Notices by Nicol Wistreich (nicol@social.coop)

@dajb @pfefferle it's really impressive how well it all works.

The blog is on shared hosting and I didn't notice any performance issue, despite 2000% traffic jump and a steady stream of notifications.

Only puzzle that's probably me not reading enough is that this Reactions block is a Gutenberg block, not a widget - so I'm adding it to every page manually, as can't add it to the theme templating tool, unlike the comments. Is there WP+Fediverse online meetup / call or group to join?

Can't deny being made up that three months after 1st trying to build a #WordPress site using @pfefferle's #ActivityPub plugin - yesterday it finally clicked, with two posts getting lots of boosts, stars & comments:

https://social.coop/@nic@25.netribution.co.uk/114540205512006673

&

https://social.coop/@nic@25.netribution.co.uk/114539971161094428

Am still far from perfecting the integration, but this bar at the bottom is lovely… as is discovering a bunch of servers using different forks/UIs to regular Masto that I've not seen before. Curiously still only one subscriber tho.

@tchambers yup. US films have been shooting in the UK and internationally since before the original Star Wars - yet they’re still the biggest film exporter in the world.

I bet there’s no end of countries that would love to put retaliatory tariffs on US films just to protect and strengthen their own far smaller - but culturally more relevant- local film/TV industry.

My guess is WTO rules made such things hard to do, but these kind of moves by Trump make it much easier.

“Fears Trump’s foreign film tariffs could ‘wipe out’ UK movie industry”

The defeatism coming from #BECTU is unnecessary here. Reciprocal sized tariffs on American film, TV and streaming and ending tax breaks for Hollywood blockbusters would generate enough to fund a new generation of #Britishfilm, TV & micro vids. France has such a healthy local film sector because of the cinema levy on foreign (US) films funding French production. Something similar here is long overdue.
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/may/05/fears-trump-foreign-film-tariffs-wipe-out-uk-movie-industry

USA's #Maxar isn't just cutting off classified satellite imagery to #Ukraine, but commercial unclassified services. How long until Starlink follows?

I'm not sure if the White House has thought thru the signal this is sending the world:

If you use American tech, cloud or telecoms, it can be turned off on a whim *while you're being invaded & bombed* to strongarm your country to sign a deal you don't want.

Imagine how many govts are currently frantically trying to migrate away from US services.

@MediaActivist 1. It’s a Tory act Labour inherited.
2. Implementation of it is entirely in the hands of OFCOM. They continue to be constructively ambiguous about what ‘a significant number of UK users’ means in practice. IANAL but I’d use that ambiguity to wait & see. OFCOM have said they’ll advise of non-compliance before get heavy handed.
3. Still worth writing to MP / Secretary of State to exempt small sites.
4. If your site has porn, that’s different - has criminal responsibilities.

For the US to stop -without warning- Ukraine arms overnight, including arms already in Poland on route to the front line, giving no time for Ukraine to find new supplies, is so damaging it looks like an act of war.

USA for over 80 years has demanded to be the centre and foundation of Western security –it’s ok if it no longer wants to take that role– but to halt arms overnight is like switching sides; this helps Russia beyond their wildest dreams. How can any country (incl UK) trust USA again?

Remember the time #Trump negotiated to end the war in #Afghanistan? Now women aren't able to speak in public or have a job.

This is why many Europeans are near Defcon1 over his full capitulation to Putin over #Ukraine. Putin's goal of restoring the USSR's borders through expansion and undermining their democracies is well documented; he won't settle for 20% of Ukraine & security 'guarantees', he'll keep going. As a friend said: "why is it countries on his border are so desperate to join NATO?".

Congrats to @Blender for a (first?) best Animated Feature Academy Award nomination for #Flow.

I've not seen it but as it's the only film this year with a cat as its lead - it sounds like it has to win. #oscars2025

2025 is #CiviCRM's 20th & maybe biggest year…

In March #Civi6 will be released, the first big version jump in 7 years, marking:
- The launch of #CiviCRMStandalone - aka CiviCRM without needing Drupal, WordPress, BackDrop or Joomla. There's a vast API to now link with other tools needing ticketing/membership/donations/case-mgmt/reporting/etc.
- #CiviOneClick (one-click install)
- A new default theme engine.

I'll be talking about my work on the themes at 5pm UTC. Signup: https://civicrm.org/civicrm/event/register?reset=1&id=1775

‘“His view is that western civilisation itself is threatened,” one of the people added’ about the third-trillionaire tyrant threatening Western democracy https://www.ft.com/content/dd4b066c-30a1-4ce4-a95e-82c334a740cf

Impressed that #the_guardian has today not only ceased posting on X, letting go of 27 million collective followers – I just noticed in a live feed where they might once have written 'so and so posted on X' or embedded a Tweet, they wrote 'posted this on social media' then quote the tweet…

@nemobis imho, while tragic it’s still a fluid relationship, bigger than a vote, treaty or trade deficit. It’s defined ultimately by the people in both places, as it has for millennia.

FLOSS tho seems a model for stateless collaboration that both the UK and EU could learn something from.

@mekkaokereke @tarheel was about to mention Pix – 92% of Brazilian adults, ~220m transactions / day in September, no transaction fees (https://fintechmagazine.com/articles/pagbrasil-expands-pix-payments-beyond-brazilian-borders)

@nemobis ‘why bother’?
- when it comes to FOSS alternatives is there really so much choice to be exclusive?
- it’s cost the UK a fair bit to implement GDPR and there’s a lot of folks who’d like to ditch it. Recognising adequacy would help keep it?
- all my life I’ve know a spirit of cooperation between continental Europe & UK - that continues in FOSS work, literally today for me. Just coz 52% of Brit voters referendumed to leave the EU in one vote seems a sad reason to try to end that.

@nemobis FWIW ‘adequacy decision’ sounds like an odd kind of gatekeeping if the US is included in that list. The UK designed its GDPR implementation while still a member, which is unique amongst those other countries. In my experience it takes GDPR more seriously than some member states. For e.g. the CiviCRM GDPR extension was developed by a UK company, is maintained by another UK company, is used by many 100s of EU non profits and EU Civi agencies today: https://lab.civicrm.org/extensions/gdpr

@nemobis @european_alternatives I don't follow. The UK implemented GDPR before Brexit, and has no plans to change that (thankfully!): https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/data-protection-and-the-eu/data-protection-and-the-eu-in-detail/the-uk-gdpr/

@european_alternatives I've been very exited to discover your list - there's some really good stuff on it.

I notice that you only include EEA, EFTA, or DCFTA countries, but not, say, Council of Europe members (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_Europe) or the European Political Community (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Political_Community) which both cover Europe comprehensively by including the UK. I can't help but wonder why you'd keep British projects out of the list of 'European alternatives'?

@evan thanks! I know very little about how 501cs are administered - but is the 990 just for the IRS or is it published somewhere? In the UK there’s the Charity Register which makes public some financial info: https://www.gov.uk/find-charity-information

The #SocialWebFoundation launches into an ecosystem where transparent budgeting thru #OpenCollective has become normalised. Bringing together everyone from Meta and Automattic to Mastodon and Pixelfed in New Thing might gain more trust if there was similar transparency about who was paying in what, and what was being paid out (or to declare an intention to do that) because it shows the interests of partners.

For eg #socialcoop’s fully transparent budget & balance sheet: https://opencollective.com/socialcoop.