This was definitely NOT on my bingo card for this year: European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen taking a moment between G7 meetings to promote the launch of the closed-source, for-profit network #WSocial. 🔗 : web.archive.org/web/20260617... It may be a harbinger of things to come

Just finished @laurenshof.online's powerful piece: "No Change" It is a critical read But I'd push back a bit on the history; I think the sovereignty of nations has, by its nature, always been in flux. And the desire for decentralized "sovereignty" without the state is part of the same story 1/n

The inaction of European governments to Musk's repeated calls for violence are abhorrent. This by @laurenshof.online is a fantastic analysis of the complacency they demonstrate by continuing to use and platform X:

Hi! I'm Bret Rhett Chet, here to tell you why you should buy and hodl SpaceX stonk. For a mere $135/share, you get pro forma tangible book value of $7.85/share, an immediate 94% dilution. New investors are putting up 48% of all capital ever invested in SpaceX in exchange for 4.2% of the shares. /1

At the presentation of the first Open Social Awards it's @robin.berjon.com who gives the best description of the Open Social Web: where European Parliament is concerned with the democracy shield, we need a democracy sword! And that's what the Open Social Web can be!

If you’re enjoying #pubconf2026 from afar, talks are streaming here https://stream.place/publicspaces.net @publicspaces

As expected, @kissane.myatproto.social’s talk - about how to build structures that resist the dissolution of democracy - is phenomenal. Seek it out when it gets posted and spread it far and wide. We need it. #pubconf2026

Matrix, eurosky.social, mastodon, Public Nodes all in the room at the European Commission discussing EU’s future of social media

🚨 NEW REPORT: EU handing industry #Permission2Pollute 🚨 At the request of oil&gas, mining + BigTech lobbyists, the Commission is ripping up permitting rules to fast-track polluting projects like pipelines, mines + data centres. Read more corporateeurope.org/en/2026/05/permission-pollute 👇 🧵 1/6

remember what Thiel wants

Goed nieuws: we zijn verhuisd naar Eurosky! Onze persoonlijke data draait nu niet meer op servers van Bluesky, maar op de server van dit gemeenschappelijke Europese initiatief. Op deze manier bouwen we samen een netwerk dat van gebruikers is, niet van big tech. Doe je mee? waag.org/nl/article/w...

“decentralization is a win for everyone” 🤝 It’s a big sky and we only win by working together

🚨 New report from People vs Big Tech: Algorithms on X & TikTok disproportionately push content from far right parties to new users, squeezing out moderate parties. EU & French authorities must enforce the Digital Services Act to protect democracy. peoplevsbig.tech/x-and-tiktok...

Statement EU Commission on U.S. decision to impose travel restrictions on certain EU individuals: "The EU is an open, rules-based single market, with the sovereign right to regulate economic activity in line with our democratic values and international commitments." ec.europa.eu/commission/p...

It's time for Europe to recognise what the American National Security strategy means for us. This clip from Merz shows the kind of words we need from our European leaders. Let's hope 1. they get repeated everywhere and 2. they will be followed by action

It has become received wisdom in Brussels and Washington that there is a new “euro-sclerosis”: that the EU economy is lagging the US This view is wrong A little primer on the measurement of productivity – and why reports of the economic death of Europe are greatly exaggerated🧵

Today I'm at the launch of the EDIC Digital Commons. A collaboration between the govs of NL, DE, FR, IT and other countries to jointly work on open source initiatives that improve our Digital autonomy in Europe. Exciting to see all the talk of Digital Sovereignty put into practice!

From the @wsj.com chief foreign correspondent

My dad abhors any negative comments about immigrants. Asked him recently why he’s so strong on it: ‘Because we’re always happy to take the rich and clever ones. Which means it’s not about disliking immigrants. It’s about disliking the poor and vulnerable. And that’s a bad human instinct.’

Catherine Tait, Philipp Schild, @amlung.bsky.social, @sandervdwaal.bsky.social and @ivansigal.bsky.social discussed how interoperable infrastructure can reinvent media’s relationship with audiences, break down platform monopolies and preserve journalistic independence. vimeo.com/1140417552?s...

I spent the day at #EuroskyLive and it is so energizing to hear developers make a better case for European innovation and competition policy than a whole high-level summit on digital sovereignty yesterday...

"What we see with media organisations is that they have to go to YouTube and TikTok to find their audiences but then they get shadowbanned when they mention genocide." — @sandervdwaal.bsky.social #EuroskyLive

Blender is struggling. it's the best piece of 3d software on the market, and it's free. I'm not going back to autodesk. please donate if you can! fund.blender.org

It's very notable that this room has plenty of developers and builders, and whenever someone says that deregulation is stupid they're getting full-throated applause. The people pushing deregulation are disconnected from those of us who are building the future. #EuroskyLive

As @alexandrageese.bsky.social mentioned at #EuroSkLive, we need the European Commission to stand up against big tech. Very timely with the important campaign launched by @peoplevsbigtech.bsky.social!

Amazing inspiring presentation by @bmann.ca that inspires new ideas of apps that can be built on ATProto. #EuroSkyLive

Great to see @alexandrageese.bsky.social on fire. Takeaways: 1. EU capital investing in US tech instead of European 2. Public procurement power not deployed to prefer EU tech 3. The unbelievable admiration(!) in EC circles for big tech. But momentum building for building OUR tech #EuroSkyLive

#EuroskyLive “we’re not building a space agency” - @seabass.bsky.social sad but okay. So what are they building for our #ATproto ecosystem? 🚀

Public Data Cultures is out today on @politybooks.bsky.social! 📗🎊 jonathangray.org/2025/10/23/p... It aims to nurture critical and creative engagements with public data as cultural material, medium of participation and as site of transnational politics. Happy to see it out in the world! 🦔🌌💜

The richest man on earth owns X. The second richest man on earth is about to be a major owner of TikTok. The third richest man owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. The fourth richest man owns The Washington Post. See the problem here?

The fact that the thing we're calling artificial intelligence *can't do math* and yet we're jamming it into programs that successfully *have done math* for decades, then warning people against using the AI to do math, seems like an excellent summary of where we are.

I spent seven years writing a book on this and she just… said it in three succinct paragraphs to politico.

turns out climate change will cost dramatically more than economists predicted, and the cost of addressing it is actually negative. oops! prospect.org/environment/...

Mooie quote van wethouder Scholtes in het tweegesprek met Elisabeth IJmker "Ik heb ook naar @[email protected] geluisterd" als ondersteuning van punt dat stappen gezet worden in de gemeente om digitaal onafhankelijker te worden #PubConf2025

Ooh look at that, Bluesky creates a link to Elena's account that is on Mastodon! Love this cross platform feature ❤️

Its clear @_elena is the first genuine superstar of the Fediverse? #pubconf2025

This @politico.eu piece threatens a reality checks against a position that, uh, no one has been advocating for. They erect a strawman position backed by no quote or reference according to which European tech sovereignty involves "decoupling" from the world. Huh? www.politico.eu/article/euro...

Don’t be deceived by democracy- and sovereignty-washing: The US government has most to gain from ‘OpenAI for countries’ ↘️ on.ft.com/4kJLh93

So, Internet, we really do need to talk about Elon. How did we get to a place where a single billionaire with daddy issues could take over and control our global public square? I picked up my paintbrush as a means to answer that question.

Silicon Valley’s alliance with Donald Trump has brought me to my breaking point with US tech. I’m going to keep pushing for governments to get serious about digital sovereignty, but in the meantime I’m looking for non-US alternatives — and will have more on what I’ll be using instead soon.

You have to read this article. "The forces we are up against have made peace with mass death. They are treasonous to this world and its human and non-human inhabitants." By @naomiaklein.bsky.social and @astra.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-i...

I can't emphasize enough that the most important thing journalists can do right now is publish exactly this kind of article

The movement's official website...

"My name is Ibtihal, and for the past 3.5 years, I’ve been a software engineer on Microsoft’s AI Platform org. I spoke up today because after learning that my org was powering the genocide of my people in Palestine, I saw no other moral choice."

The dominoes keep falling. Doing the government's bidding, changing speech rules, and harming vulnerable minorities is still appeasement. Even if you do it YouTube style, quietly and with little fanfare.

.. and that's the whole point..

Trump and Musk have ushered in the era of cataclysm capitalism. But I have a plan to counter it www.theguardian.com/commentisfre... The speed with which US democracy is being dismantled is dizzying, but if we organise resistance now we can stop this @jksteinberger.bsky.social

One major challenge of any opposition to authoritarianism is to make critical thinking, self-responsibility, acknowledgement of and desire to repair crimes, more appealing to the public than insane nationalistic narcissism.

A prominent computer scientist who has spent 20 years publishing academic papers on cryptography, privacy, and cybersecurity has gone incommunicado, had his professor profile removed by employer Indiana University, & had his homes raided by the FBI. No one knows why. arstechnica.com/security/202...

Right now there are a lot of new eyes on Signal, and not all of them are familiar with secure messaging and its nuances. Which means there’s misinfo flying around that might drive people away from Signal and private communications. 1/