What People Impacted by the Bluewashing Layoffs at IBM Confluent Say (While the Media Says Nothing at All, in Effect Burying the News)
Links 19/03/2026: "AI Glasses" as Euphemism for Mass Surveillance and ABC (US) Has Begun Publishing Slop as 'News'

The European Patent Office, Europe's Second-Largest Institution, is on Strike Today

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Mar 19, 2026

Lots more to come: A Step Close to Shutting Down the European Patent Office (EPO)

Central Staff Committee (CSC) strike

We thank people who participate in today's strike. It helps Europe - not just the EPO - witness "worker power". It's the only effective way to tackle corruption, injustice, and greed. █

Other Recent Techrights' Posts

IBM Effect at Confluent: Mass Layoffs and IBM's Business Conduct Guidelines (BCGs) Said to be Violated: For Confluent employees who survived the layoffs there will be "culture chock"
Estimates That IBM to Lay Off Close to 10,000 Workers in 2026 (Not Counting People Pushed Out): There's still chatter about Confluent mass layoffs
Sophie Brun, Raphael Hertzog & Debian sexual conflicts of interest: Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 19/03/2026: "AI Glasses" as Euphemism for Mass Surveillance and ABC (US) Has Begun Publishing Slop as 'News': Links for the day
The European Patent Office, Europe's Second-Largest Institution, is on Strike Today: Lots more to come
What People Impacted by the Bluewashing Layoffs at IBM Confluent Say (While the Media Says Nothing at All, in Effect Burying the News): Worse yet, the mainstream media spreads lies about it right now
IBM Has Turned Red Hat and Fedora Into Slop: This is IBM policy
IBM is Being Robbed, Companies and Jobs Are Destroyed: Companies taken over by IBM will be exploited and destroyed to keep a bubble inflated for a little while longer
In Confluent Layoffs, IBM Vapourises a Quarter of Its Workforce (IBM Buys Something That It Destroys Already): In the past, such things were typically referred to as "media blackout"; now it's just "the norm".
Over at Tux Machines...: GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, March 18, 2026: IRC logs for Wednesday, March 18, 2026
Links 19/03/2026: LLM Fatigue (It Doesn't Work as Advertised), "Small Web Feeds": Links for the day
SLAPP Censorship - Part 15 Out of 200: Background and Particulars of Truth Regarding Techrights and Tux Machines: the basic facts (this has aged well, except the times/ages/numbers)
A Slopfarms Survey for Today (linuxteck.com, linuxsecurity.com, linuxjournal.com): Not only did Google news link to a slopfarm; it linked to three run by the same team!
Links 18/03/2026: "Venture Capitalist Warns That It’s All About to Come Crashing Down" Due to Slop Bubble, "Birdwatching for Fun and no Profit": Links for the day
IBM Red Hat is Still Promoting Restricted Boot Which Restricts Users' Control Over Their Computers: Red Hat under IBM is a total catastrophe
Arvind Says... Something Something "Hey Hi" (the State of Today's Media): Look for news about IBM and most likely it'll boil down to some sound bites from an executive and nothing else
New Post Has Just Explained How IBM Gets Robbed by the People Who Fail IBM: Their plan for IBM is a personal plan
Slop-Spewing GAFAM LLM That Knows Nothing and Understands Nothing, It's a Stochastic Parrot That Cannot Even Figure Out Tux Machines is a Community That Started in Tennessee 22 Years Ago: RMS rightly calls those things "bullshit generators"
Cusdeb Makes New Presentation About Where GNU Hurd (Still a Possible Linux Replacement) Stands in 2026: coming from a generally RMS-friendly account
Gemini Links 18/03/2026: Librarians, Phone Anxiety, Growing 'Small' Net, and Slop Versus Software Engineering: Links for the day
Smug Threat by Garrett to Put My Family and I in Prison Doesn't Prove We Did Anything Wrong, It Only Proves He's Truly Desperate to Stop Further Publications That Embarrass Him: his reputation is poor in the United States
systemd Increasingly Microsoft Project, Controlled by Microsoft and Slopware: Cannot allow choice
What IBM Meant to Red Hat: "Proprietary Bundling, Restricted Source Access": Anyone or anything that joins IBM likely shortens its lifespan
IBM Thrashing Confluent Upon Arrival, Based on Rumours: We deem it a bigger issue that investigative journalism perished, not that one must rely on hearsay online or mere "rumours"
Slop Is Plagiarism, Not (Vibe) Coding, and It's Not Automated, It Doesn't Save Money: Reject misnomers, explain what's actually happening
UPC is Still Illegal and Unconstitutional (Kangaroo Court for Patents, Manned by Corporate Staff), Federal Court of Justice of Germany Receives Belated Complaint About It: What is happening to Europe???
EPO Demonstration Happening Right Now, Later This Week Things Will Only Escalate Further: The SUEPO The Hague Committee wrote to staff this morning
Links 18/03/2026: Commodore's Hedley Davis Dies, Apple Not Good Enough, Cheeto "Floats Treason Charges for Iran War Coverage": Links for the day
A Step Close to Shutting Down the European Patent Office (EPO): Not going to work all month long
EPO Staff Demonstration Today: The demonstration will be live-streamed for those thousands of colleagues who don't live in Munich
Gemini Links 18/03/2026: Brazilian SYN Attacks and BGP: Links for the day
LibreLocal Also Coming to Jordan, Kenya, Mexico, New Zealand, and Spain: It helps raise awareness of Software Freedom
Over at Tux Machines...: GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, March 17, 2026: IRC logs for Tuesday, March 17, 2026
Microsofters' SLAPP Censorship - Part 14 Out of 200: Men Who Strangle Women (and Worse) Trying to Force Us to Write Public Apologies to These Men: For those who never before saw a SLAPP, they basically make many demands
Instant Bluewashing at Confluent: Mass Layoffs Alleged at IBM: So the main question is, did IBM just fire 800 people?
"Vibe-forking" and Why It'll Ultimately Fail (Hype on Top of Hype): Code made with LLMs sucks; converting solid, human-tested code into slop only complicates matters and increases risk
Updates About Richard Stallman's Free Software Foundation: After all those years (a decade) and in spite of phony scandals many people out there still respect him
LLM Slop With "Linux" in the Domain Names: This is becoming a pain and a problem also in the arts and in software engineering
The EFF Has a Bug, Fixing This Bug is Likely Not Possible Anymore: "the EFF's continued existence impairs the arrival of a replacement organization, one which will actually champion digital rights."
Links 17/03/2026: Microsoft Windows Broken by Samsung, Afghanistan-Pakistan War Escalation: Links for the day
Gemini Links 17/03/2026: Newcomers and False-Positive 'Slop': Links for the day
Héctor Orón Martínez & Debian shadow candidate pressure on Sruthi Chandran: Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 17/03/2026: American Fentanylware (TikTok) Investors Implicated in Kickbacks, "Big Oil Knew It Was Wrecking Louisiana’s Coast": Links for the day
For Third Time in a Week The Register MS Runs Google SPAM That Paints Google as an Ally of Women (Which is False, They're Womanisers): What does that make The Register MS to women?
British Justice Minister Sarah Sackman Blasts Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA): The "legal industry" is due for "some reckoning"
GAFAM Deprecating Old Videos ("Content") by Removing the Support for Their Format for No Good Reason: "Security" is not a valid excuse
Credit/Debit Cards Have Long Been Called Plastics, Over Time They're Becoming More Like Pure Plastics: They cost less than a dollar to manufacture
The European Patent Office (EPO) Holds a Public Demonstration Tomorrow and It'll be Live-streamed: The EPO's workforce was meant to be capable of speaking many languages and have extensive experience in the sciences
People Who Attacked Techrights Also Attacked My Mother: Picking on old ladies because you don't like Free software advocates is never OK
Little Community Element Left in CentOS: CentOS, unlike Fedora, was meant to be long supported and solid
Social Control Media is Cancel Culture (Companies Like Facebook Also Punish/Ban Accounts for Mentioning "Linux" and Lobby for Anti-Linux Legislation): The masters of Social Control Media decide what ideas can and cannot be expressed
Over at Tux Machines...: GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, March 16, 2026: IRC logs for Monday, March 16, 2026