Francis 🇾🇪 🏳️‍🌈 🏳️‍⚧️ @francis@greenplenty.social

Here's a great analysis of the Runcorn by-election from @CherylMorgan which seeks to correct various misapprehensions about why Reform won, whose votes they gained, and why Labour (and the media) are drawing the wrong conclusions.

And its admirably concise for a busy Saturday morning.

#politics #runcorn

h/t @Naich

https://www.cheryl-morgan.com/lies-damned-lies-and-the-british-press/

Anti-trans attitudes have existed for years, but organized disinformation campaigns are increasingly driving them https://phys.org/news/2025-04-anti-trans-attitudes-years-disinformation.html #science

It is weirdly jarring to see the Orange Lunatics ranting about how allowing backdoors and exceptions to secure messaging or crypto is a bad idea because "they can also be exploited by bad actors" whilst they are also advocating that the app stores have backdoors and exceptions. Do they think "bad actors" won't rush to exploit those as well?

(Who am I kidding? Most of the Orange Lunatics work for those "bad actors" in the first place. They're almost gleeful at the possibility of being able to shovel their ad-infested malware in front of billions of eyeballs with no constraints on what they can abuse.)

Ghengis Khan just crossed the floor to join Labour and there are rumours that Attila the Hun will follow. Both are dissatisfied with Sunak's policy on employment rights.

I run uBlock Origin or other ad-blockers in every browser I use.

Sometimes I get the "hey, you're blocking ads, we can't make money" popups. From otherwise agreeable news sites.

Then I think to myself, if you just ran the ads yourself, from your own site, without the adsystem trackers involving Meta/Google/Amazon, then the ads would probably get through.

The ads themselves aren't the problem. It's that publishers want to send all the data and most of the revenue to someone else.

#ads

Mom: "It costs nothing to be polite."

Billionaire Techbro: "Actually..."

Me: boo 😒 hoo. The environmental impact of this mess is unbelievable and sad

“Put yourself in their shoes” assumes shoes fit universally. Real empathy is more like: “Acknowledge they’re wearing shoes made for feet unlike yours, walking paths you’ve never trodden.”

#Tesla whistleblower says #Musk wanted to deport her team for raising brake issue https://electrek.co/2025/04/20/tesla-whistleblower-says-musk-wanted-to-deport-her-team-for-raising-brake-issue/

“Terrible things are happening outside. Poor helpless people are being dragged out of their homes. Families are torn apart. Men, women, and children are separated. Children come home from school to find that their parents have disappeared.”

Diary of Anne Frank
January 13, 1943

When I was a young child, and a teacher told my class that anyone could grow up to be President, I didn't recognize that as a threat.

“Social Security classifies🚨1000s of immigrants as dead, as part of Trump crackdown.”

Inexcusable, incompetent, lawless, & racist, Trump-Musk’s regime is classifying immigrants as dead to facilitate #deportations. Musk says #DOGE is efficient & saves money bc he uses AI & young tech bros, w/o any knowledge of how govt agencies function. The richest man on earth isn’t a genius, & he’s as disingenuous, fascist, & xenophobic as #Trump.

#USPol #Musk #Fascism #SSA #Racism https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/04/10/self-deportation-immigrants-social-security-dead/

https://www.europesays.com/1985641/ Pew pew… (Bruce MacKinnon, April 2017) #PoliticalHumor #PoliticalHumor #Politics #USPolitics

The official Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement has called for a boycott of Microsoft’s Xbox and all of its gaming products, accusing the company of complicity in Israel’s illegal occupation links to its prison system.

The boycott includes Microsoft Gaming, consoles from the brand, Xbox Game Pass, Candy Crush, Call of Duty, Minecraft, and gaming accessories, which they say generate a significant income for the company.

https://www.newarab.com/news/bds-urges-microsoft-boycott-over-firing-pro-palestine-staff

🕎 🇵🇸 ☮️
#Gaza #Palestine

Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords starting to look like a reasonable basis for a system of government

It would be great if the collapse of human civilisation could at least take the weekend off. I think we could all do with a bit of a fucking break, don't you?

Ask yourself this: will fares in self-driving cabs be cheaper? Will subscriptions to vibe-coded SaaS cost less? Will tickets to see model-generated movies be a fraction of the current price?

Or do all these technologies just solve the problem of having to pay people, with no benefit to anyone else except shareholders?

And then ask yourself this: if nobody's getting paid, who's hailing the taxis, using the SaaS and watching the movies?