Notices by Bob Mottram π§ β β (bob@soc.freedombone.net)
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Bob Mottram π§ β β (bob@soc.freedombone.net)'s status on Friday, 21-Jun-2019 13:41:05 CEST 
Bob Mottram π§ β β
"Software is deeply intertwined with all means of production, communication, and travel. We are quickly approaching a society in which every action is determined, predicted, or prevented by an algorithm. This lack of tension, while injustice remains the status quo, is what negative peace [as described by MLK] looks like."
-- FSF Bulletin, Spring 2019 -
Bob Mottram π§ β β (bob@soc.freedombone.net)'s status on Wednesday, 19-Jun-2019 23:19:08 CEST
Bob Mottram π§ β β
This was never really true. I know that memory fades easily, but not that long ago we had the whole Snowden thing and before that Wikileaks. A bunch of devs did a bunch of things for explicitly political reasons and made corresponding decisions in line with their beliefs.
GPG. I know it's hated and even renounced by its original developer but it's still core infrastructure for a lot of operating systems. Invented with political aims for political reasons. Tor also.
There are many other examples but these are just the most obvious. -
Bob Mottram π§ β β (bob@soc.freedombone.net)'s status on Wednesday, 19-Jun-2019 22:11:26 CEST
Bob Mottram π§ β β
@gatewave @sandrockcstm One thing to remember is that if the nazis succeed with their current strategy of cooption then the fediverse will be labeled by politicians as "a terrorist network" and its future will be in doubt - regardless of whatever technical capabilities it has. So the battle over whether certain instances are blocked or not is more important than most people think. -
Bob Mottram π§ β β (bob@soc.freedombone.net)'s status on Wednesday, 19-Jun-2019 20:46:42 CEST
Bob Mottram π§ β β
Holon - The Price Is Your Humanity https://holon-subatomic-audio.bandcamp.com/track/the-price-is-your-humanity -
Bob Mottram π§ β β (bob@soc.freedombone.net)'s status on Wednesday, 19-Jun-2019 18:11:07 CEST
Bob Mottram π§ β β
There's another investigative journalism piece about Facebook's outsourced content moderation companies on theverge.com.
I only skim read it, but that was bad enough. As you might expect it's a catalogue of horrors combined with abusive work practices and very exploited workers. Being continuously exposed to disturbing content eventually takes its toll on mental and physical health, and as the article describes is sometimes fatal.
"It was mass panic. All the SMEs had to rush in there and try to help people. They were freaking out β they couldnβt handle it. People were crying, breaking down, throwing up. It was like one of those horror movies."
This is the hidden part of what Facebook really is. It might also be part of the reason why Zuckerberg claims that in the next few years the company will be moving to a situation where they can't access the content (presumably client side encryption with the ad targeting also on the client).
People can also post disturbing or illegal content on the fediverse, but the difference is that nobody is forced to view it and blocking can isolate off bad instances like an immune response. It's also a reason why instances should try to avoid having thousands of users, because the burden on the admin can become too much. -
Bob Mottram π§ β β (bob@soc.freedombone.net)'s status on Wednesday, 19-Jun-2019 00:17:49 CEST
Bob Mottram π§ β β
matrix.org apparently having hardware problems.
I've been saying it for a while, but the project really needs to put more emphasis on running homeservers. This means redesigning the initial setup of Riot apps to make using another homeserver trivially easy. The way it's done right now strongly guides the average user to matrix.org. -
Bob Mottram π§ β β (bob@soc.freedombone.net)'s status on Tuesday, 18-Jun-2019 18:27:00 CEST
Bob Mottram π§ β β
Officially called "libra".
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/jun/18/libra-facebook-cryptocurrency-new-digital-money-transactions
This could be a total flop since trust in Facebook is at an all time low. But looking at the other companies onboard with this I fear that it's a killer blow to the internet.
Whereas before being on Facebook may have been somewhat discretionary, if the only way that you can get income or pay for things is with a Facebook account then this makes the site effectively mandatory for a large fraction of the population.
Like someone said earlier, I think this is paving the way for a sinister form of Basic Income, in which people don't have any choice other than to be on Facebook viewing ads for as many hours in the day as possible in order to qualify for their Zuckerbucks. -
Bob Mottram π§ β β (bob@soc.freedombone.net)'s status on Tuesday, 18-Jun-2019 12:33:50 CEST
Bob Mottram π§ β β
charliebrown.jpg -
Bob Mottram π§ β β (bob@soc.freedombone.net)'s status on Monday, 17-Jun-2019 21:50:39 CEST
Bob Mottram π§ β β
@maloki When the nazis are trying to push hate speech as "free speech" they're not trying to engage in "debate" since they have no intention of changing their minds. Nor are the people they target going to be "persuaded" by a "marketplace of ideas" comprising of denunciations and scapegoating screeds.
What they're really trying to do is appeal to the 80% of undecided or readers and shift the overton window in their direction. It's not debate from their point of view, it's a performance and this is why they're keen to get in from of the maximum number of eyeballs. -
Bob Mottram π§ β β (bob@soc.freedombone.net)'s status on Sunday, 16-Jun-2019 12:28:58 CEST
Bob Mottram π§ β β
google.jpg -
Bob Mottram π§ β β (bob@soc.freedombone.net)'s status on Sunday, 16-Jun-2019 08:08:02 CEST
Bob Mottram π§ β β
Some possible security problems with Matrix/Synapse and Riot clients. I'm fairly confident that these don't apply to the implementation in Freedombone, but it does describe recent changes which I'll need to check.
One thing which makes me somewhat confident is that during the recent matrix.org outage my homeserver continued running without any obvious breakage. Identity and integrations servers are also disabled in the Freedombone config.
https://gist.github.com/maxidorius/5736fd09c9194b7a6dc03b6b8d7220d0 -
Bob Mottram π§ β β (bob@soc.freedombone.net)'s status on Saturday, 15-Jun-2019 19:25:11 CEST
Bob Mottram π§ β β
Watching the Automating Discrimination conference. The talks have been good so far. I'm also thinking that there's no way that this could be funded by Google and Facebook, and sure enough it isn't.
It's very obvious that when certain companies are absent from the sponsors list that there is a different kind of discussion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SqHtroA8U8 -
Bob Mottram π§ β β (bob@soc.freedombone.net)'s status on Saturday, 15-Jun-2019 18:49:02 CEST
Bob Mottram π§ β β
@anna Full disclosure: I did used to watch Lunduke videos in the past, and thought they were ok. Until the Riseup one. When he was doing software development I did try to help him out with Debian packaging one time.
I have zero interest in watching another Lunduke video, and for me the additional screenshots above move the needle from me thinking he's maybe misguided and politically illiterate to thinking he's actually bad and should be avoided. -
Bob Mottram π§ β β (bob@soc.freedombone.net)'s status on Friday, 14-Jun-2019 22:00:07 CEST
Bob Mottram π§ β β
Matrix Live S03E25 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4L94Rsg_nM -
Bob Mottram π§ β β (bob@soc.freedombone.net)'s status on Friday, 14-Jun-2019 15:39:54 CEST
Bob Mottram π§ β β
@paulfree14 The way I like to put it is that when you block ads you're literally taking money away from billionaires. If you look at the top ten rich list quite a few of those men got their money from advertising. Zuckerberg. The Google founders, etc. -
Bob Mottram π§ β β (bob@soc.freedombone.net)'s status on Friday, 14-Jun-2019 15:36:15 CEST
Bob Mottram π§ β β
@paulfree14 Try not to get into too many street fights.
In the current context one of the best anti-capitalist moves you can do in my opinion is to encourage all your friends to use ad blockers. pi-hole. ublock origin, or whatever. The whole surveillance capital thing is based on people seeing ads and if that doesn't happen then their power disappears. -
Bob Mottram π§ β β (bob@soc.freedombone.net)'s status on Friday, 14-Jun-2019 12:20:49 CEST
Bob Mottram π§ β β
keller.jpg -
Bob Mottram π§ β β (bob@soc.freedombone.net)'s status on Thursday, 13-Jun-2019 19:27:48 CEST
Bob Mottram π§ β β
The People's Republic of Walmart: examining the world's biggest planned economies https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUXMmq1p3g0 -
Bob Mottram π§ β β (bob@soc.freedombone.net)'s status on Wednesday, 12-Jun-2019 19:01:24 CEST
Bob Mottram π§ β β
@rysiek https://wiki.freedombone.net/view/welcome-visitors/view/a-peoples-history-of-the-fediverse/view/dimensions-of-decentralization -
Bob Mottram π§ β β (bob@soc.freedombone.net)'s status on Wednesday, 12-Jun-2019 19:00:18 CEST
Bob Mottram π§ β β
@rysiek Blockchain is physically decentralized, logically centralized.
All umeHack social content and data are available under the 
