Alex Vranas @Alex@vran.as

@Blort @matrix it all stabilized, but it did seem especially taxed joining the channels under attack. Though, those were large channels, so it might not have been related to the attack.

It looks like it was just the couple I tried to join. the matrix chat and the free software chat seem to be targeted right now.

@matrix Was setting up a #Matrix Synapse server to play around with today of all days, only to find that joining a handful of rooms completely maxed out the CPU and RAM, mostly because it is downloading heaps of garbage from the matrix.org Synapse.

It looks like the @matrix flagship server is currently under attack by far-right trolls.

All of the larger rooms are currently flooding with pornspam and slurs.

That whole "defederate from every instance that federates with Threads" idea is dead-in-the-water at this point, right? I've heard this strategy come up several times since Meta announced planned ActivityPub support, and it has always sounded to me like community suicide.

Jones Soda now offers a mug with Jim Jones on it.

BUT...

You have to drink 25 cans of "Mary Jones" soda with 100mg THC each to be eligible.

“I saw this blasphemous statue and was outraged,” said Cassidy, a former US navy pilot who has previously run for Congress unsuccessfully in Mississippi. “My conscience is held captive to the word of God, not to bureaucratic decree. And so I acted.”

The Oath of Enlistment means nothing. It's nationalist theater.

A reminder that, despite the propaganda, veterans/troops are not the reason Americans have rights. If they are Republican, and many of them are, they are part of the fight to destroy the pillars of freedom this country was founded on until all that's left is a Christofacist Dictatorship.

Which is why military/police worship is such a popular Conservative aesthetic: They know who will carry out their will should they ever overthrow this nation.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/dec/15/satanic-temple-vandalism-iowa-state-capitol

The best part about running my own single-user instance right now is that nobody will ever care if I federate with Threads or not, because it won't affect anyone but me. I can just stay out of the drama and do what I want.

I will probably federate just to follow some of my IRL friends and family, but I'll also probably put some limits on what hits my global feed because I don't want brands on my feed anywhere.

@cy I empathize with her heart condition, but I doubt that information was even available to the record label, nor is it a factor in this situation at all.

Regardless of that context, selling merchandise on Amazon is a for-profit endeavor, she was absolutely selling counterfeit merchandise.

They have, as of yesterday evening, dropped the judgement against her because of media pressure and the iffy details surrounding the lawsuit, which is good because this wasn't a fair judgement.

@cy I'm sure there are plenty of shortcomings to address, but I don't really care to make assumptions.

Going after for-profit counterfeiters is not very predatory, I don't see how suing someone for selling unlicensed merchandise meets the definition of extortion, and lawsuits often start with the maximum allowed damages until they can discover the actual scale of infringement.

The only major shortcoming I can actually see is that the defendant's right to a defense was unjustly forfeited.

@cy Agreed, but this isn't really one of those cases of extortion, such as when record labels send toothless threats of litigation unless you settle, just hoping to settle with people fearful of ligation.

This is a combination of two issues: artificially high damages with the expectation that the damages will be argued down in court, and a flimsy summons system that prevented the defendant from receiving a cease and desist or summons, and being unable to argue down the damages in court.

Someone actually submitted this potato-quality AI generated image to the US copyright office.

It was rejected, because c'mon now...

@realjosephknapp @GrantRVD How is that not about trade?

@yacc143 I'm tempted to proactively reach out to the Illinois court system to ask how to register my primary email address and learn what domains they email from so I can whitelist them.

Or, better yet, opt out of paperless communications.

Because this sounds like the beginning of a new type of litigious trolling that people are going to have to protect themselves from.

She really was doing some overt infringement with her merchandise, so it was legally justified to send her a cease and desist and follow up with litigation. It sounds like the record label was targeting a number of unauthorized merchants in one lawsuit.

But she never had a real chance to defend herself, and the judgement against her is not proportionate to the actual damages.

Email is not a realistic solution to process serving. Nobody would expect something this important to be paperless.