This is probably a much more efficient “mention of the fediverse” than if the journalist had started trying to explain that there is this federated network of independent social media sites bla bla bla.

The people reading this are looking for something they can understand. I expect naming Mastodon and leaving it to them to check it out will convert more people than if they started trying to explain what it is.

I’m a bit weirded out by all the attention given to w-social.eu by mainstream media, though. First of all it doesn’t exist yet, second we have no reason to believe it will actually be decent, third we have good reason to believe it won’t be.

The neat thing about algorithmic social media is that content relating to suicide and self-harm inspires a lot of interaction among teenagers, causing it to be shoved in their faces whether they search for it or not.

Suicidal teenagers are not searching for suicide material on Instagram; Instagram is feeding suicide material to regular teenagers for ad views.

They have been on Mastodon for many years already. As for why it takes so long to leave Twitter I guess it’s the same reason as everyone else - giving up on reaching the people there seems like a big loss to some.

Yeah, I think it’s reasonably run and invite-only now, so the ban should probably be lifted. @[email protected] , something to consider? :)

Yeah, they are looking for “early twitter”, without reflecting too much on why “early twitter” that they loved turned into what it is today. I think many are forgetting that it took a turn for the worse long before Musk bought it.

I would of course love to see ladybird succeed, but it has seemed problematic from the start in my opinion. Servo seems much more serious.

I also like that Servo is developing an engine, not a browser as such. Seems like a good idea to keep the two separated.

I can imagine he has access to crazy surveillance of them and their mothers.

I don’t fully understand this shit out of a lack of really caring, but wouldn’t it be fully possible for an “AI agent” to create a crypto wallet on its own, scam some people to get money into it, and then just lose access and have the money pretty much just lost?

And if that happens, where does the money go? Into crypto “stock” in whichever coin it invests in?

What a stupid future we’re building.

He does some good things and some bad things. Don’t fall for simplistic thinking where everything and everyone is either good or evil.

When fighting to tax the rich, Macron is not an ally. When fighting to regulate American big tech he can be an ally, and it would be stupid not to use him as such.

Gives me a nice flashback to this interaction, which caused me to be banned from [email protected] for the following (since deleted) comment, which I backed up with reliable sources in the part of the thread that remains online:

insufficient avenues for engagement beyond voting.

Funny what banning protests does to a country.

The reason given was that I “derailed the conversation”, though I’d argue the following discussion was extremely on-topic for a post about how young people in Germany “feel disillusioned with politics” and consider there to be “insufficient avenues for engagement”.

Funny what banning discussion does to an instance, I guess.

Oh well, /rant

It’s all about the marketing and nothing about the technology or company.

I opened google for the first time in months (years?) to check out the results for “best private browser”. Predictably, the AI overview confidently responds as follows:

The best private browsers in 2026 for enhancing online anonymity and blocking trackers are Tor Browser, Brave, and Mullvad Browser. For maximum privacy with high security, Tor is top, while Brave is best for daily, fast browsing. Mullvad is ideal for anti-fingerprinting, and LibreWolf offers excellent privacy for Firefox users.

I would be very surprised if Brave did not at least at some point sponsor content to position itself as privacy oriented. This hidden advertisement then bleeds into both AI and human armchair experts with no deeper understanding of the tech they’re commenting on. And so the myth that Brave has good privacy becomes self-enforcing.

Unrelated edit: Answering “why is firefox bad for privacy”, Google AI becomes oddly self-hating:

Firefox is often considered “bad” for privacy by privacy-conscious users because, despite its pro-privacy marketing,
it collects significant user data by default via telemetry, relies on Google as its default search engine, and has updated its privacy policy to allow broader use of user data. While superior to Chrome, its default settings are not “privacy-maximalist,” necessitating manual configuration.

Lügenpresse!

Oh no, they’re just genuinely concerned European companies won’t be able to be competitive and to put them out of business! Bless them.

Like, which idiot would even entertain the idea that google has our best interest in mind.

So you’re saying they should polish their text to make it more coherent? Huh.

You’re not going to find any other phone with better parts availability than the Fairphone, that’s for sure. You can check their store for parts yourself, for the oldest models there’s second hand. So it seems like an absurd argument. Software support is also longer than for any other manufacturer, though that doesn’t seem relevant to you.

Running windows games on Linux has gotten pretty easy with Valve’s investments. Waydroid is good, but in order for a lot of apps to work (typically banking an similar apps) one needs Google Play Services, which you wouldn’t want to install. MicroG is an open source alternative that fills some of the gap and is good enough for me, but it’s not 100%.

Another thing is map apps. There’s sadly nothing yet that can quite compete with Google maps if you just want to see the best Chinese restaurants in your area and get some pictures and user reviews to make your mind up. It’s the only Google service I haven’t managed to let completely go of.

I think Linux phones are something for enthusiasts still. If you found Graphene to have rough edges it’s not going to be much better in the world of Linux phones.

Android apps can run through a compatibility layer called Waydroid. Allegedly it works pretty well, but it’s not super convenient.

Personally I put my bets on a Fairphone 5. It’s currently running /e/OS, which is a French open source degoogle Android. Open source development for the Fairphone 5 is very active. If I were to install something closer to proper Linux on it now I would go for Ubuntu Touch (which uses the kernel from Android rather than mainline), but it seems like it’s also moving quickly towards supporting mainline Linux and PostmarketOS in a good way.

The phone should last a while as it’s repairable, and if they’re not ready for Linux phones it makes it easy to install /e/OS to get back to degoogled Android. And it has a large community of users/developers. So I think it’s a good option.

Then again, if the goal is a fully FOSS phone for casual users it’s possible waiting a little longer is not the worst idea.

Here! -> [email protected]

As a European, half time shows generally seem overproduced and kinda shit. Like Eurovision without the ironic distance, but with more corporate sponsors.

Bad Bunny was just genuinely great. Never listened to any of his work before, but what a show.

If hearing someone singing a language you don’t understand makes you feel insecure… Well, yeah, maybe you should be a little more exposed to other languages.

US Americans have no excuse for continuing to cling to their ignorance. It has gone far past the point where it’s obvious how dangerous it is.

Jeg er drittlei de forente stater.

But the evangelical Christians want the Jews to trigger the rapture by fighting the final huge war in israel, and I imagine the antisemites are also fine with the Jews all being sent away to israel for then to be sent off to fight a senseless war to their deaths.

Somehow they managed to start off from different angles and both end up wanting Jews to die.