Swedish police have been secretly using Palantir's AI tools for atleast five years to profile citizens, pulling data from BankID, phone operators, social media. When journalists asked for documents, police refused, citing "national security."

This is Palantir. The company a UN report accused of being complicit in Gaza genocide. The one tracking immigrants in the US, building registers of British citizens' sex lives and political views.

They're using tools from that company on Swedish citizens and won't even admit it exists. National security is being used to justify mass surveillance and it pisses me off.

What is the world turning into? Is this what we want for our kids?

https://www.expressen.se/nyheter/sverige/svensk-polis-anvander-sig-av-kontroversiellt-ai-verktyg-fran-palantir/

#Palantir #Surveillance #Sweden #Privacy #peterthiel #masssurveilance

Explain Linux kernel like I'm 5

#eli5 #Linux #linuxkernel #technology

@FediTips I’d say the approval flow is just bad UX all around.

It’s not about users being lazy or entitled. The experience breaks momentum.

You’ve just discovered something new, you’re curious, you want to join, and suddenly you’re being asked to write a little essay for strangers. You don’t even know what kind of community it is yet or what they expect from you. Then you hit submit and the whole thing goes quiet. I don’t hate moderation, it's the uncertainty.

For new users I think it’s even worse.

They’ve already had to pick a random server from a bunch of names that make no sense, read a page of rules that assume they already understand federation, and then they’re told to justify why they want to join it.

That’s a huge ask for someone still trying to figure out what Mastodon even is. It’s the same reason UX study's shows steep drop-offs with multi-step forms and unclear feedback. Users don’t finish what they don’t understand, and they don’t wait when they don’t know how long the wait is.

The design makes them feel like outsiders before they’ve even walked in the door. IMO I think a trial period would be a much better middle ground.

I opened a feature request about this exact issue yesterday that I think would solve the issues.

https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/36747