Journalists, editors: One small thing you can do to push back on this criminal regime is use the Department of Defense's actual name, not the sham name the fascists made up outside the law. And that includes the actual title of Pete Hegseth's job, not the one he made up for himself. Until Congress decides those are the proper titles in the law, the made up fascist names should not be promulgated by U.S. news rooms. #journalism #media

p.s. I noticed a story from ABC News did this yesterday and I was glad to see it.

Head's up, Mastodon users: There appears to be a coordinated effort to impersonate relatively high-profile people who have accounts on various instances but who have not used them in a while.

I've gotten several follow notifications - and a couple of DMs - from impersonators of people I know. The bogus accounts have lots of underscores in the handles, and they repost items from the past, sometimes years old. If you spot this, please report, do not engage, and then block.

Pls boost.

Everybody is (understandably) very excited that Anthropic isn't selling their AI for Hegseth to use to automate his war crimes. But I would gently suggest that we not accept setting the bar quite so low. https://www.anildash.com/2026/02/27/a-cookie-for-dario/

@crichton007 thank you

@crichton007 it’s a bot bot not a Bott bot.

If you ever want to confirm that I am who I appear to be, just check my profile. It will have a green checkmark for my personal domain, edbott dot com. If you don't see that, it's a fake.

Oh look! The asshole trying to impersonate me has created another profile, this time with TWO underscores! Obviously a technically sophisticated troll.

Anyway, please report and block @Ed_Bott_ and I thank you in advance.

I've done a deep dive on Windows telemetry. Spoiler: There's one switch you probably want to turn off.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-spying-windows-telemetry/

RE: https://mastodon.social/@edbott/116115174857655438

Ah, good. The account has been suspended,

Thanks to everyone who contributed to reporting and blocking this loser.

@gainfullydozy I mean, it’s stupid all the way down, like Wile E. Coyote crashing down a canyon wall.

@msh That account is not suspended yet.

And those weren't random boosts, they were basically using them to create a mirror of my feed so that, again, it looks legit if someone scrolls through it quickly.

@msh I know at least one person who received a private message.

Those random boosts are to make the profile look legit if someone just quickly scrolls through the feed.

It's not a bot.

RE: https://flipboard.social/@newsguyusa/116115070748764416

This would be hilarious if it were not so mind-blowingly stupid.

At least it doesn't have the WTF level of the "FAA closes El Paso airspace, then reverses itself the next day" incident from a few weeks ago.

Anyway, I miss having a competent government.

If you receive what appears to be a private message from me, it's not. Someone decided to create a fake account under the name @Ed_Bott and even used my profile picture. I assume there's a scam involved eventually.

Please do me a favor and block and report that account. Thanks!

If you get a private message that appears to be from me, it’s not. Some asshole has created a fake account using my name and picture. Please report and block @Ed_Bott to help the moderators see this is a fake.

Check the creation date on that account to see that it was created yesterday.

@donhawkins that’s not plastic /s

@bruce I dunno. It was a bit of reputation washing when he bought it back in 2013. And it was theoretically a money-maker with some investment. But then he got divorced and found a new toy and lost interest in his journalism toy. And then it became a liability in Trump 2.

@oneiros about nine months

Jeff Bezos could literally have subsidized the Washington Post for 20 years at a TOTAL cost of a fraction of 1 percent of his net worth.

Instead he put 300 professionals out of work and destroyed the institution that inspired me and a lot of others to become journalists.

Anyway, fuck that guy.

@NoRomBasic @meganL freetaxusa.com has no income limits