10.31.20
Gemini version available ♊︎Going ‘Minimalist’ and Getting Back to Basics (With Persistent Lock-Down Policies Offering Luxury of Time)
We’re going to make the site more minimalistic and more accessible
Summary: For Techrights to remain widely accessible to all it might need to reduce dependence on the World Wide Web and adopt more protocols/distribution systems (including decentralised ones)
SOME time next week, likely from Thursday onwards although it’s a subject of ongoing discussions, we’re going back to controversial home-bound policies — to borrow a euphemism — across the whole of England (for the first time since summer). Wales and Scotland adopted similar measures already. It doesn’t feel like imprisonment to those of us who have long worked from home; in fact, this will certainly give yours truly more free time (not leaving the home except to get essentials, mostly food). So expect more articles this month (November started 2 hours ago).
“Having long distanced ourselves from social control media and CDNs (we rely on direct access to RSS feeds instead), we’re relatively resistant to censorship driven by politics and corporate motivations.”We’re already taking advantage of partial lock-downs here in Manchester; we use the spare time to research and experiment with gopher and other protocols (some are inherently decentralised and more censorship-resistant albeit harder to set up from the user’s perspective). There’s no “going back to normal” and Web censorship is undeniably on the rise (more voices are being squashed under the guise of COVID-19 misinformation, framing longtime cranks as public health hazards).
As noted in the previous post, Google (YouTube included) and Microsoft (even GitHub for projects) misuse monopoly power to censor people, deciding who gets a voice (or code) on the Web and who doesn’t. It’s imperialistic, it’s totally lacking due process, and it’s only getting bigger as a problem over time — and fast! We oughtn’t wait until it’s too late. Having long distanced ourselves from social control media and CDNs (we rely on direct access to RSS feeds instead), we’re relatively resistant to censorship driven by politics and corporate motivations. It improves our freedom of expression and reduces self-censorship (see the latest Greenwald scandal implicating The Intercept, owned by an oligarch). Thankfully, some experts have volunteered to help us and we’re working on a bunch of small projects at the moment. The daily bulletin is merely a hopping point. I’ve long warned Greenwald about The Intercept, which we’ve pretty much boycotted for years (it never shows up in our Daily Links), only to be wholly vindicated some days ago (after years of systematic source-burning and countless victims).
No site is perfect (accuracy-wise), but when it comes to source protection we still have a perfect record, going into our fourteenth year about a week from now. The Intercept, having repeatedly burned sources, will soon burn as a publication. We don’t expect it to last much longer. It abandoned its obligation to Snowden leaks several years ago; now it’s abandoning journalism itself. I’ve been telling Greenwald for many years (before The Intercept even existed) that he should quit the so-called ‘Guardian’ (Bill Gates-bribed) and start his own site (insisting that many people would follow and support his work). He never took that seriously. He kept hopping from Salon to the Establishment (‘Guardian’) and to oligarchy itself (Omidyar) and so his platform goes down the drain, losing him “following” (no, Twitter does not count and we’ve already seen how Twitter terminates whole accounts for political reasons; no wonder people leave in droves and the company’s shares have collapsed).
We don’t take anything for granted. When the Nobel-for-peace Obama worked hard to crush Wikileaks because it had exposed Bush-era war crimes (Biden went as far as labeling Julian Assange “terrorist”) we knew it wasn’t going to get any easier for those who expose corruption on the Web. Steve Jobs (no visionary, just marketing) said:
“The web reminds me of the early days of the PC industry: no one really knows anything. All experts have been wrong.”
One sure thing about the Web is, censorship is rising very, very rapidly. Very much so. The excuses and justifications are endless and Bill Gates wants to go as far as banning secure communications because he doesn't like what people say about him. █
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