Notices by Erik Moeller (eloquence@social.coop)

One weird thing that happens with authoritarian leaders is that they make stupid decisions that make no sense, and nobody can tell them no.

I understand why people want to read some big master plan into Trump's tariffs, but IMO it's as simple that it's a fixed set of dumb beliefs in protectionism that nobody can talk him out of. He's been saying the same nonsense since the 1980s.

All authoritarian leaders do stupid shit like this. That's why you don't want to end up with authoritarian leaders.

Feels like we're back in 2020 when it comes to travel to the US, but for entirely different self-inflicted reasons - and with no end in sight.

With the latest #AI image generators, it is now trivially possible not only to generate realistic photos, but to also have consistent _sequences_ of photos, e.g., of an alleged drug transaction.

Unlike past faking techniques, this requires only seconds of effort.

Trust in images is utterly misplaced at this point. And actually legitimate photographic evidence of wrongdoing will be challenged as fake.

Trust in sources matters more than ever.

Reporting that's based on public records shouldn't then be put behind a paywall.

This also makes sense from a revenue perspective for many paywalled publications. It's a great way to establish an area of freely available reporting that can draw people into buying subscriptions.

Really proud of my colleagues' advocacy here, and glad to see WIRED taking the lead on implementing this recommendation.

https://freedom.press/issues/wired-is-dropping-paywalls-for-foia-based-reporting-others-should-follow/

Good to see @itchio still host these massive charity bundles, in this case for California fire relief (I hope they'll do another Ukraine bundle soon).

This one includes Tunic, which was a 2022 GOTY contender.

(I see this as a great way to chip in to a cause together and sampling games you'd otherwise probably never see, but please don't skip supporting indie devs of titles you enjoy.)

https://itch.io/b/2863/california-fire-relief-bundle

I find Trump as repulsive as most people here, but as a German, one thing I want to push back on is focusing only on one man.

Hitler's rise was possible because he was able to exploit the racial hatred and conspiratorial thinking that already existed.

It's MAGA acolytes that see Trump as an extraordinary figure. He was a reality show grifter with a crumbling business; Hitler was an undisciplined drifter with delusions of grandeur.

It's the soil that matters, not just the rotten harvest.

Elon Musk says the journalists at CBS 60 Minutes "deserve a long prison sentence".

The reporting that has him so upset includes this line: "The world's richest man had cut off assistance to the world's poorest families."

You can view it in full here (first ~15 minutes):

https://www.cbs.com/shows/video/w_Zoxuc1ZnjigRqeKhYpum3ZFHIf2Rbs/

Nowhere is the new reality of X as a state media platform more obvious than on https://doge.gov/ -- the main page is a feed of posts from their X account.

Expect more of this as Musk worms himself into the government, including "DM us on X" and similar nonsense (of course it won't be a human that responds, but a state AI bot based on Grok).

This is why viewing X as a tool for persuading anyone of anything makes no sense. It's not a tool for you. It's a tool for them.

> As before, all cases are in unvaccinated people or people with unknown vaccination status.

The RFK Jr. appointment will put the pedal to the metal for future outbreaks.

We are all witnesses to the decline of a nation. Whether we will be witnesses to its fall remains up to us.

https://arstechnica.com/health/2025/02/texas-measles-outbreak-climbs-to-48-cases-almost-all-kids-13-hospitalized/?utm_brand=arstechnica&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social

It'll take a while for organizations that remain active on X to fully internalize that being on the platform is no different from being in Russia Today's comments section.

So we have to keep saying it.

X is state media.

I cannot say this enough: Follow @ProPublica for real journalism about the authoritarian takeover.

Do you want to introduce the fediverse and/or Bluesky to your org -- in addition to X & Meta, or to #SwitchForGood?

Through Feb, Mar and Apr, I'll be offering free one-hour sessions on Fridays to talk to your org. For-profit, non-profit, gov, edu, etc. This is not a consultancy; this is volunteer advocacy and support for building our collective independence from X & Meta.

If you are interested, book a slot through this link (starting Feb 7). Time is not movable. :)

https://calendar.google.com/calendar/u/0/appointments/schedules/AcZssZ1moWG0f_wJqMz-rO0OkD27MBJpj1LR4W9SJQnIYIEe8lvb1UbbTXTYQw7cBbc4SuybqByqTjqh

Amidst descending darkness across Europe and the United States, solidarity -- protest, collective action, mutual aid, and more -- is the source of light & hope.

Whatever form that takes for you, if you find yourself in despair with all that's happening, seek that light.

Others will try to diminish it, or tell you that you're focusing on the wrong thing. That way leads paralyzing self-doubt, infighting, and more despair.

Always seek out the light.

Wikimedia France (@Wikimedia_Fr) has confirmed to me they're no longer active on X. 🎉

As far as I know, the following #Wikimedia-related organizations have left X:

- @wikimediafoundation ("for now")
- @WikimediaAT (Austria)
- @Wikimedia_Nederland
- @wikimediaDE (Germany)
- @WikimediaCH (Switzerland)

Let me know about any I'm missing!

Some major chapters still active on X include UK, Australia, Italy, Spain, and South Africa.

Would be great to see more of them follow course :)

I don't believe the NVDA market wipe will last, tbh. Microsoft's Nadella is right to cite https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox - there'll be plenty of use for all that compute capacity the industry is building out (whether those uses are socially beneficial is, of course, an altogether different question).

Very reasonable business model: premium features are _part of the open source version_ -- developers comfortable running the code locally can use them for free.

https://cyd.social/cyd-is-now-open-source/

Seeing #pixelfed photos in my Mastodon feed will never not be cool. Thank you, @dansup, for showing what the fediverse can be.

There was a knife attack in Germany. A pretty brutal one, with a small Moroccan kid and one German man killed by a mentally ill man set for deportation.

As usual, it's fodder for the right and a giant media story.

But I didn't read about it here in my feed until well after it happened. And that's how it should be, frankly.

Violence is awful, and reading about it hits us in the least intelligent, most reactive parts of our brain. Proportionality matters.

With Libération, The Guardian, and Le Monde all gone from X (and smaller publications following their leads), its relevancy for journalism in Europe is truly collapsing.

Germany is for once lagging behind -- while many nonprofits, universities and public institutions in Germany have quit X, publications like Die Zeit, Der Spiegel, Sueddeutsche, etc. are all still happily posting to Musk's paltform.

Shout-out to German news orgs who _have_ made the departure from X:

- @tazgetroete (684.5K followers on X)
- @heiseonline (238K)
- @correctiv_org (118.6K)

(Also very cool to see two of these running their own instances.)

Many more to go!