Russia: Centralized in Practice

Officially a federation: Has "federal subjects" like republics and oblasts with their own constitutions.

But... power is very centralized: The Kremlin (central government) heavily controls most political and economic decisions.

Autonomy often symbolic: Regions have limited ability to go against central policies.

Strongman politics: Central authority overrides local decisions if needed.

Spirit of Federalism?
Weak in practice. Centralized control dominates despite federal structure.

#RussianFederalism #KremlinControl #Centralization #PutinPolitics #AuthoritarianRule #FederalFacade #PoliticalScience #ComparativePolitics #AutonomyMyth #PowerCentralization #RussiaUkraineWar #Geopolitics #ConstitutionalFarce #StateSovereignty #OligarchRule #Decentralization #PoliticalHypocrisy #StrongmanPolitics #RegimeTypes #EurasianPolitics

https://youtu.be/6kPHnl-RsVI

#AI #ArtificialIntelligence #centralization #dystopia #corporate #surveillance #SurveillanceState #SurveillanceCapitalism #OpenSource #decentralization #chaos #anarchy #fraud #scam #scams #inequality #graphics #data #DataViz

Case in point.

https://infosec.exchange/@mttaggart/114377022074485833

#Bluesky #Decentralization #Centralization #Mastodon #ActivityPub #ATProto #ATProtocol #Fediverse #Federation

O, Irony.... :((

@internetarchive

#Accessibility #Centralization #FuckOffGoogle #LoveTheArchive #UblockOrigin

#TimWu: "…more important than #thedeal itself is the approach. It hints at a new era in economic policy for the United States that is centered on a paramount leader (Mr. #Trump) actively picking winners and losers. To be sure, the federal government, usually by way of Congress, has previously practiced #industrialpolicy. But the #centralization of policy in the president would be something different: more like a command economy, which in the United States might be called #commandcapitalism."

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/29/opinion/trump-economy-tiktok.html?unlocked_article_code=1.-U4.vrmF.tbkN05c9Jcl-&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

Today I got into a heated debate about #centralization and #capitalism with a good friend of mine which is an industrial engineer. As you can imagine, as an industrial engineer he was praising centralization and how it's better for the economy, and I as a software engineer was debating how everything should be moving to a sustainable degree of #decentralization, and how the world is moving toward this as people are getting weary of injustice and monopoly.

As successful examples of decentralization, I named some crypto currencies and their ecosystem, #mastodon, #lemmy, #matrix, and explained to him how everything isn't about the economy and more money, that a more fair and sustainably decentralized world will lead to higher mean wealth and better lives.

He understood my points and I think I convinced him on the benefits of decentralization which felt good.

But "sustainable decentralization" is the keyword here. We should think quantumly on a spectrum between centralization and decentralization.

Strangling Democracy

Trump is attempting to “bring everything crashing down” through deep budget cuts, the #centralization of federal decision-making. Trump fancied himself as a lollapalooza leader, a guide, a god, a #redeemer who never, ever loses battles. He stood, and will stand yet again, for government by nepotism: not procedural rules that ensure fair play, but personal channels—self-styled #machismo against foes at home and abroad.

https://thebulletin.org/premium/2024-09/how-demagogues-destroy-democracy-a-step-by-step-global-guide/

Strangling Democracy

Trump is attempting to “bring everything crashing down” through deep budget cuts, the #centralization of federal decision-making. Trump fancied himself as a lollapalooza leader, a guide, a god, a #redeemer who never, ever loses battles. He stood, and will stand yet again, for government by nepotism: not procedural rules that ensure fair play, but personal channels—self-styled #machismo against foes at home and abroad.

https://thebulletin.org/premium/2024-09/how-demagogues-destroy-democracy-a-step-by-step-global-guide/

#ActivityPub & #ATProto

https://thelibre.news/why-i-recommend-against-bluesky/

#centralization #centralized #decentralization #decentralized #federation #federated #Fediverse #SocialMedia #SocialWeb #Mastodon #Bluesky #Bsky

@pixelcode @taylan Your nonchalant "So what?" gets people publicly murdered by the state in many juristictions...

• Which is why there is no substitute to teaching proper #TechLiteracy ffs!

If things were so easy as in "JuSt UsE sIgNaL!" then @signalapp would be shut down.

• Or do you really think that in a world where multi-year long sting ops like #ANØM / #OperationIronside / #OperationTrøjanShield get greenlit that @Mer__edith would risk dying of old age in jail for non-paying users?

If you do think so then you should really get some professional help, cuz you seem rather lost...

• #Signal doesn't even bother to have an #OnionService, much less to provide means to use their service without self-doxxing with a #PhoneNumber, which at best is pseudonymous and requires money to attain and maintain...

It's #centralization is an absolute nightmare and mist be deemed as criminally neglectful!

@pixelcode @taylan @signalapp the #centralization, espechally without means to hide it's traffic via @torproject / #Tor makes it trivial to detect and track @signalapp / #Signal users.

• Add to that the fact that Signal has #PhoneNumbers = #PII on them and the fact they are incorporated in the #USA, thus subject to #CloudAct and it's not a matter if they snitch on users but how many thousands if not millions got subopena'd to this day.

And with no self-custody of keys it's trivial to #Room641A the users if the devs get "motivated" under threat of spending the rest of theor lives in jail.

https://www.alojapan.com/1226238/temporal-changes-in-regional-variations-in-cancer-survival-rates-in-osaka-japan-1997-2015/ Temporal changes in regional variations in cancer survival rates in Osaka, Japan (1997–2015) #CancerEpidemiology #Centralization #Decentralization #Epidemiology #HumanitiesAndSocialSciences #MedicalResearch #multidisciplinary #Osaka #OsakaTopics #PopulationBasedStudy #RegionalVariationInSurvivalRate #science #StandardizedSurvival #大阪 #大阪府 Data source In this retrospective observational cohort study, we used data from the Osaka Cancer Registry…

#Somalia #WestAfrica #calls #Centralization #challenges #Mogadishus #Northeastern #reform #state #Somalia #West Africa Northeastern State Challenges Mogadishu's Centralization, Calls for Reform
https://tinyurl.com/2yukbaaa

werd.io/2025/the-web... #internet #power #wealth #socialmedia #centralization #decentralization

The web was always about redis...

Federated #SocialMedia requires #federated #services, too.

There is a discomforting trend to undermine the #Fediverse by introducing high-level #API​s that foster irreversible #centralization, and enable #surveillance and #censorship.

APIs for supporting the ingestion process of external search engines, inevitably leading to centralization: There's only so many search engines a Fediverse server admin is willing to feed, and much fewer even that people are willing to use. And with inevitable centralization comes frustration: neither admins nor people have choice.

APIs for "moderation as a service" that help submit all media to external actors, in the very same hash-and-match way that is one of the battlegrounds of the #ChatControl assault on privacy (and has always been, for those who can remember the #UploadFilters debate).

And it's always "only an API". That can be implemented by "whoever wants to". That is targeting "only the #FourHorsemenOfTheInfocalypse", never any legitimate posts. That is "innocent" of its glaringly apparent potential for abuse, and the course it sets, ignoring the history of the net. That you just misunderstood, or didn't look closely enough at.

And, that does not suggest or even mandate any kind of federation between its implementations.

Essentially, these APIs are an order, a call to surrender: Acknowledge the inferiority of federated systems – resistance is futile, you will be assimilated.

#nonmention

"The stated rationale for this centralization was to eliminate unnecessary duplication, inconsistency, and costs in systems, processes, policies, contracts, and services across these functions.

The committee understands and accepts this rationale. However, the committee heard on numerous occasions from personnel at various centers that this centralization had actually reduced efficiency, with suggested values of reduction in the 20–30 percent range.

This can be seen as an unintended but significant consequence of the centralization initiative."

#NASA #gcdigital #centralization

https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/27519/nasa-at-a-crossroads-maintaining-workforce-infrastructure-and-technology-preeminence

The right context to see everything through is the struggle between #centralization and #decentralization 👑

The reason we don't have many #kings or #dictators anymore is because centralized rule is inefficient, unstable and unprofitable for everyone 🌏

@Avitus @Willow @signalapp wrong, #MobileCoin still exists, it's just mostly focused on being run by a #PaymentProcessor in #Nigeria...

#ScamAlert

• Also the #centralization of #Signal and it being subject to #CloudAct makes it a horrible choice when the #USA is being ruled by an unhinged #Christofacist and his #Cyberfacist #TechBro!

@jbowen @mortn @kyleirl @spycrab @shipwreckt personally, @simplex sufferd the same #Centralization problem but AFAIK doesn't demand #PII for signups.

• Granted I'd still revommend #XMPP+#OMEMO instead because it's waxbmore supported and mature.