This is so fascinating that the factory lector was/is a thing

The practice of reading aloud has a long history, and the tradition still survives in Cuba as a hard-won right deeply embedded in cigar factory workers’ culture. (El Lector: A History of the Cigar Factory Reader – paywall)

This article has some intriguing historical photos, really worth a look:

https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/factory-lectors-1910/

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Yeah I’m not sure about that so I deleted the comment. But just try it out: install it and see what it shows you, and then work from that.

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I also read it as “left=left-wing” at first, but read closely: Here, “left” is the participle of “leave”, i.e. “the populists are left reeling” (and not “the populist left is reeling”).

Gut health is important and well worth talking about. Note, though, that the serotonin and dopamine produced there will never cross the blood–brain barrier, so the effects that the gut has on mental health (which are very real) come about differently.

Or in the words of Cory Doctorow:

Enter the tech-bro, app in hand. The tech-bro’s most absurd (and successful) ruse is “it’s not a crime, I did it with an app.” As in “it’s not money-laundering, I did it with an app.” Or “it’s not a privacy violation, I did it with an app.” Or “it’s not securities fraud, I did it with an app.” Or “it’s not price-gouging, I did it with an app,” or, importantly, "it’s not a labor-law violation, I did it with an app.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/12/18/loose-flapping-ends/

Apart from not being that interesting for now, the first line of defence for most is manually-approved sign ups, as far as I can tell.

When the Fediverse grows, I think that weeding out accounts that post slop will be the “easy” part; the hardest part will be to identify the silent bot accounts that do nothing but upvote.

And, most importantly, it’s about so much more than just the banners. For example:

(1) A new GDPR loophole via “pseudonyms” or “IDs”. The Commission proposes to significantly narrow the definition of “personal data” – which would result in the GDPR not applying to many companies in various sectors. For example, sectors that currently operate via “pseudonyms” or random ID numbers, such as data brokers or the advertising industry, would not be (fully) covered anymore. This would done by adding a “subjective approach” in the text of the GDPR.

Instead of having an objective definition of personal data (e.g. data that is linked to a directly or indirectly identifiable person), a subjective definition would mean that if a specific company claims that it cannot (yet) or does not aim to (currently) identify a person, the GDPR ceases to apply. Such a case-by-case decision is inherently more complex and everything but a “simplification”. It also means that data may be “personal” or not depending on the internal thinking of a company, or given the circumstances that they have at a current point. This can also make cooperation between companies more complex as some would fall under the GDPR and others not.

(2) Pulling personal data from your device? So far, Article 5(3) ePrivacy has protected users against remote access of data stored on “terminal equipment”, such as PCs or smartphones. This is based on the right to protection of communications under Article 7 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU and made sure that companies cannot “remotely search” devices.

The Commission now adds “white listed” processing operations for the access to terminal equipment, that would include “aggregated statistics” and “security purposes”. While the general direction of changes is understandable, the wording is extremely permissive and would also allow excessive “searches” on user devices for (tiny) security purposes.

(3) AI Training of Meta or Google with EU’s Personal Data? When Meta or LinkedIn started using social media data, it was widely unpopular. In a recent study for example only 7% of Germans say that they want Meta to use their personal data to train AI. Nevertheless, the Commission now wants to allow the use of highly personal data (like the content of 15+ years of a social media profile) for AI training by Big Tech.

“We’re getting rid of the cookie banners” and “removing overly rigid regulation” is apparently how this massive proposal is being framed now, but what it chiefly does is—of course—benefit giant corporations, do little if anything for smaller companies, and fuck over people’s privacy.

Licensing terms only govern the legal aspects, not social and moral aspects.

And not to forget: FUTO is evil.

Till Steffen is a German lawyer and politician of Alliance 90/The Greens who has been serving as a member of the German Bundestag since the 2021 elections, representing the Hamburg-Eimsbüttel district. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Till_Steffen)

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Keep organizing and slowly things will get better

Not to forget: FUTO is evil.

With permissive licenses, companies can co-opt the fruit of volunteer labour to build a proprietary fork. With sufficient resources, they can bring that fork to wide adoption, leading users and potential contributors away from the free ecosystem. This is why I vastly prefer copyleft licenses, either GPL 3.0 or AGPL 3.0, and preferentially AGPL, given how many things nowadays run as web services. Always remember: The GPL is what gave us OpenWrt.

Also in contributing, I strongly prefer projects under a copyleft license. That’s because of this:

People who contribute to the development of a program released with a permissive license must be aware that the program could become proprietary at any time. For example, when a company hires the original team of developers.

https://docs.codeberg.org/getting-started/licensing/#copyleft-vs.-permissive

Here’s why you’re getting enshittified: we deliberately decided to stop enforcing competition laws. As a result, companies formed monopolies and cartels. This means that they don’t have to worry about losing your business or labor to a competitor, because they don’t compete. It also means that they can handily capture their regulators, because they can easily agree on a set of policy priorities and use the billions they’ve amassed by not competing to capture their regulators. They can hold a whip hand over their formerly powerful tech workers, mass-firing them and terrorizing them out of any Tron-inspired conceits about “fighting for the user.” Finally, they can use IP law to shut down anyone who makes technology that disenshittifies their offerings.

You can take care to avoid enshittification, you can even make a fetish out of it, but without addressing these systemic failings, your individual actions will only get you so far. Sure, use privacy-enhancing tools like Signal to communicate with other people, but if the only way to get your kid to their little league game is to join the carpool group on Facebook, you’re going to hemorrhage data about everything you do to Meta.

https://pluralistic.net/2025/07/31/unsatisfying-answers/#systemic-problems

Today some 70% of Swedish workers are members of a trade union, and 90% are covered by a collective agreement.

Thank goodness America is spared all this Scandinavian negativity.

Sounds nice for security. Also, let’s leave GitHub, it’s part of Microsoft monopoly strategy.