Nicol Wistreich

Digital governance, community/civic tech, CSS, indie-media and the funding/tools/etc that supports it. Co-founded Netribution.co.uk in 1999, wrote some books on the media business. Design lead for CiviCRM’s new River theme framework. Dad, sleep-deprived, lapsed filmmaker, wannabe vegan, take the train whenever I can. #nobots

fediverse blog: https://25.netribution.co.uk
R&D: https://helloideas.com
civicrm glab: https://lab.civicrm.org/nicol
ghub: https://github.com/vingle

Public Key

npub1chqpc56rhtjcje7u37s2a42f52n96njq82e3ryhwpusd0ahpcnpqkut7g7

NIP-05 Address

nicol_at_social.coop@momostr.pink

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsvtsqu2dpm4evfvlwglg9w64y69fjafeqr4vc3jthq7gxh7msufssprpmhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumt0d4hhxarj9ecxjmntqshrhs

Publishing to

relay.momostr.pink

Author Public Key

npub1chqpc56rhtjcje7u37s2a42f52n96njq82e3ryhwpusd0ahpcnpqkut7g7

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Last Notes

2026-07-27 16:06:25 UTC

RE: https://floss.social/@doctormo/116988271220888754
Web designers to be randomly assigned their least confident users.
The single most educational event in my years doing web front-end was a 2009 workshop for primary school kids and their parents to use the web.
I saw parents confused by using a mouse handing it to their kids. Almost all used a search engine to 'type in' a URL.
It was a nice Creative Partnerships project that had them visit museums together, then blog about it, but the complexity of moving photos they'd taken in the museums on a digital camera onto a computer and then uploaded thru their browser was stressful for all of us (other than the kids mostly)..
#note1lcd…43zv

2026-06-19 09:49:32 UTC

Pretty wild that if #Israel had honoured the ceasefire in Lebanon most likely those four soldiers would still be alive.
There’s no better sign that one of Israel’s biggest problems is the influence of messianic / magical thinking in political strategy than what’s happening right now. Israel has *only one ally left* - the USA, and there *only one leader for sure*, Trump. Having dragged them into an expensive and humiliating war, they’re now choosing to loudly stick two fingers up at the country that gives them the majority of their weapons and funds them. It’s reckless and delusional.
https://social-coop-media.ams3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/media_attachments/files/116/776/114/644/536/456/original/597cabe1753a0202.jpeg

2026-06-09 09:46:06 UTC

RE: https://mastodon.social/@jplebreton/116709297088742776
I recently downloaded my first slop iOS app by mistake. I was looking for a baby feed/sleep tracker. The biggest on the market is US based and was recommended by a dad in the nursery pickup for their newborn, but when I checked the privacy policy, sleep deprived - saw it wasn’t remotely GDPR inclined. No way I want to ship my new one’s fundamental data to the surveillance industry.
I searched the App Store and found a few alternatives with privacy-first approach. One looked great, did everything we needed, was made by a dad-dev. But as I started using it I realised half the interfaces just didn’t work. Then the counts in the stats were completely wrong non-maths. I found the dev’s github - initially thinking I could open an issue or offer help, then saw his repos of Claude prompts. God knows what other vulnerabilities it had hidden, deleted it asap. But what a waste of our time.. there needs to be a Vibe-free kitemark for code asap.
#note1899…eqtx

2026-06-03 21:05:36 UTC

“That is not the same history as Jim Crow…mass incarceration or the plantation… The American framework is not wrong about America. In Britain, it often obscures more than it reveals. It locates the problem in whiteness as a category rather than in the specific institutions, class relations & imperial history that produced British racism.
“That is why it has never taken hold here, & why a significant part of the population experiences it as an accusation. Identity politics filled the space left by the defeat of class politics…
“At its worst, it handed the professional middle class a moral vocabulary with which to discipline the working class, while the material basis of solidarity was being systematically destroyed. Council housing was sold. Unions were weakened. Youth centres closed & were not replaced. Wages were held down across a generation. The worker became problematic; the HR department became radical. That was the bargain: less power, better language.”
https://simonpearson1.substack.com/p/britain-needs-class-politics-not

2026-05-13 10:45:09 UTC

“My ministers will also proceed with the introduction of #DigitalID that will modernise how citizens interact with public services.”
We will demonstrate how much we’re listening and have changed since the devastating local elections by ploughing forward with widely unpopular projects..

2026-03-15 23:16:14 UTC

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this sounds absolutely right - but gut tells me there will be an upset with one of them…

2026-02-27 12:27:57 UTC

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Shows I've not explored the plugin properly (/ didn't need to do this before)… but there is a subscribe-able blocklist from @npub1y2r…kvzk.
https://social-coop-media.ams3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/media_attachments/files/116/142/581/958/579/186/original/fb43a5f488e9a7e5.png

2026-02-26 12:02:57 UTC

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yeh - and maybe it happens whenever I update the page (which happens when I approve new Fediverse reactions / comments - which I’ve started to try doing in blocks.
It’s probably also the caching plugin that is stripping the basic formatting from new posts.. will try to investigate on another WP.. maybe some caching plugins are better with the AP plugin than others (?). But without it I think the site would have fallen down by now!

2026-02-26 09:49:27 UTC

This is bonkers…(likes/boosts/comments for approval overnight).
I had been checking each link v quickly before approving - which was a nice way of seeing how many wonderful people, instances and CSS customisations there are on the Fediverse.. but no-way at this scale. Subscribeable block-lists would be nice so I'm not giving SEO to neo-naz sites (tho tbf other than a few genuine spammers on earlier articles - didn't seen anything problematic in my quick scans).
Also only just realised that I prob need to update the blog's privacy policy to say we're storing IP addresses in the dbse (unless there's a way to toggle that off).
https://social-coop-media.ams3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/media_attachments/files/116/136/298/585/740/552/original/4e197204d8ef5f93.png

2026-02-25 19:14:34 UTC

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If anyone's struggling with the video embeds on the WordPress site (I am on my phone), there's direct links for both the videos on #PeerTube. If that goes down (and I’ve no reason to think it should) I have got Vimeo links - but 🤞
- Mike Little, Part 1: co-founding WordPress and watching it grow (from afar): https://open.movie/w/hzQjFV6xJF9agsn5ERz4Kz
- Mike Little, Part 2: his life in code: https://open.movie/w/rdot9DoygXTXzLM4ZnJjTf

2026-02-25 16:27:24 UTC

How many people know that #WordPress was co-founded by a black man, Mike Little?
Or that he's from the north of England? A self-taught coder from #Stockport, just south of #Manchester? Or that he never received so much as a share, cent or job offer from the $7bn+ valued Automattic after spending five months working exclusively with Matt Mullenweg on the B2 fork?
After @npub1h0z…wzzu told me about @npub1ent…58ls I interviewed him for a documentary I never got round to making. Back then I was left with two certainties: he's Wozniak to Mullenweg's Jobs. Among other things he added the one-click upgrade that's been central to WP's bonkers 45%-of-the-web-success. And he's one of the nicest people I've ever interviewed, which is also bonkers given that he not only didn't share in WP's financial success, but that he's barely known.
But he should be - so, better late than never - please meet #MikeLittle, perhaps the most-influential-least-known person in #foss… https://25.netribution.co.uk/nic/mike-little-the-british-co-founder-of-wordpress-youve-probably-never-heard-of/
#note1ht8…26yj

2026-02-21 11:56:07 UTC

No fun in the bandstand arena
https://social-coop-media.ams3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/media_attachments/files/116/108/482/503/994/138/original/344e33cd3ef0289c.jpeg

2026-02-10 11:10:14 UTC

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ah - thanks, hadn't thought of that. But I see this - https://dustinrue.com/2022/12/wordpress-fediverse-and-caching/ - which makes sense.
Is it possible the time it worked for you you tried the link directly in a browser, while the error came via the Mastodon client?

2026-02-10 10:48:48 UTC

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Hmm.. I wonder how I can track how many people get those. I had to increase the server resources last week and add a cache plugin. I wonder if the caching gives me a false picture of uptime!

2026-02-10 10:45:38 UTC

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thanks - that's weird.. it currently loads ok to me, maybe a temporary glitch?

2026-01-14 11:41:17 UTC

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Amazing @npub19hh…yxnx - can't wait to see.
And I agree @npub1tga…gxf9 - it's win-win.
Also really like how it fits with community news publishers like the Cable who aren't currently very Fediverse active afaik but potentially bring in their chattiest subscribers with their first ActivityPub account *and* can help them share their articles far-wider. Would love to see it for my local walthamforestecho.co.uk (published by David Floyd @ socialspidercommunitynews.co.uk).
@npub142g…kmy5 @npub1hg6…nwn8 @npub1qjr…aj0p [@blog](https://jaz.co.uk )

2026-01-14 10:54:45 UTC

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I saw the nice-looking screengrabs of something similar for the Bristol Cable; I downloaded yesterday but couldn't explore as not a member.
Is that using the same back-end as twt.wales? And part of a wider @npub142g…kmy5 product strategy? Be *amazing* if a white-label fediverse phone app is coming that's FOSS for transparency/resilience, but has a funding model baked in (ie pay you for slick custom dev) and builds up slowly together with folks like Toot & the Cable.
@npub1tga…gxf9 @npub1hg6…nwn8 @npub1qjr…aj0p [@blog](https://jaz.co.uk )

2026-01-13 15:51:23 UTC

RE: https://vis.social/@infobeautiful/115887892366419223
this is wonderful. I wonder if you could figure out where someone is from based on how they rank 'quite bad' / 'pretty bad' / 'somewhat bad' and 'somewhat good' / 'quite good' / 'pretty good'.
The results feel intuitively right, but I have no idea how you'd explain why to someone learning English.
"Obviously 'quite' is stronger than 'pretty' when something is bad, but the opposite if it's good, duh!"
#note15hr…eq5m

2025-12-31 17:48:26 UTC

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same procedure as last year?!

2025-11-26 12:20:43 UTC

Office for Budget Irresponsibility has leaked the #budget early…
"Fuel duty to be frozen until next September"
"A new mileage tax on electric vehicles"
Brilliant double whammy of first policies out the bag. Meanwhile in Norway –driven by tax incentives– EVs were 96% of car sales in June (https://mobilityportal.eu/norway-96-9-market-share-evs/)
Ignoring the climate & PR idiocy of disincentivising EVs over petrol, I still don't get why Labour desperately chases Reform voters while giving the Green Party the easiest of wins.

2025-11-20 12:48:22 UTC

My old friend the filmmaker @npub1heh…cezd has written about leaving the #Labour Party over their latest lurch rightwards…
"My first documentary feature, The Asylum (2001), followed an Afghan family who had escaped the Taliban, been terrorised by people traffickers in Ukraine, and was trying to build a new life in Britain. When faced with deportation, the desperate father asked me whether, if he were to commit suicide, his wife and three young children might be given a reprieve…"
https://www.aftershocks.co/p/immigration-and-abjection

2025-10-23 06:47:37 UTC

Curious how differently Labour responds to the polling success of the Green Party vs that of Reform.
The Heathrow third runway -that even Boris was against- is set to be fast-tracked.
Ht @npub12pw…zvxn
https://zirk.us/@ChrisMayLA6/115421933956134144

2025-09-18 16:56:04 UTC

If #YourParty does implode as hinted at (https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/sep/18/apparent-your-party-implosion-leaves-big-political-vacancy-on-the-left) - there's a big question about the 700,000 people's names and emails which have been inexplicably transferred to Texas, home of the AI company that YourParty, *used for email signups* and which no-one seemed to care about at the time.
In an era of political microtargeting, it will be immensely valuable and the chances of it not ending up in the hands of Reform, X and/or Conservatives seems to me pretty small.

2025-08-10 11:36:42 UTC

‘Among those taking part in yesterday’s protest was Claudia Cotton, 89, a Jewish refugee whose family fled Nazi Germany in 1939. “I am prepared to be arrested,” the retired social worker from London said. “In fact, I think it’s a good thing because it shows how ordinary people are willing to go to prison to oppose governments that are doing evil things.’
RT @npub1hfw…pfwr
https://mastodon.social/@urlyman/115003501170223700

2025-07-27 20:57:38 UTC

Tiring how the #Guardian’s #Epping story is leading with a photo and headline of the anti-refugee EDL group over the far larger counter protest, who get a small photo 2/3rds down.
I’ve never been nervous on a march before. There was 700 or so of us but it was a long walk twice thru a town where lots of people have been turned against the hostel ‘for the kids’ and so think we’re somehow therefore ‘against the kids’. But just as many people seemed to wave and cheer, tho with visible apprehension.
https://social-coop-media.ams3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/media_attachments/files/114/927/162/031/822/690/original/7877285b4e041c8c.jpeg
https://social-coop-media.ams3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/media_attachments/files/114/927/162/697/394/407/original/8b5d59dd77f8f58d.jpeg

2025-07-22 23:27:41 UTC

I increasingly think the response to the UK Online Safety Act (& BlueSky’s response) could be much clearer. Maybe we should say:
1) yes the web has lots of things children shouldn’t see unsupervised (or at all).
2) we can put the responsibility on parents OR websites to deal with that.
3) This law puts all the weight on sites and will kill small competitors to big tech, AND it can never stop everything, the web will remain risky. Parental responsibility is *everything* – the rest is an illusion.

2025-07-03 08:50:32 UTC

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in case you’ve not seen Christine Lemmer-Webber tackling the main problem with ATProto - it’s not really decentralised, and probably can’t be: https://dustycloud.org/blog/how-decentralized-is-bluesky/

2025-06-30 08:38:08 UTC

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I heard the full Bob Vylan stream on Saturday by chance. The most shocking part wasn't the media-savvy 'Death to the IDF' chant – but the track where he declared peaceful protest pointless and that violence is the answer.
"We're not pacifist punks, we're violent punks' he started before ripping apart non-violent protest. It was the most shocking thing I've seen at a festival long-tied to CND & pacifism. He even threw shade at Martin Luther King. I don't want that Overton shift.

2025-06-18 07:52:28 UTC

The level of fury in the pub over yesterday’s #KhanYounis massacre was beyond anything I’ve seen since this began.
Part of the anger was at media indifference. But there’s a natural injustice to it that’s deeply triggering. 59 hungry people killed by a tank shell while trying to get food. You can see skinny arms and emaciated faces in the hospital photos. And every day a similar story. Yesterday at two sites. Hard not to believe it comes from viewing Palestinians as less than human.

2025-05-20 13:03:30 UTC

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thanks! I’m trying to introduce some of our film readers to the Fediverse - and starting with you and @npub1faz…vc22. Only regret is I didn’t have the time to do something more in depth. (I’m also trying to get my head around ActivityPublishing from WordPress!) If you DM your email address I can send the newsletter when it goes out too.

2025-05-20 12:48:27 UTC

UN humanitarian chief warns “14,000 babies could die in Gaza in next 48 hours without aid.”
Keir Starmer tells Parliament:
“We’re horrified by the escalation from Israel... We repeat our opposition to settlements in the West Bank, and we repeat our demand to massively scale-up humanitarian assistance into Gaza. The recent announcement that Israel will allow a basic quantity of food into Gaza, a basic quantity, is totally and utterly inadequate.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2025/may/20/israel-gaza-hamas-aid-middle-east-crisis-live-news-updates

2025-04-21 08:13:04 UTC

In his last photo he looks the devil just strutted in… RIP.
https://social-coop-media.ams3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/media_attachments/files/114/374/932/513/167/152/original/fb47cdcf2b1b695c.png

2025-04-20 19:35:41 UTC

#SilentSunday
https://social-coop-media.ams3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/media_attachments/files/114/371/962/293/296/964/original/239208a9147cb34a.jpeg

2025-04-19 18:33:35 UTC

“Oxfam estimates that most children are now surviving on less than one meal a day.”
The food and aid blockade of #Gaza’s 2 million citizens enters its eight week after Hamas rejected the latest ceasefire, and Israel refused to change course, encouraged by the US administration. #Easter
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/apr/19/gaza-palestinians-israeli-aid-blockade

2025-03-07 13:14:24 UTC

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.
https://social-coop-media.ams3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/media_attachments/files/114/121/324/033/006/230/original/b332b5db73d1d33a.png

2025-02-19 10:43:23 UTC

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?".

2025-02-05 10:42:12 UTC

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I disagree. He’s been talking about this for over a year. Jared Kushner has been touting a detailed plan for a long while. There’s been conferences in Israel. It’s more thought thru than Greenland as a policy of his, tho obviously forced displacement is a war crime and the Gazans seem to show no interest in moving voluntarily.

2025-01-09 09:46:29 UTC

‘“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

2024-11-20 13:46:09 UTC

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even if there’s less than 1m of us, even if the tech is behind, and there’s a backlog of issues and PRs for an overworked tiny core team, I like that anyone who stays here shares some deliberate choices about the nature and governance of how they communicate online. I’m typing this on an iPhone - I’ll never be a tech purist - but it’s nicer here than other communities I’ve found online in a long time. Plus WordPress integration works really, really nicely…

2024-11-19 13:28:20 UTC

As everyone’s doing this, here’s my reason for not leaving here…
I find social media addictive in 3 ways:
1. reading new stuff
2. meeting new people
3. feeling validated, likeable & popular
When I started posting here to ~10 people 2018-20 I loved it as Twitter was a lot about 3 for me.
As Mastodon has grown 1+2 improves but I still feel 3’s pull. If I’d started posting on BlueSky that’d be me now: unable to not try to win at it. It’s just no fun, commenting on everything, one eye on metrics.

2024-11-13 15:51:34 UTC

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…
https://social-coop-media.ams3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/media_attachments/files/113/476/426/670/826/555/original/f63e8e1c43829d81.png

2024-11-13 07:31:09 UTC

The world’s richest man buys an election, gets his own department to cut his tax bill presumably by axing things poor people need -allowing him to get more government contracts with less scrutiny- then names it after an actual cryptocurrency he owns an undisclosed quantity of (but has spent years promoting).

2024-10-26 18:58:07 UTC

Pretty unequivocal statement by UN’s acting humanitarian chief Joyce Msuya on the potential for genocide in #NorthGaza: ‘the entire population of North Gaza is at risk of dying’.
https://social-coop-media.ams3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/media_attachments/files/113/375/225/736/109/772/original/2f2f9e31acc26195.jpeg

2024-10-21 11:35:12 UTC

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there’s already so many private personal datasets at work in the NHS I don’t think this (and/or something more SOLID-y) using common standards for data structures & sharing, would seem so wild. It’s remarkably sensible/pragmatic and would provide such value for money that a minister prob couldn’t afford not to look at.

2024-09-27 12:32:48 UTC

@npub1sje…hqh0 have published four sensible sound recommendations for the #EU to bring a bit more balance and reason to the monopoly web:
- Safeguarding internet openness by enforcing layer separation
- Building a sovereign cloud alternative for European public institutions
- Establish a Public Digital Infrastructure Fund to finance a stack of open technologies
- Mobilizing new sources of funding for joint European investments
https://openfuture.eu/publication/investing-in-public-digital-infrastructure/

2024-09-09 20:10:40 UTC

Tough choices #austerity #ukpolitics
https://social-coop-media.ams3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/media_attachments/files/113/109/408/943/877/047/original/c3ba8e9d3b14e595.jpeg

2024-09-02 10:34:39 UTC

Not sure how long I can pretend the #AfD news isn't real by ignoring it. Just because all the polls said this was going to happen doesn't make it happening easier.
A party unashamed in re-using actual Nazi-slogans, campaigning all summer with photos of planes 'remigrating' Muslims & minorities from Germany – coming 1st & 2nd in two state elections is devastating.
The only curiosity is how well the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), a new left-ish populist group, did 8 months since being formed.
https://social-coop-media.ams3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/media_attachments/files/113/067/473/402/488/728/original/99ce3e81b4e7f205.png
https://social-coop-media.ams3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/media_attachments/files/113/067/474/689/440/709/original/9f71859214d26266.png

2024-08-29 07:41:52 UTC

One of the three #parenting books I read pre-birth was ‘The Happiest Kids in the World’ about childraising in the Netherlands. What stood out was that their number one priority for kids under 7 was to make sure they’re happy and can socially interact.
In the UK from around 3 onwards the priority is skills, with a huge focus on reading/writing/maths. But the UK has some of the worst literacy/maths rates for teenagers while NL amongst best, with same split for wellbeing: https://www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/aug/29/uk-teenagers-low-life-satisfaction-europe
https://social-coop-media.ams3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/media_attachments/files/113/044/159/665/783/954/original/beae0836d97aed51.jpeg

2024-08-19 20:29:14 UTC

First day of holiday in the rainy north transformed by seeing a red squirrel jumping around outside my window this morning. I think I’ve only seen one in the UK before - and the few I saw in Norway seemed smaller.
https://social-coop-media.ams3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/media_attachments/files/112/990/570/184/730/813/original/2ed4397eb39f460f.mp4

2024-08-04 14:11:47 UTC

Oswald Mosley was banned from the BBC in 1935 to deny a fascist a platform.
There’s a direct link between Elon #Musk’s decision to replatform #TommyRobinson and other neo-Nazis with the attempted murder of migrants we’re witnessing in real time today in #Rotheram.
Starmer needs to recall government, and throttle/fine Twitter hourly until they follow the law and restrict inflammatory disinfo and incitement to racial hatred, rather than actively encouraging it.
https://social-coop-media.ams3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/media_attachments/files/112/904/142/975/083/830/original/5dec3865dc70948a.jpeg
https://social-coop-media.ams3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/media_attachments/files/112/904/143/005/505/414/original/b747f8cc29bb911b.jpeg

2024-03-11 13:17:23 UTC

“Amazon tracks the phrases we highlight, the words we look up, who else is reading from the same address. All this allows it to deduce the most intimate information about our lives…Public libraries have some of this same information and guard it fiercely, but Amazon feeds it into an insatiable machine designed to extract maximum profit.”
Rebecca Giblin and Cory Doctorow @npub1fdr…lvhs in their 2022 book
#ChokepointCapitalism, via #DigitalPublicSpace primer by @npub1sje…hqh0 https://openfuture.eu/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/231024DPS_primer.pdf
https://social-coop-media.ams3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/media_attachments/files/112/076/894/119/964/790/original/c43baa985e04c68e.png