so action.

tech news today is that Mullvad VPN has gone mask-off about being the major funding source for the Swedish Orebro party, who are racist nationalists. unfortunately all discussion of this is occurring on fucking Mastodon instances i can barely load

if you are a mullvad customer (as i am) and want to get out, here is guidance from this guy

For the first time in history, bots are generating a larger share of web traffic than people are, a milestone that is disappointing to many. As TechSpot observed, the shift could affect everything from online shopping and search results to disinformation, cybersecurity, and the growing energy demand tied to artificial intelligence tools. When Cloudflare co-founder and CEO Matthew Prince announced that web traffic has officially crossed the threshold where bots are now ahead of humans overall, he revealed that even he didn't expect such a rapid transition. Prince wrote in a post on X that "that happened faster than I predicted," noting that he "thought it would be the end of 2027."

[...]

On Cloudflare Radar, a tool that estimates what fraction of web traffic is automated activity versus human, the current proportion of total traffic that is bot-driven is now 57.4% after rising as high as about 62% in early June.

Fundraising on tumblr is survival. When tumblr deletes the blogs of people in Gaza, that is participation in genocide. It is unconscionable.

My friend Fadel's account has been banned again yesterday. He is extremely sad and exhausted at this treatment. Fadel's new blog is @fadell-aldany. Please follow him there and send him a message of encouragement. He has been on tumblr for years and has lost all of his connections.

He has been repeatedly hospitalized this month because his blood count is so low from going too long without his blood medication and proper nutrition. He desperately needs funds, and he cannot raise them if no one finds his blog. Fadel's campaign (gazavetters #197) is hosted by a friend of mine. I am texting with Fadel right now as I type this, and I personally can confirm that this new account is really him.

It's a natural impulse -- if you love crime -- to want to talk about how great it is. And if you hate America, it's only natural to want to share your dreams for its future with the rest of tumblr dot com. It can feel brave and transgressive. And there is a drive to share your soul with the world at the heart of social media. Surely I should be posting the most concrete implications of my politics, right? This is the poster's curse.

Security Culture refers to a set of "best practices" developed over the past several decades, largely (in a US context) coming out of radical environmental groups as they faced intense state repression, infiltration and entrapment. If you're not familiar, there's some fascinating crimethinc write ups to give you a window into that world:

Much of it boils down to: don't talk about crimes, past or forthcoming with people who don't need to know about them, and be mindful of the possibility of surveillance and infiltration. And, we can support each other as a community in minimizing risks, with an eye towards enabling bold action rather than getting bogged down in fears and anxieties. The guidelines that make sense for AG-based trouble-makers are different from the guidelines that make sense for posters, but plenty of common principles apply. To speak briefly to our position here as posters:

First, it bears saying that long term anonymity is extremely nearly impossible to maintain. Unless you've never accessed Tumblr without a vpn, and avoided connections with other ppl who can be associated with you/your location, and never shared pictures without scrubbing metadata, and a bunch of other 100% consistent steps, it's trivial for the state to know who you are.

Second, just because something isn't actively being prosecuted now doesn't mean it can't be prosecuted later. The priorities of the state change and a shift in power towards the right or a growth in radical action from the left can suddenly make it a priority to destroy anarchist networks or just find a few ppl to prosecute as examples (who probably weren't that plugged into larger networks before getting arrested. Advocating for specific anti-government crimes or declarations of intent to commit such crimes are likely prosecutable even if charges don't stick they're an easy vector for legal harassment.

Third, it's worth thinking about heat as separate from prosecutability. There are modes of engagement that may not be directly criminalized but signal that you are someone worth watching. Some people choose to be public in ways that make heat unavoidable. But it's worth noting that heat isn't strictly individualized, that it persists over time but also is going to shrink over time.

It's easy on here, ime, to see yourself as a proud member of the crime fandom but not much of a content creator. And it's easy to feel like you've generated an amount of heat where you're locked into that role. But heat you generated 10 years ago is probably pretty well gone. Heat you generated 5 years ago has faded substantially. It's worth thinking about how the world might shift in the coming years and what doors you want to keep open.

The non-individualized nature of heat also means that leaning into the spiciest of anti-state positions will make it a bad idea for people who are acting out those positions end up tied to you. Loudly talking about how "more people should be doing [X/Y/Z]" unfortunately sets you up to remain distant from people who might be doing or thinking about doing such things.