#Tag
this is why we don't have healthcare, amtrak, school lunch, etc.
in southern california it is very palpable that money has been stolen from us expressly to brutalize other people
https://www.cnn.com/2026/10/21/politics/heat-ray-weapon-dhs-pentagon
this is why we don't have healthcare, amtrak, school lunch, etc.
in southern california it is very palpable that money has been stolen from us expressly to brutalize other people
https://www.cnn.com/2026/10/21/politics/heat-ray-weapon-dhs-pentagon
RE: https://indieweb.social/@tchambers/117468134697550198
Yep. I don't agree with @tchambers on everything but when he's right he's right. Four good bullet points from Tim and @WillRobinson, important for any organizing that's fighting fascism and/or the surveillance-industrial complex:
Build the channels nobody can switch off. (Although, Substack's just as fascist-friendly as Meta, so I wouldn't count on them.)
Stand up accounts on open platforms. Damn right. (More thoughts about the #fediverse and the #ATmosphere in a reply)
Warn your people before it happens. "One message, now, while nothing is wrong: here is where to find us if we disappear. Bookmark this. Subscribe here. Follow us there. Nobody routes around an outage they were never told about, and a crisis is the worst time to teach a new habit."
Write the playbook before you need it.
And it's not just here in the US where it matters. Meta has intervened even more blatantly -- and repeatedly -- in the Brazilian election, and you can probably guess who they're favoring. (Hint: not Lula!). They also intervened against protestors in Albania, and I've heard reports of cockroaches (complimentary) in India getting censored as well. So it's good policy no matter where you are!
EDIT: Also keep an eye on France, via @JulianOliver. We haven't seen reports yet of Meta meddling here but I'll bet dollars to donuts they are.
Custom feeds in the ATmosphere -- Blacksky, Bluesky, etc -- provide some good options for routing around these problems. I've been looking at things from an election defense perspective, with a focus on disinfo-resistance, because we clearly can't rely on Meta et al to be giving us accurate information ... and there are definite possibilities. More about that soon,.
But what about the #fediverse?
Right now, it's not at all clear how to stay informed about the US midterm elections here.
The #uspol hashtag doesn't have a lot of news.
I haven't found any great Lemmy or Piefed communities.
And that's me speaking as a long-time fedi user, imagine how hard it is for a newcomer to find things! Over the weekend I posted asking if folks had suggestions on this front and ... crickets.
https://gotosocial.thenexus.today/@thenexusofprivacy/statuses/01M56VBN03EPS6HQ3Y2BR9KZNC
Which on the one hand makes sense: fedi's very international, and even in the US a lot of people are in fedi because they want a refuge where they're not constantly bombarded with news about politics. Which is completely valid, and some of the replies to the thread discuss how to keep midterm discussions from overwhelming everything else (as US-based stuff frequently does).
But on the other hand ... there's a real need here, in the US and other countries, and it's a real shame that right now the only good alternative is the ATmosphere. So, it's worth thinking about what if anything we can be doing here.
There's going to be a lot happening over the next few months: voter suppression and disinformation in the push towards Election Day, challenges to election results, potentially mass mobilization if red lines are crossed. Mark F--ing Zuckerberg and Apartheid Clyde are going to promote disinformation and hate (because it makes them a lot of money, and because it helps the fascists) and reduce visibility of any information that challenges the regime. It's a mistake to rely on them for news in a time like this, and let's hope that more and more people realize that and decide to do something about it.
Suppose people show up in fedi looking for an alternative for an alternative to Meta and other centralized social networks for following the news about the 2026 US midterms. What advice to give them -- hashtags, Lemmy and Piefed communities, accounts to follow, and so on?
Then again, a lot of people don't want to hear discussions of the US midterms, or maybe don't mind a few posts but don't want it to take over their feeds. So if a lot of people suddenly show up because they can't talk about the midterms on Meta and want to talk about it here ... it's easy to imagine this leading to all kinds of culture clashes.
One way to minimize the tensions is to make sure that newcomers hear that it's generally appreciated if they mark US political posts with the #uspol hashtag (to make it easy for people who don't want to see any of this to filter it out) and include a content warning so that the contents aren't in people's faces.
What else can be done to make life easier for people who want to avoid, or at least limit their exposure to these discussions?
... in the middle of 3000 events happening around the country. Meta says it was an automated system triggered by a lot of activity and they made the wrong call by not overriding it.
Then again Meta has admitted that they hindered Lula's accounts in multiple ways in the first round of the Brazilian presidential election last month so at the very least there's pattern of "non-political" "mistakes" happening. And it took four hours to restore access so even if Meta is telling the truth it's a big red flag that pro-democracy forces need to be thinking about contingency plans in case other accidents affect other accounts with high levels of activity.
So hopefully a bunch of people who currently get or share most of their political news on Insta, FB, or Threads are going to start looking for alternatives, at least as backup plans if more and more of these incidents keep happening.
https://social.growyourown.services/@FediFollows/117458528264806859
There's going to be a lot happening over the next few months: voter suppression and disinformation in the push towards Election Day, challenges to election results, potentially mass mobilization if red lines are crossed. Mark F--ing Zuckerberg and Apartheid Clyde are going to promote disinformation and hate (because it makes them a lot of money, and because it helps the fascists) and reduce visibility of any information that challenges the regime. It's a mistake to rely on them for news in a time like this, and let's hope that more and more people realize that and decide to do something about it.
Suppose people show up in fedi looking for an alternative for an alternative to Meta and other centralized social networks for following the news about the 2026 US midterms. What advice to give them -- hashtags, Lemmy and Piefed communities, accounts to follow, and so on?
A (potentially-temporary) instance for playing with Bonfire.
