Leftovers

• Tracy Durnell ☛ What it means that blogs are part of oral culture

  I was getting at this a little when I wrote about how we get to influence ourselves* by choosing which communities we engage with. *(Though the idea of “influence” online now has some social media connotations, we are always influencing each other and being influenced. Humans are a social species; this is how we work.)

  The interesting — and tricky — thing about the indie web is that, as a place, it’s inherently more amorphous than a lot of other online communities. You can’t just go to AO3 or Tumblr or Instagram or Discord or Bluesky. While you have to find the community within the network at those locations, the search territory is naturally constrained. In contrast, the indie web being decentralized relies more on the participating members to do some work, even if they are only reading and not posting… which honestly can be a good thing for a community, asking for some small level of investment.

• Roy Tang ☛ My 2024 Year in Review

  One last statistic: this year's yearnotes is about 33% shorter than last year's, probably because I decided to separate the gaming stats this year!

  For me, the year in review post is about the past year. My next post will be my 2025 checklist, where I talk about the future and things I'm looking forward to in the coming year.

• Lou Plummer ☛ The Difference Between Journaling and Blogging

  When I look back at my blog, it reveals more about my feelings than any journal I've ever kept. I can tell when I was feeling light-hearted or when politics have had me riled up. When I write about my (grown) kids it is usually a reflection of when I'm missing them. My dear sweet Mom reads every post and I put little messages to her in here and try not to cuss. I'm honest about my mental health. Sometimes I vent my frustrations from work, or you know, people.

• Thomas Rigby ☛ Blog questions challenge

  I have seen this doing the rounds with contributions from the mighty Manu and, adapter of these questions for us non-Bear-Bloggers, Mr Quirk.

• Andrea Contino ☛ Blog Questions Challenge

  Lately, my go-to writing tool has been Bear. I’ve tried iA Writer—which I absolutely love—but in my quest for a single app for both work and personal notes, Bear turned out to be the perfect balance of elegance and practicality. It’s also one of the few tools that lets me copy a text in markdown and paste it directly into Kirby.

• CBC ☛ 2024-12-30 [Older] Chess great Carlsen returns to tournament — and the jeans stay on

• US News And World Report ☛ 2024-12-29 [Older] Norwegian Chess Grandmaster Magnus Carlsen Quits a Tournament in a Dispute Over Jeans

• US News And World Report ☛ 2024-12-29 [Older] Chess Grandmaster Magnus Carlsen Returns to a Tournament After a Dispute Over Jeans Is Resolved

• BSD/Other

  • BSDly ☛ 2025-01-02 [Older] A Suitably Bizarre Start of the Year 2025

    I have written about the daily maintenance tasks for the lists, such as they are, in previous entries such as the list homepage pointed to in the previous paragraph and the traplist ethics page as well as the blog post Goodness, Enumerated by Robots. Or, Handling Those Who Do Not Play Well With Greylisting (November 2018, also here) or for that matter the piece I wrote about the arrival of the the hundred thousandth spamtrap, The Things Spammers Believe - A Tale of 300,000 Imaginary Friends (also here).

• Science

  • Ness Labs ☛ Where Are You on the Woo Spectrum?

    Conversations can become binary and polarized when we lack language to describe our beliefs. The Woo Spectrum helps us understand and describe our relationship with debated practices and philosophies. It consists of four levels: [...]

• Career/Education

  • Sean Goedecke ☛ What makes strong engineers strong?

    As I’ve written about before, what defines a strong engineer is the ability to do tasks that weaker engineers can’t, even with near-unlimited time. But what are the concrete skills or traits that make up that ability? What is it about strong engineers that makes them able to do a much wider range of tasks? In order of importance, I think it’s self-belief, pragmatism, speed, and technical ability.

  • CSS Tricks ☛ The Importance Of Investing In Soft Skills In The Age Of AI

    The biggest risk factor I can foresee is that if your sole responsibility is to write code, your job is almost certainly at risk. I don’t think this is an imminent risk in a lot of cases, but as generative AI improves its code output — just like it has for images and video — it’s only a matter of time before it becomes a redundancy risk for actual human developers.

    Do I think this is right? Absolutely not. Do I think it’s time to panic? Not yet, but I do see a lot of value in evolving your skillset beyond writing code. I especially see the value in improving your soft skills.

  • Society for Scholarly Publishing ☛ We're Seeking A Deputy Editor for The Scholarly Kitchen

    I’ve been running the show here for the last 12 or so years, with support from Dianndra Roberts, our Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility Associate Editor and Angela Cochran, our Associate Editor. Angela’s role has been that of an emergency backup, filling in when I’m not available, and we are now looking to expand that position into a full Deputy Editorship. While still providing continuity of service when I’m not around, the Deputy Editor will take on some of the work done with guest authors, support our program of webinars and panel appearances, track our author and site performance, and help brainstorm and develop new content ideas.

• Hardware

  • Ruben Schade ☛ Part two: Our (recent) history with the PlayStation 3

    This is part two in my shaggy dog story about the PlayStation 3, one of my favourite ever consoles. In part one I talked about my history (or lack thereof) with consoles as a kid, how I was first fascinated by the PS3 for its ability to run Folding@home and play Blu-ray discs, and how Clara and I ended up with a couple of them.

  • Pivot to AI ☛ Nvidia unveils its flagship RTX 5090 card — with AI-juiced frame rates

    Nvidia is the one company making a fortune in the AI bubble and will be just fine when it pops. They make top-quality graphics processors that physically exist, not money-burning AI models.

    But CES demands a consumer announcement. So here’s the next-generation RTX 5000 series of video cards for gamers!

  • Wired ☛ Nvidia’s $3,000 ‘Personal AI Supercomputer’ Will Let You Ditch the Data Center

    Nvidia’s new desktop machine, dubbed Digits, will go on sale in May and is about the size of a small book. It contains an Nvidia “superchip” called GB10 Grace Blackwell, optimized to accelerate the computations needed to train and run AI models, and comes equipped with 128 gigabytes of unified memory and up to 4 terabytes of NVMe storage for handling especially large AI programs.

  • The Register UK ☛ Qualcomm targets $600 Copilot+ PCs with Snapdragon X chip

    And while Snapdragon X chips have so far only powered laptop designs, the San Diego chips and telecoms biz said that mini desktop PC designs are also in the pipeline. CEO Cristiano Amon hinted at this during last year's Computex show, when he said its silicon would be coming to all form factors of PC.

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ TSMC Arizona allegedly now producing AMD's Ryzen 9000 and Apple's S9 processors: Report

    If the information is accurate, then TSMC's Fab 21 in the U.S. is now producing at least three chips: Apple's A16 Bionic system-on-chip for iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus smartphones, at least one IC in the Apple S9 SiP for smart watches (we presume this is the actual application processor with two 64-bit cores and a quad-core neural engine), and one of AMD's Ryzen 9000-series CPU. All of the said processors are made using TSMC's 4nm-class N4 and N4P technologies.

  • David Rosenthal ☛ Storage Roundup

    It is time for another roundup of topics in storage that have caught my eye recently. Below the fold I discuss the possible ending of the HAMR saga and various developments in archival storage technology.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-12-29 [Older] Germany: Supermarket customers ill due to 'irritant gas'

  • CBC ☛ 2024-12-26 [Older] Doctors in this Ontario region can now prescribe nature 'to help people have a better quality of life'

  • CBC ☛ 2024-12-26 [Older] Mother and Baby Plush Toys recalled across Canada over choking hazard fears

  • CBC ☛ 2024-12-26 [Older] American pet food sold in B.C. recalled after a cat died of bird flu

  • CBC ☛ 2024-12-27 [Older] Why women in rural Ontario are at growing risk of domestic violence

  • CBC ☛ 2024-12-27 [Older] Another man over age 50 found dead outdoors in N.S., prompting calls for more mental health resources

  • CBC ☛ 2024-12-27 [Older] Nordic spas booming amid 'unlimited' consumer appetite for wellness

  • CBC ☛ 2024-12-27 [Older] Canadian-made exoskeleton helps kids with health challenges walk, but price is a barrier

  • Task And Purpose ☛ The Army wants to overhaul its dining halls with campus-like food

    Army dining halls are aimed at soldiers in so-called Essential Station Messing status, the Army’s term for soldiers who live on base and rely on the dining halls for meals. Those soldiers are generally junior enlisted troops at or below the E-6 paygrade.

  • The Atlantic ☛ How Solitude Is Rewiring American Identity

    Americans are spending more and more time alone. Some are lonely. But many people—young men in particular—are actively choosing to spend much of their time in isolation, in front of screens. That proclivity is having a profound effect on individual well-being and on American’s “civic and psychic identity,” my colleague Derek Thompson writes in our new cover story. I spoke with Derek about what he calls our anti-social century.

  • The Hill ☛ Can Americans end our abusive relationship with private health insurance?

    Americans do not like their private health insurance. It didn’t take the inflamed online rhetoric after the murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson to make that point clear. According to a recent Gallup poll, only 30 percent of Americans have a favorable view of the private health insurance industry.

    Americans have good reasons to feel that way. For starters, it costs so much to get covered. The average American pays thousands of dollars for private health insurance — most of it in wages they never actually see. In 2019, average American workers forked over 18 percent of their total compensation to help employers purchase health insurance on their behalf.

  • Los Angeles Times ☛ How to protect yourself from the smoke caused by L.A. wildfires

    Wildfire smoke can irritate your eyes, nose, throat and lungs. The soot may contain all kinds of dangerous pollutants, including some that may cause cancer. The tiniest particles in smoke can travel deep into your lungs or even enter your bloodstream.

  • Futurism ☛ Kids Are Huffing Galaxy Gas Until They Get Tremors, Limps and Lose Bowel Control

    Nitrous oxide has generally fallen into the category of drugs seen as "risky, but survivable in moderation." But some combination of availability and adulterants seem to be pushing it into more harmful territory.

  • Tech Central (South Africa) ☛ Lonely people have high levels of harmful proteins - new research

    In particular, our study suggested that loneliness may lead to an increase in the levels of five specific proteins expressed in the brain (known as GFRA1, ADM, FABP4, TNFRSF10A and ASGR1). In other words, all the proteins we identified as related to loneliness were “positively associated”, meaning that people who feel lonely tend to have higher protein levels compared to those who do not feel lonely.

  • Los Angeles Times ☛ FDA announces limits on toxic lead in baby foods

    The agency issued final guidance that it estimated could reduce lead exposure from processed baby foods by about 20% to 30%. The limits are voluntary, not mandatory, for food manufacturers, but they allow the FDA to take enforcement action if foods exceed the levels.

• Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)

  • Microsoft Axes Jobs Across Teams in a Performance-Based Restructure

    In a surprising move, Microsoft lets go of employees across departments. Performance metrics take center stage!

  • Futurism ☛ CEO Who Bragged About Replacing Workers With AI Now Distressed That AI Will Replace His Job Too

    Researchers have already studied the possibility of CEOs becoming an endangered species in the age of AI.

  • The Register UK ☛ Garmin Connect outage leaves folks unable to share stats

    There's no need to panic: Garmin's watches appear to be still recording data but the Connect platform used to correlate fitness data, and share it with others such as Strava, took a dive early on Wednesday morning. Garmin isn't responding to questions about what went wrong as yet, or if any personal data has been lost.

  • The Verge ☛ Microsoft is reverting its Bing AI image generator because of quality complaints

    Microsoft declined to comment on its decision to roll things back or offer specifics on what may be causing the gap between user’s expectations and its output.

  • Howard Oakley ☛ Why use APFS?

    Although your Mac’s boot volume group, including the Data volume that’s almost always used for your Home folder, has to be in APFS format, you can still use Macintosh Extended or HFS+ format for other drives and their contents. This article provides advice to help you choose between the two Mac native file systems.

  • The Register UK ☛ Apple responds to BBC complaint over AI accuracy

    The feature generated a headline summary which falsely claimed that Luigi Mangione, a man arrested over the murder of healthcare insurance CEO Brian Thomson, had shot himself. The summary was attributed to BBC News and sparked a complaint from the UK's national broadcaster. The original story said nothing of the sort.

    The incident happened before Christmas, and it has taken until this week for Apple to acknowledge concerns over the feature, according to the BBC. The company's solution? Instead of temporarily removing the technology or employing fact-checkers who might ensure accurate information appears on users' screens, Apple intends to implement a software change to "further clarify" when the displayed content is a summary provided by Apple Intelligence.

  • Futurism ☛ Man Trying to Catch Flight Alarmed as His Driverless Waymo Gets Stuck Driving in Loop Around Parking Lot

    "I have a flight to catch, why is this thing going in a circle?" an exasperated Johns told Waymo customer service in the video. "I'm going dizzy."

    "I've got my seatbelt on, I can't get out of the car," he said. "Has this been hacked? What's going on?"

  • Los Angeles Times ☛ Los Angeles man is trapped in circling Waymo on way to airport

    L.A. tech entrepreneur Mike Johns posted a video three weeks ago on LinkedIn of his call to a customer service representative for Waymo to report that the car kept turning in circles and that he was nervous about missing his flight.

  • CBC ☛ Is it still 'social media' if it's overrun by AI?

    For early users of social media, platforms like Facebook and Instagram have become "about as anti-social as you can imagine," said Carmi Levy, a technology analyst and journalist based in London, Ont. "It's becoming increasingly difficult to connect with an actual human being."

  • Pete Brown ☛ We should not confuse what makes money with what is good.

    Except that companies like Meta don’t give a shit about authenticity or human connection. They want to make money, they make money from advertising, and they make more money from advertising if more people are spending more time on their platform. That is what they are optimizing for.

  • Security

    • Privacy/Surveillance

      • CBC ☛ 2025-01-03 [Older] Apple to pay $95M to settle lawsuit accusing Siri of eavesdropping

      • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-01-03 [Older] What to Know About Apple's $95 Million Settlement of the Snooping Siri Case

      • Security Week ☛ Telegram Shared Data of Thousands of Users After CEO's Arrest

        Durov was released several days later and promised to make significant improvements in an effort to tackle the use of the platform for illicit activities, as well as to provide — in response to valid legal requests — the IP addresses and phone numbers of users who violate rules.

        Telegram provides a bot that shares a very brief transparency report for each user’s respective country, revealing the number of law enforcement requests for IPs and/or phone numbers, as well as the number of affected users.

      • The Verge ☛ Apple says Siri isn’t sending your conversations to advertisers

        However, reports about the settlement noted that in earlier filings like this one from 2021, some of the plaintiffs claimed that after they mentioned brand names like “Olive Garden,” “Easton bats,” “Pit Viper sunglasses,” and “Air Jordans,” they were served ads for corresponding products, which they attributed to Siri data.

      • Wired ☛ License Plate Readers Are Leaking Real-Time Video Feeds and Vehicle Data

        This trove of real-time vehicle data, collected by one of Motorola’s ALPR systems, is meant to be accessible by law enforcement. However, a flaw discovered by a security researcher has exposed live video feeds and detailed records of passing vehicles, revealing the staggering scale of surveillance enabled by this widespread technology.

        More than 150 Motorola ALPR cameras have exposed their video feeds and leaking data in recent months, according to security researcher Matt Brown, who first publicized the issues in a series of YouTube videos after buying an ALPR camera on eBay and reverse engineering it.

      • The Independent UK ☛ TikTok ‘cash-stuffing’ budgeting trend contributes to rise in ATM use

        The “cash stuffing” trend which rose to prominence across 2023 and 2024 on TikTok and beyond involves allocating specific amounts of money to each envelope labelled for different expenditures: grocery, spending, bills and so on. Then, spending on those different categories is taken directly from the allocated amounts available, helping people visually detail exactly how much they have left.

  • Defence/Aggression

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-12-28 [Older] Elon Musk backs far-right AfD in German op-ed [Ed: Why would any government agency still maintain presence in "X"?]

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-12-29 [Older] German chancellor candidate Merz slams Musk over AfD stance

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-12-29 [Older] German gymnastics launches abuse probe over Tabea Alt allegations

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-12-28 [Older] Afghan Taliban strike targets inside Pakistan

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-12-29 [Older] North Korea vows 'toughest' anti-US stance in party meeting

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-12-29 [Older] Rohingya refugees in India struggle for children's future

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-12-29 [Older] Magdeburg attack: Over €600,000 donated to victims, families

    • Modern Diplomacy ☛ 2024-12-29 [Older] The Role of Social Media in Facilitating Terrorism: A Growing Threat to Global Security

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-12-29 [Older] A Fourth Infant Dies of the Winter Cold in Gaza as Families Share Blankets in Seaside Tents

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-12-31 [Older] Why abductions in Kenya pose a threat to national security

    • NL Times ☛ 2025-01-04 [Older] Explosive thrown at security guards outside Tilburg coffeeshop

    • Defence Web ☛ 2025-01-03 [Older] Not enough infantry sees other SA Army musterings used for border protection

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-01-03 [Older] The French Quarter's Metal Barriers Were Gone on New Year's, Leaving a Critical Security Gap

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-12-30 [Older] WHO still waiting on COVID origins data from China

    • FAIR ☛ Why the Right Calls Mangione the ‘Ivy League’ Killer

      How do murder suspects get their media nicknames? Luigi Mangione, the 26-year-old accused of shooting and killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, has been called the “CEO killer” or some variation by ABC (12/24/24) and some of its affiliates (KABC, 12/20/24; KGO, 12/24/24). The name makes sense, as the victim’s stature and the place of his murder—a hotel where a company-related meeting was to take place—was the aspect of the crime that made it sensational news. This is similar to how Theodore Kaczynski became the “Unabomber,” because his targets were universities and airlines.

    • France24 ☛ Is he serious? Allies wary as Trump threatens Greenland, Panama, Canada

      Imagine if Vladimir Putin or Pooh-tin Jinping threatened a hostile takeover of Greenland or the Panama Canal.

    • Michigan Advance ☛ Whitmer issues Muslim American Heritage Month proclamation • Michigan Advance

      Michigan’s Muslim population is estimated at about 240,000 or 2.4% of the state.

    • New York Times ☛ Opinion | Don’t Underestimate the Enduring Power of ISIS

      For 20 years, I’ve been studying Western recruits to domestic and transnational terrorist organizations. I’ve interviewed jihadis, white-nationalist terrorists and eco-terrorists to understand their motivations and to prevent future violence. In my view, the appeal of some of the most crucial elements that ISIS offered to vulnerable or confused Western recruits — doctrinal certainty, identity, redemption and revenge — are as strong as ever, and will continue to resonate with people who can find it online.

    • RFERL ☛ Finland Says Ship Linked To Cable Damage Not Seaworthy As NATO Boosts Baltic Presence

      Finland is currently conducting a criminal investigation into the oil tanker Eagle S. It is suspected of sabotaging the EstLink-2 power cable -- which sends electricity between Finland and Estonia -- on December 25.

      Several other incidents have taken place in recent months in the Baltic Sea, including damage to an Internet cable linking Finland and Germany and another linking Finland and Sweden.

    • [Repeat] Tom's Hardware ☛ Chinese company accused of shipping kamikaze drone parts to Russia through elaborate re-selling and rebranding scheme

      Labas explains that friendly Taiwanese and Ukrainians living in Taiwan unearthed a 'double operation' to circumvent sanctions and discredit the named Taiwanese manufacturer. After publicly apologizing to TRC in this update post, he described the elaborate scheme used by China's KST to dodge sanctions with its servo drives.

    • Tech Central (South Africa) ☛ EU vows 'energetic' probe into Musk's X

      The European Commission’s digital czar, Henna Virkkunen, and justice chief Michael McGrath said the executive arm will come to a conclusion “as early as legally possible”, in a letter to European lawmakers this week.

      It’s the strongest statement about the probe yet from the new group of EU commissioners and shows how X has taken on greater significance as Musk has used the platform to promote right-wing candidates globally.

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ Will Donald Trump be able to save TikTok in the US?

      TikTok has become a politically influential medium worldwide, especially among younger voters. The US is not the first country in the world to seek a ban. In India, TikTok was banned in 2020 over security concerns.

      In Romania, TikTok is believed to have significantly influenced last year's presidential election. The results were annulled following reports that Russia may have used TikTok to support pro-Russian, far-right politician Calin Georgescu. The European Union has launched an investigation in response to the allegations.

      In Albania, a one-year ban on TikTok was imposed at the end of 2024, not due to political interference but for youth protection reasons, after teenagers organized a knife fight on the platform.

      "It would be naive to think Europe won't see more TikTok bans," said Oechler, who is closely monitoring recent developments regarding the social video app.

    • New York Times ☛ TikTok, Facing a US Ban, Is Also Waging Legal Battles Around the World

      This week in the United States, where about 150 million people use the app, TikTok and its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, are asking the Supreme Court to strike down a law that would force the app to be sold or banned.

      TikTok has confronted legal and political scrutiny around the world in recent years, facing outright or partial bans in at least 20 countries, as governments have grown alarmed by its ties to China and its wide influence, especially among young people.

    • NYPost ☛ Florida TikToker who killed 6 people avoids 55-year prison sentence

      The deal means Galle avoided trial where he could have been hit with a minimum 55-year sentence or a maximum of 90 years in prison, although consecutive sentences for each count are almost never imposed by the courts unless a defendant has a significant prior record of crimes, a spokesperson for West Palm Beach Chief Assistant State Attorney Al Johnson told Fox News Digital.

    • The Verge ☛ EU races to conclude investigation into X’s content moderation efforts

      In the letter, the EU’s justice chief Michael McGrath and tech policy leader Henna Virkkunen vowed to “energetically” push the investigation forward. Bloomberg reports that the letter was prompted by a complaint from center-right German lawmakers over concerns regarding Elon Musk’s promotion of Germany’s far-right party leader on X.

    • Spiegel ☛ Boost for the Right Wing: Why Did a German Newspaper Help Elon Musk Interfere in German Politics?

      Two days prior, on December 28, the paper’s Sunday edition, called Welt am Sonntag, had printed a guest editorial by Elon Musk, in which the American billionaire called on German voters to support the far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD) in upcoming parliamentary elections.

    • Hindustan Times ☛ Donald Trump asks Supreme Court to block New York hush money case sentencing

      Trump's lawyers turned to the nation's highest court Wednesday after New York courts refused to postpone the sentencing by Judge Juan M. Merchan, who presided over Trump's trial and conviction last May on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.

      The Supreme Court asked for a response from prosecutors in New York by Thursday.

    • Michigan Advance ☛ What Michigan officials said about the 4th anniversary of the attack on the U.S. Capitol

      Monday marks the first Jan. 6 anniversary since Trump was reelected and Washington, D.C., was quiet as Congress certified the 2024 election. With Trump set to be inaugurated in less than two weeks, there were far fewer statements from officials about Jan. 6, 2021. A Whitmer spokesperson didn’t respond to a request for comment on Monday about the Jan. 6 anniversary.

      Here’s a roundup of some Michigan politicos who did mark the event.

    • TwinCities Pioneer Press ☛ Trump asks Supreme Court to block sentencing in hush money case in New York

      Trump's lawyers turned to the nation's highest court after New York courts refused to do postpone sentencing

    • New York Times ☛ As Elon Musk Embraces the Far Right, Some of Its Leaders Reject Him

      Mr. Musk has fallen out with prominent right-wing Americans who say they are worried that their agenda may be sidelined in favor of his own — and that he is willing to silence them on X.

    • The Guardian UK ☛ EU Commission urged to act over Elon Musk’s ‘interference’ in elections

      The conversation with Musk, whose website claims he has 211.4 million followers, is seen as handing a significant advantage to the AfD as Germany prepares for elections on 23 February.

      Damian Boeselager, an MEP, co-founder of the pan-European Volt party and candidate for the Bundestag in the German election, has written to the Commission urging it to examine Musk’s “interference” in European elections.

    • New Statesman ☛ Elon Musk has designs on the whole of Europe

      Qui tacet consentire videtur – he who is silent is seen to consent. For years, mainstream media outlets hesitated to confront the growing reality of Musk’s unchecked power. Instead, they chose to downplay the obvious, avoiding the harsh truth and refusing to label him for what he unquestionably is: a political propagandist with hard-right sympathies. Musk’s descent into extremism is now becoming evident. His spreading of QAnon conspiracy theories and the most dangerous strands of Covid-19 misinformation served as indicators. By August 2024, his global platform was solidified, from which he helped to circulate the Islamophobic, anti-migrant riots in the UK.

    • CS Monitor ☛ Elon Musk aims his digital megaphone at Europe. Why?

      With his rightward political turn and campaign spending, Elon Musk has already shaken up U.S. politics, helping Donald Trump win a second term and muscling into his inner circle. Now the billionaire entrepreneur is throwing his weight around in European politics.

      In recent weeks, Mr. Musk has endorsed far-right parties and politicians in Europe and used X, the social media platform he owns, to push his brand of antiestablishment politics.

    • The Register UK ☛ Verizon to upgrade network kit on 35 US Air Force bases

      Whether the deal was made before or after Verizon admitted to having been part of the group of US telecom providers breached by the Salt Typhoon group of Chinese-linked cyberspies is unknown, and Verizon didn't respond to our questions for this story.

      Salt Typhoon gained a foothold in an estimated nine US telecom companies, Verizon among them, last year, reportedly accessing law enforcement data-sharing systems and general internet traffic from individuals and businesses.

    • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

      • Latvia ☛ Couple to be tried for alleged ethnic hatred against Ukrainians

        The State Police have sent a criminal case to the prosecutor's office involving a married couple who made hateful remarks against a Ukrainian citizen at a public event and caused physical injuries, police said January 8.

      • France24 ☛ Several killed in Russian missile attack on Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia

        At least 13 civilians have been killed, and around 30 injured in a missile strike on the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, officials said Wednesday. Footage posted on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's Telegram channel showed civilians lying in a city street in the aftermath of the attack, with the president saying the country had "a right to demand serious security guarantees" from its allies.

      • RFERL ☛ Austin Expected To Announce Military Aid Package At Ukraine Defense Contact Group Meeting

        U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is scheduled to meet on January 9 with the Ukraine Defense Contact Group in Ramstein, Germany, and is expected to announce another large package of military aid.

      • RFERL ☛ Deadly Russian Strike On Zaporizhzhya Causes Dozens Of Casualties

        A Russian strike on the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhya has killed more than a dozen people and wounded scores of civilians. The January 8 strike caused extensive destruction in the city's industrial district as firefighters worked to put out several blazes. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Telegram: "There is nothing more cruel than air strikes on a city, with the knowledge that ordinary civilians will suffer."

      • RFERL ☛ At Least 13 Killed, Dozens Injured In Russian Strike On Zaporizhzhya

        Ukrainian officials said at least 13 people were killed and dozens injured in a Russian air strike on the southern city of Zaporizhzhya, the latest in a series of Russian attacks causing widespread civilian casualties.

      • RFERL ☛ Kursk Battles Rage As U.S. Set To Unveil 'Final' Aid Package Under Biden

        The Ukrainian military continued its drive in Russia's Kursk region late on January 7, claiming it hit a key Russian command post, while Washington is reportedly set to announce a "substantial" final weapons package under the current administration.

      • The Straits Times ☛ US warns North Korea becoming better prepared for war, fighting against Ukraine

        More than 12,000 North Korean troops are in Russia and in December began fighting against Ukrainian forces.

      • CS Monitor ☛ Quiet streets, ghost towns: How Russia is changing Ukraine

        Russia’s war of depopulation is worsening Ukraine’s demographic crisis; the population has fallen from 52 million in 1991 to 35 million today.

      • New York Times ☛ Russian Strike Kills 13 in Southeastern Ukraine

        The attack, which also wounded dozens of people, came hours after Ukraine’s military attacked an oil depot deep inside Russia.

      • North Koreans kick Russians out of their homes to hide from drones: report

        North Koreans fighting in Kursk are proving to be easy targets for Ukrainian drones, Ukrainian military said.

      • Meduza ☛ ‘We expected the war to end’: How Russian political elites feel about the full-scale invasion of Ukraine dragging into 2025 — Meduza

      • Meduza ☛ Ukraine’s investigative agency arrests company commander from brigade under desertion investigation — Meduza

      • Meduza ☛ Trump team shaves two months off president-elect’s latest Ukraine peace deal timeline — Meduza

      • Meduza ☛ 81 strikes: How Ukrainian drone attacks disrupted Russian oil production and fuel prices in 2024 — Meduza

      • Meduza ☛ Russian airstrike on Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia kills 13 — Meduza

      • Meduza ☛ See Ukrainian marines fighting near Kurakhove, just days before the key Donbas city fell to Russian forces — Meduza

      • Latvia ☛ Latvian-Russian border will need €80 million in next two years

        Almost EUR 80 million are needed this year and next to build a 201-kilometer technological infrastructure on the Latvian-Russian land border, according to forecasts by the Ministry of the Interior, which were presented to the government during the closed part of the session on Tuesday, January 7.

      • Atlantic Council ☛ Is 2025 the year that Russia’s economy finally freezes up under sanctions?

        It’s taken years, but the Russian economy now appears to be experiencing the full effects of international sanctions. The first signs appeared at the end of 2024.

      • LRT ☛ Google removes 201 sites with Russian channels at Lithuanian watchdog’s request

        Google has removed 201 blocked websites providing access to EU-sanctioned Russian TV programs from its search engine, the Lithuanian Radio and Television Commission (LRTC) said on Tuesday.

      • Atlantic Council ☛ Sanctioned kleptocracy: How Putin’s kremligarchs have survived the war—and even prospered

        The latest report in the Atlantic Council’s Russia Tomorrow series explores how Russia’s kleptocratic networks infiltrated the West and measures the US and Europe can take to combat the malign influence of Russian kleptocracy around the globe.

      • LRT ☛ Lithuania’s ventilation system maker still has plant in Russia, plans to sell it

        Komfovent, a ventilation equipment manufacturer owned by Lithuania’s Amalva Group, still owns a factory in the Russian city of Ryazan but says it has already signed a deal to sell it, the 15min news website reported on Tuesday.

      • RFERL ☛ U.S. Lawmakers Seek To Ban Recognition Of Georgian Government, Report Says

        U.S. lawmakers are poised to introduce a bill prohibiting the recognition of a Georgian Dream government less than two weeks after the party's Russia-friendly billionaire founder was sanctioned for undermining Georgia's democracy for the "benefit of the Russian Federation."

      • Meduza ☛ Russia deported more than 80,000 migrants in 2024 — almost twice as many as the year before — Meduza

  • Transparency/Investigative Reporting

    • The Dissenter ☛ Biden's Legacy: Fundamentally Changing Nothing For Whistleblowers

    • FAIR ☛ ‘Media Institutions Have Played a Direct Role in Undermining Democracy’: Transcript of The Best of CounterSpin 2024

    • Chris Coyier ☛ Check-in-the-Mail IRL Spam (Canada Dry)

      The scam part comes in where they want you to send a copy of your “deposit slip” to them in which you’ll inadvertently send sensitive information. I guess? Or the fact that if they get contacted at all from one of these marks that you’re signaling gullibility and they’ll try and get their hooks in you some way or another.

    • US News And World Report ☛ Ex-FBI Informant Who Fabricated Claims About Bidens Sentenced to 6 Years

      A former FBI informant who admitted to lying about U.S. President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden’s interactions with a Ukrainian energy company was sentenced to six years in prison on Wednesday, court records showed.

  • Environment

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-01-03 [Older] US Chamber, Oil Industry Sue Vermont Over Law Requiring Companies to Pay for Climate Change Damage

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-01-01 [Older] Disaster-wary Philippines leads push for climate justice

    • CBC ☛ 2024-12-31 [Older] Warming climate, wacky weather create skating trail trials and tribulations

    • Modern Diplomacy ☛ 2024-12-28 [Older] The Heat of Violence: Climate Change and Gender-Based Abuse

    • TruthOut ☛ 2024-12-28 [Older] Biden Moves to Protect Climate Progress From Trump, But Advocates Want More

    • TruthOut ☛ 2024-12-28 [Older] Report: Climate Crisis Is Causing 3 Quarters of the World’s Land to Dry Out

    • CBC ☛ 2024-12-27 [Older] As P.E.I.'s only ski hill opens, some wonder how climate change will affect the pastime they love

    • Doc Searls ☛ On the Palisades and Eaton Fires

      Winds are so strong that there is no fire fighting on the front as it moves east and southeast. Gusts are up to 85 miles per hour.

    • The Atlantic ☛ The Palisades Were Waiting to Burn

      The hills were ready to burn. It’s January, well past the time of year when fire season in Southern California is supposed to end. But in this part of the semi-arid chaparral called Los Angeles, fire season can now be any time.

    • New York Times ☛ In the Palisades, an Evacuation Disaster Was Years in the Making

      The abandoned cars near Pacific Palisades — many dented and broken when a bulldozer had to plow through them to make way for emergency crews — became a symbol of Los Angeles’s desperate attempt to mobilize against what is shaping up to be the most destructive fire in its history.

    • Los Angeles Times ☛ A fire is forcing you to evacuate. What do you pack?

      There are three types of evacuation alerts: shelter-in-place, evacuation warning and evacuation order, according to Ready L.A. County.

    • Los Angeles Times ☛ Palisades fire: With winds gaining speed, 'worst is yet to come'

      The fire remained 0% contained at 11 p.m. Tuesday as “extreme fire behavior” continued to challenge firefighters, according to the L.A. County Fire Department. Wind gusts up to 60 mph were expected to continue through Thursday.

    • Wired ☛ California’s Wildfires Show No Signs of Slowing Down

      On Tuesday, Santa Ana winds swept seaward through Southern California, scattering embers and then fanning flames of a growing wildfire. By nighttime, residents received urgent text alerts warning of potential 100 mph gusts—a terrifying escalation that transformed a precarious situation into a full-blown crisis. As the winds howled, more embers took flight, sparking new fires in dry, brittle brushlands that hadn’t seen significant rain in over eight months.

    • Energy/Transportation

      • US News And World Report ☛ 2024-12-24 [Older] Airport With Runway Straddling the Border of the U.S. and Canada Will Close

      • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2024-12-30 [Older] Serbia: Ex-minister among 13 indicted for station collapse

      • The Register UK ☛ To save the energy grid from AI, use open source AI software

        "It's the biggest change that we've seen in energy and electricity since maybe the invention of the electric grid. And a major part of that transition is digitalization."

      • Task And Purpose ☛ A-10 Warthogs still flying in Middle East even as retirement looms

        The beloved A-10 Warthog continues to show its worth even though the Air Force is rapidly draining them out of its current fleet and plans to retire all the aircraft in a few years.

        Most recently, A-10s took part in airstrikes against the Islamic State group, or ISIS, from Dec. 30 to Jan. 6 around Iraq’s Hamrin mountains, U.S. Central Command recently announced.

      • Positech Games ☛ Home battery storage expansion, not quit resilient…

        In an ideal world, we would also have re-wired the entire house to survive a power-cut and run off the battery. In practice this is REALLY hard to do. Its not the kwh that is the problem, but the kw and the amps. Houses can draw up to 100amps in the UK, and no, no home battery is going to provide that. What SOME home battery installs do is wire ‘some circuits’ so they work in a power-cut. So basically you can have all the sockets in one room, or all the lighting. Thats likely low amps and low power. However it does involve running extra cables and a new fusebox in the cellar, and when we looked at what fuses were behind what sockets… it all turned into a bit of a nightmare. So we went for a bit of a bodge…

      • Advance Local Media LLC ☛ US Postal Service to close offices, suspend mail on Jan. 9 for national day of mourning

        If you need to mail or receive a package via the U.S. Postal Service this week, it might take a little longer to ship.

        That’s because all regular mail activity, retail services and office activity will be suspended on Thursday, Jan. 9, in observance of a national day of mourning to honor the legacy of former President Jimmy Carter, who died at the age of 100.

      • Wired ☛ Europe Wanted to Lead the World on EVs. Its Carmakers Can’t Keep Up

        With European EV sales and production lagging behind in comparison, a blame game has arisen between car manufacturers and policymakers. “A regulatory framework that ignores customer needs and market realities—and at the same time, is incapable of creating the necessary conditions for alternative technologies—cannot succeed,” a BMW spokesperson said in a written statement to WIRED, explaining that the company is opposed to the 2035 ban. It added that unless “charging infrastructure, availability of renewable energies and access to raw materials” are addressed, the ban will cause the “entire vehicle market” to contract.

        Given that the car industry employs 13.8 million people across Europe and represents around 7 percent of the continent’s GDP, such a contraction would be economically disastrous.

      • H2 View ☛ Lithuanian port to use IMI electrolyser for hydrogen refuelling

        When commissioned, the VIVO electrolyser is forecasted to produce 500kg of green hydrogen on-site per day while using an electrical input of 3MW drawn from renewables. The on-site production will mean the refuelling station relies less on imported hydrogen.

      • Deutsche Welle ☛ How Norway became the trailblazer for electric vehicles

        Norway has become the poster child for the transition to electric vehicles (EVs). Last year, official government statistics showed that almost nine out of every 10 cars sold were electric.

        In 2023 — the most recent year that data is available — the global EV adoption rate was just 18%, according to the International Energy Agency.

      • TruthOut ☛ 2025-01-04 [Older] Chicago’s Municipal Government Now Runs Entirely on Renewable Energy

      • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-01-03 [Older] Wind and solar power drive Germany's renewable energy surge

      • TruthOut ☛ 2024-12-27 [Older] Gas Exports and AI Boom Poised to Spike Energy Prices for Consumers Under Trump

    • Wildlife/Nature

      • The Revelator ☛ Protect This Place: Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve

      • CBC ☛ 2024-12-24 [Older] A massive and menacing Steller's sea eagle is dazzling birders in a Newfoundland park

      • Advance Local Media LLC ☛ Peyote sacred to Native Americans threatened by psychedelic renaissance and development

        For over two decades, Native American practitioners of peyotism, whose numbers in the U.S. are estimated at 400,000, have raised the alarm about lack of access to peyote, which they reverently call “the medicine.” They say poaching and excessive harvesting of the slow-growing cactus, which flowers and matures over 10 to 30 years, are endangering the species and ruining its delicate habitat.

      • The Conversation ☛ Spiders ‘smell’ with their legs – new research

        Our discovery puts an end to a decade-long search for these elusive sensilla, which have now been both identified and mapped. It also opens up opportunities for in-depth studies on the mechanism underlying spiders’ olfaction.

        Although spiders – which have been evolving for about 400m years – are renowned for their vibration sense and some, like jumping spiders, for excellent vision, surprisingly little is known about their sense of smell. There has been plenty of evidence showing that spiders can detect odours such as sex pheromones, but two big questions remained unanswered.

    • Overpopulation

      • Deseret Media ☛ Fire hydrants ran dry in California, highlighting a major problem in firefighting

        The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power was pushing water from aqueducts and groundwater into the system, but demand was so high, it wasn't enough to refill three 1-million gallon tanks in hilly Pacific Palisades that help pressurize hydrants for the neighborhood. They went dry on several occasions and at least 1,000 buildings were engulfed in flames.

      • Los Angeles Times ☛ Lack of water from hydrants in Palisades fire is hurting firefighting efforts, reports say

        Caruso, a former commissioner of the city’s Board of Water and Power who also ran unsuccessfully for mayor in 2022, contended that the problem stemmed from the issues with the reservoirs that feed the neighborhood’s hydrants.

  • Finance

    • CBC ☛ 2024-12-27 [Older] Vancouver's Bench Accounting abruptly shuts down, with 600 potential jobs lost

    • CBC ☛ 2024-12-24 [Older] 'Here we go again': 3rd break-in of the year leaves thrift store feeling hopeless

    • International Business Times ☛ 2025-01-01 [Older] US Boomers 'Unretiring' Due to Low Social Security Payments Could Face Even More Benefit Cuts

  • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

    • New Yorker ☛ Will Justin Trudeau’s Resignation Lead to the MAGA-fication of Canada?

      Pierre Poilievre might now attain the country’s highest office. “I was sickened and appalled when I first came upon his rhetoric,” the staff writer Adam Gopnik says, of the Conservative Party leader.

    • The Register UK ☛ Amazon invests $11B in AI datacenters in Georgia

      The online megacorp forked out around $75 billion on capital expenditure in 2024, according to CEO Andy Jassy, who told financial analysts in October that the business will dig even deeper during this calendar year.

    • New York Times ☛ Anthropic in Talks for $2 Billion Funding Round

      The San Francisco artificial intelligence start-up Anthropic is in talks to raise a new round of funding that could value the company at $60 billion, up from about $16 billion less than a year ago, according to two people with knowledge of the discussions.

    • Scoop News Group ☛ DHS reveals new artificial intelligence playbook

      The Department of Homeland Security released an artificial intelligence playbook on Tuesday aimed at guiding government use of generative AI systems. The document, written for both federal and local officials, represents the culmination of work on artificial intelligence under Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’ before the upcoming change in administrations.

    • Wired ☛ Meta Now Lets Users Say Gay and Trans People Have ‘Mental Illness’

      In other words, Meta now appears to permit users to accuse transgender or gay people of being mentally ill because of their gender expression and sexual orientation. The company did not respond to requests for clarification on the policy.

    • New York Times ☛ What’s Behind Meta’s Makeover Ahead of Trump’s Second Term?

      Given the headaches associated with running his quasi-governments, the last thing Mr. Zuckerberg wanted was to become too enmeshed with actual governments — the kind that could use the force of law to demand that he censor certain voices, thumb the scale on politically sensitive topics or threaten to throw Meta executives in jail for noncompliance.

      But that was then. Now, on the eve of a second Trump term, Mr. Zuckerberg is giving his company a full MAGA makeover.

    • Open Web Advocacy ☛ Open Web Advocacy 2024 in Review - Open Web Advocacy

      If you’re new to Open Web Advocacy (OWA) we are a non-profit organization committed to pushing greater competition within the browser and Web App ecosystems. Our objectives are: [...]

    • YLE ☛ Elon Musk responds to Finn's criticism with crude slur

      "Elon Musk is rapidly becoming the largest spreader of disinformation in human history, hijacking political debates in the process. The EU must take action!" Askola's post read.

    • YLE ☛ Elon Musk responds to Finn's criticism with crude slur

      Askola noted that he does not follow Musk on X, and didn't tag him in the post.

      "The fact he reacted was a surprise, but his style of reaction was not. He is a pretty pathetic person in my opinion. He's the most powerful man in the world and yet he yells at some random person like me in the middle of the night," Askola said.

    • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

      • Torrent Freak ☛ Google Deindexes 200 Streaming Sites For Violating EU Sanctions on Russia

        After quickly running out of patience, the EU banned all three broadcasters and many others (list) from transmitting from or to any EU member state, using any technical means. Whether by cable, satellite, websites or IPTV, the ban applied across the board to prevent (or at least limit) the spread of what the EU described as disinformation and propaganda.

      • Michael Geist ☛ New Era and New Risks: Meta’s Content Moderation Reforms and Freedom of Expression Online

        With more than three billion users, the implications of the decision are enormous assuming the same approach is taken in all markets (the company is starting in the U.S.). But beyond what it means for Facebook and Instagram users, the change is likely part of a broader shift in Internet regulation with the pendulum swinging back toward lighter touch rules coming out of the United States. In other words, the recent experience on Twitter that has left many uncomfortable may become the norm, not the outlier.

      • The Guardian UK ☛ Meta is ushering in a ‘world without facts’, says Nobel peace prize winner

        The Nobel peace prize winner Maria Ressa has said Meta’s decision to end factchecking on its platforms and remove restrictions on certain topics means “extremely dangerous times” lie ahead for journalism, democracy and social media users.

        The American-Filipino journalist said Mark Zuckerberg’s move to relax content moderation on the Facebook and Instagram platforms would lead to a “world without facts” and that was “a world that’s right for a dictator”.

      • Wired ☛ No Fact-Checking and More Hate Speech: Meta Goes MAGA

        Zuckerberg first indicated that he might be OK with the term in a simpering letter he wrote last August to Republican Congressman Jim Jordan, saying that the Biden administration wanted Meta to “censor” some content related to the Covid-19 pandemic. (The content remained, which actually illustrates that Facebook is granted the power to shape free expression in the US, not the government.) But in his Instagram post yesterday, Zuckerberg bear-hugged the term, using it as a synonym for the entire practice of content moderation itself. “We’re going to dramatically reduce the amount of censorship on our platforms,” he promised. An alternate reading might be—we’re letting the dobermans out!

      • Wired ☛ Meta Is Taking All the Wrong Lessons From X

        It may soon be hard to tell the difference. Meta this week said it would torpedo its fact-checking partners in favor of X’s “community notes” model (a comparison Meta chief global policy officer Joel Kaplan made directly in a blog post yesterday) and used the fig leaf of “free speech” to make alarmingly permissive changes to its Hateful Conduct policy. Last week, it appointed friend of Donald Trump and Ultimate Fighting Championship CEO Dana White to its board, and elevated Kaplan, who is firmly entrenched in Republican circles.

      • John Goerzen ☛ Censorship Is Complicated: What Internet History Says about Meta/Facebook

        In light of this week’s announcement by Meta (Facebook, Instagram, Threads, etc), I have been pondering this question: Why am I, a person that has long been a staunch advocate of free speech and encryption, leery of sites that talk about being free speech-oriented? And, more to the point, why an I — a person that has been censored by Facebook for mentioning the Open Source social network Mastodon — not cheering a “lighter touch”?

        The answers are complicated, and take me back to the early days of social networking. Yes, I mean the 1980s and 1990s.

      • BoingBoing ☛ Zuckerberg: facts get in the way of free speech

        Mark Zuckerberg has announced that Meta will bow a knee to convicted felon and re-elected President Donald Trump, offering him the gift of unfettered disinformation.

      • CBC ☛ Meta to end fact-checking program on Facebook, Instagram in U.S.

        A spokesperson for Meta confirmed to CBC News that the changes won't apply in Canada or anywhere else outside of the U.S. for now.

        "We are beginning with rolling out community notes in the [U.S.], and will continue to improve it over the course of the year before expansion to other countries," the spokesperson said.

      • Wired ☛ Meta Ditches Fact-Checkers Ahead of Trump's Second Term

        Meta’s decision could have a direct negative impact on media organizations in the US who partner with the company for fact-checking, including Reuters and USA Today. Meta's fact-checking partners did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

        Facebook has already contributed to the demise of journalism and this will be the final nail in the coffin,” Nina Jankowicz, the former Biden administration disinformation czar who is now CEO of the American Sunlight Project, said in an emailed statement. “Newsrooms get grants from Facebook to provide fact-checks. That money allows them to do other journalism. Zuckerberg’s announcement is a full bending of the knee to Trump and an attempt to catch up to Musk in his race to the bottom. Fact-checking was not a panacea to disinformation on Facebook but it was an important part of moderation.”

      • [Repeat] Wired ☛ No Fact-Checking and More Hate Speech: Meta Goes MAGA

        Another indication that there’s a MAGA element to these changes is Zuckerberg’s announcement that he’s moving Meta’s trust and safety and content moderation teams from California to Texas. Once again, he said out loud that the reasons for the geographical move were political: “I think that will help us build trust to do this work in places where there is less concern about the bias of our teams.” Hello, Mark? This move simply anchors Meta’s content arbiters in a location with a potentially different bias. It’s also a conspicuous statement that Zuckerberg himself might consider California—Trump’s kryptonite—as a less savory place to work than deep-red Texas.

      • Wired ☛ Meta’s Fact-Checking Partners Say They Were ‘Blindsided’ by Decision to Axe Them

        “We heard the news just like everyone else,” says Alan Duke, cofounder and editor in chief of fact-checking site Lead Stories, which started working with Meta in 2019. “No advance notice.”

      • The Washington Post ☛ What Meta ending fact checks means for Facebook, Instagram users

        If you’re a regular user of Meta’s social media apps — Facebook, Instagram or Threads — that means you’ll no longer see warnings on posts that are flagged as untrue, such as conspiracy theories or disinformation. Instead, the company will outsource that job to its users over the next few months by letting them leave “Community Notes” under debated posts, similar to what X has done.

      • VOA News ☛ Meta to offer wider range of speech on platforms, CEO says

        Kate Starbird, a University of Washington professor of human-centered design and engineering, said on the social media site Bluesky that Meta's decision will hamper people's ability to find out the truth.

        "One remaining concern for me is that even people who WANT to find accurate information are going to be challenged to do it, because we're going to lose the groups that do this fact-checking work — unless non-profits step in to fill what is going to be a huge funding gap," she posted.

      • India Times ☛ Meta’s Community Notes faces backlash over misinformation, accountability concerns

        "This is a major step back for content moderation at a time when disinformation and harmful content are evolving faster than ever," said Ross Burley, cofounder of the non-profit Centre for Information Resilience.

  • Censorship/Free Speech

    • Meduza ☛ ‘The number of words you can say keeps shrinking’: Meduza investigates how wartime censorship has (and hasn’t) reshaped Russia’s book industry — Meduza

    • Meduza ☛ Russian streaming platforms censor American film ‘Anora’ to crop out scenes of drug use — Meduza

    • Meduza ☛ Nightclub in Russia’s Far East fined for allegedly ‘promoting non-traditional sexual relationships’ — Meduza

    • Truthdig ☛ WaPo Kills Cartoon That Mocked the Boss

      But after watching a parade of Big Tech CEOs jet down to Mar-a-Lago to pay homage — and millions of dollars — to Trump, a cartoon depicting these groveling billionaires must have seemed natural, even if it included her own boss, Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon and owner of the Post since 2013.

    • CS Monitor ☛ How has the Charlie Hebdo attack changed French cartooning?

      The Jan. 7, 2015, attack on the Paris offices of French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo deeply shocked France. It was as much an attack on Charlie Hebdo cartoonists as it was an attack on French values: satire, freedom of expression, and secularism, or laïcité.

      But the French debate over whether to show images of the prophet Muhammad, which many Muslims view as sacrilegious, is still being waged today. So too do the French disagree on the limits of satire and blasphemy, despite their honored places in French culture.

    • CJR ☛ The Unresolved Legacy of the Charlie Hebdo Massacre - Columbia Journalism Review

      Around the same time, Samuel Paty, a schoolteacher in the Paris suburbs, displayed Muhammad cartoons as part of a lesson on freedom of expression and the meaning of the “Je Suis Charlie” slogan. (He reportedly offered students who might be offended the opportunity not to look at the cartoons.) Soon after, Paty was decapitated while walking down the street—part of another wider spasm of Islamist terror in France. Macron made remarks defending the publication of blasphemous cartoons, sparking a furious diplomatic reckoning with various majority-Muslim countries—in particular Turkey, which, among other things, threatened legal and diplomatic action against Charlie Hebdo over a scurrilous cartoon depicting Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, its president.

    • RFI ☛ Charlie Hebdo vaunts its 'indestructibility' 10 years after massacre

      The Kouachi brothers, who had pledged allegiance to Al-Qaeda, attacked Charlie Hebdo on 7 January 2015, killing eight staff members, including cartoonists Cabu, Charb, Honoré, Tignous and Wolinski.

      The satirical weekly had, since 2006, riled Islamists with its caricatures of the Propet Mohammed.

    • Associated Press ☛ AP PHOTOS: The Charlie Hebdo slaughter and follow-up terror attacks 10 years ago that changed France

      As France was reeling from the attack, terror struck again. With a massive police manhunt closing in on brothers Chérif and Saïd Kouachi, cornering the Charlie Hebdo killers in the industrial zone of a town northeast of Paris, accomplice Amédy Coulibaly, armed with an assault rifle, pistols and explosives, stormed a kosher grocery store in Paris, killing four people and taking others hostage.

      “You are Jews and French, the two things I hate the most,” he told his hostages.

      Ultimately, all three attackers died in near-simultaneous police raids.

    • The Telegraph UK ☛ Charlie Hebdo publishes ‘laugh at God’ competition on 10th anniversary of Paris terror attack

      Amongst the sometimes crude and sexually explicit images, one referred to the Prophet Mohammed with the caption: “If I sketch someone who is drawing someone who is drawing someone who is drawing Mohammed, is that OK?”

    • IFEX ☛ Cartoonists mark the 10th anniversary of the attack on "Charlie Hebdo" magazine - IFEX

      As an organization dedicated to defending the human rights of cartoonists, we know how often they face harassment, intimidation, and violence simply for doing their job. Protecting cartoonists is about more than ensuring their safety – it’s about preserving the diversity of view and freedom of expression that underpins democratic societies.

      We commend the French president, Emmanuel Macron and the Ministère de la Culture’s efforts to establish a Maison du Dessin de Presse in Paris. While it is very important that such an institute preserves and promotes editorial cartooning and its cherished position within French culture, it will also serve as a beacon for cartoonists maligned and abused in other parts of the world. As such, we sincerely hope that consideration is given in policy, provision made in budget, and space reserved within the location itself for the needs of exiled cartoonists, comparable to that found in other Maison du Journalistes and places of safety for writers and artists around Europe.

    • [Old] Euractive ☛ European media grieves for Charlie Hebdo - Euractiv

      Media companies the world over paid tribute to the French paper Charlie Hebdo following the terrorist attack on their offices on 7 January. Television stations and websites from South Africa to Argentina, and Australia to the United States, broadcast the paper's famous satirical cartoons.

      The front pages of the daily papers in France all carried a reference to Charlie Hebdo, many with black backgrounds, caricature drawings, banners or the slogan "Je suis Charlie".

    • 404 Media ☛ Facebook Is Censoring 404 Media Stories About Facebook's Censorship

      “Our findings suggest that although Meta has the technology to automatically detect pornographic content, it does not apply it to enforce its community standards on advertisements as it does for non-sponsored content,” AI Forensics said in its report. “This double standard is not a temporary bug, but persisted since as early as, at least, December 2023.”

    • Alabama Reflector ☛ Librarians gain protections in some states as book bans soar

      “We just hear so many stories of our librarians feeling threatened and targeted,” said Grant, who works at Parkway Elementary School and serves as president of the New Jersey Association of School Librarians. “This has been a wrong, an injustice that needs to be made right.”

      Amid a national rise in book bans in school libraries and new laws in some red states that threaten criminal penalties against librarians, a growing number of blue states are taking the opposite approach.

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ Charlie Hebdo's anniversary edition: A playful jab at God

      Since it was founded in 1970, Charlie Hebdo has been known for testing the boundaries of what can and can't be said according to French hate speech laws.

      The magazine not only makes fun of Islam, but also of Christianity and Judaism.

      According to French law, as long as violence is not incited and minorities are protected, mockery of religion is permitted.

  • Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

    • The Atlantic ☛ Fact-Checking Is Finally Free of Facebook

      The idea that something called “fact-checking” could be (or could have been) reasonably applied to social-media posts, in aggregate, is absurd. Social-media posts can be wrong, of course, even dangerously so. And single claims from single posts can sometimes be adjudicated as being true or false. But the formulation of those distinctions and decisions is not fact-checking, per se.

      That’s because fact-checking is, specifically, a component part of doing journalism. It is a way of creating knowledge invented by one particular profession. I don’t mean that journalists have any special power to discern the truth of given statements. Naturally, people attempt to validate the facts they see, news-related or otherwise, all the time. But fact-checking, as a professional practice linked to the publication of news stories and nonfiction books, refers to something more—something that no social-media platform would ever try to do.

    • VOA News ☛ VOA Persian: Iran is 'a repressor of press freedom,' leader of journalists’ federation tells VOA

      Anthony Bellanger, general secretary of the International Federation of Journalists, told VOA that Iran is "a repressor of press freedom," and he urged foreign journalists to be " as cautious as possible" when traveling to countries such as Iran.

    • The Guardian UK ☛ Italian journalist Cecilia Sala freed from detention in Iran

      A plane carrying the 29-year-old took off from Tehran after “intensive work on diplomatic and intelligence channels”, a statement from the office of the prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, said. The flight is due to arrive at Rome’s Ciampino airport at 3.30pm local time.

      Sala, a reporter for Il Foglio, was arrested on 19 December on charges of breaching Islamic law – three days after she arrived in the country on a journalist visa.

    • RFERL ☛ Italian Podcaster Held By Tehran Released, On Way Home

      No details of the charges were made public, but they came after Sala posted a podcast from Tehran on December 17 about patriarchy in the Iranian capital.

    • Press Gazette ☛ Trump lawsuits latest: President-elect's war on the media

      US President-elect Donald Trump has three ongoing lawsuits against the media in a pattern described as “a campaign of legal intimidation… for publishing journalism he doesn’t like”.

      The scale of the legal action from an incoming president has raised concerns about threats to the free press in a country where the First Amendment of its Constitution is intended to protect freedom of speech.

    • ANF News ☛ MKG: 30 women journalists assaulted in 2024, 8 sent to prison

      The Mesopotamia Women Journalists Association (MKG) shared its report on rights violations against women journalists throughout 2024 with the public during a press conference held at the association's headquarters.

      The Kurdish and Turkish presentations of the report were delivered by MKG member Rojda Aydın and MKG executive Arjin Dilek Öncel.

    • NL Times ☛ Courtroom journalist Saskia Belleman is awarded the Machiavelli prize for communication

      Court reporter Saskia Belleman has been awarded the Machiavelli Prize. The award is presented annually by the Machiavelli Foundation to a person or organization for a remarkable achievement in the field of public communication. On her X account, the Telegraaf journalist responded: "What a great start to 2025!"

      Belleman has “made the court accessible to a large and broad public. She also contributes to the transparency of and understanding of the law. An indispensable pillar of our much-discussed constitutional state,” said the jury for the award.

    • VOA News ☛ Italian journalist Cecelia Sala freed from Iran’s Evin Prison

      An Italian journalist detained in Iran for three weeks was released Wednesday and is returning home, Italian officials said.

      Cecelia Sala was released following “intensive work on diplomatic and intelligence channels,” Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s office said.

    • US News And World Report ☛ An Italian Journalist Is Freed From Detention in Iran and Is Returning Home

      An Italian journalist detained in Iran for three weeks was freed Wednesday and was heading home, after her fate had become intertwined with that of an Iranian engineer arrested in Italy and wanted by the United States.

  • Civil Rights/Policing

    • NL Times ☛ 2025-01-02 [Older] Security services were monitoring women's rights movements post-war

    • Defence Web ☛ 2025-01-02 [Older] Better policing in South Africa is well within reach

    • Futurism ☛ Facebook Now Allows Calling Women Personal Property

      Meta's new hate speech rules — or lack thereof — now allow users to make shockingly misogynistic claims on the company's social networks.

    • Techdirt ☛ Kentucky Police Kill Innocent Man While Serving Warrant At Wrong Address

      If officers are unfamiliar with the area they’ll be serving warrants in, it would make sense to engage in a little surveillance ahead of time to ensure the deadly mistakes like these aren’t made. But they never do because the government always believes the innocent people caught off guard by truly unexpected invasions of their personal space are in the wrong for reacting in ways cops somehow still don’t expect them to react.

      And yet, for the most part, officers and their employers are given a free pass for killing innocent people, so long as officers believed the person they gunned down was actually the criminal suspect they were seeking to apprehend.

    • Federal News Network ☛ A union says the FAA doesn’t use its own people enough

      Among its biggest challenges, the FAA has a constant need to install new equipment while keeping the old stuff going. That task falls to members of the Professional Aviation Safety Specialists, or PASS. The union represents FAA employees who deal with aging technology and sometimes a shortage of spare parts. PASS told a Senate committee that the FAA is too slow to develop its technical workforce and is not moving fast enough to stay ahead of aging infrastructure. PASS president Dave Spero joined The Federal Drive with Tom Temin for more.

    • The Conversation ☛ Social media ‘soft girls’ depend on men for money – but Sweden once used state ‘influencers’ to urge women to get jobs

      Specifically, its strict definition according to gender was heavily criticised for undermining women’s rights and opportunities. Alongside these demands, an increasing labour shortage paved the way for a new understanding of the family, marked by individual social rights and gender equality.

      This transformation of the family was made possible through various reforms such as individual taxation, the introduction of the parental leave insurance, the expansion of public childcare and active labour market policies.

    • RFERL ☛ Jump In Iranian Executions In 2024 Prompts UN Outrage

      Iran executed at least 901 people in 2024 -- including 31 women, some of whom were convicted of killing their husbands while fighting off a rape or other cases of domestic violence -- a nine-year high that has sparked outrage at the United Nations.

  • Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

    • The Conversation ☛ How Britain got its first [Internet] connection – by the late pioneer who created the first password on the [Internet]

      The [Internet] has become the most prevalent communications technology the world has ever seen. Though there are more fixed and mobile telephone connections, even they use [Internet] technology in their core. For all the many uses the [Internet] allows for today, its origins lie in the cold war and the need for a defence communications network that could survive a nuclear strike. But that defence communications network quickly became used for general communications and within only a few years of the first transmission, traffic on the predecessor to today’s [Internet] was already 75% email.

  Monopolies/Monopsonies

  • Patents

    • Counter Punch ☛ 2024-12-31 [Older] Sen. Chris Coons and the Cult of Patent Monopolies

  • Trademarks

    • CBC ☛ 2024-12-25 [Older] Who can call themselves a chocolate master? Lindt trademark case shows it's complicated

  • Copyrights

    • Torrent Freak ☛ U.S. Trade Representative Lists the Most Notorious Piracy Threats

      The report is largely based on input from copyright industry groups, including the RIAA and MPA. Platforms detailed in recommendations filed late last year, are meant to serve as ‘prominent and illustrative examples’ without the USTR drawing any legal conclusions.