Destroying Autocracy – November 13, 2025
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Destroying Autocracy – November 13, 2025
Welcome to this week’s “Destroying Autocracy”.
It’s your source for curated news affecting democracy in the cyber arena with a focus on protecting it. That necessitates an opinionated Butlerian jihad against big tech as well as evangelizing for open-source and the Fediverse. Since big media’s journalism wing is flailing and failing in its core duty to democracy, this is also a collection of alternative reporting on the eternal battle between autocracy and democracy. We also cover the cybersecurity world. You can’t be free without safety and privacy.
FYI, my opinions will be in bold. And will often involve cursing. Because humans. Especially tech bros. And fascists. Fuck ’em.
The Programmer’s Fulcrum is the future (and smaller) home for a fusion of Symfony Station and Battalion. Its tagline is Devs Defending Democracy, Developing the OMN.
You can sign up now and for 2025 get an email with links to and featured articles for each week’s Symfony Station Communiqué and Battalion “Destroying Autocracy” post along with their featured articles. And you’ll be set with TPF after the fusing.
We are posting on the Fediverse now at @thefulcrum @thefulcrum.dev and original website content will start in 2026.
Featured Item(s)
Wrekage/Salvage writes:
Once you’ve seized the tools of political life to build communal power, it’s hard to forget what a hammer feels like in your hand.
Bonfire Networks is a tiny software org that has spent the past couple of years building a framework for communities on the open social web. At the end of last week, they released Bonfire Social, a microblogging app.
Like Mastodon, Bonfire Social runs on ActivityPub, but it takes differently opinionated approach to sociability.
(It has) features I (and many others) have been advocating for in Fediverse software for years, often while people explained at length that such things simply could not be implemented.
Most exhilarating to me, though, is that they aren’t just building another microblogging app. They’re making a toolkit for internet community software that is healthy and good and designed around real human needs from the start.
As they put it in their crowdfunding campaign, they’re making building blocks for communities on the open social web.
Total awesomeness that needs to blow up. We will cover (and support) Bonfire extensively on The Programmer’s Fulcrum.
We start and end with good news to make the middle bearable.
The response to Russia’s War Crimes, Techno Feudalism, and other douchebaggery
The Kyiv Independent reports:
Ukraine slaps new sanctions on Putin’s team and propagandist publishers
Radio Free Europe reports:
EU ‘Democracy Shield’ Aims To Counter Russian Disinformation
Open Web Advocacy has:
Tim Berners-Lee On Apple’s Browser Engine Ban and Web Apps
Heise reports:
Office alternative from Germany by Ionos and Nextcloud is now available
Great.
Speaking of Germany, The Guardian reports:
ChatGPT violated copyright law by ‘learning’ from song lyrics, German court rules
Meta could face millions in fines for not signing content deals in Australia
Digital Rights Bytes asks:
Can the government read my text messages?
404 Media reports:
Judge Rules Flock Surveillance Images Are Public Records That Can Be Requested By Anyone
TechCrunch reports:
Wikipedia urges AI companies to use its paid API, and stop scraping
Brookings says:
Preach brother.
Poynter reports:
As independent newspapers disappear, a secretive alliance fights to save them
Neutral
Open Knowledge shares:
Open letter: Harnessing open source AI to advance digital sovereignty
The Ringer has:
How Catastrophic Is It If the AI Bubble Bursts? An FAQ.
The Evil Empire (AKA Autocracy) Strikes Back
404 Media reports:
DHS Gives Local Cops a Facial Recognition App To Find Immigrants
TechCrunch reports:
Why a lot of people are getting hacked with government spyware
Lawmakers warn Democratic governors that states are sharing drivers’ data with ICE
Euractiv reports:
EU’s red tape bonfire puts AI ahead of privacy protection
NOYB reports:
EU Commission internal draft would wreck core principles of the GDPR
The Guardian reports:
The EU has let US tech giants run riot. Diluting our data law will only entrench their power.
Tech giants vow to defend users in US as spyware companies make inroads with Trump administration
Freedom of the Press Foundation reports:
Kansas county pays $3M for forgetting the First Amendment
Pariah States
BleepingComputer reports:
APT37 hackers abuse Google Find Hub in Android data-wiping attacks
BitDefender reports:
Russian hacker admits helping Yanluowang ransomware infect companies
The Register reports:
UK asks cyberspies to probe whether Chinese buses can be switched off remotely
Krebs on Security reports:
Google Sues to Disrupt Chinese SMS Phishing Triad
Big Media
The Columbia Journalism Review has:
Editorial Independence Means Technological Independence
The Open Media Network peeps.
The Guardian reports:
EU investigates Google over ‘demotion’ of commercial content from news media
Big Tech
And:
Big Tech’s control freak era is breaking itself apart
The Techno Anarchist Manifesto lists tools to help you avoid most of this AI horseshit.
Lies, damned lies and AI: the newest way to influence elections may be here to stay
Jesus.
Digital colonialism: the new frontier of Latin American dependency.
A side effect of techno feudalism.
PC Mag reports:
Asking ChatGPT About Affairs or Abortion? Be Careful, Marketers Are Peeking at Your Prompts
Cybersecurity/Privacy
The Register reports:
OWASP Top 10: Broken access control still tops app security list
IEEE Spectrum reports:
Your AI Agent Is Now a Target for Email Phishing. New tools can help thwart the attacks.
Like bitcoin, if you use this shit you deserve what you get.
DarkReading reports:
Orgs Move to SSO, Passkeys to Solve Bad Password Habits
GlassWorm Returns, Slices Back into VS Code Extensions
Check out VS Codium friends.
BleepingComputer reports:
Police disrupts Rhadamanthys, VenomRAT, and Elysium malware operations
Fediverse
Elena Rossini shares:
The rebellion will be federated – 2025 edition
A New Social has:
Bonfire explains:
Matters of care – why Bonfire maintenance comes first.
Comciencia has:
A comunicação da ciência no Fediverso
Laura Hargreves shares:
Growing My Own Little Fediverse: The Joy of Going Further Down the Rabbit Hole
Inside My Matrix: How I Reclaimed Messaging from the Cloud
TechCrunch reports:
Threads targets podcasters with new features, aiming to become the home for show discussions
BTW, fuck Threads.
Slightly Decentralized Social Media
The Dabbler has:
Chicken Caesars: they’re messing with your Bluesky feed
TechCrunch reports:
Jack Dorsey funds diVine, a Vine reboot that includes Vine’s video archive
Hmm, this is built with Nostr.
CTAs (aka show us some free love)
- That’s it for this week. Please share this edition of Destroying Autocracy.
- Follow me on the Fediverse. Or this site via the button in the footer. Or via RSS. Or even our future home in 2026, if you want a head start.
Keep fighting!
Ringleader, Battalion
Reuben Walker
Follow me on the Fediverse#activitypub #ai #autocracy #bigJournalism #bigTech #bluesky #bonfire #bridgyfed #democracy #fascism #fediverse #matrix #stopChina #stopIsrael #stopRedAmerica #stopRussia #supportUkraine #technoanarchism #technofeudalism #threads #xmpp
Gli ultimi otto messaggi ricevuti dalla Federazione
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@evanprodromou Congratulations! This is excellent news.
I'm very much looking forward to what you and SWF will achieve.
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@evanprodromou Great news! The Open Social Web will get even better. 2026 will be an excellent year.
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@evanprodromou love this and happy to see you leading the charge!
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@evanprodromou Congratulations! 🥳
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@doktorzjivago @evanprodromou @evan
is pump.io dead ?
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@evanprodromou Congratulations ! Having professional engaged people can make a big difference. So let's see what all the good things you and the fediverse will bring us in 2026.
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@evanprodromou @evan Nice!
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Working full time on the Social Web
In January 2026, I will begin working full time in my role as Director at the Social Web Foundation. I am looking forward to the challenge of growing this young non-profit and fulfilling our mission to make a bigger, better Fediverse.
As a refresher: I have been working in the area of federated social networks since starting Identi.ca in 2008. Federated social networks are social platforms that let users on one platform connect to and interact with users on another platform. Linked up with open standard protocols, these platforms together form a Social Web that puts people first.
In 2018, I was a co-author of the ActivityPub standard for social network interoperability. I currently maintain the spec for the W3C and develop extensions for it. In 2024, I wrote ActivityPub: Programming for the Social Web for O’Reilly Media. And I co-founded the Social Web Foundation to further encourage the use of ActivityPub in social networks.
For the last year, I’ve been working nights, lunchtimes and weekends on SWF while holding down my full-time role as Director of Open Technology at the Open Earth Foundation. I love working at OEF; the organization build Open Source software to help cities fight climate change. I have felt very fulfilled in my work there, and I’ve made really strong friendships with the team. It’s been a very special place to work that has changed how I think teams can be.
But over the last year, SWF has had some really amazing opportunities, and in 2026 we’ll be making some big steps forward for the Social Web. I can’t keep doing both jobs, and I feel like, after 4 years at OEF, I’ve done what I can to build up that organization, and I am ready to start on this next one.
It will feel good to have my full attention focused on the Social Web. I’m looking forward to seeing my Open Source friends at FOSDEM 2026 in Brussels at the end of January where I’m helping to organize the Social Web track. I’m speaking at Princeton mid-February, and I’ll be in the Bay Area at the beginning of March. All this time, I’ll be working hard to get the next version of ActivityPub released and to push out several software projects to make the Social Web more fun and interesting.
Thanks to everyone who’s put time, effort and help into the SWF. Thanks to my coworkers at OEF for encouraging me on my next steps in my career. Thanks to my wife and family for tolerating yet another leap into the void.
I hope you have as exciting a New Year as I will.
