Hello Americans,
Today Meta has deactivated the Instagram accounts of the "No Kings" protests on the very day they are happening in the US. You can avoid Meta's fascist-defending shenanigans by following one of the main No Kings organisers on here instead:
This is a textbook example of why it's a bad idea to rely on billionaire-owned centralised social media.
(Thank you to @tchambers 🙏)
Mastodon admins, if you're looking for a way to find/report accounts affected by the current spam wave, you can run the query below. There may be some false positives, but the results are largely accurate.
Drop into the DB first (sudo -u mastodon psql mastodon_production) and run:
WITH bounds AS (
SELECT ((extract(epoch FROM timestamptz '2026-10-15 00:00:00-04') * 1000)::bigint << 16) AS min_id
),
counts AS (
SELECT m.status_id, COUNT(*) AS mention_count
FROM mentions m, bounds b
WHERE m.status_id >= b.min_id
GROUP BY m.status_id
HAVING COUNT(*) >= 10
)
SELECT s.id,
s.created_at,
a.username || COALESCE('@' || a.domain, '') AS author,
c.mention_count,
COALESCE(s.url, s.uri) AS link
FROM counts c
JOIN statuses s ON s.id = c.status_id
JOIN accounts a ON a.id = s.account_id
WHERE s.deleted_at IS NULL
AND a.suspended_at IS NULL
AND (s.text ILIKE '%google%' OR s.spoiler_text ILIKE '%google%')
ORDER BY s.created_at DESC;
Something I've noticed while on book tour for the past couple of weeks is that Mastodon is a really good way to let people know about bookstore events. So many people I've met on the road have told me that they found out about my book tour from me or other folks on the fedi. I think it's partly because so many book-loving people are on Mastodon. But also if you compare Mastodon to places like Bluesky or Insta, the community here has a higher percentage of actual humans vs. bots or operatives.
You'll be unsurprised Amazon is using an AI-related tool to assess its distribution sites for signs of nascent union activity...
Of course, Amazon denies the tool (Atlas) is being used to head-off unionisation efforts at specific warehouses, but then again they would say that, wouldn't they?
Their problem is the information has arisen during 'discovery' during a Court battle between Amazon & Canadian union; and as such, the source is the firm itself.
#unions #Amazon
https://www.opendemocracy.net/amazon-ai-surveillance-monitor-union-activity-uk-warehouses-birmingham-coventry-atlas-sutton-coldfield/?ref=weekly-newsletter
On the current spam wave some of you experience on the Fediverse: I think @stux is right by suspecting it might be one or more 3rd party apps or services that got hacked or are leaking authentication tokens.
So. Go to your account settings and check the "Authorized Apps" part. Revoke the permissions of apps you don't use anymore. Consider it housekeeping and make it a regular Todo :)
I'm more upset than I've been in a while.
Windows 11 sets the default documents folder to onedrive\documents. Anything that gets saved there gets backed up to one drive. This includes various save games, all my Reaper stuff, and various other odds and ends that I like to, you know, save.
To save disc space, OneDrive also defaults to files being online-only. They're not stored on your device, they're just listed there. So despite what they call it, this is in fact not a backup at all, because it doesn't create an extra copy. It is actually just transferring your most precious, irreplacible, personal files to Microsoft in the background, and trusting that nothing will happen. You can see where this is going, but just to underline the point with a bleeding fucking dagger, I did not ask for any of this, I just clicked save like I have done for the last twenty or so years of my life using Windows.
Since I don't care about and have never intentionally used onedrive, I signed out of it. Flash forward six months, the files that I thought were on my computer (because I can go see them there in the folder) are in fact gone from my hard drive, and also Onedrive nuked them from orbit.
Years of my life, gone without a trace. Thanks so much, Microsoft. Whoever came up with all those ideas probably got massive performance bonuses, because we're in the worst timeline.
Goodnight.
The #PeerTube instance DudeLike.wtf is now accepting new account requests.
If you are looking to make or are already making original #video content for the #Fediverse, that has artistic, educational, or entertaining intent to engage an audience, then come join us.
Request an account and tell us what kind of videos you make or want to make. We'll review it and let you know within 24hrs.
"Weird name. Good videos. Made for the Fediverse."
Good grief this is depressing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCvPPaIN5Ew
TL:DW - Social media advertisers are paying people to make pro-Nazi videos because these drive engagement from their target audience of rich white people. (This obviously isn't the only reason bigotry is online, but this advertising money is pouring lots more fuel on the fire.)
GenAI is then making this a million times worse, as it's so cheap and easy to swamp platforms with propaganda.
Perhaps engagement-based monetisation/advertising needs to be banned? It is literally paying people to promote the most evil horrific things possible.
Forget billionaire algorithms, use RSS. Most sites have them.
Both the Thimbleweed Park Blog and Grumpy Gamer do. Full text feeds.
I've been using and serving RSS since 2005.
All the cool kids are doing it.
HCommons.social is a Mastodon server supporting humanities scholars and practitioners around the world.
This server has a post size of up to 1000 characters.
:Fediverse: https://hcommons.social
You can find out more at https://hcommons.social/about or contact the admin account @hello
#FeaturedServer #Humanities #Academic #Academia #Scholars #Mastodon #Fediverse #FreeFediverse
"I suggest the social action: shame. Shame these people. Their actions are shameful. AI bros hate being shamed and they try to make rules against shaming — because shame works.
None of these people doing shameful things deserve a place in polite company. They should be shamed for their shameful choices.
The AI industry is also running a PR push to redefine common word usage. The word “slop” is also super effective — so the bros really hate “slop” and try to define it to mean slop they don’t like.
But all AI output is slop. It’s social spam. That’s what it’s for. It’s slop! Say “slop” every time."
https://pivot-to-ai.com/2026/10/14/linux-kernel-goes-full-ai-slop-code-hides-chatbot-commits/
SELL BABY SELL
make those stocks implode like a million Titans filled to the brim with techbros.
LABR Presents - Bandcamp Friday O4 (with a twist) with Brother Soul
online, Friday, November 6 at 10:00 PM GMT
The first one was really fun with the release of our brother Dgar's album release party along side other amazing independent artist.
This time we expand this love to have independent artist from multiple platforms. We welcome the folks from Bandwagon as well, and a few other sites to come in the future. Shout out to Stefan Bohacek & Sknob for sending over their music gifts to be included in the show. We were excited to see entries from these two brothers.
This will be a deeply eclectic new music oasis of a show. Many genre's. Many vibes. All strung together by Brother Soul.
Join Us
https://cal.labr.online/event/labr-presents-bandcamp-friday-o4-with-a-twist-with-brother-soul
RE: https://furs.social/@Rycochet/117444985007444013
It will be the wisest money anyone has ever spent.
If they can turn of parts of Starlink in the middle of a Russian attack, then they are worse than useless as a communications network. They are a trap pretending to be a telephone.
It’s nice to have a heat pump!
Heating and cooling with the same equipment at a quarter of the energy expenditure; mostly coming from solar cells on our roof. 🤌
Why does software take so long to build?
A visible feature is just the tip of the iceberg. Behind it lie testing, security, updates, interoperability and hours spent tracking down bugs.
Sometimes, the biggest job is simply making sure everything keeps working as expected.
Mobilizon needs human resources to keep running. Your monthly donation helps make it possible.
Donate here: https://mobilizon.org/support_en
Citizen Lab says governments are abusing online ads to hack people with ‘zero-click’ spyware - https://techcrunch.com/2026/10/15/citizen-lab-says-governments-are-abusing-online-ads-to-hack-people-with-zero-click-spyware/
We’re moving towards establishing a tribunal to prosecute #Russia’s crime of aggression against #Ukraine. It is essential that countries around the world indicate their support for this tribunal, which is established by the Council of Europe. States must also show their support for the International Criminal Court. In the face of the current challenges facing the @intlcrimcourt, due to pushback from the United States and others, the importance of this institution has never been more evident.
"Character.ai's Bankruptcy Documents Show the Economics of AI Don't Work"
https://www.404media.co/character-ais-bankruptcy-documents-show-the-economics-of-ai-dont-work/
This is likely the first of many. The pets.com of the AI bubble?