Suggestions for Resources, Actions

Building an open web that protects us from harm

We live in a world where right-wing nationalism is on the rise and many governments, including the incoming Trump administration, are promising mass deportations. Trump in particular has discussed building camps as part of mass deportations. This question used to feel more hypothetical than it does today.

Faced with this reality, it’s worth asking: who would stand by you if this kind of authoritarianism took hold in your life?

You can break allyship down into several key areas of life:

Who in your personal life is an ally? (Your friends, acquaintances, and extended family.)
Who in your professional life is an ally? (People you work with, people in partner organizations, and your industry.)
Who in civic life is an ally? (Your representatives, government workers, individual members of law enforcement, healthcare workers, and so on.)
Which service providers are allies? (The people you depend on for goods and services — including stores, delivery services, and internet services.)

And in turn, can be broken down further:

Who will actively help you evade an authoritarian regime?
Who will refuse to collaborate with a regime’s demands?

These two things are different. There’s also a third option — non-collaboration but non-refusal — which I would argue does not constitute allyship at all. This might look like passively complying with authoritarian demands when legally compelled, without taking steps to resist or protect the vulnerable. While this might not seem overtly harmful, it leaves those at risk exposed. As Naomi Shulman points out, the most dangerous complicity often comes from those who quietly comply. Nice people made the best Nazis.

For the remainder of this post, I will focus on the roles of internet service vendors and protocol authors in shaping allyship and resisting authoritarianism.

For these groups, refusing to collaborate means that you’re not capitulating to active demands by an authoritarian regime, but you might not be actively considering how to help people who are vulnerable. The people who are actively helping, on the other hand, are actively considering how to prevent someone from being tracked, identified, and rounded up by a regime, and are putting preventative measures in place. (These might include implementing encryption at rest, minimizing data collection, and ensuring anonymity in user interactions.)

If we consider an employer, refusing to collaborate means that you won’t actively hand over someone’s details on request. Actively helping might mean aiding someone in hiding or escaping to another jurisdiction.

These questions of allyship apply not just to individuals and organizations, but also to the systems we design and the technologies we champion. Those of us who are involved in movements to liberate social software from centralized corporations need to consider our roles. Is decentralization enough? Should we be allies? What kind of allies?

This responsibility extends beyond individual actions to the frameworks we build and the partnerships we form within open ecosystems. While building an open protocol that makes all content public and allows indefinite tracking of user activity without consent may not amount to collusion, it is also far from allyship. Partnering with companies that collaborate with an authoritarian regime, for example by removing support for specific vulnerable communities and enabling the spread of hate speech, may also not constitute allyship. Even if it furthers your immediate stated technical and business goals to have that partner on board, it may undermine your stated social goals. Short-term compromises for technical or business gains may seem pragmatic but risk undermining the ethics that underpin open and decentralized systems.

Obviously, the point of an open protocol is that anyone can use it. But we should avoid enabling entities that collude with authoritarian regimes to become significant contributors to or influencers of open protocols and platforms. While open protocols can be used by anyone, we must distinguish between passive use and active collaboration. Enabling authoritarian-aligned entities to shape the direction or governance of these protocols undermines their potential for liberation.

In light of Mark Zuckerberg’s clear acquiescence to the incoming Trump administration (for example by rolling back DEI, allowing hate speech, and making a series of bizarre statements designed to placate Trump himself), I now believe Threads should not be allowed to be an active collaborator to open protocols unless it can attest that it will not collude, and that it will protect vulnerable groups using its platforms from harm. I also think Bluesky’s AT Protocol decision to make content and user blocks completely open and discoverable should be revisited. I also believe there should be an ethical bill of rights for users on open social media protocols that authors should sign, which includes the right to privacy, freedom from surveillance, safeguards against hate speech, and strong protections for vulnerable communities.

As builders, users, and advocates of open systems, we must demand transparency, accountability, and ethical commitments from all contributors to open protocols. Without these safeguards, we risk creating tools that enable oppression rather than resisting it. Allyship demands more than neutrality — it demands action.

https://werd.io/2025/building-an-open-web-that-protects-us-from-harm

Jill Bearup’s Transphobia is Even Worse in 2025 (Just Stab Me Now)

Again Ethel is a woman I have been following since she was a teenager. She has gone through all the stages of transitioning, from doubt, trying to make it something else to finally admitting to herself and the world she is a woman and now living her life as one. The grand thing is she still fights so very hard for trans people despite the costs to her for taking on one of the growing popular atheist anti-trans people and others. She lost 2/3rd her income but never backed down, always telling the truth. She makes every video well researched and documents it, also she provides a transcript for those who would rather read than listen. I admit I admire her and her strength in her life struggles. But if you wish to learn more about those attacking trans stuff or the false idea that trans women are destroying female sports, I would watch her videos. Hugs

The 19th Explains: How Trump’s Cabinet nominees will get confirmed

Originally published by The 19th

The 119th Congress was officially sworn in Friday, meaning the Republican-controlled U.S. Senate will soon begin the process of confirming President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet nominees.

Article II of the U.S. Constitution enables the president to appoint officials to the Cabinet and other positions with the “advice and consent” of the Senate. Many of the committees, all of which have a majority of Republicans, will hold hearings on the nominees related to their area of expertise: the Senate Judiciary Committee, for example, holds hearings for the nominees for attorney general and other top posts at the Department of Justice. Those hearings will begin soon, with senators likely prioritizing confirming nominees to national security positions.

Republicans will control the Senate 53 to 47 seats once Senator-elect Jim Justice of West Virginia is sworn in later in January and Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine appoints a senator to fill Vice President-elect JD Vance’s seat.

Some nominees like Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, Trump’s nominee for secretary of state, are expected to easily sail through the Senate, while others are likely to garner more opposition and scrutiny. Here’s how the process will work:

When do hearings start?

Sen. Roger Wicker, who leads the Senate Armed Services Committee, is set to hold Pete Hegseth’s confirmation hearing for secretary of defense starting January 14, even before Trump’s inauguration. The hearing for former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard’s nomination for director of national intelligence in the Senate Intelligence Committee is also set to take place that week, according to Punchbowl News. The Senate Judiciary Committee is expected to prioritize confirming Pam Bondi, Trump’s nominee for attorney general, and his nominees for deputy attorneys general before taking up the nomination of Kash Patel to lead the FBI, the outlet reported.

Are hearings required for every nominee?

Not necessarily. There are over 1,300 political appointee positions that require Senate confirmation, and some nominees, like military promotions, often go straight to the Senate floor. But nominees for the Cabinet and other high-profile political appointments almost always have confirmation hearings.

What happens at a confirmation hearing?

Before a hearing, senators on relevant committees will request biographical information and a financial disclosure from the nominee. At the hearing, senators will ask questions about a nominee’s background, their qualifications and their views. Nominees for positions that require a security clearance also traditionally undergo an FBI background check.

Gabbard and Patel are expected to draw scrutiny for their records and stances on national security issues. Democrats will likely question Hegseth about a past allegation of sexual assault against him, which he denies, as well as his previous comments opposing women in combat roles. Senators on both sides of the aisle are also likely to question Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s nominee for Health and Human Services secretary, on his views on abortion, vaccines and food policy.

How does a nominee get confirmed after a hearing?

After a committee holds a hearing, its members can report the nomination favorably or unfavorably to the full Senate for a final vote. In 2013, then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid led his fellow Senate Democrats in changing the chamber’s rules to require only a simple majority to invoke cloture, or end debate, on presidential nominations other than Supreme Court nominees. A simple majority is also needed for final confirmation. In 2017, then-Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans also lowered the threshold for Supreme Court nominees.

Historically, it’s been very rare for the Senate to reject a president’s Cabinet nominee. The last time the Senate voted down a Cabinet nominee was in 1989, when senators rejected Sen. John Tower, then-President George H.W. Bush’s nominee for defense secretary, due to concerns about his drinking. Some Cabinet nominees like former Rep. Matt Gaetz, Trump’s first pick for attorney general, also bow out of the process before they go up for confirmation.

‘Trans Panic’ Was ALWAYS A Right-Wing Culture War Distraction

Free Idea: What If Senate Democrats DIDN’T Vote For The Fascist Anti-Immigrant Bloody Shirt Bill? by Rebecca Schoenkopf

Oh, we’re helping Trump deport people for more minor offenses now, to avoid being ‘soft’ on immigration? Read on Substack

(I’m not putting the piece here, because it’s obvious to me that I’m not the only one who dislikes the news of the day. However, if your writingtapping fingers are warm or want to be, there’s an action within; writing or calling to our US Senators to oppose the Laken Riley Act. The article, couched in angry humor/humorous anger, gives good insight on the act, along with listing unintended consequences, because of course Republicans don’t read what they write and can’t think ahead about what words mean. Anyway, go read, or not; just call or email your Senators. And thanks!)

I made a mistake, read what I shouldn’t, now can not stop thinking about it.

**** Trigger warning, talk of abuse with a few graphic details. ****

I had stopped going to the male survivor site as it was causing me to spiral badly into the bad places in my head, triggering my negative emotions, getting seriously depressed and spending hours stuck in my memories, crying, then having horrible nightmares as I tried to sleep.

Look even without going to the site I still scream out in my sleep. It is agonizing because in my dreams I am struggling to verbalize the words, get them out and it feels like my mouth is locked shut, sort of my like my lips are sewn together. In my nightmares I can speak and scream normally until it gets so intense it seems I struggle to get the sounds out and they become much more guttural. That seems to be when I am getting audible in the awake world. When it seems I am able to unlock my jaws or rip my lips open is when I am in reality shouting out in my sleep. Ron had to wake me just two days ago when I was shouting help help help. I spared him the description of the abuse even though he is always willing for me to tell him the memories or nightmares because he knows it is very helpful for me to talk about it or get it out. Especially when it has just happened.

Anyway back to this morning. So a new friend who is a survivor who has been on the Male Survivor site much more than I have been and posts there often about everything going on in his life, like I do here, this person has been saying to me that they wrote about their holidays so could I go to their posts to see what had been going on with them. I went to the MS site, I started reading new posts before I got to his posts. And I never made it to Steve’s posts.

The post was about being anally raped and the person leaving their cum inside you that you try to prevent leaking out. The post and the people replying / joining the conversation all also wrote about their underwear being stained with poop and cum or in some cases blood. The conversation was about trying to get rid of or wash the evidence out before it was discovered by a mother or other who cared for them and they did not want to find out they were being abused.

I did not have this problem. My abuse was much more open and known in the house so I did not have to hide it or wash my sheets after. I did get in trouble if I wore my white underwear after without cleaning myself up which would leave stains / marks in the white underwear. So those if I saw that I would wash them myself soon as I could like the people in the conversation said they did. When the wet underwear was discovered after a few times of me doing that, I was caught in the act cleaning them. I was yelled at for it, told I was so stupid then pulled to the kitchen in front of everyone while naked, while my adoptive mother “taught me how to wipe my bottom and clean myself” after being raped. I was told to rather than lay in the bed or put my underwear on, that as soon as the person was finished with me and they did not want to use me anymore I should go empty myself. Then wipe / wash my bottom. I then had to repeat and show I knew how to do this in front of the laughing hell spawn. All that taught me was to wash and dry them before I put them in the laundry basket.

So this brings me to what I can not get out of my head this morning. Before I got side tracked by my memories and started the downward spiral, I was busy reading news articles, adding to my posting of crazy stuff that the right was doing, and gathering memes of Sunday’s meme post. Then it all came to a halt and I started to crash. Writing this out is helping. So what about the above triggered me?

See I could hold it in, the fluids inside me normally while laying in the bed, or in the short timeframe from when it was over until I could get to the bathroom or if outside until I could dump / empty my bowels, but that left nothing to wipe with so I would have to carry my underwear until I could do so hoping not to soil my pants. But there was one place and time I couldn’t do any of that. It was when raped and abused at school.

Please stay with me and try to understand the feelings / thinking of a small kid as I try to describe this without being too graphic. It started at school when I was 7 and continued but tapered off as I became a teenager. So imagine being 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, or 12 and being taken to a supply closet, empty room, or after school hours to the principal’s office. Once there told to drop my pants. Being fondled and touched. Then ordered to my knees to give oral sex to a male. So far none of that deals with what I wrote about above, soiling myself. But that comes from when instead of being told to kneel, I was instead told to turn around and stand on something, or picked up and draped over something, (more than once being forced to lay over the copy machine as it dug into my chest / belly while my ass was used to make the male staff / teachers happy) when I was very small I would be made to take my pants off then placed on my back on a shelf with my legs pined up as my back was bent to position my butt hole correctly for their use.

Ok I tried to put if off as long as I could. This is the part I was trying to get to and that the conversation on the site was about. After being used, trusted into sometimes with lube and sometimes without, filled with those fluids and possible messiness, my bottom full of the ejaculate of the guy who just … fucked me, I would be told to get dressed and go back to class. Of course the person who used me wanted to make the time I was away from class as short as possible if I was taken from class for the abuse. So if I had been summoned or escorted from the classroom, I would be told to get dressed quickly and return to class. I knew better than to tell. If it had been painful and hurtful, I would be told to stop crying and wipe my face on my shirt.

So this gets back to the stained underwear. I would have to put my underwear on, no choice, and go back to class not knowing if I was messy or not. I would only know my butt hurt, maybe my belly, back, or legs would also hurt. I would have to enter the classroom trying to not show anything wrong, feeling like everyone in the room was looking at me knowing what had just happened, what I had just done. Again if it was oral all I struggled with was the taste in my mouth. But if it had been anal specially if it had been forceful, in a bad position for me, or if no lube had been used, then my butt / asshole would be very sore and full of fluids. I would be forced to try to sit still, and desperately pinch my butt cheeks together as painful as that was or let the liquids mixed with poop ooze out creating both smell and stains. Most teachers soon understood and did not scold me for not paying attention or being not being still in my seat. It was the same as when I had been given a belting, spanking, or bad paddling before school, they seem to understand the pain I was in that my clothing / pants covered.

As soon as I could or when the teacher would quietly whisper in my ear asking if I needed to use the bathroom, I would leave the classroom walk carefully to the bathroom where I would rush into a toilet stall. I would also check my underwear as best I could. I would do the same as I walked or rode my bike home. I lived about a mile and half from the school. It was so much better in the warm months trying to do it in when bundled up for the cold was horrible. Because in warm months I could run in to the woods or somewhere not able to be easily seen, strip off my lower clothing and then remove my underwear, and redress. Then I could take the underwear to a brook like the one we had behind our home, wash the underwear, hang it in the sun to dry off something where I should be able to retrieve it later. Stories of what happened the few times I was caught doing this another time.

Many abuse victims just threw their soiled clothing out. I couldn’t do that. Punishment for losing my clothing was as severe as for soiling them.

So that was what has destroyed my emotions and focus for the last 7 hours. Taking the time to write this has helped me calm down and recenter. But the remembered pain of being so small, the over whelming emotion of feeling that everyone knew when I entered the classroom, and the fear that it was leaking into my underwear knowing that I would be publicly punish and possibly also privately punish if they were stained. Maybe most parents finding semen, blood, or poop stains all over the back of their child’s underwear would cause them to question what happened or rush to defend / help their son. Not mine, if they felt anything at all maybe they were happy it was happening to me. Maybe it relieved their own guilt knowing others did the same to me. I don’t know.

Just more from my childhood I have to deal with. Anyway, no more meme hunting today, nor news about the stuff the right is doing. Today I am going to answer comments and concentrate on the love and out pouring of support I get from this community. Oh and tomorrow I have a doctor’s appointment. Hugs.

Writer’s Block, plus More (Comics)

Broom Hilda by Russell Myers for January 09, 2025

Broom Hilda Comic Strip for January 09, 2025

https://www.gocomics.com/broomhilda/2025/01/09

Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for January 09, 2025

Calvin and Hobbes Comic Strip for January 09, 2025

https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/2025/01/09 (seems as if an entire Calvin snowpeople post is possible!)

C’est la Vie by Jennifer Babcock for January 08, 2025

C'est la Vie Comic Strip for January 08, 2025

https://www.gocomics.com/cestlavie/2025/01/08

Close to Home by John McPherson for January 09, 2025

Close to Home Comic Strip for January 09, 2025

https://www.gocomics.com/closetohome/2025/01/09

Dark Side of the Horse by Samson for January 09, 2025

Dark Side of the Horse Comic Strip for January 09, 2025

https://www.gocomics.com/darksideofthehorse/2025/01/09

Frazz by Jef Mallett for January 09, 2025

https://www.gocomics.com/frazz/2025/01/09

Free Range by Bill Whitehead for January 09, 2025

Free Range Comic Strip for January 09, 2025

https://www.gocomics.com/freerange/2025/01/09

More on the GoComics page, or wherever you read comics. A person needs their daily comics!

Peace & Justice History for 1/9

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryjanuary.htm#january9

Yesterday’s asshat news headlines.

Hi Everyone. I woke at 12:22 last night. But I got up at 1 am and started making posts and doing things. So I just finished the asshat yesterday news posts. So now before I answer the comments … and I love comments everyone sends to me, I have to make a red sauce. Ron promised to make me a grand lasagna if I make the sauce. So with ear buds in, off I go to make the sauce. Hugs and loves to everyone. Remember that I really care for everyone. Add any questions or comments in the comments and I will reply there. Hugs.

Kirk Host: Denmark Has No Legal Right To Greenland

House Passes Anti-Migrant Act As First Bill Of 2025

Watters: My “Imperialist Thirst” Says “Invade Canada”

Trump Bible Gets New “Inauguration Day Edition”

Hannity: Don’t “Soak The Rich,” They’re Good Tippers

Giuliani Barks At Sketch Artist: “I Look Like My Dog!”

Trump Seeks To Block Release Of Final Smith Report

Trump Vows To Replace National Records Archivist

Trump Dispatches Junior To Visit “MAGA Greenland”

Meta To End Fact-Checking, Launch “Community Notes”

JoeMyGodModa day ago

Two months ago Fat Hitler vowed to imprison Zuckerberg.

This is the result.

Fox Claims New Jersey Now Hires Illiterate Teachers

Graham: Canada Will Be Part Of “Next” Electoral Count

NOM: Trump Says Eastman Was Right, Send Him Money

EU May Sanction Musk For German Election Meddling

If you criticize the dear leader of the maga cult then you are forever an enemy. Death to the nonbelievers. This is why the current republicans and maga is very much a cult. Hugs.

Georgia GOP Expels Trump Critic Former Lt Governor

Felon-Elect: “We Are Going To Be Changing The Name Of The Gulf Of Mexico To The Gulf Of America” [VIDEO]

Judge Blocks Release Of Jack Smith’s Final Report

Trump: We May Take Greenland And Panama By Force

Trump Claims Hezbollah Took Part In January 6 Riot

Beetleboob Introduces Bill To Abolish The ATF [VIDEO]

This is great. The tRump world crowed about this citizen of Greenland who praised tRump’s plan to take over Greenland. Yet the truth did come out … He was a tRump loving fanboy violent felon drug dealer prison escapee. Hugs.

Trump’s Greenland Fan Boy Turns Out To Be Violent Drug-Dealing Multiple Felon, Prison Escapee [VIDEO]

Zuck Wore $1M Watch To Unveil End To Fact-Checking

So About Meta

Personally, I don’t think it’s surrender on the part of Meta, nor any of the other media moguls. It’s all of one piece-they’re all in it together with the new 47th president. I’ve read this from others, too, both last night and this morning. We the people are not part of the club. Anyway, here is this.

Meta surrenders to the right on speech

“I really think this a precursor for genocide,” a former employee tells Platformer

Casey Newton

Jan 7, 2025 — 12 min read

Snippet:

I. The past

Donald Trump’s surprising victory in the 2016 US presidential election sparked a backlash against tech platforms in general and against Meta in particular. The company then known as Facebook was battered by revelations that its network dramatically amplified the reach of false stories about Trump and his opponent, Hillary Clinton, and was used as part of a successful effort by Russia to sow division in US politics and tilt the election in favor of Trump.

Chastened by the criticism, Meta set out to shore up its defenses. It hired 40,000 content moderators around the world, invested heavily in building new technology to analyze content for potential harms and flag it for review, and became the world’s leading funder of third-party fact-checking organizations. It spent $280 million to create an independent Oversight Board to adjudicate the most difficult questions about online speech. It disrupted dozens of networks of state-sponsored trolls who sought to use Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp to spread propaganda and attack dissenters.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg had expected that these moves would generate goodwill for the company, particularly among the Democrats who would retake power after Trump lost in 2020. Instead, he found that disdain for the company remained strongly bipartisan. Republicans scorned him for policies that disproportionately punished the right, who post more misinformation and hate speech than the left does. Democrats blamed him for the country’s increasingly polarized politics and decaying democracy. And all sides pilloried him for the harms that his apps cause in children — an issue that 42 state attorneys general are now suing him over.

Last summer, the threats against Zuckerberg turned newly personal. In 2020, Zuckerberg and his wife had donated $419.5 million to fund nonpartisan election infrastructure projects. (Another effort that had seemingly generated no goodwill for him or Meta whatsoever.) All that the money had done was to help people vote safely during the pandemic. But Republicans twisted Zuckerberg’s donation into a scandal; Trump — who lost the election handily but insisted it had been stolen from him — accused Zuckerberg of plotting against him.

“We are watching him closely,” Trump wrote in a coffee-table book published ahead of the 2024 election, “and if he does anything illegal this time he will spend the rest of his life in prison.”

By the end of 2024, Zuckerberg had given up on finding any middle path through the polarized and opposite criticisms leveled against him by Republicans and Democrats. His rival Elon Musk had spent the past year showing how Republican party support can be bought — cheaply.

In business and in life, Zuckerberg’s motivation has only ever been to win. And a doddering, transactional Trump presented Meta with a rare opportunity for a fresh start.

All they would have to do is whatever Trump wanted them to do.

II. The announcements

On Tuesday, Meta announced the most significant changes to its content moderation policies since the aftermath of the 2016 election. The changes include:

Ending its fact-checking program, which funds third-party organizations to check the claims in viral Facebook and Instagram posts and downrank them when they are found to contain falsehoods. It will be replaced with a clone of Community Notes, X’s volunteer fact-checking program.
Eliminating restrictions on some forms of speech previously considered harmful, including some criticisms of immigrants, women, and transgender people.
Re-calibrating automated content moderation systems to prioritize only high-severity violations of content policy, such as those involving drugs and terrorism, and reviewing lower-severity violations only when reported by users. (This sounds boring but might be the most important change of all, as we’ll get to)
Re-introducing discussion of current events, which the company calls “civic content,” into Facebook, Instagram, and Threads.
Moving content moderation teams from California to Texas to fight the perception that Meta’s moderation reflects a liberal Californian bias. (Never mind that the company has always had content moderation teams based in Texas, or that it was Zuckerberg and not the moderators who set the company’s policies.)

Zuckerberg announced these changes in an Instagram Reel; Joel Kaplan, a Republican operative and longtime Meta executive who last week replaced Nick Clegg as the company’s president of public policy, discussed the changes in an appearance on “Fox and Friends.” (See transcripts of both here.)

One way to understand these changes is as a marketing exercise, intended to convey a sense of profound change to an audience of one. In this, Meta appears to have succeeded; Trump today called the company’s changes “excellent” and said that the company has “come a long way.” (“Mr. Trump also said Meta’s change was ‘probably’ a result of the threats he had made against the company and Mr. Zuckerberg,” dryly noted the Times’ Mike Isaac and Theodore Schleifer.)

Whether this will be enough to get Trump to end the current antitrust prosecution against Meta, or otherwise advocate for the company in regulatory affairs, remains to be seen. By the cynical calculus of the company’s communications and policy teams, though, one assumes that Trump’s comments inspired a round of high-fives in the company’s Washington, DC offices.

But these changes are likely to substantially increase the amount of harmful speech on Meta’s platforms, according to 10 current and former employees who spoke to Platformer on Tuesday.

Start with the end of Meta’s fact-checking partnerships, which perhaps generated the most headlines of the company’s changes on Tuesday. While the company has been gradually lowering its investment in fact-checking for a couple years now, Meta’s abandonment of the project will have real effects: on the fact-checking organizations for whom Meta was a primary source of revenue, but also in the Facebook and Instagram feeds of which Meta is an increasingly begrudging steward. (snip-MORE. Go read; he left Substack because of the nazis, and made Platformer to get his writing to people. It’s free to read, and you don’t have to subscribe, either.)