Debian takes proprietary software monopolists' money; it's trying to hide some of it in Switzerland
THE inversion (of narratives) tactics are absolutely incredible. Here we have Debian accepting money (sometimes in secret) from serial GDPR violators and then leveraging that same law -- which one might assume was passed to stop/curtail mass surveillance by American "Big Tech" -- to silence Europeans who speak about bribery by American "Big Tech". Should we be surprised by all this? No. The EPO has been doing the same thing to me; it sent several law firms based in London to harass me, repeatedly, for merely exposing EPO abuses and corruption. As if embarrassment to the corrupt people is somehow unlawful...
"As if embarrassment to the corrupt people is somehow unlawful..."Not to mention they misused EPO money to bully exposers of EPO abuses. They also misuse/waste EPO money on bribery of the media (in exchange for puff pieces and/or silence regarding EPO crimes).
As we noted earlier this month, criminals love using "privacy" as an excuse for censorship of their exposers/accusers. This often backfires. Badly. They rely on their target being fearful or poor (or both, as those two things are closely connected/correlated). It's an intimidation tactic designed to discourage people by terrorising them; this can have negative health impact, at times even suicides, as we already saw at the EPO.
"Well, billionaires-owned media keeps telling us that billionaires are always "philanthropists" and "job creators", so perhaps we're supposed to think that billionaires exist in the "public interest" as well."To summarise what we have shown, the hidden DebConf13 profit is quite a big deal, as the "SPI's 501(c)(3) charitable status could be compromised," someone recently told us. We're quite surprised that the Linux Foundation still enjoys breaks/exemptions from tax (which Ryan calls "taxpayer-funded giveaways"). Today it's not even a foundation/nonprofit but an openwashing/PR front group of massive multinationals. It is, in effect, a proxy or a loophole that serves billionaires. Yes, so much for "public interest"...
Well, billionaires-owned media keeps telling us that billionaires are always "philanthropists" and "job creators", so perhaps we're supposed to think that billionaires exist in the "public interest" as well.
On Friday CommonDreams published "Bezos Now Worth $200 Billion as Millions Struggle to Afford Essentials" and Warren Buffett once said: "There’s been class warfare for the last 20 years, and my class has won."
They hide behind lawyers. They loot the public. They hijack groups/institutions/organisations that used to represent the public.
A couple of days ago, CommonDreams published "As Trump Pushes New Tax Cuts for Wealthy, Analysis Shows US Billionaires $800 Billion Richer Since Pandemic Hit" (a lot of this money was looted from the Treasury and handed over to companies including Microsoft, which fired workers regardless).
"Transparency belatedly having an impact?""For billionaires," CommonDreams quoted, "this is a heads we win, tails you lose economy, boosted by Trump policies to funnel wealth to the top."
The other day I noticed that Microsoft appears not to have sponsored DebConf this year, unlike the past 4 years (unless the funding persists but was made secret/concealed/withdrawn due to the pandemic). Good riddance? Transparency belatedly having an impact? ⬆