Paul Sutton @zleap@qoto.org
Interested in Technology, Science, Chemistry, Education, Fediverse, GNU/Linux and free software.
Joined Mar 2020
So if one is concerend about the climate, who do we vote for, Tories and Reform want to undo decades of climate science.
Here in Torbay, As Labour have zero chance of getting in, it is usually a choice Tories or Lib Dems at the General Election.
Apparently people in Israel are not being told the full story of what is going on in Gaza, so what are they being told here? Seems possible they are just being fed a single narrative and others are being supressed or watered down so the Trump proposal appears to be the ONLY solution on the table.
What are people actually being told?
Paul Sutton
boosted
A big majority of Israelis support Donald Trump’s Gaza peace planBinyamin Netanyahu hopes he can use this to hold on to officeAnshel Pfeffer www.e...
Paul Sutton
boosted
It was mentioned a while back on here that there was a potential legal case against british companies making and supplying weapons to the IDF. I am British and fully back these legal cases, they are needed, bring those who make the weapons to court, is also probably much easier than trying to bring politicians to justice, in fact you don't need criminal cases, you can probably launch civil cases or even a case via the ECHR against those companues, as they would know full well what their products are being used for.
I just did a quick ddg search and came up with these, but I think others here can find better links.
UK Arms Exports to Israel Under Legal Scrutiny as High Court Hearing Begins
https://dpglaw.co.uk/uk-arms-exports-to-israel-under-legal-scrutiny-as-high-court-hearing-begins/
Also interesting
UK withheld evidence from court in Israel arms export case
https://www.declassifieduk.org/uk-withheld-evidence-from-court-in-israel-arms-export-case/
Paul Sutton
boosted
Anne, Princess Royal of the United Kingdom has visited #Kyiv.
She has come to show support to those who suffer from the war.
Thank you!
🇬🇧🇺🇦
Following the decision of Imgur to block UK users, I have put these to links together to help anyone looking at moving to PixelFed as result of this.
BBC news Imgur blocks access to UK users after regulator warned of fine
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4gzxv5gy3qo
PIXELFED
Pixelfed: A Beginner-Friendly Guide to Self-Hosting
https://www.selfhostedninja.com/pixelfed-a-beginner-friendly-guide-to-self-hosting/
Paul Sutton
boosted
In 2005, Cassini found the first evidence that Enceladus has a hidden ocean beneath its icy surface. Jets of water burst from cracks close to the moon’s south pole, shooting ice grains into space. Smaller than grains of sand, some of the tiny pieces of ice fall back onto the moon’s surface, whilst others escape and form a ring around Saturn that traces Enceladus’s orbit.
Well now that war criminal, Tony B Liar is involved, he will rake in the money.
@simon_brooke I fully agree with you, My choice of words was just poor, but if Reeves and the current westminster lot want to be 'friends' with israel (or netenyahu) then so be it, being friends still means you stop friends doing stuff that is illegal or dangerous, which we are not doing. So therefore the UK is complicit.
We should stand up for what is right, stand up for the people of Gaza, the west band AND the people IN Israel who want to end this, perhaps they need our friendship more than anyone else in their genocidal government, even former israeli PMs have strongly condemed what is going on.
That could be a real test when so called friendship starts to result in UK politicians being summoned to the ICC to face serious charges.
Sympathy to your friends / family. This horror has to stop, I am not sure what Trump has planned but it will result in the deaths of far more people in Gaza.
I think Trump / Netenyahu want Gazans simply out of the way fully (like Hitler wanted the jews out of the way) and that is the end game here.
Indeed, so we are not much of a real friend are we, we stood by the USA 100 percent when they illegally invaded iraq in 2003, even though we knew full well what we were doing was not sanctioned by the UN. Blair is married to a barrister so can hardly make excuses as to not understanding the law an international law, Kier is also a former barrister so knows the law, and as we do know the law, makes it much easier to stand up to friends and get them to change what they are doing.
Time will tell over this, WHEN this comes before the ICC and the UK gets implicated as complicit, then we will see a total change of rhetoric to trying to wriggle out of the fact we stood by and did nothing when as friends and allys we should have stood up to them and told them to stop.
@aral do
The point I was trying to make was if she is a 'friend' she needs to be putting pressure on Israel to start doing the 'right thing' and yes if you have a friend who is demonstrating far right attitudes you, as a friend can put pressure on them to rethink their ideas, and as a friend question / challange them, you would not be a good friend just sitting by and doing nothing.
Same as if a friend gets in a car drunk, would YOU let them drive off knowing they are not fit to drive?
There is a statement somewhere 'Friends don't let Friends use windows' using MS windows is kinda trivial compared to letting friends commit genocide and letting friends be Racist without challenge.
There is a point where you as a friend can just walk away and abandon them, but people don't really like doing that for numerous reasons.
Speculation: Quite a few photo website contain nudity, shock horror that nudes are actually a genre of legitimate photography. So the OSA is meant to protect kids from pornography (erotic image) which many of the nude photos don't really fall in to as nude photography focuses on the human figure, lighting, shadow etc.
So maybe they are blocking the UK so people elsewhere can still share their artistic images without falling foul of the law or requiring moderators to remove them.
I have not used imagur. On here, I have set my feed up to hide all images, in addition the tagging for naturist related images are very comprehensive it is blatently obious what the photo contains.
Meanwhile instagram et al are STILL allowing self harm and suicide posts in to feeds of under 18s, I am sure META has a much bigger budget to help deal with this than imagur.
Paul Sutton
boosted
:agenderFlag: :transgenderFlag:
What the fuck. Imgur has now blocked the UK entirely from accessing it’s website. This is awful. So many OTHER websites use Imgur as a host, so now those images will become blocked as well, rendering them unusable. This is really annoying.
What makes it more worse is that Imgur, for some reason, heavily blocks VPN access — sometimes the website works via a VPN and sometimes it doesn’t. So just having a VPN doesn’t bypass it entirely.
This is also, like way too late? The OSA became operational a few months ago, why does Imgur suddenly have a problem with it now?
I have no problem with this, BUT, friends don't usually let friends break the law, sometimes even your closest friend has to be told NO, sometimes you HAVE to stop friends doing stuff that is illegal, even if that results in their arrest, it may get them the help they need, if nothing else, for their own good.
A friend is not much of a friend if they stick by you while you commit serious offenses such as rape, murder.
Lets see if Rachael Reeves has the ability to actually understand this and put pressure on Netenyau to either seek peace or step aside so someone else in his country can take israel forward as a civilised nation or cement them in this part of history as complicit in Gencide (UN has used that word).
This has been reposted, without the transparent background.
Paul Sutton
boosted
*New age-gating laws aimed at making the internet safer actually threaten free speech.* The article is a little timid about stating the danger of making non-minors identify themselves. It is not only that age verification sites might fail to keep users' identification data secure; it is that they may be compelled to help a repressive state identify dissidents.
Yeah, one of the consequences is that Matrix has changed their terms to exclude under 18s from signing up. I fully understand this policy change it just means under 18's can't sign up to join my local Linux user group chat for example, oddly they can join irc which is bridged, to me the point of also using Matrix is that Matrix is more appealing to under 18s and is more mobile friendly.
I am sure this is NOT the intention of the act, it is just a consequence.
Paul Sutton
boosted
📺 PeerTube Co-op FAQ: Building a Member-Owned Alternative to YouTube
The future of video doesn’t belong to platforms. It belongs to people.
We’re building a PeerTube co-op: a member-owned, democratically governed video platform based in BC. No algorithms deciding what matters. No corporate choke points. No waiting for permission.
This is about taking control of the infrastructure, the governance, and the culture—and doing it together.
Why a co-op?
Because co-ops give people ownership, governance rights, and collective resilience. Instead of handing data and control to a platform, members pool resources, share decision-making, and shape policies together.
BC has a strong legal framework for co-operatives, which makes it a natural place to explore this seriously.
Why PeerTube?
PeerTube is federated, open-source, and already battle-tested as a decentralized alternative to YouTube. It’s not perfect—but it provides a solid foundation for a co-op structure to build on top of.
The idea is to pair federated tech with co-operative governance, so neither corporate control nor a single admin dictates the rules.
Who’s behind this?
Right now, this is being organized by me (@atomicpoet) and @Crissy, along with a growing group of interested folks: creators, privacy advocates, security experts, and co-op thinkers from around the world.
We’re still early—think founding conversations, not bylaws and board elections. But the energy is real.
How much does it cost to join?
What follows is the proposed model, not something set in stone. The final structure will be decided by the member-owners once the co-op is formed.
The idea is to keep membership affordable for individuals while ensuring the co-op is financially sustainable from the start—with no ads, no data harvesting, and no outside investors. Just members pooling resources to run the platform together.
Base membership: C$5.95/month
Medium tier (10–100 GB/month): +C$3 → C$8.95/month
Heavy tier (100 GB+): +C$10 → C$15.95/month
At scale, with a typical user mix (80% base / 15% medium / 5% heavy), this works out to about C$6.90 per member per month, which comfortably covers hosting and operational costs.
There’s also a one-time buy-in of C$50, which funds initial setup (domain, CDN deposits, buffer) and helps keep the early months profitable without raising dues. When spread over the first year, that’s roughly C$4.17/month in effective cost coverage.
What happens if the co-op grows faster than expected?
The financial and technical model is step-wise, not linear. As membership increases, transcoding nodes, storage/CDN tiers, and egress commitments scale at defined traffic thresholds.
The co-op’s development will unfold in three phases, with member-owners deciding collectively when to move from one to the next.
Do I need technical skills to participate?
No. Technical expertise is welcome but not required. Governance, policy, communications, creative, and community-building skills are just as valuable. Infrastructure will be professionally managed, with costs shared through dues.
Will the co-op run its own infrastructure or rely on third parties?
The proposal uses managed hosting as a baseline, scaling as membership grows. This provides reliability early on while retaining the ability to self-host more components later.
How will moderation work?
Moderation scales with user base and federation breadth:
Member reporting and rotating stewards handle first-line triage
Paid moderation begins once activity reaches 10–15+ hours/week
Budget estimates: up to C$270/month for ~100 users; part-time moderation (~C$1,755/month) for ~500 users
Will the instance federate with everyone or be selective?
The proposal starts with a curated allowlist of trusted instances to control load.
It will also:
Adopt shared blocklists as a baseline
Document defederation criteria and appeals to keep the process transparent
As membership grows, federation posture can be revisited by member-owners.
What’s the timeline for incorporation and launch?
We’re not working toward rigid dates—we’re building deliberately, in three clear phases:
Phase 1: Formation and groundwork. Incorporation, drafting bylaws, establishing MVP infrastructure, and setting out the core policies (ToS, AUP, takedown).
Phase 2: Growth and refinement. Expanding membership, activating the hybrid pricing model, introducing stipends, and refining federation posture.
Phase 3: Maturity and expansion. Adding part-time moderation, building reserves and insurance, and exploring potential expansion into other Fediverse services.
Each phase builds on the last, and decisions about when to transition between them will be made collectively by member-owners.
What drives costs the most?
Egress and bandwidth dominate, not storage. P2P offload reduces egress as viewer concurrency rises, but outbound data remains the biggest expense.
How does the pricing hold up financially?
At as few as five members, the co-op becomes cash-flow positive, and margins scale significantly with growth.
100 members → estimated monthly surplus C$587
1,000 members → estimated monthly surplus C$6,870
I’ve never been in a co-op before. Will there be guidance?
Yes. The initial bylaws and governance structure will include clear documentation. New members will be onboarded through AGMs, published policies, and transparent reporting, as required under BC Co-operative Association law.
Will you use open-source tools for internal communications?
That will ultimately be up to the member-owners to decide collectively.
For now, tools like Google Docs are being used temporarily to get everyone aligned quickly. Yes, the irony isn’t lost—it’s like holding a union meeting in Jeff Bezos’ living room. But this is just to get the ball rolling, not a long-term choice.
How will governance work?
We’re still defining this collectively, but the plan is to follow BC co-op regulations while ensuring member governance is meaningful, not symbolic. Expect conversations around:
Founding member structure
Board or steering committee setup
Decision-making processes
Transparency and accountability measures
I’m not a PeerTube user, but I’m interested in the co-op structure. Is that relevant?
Yes—very. Some participants are here primarily because they’re passionate about co-operatives, not necessarily PeerTube. That expertise will be crucial for getting the legal, organizational, and governance frameworks right.
Will non-members be able to watch videos?
Yes. As with most PeerTube instances, most viewing will be public, but uploading and policy decisions are reserved for member-owners. The co-op’s primary responsibility is to its members, while still providing an open and accessible platform for viewers.
What will the co-op be called?
The official name and branding will be chosen collectively by the founding member-owners after incorporation.
How do I get involved or stay informed?
The next step will be setting up an initial coordination space (on open-source infrastructure, if members choose that path) to keep everyone looped in and start shaping this together.
If you want to be kept informed, reach out privately or share your email so you can be included when that happens.
Isn’t this ambitious?
Yes. But the response so far has been incredible. The mix of skills and motivations showing up this early—technical, organizational, privacy, cultural—is exactly what’s needed to make something real.
ADDENDED QUESTIONS (Oct 6, 2015)
Why incorporate in British Columbia?
BC has one of the strongest and most flexible legal frameworks for co-operatives in North America. It allows for multi-stakeholder models, clear governance structures, and relatively straightforward incorporation. This makes it an ideal jurisdiction to establish a co-op that can scale while remaining member-governed.
Is this a for-profit or non-profit co-op?
Right now, I’m proposing a for-profit co-op, because I believe that’s the best way to maximally serve member-owners. A for-profit structure allows the co-op to sustain itself through revenue, reinvest surplus into the platform, and return benefits to members, rather than relying on grants or donations.
That said, nothing is set in stone. Once the steering committee is formed and the co-op takes shape, member-owners will collectively decide what structure works best.
Why are you deliberately reaching out to British Columbia residents?
Under BC co-operative law, at least one director must be a resident of British Columbia. I already fulfil that requirement. However, it’s wise to build redundancies into the governance structure in case something happens that prevents my continued participation. Having more BC-based member-owners involved ensures the co-op remains legally compliant and operational no matter what.
Do I need to live in BC to be a member?
No. Anyone, regardless of where they live, can become a member-owner of the co-op. The only legal requirement is that at least three members of the initial steering committee must be Canadian residents for incorporation purposes. International members are welcome and encouraged to participate in governance, decision-making, and platform use.
Can organizations or businesses become member-owners?
Yes, in principle. Co-ops can have both individuals and organizations as members. We’ll be consulting co-operative experts to confirm the best structure, but businesses that share the vision for a sustainable, community-owned video platform will likely be able to join as organizational members.
What role can international supporters play?
International supporters can become member-owners, participate in discussions, contribute financially, and help shape policies and governance. While only Canadian residents can be part of the legal steering committee for incorporation, international voices are essential for building a platform that serves a global community.
How will this co-op coordinate with other Fediverse co-ops?
Co-ops are stronger together. We’ve started reaching out to groups like CoSocial.ca, Social.coop, and SocialBC.ca to explore collaboration, share governance practices, and ensure efforts complement rather than duplicate each other. There’s a real opportunity to build a federated co-operative ecosystem across the Fediverse.
📝 Closing Thought
This is still early days. But something’s forming—a group of people who see the cracks in the platform world and want to build something better, together.
If that resonates with you, you’re welcome here.
#PeerTubeCoop #PeerTube #Cooperative
RE: https://atomicpoet.org/objects/2289eb47-0f39-463d-a056-8568e12e70f3
Tired of YouTube calling all the shots? It’s time to build something better—together. Here’s the slide deck for a proposal to launch a PeerTube co-...
Sounds a good idea to me, a lot of people live in smaller homes so may not have space for book cases. But e-books can also be taken out and slipped in to a bag for reading en-route to a destination.
Interested in Technology, Science, Chemistry, Education, Fediverse, GNU/Linux and free software.
Joined Mar 2020
Paul Sutton's choices:
