Komunitas
feddit.uk
cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/49987153 A follow up of sorts to this article Dublin ‘can’t trust itself to do the right thing’: Why Irish EU presidency should recuse itself from regulating Big Tech A one-word answer to why EU lost control of Big Tech: Ireland My favourite bit of interviewing Dr. Johnny Ryan was when he yelled “just off a plane, so if you know the answer, I will lose my mind if you ask me to repeat myself for the recording again” at me. It didn’t make it to the final interview, which was published on EUobserver. Ryan is, among the much needed group of people who speak up against Big Tech, one of the more eloquent and direct. He’s also very friendly. His work at the Irish Council of Civil Liberties’ Enforce includes major investigations into the many, many, many ills of online advertising/surveillance capitalism, a radical belief in the underutilised potential of GDPR (the EU’s main data rights law) and now, a plea to have Ireland recuse itself from all digital files in its upcoming EU council presidency. For those who don’t know (I didn’t), the answer to why the EU has not been able to crack down on Big Tech more is simple. One word, in fact: Ireland. Ireland’s job, by way of how the GDPR was drafted, is to defend the rest of Europe when it comes to the tech companies headquartered there. Meta, Google, TikTok, Microsoft, LinkedIn, X, Apple all picked Ireland. So did most of their AI activity. Which means, in Ryan’s words: “Ireland is responsible for defending the rest of Europe when those companies abuse Europeans’ data.” And surprise surprise, they’re not doing so adequately. Continue Reading Here - https://euobserver.com/218423/a-one-word-answer-to-why-eu-lost-control-of-big-tech-ireland/
Komunitas
feddit.uk
cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/49987153 A follow up of sorts to this article Dublin ‘can’t trust itself to do the right thing’: Why Irish EU presidency should recuse itself from regulating Big Tech A one-word answer to why EU lost control of Big Tech: Ireland My favourite bit of interviewing Dr. Johnny Ryan was when he yelled “just off a plane, so if you know the answer, I will lose my mind if you ask me to repeat myself for the recording again” at me. It didn’t make it to the final interview, which was published on EUobserver. Ryan is, among the much needed group of people who speak up against Big Tech, one of the more eloquent and direct. He’s also very friendly. His work at the Irish Council of Civil Liberties’ Enforce includes major investigations into the many, many, many ills of online advertising/surveillance capitalism, a radical belief in the underutilised potential of GDPR (the EU’s main data rights law) and now, a plea to have Ireland recuse itself from all digital files in its upcoming EU council presidency. For those who don’t know (I didn’t), the answer to why the EU has not been able to crack down on Big Tech more is simple. One word, in fact: Ireland. Ireland’s job, by way of how the GDPR was drafted, is to defend the rest of Europe when it comes to the tech companies headquartered there. Meta, Google, TikTok, Microsoft, LinkedIn, X, Apple all picked Ireland. So did most of their AI activity. Which means, in Ryan’s words: “Ireland is responsible for defending the rest of Europe when those companies abuse Europeans’ data.” And surprise surprise, they’re not doing so adequately. Continue Reading Here - https://euobserver.com/218423/a-one-word-answer-to-why-eu-lost-control-of-big-tech-ireland/
Komunitas
feddit.uk
cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/49987153 A follow up of sorts to this article Dublin ‘can’t trust itself to do the right thing’: Why Irish EU presidency should recuse itself from regulating Big Tech A one-word answer to why EU lost control of Big Tech: Ireland My favourite bit of interviewing Dr. Johnny Ryan was when he yelled “just off a plane, so if you know the answer, I will lose my mind if you ask me to repeat myself for the recording again” at me. It didn’t make it to the final interview, which was published on EUobserver. Ryan is, among the much needed group of people who speak up against Big Tech, one of the more eloquent and direct. He’s also very friendly. His work at the Irish Council of Civil Liberties’ Enforce includes major investigations into the many, many, many ills of online advertising/surveillance capitalism, a radical belief in the underutilised potential of GDPR (the EU’s main data rights law) and now, a plea to have Ireland recuse itself from all digital files in its upcoming EU council presidency. For those who don’t know (I didn’t), the answer to why the EU has not been able to crack down on Big Tech more is simple. One word, in fact: Ireland. Ireland’s job, by way of how the GDPR was drafted, is to defend the rest of Europe when it comes to the tech companies headquartered there. Meta, Google, TikTok, Microsoft, LinkedIn, X, Apple all picked Ireland. So did most of their AI activity. Which means, in Ryan’s words: “Ireland is responsible for defending the rest of Europe when those companies abuse Europeans’ data.” And surprise surprise, they’re not doing so adequately. Continue Reading Here - https://euobserver.com/218423/a-one-word-answer-to-why-eu-lost-control-of-big-tech-ireland/
Komunitas
feddit.uk
A follow up of sorts to this article Dublin ‘can’t trust itself to do the right thing’: Why Irish EU presidency should recuse itself from regulating Big Tech A one-word answer to why EU lost control of Big Tech: Ireland My favourite bit of interviewing Dr. Johnny Ryan was when he yelled “just off a plane, so if you know the answer, I will lose my mind if you ask me to repeat myself for the recording again” at me. It didn’t make it to the final interview, which was published on EUobserver. Ryan is, among the much needed group of people who speak up against Big Tech, one of the more eloquent and direct. He’s also very friendly. His work at the Irish Council of Civil Liberties’ Enforce includes major investigations into the many, many, many ills of online advertising/surveillance capitalism, a radical belief in the underutilised potential of GDPR (the EU’s main data rights law) and now, a plea to have Ireland recuse itself from all digital files in its upcoming EU council presidency. For those who don’t know (I didn’t), the answer to why the EU has not been able to crack down on Big Tech more is simple. One word, in fact: Ireland. Ireland’s job, by way of how the GDPR was drafted, is to defend the rest of Europe when it comes to the tech companies headquartered there. Meta, Google, TikTok, Microsoft, LinkedIn, X, Apple all picked Ireland. So did most of their AI activity. Which means, in Ryan’s words: “Ireland is responsible for defending the rest of Europe when those companies abuse Europeans’ data.” And surprise surprise, they’re not doing so adequately. Continue Reading Here - https://euobserver.com/218423/a-one-word-answer-to-why-eu-lost-control-of-big-tech-ireland/
Komunitas
news.abolish.capital
Kareem’s father was furious when he heard the rumors circulating in Ramallah about the sexuality of his 22-year-old son. “My dad aimed his gun towards me,” Kareem recalled, “and said that if he ever finds out that I’m gay, he would ‘rest a bullet between my eyes.’” Kareem, whose name has been changed to protect his safety, had lived in the close-knit West Bank city for years, but he’d long known he would one day need to leave. It was March 2024, and the Tel Aviv Court for Administrative Affairs had recently ruled that LGBTQ+ Palestinians can petition for asylum in Israel — upending years of precedent that considered them ineligible. The following month, Kareem crossed into Israel, a country that has occupied the West Bank for more than twice as long as he’d been alive. Supporters of Israel have long pointed to the “only democracy in the Middle East” as a purported safe haven for the LGBTQ+ community. While detractors say the argument amounts to “pinkwashing,” the use of LGBTQ+ inclusion to distract from moral and legal violations in other spheres, the Israeli government has doubled down on the concept, invoking it often to distract from violations of international law. In a speech before the United States Congress on July 24, 2024, for example, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu mocked protesters holding “Gays for Gaza” signs, saying they “might as well hold up signs saying ‘Chickens for KFC.’” As Netanyahu spoke, Kareem was living legally in Israel, believing his status secure while an administrative storm was brewing behind the scenes. Palestinians like Kareem might be safer by virtue of the distance from their families, but the bureaucratic process of seeking asylum imposes its own dangers. In interviews with The Intercept, Kareem and multiple advocates and lawyers for Palestinian asylum-seekers described how Israeli authorities put asylum-seekers through permit revocations, instability, and, in many cases, coerce them into sharing information with Israel’s internal intelligence agency. Kareem felt this pressure, he told The Intercept. At a processing facility at Sha’ar Ephraim, a crossing point in the separation wall west of Tulkarm in the northern West Bank, Kareem recalled, Israeli authorities repeatedly pressed him for information on friends and family still living in the West Bank, anything that might be of use. The implication was a quid pro quo: intelligence in exchange for an easier permit approval process. “When you are in such a fragile situation, you cannot be in the territories [the West Bank], and you don’t have status in Israel, the security bodies like the police … use this weakness and they try to get information or get someone’s cooperation from those people,” Kareem’s attorney, Tamir Blank, told The Intercept. “They promise them that they will not deport them or put them in jail.” Kareem didn’t have the kind of information necessary to secure such a process. He found himself, like so many Palestinian asylum-seekers in Israel, in a series of cascading double binds. After they flee, they find themselves trapped: Leaving the West Bank for Israel carries with it the stigma, true or not, of having collaborated with Israeli authorities, making it even more difficult to return, and leaving nowhere else to go. Home to about 30,000 Palestinians, Ramallah is small and insular, but it contains a space for queer Palestinians to hold conversations that aren’t always possible elsewhere in the West Bank. A loose network of activists hosts weekly community meetings that range from knitting circles to conversations dissecting the Eurocentricity of LGBTQ+ identity terminology in Arabic. During Ramadan this year, as rockets flew overhead during the Israel–U.S. war on Iran, they hosted a queer iftar in the city. Kareem was active with the group for a year before rumors made their way to his parents. They had long suspected “there was something off with me,” Kareem recalled. It also did not help that the family, as is typical of Ramallah’s upper class, is conservative and politically involved. His father works for the Palestinian Authority, just as his father before him, who was involved with the Palestine Liberation Organization before the 1993 Oslo Accords. The family home in Al-Bireh is an old stone building, “colder inside in the winter than it is outside,” according to Kareem, and adorned with a classic Palestinian metal gate. Aside from occasional Israeli military raids, Al-Bireh feels like the only true bubble inside of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank. There are upscale cafes, flower shops, and a concerted effort by all who live there to pretend they enjoy more freedom than they do. Despite the idyllic atmosphere, there are only a handful of checkpoints by which to exit the city, all manned by Israeli soldiers. [ Related With World’s Eyes on Iran, Israel Locks Down the West Bank](https://theintercept.com/2026/03/10/israel-iran-war-west-bank-lockdown/) Kareem worked in his cousin’s welding shop in the Jalazone refugee camp, where, as he would later recount to Israeli authorities, he faced years of abuse — both sexual and physical — from his cousins, who taunted him for his feminine presentation. After Kareem’s father confronted him, he recalled, “My father was sending my cousins after me to stalk my friends and me.” At first, Kareem thought he should flee to a different city in the West Bank, possibly Bethlehem. Israel had stopped issuing permits for most West Bank Palestinians after October 7, citing “security concerns,” and Kareem worried that his family’s associations with the Palestinian Authority would count against him. But the West Bank is small, so small that without checkpoints blocking the way, one could drive from Jenin at the top of the West Bank to Hebron at the bottom in about an hour and a half. As the crow flies, it is only 22 kilometers from Ramallah to Bethlehem. Families know each other, and word spreads fast. So Kareem tried to fashion a life for himself in Israel. Not only would his family follow him to Israel after he fled, but so too would Israel’s occupation. His life would turn into a series of military court hearings and attempts to solicit intelligence from him by Shin Bet, Israeli domestic intelligence, with the specter of returning home meaning likely death. Israeli forces patrol during a raid on Al-Bireh in the West Bank on Oct. 7, 2025. Photo: Rimawi Issam/Anadolu via Getty Images Kareem secured a welfare permit by April 2024 with the help of pro bono lawyers from HIAS, a Jewish humanitarian organization that provides legal support to asylum-seekers in Israel, including a small number of Palestinians fleeing persecution. He spent months sleeping on benches and couch surfing before finally moving into an emergency LGBTQ+ youth shelter in Tel Aviv called HaGag HaVarod (“The Pink Roof” in Hebrew), where he went from never having met an Israeli who wasn’t holding a rifle to living together in shared housing. “I was so confused. They had just given me the permit, so why would they take it away?” In October 2024, just six months after leaving the West Bank, Kareem woke up to an alert on his phone that his permit to stay in Israel had been invalidated. His lawyers advised him to leave the shelter immediately. It was operated under the Israeli Ministry of Welfare, putting him at risk of deportation without a permit. “I was so confused. They had just given me the permit, so why would they take it away?” Kareem recounted. His family appeared to have worked to sabotage his legal status through multiple channels. In June, they had filed a report with Israeli social services claiming Kareem was a Hamas member planning to attack civilians. When a security flag appeared in his file, triggering the revocation of his welfare permit, his lawyers raised the possibility in court that it too had been planted by his family to engineer his deportation. The Intercept attempted to reach Kareem’s father for comment but was unable to get in touch. “I had a security block on my application,” Kareem said. “There was no way to get it back without petitioning the military commander for reconsideration.” Nimrod Avigal, deputy director of HIAS Israel, has been tracking LGBTQ+ Palestinian asylum claims for more than a decade. He worked on Kareem’s case at the outset. “Everything became much more difficult after October 7,” he said. “Many more people were refused because of security issues, mostly related to a family member.” Back in his hometown, rumors were circulating that Kareem was collaborating with Israeli authorities, according to testimony submitted to the Jerusalem District Court, a justification not only for his family to track him down, but also for others to help them. His family began posting notices in Facebook groups offering a cash reward for any information leading to his whereabouts, declaring him a “missing person.” One such post appeared in a public Jerusalem Facebook group with more than 450,000 members. His phone was flooded with calls, 60 to 80 a day, mostly from unknown numbers. Eventually, as Kareem recounted to The Intercept, he threw his phone into the Mediterranean Sea in the hopes it would solve the problem. It did not. The family hired men in Ramallah to track Kareem down on the other side of the separation wall. “They said that they were hired by my family to look for me and bring me back ‘after I tarnished the family’s reputation,’” Kareem recalled, “and that they need to ‘wash their honor as soon as possible.’” A childhood friend now living in Spain sent Kareem a voice memo with a warning: “Your family has placed a bounty of 35,000 shekels on your head. It is absolutely clear that this will not end well and that your family is truly determined to catch you.” The only thing standing between Kareem and deportation back to the West Bank was his welfare permit, and now it was gone. In a court filing, Kareem’s attorney wrote that his family members wished “to obtain information about his whereabouts and bring him to the territories, dead or alive, in order to settle accounts with him, that is, to ensure he does not remain alive.” Israel contended in court that Palestinians in Kareem’s position were motivated not by genuine fear but by a desire to “enjoy the more liberal lifestyle in Israel, rather than facing an actual threat,” language drawn from a 2013 Israeli Inter-Ministerial Committee report on Palestinians claiming persecution based on sexual orientation. Israel contended that queer Palestinians were motivated by a desire to “enjoy the more liberal lifestyle in Israel, rather than facing an actual threat.” In response to a request for comment from The Intercept, COGAT, the Israeli military body that oversees civilian affairs in the occupied territories, said that permits of this kind are granted “first and foremost for the purpose of saving lives, and allow the applicant to remain in Israel until a permanent solution is found in a receiving country.” As Kareem’s lawyers and other human rights organizations in Israel have long argued, rather than being welcomed, gay Palestinians are frequently subject to blackmail by Israeli authorities, who pressure them to provide intelligence in exchange for protection, turning their vulnerability into a tool of coercion. In the 10 Years Tamir Blank has been working with Palestinians from the West Bank filing asylum claims in Israel, he has accepted that many of his clients will either willingly choose to collaborate with Israeli intelligence or be coerced into it. Many asylum-seekers feel pressured to offer intelligence to Israeli authorities in the hope that it might help them obtain a humanitarian stay permit, which entitles them to the right to work. (Even that is a relatively recent development: The permits only began allowing legal employment in 2022, after extensive litigation, before which Palestinians were often forced into grey industries like the sex trade.) In one case, a transgender Palestinian woman named Zehava who fled the West Bank in 2021 died by suicide after Israeli authorities revoked her permit. [ Related Israel Revoked Palestinians’ Work Permits — Then Launched a Deadly Crackdown on Laborers](https://theintercept.com/2025/12/04/israel-palestinians-work-permits-laborers/) “The Israeli policy is to minimize the presence of Palestinians within its borders, in the West Bank and within the 48 borders,” referring to Israel’s pre-1967 territory, said Anat Matar, an Israeli academic and head of the Israeli Committee for Palestinian Prisoners. Israeli authorities deter Palestinians from fleeing to Israel with bureaucratic hurdles, she told The Intercept, as they seek to maintain a Jewish demographic majority. Blank’s clients are often so desperate to hold onto their status, feeling pressured to offer intelligence is “not something that is unique,” he said. The authorities “use every weakness they can.” Kareem, however, was out of luck. He had no such intelligence to offer, as is often the case with LGBTQ+ Palestinians forced to flee. According to Blank, the very fact of their social exclusion means they are rarely privy to intelligence of value to Israeli authorities, regardless of who their family members might be. Because he was born in the West Bank and holds a Palestinian Authority-issued ID, Kareem is unable to ever obtain residency or citizenship in Israel. Doing so, Israeli authorities fear, would set a precedent for a broader right of return for Palestinians displaced in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. The original welfare permit Israel issued required Kareem to pursue resettlement in a third country; there was no path for him to remain in Israel. Reut Ahdut, of the Aguda Israel, which until 2025 ran a program offering assistance to LGBTQ+ Palestinians fleeing the West Bank, said permits that used to be relatively stable are now often granted for only one to three months, with applicants required to regularly provide evidence that they are at risk across all Palestinian Authority territories, including the West Bank. Despite the 2024 ruling, Israel’s Population and Immigration Authority maintains that Palestinians are not subject to the United Nations Refugee Convention and therefore that it is not obligated to provide them asylum on the grounds that UNRWA, the U.N. agency mandated to provide assistance to Palestinian refugees, bears that responsibility instead. After banning UNRWA from operating on its territory in 2025, Israel demolished UNRWA’s East Jerusalem headquarters in January. After a court battle at the Jerusalem District Court, Kareem’s permit was reinstated in December 2024, and he has since been able to renew it with the permission of the military commander. In its ruling, the court acknowledged that the security intelligence used to revoke his permit may have been “based on false allegations that his family has made against him, in order to bring about his deportation.” For now, Kareem has no path out of Israel — his life suspended, renewed six months at a time. At one point, Kareem hoped he could be resettled to Canada through the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees resettlement program, but amid rising anti-immigrant sentiment even in Canada, that option has vanished. His time living in the shelter is over. With the help of the Tel Aviv Municipality, Kareem has moved into transitional housing in the Tel Aviv area. He keeps his lightheartedness, switching seamlessly from referencing TikToks he found hilarious, to drama at work, to decrying how life as a Palestinian in Israel has become all but impossible since October 7th. With the Port of Jaffa to the left and the Tel Aviv skyline looming off to the right, Kareem stared out at the Mediterranean, reflecting on the past year. “I hate the sea, I really do, and I am supposed to say at least I got to see it because of my permit. But really what I miss is my home, the West Bank,” Kareem said. “That is where I am from, but for now, the sea will do.” The post A Gay Palestinian Fled to Israel’s “Safe Haven.” Israel Tried to Exploit Him for Intelligence. appeared first on The Intercept. From The Intercept via This RSS Feed.
Komunitas
news.abolish.capital
Elías Jaua is a Venezuelan intellectual, university professor, and politician who served as vice president under Hugo Chávez in addition to several ministerial roles in the Chávez and Maduro administrations. He currently heads the Center for the Study of Socialist Democracy (CEDES). In this exclusive interview, Jaua discusses Venezuela’s post-January 3 conjuncture, the anti-imperialist struggle to reclaim sovereignty, and the role to be played by Chavismo. Venezuela’s reality changed on January 3 with the US strikes and kidnapping of President Maduro. How would you describe the current situation? And regarding the US, there is talk of “conditional sovereignty” and “tutelage,” while officials speak of a “cooperation agenda.” What is your take on this? Sovereignty is a comprehensive concept. You either have it or you don’t. Sovereignty means not depending on anyone. It is the foundation of a republic. A republic means independence from others, something distinct from liberal, individual freedom. Venezuela today is a state under tutelage, overseen by the Donald Trump administration. This was officially declared by Trump and White House officials such as Secretary of State Marco Rubio. This is also clearly reflected in oil production, which must be sold primarily to the US, and the proceeds from those exports do not enter directly into Venezuela’s coffers but instead into a US Treasury account. From there, the Venezuelan government will make requests and have certain amounts necessary for the country’s basic functioning disbursed. That is a complete loss of economic sovereignty. We have also seen how reforms to strategic laws, such as those governing hydrocarbons and mining, have been rushed through. Today, there is immense pressure on labor legislation, both from the Venezuelan business community and from transnational capital, which views labor laws as yet another obstacle to attracting investment. And finally, we have seen that Venezuela’s foreign policy – which was openly supportive of Palestine, Iran, and Cuba – has been significantly toned down. This is another clear sign that Venezuela is no longer an independent state. Its status as a republic is entirely relative. US forces recently ran a military exercise in Caracas, with aircraft flying over the city and landing at the embassy compound. (EFE) In light of all this, how do you feel the government and other national political groups should respond? I view the decision made on January 3 not to respond to the US military attack as a responsible one, because the enemy clearly had military superiority and the capability to control the entire airspace using high-tech means. A response would have resulted in significant destruction of the country’s infrastructure and armed forces, as well as the killing of thousands of civilians. Now, four months later, the Venezuelan government and all political forces should clearly denounce to the international community the coercion to which we are being subjected. On the one hand, as a public denunciation, but also to have it formally recorded before international bodies such as the International Commission on Human Rights. What occurred in January were war crimes, a fact supported by United Nations rapporteurs. Next, a complaint should be filed with the International Court of Justice to restore control over national revenues to the Venezuelan state. One might argue that this is ineffective at the moment, that international law is irrelevant and international organizations are incapable of acting – and that is true. But the country must establish a legal precedent because these institutions still exist, and as a result they are a source of rights. These complaints set precedents so that the country can, in the future, claim the rights that have been damaged by the occupying power. Finally, it is important to reach out to the international community, and above all to the peoples of the world, so that they know there is a nation that refuses to be placed under tutelage and subjected to these conditions, in order to build international solidarity. An internal political stance must also be established, because this attempt to conceal the gravity of the coercion to which the country is being subjected numbs popular consciousness, undermines patriotic morale, and that is contrary to what is expected of the leadership – not only of the government, but of the entire political leadership of the nation. But what if that triggers another US military attack? I don’t think a repeat of the January 3 incident is imminent because it would have repercussions in the US domestic political landscape. The political cost for the Trump administration would no longer be zero, as it practically was on January 3, but there would be greater resistance, especially for attacking a country that has simply exercised its rights before international bodies to claim sovereignty over resources and political self-determination. Put another way, the option of not denouncing this, of not activating available mechanisms, is to accept and normalize this situation of neocolonialism, and I believe that is a very dangerous path that could even lead to Venezuela’s annexation by the US. I believe there are moments when peoples, nations, and their leaders must take a firm stand for the sake of history. Here it is no longer a matter of defending a party or a political movement, but rather the existence of a nation that was born free. We have a historic responsibility to ensure it remains that way for future generations. Jaua highlighted the importance of denouncing US neocolonial impositions and calling for international solidarity. (Unión Radio) US officials repeat their “three-phase plan,” which ends with a political “transition,” on a daily basis, while the extremist opposition demands immediate elections to seize power at any cost. From your perspective, what is the path forward, and what should the priorities be? The priority is to regain independence. If we hold elections, that is with candidates for what? For governor of the colony? Anyone who truly wants to hold the presidency of the Republic of Venezuela must first raise their voice in favor of the immediate restoration of the country’s sovereign rights over its resources and revenues and the assertion of political self-determination. In any case, I argue that any eventual electoral process should be the result of a national agreement, renationalizing politics and not waiting for a call from the White House one day announcing that there will be elections in six months. That would be very shameful. I believe that Venezuelan political forces would be obligated, as part of that strategy to reclaim and demand the restoration of Venezuela’s sovereignty, to also commit to the international community and the Venezuelan people to seek a political, democratic, and electoral path forward. In a recent article, you spoke of an inability to manage the internal political conflict, which paved the way for foreign intervention. Could you elaborate on this idea? How has that situation changed since January 3? Foreign meddling began on the very first day of the Bolivarian Revolution, and there were agents that facilitated it. The first concrete example was the April 11, 2002 coup d’état, with the open participation of the US and Spanish governments, and from that point on, that interference never ceased. But there was always a degree of autonomy that allowed, especially after 2004, for the democratic resolution of the conflict through national agreements. For instance, the recall referendum that ultimately ratified Chávez’s mandate. But starting in 2014, after the right-wing insurrectionary attempt known as “La Salida” and its failure, the US began to intervene directly by declaring Venezuela an “unusual and extraordinary threat,” and from that point on, the opposition lost any capacity to make decisions. I was a member of the dialogue delegation in the Dominican Republic in 2018 and saw how an agreement signed by everyone was overturned by a phone call from the US embassy. I also believe that later, over the past five years, the Venezuelan government chose to engage in dialogue with the US and bet that the conflict would be resolved directly with Washington. Therefore, everyone put all their eggs in the White House’s basket, and the decision slipped completely out of the control of the country’s internal institutions until the game came to a standstill. And indeed, at the behest of the far-right opposition, Washington intervened and attacked on January 3. That is why I say that reclaiming internal political control in order to resolve the conflict would be an act of dignity and courage on the part of the entire Venezuelan political leadership. Conflict is not going to vanish, because today the calls for a conflict-free Venezuela come alongside a set of measures that deepen it. For example, labor deregulation, social disinvestment, political exclusion, etc. “We’re socialists and anti-imperialists!” banner in a Chavista march. (Archive) In recent years, you have analyzed and debated the direction of Chavismo amid sanctions and the implementation of orthodox macroeconomic adjustment policies. Since January 3, we have seen a drastic overhaul of key pillars of the Bolivarian project, such as the Hydrocarbons Law, and critical voices growing louder, including Mario Silva and Luis Britto García. What is the current state of Chavismo, in your opinion? First of all, the revision and change of course regarding fundamental aspects of Chavismo’s historic program did not begin on January 3 but much earlier. It was formalized starting in 2018 with the Program for Economic Recovery, Growth, and Prosperity, aimed at halting the advance of the transition to socialism and restoring the private sector’s hegemony in managing the economy, with clear consequences for social rights and the fight against social inequality. This was also accompanied by increasingly undemocratic mechanisms, from the political leadership, to impose a change of course in economic and social policy. However, a fundamental core of Chavismo’s programmatic unity – the struggle for independence and national sovereignty – remained intact, and that kept Chavismo cohesive despite major differences. Today, I believe Chavismo must be situated within different spheres. There is a Chavismo within the United Socialist Party (PSUV) – no one can dispute that – but I believe there is a broader, and much larger, Chavismo, with a cultural, political, and symbolic identity rooted in a metanarrative that exists outside the PSUV and the Great Patriotic Pole. That sector currently lacks clear leadership and organizational structure, but it retains its values. It may have circumstantial views of the situation, but essentially it continues to uphold the principles that launched this process: sovereignty, participatory and protagonist democracy, democratic pluralism, freedom, political ethics, debate, speaking the truth, and social equality. It also holds a vision of a multipolar world, in solidarity with international struggles. These were, in essence, the core tenets of Chavismo from its inception and remain relevant for a significant portion of the Venezuelan population that is Chavista or was once Chavista. You have talked about building national unity at this juncture, but also about upholding Chávez and his legacy. Are these two paths compatible? This is a difficult and painful reflection because the figure and the project of Hugo Chávez have been burdened with a series of deviations. Practices that run completely contrary to the principles and values he defended, and upon which he built the Chavista project. For example, the case of Víctor Hugo Quero and his mother is deeply outrageous (1). It is a truly shameful incident, yet international news outlets report, “Chavismo admits to the disappearance of a detainee,” “Mother of prisoner killed by Chavismo dies.” Is it Chavismo or just a few individuals responsible? What about the men and women who, for over 25 years, laboriously dreamed, built, and dedicated part of their lives to creating well-being and the common good in their communities, to building a national project called “Chavismo”? It is very unfair because Chavismo, as a movement, is being accused of things it did not do. Chavismo is not this or that leader; it is the men and women who gave up the only thing they had – their time, their effort – to build community, a national project, to plant crops, to learn to read and write or to teach others to read and write, to study, and so on. I stand by Chavismo as the men and women who dreamed, who continue to dream, and who have given their all to build a more humane society. For me, that will continue to be Chavismo. And those of us who have held leadership posts in this process must assume their responsibilities for the good and the bad. But it is unethical to blame a popular movement, a popular ideal like Chavismo, for the mistakes, deviations, and vile acts that some leaders may have committed. I believe that the call for national unity, to paraphrase [revolutionary communist leader Alfredo] Maneiro, will spring from the most authentic Chavismo, but will transcend it. It will converge with other currents of the left that were not Chavista, with social democratic sectors that broke away from the extremist opposition, and with people who never took a stance on the political conflict the country has experienced in recent decades. It will be the plurality of opinions, of people, of organizations, that will provide the foundation for a necessary movement, which I see as unstoppable and already feel in the streets, in this struggle to regain independence and sovereignty. Jaua served as Chávez’s vice-president from 2010 to 2012. (Archive) Note (1) Victor Quero died in state custody in July 2025 but his family was not notified. His mother, Carmen Navas, continued to search for him until his death was publicly acknowledged in May 2026 after a judge denied an amnesty request. Navas passed away shortly afterward. The post Elías Jaua: ‘Venezuela Must Not Normalize US Neocolonial Tutelage’ appeared first on Venezuelanalysis. From Venezuelanalysis via This RSS Feed.
Komunitas
lemmy.ml
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/47539906 Can race, guilt, and empathy get you to pay $40 for this $9 belt buckle on TikTok? No paywall: https://archive.is/nxp3m (or use noscript) They’re doing a/b tests on the headline. Sometimes the article is “AI avatars in digital blackface want to sell you this belt buckle”, sometimes is “AI grifters are creating fake Black people to sell Shein junk”
Komunitas
lemmy.world
Can race, guilt, and empathy get you to pay $40 for this $9 belt buckle on TikTok? No paywall: https://archive.is/nxp3m (or use noscript) They’re doing a/b tests on the headline. Sometimes the article is “AI avatars in digital blackface want to sell you this belt buckle”, sometimes is “AI grifters are creating fake Black people to sell Shein junk”
Komunitas
lemmy.world
Lol. This is from the app builder’s website: Have an idea for a social media platform? We can build that! Don’t pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to foreigners for shotty code. Use the best, and the most proven builders anywhere today. Our platform builds include Wimkin (9.2M users), Reelster (TikTok Alternative), #WalkAway Social, Friendser, Truthleak, and more! Definitely shotty.
Komunitas
mander.xyz
Economists and industry executives say the hiring slowdown is also tied to post-pandemic overstaffing, aggressive cost-cutting, high interest rates and widespread hiring freezes. Vs a tiktok video about overhyped topic News editors: Let’s go ahead and publish another “news” article about a TikTok video on an overhyped topic!
Komunitas
lemmy.sdf.org
What’s App : Signal. Instagram: Pixelfed TikTok: loops YouTube: peertube Xitter: Mastodon (pleroma, akkoma, etc …) Google maps: open street map Reddit: Lemmy 😉 Google search: duck duck go, startpage I’ll let you Google the names of the different apps.
Komunitas
infosec.pub
I am a fairly radical leftist and a pacifist and you wouldn’t believe the amount of hoo-ra military, toxic masculinity, explosions and people dying, gun-lover bullshit the YouTube algorithm has attempted to force down my throat in the past year. I block every single channel that they recommend yet I am still inundated. Now, with shorts, it’s like they reset their whole algorithm entirely and put it into sensationalist overdrive to compete with TikTok.
Komunitas
hexbear.net
Man, TikTok libs who were fully on board with Palestine a month ago have just fully switched over to being huge Kamala Harris stans and the hate for people who continue to care about the Palestinian genocide is pretty palapable. This isn’t really News but it’s just a pretty crazy shift in vibes that has me, as an American, feeling like no American can be trusted with access to any power ever. I feel like maybe a PRC appointed viceroy might be the way to go in the future or something.
Komunitas
lemmy.ml
Donald Trump Jr.: Internet do your thing and find this guy. My favorite quote from an Internet “sleuthing” community leader of Tiktok: She added that, rather than sleuthing, her community has “concepts of thoughts and prayers."
Komunitas
lemmy.world
Imagine actually using TikTok. Life is too short to spend your time on that shit.
Komunitas
lemmy.world
Find. Another. Service. TikTok is dead — just like Twitter. I don’t understand people who cling to these services. Might as well post on MySpace while you’re at it.
Komunitas
news.abolish.capital
Nagabalik-balik ang ilusyon sang NTF-ELCAC nga dismantle ukon wasak kag pyerde na ang NPA bangud sa ila kuno asud-asud nga pagnyutralisa sang mga lider sini sa mga larangan sa isla sang Negros. Ang mga naagum nga sunod-sunod nga engkwentro nga nakaangkon sang madamu nga kaswalidad sa hanay sang NPA, temporaryo lamang nga pag-atras nga kabahin sa patiyogtiyog nga pag-uswag sang rebolusyon. Kadungan sini, ang pagkautas sang kabuhi sang mga kadre sa militar kag pulitika nagpakita sang kasingkion sang inaway. Indi ini malikawan sa pagrebolusyon. Apang sa ginahambal pa, mapatay lang ang isa ka rebolusyonaryo pero indi ang rebolusyon. Para sa mga pulang hangaway, ang mga kaupod nga naghalad sang ila kabuhi, wala nagakapatay kundi ginatanom bangud sila ang mangin inspirasyon para sa padayon nga pag-usbong sang mga maayo nga anak sang masa nga magsulod sang NPA. Ginbilin nila ang ila mga panublion para uyatan sang mga bag-o kag nabilin nga mga pulang hangaway para mas mapasulong ang inaway banwa partikular na sa isla sang Negros. Gani, ang mga naghalad sang kabuhi nga mga pulang hangaway sa milabay nga mga semana nagdiskaril sa mga pahayag sadto sang kaaway nga maihap nalang sa tudlo ang NPA. Indi dapat naton kalipatan ang ila ginawakal nga 5-7 nalang ka ‘remnants’ ang nabilin sa kada larangan nga wala nagasanto sang ila rekord sang nanyutralisa. Nagpakita ini nga paslaw sila nga pugngan ang padayon nga pagdamo sang nagasampa kag nagasulod sa NPA sa pihak sang black propaganda kag iban pa nga porma pakamalain sa kaaway sa sahi kag ila mga armado nga makinarya sa rebolusyonaryo nga kahublagan sa social media. Gani, kaya pa sa mga pulang hangaway nga maglunsar sang mga taktkal nga opensiba sa bulig sang malapad nga masang ginahimuslan kag ginapigos. Pamatuod diri ang nagsabtanay nga opensiba sa nagkalain-lain nga larangan gerilya. Suntok sa hangin ang ambisyon sa kaaway nga maubos nila ang NPA paagi sa sustenido nga militarisasyon sa kaumahan, pagbantay sang mga eskwelahan, pagpangred-tag, pagpanghaylo sang mga programa nga wala nagahatag sang esensyal nga sabat sa problema sa pumuluyo kag iban pa nga mga lakang kontra insurhensya kaangay sang pagpatuman sang National Action Plan for Unity, Peace, and Development (NAP-UPD). Sa baylo, ini tanan nagresulta sang madamo nga rekord sang bayolasyon sa tawhanon nga kinamatarung kaangay sang pagpanghulga, pangharas, abdak, tortyur, pagpamatay, kag iban pa. Kadungan sini mas nagaganyat ang ini nga kahimtangan para magtangan sang armas ang mga naghimakas para sa pagpangapin sa ila kaugalingon kag maduso ang matuod nila nga handum — ang matuod nga reporma sang duta, pungsudnon nga industriyalisasyon, kahilwayan, demokrasya, kag hustisya sosyal. Basta indi matapos ang pagpahimulos kag pagpamigos, tubtob san-o indi mawasak kag maubos ang mag-uyat sang armas kag magasulod sang NPA. Padayon nga maninguha ang CPP paagi sa absolutong pagpamuno sini sa NPA kag sa bilog rebolusyonaryong pwersa nga mauyatan sini ang mga leksyon sa nanliligad nga naagum nga pag-atras, kag mapamunuan sang hugot ang malapad nga masa nga nagahimakas para sa matuod nga sosyal nga pagbag-o. The post Pahayag sang AFP/NTF-ELCAC nga pyerde na ang NPA sang Negros, pagtabon sang kahangawa sang padayon nga pagdako sang NPA appeared first on PRWC | Philippine Revolution Web Central. From PRWC | Philippine Revolution Web Central via This RSS Feed.
Komunitas
beehaw.org
I just don’t see how this move and the timing was not orchestrated to manipulate uninformed TikTok users into supporting Trump. The explicit callout to Trump in the message… I have been fearing the next presidency and this was a blow.
Komunitas
feddit.org
geteilt von: https://feddit.org/post/30521857 Yesterday, the Protect Our Games Act (AB 1921) has passed on the California State Assembly floor with a 43–16 vote! Now it heads to the California State Senate, and this is where it needs your help! If you live in California, or know someone who does: Find your State Senator here, then go to their ‘Contact Me’ page and submit your support for AB 1921 - the Protect Our Games Act. Please include a short explanation as to why you support games preservation. If you live in another state, or know someone who does: Send your support to the Chair of the Senate Privacy Committee here. Everyone around the world can also help! Help exposure by reposting / sharing one of these links in your circles: Reddit X / Twitter YouTube - Broadcast Yourself Instagram Tik Tok You can e-mail the Senate Privacy, Digital Technologies, and Consumer Protection Agency at [email protected] and express your interest and support for this bill internationally. French volunteer needed in Paris… SKG is in urgent need of a French gamer that can meet us in Paris on June 8th. This is for a brief television interview - for a story that is being prepared. Beyond the SKG representative, they also wish to interview a local / French gamer and film some seconds of gaming. If you fit the profile and availability, please contact us urgently! You can open an ‘inquiries’ ticket on the unofficial community server at: (https://discord.gg/TCE6uXwsBe). Supplementary… We would like to thank our supporters from all over the world for their continued efforts. It is with you that we have together paved the way for a tomorrow where we have a choice to keep the things we buy and play the games we love when we want to play them. Please remember that your strength is our strength and now we need it more than ever. This is your movement. We are here to give you - the gamer, the consumer - a voice that can be heard by those who we have elected globally to make a difference. Let us call on them together and make sure that the industry with whom we are petitioning against will stop killing games once and for all. SKG Forever!!! Update from the SKG Discord
Komunitas
lemmy.world
Gotta love how the articles frames it. While at work people “kill time” with tik tok but at home they “goof off” folding laundry