Dan Gillmor
I gave Google Maps 1 star (out of 5) in a review of the Gulf of "America", saying this knee-bending misinformation was detrimental to the reputation of Google Maps itself.
The Team Fascist folks at Google deleted that -- and countless other -- reviews.
Unethical, but unsurprising.
Dan Gillmor
The chief normalizer of extremism at the powerful news organization that has been normalizing extremism for years is Peter Baker of the New York Times.
The Times is never, ever going to recognize -- much less do anything to reverse -- how its political reporting has helped lead us toward fascism.
Dan Gillmor
Before Google decided to let extremists rename bodies of water, it used common sense.
From 2008: "...if a ruler announced that henceforth the Pacific Ocean would be named after her mother, we would not add that placemark unless and until the name came into common usage."
https://publicpolicy.googleblog.com/2008/04/how-google-determines-names-for-bodies.html
Dan Gillmor
What a bunch of damned cowards run this TV station in Milwaukee -- https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/2025/01/22/reaction-to-meteorologist-sam-kuffels-firing-from-milwaukee-cbs/77892832007/
Dan Gillmor
So one of Trump's first actions was to pardon everyone who tried to violently overthrow the United States government four years ago.
Think about that, journalists, as you continue to normalize a regime that plans to wipe out what you do (if you do it with integrity, that is).
Dan Gillmor
CNN's generally (but not always) Reliable Sources newsletter expounds at length on TikTok and possible alternatives without noting the surge of use at PixelFed.
Big Journalism seems adamant that the fediverse either doesn't exist or lacks critical mass, both of which notions are bogus.
Dan Gillmor
Apparently some major advertisers are moving back to Twitter to curry favor with Emperor Musk and his Prime Minister Trump.
Buying the presidency is also Musk's most significant financial coup.
He is one of the world's most dangerous people, and his power/wealth are accelerating.
To those advertisers -- and to journalists who have kept supporting those extremists: Your lack of honor is no surprise, but it is disheartening.
Dan Gillmor
Slavery today is "convict leasing" -- https://apnews.com/article/prison-to-plate-inmate-labor-investigation-alabama-3b2c7e414c681ba545dc1d0ad30bfaf5
The profiteers include state governments and corporations.
And the system relies on creating lots of new convicts. That's "law and order" in America these days, and expect it to get much, much worse.
Note: This is updated. the expression "convict leasing" was new to me but is not new.
Dan Gillmor
Wonkette continues to outpace Big Journalism in covering the danger that South Africa born Elon Musk represents to democracy everywhere, not just in the United States.
https://www.wonkette.com/p/elon-musk-boosting-german-fascists
Best line: "Musk’s politics have never been particularly mysterious, unless you are a political reporter for The New York Times."
Dan Gillmor
See the pathetic spectacle of the press corps lapping up Trump's lies at his propaganda fests, charades absurdly called press conferences.
The choice for news orgs and individual journalists is a simple one: Be collaborators with fascists, or be in the resistance.
There is no honorable middle ground, but Big Journalism deludes itself -- and tries to delude the rest of us -- by pretending there is.
https://www.wonkette.com/p/trump-presser-a-gauzy-nostalgic-harbinger
Dan Gillmor
Microsoft will soon cut off Windows 10 security updates, and says "up yours" to people with (somewhat) older computers who would happily use Windows 11, but now will be blocked
Intel and AMD appreciate this very much.
If you aren't ready to put your older but working-fine computer in a landfill, and further pollute the planet, you have a better option:
It's easier than ever to install and use Ubuntu or Mint or some other Linux system.
https://www.theverge.com/2024/12/4/24312928/microsoft-windows-11-older-hardware-tpm-support
Dan Gillmor
My bank uses phone SMS as its standard "2-factor authentication" -- better than nothing at all but GROSSLY insecure compared to encrypted messaging that it refuses to supply.
I paid extra for an RSA dongle, but when I log in there's an option to use SMS, which makes the dongle completely pointless.
Crap security is standard in the banking industry -- because contrary to pious words, it doesn't give a damn about your financial privacy.
Dan Gillmor
Did you know that Warren Buffett drives "sensible luxury sedans" to work?
Dan Gillmor
I'm quite sure that starter packs are one key reason BlueSky is growing so fast. It's a genuine innovation in this space and Mastodon/fed need it yesterday.
Dan Gillmor
Hate to say it, because BlueSky had (still has) promise:
There is no reason to believe that its owners/investors -- now prominently including right-wing cryptocurrency bros -- will resist the opportunity to meddle and/or cash in, especially now that there's been such a surge in the user base.
And when/if they do, a genuinely open and decentralized alternative to Big Network (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) will still be -- with the current exception of the fediverse -- a mirage.
Dan Gillmor
I've been disappointed to see journalists I respect sticking with Twitter, but the more dangerous Musk gets, the less I can maintain that respect.
Dan Gillmor
Musk's sleazy PAC spouts lies in its ads that pretend to be from Harris campaign.
Dan Gillmor
The fact that fascism is knocking on America's door should energize us, not demoralize us.
Now: Vote, help get others to vote, and fight like hell when the fascists try to overturn their loss.
Future: Get organized, starting at the local level, just as the fascists have been doing for decades while the center and too much of left snoozed and Democrats ceded so much.
But focus on the now: Vote. Help others to vote. Work in every way you can to stop fascism in its tracks.
Dan Gillmor
We're learning more about the serious threat that Musk poses to U.S. national security.
He's completely wired into America's security apparatus, and has been one of Putin's secret phone pals.
Democrats need to recognize that much of this got going under Obama, whose administration was simply reckless in trusting this guy.
Great reporting by the WSJ:
Dan Gillmor
To elect Trump, Musk deploys his minions to deceive voters, and he doesn't care a bit about laws he knows won't be enforced.
We are in serious trouble, and sleepwalking into a modern version of fascism where the oligarchs who control so much are in league with a political monster.
Bio and disclosures: dangillmor.com/about/ Boosts mean I think you should see this -- usually but not always an endorsement.California, Nara, Arizona etc. · dangillmor.com
０７６萌ＳＮＳ is a social network, courtesy of ０７６. It runs on GNU social, version 2.0.2-beta0, available under the GNU Affero General Public License.
All ０７６萌ＳＮＳ content and data are available under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license.