through open protocols with the people who put them in power; where new kinds of cooperatives will arise naturally because the infrastructure is _built_ for cooperation.
The fediverse is not a bunch of magic beans; it's built by people, after all. But it's much more fertile ground for the imagination than any other experiment in social media.

2024-12-27 08:25:47 CET

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When speaking of scams, I often think about the 1973 novel "Momo" by Michael Ende. In it, cigar-smoking beings with grey skin in grey business suits persuade humans to "invest" their free time in a "Timesavings Bank". It's a scam: the Greys literally smoke people's time (the cigars!), robbing people of their rest, their imagination, their lives.
In the real world, we, too, have fallen for a scam: the idea that if we place our faith in "the system", things will work out. They will not.

2024-12-27 08:06:28 CET

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Incidentally, I found it somewhat amusing to discover that before executives started talking about "blue sky thinking", the term "blue sky" in a business context was primarily associated with fraudulent business ventures, which led to "blue sky laws" to protect investors.
I don't think Bluesky is a fraudulent venture, but I also don't think it is anymore imaginative than the modern use of the term in C-suites. It is simply business as usual -- blue sky, incorporated.
https://social-coop-media.ams3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/media_attachments/files/113/723/504/589/083/188/original/d52518a398ffd124.png

2024-12-27 07:47:00 CET

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Humanity is in dire need of a new operating system that rejects the old definitions of success. We need cooperation over competition; shared ownership over new monopolies; true openness over "let's just hold on to this bit of secret sauce to make money".
The reason that people with power or a stake in "the way things are" tend to dismiss the fediverse (a bunch of hobbyists! can't scale! no business model!) is the precise reason to embrace it fully and wholeheartedly.

2024-12-27 07:46:40 CET

I have nothing against #Bluesky per se and am glad some folks are finding it useful as a drop-in replacement for the site that would like to use a swastika as its logo but settled on "X" for now.
But if we want to face the challenges ahead (climate change, fascism, and the daily weaponization of hate and fear), we need to imagine and try out new ways of doing things, not just replicate old ones.
The fediverse gives us a unique opportunity to do that. Bluesky doesn't.

2024-12-23 21:12:55 CET

Good to see that @npub1v0s…tw6h quietly discontinued their X account in November, focusing instead on Mastodon and #Bluesky.
I hope we'll soon see more of the #Wikimedia movement do the same. A few chapters (notably Germany, the Netherlands, and Switzerland) have done so, but Wikimedia Foundation still maintains a very active presence on X, as do most chapters.
Civil society must discontinue its presence on a platform that's become weaponized to promote hate and authoritarianism world-wide.

2024-12-07 21:26:06 CET

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And you think that accruing the market share that TikTok currently holds to Meta or X will materially alter the degree to which such strategies are used?
Censorship of websites and apps that are used for legitimate speech by millions is a terrible precedent, and this kind of selective measure will do nothing to solve the problem you are purporting to solve.

2024-12-07 02:26:16 CET

When big accounts exit from X, they often don't say anything, or turn off replies.
But when they do have replies enabled, it's always just a big wave of hatred. Look at those replying accounts and almost without exception you'll see transphobia, anti-immigrant rhetoric, and all the usual garbage.
Those are the people (and bot-owners) who need big accounts to stay on X. That's why they reply - it's an intimidation tactic. Hate needs people to feed on, and institutions to legitimize it.

2024-12-07 01:26:46 CET

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How do you think this ban will actually be implemented? TikTok is, also, a website. So ISPs now have to censor blocklists of websites provided to them by the government. What about VPNs and Tor, do we go after those to? Do you see a problem here at all?

2024-12-07 01:25:47 CET

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It matters if the consequences are worse than the problem you're trying to solve. This specific ban, because it is not in fact part of some kind of broader movement, does nothing to protect against the general harm from corporate social media.
It will strengthen incumbents, if a forced sale (which could also be to an incumbent) doesn't succeed. But in the process you're establishing the infrastructure for censoring websites. Awesome.

2024-12-07 01:17:57 CET

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You accuse me of showboating and yet that is precisely what you are doing. You are celebrating the ban against a social media company because it feels good - even though you know, even admit, that it will merely empower incumbents.
You're endorsing the establishment of censorship infrastructure for websites and apps in the United States so you get to cheer for a bit about how righteous you are.

2024-12-07 01:14:53 CET

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Who is this "you" you speak of? I see a short-lived bipartisan movement for banning TikTok because of US geopolitical and economic interests. There will be no such movement for banning US social media companies. That is a fantasy world.
All you are accomplishing is empowering incumbents, including X, which is one of the biggest corporate forces against democracy in the world right now.

2024-12-07 01:11:27 CET

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Who do you think will benefit from TikTok being banned, Ben? Which companies?

2024-12-06 23:40:10 CET

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All social media platforms are weaponized -- in the case of X, it was done very openly. Censorship of websites like TikTok is a red line that must not be crossed.