They did something similar with Chelsea Manning, announced they were "thinking about a pardon" to see if there would be pushback.

It's proving to be rather embarrassing for the UK, it's clear to many here how he's been treated and how much of a stitch up the trial has been. I imagine the US could do without the international attention on this - court cases, more Russia speculation in an election year.

And the "authorities" have made their point: don't try to take the piss out of us, we will ruin your life even if we don't get you to trial. Julian Assange's case will certainly be putting off quite a few people from becoming radical journalists.

@genocide.joe@beehaw.org?

People in India were watching people checkout?! Poorly paid workers watching Westerners consume... this is so grim.

Time to dust off those guillotines.

People are still printing? I love it, proppa old skool that is. I thought the only person who printed stuff anymore was my mum who prints out her daily crossword.

Don't forget to boycott HP because, not only are they shit printers, they provide computer hardware for the IDF, Israel's police, and their Immigration and Population Authority. https://bdsmovement.net/boycott-hp

There have been a couple of recent (post-October) studies into BBC coverage, the issue I raise concerning the language used in the title is consistent with its use of language elsewhere. For example, Israelis are "killed" and Palestinians "die".

"About 700 people have been killed in Israel since Hamas launched its attack on Saturday, with a further 500 having died in Gaza in retaliatory air strikes."
"Some 1200 people have been killed in Israel, while more than 1000 have died in retaliatory air strikes on Gaza."
"More than 700 people have been killed in Israel since Saturday and over 500 people have died in Gaza."

[...] the openDemocracy analysis found that the phrases “murder”, “murderous”, “mass murder”, “brutal murder” and “merciless murder” were used a total of 52 times by [BBC] journalists to refer to Israeli deaths – but never in relation to Palestinian deaths.

When I read this sort of coverage on a daily basis, I see these patterns repeated again and again, it's a subtle reframing that many don't notice but editors (and headline writers) at the BBC will be very aware of how they are using language. Space is not an excuse to remove the perpetrator from the picture regardless of how obvious that perpetrator might be, it is disingenuous.

Study shows BBC 'bias' in reporting on Palestinian and Israeli deaths - The National

One very important word missing from that headline. The BBC should be ashamed of its coverage as they do this again and again.

Corrected version: "World Central Kitchen halts operations in Gaza after ISRAELI strike kills staff"

Matt Mahmoudi, a researcher with Amnesty International, said Israel’s use of facial recognition was a concern because it could lead to “a complete dehumanization of Palestinians”

Oops, bit late for that, mate.

Welcome to the modern day equivalent of wrist tattoos...

I'm on a private tracker (pejoratively known as a "piracy site") that specialises in obscure films and documentaries - no mainstream, big studio films are allowed. It is an archive that I am happy to be a part of... and I definitely consider it to be an "archive"; corporations are not going to be interested in maintaining anything that's not profitable. I regularly upload queer films that are difficult to get hold of and I'm happy that they are held on the computers of others in case someone, someday, would like to watch them.

Here's some potentially good news about an alternative...

There's an interesting comment on this Mozilla Github post about Graphene OS' plans in this area, it's quite a long comment so I'll link it. The first para reads:

GrapheneOS Foundation has been planning to host a network location service for GrapheneOS and projects collaborating with us for a while now. We've received significant funding we can put to use for this to make a high quality, modern implementation on both the client and server side. A new unified app (cellular, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth beacons) for gathering data to publish as fully open data could also be part of it. We also plan to make a SUPL implementation as part of the same service as an alternative to our Google SUPL proxy to replace it as the default in the long term.

There's an interesting comment on this post about Graphene OS' plans in this area, it's quite a long comment so I'll link it. The first para reads:

GrapheneOS Foundation has been planning to host a network location service for GrapheneOS and projects collaborating with us for a while now. We've received significant funding we can put to use for this to make a high quality, modern implementation on both the client and server side. A new unified app (cellular, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth beacons) for gathering data to publish as fully open data could also be part of it. We also plan to make a SUPL implementation as part of the same service as an alternative to our Google SUPL proxy to replace it as the default in the long term.

The Ubuntu article is using this Mozilla announcement as its source (I am not saying they say different things, it's just best to see the source material sometimes). The article mentions litigation and this might be the important bit, Skyhook Holdings Inc. was acquired by Qualcomm in May 2022.

Skyhook's business is wifi location and I'm guessing that Mozilla's been costing them money and Qualcomm might be looking for a little return on investment from its purchase of Skyhook.

I hope there's an open source project that comes out of this that we can get behind and that this will turn out to be a good thing in the end. Mozilla did say their service was getting worse and it sounds like the litigation might be what's behind this. I wish Mozilla were better at communicating stuff... oh well, that ain't gonna change!

I just got approved to join Beehaw, so things are going okay, I reckon!