Notices by anban (anban@squeet.me)

Meta is an evil company. Now it's filtering, and in some cases banning, discussions -- and users -- mentioning Linux.

https://www.tomshardware.com/software/linux/facebook-flags-linux-topics-as-cybersecurity-threats-posts-and-users-being-blocked

"What good is an AI that can't answer questions about Tiananmen Square?!"
You're getting so close to understanding... Censorship aside, LLMs are not question-answering machines. They can't answer questions about anything.

My hope is that the fear of "China spying on our AI queries" and "China making AI spit out propaganda answers" would be enough to convince people that maybe treating LLMs as question-answering machines is a terrible idea all around.

Meta tracks your activity across millions of websites and apps, regardless of whether you use its platforms, and profits from that data through targeted ads. Here’s what you need to know if you want to limit the company’s ability to harvest and profit from your personal data. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/01/mad-meta-dont-let-them-collect-and-monetize-your-personal-data

@jwildeboer part of me thinks the AI oligopoly will do all they can to enforce their oligopoly.

@davidnjoku every LLM is inherently biased based on both the views of the team behind it and the materials it’s trained on.

How we’re this far down the “AI” conversation with so many people choosing to disregard that is somewhat alarming.

Of course next up is some LLM aggregator that uses its own model to query all the others then patch together a response taking into account all replies.

@_elena YES, happy to edit the article for you!

That said, I share your struggles editing #Wikipedia and have only made minor typo-level edits, and added exactly one image to an article. AFAIK they're trying to improve the editing experience.

Sidenote: I am reassured that there are efforts to improve representation. The WikiEdu non-profit works with universities to turn Wikipedia editing into student projects! Such as improving #LGBTQ inclusion:

https://wikiedu.org/blog/2023/12/14/improving-wikipedias-coverage-of-lgbtq-history/

And the photo is now on the #Wikipedia page for the #Fediverse! 🥳

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fediverse

How did this happen?

Encouraged by @nacly I created a Wikimedia account and uploaded the photo here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fediverse_smartphone_apps_(photo_by_Elena_Rossini).jpg

And @nclm was super kind to add it to the Fediverse page (English and French). I can't thank you enough!!! ❤️

#FediLove

Good morning Fedi friends!

ICYMI yesterday I created a "stock" photo for flagship Fediverse apps* - so that writers could use it to illustrate articles about the #Fediverse.

(*Lemmy is a shortcut to the https://Lemmy.world website.)

I applied the KISS principle (Keep It Simple) because mainstream media does such a terrible job covering the Fediverse. I didn't want to add extra complexity.

For ease of use / maximum exposure I created an account on #Unsplash for it: https://unsplash.com/@elenarossini

Before Google decided to let extremists rename bodies of water, it used common sense.

From 2008: "...if a ruler announced that henceforth the Pacific Ocean would be named after her mother, we would not add that placemark unless and until the name came into common usage."

https://publicpolicy.googleblog.com/2008/04/how-google-determines-names-for-bodies.html

@angelastella @BeAware I'm new here can I ask what the prejudice is? I just wanna do my part in making people feel welcome!

Some #Republican senators have campaigned against #PEPFAR’s reauthorization for 5 yrs, alleging that the program promoted abortions. In March, the program was renewed for 1 yr.

Without treatment, virus levels in people w/ #HIV will quickly spike, hobbling the immune systems of the infected people & increasing the odds that they will spread the virus to others.

About 1 in 3 untreated pregnant women may pass the virus onto their babies.

#USpol #Trump #nationalism #ForeignPolicy

Not so fast.

How a top Chinese AI model overcame US sanctions

"The AI community is abuzz over DeepSeek R1, a new open-source reasoning model.
The model was developed by the Chinese AI startup #DeepSeek which claims that R1 matches or even surpasses OpenAI’s ChatGPT o1 on multiple key benchmarks but operates at a fraction of the cost."

https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/01/24/1110526/china-deepseek-top-ai-despite-sanctions/

"Fraction of the cost" = fraction of the energy use.

It warms my little shriveled heart to see a software company that invested in optimizing their software and got a huge benefit from it, even if it is an AI company. It can at least write wrong things while consuming 100x fewer resources 🥰

I love optimizing software and it's annoying that current software company business theory won't let programmers do that to a first order approximation

@cstross @quinn @ianb starving to death surrounded by plenty pretty much sounds like the general end state of capitalism in absence of constraint

80 years ago the Concentration Camp Ausschwitz was liberated.

With fascism showing its murderous face in many places in the US and in Europe today is an important day to restate: Never again.

We know where Fascism leads when it's being allowed to fester. And that must never happen again.

@overholt
"A previous version of this article stated that the Harvard Slavery Remembrance Program had been disbanded. To clarify, according to a University spokesperson, the program has not been formally discontinued, though its employees and leaders have been laid off."

@palestine

I got RATE LIMITED during this thread, with 8 minute timeout.

I didn't get the timeout while posting the same amount of pictures of Indian widows...

Used to be a Nazi salute could end a career.
Now, criticizing a Nazi salute has ended a career.
https://politicalwire.com/2025/01/25/station-fires-weather-forecaster-for-criticizing-musk/

@Em0nM4stodon I feel like limiting this to corporate social media is inaccurate…

Both that mainstream news media are heavily pushing their own narrative, and expecting Mastodon and friends to be immune also seems wishful thinking…

@kcarruthers #colombia Statement by President Gustavo Petro (thread, 1/?)

"Trump, I don’t really like traveling to the U.S. much; it’s a bit boring, but I admit there are some commendable things. I enjoy visiting the Black neighborhoods in Washington. There, I witnessed an entire battle in the U.S. capital between Black and Latino communities, with barricades and all, which I thought was nonsense because they should unite instead. . . ."