Destroying Autocracy – May 22, 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.

Featured Item(s)

Hamish Campbell writes:

We need to keep highlighting an old but still urgent tension: the intersection of technology and social change. In this too often unspoken divide, one side leans heavily on practical, technical problem-solving. They want working code, functioning systems, and tangible results, not abstract debates. To them, critiques about capitalism shaping code sound like distractions from the “real work.”

The other side insists that technical problems are social problems. They argue that all code is written by people, shaped by culture, power, and history. Ignoring the social dynamics behind technology guarantees we repeat the same failures.

The Open Media Network isn’t just about media, it’s about building the social soil

We start and end with good news to make the middle bearable.

The response to Russia’s War Crimes, TechnoFeudalism, and other douchebaggery

The European Council of the European Union reports:

Russian hybrid threats: EU lists further 21 individuals and 6 entities and introduces sectoral measures in response to destabilising activities against the EU, its member states and international partners

Wired reports:

/e/OS Is Better Than Android. You Should Try It

You really should. I love it on my Fairphone.

Tuta shows us:

Best private Google alternatives: The ultimate list to De-Google your life in 2025.

Bert Hubert shares:

What we in the open world are messing up in trying to compete with big tech

Lionel Dricot has a:

Petit manifeste low-tech

The Center for Democracy and Technology reports:

OMB’s Revised AI Memos Exemplify Bipartisan Consensus on AI Governance Ideals, But Serious Questions Remain About Implementation

CDT Advocates for Counter-Drone Authorities that Protect Civil Liberties

EuroNews reports:

EU to provide €5.5 million in emergency funds to help keep Radio Free Europe afloat

BleepingComputer reports:

European Union sanctions Stark Industries for enabling cyberattacks

US indicts leader of Qakbot botnet linked to ransomware attacks

TechCrunch reports:

Fortnite returns to the US App Store after a five-year gap

Signal says:

By Default, Signal Doesn’t Recall

The Evil Empire Strikes Back

Micah Flee reports:

DDoSecrets publishes 410 GB of heap dumps, hacked from TeleMessage’s archive server

TeleMessage customers include DC Police, Andreessen Horowitz, JP Morgan, and hundreds more

Tech Policy reports:

Proposed Moratorium on US State AI Laws is Short-Sighted and Ill-Conceived

Pariah States

EuroNews reports:

Poland’s Tusk says Russian hackers attacked party websites ahead of presidential election

The Register reports:

Russia’s Fancy Bear swipes a paw at logistics, transport orgs’ email servers

The Kyiv Independent reports:

UK accuses Russian GRU of carrying out cyberattacks targeting logistics, technology organizations

BleepingComputer reports:

Russian hackers breach orgs to track aid routes to Ukraine

Chinese hackers breach US local governments using Cityworks zero-day

DarkReading reports:

Pandas Galore: Chinese Hackers Boost Attacks in Latin America

AP reports:

Microsoft says it provided AI to Israeli military for war but denies use to harm people in Gaza

Big Media

404 Media reports:

Viral AI-Generated Summer Guide Printed by Chicago Sun-Times Was Made by Magazine Giant Hearst

Calmatters reports:

Google follows Newsom in reducing support for California local news

Big Tech

Bloomberg reports:

Google Decided Against Offering Publishers Options in AI Search

MIT Technology Review reports:

By putting AI into everything, Google wants to make it invisible

The Guardian asks:

Can the term ‘cloud fascism’ help us understand – and resist – the hard right?

It can’t hurt, but if you want to take action that will resist it, read our Manifesto via the link in the navigation.

Runbox reports:

Outlook stores email in Microsoft Cloud – what you need to know

TechCrunch reports:

Judge pressures Apple to approve Fortnite or return to court

Grok says it’s ‘skeptical’ about Holocaust death toll, then blames ‘programming error’

404 Media reports:

‘Configuration Issue’ Allows Civitai Users to AI Generate Nonconsensual Porn Videos

Ars Technica reports:

Meta hypes AI friends as social media’s future, but users want real connections

Renée DiResta has:

We’re all trying to find the guy who did this

The Register reports:

‘Close to impossible’ for Europe to escape clutches of US hyperscalers

Discouraging, but you can always do something locally.

Terror

404 Media reports:

Student Makes Tool That Identifies ‘Radicals’ on Reddit, Deploys AI Bots to Engage With Them

Cybersecurity/Privacy

404 Media reports:

Telegram Gave Authorities Data on More than 20,000 Users

Reuters reports:

Exclusive: Hacker who breached communications app used by Trump aide stole data from across US government

So-called newspaper, The Washington Post reports:

Police secretly monitored New Orleans with facial recognition cameras

The Register reports:

CISA has a new No. 2 … but still no official top dog

On a more encouraging note, It reports:

FBI, Microsoft, international cops bust Lumma infostealer service

The Internet Society reports:

Encryption Under Threat: The UK’s Backdoor Mandate and Its Impact on Online Safety

Fediverse

The Fediverse Report has:

Fediverse Report – #117

Decentralisation as a shifting mental framework

Ben Wermuller says:

Let’s fund the open social web

IFTAS examines:

Take It Down Act 2025 (USA)

A New Social announces:

Bridgy Fed Config & Patreon

Ghost has:

Moderation preferences

Magic Pages has:

Social Web/Activity Pub Beta

TechCrunch reports:

Open social web browser Surf makes it easier for anyone to build custom feeds

Other Slightly Federated Social Media

The Fediverse Report has:

Bluesky Report – #117

Leaflet Lab announces:

We’re making a social publishing platform built on Bluesky

Kind of like Ghost with ActivityPub.

CTAs (aka show us some free love)

• That’s it for this week. Please share this edition of Destroying Autocracy.
• Follow me on the Fediverse. Or this site via the button in the footer. Or via RSS.

Keep fighting!

Ringleader, Battalion
Reuben Walker
Follow me on the Fediverse

#117 #ActivityPub #AI #ATProtocol #Autocracy #BigJournalism #BigTech #Bluesky #Democracy #Fascism #Fediverse #Ghost #Mastodon #StopChina #StopRedAmerica #StopRussia #SupportUkraine

https://battalion.mobileatom.net/?p=1859

Destroying Autocracy – May 15, 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.

Featured Item(s)

Cory Doctorow has:

Who Broke the Internet? Part II

It’s not who you think.

We start and end with good news to make the middle bearable.

The response to Russia’s War Crimes, TechnoFeudalism, and other douchebaggery

The Verge reports:

Pope Leo XIV names AI one of the reasons for his papal name

Tech Policy has:

Europe’s Digital Sovereignty is a Democratic Imperative

Building the Eurostack: Can Open-Source Save Europe’s Tech Future?

The Irish Council for Civil Liberties has:

EU ruling: tracking-based advertising by Google, Microsoft, Amazon, X, across Europe has no legal basis

Call on European Parliament to push for data enforcement to defend democracy

EuroNews reports:

Dutch competition agency launches two probes under EU Digital Markets Act

The Register reports:

Europe plots escape hatch from the enshittification of search

The ‘End of 10’ is nigh, but don’t bury your PC just yet

Wired reports:

North Korean IT Workers Are Being Exposed on a Massive Scale

Neutral

The Free Software Foundation Europe shares:

Legal Corner: The threshold of originality for copyrightable source code

Government Techology asks:

Does the Federal Government Have a Right to States’ Data?

The Evil Empire Strikes Back

The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports:

The FCC Must Reject Efforts to Lock Up Public Airwaves

IRS-ICE Immigrant Data Sharing Agreement Betrays Data Privacy and Taxpayers’ Trust

404 Media reports:

License Plate Reader Company Flock Is Building a Massive People Lookup Tool, Leak Shows

TechCrunch reports:

FTC delays enforcement of click-to-cancel rule

White House scraps plan to block data brokers from selling Americans’ sensitive data

The Verge reports:

Elon Musk’s apparent power play at the Copyright Office completely backfired

Propublica reports:

The Trump Administration Leaned on African Countries. The Goal: Get Business for Elon Musk.

It’s not just Africa either.

Pariah States

TechCrunch reports:

Five things we learned from WhatsApp vs. NSO Group spyware lawsuit

The Kyiv Independent reports:

Poland detects foreign-funded election ads amid fears of Russian interference

BleepingComputer reports:

Moldova arrests suspect linked to DoppelPaymer ransomware attacks

DarkReading reports:

North Korea’s TA406 Targets Ukraine for Intel

Turkish APT Exploits Chat App Zero-Day to Spy on Iraqi Kurds

Big Media

So-called newspaper, The New York Times reports:

A Free People Need a Free Press

No shit, fuckers. Why have you been laying down on the job the last few years?

EuroNews reports:

UK to allow foreign states to own 15% stake in British newspapers

Big Tech

Privacy Guides shares:

Sam Altman Wants Your Eyeball

The Register reports:

Nextcloud cries foul over Google Play Store app rejection

Meta’s still violating GDPR rules with latest plan to train AI on EU user data, says noyb

ArsTechnica reports:

Meta is making users who opted out of AI training opt out again, watchdog says

Report: Terrorists seem to be paying X to generate propaganda with Grok

Jesus.

404 Media has:

Why Did Grok Start Talking About ‘White Genocide’?

Fuck me.

ArsTechnica reports:

Report: Terrorists seem to be paying X to generate propaganda with Grok

Jesus.

404 Media has:

Why Did Grok Start Talking About ‘White Genocide’?

Fuck me.

Tech Policy reports:

Racialized Grooming Gangs: How Musk and X Amplified Islamophobia and Racism in the UK

Cybersecurity/Privacy

MIT Technology Review reports on:

How a new type of AI is helping police skirt facial recognition bans

The Register reports:

Feds disrupt proxy-for-hire botnet, indict four alleged net miscreants

You think ransomware is bad now? Wait until it infects CPUs

As US vuln-tracking falters, EU enters with its own security bug database

Martin Fowler.com has:

Coding Assistants Threaten the Software Supply Chain

AI is still 95% horseshit.

W3C announces:

Privacy Principles is a W3C Statement

Fediverse

The Fediverse Report has:

Fediverse Report – #116

Hamish Campbell opines:

We do need tools to share to help people on the path back onto the #openweb

The Library of Alexandra says:

Moderating Communities is Not a Burden

It just seems to be for tech bros.

Dead Superheron shares:

My Dream Fediverse Platform

We Distribute reports:

Mastodon: Giving Journalists Options Away From Big Tech

ActivityPub for WordPress has:

5.9.0 – Easier Onboarding for Your Fediverse Experience

Ghost has:

Blocking domains

Sciety announces:

Sciety secures funding from NLNet Foundation to help build discourse around preprints

Lemmy has:

Lemmy Development Update April 2025

TechCrunch reports:

Threads now lets creators add up to 5 links to profiles, track clicks

More enshittification from the c^nts at Meta.

Other Slightly Federated Social Media

The Fediverse Report has:

Taking Control of Your Timeline – in Different Ways

ATmosphere Report – #116

Free Our Feeds shares:

Free Our Feeds – Update #2, May 2025

Bluesky gives an update on:

Network Account Management

The Dabbler has:

I updated my Bluesky PDS and it stopped working. Here’s how I fixed it.

CTAs (aka show us some free love)

• That’s it for this week. Please share this edition of Destroying Autocracy.
• Follow me on the Fediverse. Or this site via the button in the footer. Or via RSS.

Keep fighting!

Ringleader, Battalion
Reuben Walker
Follow me on the Fediverse

#116 #2 #ActivityPub #AI #ATProtocol #Autocracy #BigJournalism #BigTech #Bluesky #Bonfire #Democracy #Fascism #Fediverse #Ghost #Lemmy #Mastodon #openweb #StopChina #StopRedAmerica #StopRussia #SupportUkraine #WordPress

https://battalion.mobileatom.net/?p=1822