A Donald Trump-voting cattle farmer in Missouri was blasted on social media for complaining about possibly losing his land after he "didn't have time to research" the presidential candidates ahead of the election.
It's not this one farmer who has voted for the trump that bothers me but a very large minority of the electorate in Western democracies that consistently vote against their best interests that bothers me. It's like you & all your friends book a plane to Spain for your holidays only to find your drunk friend is the pilot while, at least, 25% of the passengers are cheering him on.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is no more.
It was created by Congress, not the executive. It is funded by the Fed, not the Treasury. By law, the president cannot shut it down. But Elon Musk has shut it down.
Absolutely wild. The US financial services regulator has had their website suddenly deleted this weekend and according to the NY Times theyโve been told to stop all supervisory activity (ie regulation).
Itโs supposed to be protected by an act of Congress but President Musk has decided to ignore that.
The CFPB still exists in statute and in authorized funding. Whether it can operate right now is a separate issue. I am wary of pronouncements that give the current regime the ability to define reality.
So even when a white person is clearly at fault, the real fault lies with people who aren't white.
Convenient! And really fucking racist!
โชBrandon Friedmanโฌ:
#JDVance uses DEI to cover for a potentially white male pilot being at fault: "When you don't have the best standards in who you're hiring, it means, on the one hand, you're not getting the best people in government, but on the other hand, it puts stresses on the people who are already there."
Musk to rehire Doge aide who resigned over racist posts
The account connected to Mr Elez - first reported by the Wall Street Journal - posted a variety of inflammatory comments that were verified by the BBC as authentic.
"Just for the record, I was racist before it was cool," read one post from the pseudonymous account in July.
Another post, in September, said: "You could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity."
The Trump administration is rescinding protections for Venezuelan refugees that have been in the country under protected status to prevent them from being de...
Proud Boys can no longer legally use their own name and logo and are barred from selling any merch with either its name or its symbols without the consent of the Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church, the Black church in Washington that Proud Boys targeted and vandalized.
Enrique Tarrio and several other Proud Boys attacked the church in December of 2020. The church won a $2.8 million default judgment against the Proud Boys and their former leader. After they failed to turn over any money, lawyers for the church sought to satisfy the judgment by seizing control of the trademarked name and by enjoining the group from โselling, transferring, disposing of or licensing any merchandise using the words โProud Boysโ or any of the organizationโs symbols.
this is EPIC - love this. Play stupid games win stupid prizes as my partner always says๐ VERY satisfying to see even some petty comeuppance hit these bastards
Trump's little trick with the tariffs was probably just to distract from the fact that a South African immigrant is raiding (and making changes to) the software systems and databases that keep the US government running.
However, it has provided fodder to make fun of Trump's non-existent negotiating skills.
@alice There was a Montana Congressman that tried to hang with the proud boys, apparently people found out where he lived and his family got some threats so he decided to quit... When these people become afraid... they go back to where they belong and keep their mouths shut.
I can't believe that I am saying this, but I think they should be doxxed. These kids now have at their fingertips my highly personal information and the personal information of every American. I think it's my right to know who they are.
@2600. "Musk, Trump Prosecutor Targeting People Who Divulge Identities of DOGE Staff The self-described free speech champion is not pleased that the public has learned the identities of his young henchmen"
I think their mommies and daddies should be politely contacted and asked what they thing of their childrenโs behavior. Not being sarcastic about being polite.
"I found myself upon a lonely path, with only the truth in hand. A barren and desolate trail devoid of food, water, shelter, and company lay before me. Yet I continued my journey, filling my voice with the only song I knew, the truth I beheld.
Soon, a fellow traveler appeared exclaiming 'You look thirsty, let me give you drink'. So I drank, and we talked of the truth. And then another appeared exclaiming 'You look hungry, let us share this bread'. So we ate, and talked of the truth. And yet another appeared exclaiming 'You are drenched and chilled, let me offer you shelter'. So together we huddled in new comfort, and talked of the truth.
And so it was that from hour to hour, and day to day, the truth was passed from soul to soul, until its denial was wholly forfeit." SearingTruth
Has anyone called their parents & asked how they feel about their kids boogering up social security, medicare, & sharing their personla data with the world?
I wonder if the Musk/Trump grift is 1) get rid of inspectors general and defang the detectives at FBI, 2) take over the government payment system, then 3) steal the people's funds.
These young engineers may not fully understand what they've gotten themselves into.
Although I am sure Musk only picked his true believers to carry out these tasks.
Trump has immunity. He can give illegal orders.
It does not mean future POTUS cannot prosecute the breach.
Musk has the money to hire the best lawyers to protect himself. Will he spend money on these enginneers? Very likely not. Just take a look how he treated his employeers in the past.
I realize they're all technically adults, but I doubt they really get what they're doing. If Musk succeeds, they all benefit - but if not, if there ever are consequences, odds are they take the brunt of them because they're the ones with hands on keyboards.
@mwguy nah. I am all for it but my wife said โmehโ. I joined this month and itโsโฆ fine. But no one I know in real life is on it, there is no mobile app, and the setup can be a little off-putting. The fedi platforms have an incredible opportunity right now to take in a lot of social media refugees, but the ones without apps (friendica, loops, etc) are going to struggle to get traction with a population that is accustomed to convenience.
It is not fair to put Mastodon, Pixelfed, Friedica, Peertube and Loops as analogous to Signal. Signal is centralized, Signal relies on closed source libraries, Signal is only distributed through PlayStore, Signal is not a federated platform.
If we want to have a messaging platform on that image, it should be XMPP.
it would be good if first of all pixelfed don't delay accepting new accounts, losing the momentum it is getting. also there is the usual bug where scrolling the home sometimes it freezes. it would be good to have a smooth pixelfed before of improving loops. but, instead of this, a third app is being developed. wish you all the best tackling things in a triune way.
For people to really make the switch, it would be helpful to give them an article explaining what to do exactly. In German there is one by @blog - do you know of other languages? #GlobalSwitchDay koelle4future.de/?p=35767
Du kรคmpfst tรคglich fรผr Klimagerechtigkeit? Und bist noch auf Plattformen, bei dem Klimaleugnung, Frauenverachtung und die Verfolgung von queeren Menschen offen zum Geschรคftsmodel gehรถrt? Das muss nicht sein!
Komm dahin, wo Menschen soziale Medien aktiv und dezentral gestalten. Komm ins Fediverse, hier ist die bessere Party. Mach mit beim global switch day am 1. Februar 2025 und bring Deine Freund*innen mit. Empfohlen u.a. von @janboehm
So einfach geht das โ probiere mal eins davon aus:
Finde ein Pendant zum jeweiligen antisozialen Medium
Kurznachrichtendienste mit Zeichenlimit und bis zu vier BildernTwitter (heute: niX mehr) โ> Mastodon
Besuche social.cologne, das ist eine Mastodon-Plattform und erstelle Deinen Account. Eine detaillierte bebilderte Anleitung und Deine ersten Schritte haben wir Anfang des Jahres vorbereitet.
Teile ein bis 10 Bilder pro Beitrag und schreib dazu einen Begleittext. Instagram โ> Pixelfed
Die Liste ist unvollstรคndig, um Dir den Einstieg zu erleichtern haben wir pro Dienst nur eine von vielen dezentralen Servern angegeben. Weiteres findest Du z.B. im Beitrag Das Fediverse : Unendliche Weiten.
Am 23. Februar 2025 ist Bundestagswahl Klimaschutz ist Menschenschutz Gehe wรคhlen! Wรคhle demokratisch! Wรคhle Klimaschutz! Die Termine unserer Kundgebungen (jeweils 11-14 Uhr (*)) 18.01.2025 Breite Straรe/Richmodstraรe, Altstadt-Nord 25.01.
I donโt think all those other apps are gonna replace anything (including this app and I donโt think rednote is gonna replace TikTok either) but they might be worth giving them a shot
@dausacker olha que legal essa imagem. (Pessoalmente nรฃo gosto tanto da ideia de uma plataforma de vรญdeos verticais federada... Mas a imagem nรฃo deixa de ser legal, nรฃo.)
@caos @Daniel Supernault @ericbuijs1 @anubis2814 @Elena Rossini โ @FOSDEM @Sanne Bjerg I actually spent an entire afternoon myself compiling this comprehensive post about Friendica. It was initially designed to be a megathread with resources, but I decided to also add an FAQ and, as a bonus, the list of all human-readable color names that are supported when formatting your text to be colored (because yes, you can format your text in whichever way you want).
Feel free to Ctrl+F anything in your browser to quickly jump to what you need, check the links as well if I did not cover it, and also ask on the forum (@helpers@forum.friendi.ca) if you still don't find what you need. Or you can ask here. I'm all ears :)
Hello, everyone! As we know what Zuck's place is going through, I decided to create a post with all the resources I found online all these years I've been on this place, in a bid to help more people board. Here we go:
no less important, The Friendica Wiki also available under the help section of your instance (click on your pic and name on the top-right where you're logged in -> help)
The @Friendica Support group for any questions or issues (yes, I intended to post this here).
All of these should be more comprehensive than this guide.
Short Q&A with the most common problems
How do I post stuff? Easy, on your profile, click the button in the top right that looks like this:
A pop-up window will open, and you can type anything. Make sure to set the appropriate permissions by clicking the tab at the top. If you want your post to be public then choose public, if you don't, select limited/private and add the exceptions or add who can see it. Make sure you properly select these permissions, because you cannot change them later. If you format your post (see below), you can also check the preview pane to see how your post will look. This also applies for comments.
How to format my text?
Friendica uses BBCodes for text formatting like bold text, italic text, underlined text and many others. You can find more example on the usage of it in the Wiki or under https://your-instance-address/help/bbcode. You don't have to style your text, but you can do some nice stuff with it. You can also get suggestions for formatting by typing [ and selecting an option from the drop-down menu, or typing out your option to narrow your search. But do check the wiki, though. Generally, BBCode looks like [option]your-text-here[/option].
If there is any text where you don't want to add any tags on by accident, slide it between these tags: [noparse][/noparse].
How to upload an image (and how to add alt-text to it) Just drag&drop it into the composing page. Simple. Easy. No frills.
Also, to note is that you can also re-use an image you previously uploaded if you go to the Browser tab in the compose window.
Finally, you can link to any image you find online, without downloading&reuploading it in the 1st place. Right-click an image, click "copy image link", then go to your post and type [img]paste-your image-link-here[/img] (of course, you paste your image link instead, between the img tags). This is generally how images are displayed via BBCode.
I personally use an external site to host my media and link it this way, whenever there is something I want on the internet for as long as possible in order to save some space on my instance. I mostly use postimages.org, but I also used
Meta and now also Reddit like to change the URL string to the media posted on their platforms, so don't rely on these if you want your post to still stay relevant after a few days.
You can also add Alt-Text to your image if, instead, you type [img=your_image_url]Your Alt-Text here[/img]. Alt-Text is generally an image description that is displayed when the image fails to load/before loading, and is useful to visually impaired people using screen reading software which can read this out loud. The latter is the reason why it is highly recommended by many people all across the Fediverse (not just on Friendica).
How to upload a video or other media Just like you do with an image. However, the video will be posted under Browser, and then the "Files" icon:
Select your file, and it will be posted with an tag.
However, there's currently no user facing way to delete these as yet, so feel free to upload them on any other external service and share the direct link to the audio/video if you care about this.
You can use the tags [audio]your-link-to-the-audio[/audio] and [video]your-link-to-the-video[/video] for that.
How do I make a poll/vote at polls Polls are currently supported by a few Fediverse platforms, but not by Friendica fully, right now (you can see them, but you cannot vote on them and create them).
You can again use an external service for creating polls, such as poll-maker or Strawpoll.
How to post to a group
Groups on Friendica, as well as any other ActivityPub platform, are generally just some special accounts that automatically boost/reshare whatever post you added while tagging them. Therefore, just create a regular post and tag them with the ! or @ signs (one of these tags should suffice). The former one creates a post that is visible on the group but unlisted wherever else (i.e. in a public feed). The latter takes account of your permission settings. You will see how you can find groups somewhere below.
How to find various people
There are multiple ways; One is to use any of the established lists:
You can also go to Settings>Profile>Miscellaneous and scroll all the way down to add some tags to the profile. Then, you can also go to Contacts and choose "similar interests" in the left pane, get friend suggestions or a random profile.
Finally, you can also add yourself into the aforementioned Friendica Directory or to your server's one by going to Settings>Account>Security and Privacy Settings and check any of these two options:
This way anyone can find you according to your interests.
Finally, you can also follow hashtags to get posts from people that also share your interests directly in your feed, and then follow them from there.
If you want to have more privacy, you can check the following box below:
This limits the visibility of your content to only instances that are made aware of it, and people that have access to it based on your privacy settings. Unlogged users will not be allowed to find you.
How do I find groups?
Same as with regular people. There are multiple lists:
Check out the servers of other Fediverse software like Mbin or Piefed. These are more forum-like platforms, centered around communities. Generally, each of these communities has a Fediverse address. Copy that, paste it in the search bar, and you should be able to find it. If it doesn't work the 1st time, try a few more times. If it still doesn't work, look whether the server is not on the banned list by accessing your-server-address/friendica, and/or contact your admin for clarification.
How do I use the search? Is it any useful beyond just searching for people and groups and other accounts?
Yes there are. From my personal experience, Raccoon for Friendica gave me the best results. Relatica is also a great option, as well as Fedilab (the latter is more of a Mastodon client, but you can disable the display of reply in the feeds and enable BBCode - fiddle out in the settings). There are other apps for various platforms as well. If you don't find any of them fitting, you can just access your Friendica server in your browser (e.g. friendica.world, nerdica.net etc.). It's very responsive and easy to use.
I hope this Q&A covers the most common aspects of using Friendica
Bonus: Text colorsOne aspect that hasn't really been touched on in the wiki is the colors. You can have text in any color if you type the text like this [color=color_name_or_value]your text here[/color]. Hex values are accepted, however there are also some human readable names that can be used (based on this thread): Antiquewhite Aqua Aquamarine Azure Beige Bisque Blanchedalmond Blue Blueviolet Brown Burlywood Cadetblue Chartreuse Chocolate Coral Cornflowerblue Cornsilk Crimson Cyan Darkblue Darkcyan Darkgoldenrod Darkgray Darkgreen Darkkhaki Darkmagenta Darkolivegreen Darkorange Darkorchid Darkred Darksalmon Darkseagreen Darkslateblue Darkslategray Darkturquoise Darkviolet Deeppink Deepskyblue Dimgray Dodgerblue Firebrick Floralwhite Forestgreen Fuchsia Gainsboro Ghostwhite Gold Goldenrod Gray Green Greenyellow Honeydew Hotpink Indianred Indigo Ivory Khaki Lavender Lavenderblush Lawngreen Lemonchiffon Lightblue Lightcoral Lightcyan Lightgoldenrodyellow Lightgreen Lightgrey Lightpink Lightsalmon Lightseagreen Lightskyblue Lightslategray Lightsteelblue Linen Magenta Maroon Mediumaquamarine Mediumblue Mediumorchid Mediumpurple Mediumseagreen Mediumslateblue Mediumspringgreen Mediumturquoise Mediumvioletred Midnightblue Mintcream Mistyrose Moccasin Navajowhite Navy Oldlace Olive Olivedrab Orange Orangered Orchid Palegoldenrod Palegreen Paleturquoise Palevioletred Papayawhip Peachpuff Peru Pink Plum Powderblue Purple Red Rosybrown Royalblue Saddlebrown Salmon Sandybrown Seagreen Seashell Sienna Silver Skyblue Slateblue Slategray Snow Springgreen Steelblue Tan Teal Thistle Tomato Turquoise Violet Wheat White Whitesmoke Yellow Yellowgreen
i really dont want to spoil the fun here. I appreciate the effort.
But although #signal is much more popular than #matrix their relationship is like #mastodon to #bluesky. Both bluesky and signal have a #proprietary backend. although their frontent is #OpenSource they technically have a single point of failure. server/cluster down == service down
Mastodon and matrix are actual fediverse services which are undestroyable since they are many federated, independent servers.
I pulled up YouTube for the first time (I was signed out of google too) on my work computer to watch one funny video at work, and this is what autoplayed immediately afterwards. Iโm fully switching to peertube now. Itโs turning into a hate platform like meta and Twitter.
Wir sind noch #neuHier auf #Mastodon. Unsere Accounts auf X, Facebook und Instagram haben wir gelรถscht.
Wir sind unseres Wissens der erste #AnwaltVerein im #Fediverse, aber bestimmt nicht der letzte.
Wir wรผrden uns freuen, wenn noch mehr #Rechtsanwรคlte den Weg hierher fรคnden. Sprecht Euren Lieblings-, Haus-, Familien- und Unternehmensanwalt einfach auf's #Fediversum an. Es gibt ja fรผr jede groรe kommerzielle Plattform eine freie Alternative, siehe die grafische รbersicht oben.
Dunno how well this is going to go - decentralized kinda misses the point of social networks, one of these requires you to run your own servers, and one is closed to new signups
The Fediverse needs better branding. Don't use 'Tube', it was already outdated when YouTube launched. Pixelfed sounds like it's a federal agency. Friendica? What? And don't get me started on 'Mastodon' which I think would have way more users if it wasn't called 'Mastodon'
@brawnybunkbedbuddy With Friendica you can also communicate with Diaspora users (+ and with Bluesky, Tumblr, ...). With Diaspora you are only in contact with other #Diaspora users and with Friendica and Hubzilla, but not with the rest of the Fediverse. @Daniel Supernault
I've been slowly converting family and friends over to #Signal for years now. Here's how usually I do that these days. When a conversation gets into some rather intimate topic - say talk on emotions, or psychology, or other highly private details - then I set a boundary, saying "I'd be willing to discuss this topic further, but only in a more private app like Signal." So I leave them an "out": I'm willing to stay on, say, WhatsApp, *but the conversation has to stay more shallow*.
I also run an #XMPP server (Prosody), but I've had very limited success in getting people to join. Frankly, XMPP is *only* for intrepid geeks at this time, who are willing to put up with several papercuts in usability. Apps like WhatsApp and Signal have "raised the bar" *a lot*, and apps like #Conversations and #Gajim have their work cut out for them to try to catch up to people's sky-high expectations - they've been spoiled.
*A ton more testing and bug-fixing is still needed to iron out quirks that the different XMPP clients have, in talking to each other.* This goes especially for #iOS or #iPadOS offerings for XMPP.
Hi Dansup, first of all, you are a โญ thanks for everything you do! I have a quick question... I applied to pixelfed.art a couple of days ago, but no answer yet. Shall I wait more or resend the application? Please let me know if there is anything wrong. My username in the application was "skamu". Thanks!!
Never was on Xitter, but I'm here. Never been on "insta," or What'sApp, or TikTok. Debating leaving FB and not switching to anything. YT with ad blockers and a VPN for now.
Long interesting discussion! Another idea, while weโre at it, might be to buy a Fairphone with /e/os and resist the temptation of installing the โwrong appsโ. They also sell tablets. Reasonably locked down Linux on your computer and youโre set. Am I the only one who sees the irony of choosing โsafeโ apps but still using the machines and osโ of the beast? . If you have to use them at work, wait till you get home to socialize online, or take your Fairphone on your pee break.
Mike Macgirvin, the creator of Friendica and Hubzilla, has made a whole tree of at least (...counts...) nine forks after Hubzilla, eight of which were nomadic. Two of them still exist.
One is intentionally nameless, intentionally brandless, intentionally not a project and intentionally released into the public domain. Since the community needed to address to it by something, they took the name of the code repository (which needed a name), put parentheses around it and called it (streams).
It's a fork (2021) of a fork (Roadhouse; 2021) of three forks (Osada, Mistpark 2020 a.k.a. Misty, Redmatrix 2020; 2020) of a fork (Zap; 2018) of maybe another fork (Osada; non-nomadic; 2018; if Zap was forked from Osada rather than directly from Hubzilla;) of Hubzilla.
(streams) is reduced in features and connectivity in comparison with Hubzilla, but so were the first Osada and Zap. However, in terms of permission control and nomadicity, it's at least up-to-par with Hubzilla. In fact, it isn't quite as difficult to use as Hubzilla because permission handling has been adapted what the Fediverse of the 2020s actually requires as opposed to what a hypothetical Fediverse of the mid-2010s centred around the Red Matrix would require.
I've made a series of tables that compare Mastodon, Friendica, Hubzilla and (streams). You can find them here.
The other still existing fork is Forte from August, 2024. Forte is a direct fork of (streams). It's highly experimental because all support for the Nomad protocol was removed, and it has to rely on ActivityPub for nomadic identity. Thus, it is not officially released yet, it does not have public instances, and it is not recommended as a stable, reliable daily driver yet.
I have to say that I just really paid attention to the logos for Loops and Peertube and I think theyโre brilliant. I have no idea if you intended for Loops to reference/riff Peertubeโs design language, but itโs very good either way (Peertube evoking federation through the โplayโ triangle pointing in multiple directions while also itself being a โplayโ triangle; almost the same sized triangle in the negative space with the looping graphics for Loops).
"In recent months the Harvard Law School [@harvard_law] Library Innovation Lab [@harvardlil] has created a data vault to download, sign as authentic, and make available copies of public government data that is most valuable to researchers, scholars, civil society and the public at large across every field. To begin, we have collected major portions of the datasets tracked by data.gov, federal #Github repositories, and #PubMed...."
Related: Also see the End of Term Web Archive, which routinely scrapes and preserves US govt web pages before new presidents take office. Launched in 2008 and still going strong. To supplement its archive, it welcomes URL nominations of sites to save. eotarchive.org/
The End of Term Web Archive is a collaborative initiative that collects, preserves, and makes accessible United States Government websites at the end of presidential administrations.
"In the first few days of Donald Trumpโs second term as president, the White House Council on Environmental Qualityโs #Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool (#CEJST, for short) disappeared from government websites. It was an interactive map of U.S. Census tracts that are โmarginalized by underinvestment and overburdened by pollution,โ as the pre-Trump federal government put itโsomething researchers and the public could use to quickly locate and zoom in on specific communities and analyze the problems they face. The Internet Archiveโs Wayback Machine stored a copy of the webpage, but even there, the map was gone. However, thanks to a team of researchers from multiple universities and other organizations, a new working version was posted online Friday."
Related: "The #Trump administration is scrubbing the #CDCโs website of documents on #ReproductiveRights issues, sexual health, intimate partner violence, and more. Weโre saving them. ๐๐ฃ๐ฐ๐ณ๐ต๐ช๐ฐ๐ฏ, ๐๐ท๐ฆ๐ณ๐บ ๐๐ข๐บ will publish and host these vital documents for as long as necessary. To share deleted documents with ๐๐ฃ๐ฐ๐ณ๐ต๐ช๐ฐ๐ฏ, ๐๐ท๐ฆ๐ณ๐บ ๐๐ข๐บ, email tips@abortioneveryday.com. " jessica.substack.com/p/cdc-birโฆ
The Trump administration is scrubbing the CDCโs website of documents on reproductive rights issues, sexual health, intimate partner violence, and more.
Related. "Researchers rush to preserve federal health databases before they disappear from government websites" journalistsresource.org/home/rโฆ
"Tips for preserving websites: * To find the missing websites, go to Wayback Machine and type in the websiteโs URL in the search bar. * If youโre concerned that certain websites or web pages may be removed, you can suggest federal websites and content that end in .gov, .mil and .com to the End of Term Web Archive. * You can suggest federal climate and environmental databases to Environmental Data and Governance Initiative. * You can suggest databases to The Data Liberation Project, which is run by MuckRock and Big Local News. * Tell science journalist Maggie Koerth what CDC data you've downloaded and whether you've made them publicly available...."
Journalists have long relied on federal health data for their reporting. We include several tips that they can use to help researchers preserve the data.
I honest to god, even in my most fevered worries about the future, (and as someone trained in bioethics, I had plenty of them), dreamed that one day we would be playing whack a mole with the American Stasi to keep science data safe.
My goodness, it's going to be ironic if Piratbyrรฅn is what saves science.
I was just thinking, with all of the badly worded edicts that King Don has been firehosing us with, if I were a sysadmin I would engage i malicious compliance just to wake people up and not sugarcoat the awfulness. Let the whole website return errors, take the whole thing down rather than hide info. Make people mad.
Update. "Today we [Harvard Law School @harvard_law Library Innovation Lab @harvardlil] released our archive of data.gov on Source Cooperative. The 16TB collection includes over 311,000 datasets harvested during 2024 and 2025, a complete archive of federal public datasets linked by data.gov. It will be updated daily as new datasets are added to data.gov. This is the first release in our new data vault project to preserve and authenticate vital public datasets for academic research, policymaking, and public use." lil.law.harvard.edu/blog/2025/โฆ
Today we released our archive of data.gov on Source Cooperative. The 16TB collection includes over 311,000 datasets harvested during 2024 and 2025, a complet...
Update. "This is Version 2 of the Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool, released by the Council on Environmental Quality [#CEQ] in December 2024. Although the tool remains unchanged, public access through the White House was discontinued on January 22, 2025. We re-created Version 2 and made it publicly accessible." screening-tools.com/climate-ecโฆ
Update. "The Public Environmental Data Partners [#PEDP] are committed to preserving and providing public access to federal environmental data. We are a volunteer coalition of several environmental, justice, and policy organizations, researchers across several universities, archivists, and students who rely on federal datasets and tools to support critical research, advocacy, policy, and litigation work. To gather insights on what data to preserve, we reached out to our networks, which consist largely of environmental justice groups and networks, state and local government climate offices, and academic researchers. We compiled a large list of federal databases and tools, and prioritized them based on their relative impact, our confidence that we could archive them, and the relative effort it would take to obtain and archive them." screening-tools.com/
Surveying a range of initiatives with good clarity on the obstacles.
"There are questions about whether scraping the data will really be enough. Restoring websites and complex data sets is often not a simple process.โฆ'The repairs and attempts to recover are sometimes insurmountable where we need continuous readings of data.' 'All of this data archiving work is a temporary Band-Aid,' says Gosnell. 'If data sets are removed and are no longer updated, our archived data will become increasingly stale and thus ineffective at informing decisions over time.' "
Amid takedowns of various government sites and databases, several organizations are working to preserve vital climate, health, and scientific data before itโs gone for good.
"The #WaybackMachine is helping preserve the record of government websites before they were changed by the TTrump administration. CBS News Confirmed's Rhona Tarrant reports."
The Wayback Machine is helping preserve the record of government websites before they were changed by the Trump administration. CBS News Confirmed's Rhona Tarrant reports.
"Despite the Trump administration restricting access to these government sites and its underlying data, organizations and individuals have been working to preserve this data. Here are just a few of the efforts that part of an ongoing effort to preserve public information."
Multiple organizations are fighting to preserve access to government data and websites that have been removed after President Donald Trump took office.
Update. "Federal data is disappearing. Meet the teams working to rescue it and learn how you can help." youtube.com/watch?v=hiZuKA-o4Vโฆ
"Since the start of the new #Trump administration, hundreds of federal data sets and government websites have gone offline without warning, sometimes returning with major changes and sometimes not returning at all. On February 13th, #MuckRock hosted an event with organizations that are helping lead the efforts to preserve the publicโs data."
Since the start of the new Trump administration, hundreds of federal data sets and government websites have gone offline without warning, sometimes returning...
"Jack Cushman, director of the Harvard Library Innovation Lab [@harvardlil], has been preserving sites and data that went dark after executive orders from President #Trump. He underlines the importance of keeping digital copies or risk parting with โour cultural memory.โ
Librarians are great at quickly pulling together resources to support their patrons, and in the face of recent data loss, this need has become more urgent. Our patrons rely on access to public government data.
"The directors of the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research (#ISR) and the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (#ICPSR) are emphasizing the critical need for preserving government data that may be at risk due to recent policy shifts....Through #DataLumos, an ICPSR archive for valuable government data resources, ICPSR is helping the data community to preserve, document, and disseminate thousands of files from agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control [#CDC] and the Department of Education [#DOE]."
Update. "While we at the #PEGI Project [Preservation of Electronic Government Information] have been aware of the potential for a crisis like this since the start of our project in 2017, both the pace and extent of the removals and changes have been astonishing to witness. What has also been astonishing (and heartening!) is the willingness of a broad community to join together in quick action to save content, particularly data that cannot be easily captured as part of the End of Term Archive. The Public Environmental Data Partners, a project launched by the Environmental Data Governance Initiative (EDGI), has been working on collecting and preserving hard-to-crawl environmental data for the past couple of months. In the past two weeks, a coalition has formed to launch the Data Rescue Project, which then debuted its Data Rescue Tracker. They also have a helpful (and well-vetted!) list of Resources that can guide individuals and organizations wanting to contribute to this work." pegiproject.org/blog/2025/2/14โฆ
Update. "Hereโs why and how Public Environmental Data Partners [#PEDP] and others are making sure that the #climate science the public depends on is available forever." theconversation.com/how-to-finโฆ
Several groups are working to preserve webpages, tools and data โ some of which have already gone missing from government webpages since the start of the Trump administration.
Update. "As the US government removes health websites and data, hereโs a list of non-government data alternatives and archives" journalistsresource.org/home/aโฆ
"Thereโs no perfect alternative to the government databases, but some non-governmental organizations have their own datasets, which can be useful to journalists. Several #journalism associations have also been downloading government data and making them available to their members. To help journalists with their continued reporting, we have curated a list of non-government websites that have health data, although some use government data to create their reports. Weโll continue to update this list. If you have a suggestion for a database, please email us."
Update. If you're following this thread, you should also follow the Data Rescue Project by visiting its web site and subscribing to its email list. It aims "to serve as a clearinghouse for #data rescue-related efforts and data access points for public US governmental data that are currently at risk." And it's #crowdsourced, which gives it fighting chance to be comprehensive and up to date. datarescueproject.org/about-daโฆ
I'm very aware that a solo effort, like this Mastodon thread, doesn't scale to the size of this task and I welcome the arrival of a crowdsourced effort. I will use it and refer people to it.
The Data Rescue Project is a coordinated effort among a group of data organizations, including IASSIST, RDAP, and members of the Data Curation Network.
Thanks for the resources. I'd encourage everyone to think locally, too -- it may not just be Federal data at risk. For instance, at a certain university, I understand there's a footer applied to each email sent out to students, staff, or faculty that includes the words "diversity" and "inclusion". That same university, I understand, also has pages about resources for LGBTQ+ people, and climate change, on their university web site. No doubt that university gets a lot of Federal money for research, etc, and so...
Update. "Federal data is disappearing. On Thursday, meet the teams working to rescue it and learn how you can help. Join the Internet Archive [@internetarchive] and the Library Innovation Lab [@harvardlil] on Feb. 13, 3pm Eastern for a special event exploring the terabytes of data they have already saved and how to access it." muckrock.com/news/archives/202โฆ
Since the start of the new Trump administration, hundreds of federal data sets and government websites have gone offline without warning, sometimes returning with major changes and sometimes not returning at all. On February.
Update. "Wayback Machine Saves Thousands of Federal Webpages Amid Purge of Government Data Under Trump" democracynow.org/2025/2/28/intโฆ
"Thousands of informational government webpages have been taken down so far in the second #Trump administration, including on public health, scientific research and LGBTQ rights. Amid this mass erasure of public information, the #InternetArchive is racing to save copies of those deleted resources."
Thousands of informational government webpages have been taken down so far in the second Trump administration, including on public health, scientific research and LGBTQ rights.
"The destruction of knowledge and cultural heritage has happened, and therefore it can happen again. We are in the middle of that happening, whether it is caused by human action or natural causesโฆSafeguarding Research & Culture (#SRC) is creating an alternative #infrastructure for archiving and disseminating of cultural heritage and scientific knowledgeโฆTogether, we can ensure that our cultural, intellectual and scientific heritage exists in multiple copies, in multiple places, and that no single entity or group of entities can make it all disappear. Our archive is built according to the principles of #FAIR and #CARE, based on open technologies and standards, and resilient against loss via meaningfully distributed storageโฆEveryone, from individuals to institutions, can participate by accessing, contributing, and supporting these archival infrastructures."
"A team of volunteer archivists has recreated the Centers for Disease Control website exactly as it was the day Donald Trump was inaugurated. The site, called RestoredCDC.org, went live Tuesday and is currently being hosted in Europe."
"#KnowledgeCommons has applied for a significant grant from Lever for Change to build, implement, and sustain a digital preservation network that will be free from the US governmentโs, and any other single governmentโs, interferenceโฆKC is a #nonprofit, community-governed, #OpenAccess platform for creating and sharing knowledge world-wideโฆBut, in the present moment, our US-centeredness is a significant threat to that mission. We propose to establish three linked but independent nonprofit public-benefit companies incorporated in the US, Europe, and South Africa, all dedicated to the social and technological processes of gathering, preserving, and ensuring the public accessibility of academic research."
"The Data Foundation's SAFE-Track portal provides a secure, encrypted channel for documenting changes to federal evidence and #data activities. As a trusted, non-partisan authority on government data and evidence policy, the #DataFoundation maintains this platform to systematically understand and analyze impacts on America's evidence infrastructureโฆSAFE-Track enables confidential reporting through: * Complete #anonymity for submissions * End-to-end #encryption of all data * No requirement for email or personal identification * Option for secure follow-up communication through anonymous conversation codes * Protections against collection of personally identifiable information."
"Lynda Kellam, a social scientist and data librarian,โฆwhoโs served in leadership positions at two Ivy League universities, described the vulnerable data as โirreplaceable.โโฆKellam told me that sheโd participated in a small data-preservation effort during Trumpโs first term, but had never seen anything like the frenzy that ignited in late January, when the #CDC began removing information from its website. Kellam was encouraged, but worried about a lack of coรถrdination. What if the backups languished on private hard drives? What if archivists duplicated one anotherโs work? She created a Google Doc to centralize information about preรซxisting initiativesโan archive of archives, with detailed instructions on how to contribute to eachโฆKellam met with the heads of other data-librarian organizations, and together they founded the #DataRescueProject."
"It's our contribution to the ongoing effort to rescue, preserve and make open endangered government materials at risk of disappearingโฆOur focus will be on policy and technical reports, papers, documents, blogposts, videos, and podcasts but we're open to suggestions for other content types - except for datasets. There are a number of excellent ongoing efforts to rescue data so there's no need for us to replicate themโฆOur goal is to make these materials easy to find and permanently availableโฆWeโre calling on librarians and researchers to help identify endangered materials from government agencies and suggest at-risk websites and repositories. We're also inviting those who have been working closely with agencies to send us copies of previously open materials they may have on their hard drives and laptops."
After some weeks of scrambling after government content that's either disappeared or is now at risk, we're very pleased to announce the Policy Commons 2025โฆ
Update. "ERICA is a rescue catalog which preserves over 500,000 Open Access publications originally hosted by the US Department of Education in the #ERIC research repository. ERIC was defunded on the 23 April 2025 and the maintenance contract is set to expire soon, meaning that ERIC is likely to shut down. The PDFs were rescued using the Internet Archive's #WaybackMachine by a volunteer of the #DataRescueProject. When you click on one of the publication ID links, you will be redirected to the archived PDF in the the Wayback Machine. Feel free to host your own copy of ERICA by simply cloning this source code repo, which also includes the metadata for the catalog." erica.datarescueproject.org/
Update. "With the recent announcement that numerous datasets โ such as those from #NOAA โ are scheduled for decommissioning in May, #PANGAEA has opened its archive to help safeguard these valuable resources. If you become aware of any endangered datasets, please don't hesitate to contact us. PANGAEA data!" pangaea.de/
Update. "#SciOp is part of Safeguarding Research & Culture (#SRC). The bits must flow: let us resurrect the ancient art of #Bittorrent to ensure that our cultural, intellectual and scientific heritage exists in multiple copies, in multiple places, and that no single entity or group of entities can make it all disappear." sciop.net/
Update. Speak up to help #AED reduce the odds that valuable public US govt datasets will be taken down. essentialdata.us/
"Demonstrating the broad real-world value of federal data is the most strategic path to ensuring its continued flow. The goal of America's Essential Data is to make it easy for: โฆ federal agency data stewards and their leadership to better understand the true value of their data, especially as it relates to administration priorities. Do you use a federal dataset that delivers important benefits for the American people? Help us tell the story of that dataset!"
"After President Trump's inauguration in January, some federal web pages vanished. Whileโฆwere removed entirely, many came back online with changes thatโฆofficials said were made to conform to Trump's executive orders to remove "diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility policies." Thousands of datasets were wiped โ mostly at agencies focused on science and the environmentโฆInformation about climate change, reproductive health, gender identity and sexual orientation also have been on the chopping blockโฆThe #InternetArchive [@internetarchive] is among the few efforts that exist to catch the stuff that falls through the digital cracks, while also making that information accessible to the public. Six weeks into the new administration, #WaybackMachine director Graham said, the Internet Archive had cataloged some 73,000 web pages that had existed on U.S. government websites that were expunged after Trump's inauguration."
Update. "A group of US researchers funded through federal grants who wish to document the damage to our scientific #infrastructure. Our #data #archive is for use by journalists, academics, and the general public." theresearchwelost.com/
"Scholars have attempted to safeguard their work by turning to sites deemed to be beyond the reach of the US governmentโฆHowever, even these safe havens may be at risk if a seemingly innocuous tax bill completes its course through Congress. H.R. 9495, the โStop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Actโ, was passed by the US House of Representatives in November 2024 and is currently before the Senate. It proposesโฆto strip non-profit status from organisations deemed to be โsupporting terrorismโ. But its broad language, lack of evidentiary requirements, and potential for political weaponisation should send a chill down the spines of all higher education professionals. After all, who is to define terrorism? History is filled with examples of liberation movements and resistance groups initially labelled 'terrorists' by powerful states. And who is to define 'support'?"
very good to see all those dark green full text publications safely archived and made available, including over 3000 historical ones going back to 1792.
From Google's English: "The German National Library of Medicine (#ZBMed) has announced its intention to create an "open, reliable, and sustainable alternative" to the #PubMed database, one of the most important and comprehensive resources for biomedical literature worldwide. The meta-database, with references to relevant articles and over 38 million citations, is operated by the National Library of Medicine (#NLM), a division of the National Institutes of Health (#NIH) in the United States. ZB Med is responding to concerns that the US administration under Donald Trump is cutting funding for the NIH. There are also fears that political influences could compromise PubMed's scientific integrity."
Ein deutsches Informationszentrum will eine Alternative zur PubMed-Datenbank in den USA entwickeln, um die Informationsversorgung in der Biomedizin zu sichern.
Northwestern's Storymaps platform gives people without Omeka access or servers and thus without GIS software an opportunity to build important data narration tools. Northwestern's info work seems exceptionally community-minded. Kudos to them.
Is there some place to see this training? I'd love to help rescue data but haven't found a good intro to the project. Everything seems to be aimed at people already up and running--coordination rather than bringing people on board.
"FAFO season continues as MAGA, thinking DEI just meant Black people getting jobs, now face the reality their mothers, sisters, uncles and cousins all benefitted from it."
FAFO season continues as MAGA, thinking DEI just meant Black people getting jobs, now face the reality their mothers, sisters, uncles and cousins all benefit...
It's all gone. They've taken down all the CDC datasets from data.cdc.gov/
"Do not fear those who tell the truth. Fear those who try to hide it. They are willing to sacrifice other things."
EDIT at 18.43 CET - the website seems to be BACK UP - looks like for about an hour, from my notifications. It was done when I posted the original. I wouldn't have posted if it was not.
What may be removed to become 'in compliance', I do not know.
It's not gone. Us data hoarders have been really really busy and lots of us have downloaded everything. The entirely of the US gubment, Wikipedia, and more, all on our spinning rust
"I learn with great satisfaction that you are about committing to the press the valuable historical and state-papers you have been so long collecting. Time and accident are committing daily havoc on the originals deposited in our public offices. The late war has done the work of centuries in this business." (cont.)
@Lydie "The lost cannot be recovered; but let us save what remains: not by vaults and locks which fence them from the public eye and use, in consigning them to the waste of time, but by such a multiplication of copies, as shall place them beyond the reach of accident."
โ a letter from Thomas Jefferson to Ebenezer Hazard, 18 February 1791
The good folks at DataHoarders (sub reddit) have been archiving many GOV websites over the last few weeks.
It's a real shame that it takes an army of regular people to retain important data that all of us paid into, instead of the government keeping it on the records.
@BoomlandJenkins > It's a real shame that it takes an army of regular people to retain important data that all of us paid into, instead of the government keeping it on the records
This is why Open Data matters. Relying on any one data steward - governmental or otherwise - creates a SPoF that invites attack from people whose interests or ideologies are threatened by that data.
Cis people: the more of you that speak out, the better I feel that we can survive this. Please familiarize yourself with why transition related care for trans teens is so important and how it is safe, effective, and literally life saving: transequality.org/news/get-facโฆ #TransRights
I just read sad news that a 10-year old boy pointlessly died of #diphtheria. He was not vaccinated. Althrough vaccines were readily available. This is obviously the parentโs fault. 10-year olds have different problems.
Please check if your vaccinations and those who are close to you are up-to-date: If not, or if you donโt know: Go see a doctor NOW. Iโm not a doctor, so ask them, not me. :P
People on TikTok are reporting ICE raids happening in small cities in various states. To get past algorithmic censorship, theyโre writing down the information on paper and holding up and shuffling through the handwritten signs as they talk about pretend subjects like shopping, food, and animals.
- โTrump imposes tariffs on Americans who buy Colombian productsโฆโ - โTrump raises prices on goods from Colombia โ average Americans to foot the billโฆโ - โTrump forces Americans to pay higher prices for coffee, flowersโฆโ
- โTrump imposes tariffs on Americans who buy Colombian productsโฆโ - โTrump raises prices on goods from Colombia โ average Americans to foot the billโฆโ - โTrump forces Americans to pay higher prices for coffee, flowersโฆโ
#introduction Hello to everyone! I am a mycologist, working on revision and ecology of fungal communities in Western Siberia fungariumysu.org. I am also keen on open data, GBIF, biodiversity informatics and pay some time developing a site biodiversitydata.info. I want to join this community to share thoughts and information about biodiversity informatics, open data, biodiversity portals, biodiversity data analyses, data standards, biological collections digitization, TDWG, and related.
Training materials obtained by @theintercept include specific examples of permitted hate speech that โdemonstrate that Metaโs policy changes are political in nature and not intended to simply allow more freedom of expression,โ EFFโs @jilliancyork said. theintercept.com/2025/01/09/faโฆ
Well this certainly aged like a glass of milk left out in a swamp during the dead of summer:
"We applaud Metaโs efforts to try to fix its over-censorship problem but will watch closely to make sure it is a good-faith effort and rolled out fairly and not merely a political maneuver to accommodate the upcoming U.S. administration change." - @eff
Yeah, backlash against all that enforced political correctedness, I presume. If you think the language is hurtful just wait until you see what they have in mind legally & physically.
. If you have to use them at work, wait till you get home to socialize online, or take your Fairphone on your pee break.
No Gods , no Masters! RESIST
in reply to Smudge The Insult Cat ๐ • • •Kruku
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