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.
The Programmer’s Fulcrum is the future (and smaller) home for a fusion of Symfony Station and Battalion. Its tagline is Devs Defending Democracy, Developing the OMN.
You can sign up now and for 2025 get an email with links to and featured articles for each week’s Symfony Station Communiqué and Battalion “Destroying Autocracy” post along with their featured articles. And you’ll be set with TPF after the fusing.
Featured Item
Bogdan (the man) the Geek shares:
Hosting a Website on a Disposable Vape
Well motherfuck. 🤯 That’s anarchic as hell. 😈
We start and end with good news to make the middle bearable.
The response to Russia’s War Crimes, Techno Feudalism, and other douchebaggery
The Kyiv Independent reports:
Ukrainian ‘cyber revenge’ hack disrupts Russian election systems, HUR source claims
Ukraine tests new kamikaze drones resistant to Russian jamming
El Pais reports:
xWiki reports:
Europe’s digital sovereignty blueprint: from dependency to autonomy
Open_Future reports:
How data center expansion risks derailing climate goals and what to do about it
The Torment Nexus reports:
On Nepal’s Discord election and social-media driven uprisings
Ethan Marcotte shares:
Against the protection of stocking frames.
This regards viewing AI as the failed technology that it is.
Neutral
TechCrunch reports:
California lawmakers pass AI safety bill SB 53 — but Newsom could still veto
MIT Technology Review reports:
The looming crackdown on AI companionship
Gothamist reports:
TikTok, Instagram may request selfie to verify age under proposed NY rules
The Evil Empire (AKA Autocracy) Strikes Back
Break Through News reports:
Meet Flock: The Surveillance Company Building America’s ‘Authoritarian Tracking Infrastructure’
TechCrunch reports:
Here’s the tech powering ICE’s deportation crackdown
The Register reports:
Trump backpedals as Hyundai factory ICE raid enrages South Korea
The incompetent left hand doesn’t know what the asshole right hand is doing because the c^nt skull between them is empty.
UK Lords take aim at Ofcom’s ‘child-protection’ upgrades to Online Safety Act
Maybe they can unfuck it.
404 Media reports:
DOJ Deletes Study Showing Domestic Terrorists Are Most Often Right Wing
Sigh.
Forbes reports:
ICE Just Spent Millions On Surveillance Tech Banned By Facebook
Ars Technica reports:
FCC derided as “Federal Censorship Commission” after pushing Jimmy Kimmel off ABC
TechDirt reports:
TikTok To Be Sold To Trump’s Right Wing Billionaire Buddies And Converted Into A Propaganda Mill
Pariah States
The Register reports:
Nork snoops whip up fake South Korean military ID with help from ChatGPT
Ars Technica reports:
Two of the Kremlin’s most active hack groups are collaborating, ESET says
Inter SecLab shares:
TechCrunch reports:
Israel announces seizure of $1.5M from crypto wallets tied to Iran
C^nts on c^nts action.
Speaking of, DarkReading reports:
Iranian State APT Blitzes Telcos & Satellite Companies
Big Media
Free Software Foundation Europe reports:
Legal Corner: The War on Ad Blockers – Axel Springer’s Assault on User Freedom
TechPolicy reports:
How Google Paid the Media Millions to Avoid Regulatory Pressure
Deutsche Welle reports:
ChatEurope: What’s the Status of Europe’s AI-driven News Bot?
TechDirt reports:
The Washington Post Fires Its Last Black Opinion Columnist For Directly Quoting A Bigot
90% of newspapers suck now. Isn’t that sad. TV has always sucked but you used to find decent papers everywhere.
Big Tech
TechCrunch reports:
Karen Hao on the Empire of AI, AGI evangelists, and the cost of belief
EuroNews reports:
French streamer Deezer reveals that 28 per cent of music uploaded to platform is AI-generated
WTF. At least they hide it.
The EEF reports:
Our Stop Censoring Abortion Campaign Uncovers a Social Media Censorship Crisis
BleepingComputer reports:
Google nukes 224 Android malware apps behind massive ad fraud campaign
Please use open-source F-droid apps not Android ones.
New FileFix attack uses steganography to drop StealC malware
Don’t use Meta, bitches.
Ars Technica reports:
“China keeps the algorithm”: Critics attack Trump’s TikTok deal
So corporate America gets to further enshittify the user experience while supposedly maintaining privacy (ha!) and China gets to continue the misinformation and propaganda with the algorithm. Great deal.
Cybersecurity/Privacy
404 Media reports:
Airlines Sell 5 Billion Plane Ticket Records to the Government For Warrantless Searching
There’s nothing we can do about this type of c^ntness.
ChatGPT Will Guess Your Age and Might Require ID for Age Verification
You can control this. Don’t use AI horseshit.
Microsoft and Cloudflare disrupt massive RaccoonO365 phishing service
DarkReading reports:
‘ShadowLeak’ ChatGPT Attack Allows Hackers to Invisibly Steal Emails
Fediverse
Connected Places has:
IFTAS has:
IFTAS Responds to the European Commission’s Review of the Digital Markets Act
ActivityPub for WordPress has:
Help Shape the Future of Moderation in the Fediverse
This poll may be closed now, but please join me and donate to IFTAS.
7.4.0 – More Control, Less Waiting
Mastodon.world has:
September 2025: Updates for the .worlds and call for donations
Donate to your instances. The reason they don’t suck is that they aren’t monetized and thus enshittified.
Mastodon has:
Service offerings from Mastodon
Other Slightly Federated Social Media
Connected Places has:
‘Blueskyism’, Political Violence, and Open Social Networks Under Authoritarianism
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. Or even our future home in 2026, if you want a head start.
Keep fighting!
Ringleader, Battalion
Reuben Walker
Follow me on the Fediverse
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