Destroying Autocracy – October 09, 2025
Welcome to this week’s “Destroying Autocracy”.
It’s your source for curated news affecting democracy in the cyber arena with a focus on protecting it. That necessitates an opinionated Butlerian jihad against big tech as well as evangelizing for open-source and the Fediverse. Since big media’s journalism wing is flailing and failing in its core duty to democracy, this is also a collection of alternative reporting on the eternal battle between autocracy and democracy. We also cover the cybersecurity world. You can’t be free without safety and privacy.
DA comes out on Thursday and is updated through the end of day on Friday. Then we start over. So take your time in perusing it and check back in over the weekend.
FYI, my opinions will be in bold. And will often involve cursing. Because humans. Especially tech bros. And fascists. Fuck ’em.
The Programmer’s Fulcrum is the future (and smaller) home for a fusion of Symfony Station and Battalion. Its tagline is Devs Defending Democracy, Developing the OMN.
You can sign up now and for 2025 get an email with links to and featured articles for each week’s Symfony Station Communiqué and Battalion “Destroying Autocracy” post along with their featured articles. And you’ll be set with TPF after the fusing.
We are posting on the Fediverse now at @thefulcrum @thefulcrum.dev and original website content will start in 2026.
Featured Item(s)
Open Media Network writes:
A central thesis of Tolkien’s books is that evil provides the means of its own defeat. Sauron forged the One Ring that destroyed him. Shelob impaled herself on Sam’s blade. Smaug exposed his belly to Bilbo and revealed the weak point that brought him down. Tolkien’s world is full of this pattern: the seed of destruction lies buried inside the will to dominate. Power over others always carries its own undoing.
But there’s a second truth, less often spoken. Good must still act. The Ring did not cast itself into the fires of Mount Doom, it had to be carried, inch by inch, through the mud and terror, by two small Hobbits who refused to give up. Shelob could only fall because Sam held his arm firm when it would have been easier to drop the blade. Smaug was slain not by fate, but by the hand that fired the black arrow.
Even when evil weakens itself, the act of courage still has to be taken. The small people still have to step up. And there’s a third lesson here, one that feels painfully relevant to our time: good only loses when it surrenders to hopelessness. Denethor’s despair nearly doomed Minas Tirith.
Frodo would have fallen without Sam’s stubborn love. Bilbo’s small act of faith. In Tolkien’s world, hope is not naïve optimism, it’s an act of defiance.
A Tolkien view of OMN
Join us and become a hobbit in the Open Media Network.
Speaking of OMN, we have an announcement this week:
Announcing The Programmer’s Fulcrum, our retirement project
We start and end with good news to make the middle bearable.
The response to Russia’s War Crimes, Techno Feudalism, and other douchebaggery
The Kyiv Independent reports:
The military branch behind Ukraine’s battlefield apps turns to weapons bureaucracy
Ukraine’s parliament backs creation of cyber forces in first reading
The Christian Science Monitor reports:
How Ukrainian drones are slowing Russia’s advance in the east
The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports:
What Europe’s New Gig Work Law Means for Unions and Technology
Eiffair shares:
Kagi Love
Its FOSS News reports:
Wikidata Launches Free Vector Database as Open Alternative to Closed AI Systems
NiemanLab reports:
Nonprofit news is growing strong — especially local nonprofit news, a new report shows
And the Columbia Journalism Review reports:
Too Small to Mess With
Heisse reports:
A defeat at the Supreme Court: Google must prepare changes to the Play Store
Nextcloud has:
Nextcloud vs Microsoft interoperability: how open source gets it right
Open letter to EU Member States on the proposed CSA Regulation or “Chat Control” law
Tuta announces:
Europe’s future is at stake: Open letter against Chat Control
Patrick shares the good news that pressure still works:
Citizen Protest Halts Chat Control; Breyer Celebrates Major Victory for Digital Privacy
404 Media reports:
Data Hoarder Uses AI to Create Searchable Database of Epstein Files
Help Us Investigate Book Bans and Educational Censorship Around America
Burning Web shares:
Five Beliefs
Great Stuff.
Neutral
CyberCultural shares:
What the Internet Was Like in 2000
Homestar Runner 🙂
The Brookings Institute says:
We should all be Luddites
The Guardian reports:
Governments are spending billions on their own ‘sovereign’ AI technologies – is it a big waste of money?
Poynter announces:
Poynter launches AI Innovation Lab to house its growing AI portfolio
CommonsDB is:
Exploring CommonsDB’s role in AI training data
The Evil Empire (AKA Autocracy) Strikes Back
TechCrunch reports:
ICE bought vehicles equipped with fake cell towers to spy on phones
Italian businessman’s phone reportedly targeted with Paragon spyware
Pariah States
The Kyiv Independent reports:
Russia’s digital Iron Curtain descends as Kremlin chokes remaining internet freedoms
IFTAS reports:
Coordinated Pro-Russian Propaganda Network Targeting ActivityPub and ATProto Services
Bleeping Computer reports:
Russian Hacktivists target critical infrastructure, hit decoy plant
North Korean hackers stole over $2 billion in crypto this year
The Columbia Journalism Review reports on:
Israel’s Influencer Insiders
DarkReading reports:
Chinese Gov’t Fronts Trick the West to Obtain Cyber Tech
China-Nexus Actors Weaponize ‘Nezha’ Open Source Tool
The Register reports:
OpenAI bans suspected Chinese accounts using ChatGPT to plan surveillance
The Columbia Journalism Review reports:
How Anti-Cybercrime Laws Are Being Weaponized to Repress Journalism
Big Media
FAIR reports:
MAGA’s Little Helpers: Sinclair, Nexstar and the Consolidation of Broadcast TV
Poynter reports:
The leader of a major press association resigned after his board opposed a lawsuit defending journalists’ rights
Big Tech
404 Media reports:
Apple Banned an App That Simply Archived Videos of ICE Abuses
CNET reports:
The Hidden Dangers of the Digital ‘Yes Man’: How to Push Back Against Sycophantic AI
The Guardian has:
Way past its prime: how did Amazon get so rubbish?
LitHub has more Cory Doctorow action:
How American Tech Cartels Use Apps to Break the Law
Cybersecurity/Privacy
The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports:
Tile’s Lack of Encryption Is a Danger for Users Everywhere
Fediverse
Social Experience Design says:
Welcome to Social coding commons
Hamish Campbell has:
Live at c-base a #fluffy Fediverse conference
STAR WARS: The Soft Empire
Riley Testut reports:
Evolving AltStore PAL
Connected Places has:
Fediverse Report – 137
Fedify announces:
The Sovereign Tech Fund is investing €192,000 in Fedify’s development over 2025–2026 to strengthen the fediverse ecosystem
Fedify 2.0—the CLI now runs natively on Node.js and Bun, not just Deno
Go To Social announces:
We’ve just made the proper release of v0.20.0 of GoToSocial, aka Sinister Sloth
TechCrunch reports:
Alternative app store AltStore raises $6M, connects with the Fediverse
Mastodon is taking cues from Bluesky with plans for its own starter ‘Packs’
Mastodon has:
Community consultation: new Terms of Service (for mastodon.social and mastodon.online)
It’s cool to join Mastodon but not these two instances.
Our ideas about Packs
Trunk & Tidbits, September 2025
Terence Eden explores:
Getting started with Mastodon’s Quote Posts – technical implementation details for servers
NHAM announces:
NHAM Update Opus 10 (Fedi Music Television Edition)
Super awesome.
Castopod announces:
The Official Castopod Plugin Repository
RSS
InEssential explains:
Why NetNewsWire Is Not a Web App
Lighthouse has:
A deep dive into the rss feed reader landscape
Other Slightly Federated Social Media
Azhdarchid has:
Delusions of a protocol
TechCrunch reports:
Waffles eat Bluesky
Niko Mara-McKay goes into the nitty-gritty:
Bluesky’s CEO meltdown: How leadership continues to fail its most marginalized users
I have said from day one that Bluesky will become enshittified. But, ATProto has some potential.
And to be fair, some of the leaders of ActivityPub and its largest platform (who value growth over safety) are egotistical pissy ass fucks when they are even slightly criticized.
But we are all fighting technofascism so let’s try to work together on the protocols front at least. Its okay to have debates and disagreements with allies. But treat them like allies when doing so. If they are your friends you can even call them pissy ass fucks. 😉
Speaking of, A New Social announces:
Bounce from Mastodon to Bluesky
Why would you? Although maybe its works with Blacksky, Northsky, or Eurosky.
CTAs (aka show us some free love)
Keep fighting!
Ringleader, Battalion
Reuben Walker
Follow me on the Fediverse
#ActivityPub #AI #AltStore #ATProto #Autocracy #BigJournalism #BigTech #Bluesky #Castopod #Democracy #Fascism #Fediverse #fluffy #GoToSocial #IFTAS #Mastodon #NHAM #StopChina #StopIsrael #StopRedAmerica #StopRussia #SupportUkraine #TechnoAnarchism #TechnoFeudalism
https://battalion.mobileatom.net/?p=2587
