Notices by katzenberger (katzenberger@mastodon.de)

How to oversee a #genocide, #Kamala - style: "watch", "raise serious concern" - and let it go on.

»The United States has said it was watching to ensure that its ally’s actions on the ground show it does not have a “policy of #starvation” in the north.

But on Friday, the #UN officials said humanitarian efforts could not keep up with the scale of the needs in northern Gaza, due to constraints on access for aid workers.

“Basic, life-saving goods are not available. Humanitarians are not safe to do their work and are blocked by Israeli forces and by insecurity from reaching people in need,” they said.

They urged all parties fighting in Gaza to protect civilians and called on #Israel to “ceases its assault on Gaza and on the humanitarians trying to help”.«

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/nov/01/un-northern-gaza-israel

#USPol

On the consequences of the wide-spread, systematic #destruction of #health facilities in #Gaza by #Israel, and some impossible "choices" it extorts from doctors and medical workers.

»A #baby who was very, very sick, needed to be on a #ventilator. After the baby passed away, what are we going to do with that ventilator? There is no way to sanitize the ventilator and get rid of that multidrug-resistant #bacteria. We also didn’t have tubing to change when we used the ventilator for another baby. So there is a very big chance that you’re going to spread the infection to other babies: so either the baby dies because there is no ventilator or the baby dies because of the bacterial infection. Your options were tragically limited.«

https://www.972mag.com/health-system-gaza-hospitals-fatal-blow/

@evan

I'd like to see people stewarding a standard abstaining from openly instrumentalizing the standardization process for their own agenda.

But then, I also see people posting things like "I’m going to continue doing the work I’ve done for the W3C and other ActivityPub projects: protocol refinement, documentation, meetings, speaking engagements, reports. But from here, I’ll be doing it with my SWF hat on."

And when people openly say what they are going to do, I believe them.

Which means, essentially, that I neither trust you, nor the foundation, and particularly not the "advisors" that foundation has chosen.

[2024-10-26 Update: I have been asked to link to the source for the quote, it is https://write.as/evanp/announcing-the-social-web-foundation]

@evan

Now that I have confronted you with a quote that expressly contradicts the claim you had made only minutes before, you're trying to deflect?

Sorry, this discussion is a waste of time. Have a good day.

@evan

Yes, you have told me that was not your purpose.

Hence, let me re-quote what you have already quoted, from the web page where your foundation expressly states their "Mission". I'm going to highlight some parts, for your convenience:

»Whether that’s advertising supported, or funded by charities and non-profits, or based on paid-for services, or affiliate revenue, we are working to find ways that companies can do well in the Fediverse.«

I do not even have the number of legs that you obviously seem to be trying to pull here. 🤷♂️

@evan

I would certainly consider starting a competing org if somebody inside those orgs would, let's say, imply that criticism is a form of lèse-majesté, and imply that I should rather shut up and start my own org instead.

Gladly, there seems to be no way this is ever going to happen.

@Gargron

@evan

Thanks for quoting this in full, I believe it highlights my point better than I could do it myself.

I also believe that you are aware how the #Fediverse is already thriving without your attempts at commercialization, and your hosting of malicious actors like Meta as advisors of your foundation.

Let me know if you have any other questions about my assessment of the #SWF, e.g. of its attempt to increase "safety and privacy" (your words) by embracing the makers of #Facebook.

#fedipact

@Gargron

@Gargron

Stop pretending it's about "#crowdfunding", for you. You are expressly working on bringing #advertising to the #Fediverse, and the Mastodon instance that you run.

https://socialwebfoundation.org/mission/

@aral

I simply don't know you well enough to assess whether your position of 2+2=4 is valid.

I've had dinner with somebody opposing this claim, and while you and them would set different paths for math, I am optimistic that either 4 or 5 would be a positive step. I'm endorsing both.

United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs #UN #OCHA periodical update on #Gaza:

At least 42,409 Palestinians #killed by now, including¹ at least 14,685 #children and 9,670 #women

About 87% of all #housing units either destroyed (141,000) or damaged (270,000)

About 1.9 million (90% of population) internally displaced people (IDPs) in shelters

No update since: ¹Apr 23

https://www.ochaopt.org/content/reported-impact-snapshot-gaza-strip-16-october-2024

https://www.ochaopt.org/content/humanitarian-situation-update-229-gaza-strip

Why is there no #food in #Gaza?

#Israel is working hard on #starvation, unbearable explosion of food prices, and the resulting complete breakdown of civil order in Gaza.

#UN World Food Programme #WFP says:

»Aid entering the Strip has plummeted to its lowest level in months, forcing WFP to stop the distribution of food parcels in #October. If the flow of assistance does not resume, one million vulnerable people will be deprived of this lifeline.

There are around 100,000 tons of food positioned at different corridors (Jordan, Ashdod, Egypt) – enough to feed over a million people for 5 months, but the closure of crossing points, security issues and route disruptions at crossings are limiting aid delivery.«

https://www.wfp.org/stories/gaza-updates-hunger-deepens-aid-plummets

#genocide

@report_press

Please note that the FSF Europe #FSFE @fsfe has taken a clear stand here, immediately after it had learned that #Stallman became part of the #FSF board of directors again:

»That is why, as a legally and financially independent organisation, in which Richard Stallman has not had any decision-making powers, we call for his resignation from all FSF bodies. The FSF needs to seriously reflect on this decision as well as their decision-making process to prevent similar issues from happening again.«

https://fsfe.org/news/2021/news-20210324-01.en.html

@goodthinkhunting

Habe widersprochen:

1. alle Ärzt*innen können bald gegenseitig alles sehen, ohne differenzierte Einschränkungsmöglichkeiten

2. alle Daten landen in einem zentralen Pool - unabhängig von den Sicherheitsmechanismen wird das unweigerlich ein TOP-Angriffsziel für Hacker

3. die Daten werden "pseudonymisiert" der Forschung zur Verfügung gestellt; es ist wieder und wieder gezeigt worden, dass sich eine "Pseudonymisierung" mit wenig Aufwand rückgängig machen lässt

4. wir leben im Deutschland von 2024, man sollte sich daher gut an die Aufgabe und Vorgehensweise der Zentraldienststelle T4 erinnern

Zu 1. -3. ein bisschen ins Detail:
https://netzpolitik.org/2024/entscheidungshilfe-zur-elektronischen-patientenakte-soll-ichs-wirklich-machen-oder-lass-ichs-lieber-sein/

Zu 4.:
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zentraldienststelle_T4

#digitalepatientenakte
#patientenakte
#datenschutz

@aral

In a way, you're too optimistic. I believe that what kept many people from signing was not the effort, but rather the belief that they're simply not wealthy YET (and don't deserve to be, should they not be able to make it, on their own).

@MastodonEngineering

Despite this being promoted as supporting multiple "discovery providers", the text says »This will specify how an instance will “feed” content to a discovery provider to index. And how a discovery provider can be queried to actually search and discover content.«

Nothing is being said about why there would ever be a need for a more than a few big providers, once it is established that the big ones "work". As usual, centralization is looming here, by a few corps "generously" offering high-speed "discovery" for "free".

Also, nothing is said about providers sharing results of the indexing, to enable fediverse-wide search - instead, the proposal almost inevitably points to few providers that everybody needs to feed if they want posts to be found.

"Hope" will not change that hence just saying »We want to specify how a discovery provider works and interfaces with a Fediverse server instance. We hope to inspire several competing implementations of the specification.« does not make much sense.

Nothing is said about who outside of the Fediverse gets to query a provider, or to process the data that has been extracted from a fediverse server feed - and for which purposes. It's even expressly mentioned that »These “providers” might serve other purposes than just search and discovery«

»The protocols and implementations will respect user privacy«, but the text only offers "shoulds":

• »Our reference implementation will respect this setting and only ingest content from creators who opted in to discovery in the first place.« (note the telling words "respect" and "ingest" here, it does not even seem consensus that providers are "fed" by Fediverse servers).

• »All other information a discovery provider gathers should be anonymous.« Should?

• »Fediverse Discovery Providers should only ever index content clearly marked as “public”.« Should?

• »Fediverse Discovery Providers should honor these settings and only index user data and content from users who have opted-into that.« Should?

Another red flag: »This means we might not always be able to incorporate all the feedback we get into the very first draft of everything we publish. But rest assured that we are committed to continue working on this even after this first project has ended, so we will be able to make adjustments later on.«

More privacy after the first implementation is out? And no: With Mastodon gGmbH being the driver of this, and with the current wording, we can not "rest assured".

@EC_NGI

@MediaActivist Fixed, thank you.

@MediaActivist

Not sure about jobs being safe under the current regime either. In February, despite the piles of money they're sitting on, they fired another 60 (5%) of staff, as a welcome gift to their new CEO.

In 2020, they had already fired 250 (25%) of their staff. As Mitchell Baker nonchalantly said, then CEO (who received a $1.3 million raise later, in 2022, on top of his already stunning $5.6 million):

»Sadly, the changes also include a significant reduction in our workforce by approximately 250 people. These are individuals of exceptional professional and personal caliber who have made outstanding contributions to who we are today. To each of them, I extend my heartfelt thanks and deepest regrets that we have come to this point. This is a humbling recognition of the realities we face, and what is needed to overcome them.«

So: no, not more jobs at risk than already are. And the new CEO won't suffer either, for sure.

https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/changing-world-changing-mozilla/

@MediaActivist

Beware of Proton - they are still on the side of the light, but with a massively mushrooming portfolio of "services", and their integration of "AI", they are heading to become the next vendor lock-in shop. It's starting to smell bad already.

@quinze

@MediaActivist

Most people aren't aware of the difference between

• Mozilla Foundation (the non-profit that most think of as being "Mozilla") and

• Mozilla Corp (the enterprise that gets around $500 million per year from Google, is said to have a war chest of around $1 billion, pays its CEO about $7 million per year, still lays off staff, and lets Firefox slowly and silently decompose while it ventures into the "AI" business)

Google is essentially paying Mozilla Corp for being their court jester, to keep them utterly dependent and to inflate Mozilla's image as a serious "competitor", which it has ceased to be, a long time ago.

Losing the Google "annuities" would sink the rotten Mozilla Corp, including its opportunistic leadership. IMO that's the only way how something like a decent open-source browser might emerge again, a tool that isn't steered by a group of people pretending to be into privacy, but actually concerned mostly about Google money.

@MediaActivist

The consequences IMO would be shocking at first, and very beneficial in the long run.