GAFAM Hates - Except in a Worryingly Parasitic Way - GNU/Linux and Its Freedoms (or Its Users)
USERS of GNU/Linux (or the various BSDs for that matter), especially on desktops and laptops, aren't few*. There are many millions of us all around the world. GAFAM has billions, but it's not a "numbers game". Unlike GAFAM boosters and addicts, we tend to be fluent/savvy at tech... and a growing proportion of the userbase can understand the value of users' rights, such as privacy. Many aren't gullible and GAFAM cannot fool them, which must suck for GAFAM; worse yet, more and more of the loudest critics of GAFAM are either GNU/Linux users or become GNU/Linux users (to be true to their principles). Some are protestant in nature or antagonistic/hostile towards GAFAM; they're "rebels" in the eyes of the broligarchs. The last thing they want is even more of those "rebels".
Containing the spread of a righteous and just ideology is hard, but when companies control the means of communication (not production) they can interfere in all sorts of ways.
GNU/Linux is growing and GNU/Linux users proliferate across segments (no longer a "niche" of nerds and sysadmins). More and more sectors now have GNU/Linux desktops/laptops and users of these devices typically block ads, circumvent (or work around) DRM etc. GAFAM cannot tolerate that. This is "bad for business" (where business just means something like data-mining, surveillance, deception/advertising, censorship and so on).
In many countries there are over a million users of GNU/Linux (per country), so it's not easy to ignore them anymore. It's also not easy to collectively demonise and/or block them either (some famous game studios learned from experience not to invoke the wrath of GNU/Linux users or of WINE users, as they're vocal and influential online).
20 years ago (almost two years after the SCO case) it wasn't entirely clear if the movement could or could not be 'killed'. Now it's too late to 'kill' it, but there are actors trying to curb, curtail, slow down the expansion. Microsoft just infiltrates and sabotages what it can... "OOPS! SORRY NOT SORRY!"
Last year we took note of the imperialistic and discriminatory policies of the Linux Foundation. We're not going to go anywhere near politics here; the key thing is, the Foundation (which represents Microsoft and Microsoft's racist GitHub, not Linux) undermines the very nature of Free software by excluding people based on which country they were born in. We pointed out that the site DistroWatch - a very important site - could be similarly targeted, citing "something something Russia(n)" or access to it limited/restricted/suppressed (we'll get to that in a moment). The Microsoft-dominated Foundation is a master of spinning words and narratives - to the point of trying to explain to us all why it's OK that something called "Linux Foundation" actively promotes rivals of Linux and barely contributes any funds to promotion of Linux (instead it lobbies for Bill Gates, basically associating the Linux Foundation with Jeffrey Epstein and perhaps 'elite' pedophilia culture). It also promotes worse security, hailing Gates as some sort of security visionary. Maybe the underlying intention is to become progressively more gross and put off everyone but big corporations that idolise white-collars crime. Maybe not, but the intention isn't the point; it's the net effect.
Earlier today DistroWatch published something a tad worrying, especially for those who still waste time in Social Control Media. An associate told us that "the [DistroWatch] page can be slow to retrieve" and we noticed the same when trying. It took about a minute to load a simple page. Is that due to some DDoS attack? We don't know. We don't want to guess. We just wish the site would function well because it contains many links to us and it provides a valuable service (this past year it had several serious technical problems).
So DistroWatch has a new problem now.
Regardless, it serves to confirm that MAGA/Meta (Facebook) is now attacking advocates of GNU/Linux by silencing and even banning them. Just like Reddit moderators (the original ones were stunningly removed and replaced by Microsoft apologists; some people in IRC say they promote Microsoft stuff under "Linux"; it was last mentioned a week ago). In my personal experience, Reddit actively weeds out and demotes stories about GNU/Linux... unless they're very lame or obviously negative. That's almost understandable given that Microsoft is a big client of theirs. Reddit serves GAFAM and shapes the world's collective mindset based on the whims of GAFAM; by culling particular views and people it contributes to bias in LLMs too.
It's not just Reddit though; we heard or saw the same sort of thing elsewhere. We watched the same reported in and about YouTube (GNU/Linux-centric vloggers), so we're left to deduce that GAFAM is attacking community "GNU/Linux" while exploiting proprietary variants of it for profit. Consider what Google did to Daniel Pocock and how Social Control Networks silenced him because that's their real purpose (it's all about control, not speech; the platform's masters control society and manipulate its behaviours).
Here's what DistroWatch has said about MAGA/Meta (Facebook), noting that similar experiences were encountered "when Twitter changed its name to X" (ownership changed to "MAGA":
Facebook banStarting on January 19, 2025 Facebook's internal policy makers decided that Linux is malware and labelled groups associated with Linux as being "cybersecurity threats". Any posts mentioning DistroWatch and multiple groups associated with Linux and Linux discussions have either been shut down or had many of their posts removed.
We've been hearing all week from readers who say they can no longer post about Linux on Facebook or share links to DistroWatch. Some people have reported their accounts have been locked or limited for posting about Linux.
The sad irony here is that Facebook runs much of its infrastructure on Linux and often posts job ads looking for Linux developers.
Unfortunately, there isn't anything we can do about this, apart from advising people to get their Linux-related information from sources other than Facebook. I've tried to appeal the ban and was told the next day that Linux-related material is staying on the cybersecurity filter. My Facebook account was also locked for my efforts.
We went through a similar experience when Twitter changed its name to X - suddenly accounts which had been re-posting news from our RSS feeds were no longer able to share links. This sort of censorship is an unpleasant side-effect of centralized communication platforms such as X, Facebook, Google+, and so on.
In an effort to continue to make it possible for people to talk about Linux (and DistroWatch), as well as share their views and links, we are providing two options. We have RSS news feeds which get updates whenever we post new announcements, stories, and our weekly newsletters. We also now have a Mastodon account where I will start to post updates - at least for new distributions and notice of our weekly newsletter. Over time we may also add news stories and updates about releases. Links for the feeds and the Mastodon account can be found on our contact page.
The pseudo-technical term "cybersecurity" is one of those words that are amplified with scary "cyber" preceding (like "cyberlibel" or "cybercrime"); a lot of the people who protect the Net and its users are "cyber-professionals" and many use BSD or GNU/Linux. "My Facebook account was also locked for my efforts," the author says. Because who dares question the moderators? Rather than listen to critics, moderators would be inclined to 'moderate' (silence) dissent. It helps hide the problem. As RMS put it: "Roy Schestowitz reports being censored ("shadowbanned") by Twitter for posting about Twitter censorship. This kind of censorship is not obvious to the one being censored."
That's what's happening a lot in "planets" and Social Control Media. They gaslight, "shadowban" and sometimes blackmail people. They try to impose groupthink on everybody, especially as long as that overlaps the masters' worldview.
For DistroWatch, the solution to all this seems to be syndication through its domain, directly.
"We have RSS news feeds," they say. I've used those for many years, several RSS feeds in fact (they have more than one), so I never needed to worry about what happened in Zuckerface's or MElon's neonazi animal farms, which are antisocial and censorious.
Let the above story from DistroWatch serve as a reminder that the era of Social Control Media is over. Move on. Abandon those things**. β
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* In Web servers, Microsoft is more or less dead already. All it has left is a fast-diminishing portion of the client side, except phones and tablets (which outnumber desktops and laptops). Even ~12 years ago ("INSTALLED BASE OF SMARTPHONES BY OPERATING SYSTEM AS OF DECEMBER 31, 2012") Microsoft was a no-show in phones in particular, an associate reminds us, so they have no market share and only ever peaked at about 2.5% (due to a hostile takeover and destruction). 2.5% is 1 in 40, i.e. not much. Now it's around 0%. This 2015 post said: "The above table reflects of course the bombshell info we had last year from Microsoft that one third of all Lumia smartphones had never even been activated. As Lumia accounts for far in excess of 90% of all Windows Phone OS smartphones sold, that is devastating for the suffering OS platform in terms of reach and developer interest. [...]" (it should also be noted that Microsoft has 0% market share in supercomputers and is an also-ran in embedded).
** I stopped participating half a decade ago. It was already getting way too toxic. The business model was becoming apparent - something Pieter Hintjens had warned about much earlier.