Destroying Autocracy – July 3, 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.
Next week I will be on holiday so there won’t be an issue. I will probably boost some things on the Fediverse though.
Featured Item
DevCollaborative writes:
The Trump administration and its supporters are attacking dissenting views on a terrifying scale. With so much of online communications compromised and censored, independent websites are a critical piece of social movement infrastructure that we need to promote and defend.
If your nonprofit has a website, you are part of this essential communications work.
There are looming threats of financially independent nonprofits being censored under the guise of fighting “terrorism” or “sedition.”
Protecting Nonprofit Websites from a Hostile Government
We start and end with good news to make the middle bearable.
The response to Russia’s War Crimes, Techno Feudalism, and other douchebaggery
Time has a profile:
How Signal President Meredith Whittaker Took on Signal-Gate
The Register reports:
Proton bashes Apple and joins antitrust suit that seeks to throw the App Store wide open
Huawei can’t wriggle out of Iran sanctions trial, judge rules
Wikidata: Attempting to bridge FOSS ideals and direct democracy
Tara Tarakiyee explores:
Digital Sovereignty in Practice: Web Browsers as a Reality Check
TechPolicy reports:
EU Disinformation Code Takes Effect Amid Censorship Claims and Trade Tensions
TechCrunch reports:
EU says it will continue rolling out AI legislation on schedule
Politico reports:
The first American ‘scientific refugees’ arrive in France
BleepingComputer reports:
Hikvision Canada ordered to cease operations over security risks
Germany asks Google, Apple to remove DeepSeek AI from app stores
Raconteur has:
‘You need to be a little bit crazy’: Nextcloud CEO on confronting the hyperscalers
Nextclound reports on:
Why organizations migrate from Microsoft 365 in 2025
TechCrunch reports:
ICEBlock, an app for anonymously reporting ICE sightings, goes viral overnight after Bondi criticism
Ars Technica reports:
Meta, TikTok can’t toss wrongful death suit from mom of “subway surfing” teen
Ted Cruz plan to punish states that regulate AI shot down in 99-1 vote
The Markup has more:
State AI regulations safe after Senate strips moratorium from ‘big, beautiful bill’
MIT Technology Review reports:
Cloudflare will now, by default, block AI bots from crawling its clients’ websites
Cloudfare has the details:
Control content use for AI training with Cloudflare’s managed robots.txt and blocking for monetized content
The crawl before the fall… of referrals: understanding AI’s impact on content providers
Neutral
CNBC reports:
The AI-boom’s multi-billion dollar blind spot: Reasoning models hitting a wall
Dries Buyaert (of Drupal fame) writes:
The web’s broken deal with AI companies
Dries, you say you may be naive. You are if you think anything other than politics (regulation or huge boycotts) are going to fix the problem.
The Evil Empire (AKA Autocracy) Strikes Back
The Guardian opines:
Peter Thiel’s Palantir poses a grave threat to Americans
TechDirt reports:
Supreme Court Cripples FCC Further, Making Robocall Enforcement Likely Impossible
The Supreme C^nts strike again.
The Guardian reports:
Trump officials create searchable national citizenship database
TechPolicy reports:
Countering the Politics of Deservingness in the Fight for Digital Equity
How US Firms Are Weakening the EU AI Code of Practice
Pariah States
TechCrunch reports:
US government takes down major North Korean ‘remote IT workers’ operation
DarkReading reports:
Scope, Scale of Spurious North Korean IT Workers Emerges
Silver Fox Suspected in Taiwanese Campaign Using DeepSeek Lure
Russian APT ‘Gamaredon’ Hits Ukraine With Fierce Phishing
The Kyiv Independent reports:
US sanctions Russian IT company Aeza Group over ransomware operations
Big Media
The PressGazette reports:
How SFGATE is making local news pay and filling California’s news gaps
Ars Technica reports:
NYT to start searching deleted ChatGPT logs after beating OpenAI in court
Torment Nexus reports:
Why Substack shouldn’t be the future of online publishing
CNN reports:
After settling with Trump, CBS News staffers fear what comes next
There are cowards, and then there are cowardly c^nts.
Big Tech
TechPolicy reports:
Tech Oligarchs and the Rise of Silicon Valley Pronatalism
The Guardian reports:
Fears AI factcheckers on X could increase promotion of conspiracy theories
Ars Technica reports:
Everything that could go wrong with X’s new AI-written community notes
TikTok is being flooded with racist AI videos generated by Google’s Veo 3
Android Authority reports:
You’re not alone: This email from Google’s Gemini team was concerning (Updated: Google statement)
Open Web Advocacy reports on:
Google’s Hotseat Hypocrisy
Tuta asks:
“Sovereign cloud” or “sovereign washing”? A Trojan Horse at Europe’s digital gates.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports:
Flock Safety’s Feature Updates Cannot Make Automated License Plate Readers Safe
The Register reports:
AI agents get office tasks wrong around 70% of the time, and a lot of them aren’t AI at all
AI models just don’t understand what they’re talking about
The Verge reports:
Facebook is starting to feed its AI with private, unpublished photos
TechCrunch reports:
Meta users say paying for Verified support has been useless in the face of mass bans
TechCrunch reports:
Meta has found another way to keep you engaged: Chatbots that message you first
I guess if you are amoral enough to use Meta products and you are a moron who talks to AI, this is what you deserve.
PC Gamer reports:
‘AI is no longer optional’: Microsoft is allegedly pressuring employees to use AI tools through manager evaluations
Cybersecurity/Privacy
The Verge asks:
How vulnerable is critical infrastructure to cyberattack in the US?
Bleeping Computer reports:
FBI: Cybercriminals steal health data posing as fraud investigators
BleepingComputer reports:
Spain arrests hackers who targeted politicians and journalists
Fediverse
Connected Places has:
Fediverse Report – #123
Mastodon has:
Mastodon 4.4 for Developers
Dead Superher looks at:
Mitigating the “7 Deadly Fediverse UX Sins”
Jaz-Michael King shares:
Digital Belonging: Why Language and Locality Matter
Viger has:
Flipboard Surf
TechCrunch reports:
Automattic puts Tumblr migration to WordPress on hold
Ghost has:
The Longformers: Ghost, WordPress, Flipboard, Fediverse
NodeBB asks:
What drew you to ActivityPub?
Longform content has the best chance to grow the Fediverse, IMHO.
IT Notes shares:
FediMeteo: How a Tiny €4 FreeBSD VPS Became a Global Weather Service for Thousands
Forgejo has its:
Forgejo monthly report – June 2025
ActivityPub for WordPress announces:
HTTP Signature Upgrades Coming Soon
TechCrunch reports:
Not everyone is thrilled with Threads’ DMs
RSS
Preslav Rachev shares:
From Outbound to Inbound and Back Again: The Hidden Power of RSS Feeds
Great stuff. RSS is still my main curation source. So, get an RSS feed on your blog, handle, etc. 🙂
Slightly Federated Social Media
Connected Places has:
Bluesky Report – #123
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
#123 #ActivityPub #AI #Autocracy #BigJournalism #BigTech #Democracy #Fascism #Fediverse #Forgejo #Ghost #Mastodon #NodeBB #RSS #StopChina #StopIran #StopIsrael #StopRedAmerica #StopRussia #SupportUkraine #TechnoAnarchism #TechnoFeudalism #WordPress
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