Brian Beach has moved @bwbeach@qoto.org

Hey guys, you don’t need a mother, sister, or daughter to care about women’s rights. It’s so nice to hear a man say, when asked “why do you support [policy that impacts women and girls]?”

“Because women’s rights are human rights. And I care about and support all women.” Not just because you are related to one.

I see a lot of people talking about technical solutions to racist attacks on Mastodon. I used to do that too.

I was wrong.

Yes. There are things that could be done to improve technical protections. Signup validation, proactive moderation, visible replies, limiting who can reply.... But those don't actually solve the problem.

The problem is us.
The problem is what we allowed our community to be.

The tech community has a lot of racists in it. Some are billionaires. Many of those billionaires fund and support explicit racists and eugenicists. When these people, and those who want to emulate them, suffer zero consequences for their racism (and they almost always do), they get more brazen and more explicit. For some it's a thrilling game to see what they can get away with. For others it's a deadly serious ideology.

We need to make it clear that VCs, developers, managers, and influencers who don't take racism seriously won't get hired. That their companies will be boycotted. That nobody will work on their projects. It's not enough to not be racist. We need to be proactively anti-racist, and we need to hold everyone we work with to the same standard.

And when I talk about fighting racism, I'm not just talking about someone saying the n-word. The guy who says, "We don't allow politics in our company/project" has just stated that they are perfectly fine hiring and funding a racist, even if it drives others away. The company that says they don't need a DEI initiative because it "doesn't help the bottom line" has just told their employees that being biased is perfectly fine. You know what they call someone who sits down to dinner with Nazis; if you enable one, you are one. Every step backwards is one more racist who feels empowered to step out of their dank closet.

And fighting them has a cost. We may need to turn down opportunities, and be attacked in response. It's no accident that a lot of the Black (and LGBTQ+) folks who receive the most attacks are the same ones who stood up to their organizations, who called out and continue to call out the racism and bias, and who daily pay a price for it. The message is clear. "Do what they do and we'll make an example of you too."

All of this is going to be harder than we want, because the racists hold a lot of the purse strings. But the tech community is our community, we live here, and we're responsible for making it safe for others.

And I don't want to see one more post saying, "I haven't seen it myself, but...". If you're not seeing it, go out and search for it. Or turn around and look at your own organization and see how you can make it better. We can't cleanup Mastodon without cleaning up the entire community; it doesn't exist in a vacuum.

And yes, you can replace "racist" in what I wrote with any other fascist ideology. They are all cut from the same cloth, and a follower of one invariably joins the others as well.

"I wish journalists would be a tad less bored with the threatened demise of democracy. I wish they’d cover Trump like they cover hurricanes. When hurricanes approach, news outlets warn people. They don’t think, 'We told them about hurricanes last year. This is just another one. It’s just ‘hurricanes being hurricanes.’'”

~ Mark Jacob

#Trump #dictator #media
/11

https://www.stopthepresses.news/p/the-political-media-are-entertaining

Principles to create a cross-partisan alliance & help the #Harris campaign.

Democracies rest on rule of law

Truth, facts, science & evidence

Free & fair elections

Civil discourse

Independent, nonpartisan civil service, & subject matter expertise

An ethical govt free from corruption & self-interest

US: indispensable nation for INTL stability, economic prosperity

MIL takes an oath to the Constitution

A vibrant, independent press

Equality & civil rights

#USPol
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/07/28/democracy-conference-campaign/

Mothers with paid careers should have no need to apologize when children interrupt work. If you are a supervisor or colleague and you hear this sort of apology, just say, "No need to apologize." https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/jul/29/motherhood-used-to-apologise-unruly-children-no-shame-working-why-i-quit

"My Beautiful Christians:" Trump's Pandering to Christian Nationalists

https://www.emptywheel.net/2024/07/29/my-beautiful-christians-dont-talk-about-trumps-pandering-to-christian-nationalists/

President Biden “calling for three bold reforms to restore trust and accountability” in SCOTUS, the White House announces. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/07/29/fact-sheet-president-biden-announces-bold-plan-to-reform-the-supreme-court-and-ensure-no-president-is-above-the-law/

🧵 I won my YouTube dispute with Sony Music Entertainment after they claimed I had infringed the copyright of one of their artists. They rejected my first appeal, even though I offered evidence that I'd written/performed/recorded the music myself.
I guessed that my track's background atmosphere audio sample might be the contentious element, so I demonstrated that it was from a Creative Commons audio library which offers free audio samples.

@qurlyjoe @futurebird a friend in college and I had an ongoing competition to find the book that had gone the longest without being checked out. Some of the most interesting things I read came out of that competition.

The idea that AI will help you handle tedious writing projects like status reports or even boring homework is a compelling use case.

AI writing the heartfelt fan letter a little kid sends their role model goes from a narrative of AI stealing our jobs to stealing our humanity.

@futurebird

As promised: in this tiny patch of rewilded land, across the main entrance to Harvard’s Natural History Museum, I found 8 species of wasp and 4 of bees, plus hoverflies, flies, true bugs, ants and a dragonfly. And butterflies that I couldn’t photograph.

Compare with the surrounding lawn deserts.

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?nelat=42.37864070649608&nelng=-71.11562494157167&on=2024-07-27&place_id=any&swlat=42.37827613415456&swlng=-71.11610773919435&user_id=albertcardona
#iNaturalist #rewilding #entomology

"Switzerland now requires all government software to be open source"
👇
https://www.zdnet.com/article/switzerland-now-requires-all-government-software-to-be-open-source/

[FR] Loi fédérale
sur l’utilisation de moyens électroniques pour l’exécution des tâches des autorités (LMETA/EMBAG)
👇
https://www.fedlex.admin.ch/eli/oc/2023/682/fr#art_9

#Cyberveille #Switzerland #opensource

One thing the pundits are right about—this is absolutely, 100% a turnout election. It’ll all come down to who brings more people to the polls.

Of course, getting to the polls is only part of the job. If you’re an eligible voter in every state and territory except North Dakota, you have to be registered first. If you registered before, make sure you’re still on the rolls, active, and that your contact info is correct. You don’t want any nasty surprises come November!

https://vote.gov

" If you are on Ukrainian social media, you are dealing with Russian bots and trolls saying that Harris is unpopular in America and can’t win. In the United States, the Russian bots and trolls are spreading racism and misogyny. The Russian demobilization serves the same goal: to stifle any hope for something good in both countries."

~ Timothy Snyder

#KamalaHarris #Trump #Ukraine #Russia #disinformation #propaganda
/15

https://snyder.substack.com/p/ukraine-and-harris

The internet can be homophobic.

The internet can be racist.

Most fediverse developers have privilege.

We have a responsibility to use that privilege to build a better, more inclusive online space.

Let's start listening to marginalized voices, amplify their experiences, and work together to create a Fediverse where everyone feels safe and welcome.

#FediverseForAll #DevsForDiversity

Per today's Toronto Star editorial: "The right of citizens to the greatest safety possible when travelling by bicycles should not be a matter of negotiation, a privilege granted only when politicians conclude that a majority of their fellows say so." #BikeTO #TOpoli https://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/it-s-a-matter-of-life-and-death-but-in-toronto-cyclist-safety-is-a/article_e6c8e9b8-4b8a-11ef-9ee7-4f9c79ca0986.html

We desperately need to start a Slow Software movement. High quality, intentionally designed, low defect software done at a quarter of the pace for the same price. Because we've been destroying the mental health of developers for the last quarter century, and what do we have to show for it but a giant mess?