in short: our server crashed the other day and we're not really sure why, so we had to restore a backup it went down at about 1:40 pm yesterday and we gave it until early this morning to diagnose what the problem was ourselves and get feedback from our server host (Digital Ocean) on what the problem might be. unfortunately we couldn't do that and none of their suggestions helped, so this morning we pulled the trigger on restoring the backup. as a consequence a few days of posts and registrations are now lost. so: **if you registered some time in the past 7 days, you will need to re-register**. (as a registration aside, we approve registrations very quickly so if you *have* registered your account should be approved within 24 hours of joining the site) it's unfortunate to lose all the posts and registrations of a week but we don't pretend to have 100% uptime (nor do we really have the funding to guarantee that, lol) so it is what it is. thanks for using the site, folks, hopefully this won't happen again anytime soon

Imagine if every person in the world could have a conversation with another person, across all borders. A Chinese woman from Shanghai and an American woman from the Rust Belt would exchange stories about their lives. A coal miner from Germany and a small farmer from Madagascar could share their experience of climate change. A cleaning woman from Greece could debate a teacher from Hungary about migration and LGBTQ rights. What would such conversations change?

[www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/05…](https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/05/19/greenpeace-russia-closes-after-being-banned-as-undesirable-group-a81208)

If we lose the right to freely use and enjoy creative works, we open the way for a new world of extreme commercialization where artists must pay for the privilege to create, and people find the costs and barriers to information and culture rising ever upwards. Let’s embrace this opportunity for change presented by Generative AI and transform traditional economic structures to ensure prosperity, and lower the barriers to enjoying the fruits of our diverse and vibrant shared culture.

Comedian Nigel Ng, who lives in the UK, found his accounts Weibo and Bilibili, a video-sharing platform, frozen over the weekend after sharing a video joking about China's government. Ng, while not directly referencing the matter, said in a tweet on Monday in which he re-shared the video: "For some reason this clip got a ton of views this weekend. I wonder why".

Russian authorities do not publish any open reports or list about deported children which prompts the team to use open sources to track them: news, reports, social media platforms, video hostings, and others. An interactive information map that helps to track children forms the basis of the project.

Iryna Gorobtsova was abducted by Russian forces from the home where she grew up in Kherson. She has now spent a year in a Crimean prison, with virtually no contact with the outside world.

True Russia, a non-profit organisation founded by Russian artists and economists who oppose the war, have created a constantly growing database of social, cultural and scientific initiatives of communities around the world - from distance jobs for academics to remote IT assignments, and from housing initiatives to psychological help.

'Krebs on Security' publishes an interview with a Russian hacker responsible for a series of aggressive crypto spam campaigns that recently prompted several large Mastodon communities to temporarily halt new registrations. According to the hacker, their spam software has been in private use until the last few weeks, when it was released as open source code.

A report presented by US Senator Elizabeth Warren shows how Big Tech lobbyists redefine the concept of “digital trade” and use it to protect the profitability of their enterprises and make it impossible for signatory countries in trade deals to use legislative ends to protect other things, like people’s privacy or the rule of law. It largely confirms the revolving-door tech lobbyism investigated by sociologist Wendy Li. Here is Sen. Warren’s report (pdf): https://www.warren.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/USTR REPORT.pdf Here is tve research paper by Wendy Li: http://web.archive.org/web/20230316084447/https://academic.oup.com/ser/advance-article/doi/10.1093/ser/mwad002/7030814?utm_source=authortollfreelink&utm_campaign=ser&utm_medium=email&guestAccessKey=d5eab2cc-f0ea-4f77-a68c-97412d8b3e9d

China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) made high-risk, often-unneeded billion-dollar infrastructure loans, with no conditionality, poor risk planning, shrouded in opacity and secrecy. Cash-poor developing countries that lacked the ability to pay were particularly vulnerable, a report says. The seeds of project failure were sown from the outset by a lack of transparency, risk management, and viable controls to check corruption and incompetence.

"It is clear that JPMorgan Chase & Co. (Chase) has persistently discriminated against certain customers due to their religious or political affiliation," the law enforcement officials, led by Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron, wrote in a letter to JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon. "This discrimination is unacceptable. Chase must stop such behavior and align its business practices with the anti-discrimination policies that Chase proclaims.”

President Maia Sandu has accused Russia of seeking to sabotage its European integration by fuelling anti-government protests and propaganda. Moscow denies meddling in Moldova's affairs. "Moldova does not want to be blackmailed by the Kremlin," President Maia Sandu has said at the rally, which was organised by her government and packed a central square.

I take this to mean they increase drug quitting behavior

Drawn up in 2021 by the Kremlin's Directorate for Cross-Border Cooperation, the Kremlin's plans do not focus on cooperation. “This is the old KGB method: ‘We should weaken our enemies. And the best way to weaken them is from inside, not from outside.’ What they are good at is dividing societies, creating problems, creating conflicts", says Marius Laurinavičius, a Lithuanian expert on international affairs.

Optionally Ideally it has 0 online features. A checklist for when I'm leaving the house for the day to make sure I have everything Paper checklists - I have to write out a new checklist every time and that really adds up as a time commitment, so being able to clear the checklist somehow is mandatory.

So far, Musk has shown a willingness to bow down to authoritarian censors. The latest is yet another example of that. Just as the Turkish election was about to take place, the government demanded that Twitter censor content critical of authoritarian strongman, gollum-lookalike, and world’s most thin skinned leader, Recep Erdogan. And Elon caved.