Running This Site Mostly a Joyful Activity
YESTERDAY I had a lengthy conversation about my devotion to this site, to which many people are contributing and have contributed over the years, even decades. The underlying theme was people who overwork (or are forced to work overtime to make some company of someone else richer) and how when something brings happiness, joy, a sense of satisfaction etc. it becomes easier to do it (almost) all day long.
This site is turning 18 this coming autumn and we maintain a 100% source protection record. We exercise transparency where feasible and confidentiality where absolutely necessary. Both are important. Total secrecy can breed suspicion.
It's a rewarding experience. It is gratifying. It's better than money. In fact, money can't buy trust or a track record.
Sure, some people still try to undermine the site and distract us, but we're too focused to let them get their way. For instance, we limit coverage about them to once every Monday, i.e. less than 1% of the total output we have.
At the current pace of publication we can probably produce about 5,000 new pages each year and tens of thousands of images per year (to go with those pages). Our style is less conventional or less conformist than most.
Bad People, Con Artists, and Bad Faith Actors Still Try to Derail the Site
Months ago when the local Cyber Crime Unit investigated crimes committed against us it said: "The site you operate appears in itself to be non-conformist in that it promotes digital privacy and free speech."
The investigation is still ongoing. When Tor or some other anonymisation tools get used to commit a crime it takes a considerable amount of time and effort to unmask perpetrators. They said there's a "digital forensics queue (which is currently taking about 18 months)", so this isn't some simple case.
Focus on Exposing Corruption and Immoral Behaviour
Since 2006 we've prioritised focusing on companies and on issues, not on people. Sometimes a company is represented by a CEO, so it is inevitable people will be named every now again. Sometimes we make memes too because humour is an effective medicine and these are public people, not some privacy-aware grandmothers from a distant village.
The EPO affairs that we've exposed/covered here (in over 5,000 posts) are the main subject of interest, as they have been since we started the special EPO series in summer of 2014, i.e. almost exactly a decade ago.
Progress is being made, albeit slowly. EPO is a government-protected monopoly and Europe's second-largest organisation. It won't just vanish or reform itself overnight.
'Cancel Culture' is a Cancer
When you can't refute the message, cancel the messenger?
Well, at least they can try...
People have taken note of our recent articles about Richard Stallman (who is still being 'canceled'). The video "The Persecution of Richard Stallman" is one of several and it only has positive things to say about Techrights. See the comments, too.
The real problem or the thing that we need to cancel is this "Cancel Culture", which is akin to Medieval witch-hunting weaponised in particular against scientists or people who insist on facts. They try to bypass truth using politics and crybully tactics, sometimes threatening to take their own lives if they don't get their way.
For modern society to endure and thrive it needs to find a way to make those people happy. Otherwise those people will constantly try to drag everyone else down to their own level, inducing angst or misery for some sense of relative parity.
'Medicating' depression is difficult, so there is usually not much hope for these people, who refer to happiness or positively as "toxic" (as if there's something wrong with being optimistic) and advocate androcide/democide/misandry. █