Move slow and fix things. CTO @ apti.ro. Senior dev @ darc.li. Open-Source Dev, Human Rights Advocacy. Queer, RA 🏳️🌈
The music coming out of Romania right now feels like we're moving back to resistance through music.
Speaking out the truth, through music.
https://youtu.be/tJ1qaXNKCgQ
Processing trans-generational trauma and difficult emotions, through music.
https://youtu.be/wcLidRxvpvM
and
https://youtu.be/2wvmuKSmX6A
It teared me up in particular to hear Cojo sing with Tudor Chirilă, and reuse the famous "'am doar 18 ani" chorus to talk about trans-generational trauma.
Anyone wanting to setup effective governance for a project would do well to ask themselves why democratic systems in functioning democracies are deliberately adversarial among the different institutions of that government.
It's a feature not a bug.
Worst Person in Tech 2025 voting, quarter finals!
https://twsu.forms.app/wpit2025-qf
My next highlight of the #39c3 #fahrplan:
A super timely and important talk by Kate Sim about her work on children's rights online, and how the current child safety debates pitch children's rights and digital rights against each other in all the wrong ways while failing to provide any meaningful support to children and adults alike.
So much to learn from her work for all the policy debates currently brewing in the EU and Germany:
Sometimes I love SF so much my eyes get suspiciously watery:
The faith leaders, wearing religious garb from various denominations, had earlier stood in front of the courthouse doors, singing, “If you come for them, you’ll have to go through us.”
https://missionlocal.org/2025/12/faith-leaders-chain-immigration-court-san-francisco/
🚨 noyb has filed complaints against #TikTok and #Grindr. As it turns out, TikTok even tracks you while you're using other apps. For example, TikTok was able to track a person’s Grindr usage - which allows it to draw conclusions about his sexual orientation and sex life
👉 https://noyb.eu/en/tiktok-unlawfully-tracks-your-shopping-habits-and-your-use-dating-apps
"Domestic Terrorism": Leaked DOJ Memo Targets "Anti-Americanism, Anti-Capitalism, Anti-Christianity"
http://www.democracynow.org/2025/12/8/ken_klippenstein_fbi_domestic_terrorism_nspm7
Calls for Submissions for "Ⓐuslander:innen"
Tentatively titled "Ⓐuslander:innen" (German for "foreigners," literally "outlanders"), this next collection of texts will be a spiritual successor to our first zine "berlin, you've hurt me / another berlin is possible" and will continue to explore the themes of the (perceived-as) immigrant experiences anarchists in Berlin and the BRD.
While we have already addressed this topic, there is the feeling that since October 7th, there has been a shift within the Berlin radical scene where there is an increasingly perceptible rift between the white/German side and the "other" side: that of the immigrant, of the person-of-color, of the foreigner. Maybe it's the topic of Palestine/Israel that forces this split, or maybe it's something else like Ukraine/Russia/NATO, or even just something like how one should behave at a demo or conduct a meeting.
In many conversations over the past years, there have been many stories of feeling side-lined or othered, of having our knowledge and past experiences in our regions of origin treated as irrelevant and useless here in the BRD. Some people have felt themselves shift over time to be more "Germanized," but not integrated, rather molded to fit a German way of being, to fit the German disposition.
Submissions are open from November 1st to December 31st. For the full call and more detail information, see our submissions page at:
https://en.scrappycapydistro.info/submissions
I am not sure if everyone who is outraged by the insane rise in RAM pricing understands that this is solely because a billionaire bought 40% of all memory chip production. Not because he needs it, just to oust the competition. And the entire IT sector, and all private PC owners, have been taken prisoners in the process.
At the Turning of the Tide: How to Fight Our Way out of the Trump Era
https://crimethinc.com/TurningTide
A year into the second Trump era, authoritarians are in control of the federal government, but they have yet to gain control of society at large. They have done tremendous harm, but their assault has hit a plateau, if not yet an impasse. They have to project strength at all times precisely because they are not invincible. It is finally possible to imagine how we might not only defeat them but take advantage of the situation to make more profound changes than were thinkable before.
In this analysis, we revisit the structural forces behind Trump’s return to power, review the events of 2025, and propose a strategy for how to fight our way out of the Trump era together.
ah, you've asked AI to do it. now you have two problems
Tipping point: The chilling escalation of violence against women in the public sphere | UN Women https://www.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2025/12/tipping-point-the-chilling-escalation-of-violence-against-women-in-the-public-sphere-in-the-age-of-ai
@catileptic I have a similar experience and took similar counter measures earlier this year!
One thing I like about books is also that I’m “on rails”. I don’t have to think about where to go or what to do next, you can only read a book in a linear way.
https://ergaster.org/posts/2025/04/15-social-media-affect-me/
This year, I stopped consuming the feeds of Big Tech social media platforms. I still have my accounts, because a lot of activism & advocacy is organized & amplified there. My NGO is no exception (for now).
I still consume the Mastodon feed regularly.
As my overwhelm increased, I took breaks from short-form thoughts altogether, and read a few pages from a book when I needed to procrastinate or wind down.
Reading about the same subject, in long form, feels relaxing. A relief for the nerves.
@bendrath this amends the GDPR, right? would you be willing to share a bird's eye view of what changes, as per the regulation you led negotiations on? i see it comes into effect jan 1st.
this caught my eye especially in the context of writing about the Digital Omnibus, and the whole new set of "amendments" that are being proposed to GDPR. and by that i mean, the deregulation proposed.
My thoughts on social media bans everywhere is that if you're taking digital connections away from teens, you better make sure they have third spaces for physical connection, and give them options for transport that is not "parents drive us around" otherwise all you're creating is isolation.
And you may not need a social media ban if you start by preserving and creating those third spaces. #SocialMedia
New blogpost: "A proposed legislative amendment to attempt to compel VPN services providers to prevent anyone under 18 in the UK from using their VPNs"
> This new clause would require the Secretary of State to take action to promote and protect children’s wellbeing, and to further support child protective measures in the Online Safety Act, by prohibiting the provision to children in the United Kingdom of VPN services which can facilitate evasion of OSA age-gating processes.
Here we go... buckle up!
Best thread about people encountering wild life.
TIL that Kenyan workers have been used so much to train AI systems, that standard writing by Kenyan people is often flagged as AI generated while it is not (which means that they can get discriminated for jobs / exams etc)
https://marcusolang.substack.com/p/im-kenyan-i-dont-write-like-chatgpt
Edit: many people raised below that the article is talking about texts written in very classically trained English detected as AI generated, which is the case for many Kenyans. It is documented that many Kenyan workers have been hired to train LLMs, but I made an assumption that it was the reason for this detection while it may not be. Sorry about that, thanks for the feedback (and feel free to continue the discussion here)
