…#Trump, who has called the #CPB a “monstrosity,” has long said that #PublicBroadcasting displays an *extreme liberal bias*, helped create the momentum in recent months for an anti-public broadcasting groundswell among his supporters in #Congress & around the country. It is part of a larger initiative in which he has targeted institutions—particularly #cultural ones—that produce #content or espouse attitudes that he considers “un-American” [different than his views].
#CPB helps fund both #PBS & #NPR, but most of its funding is distributed to more than 1,500 local #PublicRadio & #television stations around the country.
The corporation also has deep ties to much of the nation’s most familiar programming, from NPR’s “#AllThingsConsidered” to, historically, “#SesameStreet,” “#MisterRogers Neighborhood” & the documentaries of #KenBurns.
Corporation for #PublicBroadcasting to shut down after being defunded by #Congress, targeted by #Trump
The #CPB, a cornerstone of American culture for 3 generations, announced Friday it would take steps toward its own #closure after being #defunded by Congress—marking the end of a nearly 6-decade era in which it fueled the production of renowned #educational programming, #cultural #content & even #emergency alerts.
#law #democracy #Constitution #FreePress #autocracy
https://apnews.com/article/public-broadcasting-defunding-pbs-npr-94708ffb8313d4811fa6ca199fe454ad?utm_source=onesignal&utm_medium=push&utm_campaign=2025-08-01-CPB
Destroying Autocracy – July 31, 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.
DA comes out on Thursday and is updated through the end of day on Friday. Then we start over. So take your time in perusing it and check back in over the weekend.
FYI, my opinions will be in bold. And will often involve cursing. Because humans. Especially tech bros. And fascists. Fuck ’em.
Featured Item
Drew Lyton
Great stuff that ties in nicely with what we are advocating here on Battalion.
We start and end with good news to make the middle bearable.
The response to Russia’s War Crimes, Techno Feudalism, and other douchebaggery
TechCrunch reports:
Proton releases a new app for two-factor authentication
Flights grounded as Russia’s largest airline Aeroflot hacked and systems ‘destroyed’
The Kyiv Independent reports:
The Register reports:
Europe’s AI crackdown starts this week and Big Tech isn’t happy
Italy says Meta may be violating law with AI in WhatsApp
Edge case: Opera claims Microsoft still playing dirty with defaults
US Navy won’t torpedo hurricane forecast satellite feed after all
Open Future opines:
A Step Forward, But Not Far Enough: the EU’s AI Transparency Template
The European Commission reports:
The Cradle reports:
Netherlands labels Israel ‘threat to national security’ for first time
They are a threat to every nation on Earth’s national security, as are all pariah surveillance states.
The European Commission announces:
Commission proposes partial suspension of Israel’s association to Horizon Europe
Unfortunately, the German and Italian pseudo-fascists blocked it.
EuroNews reports:
EU fails to agree Israeli suspension from research fund over Gaza
Ars Technica reports:
Google confirms it will sign the EU AI Code of Practice
Bleeping Computer reports:
Internet Archive is now a US federal depository library
CISA open-sources Thorium platform for malware, forensic analysis
W3C announces:
Vision for W3C is a W3C Statement
Media Revolution announces:
The Media Revolution countdown campaign is LIVE!
IMHO, this ties in with the Open Media Network idea featured in our Techno Anarchist Manifesto.
Murena shares:
What is a VPN (virtual private network)?
Nextcloud reports:
The Nextcloud Include initiative: How Nextcloud supports diversity in open source
Cory Doctorow has:
You can’t fight enshittification (But we can.)
In addition to the tactics in the Techno Anarchist Manifesto, we have to fight in the political realm as well.
Neutral
Bert Hubert looks at:
Europe’s Self Inflicted Cloud Crisis
The Guardian reports:
Why did thousands of adult titles just disappear from the biggest PC gaming marketplaces?
The Evil Empire (AKA Autocracy) Strikes Back
Breach Media reports:
Mark Carney’s AI agenda is a gift to Big Tech
Canada is 1,010 times better than the U.S. but it ain’t perfect.
404 Media reports:
UK Users Need to Post Selfie or Photo ID to View Reddit’s r/IsraelCrimes, r/UkraineWarFootage
The United Kuntsdumb is now only 1.46 times better than the United States of Assholes and getting worse by the minute.
The MIT Technology Review reports:
What you may have missed about Trump’s AI Action Plan
TechDirt reports:
Trump Threatens To Withold Billions From States That Try To Make Broadband Affordable To Poor People
Pariah States
So-called newspaper, The Washington Times reports:
Hackers breach intelligence website used by CIA
BleepingComputer reports:
French telecom giant Orange discloses cyberattack
Microsoft: Russian hackers use ISP access to hack embassies in AiTM attacks
DarkReading reports:
Russia’s Secret Blizzard APT Gains Embassy Access via ISPs
The Register reports:
Silk Typhoon spun a web of patents for offensive cyber tools, report says
Big Media
404 Media reports:
Patreon reports:
Substack sent a push alert promoting a Nazi blog
I am sorry, but if you are on SubStack at this point you are either an uninformed amoral moron or a c^nt. Thankfully, you can still avoid being reincarnated as a cockroach by moving to Ghost or Buttondown.
ArsTechnica reports:
Substack’s “Nazi problem” won’t go away after push notification apology
The Columbia Journalism Review reports:
Traffic Apocalypse: Google’s AI Overviews are killing click-throughs to news sites.
Big Tech
The Register reports:
‘Impossible hill to climb’: US clouds crush European competition on their home turf
Publishers cry foul over W3C crusade to rid web of third-party cookies
Ars Technica reports:
Meta pirated and seeded porn for years to train AI, lawsuit says
TechCrunch reports:
Zuckerberg signals Meta won’t open source all of its ‘superintelligence’ AI models
BTW, their current ones are in no way opensource.
Bikepacking shares:
Terror
The Guardian reports:
Far-right extremists using games platforms to radicalise teenagers, report warns
Cybersecurity/Privacy
TechPolicy asks:
Is There Any Way Forward for Privacy Legislation in the United States?
BleepingComputer reports:
Post SMTP plugin flaw exposes 200K WordPress sites to hijacking attacks
DarkReading shows us:
How to Spot Malicious AI Agents Before They Strike
ChatGPT, GenAI Tools Open to ‘Man in the Prompt’ Browser Attack
Tuta reports:
Switzerland plans surveillance worse than U.S.
BitDefender reports:
French submarine secrets surface after cyber attack
Platformer reports:
Trust and safety workers on why they’re not speaking out
And here’s the previous post he referenced.
404 Media reports:
Tea App Turns Off DMs After Exposing Messages About Abortions, Cheating
FYI, Platformer and 404 Media are on Ghost and thus part of the Open Media Network.
RSS
The wonderful Citation Needed reports:
Curate your own newspaper with RSS
Fediverse
Connected Places has:
For Better has:
Mastodon Defence Command: The Scam Wave
Fedify announces:
Implementing custom collection dispatchers
QCB asks:
So Your Black Ass Still Wants to Get on Mastodon
ActivityPub for WordPress announces:
Slightly Federated Social Media
Connected Places has:
Blacksky has:
Infrastructure for Interdependence: Building technology in service of collective power
Blacksky is what Bluesky would be if it wasn’t created and run by tech bros.
404 Media reports:
This Company Wants to Bring End-to-End Encrypted Messages to Bluesky’s AT Protocol
CTAs (aka show us some free love)
Keep fighting!
Ringleader, Battalion
Reuben Walker
Follow me on the Fediverse
#ActivityPub #AI #Autocracy #BigJournalism #BigTech #Bluesky #Democracy #Fascism #Fediverse #Mastodon #Nextcloud #StopChina #StopIsrael #StopRedAmerica #StopRussia #SupportUkraine #TechnoAnarchism #TechnoFeudalism #WordPress
Team Trumphas rolled a racially-charged distraction: accuse Obama of treason -deliberate psyop to hijack: news, enrage MAGA +erase #Epstein.
Trump followers: lack empathy -get pleasure out of watching other ppl in pain. Among white men *stronger antisocial pers chars a person carried -more likely -to support him.
Trump's moving quickly toward #autocracy *pers chars like Hitler, Pinochet...
The #economy trumps Trump's cruel, racist IMM agenda *
the GDP +harms...
#USPol
https://www.alternet.org/alternet-exclusives/is-trump-bluffing/
"The Persecution of Francesca Albanese"
Read by Eunice Wong
Trump's sanctioning of Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur, "is an ominous harbinger of the end of the rule of international law."
https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/the-persecution-of-francesca-albanese-431
Via #MotherJones - July 26, 2025
If you’ve been obsessed with Donald #Trump’s not-going-away #JeffreyEpstein scandal, you might have missed a more disturbing development on the road to American #authoritarianism. Trump’s top intelligence officer fabricated evidence to support a sham #DOJ criminal investigation that could lead to a show trial of former President #BarackObama and his aides. This is #autocracy in action.
"The Persecution of Francesca Albanese"
Read by Eunice Wong
Trump's sanctioning of Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur, "is an ominous harbinger of the end of the rule of international law."
https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/the-persecution-of-francesca-albanese-431
"The Persecution of Francesca Albanese"
Read by Eunice Wong
Trump's sanctioning of Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur, "is an ominous harbinger of the end of the rule of international law."
https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/the-persecution-of-francesca-albanese-431
“Authoritarianism doesn’t begin with a dictator. It starts when the idea of justice quietly disappears”
#Authoritarianism #Fascism #Autocracy
https://thewalrus.ca/this-is-not-my-country/
Applicants for a US visa must now either expose every tweet, photo, and friend to the world or risk being denied entry.
This is turning social media into a loyalty test. It forces people to unlock their account or risk being seen as “suspicious.” Authoritarian logic.
As if students from repressive regimes don’t already face enough risk.
HT mstdn @kim_harding
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/07/you-shouldnt-have-make-your-social-media-public-get-visa
Eduardo Porter explained why he was leaving the Post: “Jeff Bezos and his new head of Opinion are taking the paper down a path I cannot follow, directed toward the relentless promotion of free markets and personal liberties…. I have no idea to what extent this is driven by Mr. Bezos’ fear of what Donald #Trump could do to his various business interests, most of which are more valuable to him than The Post.”
https://robertreich.substack.com/p/the-silencing #Trump #autocracy #censorship #media #freespeech #WaPo #JeffBezos
@ben
This was at the first 100 days. #RuthBenGhiat, #Autocracy scholar, analyses the #TrumpAdministration’s rapid shift towards #Authoritarianism. She talks about #Trump’s #PersonalityCult, how #Strongmen portray machismo and the potential for a female strongman figure. She also discusses how autocrats use corruption, violence and propaganda to stay in power, and how #ICE roundups echo the past, resembling a “secret police force”.
Ruth Ben-Ghiat anticipated that #America would reach the tipping point by September.
Destroying Autocracy – July 24, 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.
DA comes out on Thursday and is updated through the end of day on Friday. Then we start over. So take your time in perusing it and check back in over the weekend.
FYI, my opinions will be in bold. And will often involve cursing. Because humans. Especially tech bros. And fascists. Fuck ’em.
Featured Item
TechDirt writes:
Over the last year or so I’ve seen a disturbing tendency in tech/startup/VC worlds to buy into the neoreactionary view that for startups to be successful they need to get on board the Trump train.
Yes, there are the big name folks who everyone knows about and who didn’t really surprise anyone—Peter Thiel, Marc Andreessen, David Sacks, Elon Musk (pre-fallout)—but the more troubling trend has been watching younger entrepreneurs and VCs listen to their podcasts, read their posts and books, and slowly nod along to the idea that democracy is holding back innovation.
Fascism For First Time Founders
We start and end with good news to make the middle bearable.
The response to Russia’s War Crimes, Techno Feudalism, and other douchebaggery
BleepingComputer reports:
Ukraine arrests suspected admin of XSS Russian hacking forum
Radio Free Europe reports:
Drone Attacks Even The Odds For Ukrainian Frontline Units
BitDefender reports:
Europol targets Kremlin-backed cybercrime gang NoName057(16)
Bruce Lawson reports:
CMA designates Google and Apple, proposes measures
TechCentral reports:
Italy takes Meta, X and LinkedIn to court over unpaid tax
404 Media reports:
Hacker Plants Computer ‘Wiping’ Commands in Amazon’s AI Coding Agent
Archivists Recreate Pre-Trump CDC Website, Are Hosting It in Europe
The Register reports:
Radio geeks reveal how to access crucial hurricane data after US Department of Defense cut it off
The Register reports:
AI data-suckers would have to ask permission first under new bill
Laptop farmer behind $17M North Korean IT worker scam locked up for 8.5 years
TechPolicy reports:
The Case for Europe’s Backing of Digital Civil Society Groups
Open_Future shares:
Licensing, Levies, and the Limits of Copyright
Open Forum Europe announces:
DarkReading reports:
Stop AI Bot Traffic: Protecting Your Organization’s Website
Speaking of your websites, LocalGhost has:
This page is under construction: a love letter to the personal website
Hamish Campbell has:
The Open Media Network: More Than Just a Tech Project
This is what your site could be a part of.
Neutral
TechPolicy reports:
Brazil Has a Bridge to Defending the Internet
The Financial Times:
UK government seeks way out of clash with US over Apple encryption
When you have three sets of c^nts involved, it’s hard to know who to route for.
TechPolicy opines:
Enforcement of EU’s Tech Laws Should Not Be Traded Away
And they are right.
The Evil Empire (AKA Autocracy) Strikes Back
So-called newspaper, The Wall Street Journal reports:
White House Prepares Executive Order Targeting ‘Woke AI’
MIT Technology Review reports:
America’s AI watchdog is losing its bite
The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports:
Axon’s Draft One is Designed to Defy Transparency
EuroNews reports:
UK online legislation could threaten Wikipedia volunteer safety, group to argue in court
Pariah States
The Register reports:
UK uncovers novel Microsoft snooping malware, blames and sanctions GRU cyberspies
Silicon Valley engineer admits theft of US missile tech secrets
Four new Android spyware samples linked to Iran’s intel agency
TechCrunch reports:
A surveillance vendor was caught exploiting a new SS7 attack to track people’s phone locations
Hackers exploiting SharePoint zero-day seen targeting government agencies
BleepingComputer reports:
Microsoft links Sharepoint ToolShell attacks to Chinese hackers
Big Media
Today in Tabs reports:
Billionaires Destroyed American News Media On Purpose
Mother Jones reports:
Colbert’s Cancellation Is a Dark Warning
Akademie shares:
Investigating AI datasets: A journalist’s guide
Big Tech
Where’s Your ‘Ed shares:
The Hater’s Guide To The AI Bubble
The Next Web reports:
ChatGPT advises women to ask for lower salaries, study finds
404 Media reports:
A Startup is Selling Data Hacked from Peoples’ Computers to Debt Collectors
Spotify Publishes AI-Generated Songs From Dead Artists Without Permission
Google’s AI Is Destroying Search, the Internet, and Your Brain
Grindr Won’t Let Users Say ‘No Zionists’
EuroNews reports:
Meta ran ads that fundraised for Israeli Defence Forces, analysis shows
Meta won’t sign EU’s AI Code, but who will?
The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports:
Amazon Ring Cashes in on Techno-Authoritarianism and Mass Surveillance
Ars Technica reports:
Researcher threatens X with lawsuit after falsely linking him to French probe
xAI workers balked over training request to help “give Grok a face,” docs show
TechCrunch reports:
Microsoft says it will no longer use engineers in China for Department of Defense work
For privacy and security, think twice before granting AI access to your personal data
Terror
The Register reports:
IRL Com recruits teens for real-life stabbings, shootings, FBI warns
Cybersecurity/Privacy
TechCrunch reports:
Serial spyware founder Scott Zuckerman wants the FTC to unban him from the surveillance industry
BleepingComputer reports:
CISA and FBI warn of escalating Interlock ransomware attacks
DarkReading reports:
Translating Cyber-Risk for the Boardroom
Fediverse
Connected Places has:
Fediverse Report – #126 July 22, 2025
Bonfire is:
Exploring a Bonfire Geosocial Extension
MarkWrites reflects on:
Mastodon announces:
If you are on the Fediverse please donate to your instance’s maintainers. Especially if they ask nicely.
Aphyr opines:
The Future of Forums is Lies, I Guess
Fediverse favorite, Elena Rossini shares:
The Future is Federated: Year 2
ActivityPub for WordPress has an update:
We Distribute has details:
WordPress-ActivityPub v 7.1.0 Introduces Following Capabilities
Randall Black show us:
How to Install and Set Up Castopod for Your Podcast
TechCrunch reports:
Threads adds improved content performance metrics for creators
Slightly Federated Social Media
The Register reports:
Selling your digital soul to use Bluesky’s DMs isn’t just a bad idea, it’s the law
CTAs (aka show us some free love)
Keep fighting!
Ringleader, Battalion
Reuben Walker
Follow me on the Fediverse
#126 #ActivityPub #AI #Autocracy #BigJournalism #BigTech #Bluesky #Castopod #Democracy #Fascism #Fediverse #Mastodon #StopChina #StopIsrael #StopRedAmerica #StopRussia #SupportUkraine #TechnoAnarchism #TechnoFeudalism #Threads #WordPress
The steps to #autocracy as is currently happening in the once great #USA..
https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1BSDuTPKKH/?mibextid=wwXIfr
Interview: "The End of Academic Freedom"
"Dr. Maura Finkelstein was fired from her post as a tenured professor for her anti-genocide activism."
"The walls are closing in on American education & democracy itself."
https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/the-end-of-academic-freedom-w-maura
The #State Dept has started screening social media accounts of student visa applicants. #MarcoRubio has also stated that the State Dept would target #visas held by Chinese students, an initiative complicated by #Trump’s announcement that Chinese students are welcome to study in America as part of his trade deal with Beijing.
Since those talks started, the Depts of #Education & #HHS both opened challenges to the #university’s #accreditation, which could someday jeopardize the ability of Harvard #students to receive federal #StudentAid. And #ICE has served subpoenas to Harvard w/sprawling demands that included payroll records, years of disciplinary files & any videos #Harvard had of #InternationalStudents protesting on campus since 2020.
Officials from #Harvard & the #Trump admin have exchanged multiple offers since last month as they have explored a potential deal over the #government’s role in #admissions, #hiring & #curriculum. The details of the negotiations remain unclear as talks continue.
