For once, in an article looking at alternatives to Big Tech the Guardian has acknowledge (and indeed given a half a paragraph to) Mastodon....
Its not the greatest write up but might encourage some more people to join us...
bigtech
I'm officially one of you. Whenever I see graphics about digital sovereignty and moving away from Big Tech, I go: "well, actually" - especially when I see Signal suggested as an alternative to WhatsApp.
My first thought: Signal is pretty centralized, #DeltaChat would be a far superior alternative 🙈🙉🙊
Disclaimer: I use both (Signal and DeltaChat) but I really wish I could move all my convos to @[email protected]. Slowly convincing one person at a time...
Hi everyone! 👋 I know it's been a while since I was last here, but I had a very specific reason for it. I've spent the last few months with my small team intensely developing a project I mentioned to you once before. Every moment of my inactivity here was simply coding, designing the architecture, and endlessly solving problems 
Today, I am proud to announce - LibreConnect has moved past the phase of vague plans and become a fully functional app! 
We managed to deliver what was absolutely most important to us - an ecosystem connecting your 💻 computer and 📱 smartphone that respects your privacy 100%. Zero external clouds and hidden telemetry. Everything is based exclusively on a direct P2P connection within your local network and strong E2E encryption 🔐
So, what can our app actually do?
- Virtual camera and microphone from your phone 
- Mobile device file manager right from your PC 📁
- Notification and clipboard synchronization 📋
- Receiving and sending SMS/MMS from your computer 💬
- Two-way media playback control 🎵
- Remote keyboard and presentation control from your phone 
- Finding your phone by triggering a loud alarm (overriding silent mode) 🚨
- And a few other minor conveniences 
We also made sure the project is truly cross-platform. LibreConnect runs natively on 
Linux, 
macOS, 
Windows, and 
Android. It's worth mentioning that the app isn't limited to just x86_64 architecture - we support ARM64 as well! To make updates easier, we've set up our own F-Droid repository, along with native packages for Linux package managers (APT, DNF, Pacman) 
The code is 100% open-source under the GNU GPL v3.0 license 
However, I have to be honest - the project is still very young. The app is highly usable, but it still requires optimization, might have some silly bugs, and can occasionally be unstable 🐛
That's why we need you so much right now. For the continued development of this app to make any sense, we need a small but engaged user base. I encourage you to install it, test it out, and report bugs, and for those interested - to join the project as contributors (you'll find a CONTRIBUTING.md in the repo) 🤝
If you like our vision, leaving a star ⭐ on our GitHub repository is the form of support we would appreciate the most. It's these stars that will allow us to take the project out into the world! Because of this, for the next few days, my activity here will focus mainly on promoting the app and its features - we need your help to build the right momentum. Thank you in advance for your support! 
You can find all other info here:
https://libreconnect.one
#LibreConnect #Privacy #PrivacyByDesign #OpenSource #FOSS #Freedom #Software #FreeSoftware #Libre #BigTech #Tech #Technology #Dev #Programming #Code #App #Apps #CPlusPlus #Qt #Phone #PC #Computer #OS #OperatingSystem #Linux #RaspberryPi #Apple #Mac #Windows #Android #FDroid #Obtainium
📰 Polecam tekst @didleth dla Oko Press. Dowiecie się o co chodzi z tą weryfikacją wieku przy dostępie do socialek:
"Big techy grają z nami w weryfikację wieku. To karanie ofiar zamiast sprawców
[...]
Czy Europejski Portfel Tożsamości Cyfrowej to dobry pomysł na weryfikację wieku?
To zależy. Z jednej strony: ma wiele zalet. Wedle założeń ma być otwarto źródłowy i zawierać „różne technologie chroniące prywatność, takie jak dowód z wiedzą zerową”. W praktyce umożliwiłoby to przekazanie Facebookowi czy TikTokowi informacji o samym wieku, bez zdradzania innych personaliów.
Są też pewne wady. Poza wyżej wymienionymi: wprowadzenia EUDI jako obowiązkowej metody weryfikacji wieku byłoby zwyczajnie sprzeczne z unijnym prawem."
https://oko.press/big-techy-weryfikacja-wieku-karanie-ofiar-zamiast-sprawcow
#BigTech #Media #SocialMedia #Ograniczenia #dzieci #Polska #Europa
RE: https://mastodon.social/@Pettet8/116742131579090788
“Google was a different company 9 years ago.”
Hmm… was it, though? 🤔
https://ar.al/talks/#free-is-a-lie
#google #BigTech #peopleFarming #SiliconValley #surveillance #capitalism #meaCulpa
#WSocial will open up their beta program today… and I have a SCOOP for you: it appears that they have quietly gone closed-source!
This is ironic, considering that the @EUCommission just unveiled their Tech Sovereignty Package, emphasizing the importance of #OpenSource. And yet they have migrated their main ATproto accounts to W Social - whose code can no longer be inspected!
My full article - with a great analysis by @aral:
"These multinationals are coming to rule and dominate here. It’s a very unfortunate supply chain, and my call today as data labelers is to build up on this—as we are fighting for labor rights, we are also fighting for the environment […] we are fighting big companies."
https://www.404media.co/ai-is-african-intelligence-the-workers-who-train-ai-are-fighting-back/
#news #TechNews #technology #AI #LLMs #BigTech #labor #WorkersRights
Nextcloud joins open letter opposing #Android developer verification program. Because we don’t need more control from #BigTech, do we? 🤦
Like dozens of other signatories, we don’t think this is about #datasecurity…
Read our opinion and the full letter: 👉 https://nextcloud.com/blog/open-letter-android-developer-verification-program/
📝 New post 🚀
"Openness, transparency and reach: three reasons why public institutions should embrace the Fediverse"
mentioning @europeanspodcast @haubles @aral @Gargron @tferrer @rstockm @samvie @EUCommission
#SocialMedia #FOSS #DigitalSovereignty #SocialSovereignty #policy #BigTech #Fediverse #TheFutureIsFederated #RSS #SocialWeb
Die #EuropeanTechMap von Dante Emilio Grassi zeigt EU-Alternativen zu US #BigTech, sortiert nach Kategorien, Ländern, Branchen. Fokus liegt auf Souveränität und Datenschutz. 🗺️
In SH sieht's noch eher dünn aus, dabei gibt's noch einige Unternehmen in der Community mit Fokus auf #OpenSource, KI-Sicherheit und Green IT, die fehlen.
Also hopp hopp, SH verdient mehr Pins, macht euch sichtbar.📍
✍🏼 https://europeantechmap.eu/map?lat=46.5385&lng=-7.6926&zoom=4
Edited 181d ago
Jeeee! Ik sta in de #volkskrant met een stukje over waarom #leeftijdsverificatie voor #SocialeMedia een gevaarlijke non-oplossing voor het verkeerde probleem is.
En natuurlijk waarom we de rommel van #BigTech voor het fediverse moeten verruilen. Hier preek ik natuurlijk voor eigen parochie, maar toch, de link naar m'n opiniebijdrage:
https://www.volkskrant.nl/columns-opinie/opinie-verban-ouderen-van-sociale-media~b9d0b2fb/
META’S REAL AI WAS HIDING
IN PLAIN SIGHT. 💎
I watched a video this morning called 'The (Overdue) Collapse of Meta,' expecting another story about a giant technology company finally coming unstuck.
BUT THAT REALLY WASN'T THE STORY.
Meta is still making extraordinary amounts of money.
The metaverse was a spectacular failure. Zuckerberg renamed the company around it, talked about a billion people eventually inhabiting virtual worlds, and poured tens of billions of dollars into trying to make it happen.
PEOPLE MOSTLY DIDN'T COME.
But while everyone was laughing at cartoon legs and expensive headsets, something else inside Meta was working extraordinarily well.
THE ADVERTISING MACHINE
For more than a decade, Meta has been using AI to learn from the tiny signals produced by billions of human brains. What we stop to look at. What we click. What we ignore. What keeps us scrolling?
WHAT WE ARE ABOUT TO BUY
And increasingly, what we might be about to do. That system became astonishingly good at turning human behaviour into advertising revenue. Which changes the story rather dramatically.
META DIDN'T FAIL TO BUILD POWERFUL AI.
It was built years ago. It just wasn't sitting there chatting pleasantly to us. It was behind Facebook and Instagram, watching behaviour and learning how to predict it.
And the enormous advertising business generated by that machinery is now helping to finance Meta's next gigantic gamble: superintelligence, data centres, researchers, and infrastructure costing tens of billions of dollars.
There is something almost perfect about that. The metaverse failed because people didn't particularly want what Meta was selling. The advertising machine succeeded because we WERE what Meta was selling. And perhaps that is the part worth paying attention to.
Because sometimes the most important question about technology isn't:
DID IT WORK?
It is:
WHAT DID IT LEARN TO DO TO US?
@3goodthings @DigitalCoup @meditation @economics_that_works
#Meta #Facebook #Instagram #ArtificialIntelligence #AI #SurveillanceCapitalism #SocialMedia #BigTech #Privacy #Technology #DigitalRights #people #humans #brain
Edited 18d ago
So the non-profit Wikimedia foundation hypocritically went for the hype and partnered with genocidal #BigTech in January. And now, unsurprisingly, Wikipedia editors had to implement "new policies and restrict a number of contributors who were paid to use AI to translate existing Wikipedia articles into other languages after they discovered these AI translations added AI “hallucinations,” or errors, to the resulting article." https://www.404media.co/ai-translations-are-adding-hallucinations-to-wikipedia-articles/
"While much of the economic value generated by AI remains concentrated in technological centres such as Silicon Valley, many of its environmental and social costs are in these territories."
https://restofworld.org/2026/ai-pushback-chile-mexico-kenya-philippines/
#news #technology #TechNews #AI #LLMs #DataCenters #DigitalColonialism #BigTech
We've cracked 20,000 signatures on our petition against the corporate lawlessness of the AI rollout in Canada!
The Big Tech industry is steamrolling our democracy, our privacy, our labour market, our climate, and our local communities in its pursuit of power. It has to stop.
Please share widely; let's drive that number up, and make the House of Commons hear that we're not happy.
https://www.ourcommons.ca/petitions/en/Petition/Details?Petition=e-7550
#CdnPoli #Canada #NoAI #BigTech #DataCentres #Climate #Privacy
Edited 50d ago
Human rights chief warns against banning social media for kids
https://archive.is/2026.03.24-204653/https://www.politico.eu/article/michael-oflaherty-human-rights-council-of-europe-children-social-media-ban/
Ban the harmful algorithms of Big Tech social media instead.
YOU’RE LOOKING
AT THE WRONG PARTS 💎
I sometimes wonder what people imagine is going on inside the life of someone with a visible disability.
I walk very strangely. My left arm doesn’t work at all. My hand is contracted into a claw. I do everything one-handed, and that clearly wasn’t covered in this model’s original operating instructions.
From the outside, I suspect it can look like a life dominated by disability.
“Poor bugger.” “What a tragedy.” “Everything must be so difficult?”
Meanwhile, inside my actual life, I’m usually wondering whether the coffee is ready, what ridiculous thing I can write on Mastodon, whether the dogs have been fed, or why everyone on the internet has suddenly gone mad again.
The disability is there, obviously. I cannot drive, and there are many things I cannot do unaided. Other things just take longer, because much of the world appears to have been designed by someone who assumed every human comes with two fully operational hands.
And most people are remarkably unhelpful.
That sounds like a complaint, but it has an unexpected benefit. If you’re disabled, you become bloody good at finding another way. You have to.
Eventually, you stop wondering how something is supposed to be done and work out how you can do it.
That doesn’t make accessibility unnecessary. Quite the opposite. But disabled people often become extremely skilled at adapting because the world gives us plenty of practice.
Disability is not the central event of my consciousness.
I don’t wake up thinking, “Good morning. I am disabled.”
I wake up thinking, “Coffee.”
Most of the time, I’m not experiencing myself as a tragic medical story. I’m just living.
I’ve had decades to become extremely competent at being this particular slightly damaged model of human being. Sometimes other people seem considerably more concerned about my disability than I am.
It’s sweet.
But unnecessary.
The odd thing about a visible disability is that people often see what doesn’t work before they notice the enormous amount that does.
And from inside here?
It’s mostly just Friday.
_____________________
@DigitalCoup
#Fediverse #OpenWeb #BigTech
@economics_that_works
#Economics #Housing #CostOfLiving
@meditation
#Meditation #Breathwork
#Disability #DisabledLife #Accessibility #Hemiplegia #Stroke #Life #coffee #human #medical #instructions #tragedy #Mastodon
DEATH, GOD, &
A VERY SMALL SPIDER 💎
I am increasingly aware that I will leave this world. I don’t know when. I don’t know how. Perhaps within the next decade. Perhaps sooner. Who knows.
And strangely, there is less fear in that now. Most of the fear seems to belong to what I imagine is unknown.
If death is simply the end of Robin and the end of this consciousness, then there will be nobody there to be bothered by it. It will simply be over. And if there is something beyond this life, another realm, another dimension, another form of consciousness, then I suppose I will recognise it when I get there.
I don’t know. And I am quite happy not knowing.
Human beings have created manifold books, religions and pictures of God, spirit, heaven, continuation and eternity. Perhaps some of them point towards something true. Perhaps some are simply beautiful ways of comforting ourselves in the face of death.
But every picture I can make of what comes next is still a picture being made here.
I don’t want to manufacture comfort. I want clarity. I want to meet whatever happens without having already decided what it is supposed to look like.
Maybe there is something. Maybe there is nothing. Either way, reality does not require my opinion.
And while I am sitting here contemplating this enormous mystery, a tiny spider appears beside me. He is absurdly small. I stop, look at him, laugh, and decide he can stay.
And suddenly, there it all is. Death. Consciousness. God. Eternity. And a tiny spider wandering across my morning.
The fire is on. The coffee is good. People are interacting with things I have written. The spider is minding his own business.
Life has not stopped being ordinary just because I know it ends. I rather like that.
None of it means anything until I give it meaning. And this morning, the meaning I choose is very simple.
Gratitude.
@DigitalCoup
@economics_that_works
@meditation
@3goodthings
#death #mortality #afterlife #consciousness #spirituality #ACIM #clarity #gratitude #presence #ordinarylife #mystery #life #openweb #human #person #spider #Economics #Housing #CostOfLiving #Meditation #Breathwork #Fediverse #OpenWeb #BigTech
Edited 33d ago
RE: https://mastodon.online/@parismarx/116372697459719963
One of the worst things about this is that Big Tech corporations like Google, Meta, Anthropic and OpenAI have become so disproportionally wealthy and powerful that they can unleash this shit show upon the world without being held accountable… 😖
#tech #technology #BigTech #IT #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #LLM #LLMs #ML #MachineLearning #GenAI #generativeAI #AIAgent #AISlop #FuckAI #Fuck_AI #enshittification #google #gemini
Edited 161d ago
Proton built their entire brand on one promise: Swiss law means government agencies can't touch your data.
Their own Terms of Service, their own infrastructure contracts, and a federal court case from March say otherwise.
https://blog.ppb1701.com/not-even-government-agencies
#bigtech #blog #infosec #privacy #proton #protonmeet #security #surveillance #userhostile #selfhosting
Edited 160d ago
,,Hakendran,, trackt #Gerichtsverfahren gegen #BigTech #Google #Meta #Facebook #Instagram #TikTok 👨⚖️👨⚖️
🐦🔥nemo™🐦⬛ 🇺🇦🍉#IsraelFirst Doesn't Want You To Have #Privacy #tyt #yt #Surveillance #MassSurveillance #Security #ADL #Israel
ADL #Greenblatt: I’m paraphrasing, we are monitoring all of them—be it left-wing, be it anti-war, be it pro-Palestine… 24/7/365. Everywhere on all platforms… Wow, apparently the #ADL has nothing better to do than to monitor their fellow citizens… cynical 👏👏👏
I have tolerance for many things… BS like this isn’t part of it…
Not only does #BigTech #AI #surveillance capitalist #nerdreichers want our data to farm us like pack animals. But also people who are genocide apologists…
And all the laws that are trying to weaken privacy and security make much more sense now, doesn’t it. #VPNs? Nah. #E2E? Who needs that—#AgeID verification… It’s much easier to smear and defame one when someone already has a troublemaker’s ID, amirite? Surveillance #adtech yes please #brokergate I SAY FUCK THIS SHIT TO ALL OF IT… #FlockOFF
Edited 31d ago
Pleased to share a page and explainer for the AI tarpit project Science is Poetry, with legal statement, rationale(s), and a few deployment notes:
https://julianoliver.com/projects/science-is-poetry/
The page may grow a bit. Just wanted to get it out the door.
Edited 157d ago
Not gonna lie, reading this passage from @pluralistic’s book #TheInternetCon on a jailbroken #Kindle (running #KOreader!) felt like a deliciously affirming act of resistance 💁🏻♀️
Dos semanas después de haber instalado #GrapheneOS en mi móvil puedo confirmar y confirmo que ha sido la decisión adecuada.
No solo no he tenido problemas con ninguna app, ni la del banco ni la de la meva salut ni nada, es que además hay apps que se pueden usar para sustituir prácticamente todas esas apps de las grandes tecnológicas que son básicamente spyware.
Aquí una lista de las apps que me he instalado como alternativa a sus homólogas de google et al.
- Google Maps -> CoMaps (estaba entre esta y OrganicMaps)
- GMail -> K-9 Mail (las cuentas de correo aún son las de gmail pero en las que puedo iré transicionando poco a poco a tuta. Digo las que puedo porque la cuenta de la generalitat que tenemos los funcionarios como cuenta oficial es de google y ahí no podemos hacer nada)
- YouTube -> NewPipe
- Chrome -> Vanadium y Firefox
- Google Search -> Startpage y Kagi (sí, soy consciente de que tienen sus peros, pero sigue siendo el mejor buscador que hay con muchísima diferencia)
- Autentificador de google -> Aegis
Otras apps que no son de google pero que son #BigTech igual y sus alternativas
- Spotify -> Kreate
- Reddit -> RedReader
- Shazam -> Audile
Las dos únicas apps que tengo instaladas porque las necesito por movidas son Telegram y Whatsapp (a la espera de que BirdyChat me permita dejar esta última, darse prisa rediós), que al menos están en un entorno sandboxeado gracias a GrapheneOS.
Edited 149d ago