I mean you still have strict privacy rights on private communication channels. Channels that are generally not considered a public place. At least on paper.

Oh no! Genocidal maniacs have taken control over TikTok… again!

I‘m not sure how this is handled in other places but since the Fediverse is a public forum I think you wouldn‘t have any rights to privacy on your Fediverse account in Germany. Any instance hosted there would likely still need to access your DMs if authorities order them to.

Still neat, though!

I mean Apple and Microsoft essentially built their empires on the backs of Open Source developers who believed in a free internet. They took openly available code, altered it and put a price tag on it. Software development and by extend the internet was stolen from the public by the likes of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates.

Okay but Japan had a major breakthrough the other day that made this technique obsolete for the majority of components.

I mean if every headline about massive breakthroughs was the full truth all our appliances would be powered by tiny nuclear power plants and we would fly around with our jetpack. Cancer would be but a distant memory and world hunger a non issue because vertical farms would be literally in every home.

Initially I thought this was about the 30% but they mentioned a new two tier system so I looked it up. It seems Apple‘s App store fees are more complicated than that. For example they charge $99 annually for developer accounts which doesn‘t sound much but that‘s basically the entry subscription to even participate. I didn‘t dig very deep but it gets more complicated from then on.

Seizing the means of production means pretty much exactly this, yes.

„But that‘s as bad as it will ever be!“ I hear tech bros reciting their mantra but then it gets worse all the time somehow.

I‘m sick and tired of rich schmucks selling their lack of empathy as being neurodivergent. Nah man, you don‘t struggle with social cues. You simply don‘t care about others. That‘s a huge difference.

Good question! I‘m not that deep into the technical aspects but Chinese companies that work with foreign companies would have to work with the government and other Chinese companies that control internet access in China to circumvent the firewall legally. The process is likely limited and heavily monitored by authorities. Same would go for Chinese companies with storefronts in the global web. They would need to access our internet regularly but I assume their access is limited to some degree.

I imagine unless you‘re a big player it can be quite the hassle so many Chinese companies would rather work with domestic companies than with foreign ones. I think this is one major reason why many contracts with Chinese companies can only be done through middlemen. As an outsider, you can‘t get full access to their industry because you have no means of contacting all these little manufacturers yourself.

But again, I don‘t actually know for sure what these processes look like. Maybe someone with actual experience can shine a brighter light on this.

VPNs are banned in some countries. At least in practice. China comes to mind and please nobody tell me „I have a friend in China and they use one!“ That friend is either breaking the law, or a state agent or foreigner where that law doesn‘t apply. Hotels have that as part of their service for tourists because why the hell would anyone travel to a country with basically no internet? Of course they are exempt.

But Chinese citizens are absolutely not allowed to use VPNs to break through the great firewall. The overwhelming majority wouldn‘t even know how. But of course most of them know at least one person who can.

So in theory the law is useless but in practice it‘s very effective to control information. Whatever the case it‘s nothing a democracy should pursuit. Ever.

Some US states are in the process of banning VPNs too, though. I’m afraid the USA remains the uncontested champion of being a shitty western country and it‘s not even close.

And LLM is simply such a bad example for Open Source in general. They couldn‘t have chosen a worse example to make their point. That‘s what’s frustrates me.

DeepSeek being an LLM is far from open source and especially not „truly“ open. The very article you linked basically says as much but wraps it in pretty words. Talking about ignorance.

It‘s open weights but definitely not

truly open source

Feel free to blame the technology as a whole but open source doesn‘t make exceptions for AI models.

I never trusted walnuts to begin with.

I don‘t know of a single

truly open source solutions for AI

from China. China doesn‘t seem very keen on open source as a whole to be honest. That is unless they can monetize on open source projects from outside of China. Their companies love doing that.

OpenAI isn‘t very good in any of those categories and they still have no business model. Subscriptions would have to be ridiculously high for them to turn a profit. Users would just leave. But to be fair that goes for all AI companies at the moment. None of their models can do what they promise and they‘re all bleeding money.

It will piss me off to give AI rights because it‘s not a living thing and we don‘t even grand billions of humans the same rights we enjoy in the west. We exploit them. The thought that a freaking soulless clanker walks among us with the same rights as you and me while children are starving, dying of thirst, are hurt in wars and don‘t have access to education and health care gives me the ick. How can we play god when we don‘t even look out for each other? Robots will replace us Terminator style if we don‘t get our shit together.

Angry Anakin (Reddit): „You turned them against me!“

Obi-Wan: „You managed to do that yourself.“