<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Programmer\u2019s Fulcrum is the future (and smaller) home for a fusion of Symfony Station and Battalion. Its tagline is Devs Defending Democracy, Developing the OMN.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n You can sign up now<\/a> and for 2025 get an email with links to and featured articles for each week’s Symfony Station Communiqu\u00e9 and Battalion “Destroying Autocracy” post along with their featured articles. And you\u2019ll be set with TPF after the fusing.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Dave Rupert writes and asks:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n I think my answer to \u201cWhy would anybody start a website (in 2025)?\u201d is the same answer for the content creator in the age of AI problem: I don\u2019t know, but you gotta want to.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Money sweetens the deal when making content or websites, but we\u2019ve shaken the money tree pretty hard over the last couple decades and it\u2019s looking bare.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Increasingly, you\u2019ve got to find other sources of inspiration to make a website \u2013 which by the way are still the coolest fucking things ever.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Why would anybody start a website?<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n To join the Open Media Network for one.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n We start and end with good news to make the middle bearable.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Speaking of websites, the Columbia Journalism Review has:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Tom Ley Thinks More People Should Experience Worker-Owned Journalism<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Next Web reports:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Reclaiming the stack: Europe\u2019s bid for digital sovereignty<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Register reports:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Big clouds scramble as EU Data Act brings new data transfer rules<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Heisse reports:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 400 scientists speak out against chat control<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Europe is better than anywhere else, but it isn’t perfect.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Guardian reports:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u2018It is a war of drones now\u2019: the ever-evolving tech dominating the frontline in Ukraine<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Lawmaker calls for French criminal investigation into TikTok<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n EU fines Google nearly \u20ac3bn for \u2018abusing\u2019 dominant position in ad tech<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Speaking of, Tech Policy reports:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Empowered Workers Are a Bulwark Against Illegal Monopoly<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Ars Technica reports:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Judge: Anthropic\u2019s $1.5B settlement is being shoved \u201cdown the throat of authors\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Pay-per-output? AI firms blindsided by beefed up robots.txt instructions.<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Ben Werdmuller examines:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n WordPress for newsrooms<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n This is the type of content we will feature in The Programmer’s Fulcrum in 2026.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Make Use of shares:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n I stopped using Gmail for this built-in client and now Gmail feels stuck<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Here is a TAM lite tool for you.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Mojeek announces:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Mojeek is Not an Answer Engine<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Tuta shares:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Chat Control is back & we’ve got one month to stop the EU CSAM scanning plans.<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Counterforce has a guide:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Signal For Punks (it has Stories now!)<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n I describe myself as 25% intellectual, 25% bohemian, 25% hillbilly, and 25% punk so this appeals to me. \ud83d\ude09<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Observer reports:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Nick Clegg and Tim Berners-Lee: the battle for the soul of the internet<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Tech Policy reports:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Washington and Brussels Vie for Control Over Big Tech<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 404 Media reports:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n ICE Spends Millions on Clearview AI Facial Recognition to Find People \u2018Assaulting\u2019 Officers<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Kyiv Independent reports:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n US steps back from joint efforts to combat misinformation, FT reports<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n TechDirt reports:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n UK Age Verification Data Confirms What Critics Always Predicted: Mass Migration To Sketchier Sites<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Register reports:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Senator demands to know status of ‘duplicate’ Social Security database ‘immediately’<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Nextcloud reports:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The proposed EU Chat Control law is a threat to our democracy. What can you do to prevent it?<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n EuroNews reports:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Pro-Kremlin operation weaponises investigative media to claim Ukraine uses orphans to clear mines<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n BleepingComputer reports:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Czech cyber agency warns against Chinese tech in critical infrastructure<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Christian Science Monitor reports:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Why some Israeli journalists only now are turning a lens on Gaza devastation<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Krebs on Security reports:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Bulletproof Host Stark Industries Evades EU Sanctions<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Register reports:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Beijing went to ‘EggStreme’ lengths to attack Philippines military, researchers say<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n DarkReading reports:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Chinese Hackers Allegedly Pose as US Lawmaker<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Guardian reports:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u2018Existential crisis\u2019: how Google\u2019s shift to AI has upended the online news model<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n TechDirt reports:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Wired, Business Insider Editors Duped By Completely Bogus \u2018AI\u2019 Using \u2018Journalist\u2019 Who Made Up Towns, People That Don\u2019t Exist<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Tech Policy reports:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n How Big Tech\u2019s ‘Invisible Hand’ Reaches Latin American Regulators<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Age Verification Is A Windfall for Big Tech\u2014And A Death Sentence For Smaller Platforms<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Anil Dash opines:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n How Tim Cook sold out Steve Jobs<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Register reports:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n EU regulators let Microsoft off the hook after Teams unbundling pledge<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Again, big tech can’t be reformed. It has to be destroyed.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n It’s AI all the way down as Google’s AI cites web pages written by AI<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Markup reports:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Google wasn’t against this privacy bill, officially. Behind the scenes, it orchestrated opposition<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Guardian reports:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n How thousands of \u2018overworked, underpaid\u2019 humans train Google\u2019s AI to seem smart<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Impact of chatbots on mental health is warning over future of AI, expert says<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Meta hid harms to children from VR products, whistleblowers allege<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Reuters reports:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Meta put virtual-reality profit over kids’ safety, whistleblowers tell US Congress<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The BBC reports:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Meta to stop its AI chatbots from talking to teens about suicide<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 404 Media reports:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Instagram Account Promotes Holocaust Denial T-Shirts to 400,000 Followers<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Ars Technica has:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Former WhatsApp security boss in lawsuit likens Meta\u2019s culture to a \u201ccult\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n EchoStar to sell spectrum to SpaceX after FCC threatened to revoke licenses<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n AI vs. MAGA: Populists alarmed by Trump\u2019s embrace of AI, Big Tech<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Even blind fascist squirrels find a nut sometimes.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n SAN reports:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Not so secret: X\u2019s new encrypted chat feature puts users at risk, experts say<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Signal announces:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Introducing Signal Secure Backups<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n La Quadrature reports:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n In France, the eternal return of facial recognition<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Register reports:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Drift massive attack traced back to loose Salesloft GitHub account<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n In crypto bro FAFO news, BleepingComputer reports:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Hackers hijack npm packages with 2 billion weekly downloads in supply chain attack<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n DDoS defender targeted in 1.5 Bpps denial-of-service attack<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n DarkReading reports:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Without Federal Help, Cyber Defense Is Up to the Rest of Us<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Connected Places has:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Fediverse Report \u2013 133<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Fedihost looks at:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Podcasting With PeerTube<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n PeerTube announces:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n PeerTube v7.3 is out!<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Nexus of Privacy shares:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n This is what solidarity looks like<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Mastodon has updates:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Introducing quote posts<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Trunk & Tidbits, August 2025<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n NodeBB shares a:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Progress update for Conversational Contexts<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n A New Social announces:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Bounce Beta Now Live!<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Launch: Notifications from Unbridged Users<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Buttondown remembers:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The story of how RSS beat Microsoft<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Connected Spaces opines:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n On discourse and decentralisation<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Personally I view Bluesky as only slightly better than Shitter (drastically fewer c^nts) with a 97.4% chance of becoming enshittified. However, Blacksky has given me a little hope for ATProto at least.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n I would also like to point out 96.525% of people on the Fediverse don\u2019t give a fuck about Bluesky and 99.912% of people on Bluesky don’t give a fuck about the Fediverse.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n TechCrunch reports:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Bluesky adds private bookmarks<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Bluesky will comply with age-verification laws in South Dakota and Wyoming after exiting Mississippi<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p><\/ul>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Keep fighting!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Welcome to this week’s \u201cDestroying Autocracy\u201d. 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":688,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[69],"tags":[57,66,148,67,92,74,73,65,75,58,59,286,76,265,112,153,86,143,63,61,252,250],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/battalion.mobileatom.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2493"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/battalion.mobileatom.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/battalion.mobileatom.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/battalion.mobileatom.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/battalion.mobileatom.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2493"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/battalion.mobileatom.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2493\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2507,"href":"https:\/\/battalion.mobileatom.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2493\/revisions\/2507"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/battalion.mobileatom.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/battalion.mobileatom.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/battalion.mobileatom.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/battalion.mobileatom.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"The](\"https:\/\/battalion.mobileatom.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/TPF-logo.png\"){kind=logo}
<\/figure>\n
\n\nFeatured Item<\/h2>\n
\n\nThe response to Russia\u2019s War Crimes, Techno Feudalism, and other douchebaggery<\/h2>\n
\n\nNeutral<\/h2>\n
\n\nThe Evil Empire (AKA Autocracy) Strikes Back<\/h2>\n
Pariah States<\/h3>\n
Big Media<\/h3>\n
Big Tech<\/h3>\n
\n\nCybersecurity\/Privacy<\/h2>\n
Fediverse<\/h2>\n
RSS<\/h3>\n
Other Slightly Federated Social Media<\/h3>\n
\n\nCTAs (aka show us some free love)<\/h2>\n
\n