tech news today is that Mullvad VPN has gone mask-off about being the major funding source for the Swedish Orebro party, who are racist nationalists. unfortunately all discussion of this is occurring on fucking Mastodon instances i can barely load
if you are a mullvad customer (as i am) and want to get out, here is guidance from this guy
If you don't want your Mullvad fees going to fund neo-Nazis - or @mozilla VPN fees, which is rebranded Mullvad - cancel and get a refund immediately
that's whose "free speech" the official account is talking about here, and that's where your fees go to
EDIT: Mullvad has a 14 day refund policy. But the message below is a direct call to ask for a refund if you don't want to give money to Nazis.
If Mullvad refuse a refund, call your consumer protection agency. And reverse credit card charges on the basis of deceptive refund policy representations. It's not like you ever want to be a Mullvad customer again.
archive copy of Mullvad statement: https://web.archive.org/web/2026062717
Helloo, I was talking with a friend of how there's no good platforms for sharing book reccomendations, music and so on - I thought I should write here
SO,does anyone have recommendations for websites/platforms/zines/blogs/groups or other (??) that are somehow not a part of google/meta/other huge messed up corporation???Community and sharing based preferably, where you're able to share, find and discuss music, political literature, movies, and so on! Or if anyone has a thread in mind that maybe suits this description, I haven't used tumblr in many years so I don't really know how it works anymore lol......... tumblr's basic idea of sharing in threads and communitys is good for some of these discussion threads, but I think it would be so good to find other spaces,blogs or forms of media for this purpose, other than tumblr
I think many of us share in the feeling of being tired of big tech video and music streaming platforms and social media, however, it's so hard to find these kind of sharing spaces outside of - for example, instagram, and it's horrible, I really want to boycott these companies and regain some of my time spent online in searching for valueable sources.
I've found one or two good anti fascist book-threads on here, but would love to find more (and other) platforms for everything, basically!! News, queer resistance, anarchism, anti-fascism, book advice, film and art, music!!
I have some platforms that I use for different purposes, for anyone intrested that I can link here, but plss if you have any recommendations, send them!!! let's share and get out of doom-scrolling in trying to find good sources and platforms
Otherness Archive:
"We are a visual archive documenting queer films and its pioneers, as well as a space for contemporary filmmakers. Otherness Archive defies the historic censorship of homosexual, trans and racial themes, and instead highlights them as representations of otherness that deserve equal, if not greater, recognition. Otherness acts as a route into complex narratives and subjectivities that make for richer cinema." - OA website
I love this platform, me and my friends all use it frequently. It has a wide range of different genres, experiences and expressions of film making. HIGHLY recommend
A visual archive documenting queer films and its pioneers, as well as a space for contemporary filmmakers.
Working class history: "WCH is dedicated to all those who have struggled in the past for a better world, and who continue to do so now. To help record and popularise our grassroots, people’s history, as opposed to the top-down accounts of most history books." - WCH website
They have a really good podcast dedicated to record and educate about working class history! They have also have guesting authors discussing relating literature, and I believe that they have another podcast available on patreon called radical reads- I believe? Where I assume they share book recommendations. I haven't gotten around to becoming a patreon but I STRONGLY recommend listening. They've also released a book with the same title.
Join us for a deep dive into football politics and chaos during the World Cup in Trump's USA. Exclusive insights on our latest Fireside Chat
Anarchist book club, community on tumblr
2636 members, 721 posts about #anarchblr #anarchism #anarchy 101 • a book club for anarchists to discuss and share anarchist and leftist lit
Hope I did this correctly, and sorry if anything is unclear, english is not my first language :p rant over
if you decide to become a police officer then that outweighs any other marginalised identity you can rustle up like. not sorry, who asked you to willingly become a pig
I have heard of black people warning their kids that the race of a police officer is cop and you should not expect solidarity from them. The same applies to other types of minorities.
The sexuality of a police officer is cop.
The gender of a police officer is cop.
When you become the enforcer and protector of capital, you are making the deal to be slightly favored by the system over others like you, in exchange for being its servant. Your solidarity is with the system that you serve, even if it hates you.
If you want solidarity with those the system hates, you cannot be the system's servant and defender.
A Trevor Project survey found trans young people who were unable to access hormones were nearly twice as likely to report a suicide attempt
A major new survey from The Trevor Project released on Wednesday (6 May) has found that transgender and nonbinary young people who wanted hormone therapy but were unable to access it were nearly twice as likely to report a suicide attempt in the past year compared to those currently receiving hormones.
According to the report – which included over 10,000 responses from trans, nonbinary, and genderqueer people – 15% of trans youth denied access to hormones reported a suicide attempt, compared to 8% of those able to receive care.
When you advocate for taking medical transition away from minors, you advocate for their death.
After being announced in 2024, this is the closest thing we've gotten to Apple's promised AI-powered Siri upgrade.
"Apple has unveiled its vision for an AI-supercharged Siri, called Siri AI, which will become much more “agentic” thanks in part to an infusion from Google’s Gemini."
"Siri now takes actions across apps, both native and third-party, which includes handling stuff like email composition. This means you can give Siri topics and information and have the next-gen voice assistant do the rest for you.
To assist in its agentic capabilities, Siri is now designed to be much more personalized, using information from your Apple account and other personal data on your device, such as calendar events, emails, and notes. The upgraded Siri also has “visual intelligence,” meaning it can view and understand what’s on your screen to better take actions for you.
Visual Intelligence is best illustrated in new features like bill splitting, which uses your phone’s camera to look at a bill and then allows you to itemize it and send or receive money through Apple Cash.
Siri AI is also getting its own dedicated app, where you can resume conversations you had previously, and it will also be integrated into Spotlight in macOS, where you can now ask Siri questions and ask it to help you complete tasks and compare things. In visionOS, you can now pin a Siri orb in digital space so you can access it more easily."
"New voices abound as well, and you can now adjust the cadence and pacing of Siri if you don’t like the defaults."
siri AI will be available for users on a later date
C-22 would basically allow the government to force companies to keep a year of your metadata, without any cause or reason
“and grants the Minister of Public Safety power to impose these same requirements on any electronic service provider by ministerial order.
Such metadata can reveal highly sensitive information including patterns of movement, association, medical activity, religious participation, and political activity;”
“The definition of electronic service provider is broad enough to include any online service, including encrypted messaging apps, VPNs, email providers, banking apps, and cloud storage services;
Bill C-22 grants the Minister of Public Safety broad authority to compel any electronic service provider to implement interception capabilities or technical assistance measures that could weaken encrypted systems, with compliance being mandatory.
This creates cybersecurity vulnerabilities exploitable by criminals and hostile foreign actors, as demonstrated by the 2024 Salt Typhoon attack on United States telecoms;”
“The government retains broad regulatory power to redefine key terms including "encryption" and "systemic vulnerability" without returning to Parliament, rendering the bill's stated privacy protections unreliable.”
Please do sign and share this petition ( only Canadians sign it)
Google says all music uploaded to YouTube is legally theirs to use to train AI on
Google says YouTube’s terms of service grant a “broad license” for AI models to be trained on music uploaded to the platform in response to
Tl;DR:
Google is saying that any music uploaded to YouTube is legally theirs to use in AI training.
This was to try to throw out a copyright case where the victims were trying to sue YouTube for allegedly using their music to train their AI
full discussion
“A new court filing claims that when indie artists upload music to YouTube, they grant a "broad license" that covers the AI initiatives of parent company Google.”
“Google says in a new court filing that YouTube’s terms of service grant a “broad license” for artificial intelligence models to be trained on music uploaded directly to the platform.”
“This argument came in Google’s Monday (June 8) motion to dismiss copyright infringement litigation filed earlier this year by a group of independent artists, songwriters and producers.
The lawsuit claims that Lyria 3, the AI music model launched by Google in February, was trained on songs ripped from YouTube without compensating artists.”
“The case is among dozens that have accused AI companies of illegally training their models on copyrighted sound, text and images in recent years.
In most of these lawsuits — including ones brought by the major record labels against AI music generators Suno and Udio — tech companies have argued that the so-called fair use principle of copyright law allows them to create transformative works without licensing the training data.”
Instead of making a fair use argument, Google is saying “they actually do have a license to train AI with the songs uploaded to YouTube by these indie artists.”
Google says there’s no evidence for Google using their specific works, but also that they have the right to use
the motion cites a clause in YouTube’s terms of service that states, “By providing content to the service, you grant to YouTube a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicensable and transferable license to use that content (including to reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works, display and perform it) in connection with the service and YouTube’s (and its successors’ and affiliates’) business.”
“if Google’s argument is accepted by the court, the company would be legally permitted to train AI models on and otherwise utilize that content for “derivative works.” However,
the situation might be different for music distributed through YouTube pursuant to licensing agreements with labels and publishers.”
Music usually has licensing that protects them from copyright issues
