Notices by Erik Moeller (eloquence@social.coop)

"Protocols, Not Platforms" was a good technical rallying cry for building the fediverse.

But the "platform" language is misleading. They're not just platforms. They're instruments of power.

It takes people a while to recognize websites like X, Instagram and Facebook in the same terms in which we've long understood media organizations like Fox News and Breitbart.

It's a mental shift that has to click into place.

And that understanding is key to rid ourselves of them.

We're hiring a Senior Software Engineer on the @securedrop team at @freedomofpress.

SecureDrop is open source whistleblowing software. The project is at a critical inflection point as we get ready to build the next-gen version based on a modern cryptographic protocol.

100% remote, full-time, $110-$120K base salary with comprehensive benefits for US-based employees. (If you're not in the US, we can discuss consultancy models.)

Hmu for questions.

https://grnh.se/813b998c5us

#GetFediHired

This is a big deal:

The W3C, founded in 1994 by web inventor Tim Berners-Lee, has quit X and declared the fediverse to be their primary social media channel. Follow them at: @w3c

The future of the open web is .. the open web.

X has taken its stance. Nazis on the platform are allowed. Pro-Hitler posts are allowed. Holocaust denial is allowed.

If you stay on a platform like that, you can't escape this creeping normalization. Even if you think you can.

"Oh, there goes another Holocaust denier. Just part of being online, I guess."

"Oh, another transphobe calling people dehumanizing slurs. Well that's the Internet for you."

Creeping normalization is like advertising. Even if you think it won't influence you, it will.

There have been so many "final straws" but I hope that if you still have a personal account on his terrible website, Musk promoting a German political extremist party with literal nazi ties is it. Especially looking at #journalists that for some reason seem to feel like they have to continue to maintain a personal presence there. (I understand that organizations will be the last to go, but individuals - if you have any control at all, delete your :birdsite: account.)

https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-immigration-migrants-germany-far-right-extremism-twitter-x-2023-9

So if you want to deactivate your Twitter account but don't know how apparently the simplest way to do it is to mention @elonjet?

The collapse of Twitter is a system breakdown. Mastodon and the fediverse represent something different: _system change_. From for-profit "Big Tech" to nonprofit, open source, community-owned public spaces.

System change is always harder than you think. It always incurs short-term costs, with hoped for long-term benefits.

The next few weeks will be really tough for the fediverse. Stick around, vibe with it, and you just might help us put a huge part of the web back in community hands. <3

Dang @AtariSTMusic is neat. Now I want to follow all the chiptune bots.

Post about how terrible Twitter is on Mastodon: :levburdislike:

Post about how cool Mastodon is on Twitter: :levburlike:

At Freedom of the Press Foundation, we're now hiring our first full-time UX Designer. I'm the hiring manager for this role, so HMU if you have questions.

This person will work closely with the SecureDrop team (open source whistleblower submission system) & other teams at FPF.

It's a fully remote gig. We're a US-based org; international applicants are very welcome, but we do ask for some time zone overlap for real-time collaboration -- see the posting for more details.

https://freedom.press/jobs/ux-designer/

I love retro gaming, and I adore this blog:

https://bluerenga.blog/

The author, Jason Dwyer, is playing hundreds of adventure games in mostly chronological order -- meaning it's mostly text games, starting in the 1970s:

https://bluerenga.blog/all-the-adventures/

He's up to 1982 now. If you also like this kind of thing, this is a good time to follow along -- he's just about to start a timed playthrough of Roberta Williams' 1982 game "Time Zone", a notably ambitious game for its time:

https://bluerenga.blog/2022/01/10/time-zone-1982/