Facebook is testing a system that charges users for sharing web links, in a move that could prove to be a further blow to news outlets and other publishers.

Meta, the social media platform’s owner, said it is carrying out a “limited test” in which those without a paid Meta Verified subscription, costing at least £9.99 a month, can only post two external links a month.

The test appears to involve a subset of Facebook pages and user profiles on Professional Mode, which includes features used by content creators to monetise their posts.

News organisations are not included in the test. However, the move could hit newsrooms and other media publishers as it may stop their users from sharing their content.

The latest trial is part of a campaign to find ways of encouraging Facebook users to sign up to Meta Verified, which costs from £9.99 up to almost £400 per month per profile depending on the tier. It offers extra account features and security.

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/51826015

Across the US this year, farmers have seen costs soar and the price of their produce tumble as Donald Trump’s flagship tariffs sparked a trade war with China.

American farmers, who voted en masse for Trump last year, are now warning of the worst economic crisis since the 1980s, when soaring interest rates and a slump in exports saw the price of crops and the value of farmland collapse. About 300,000 farmers defaulted on their loans and thousands were driven into bankruptcy.

“We spent a hell lot of time in China building relationships, building those markets,” he said. “And then you basically piss it all away, to be blunt.”

It just seems like alot of work? but am i wrong by chance? whats it honestly like having a lemmy community?

People who signed up for a US ‘self-deportation’ scheme say their payoffs were delayed, misdirected or never arrived – leaving them empty-handed in their home countries

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/40390325

A North Korean imposter was uncovered, working as a sysadmin at Amazon U.S., after their keystroke input lag raised suspicions with security specialists at the online retail giant. Normally, a U.S.-based remote worker’s computer would send keystroke data within tens of milliseconds. This suspicious individual’s keyboard lag was “more than 110 milliseconds,” reports Bloomberg.

Amazon is commendably proactive in its pursuit of impostors, according to the source report. The news site talked with Amazon’s Chief Security Officer, Stephen Schmidt, about this fascinating new case of North Koreans trying to infiltrate U.S. organizations to raise hard currency for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), and sometimes indulge in espionage and/or sabotage.

According to the prosecution, Glukhikh searched for pictures of Azov insignia on Google while he was on the bus on the morning of 24 September, though how the security forces had been made aware of the search was not disclosed.

The case materials include an image of Glukhikh’s phone lying on the table, clearly displaying the search query he is accused of making.

Bruh...

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7083889

Zohran set to scab

By Parker McQueeney

11 December 2025

He does not want to upset the Democratic Party establishment or anger the ruling class. Parker McQueeney reports on the manoeuvrings of New York City’s mayor-elect

In Germany’s November 1918 revolution, the working class occupied Berlin’s police headquarters, transferred the arms to themselves and put up as police chief Emil Eichorn, an Independent Social Democrat official.

A century later, New York mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, who stood for the Democratic Party, has not yet taken up residence in Gracie Mansion, but his mayoralty has already created scandals within the Democratic Socialists of America, of which he is a member.

His promise to keep on as police commissioner the hardcore Zionist billionaire, Jessica Tisch, was designed to quell the fears of New York’s capitalist class. Meanwhile, her brother, Benjamin Tisch, gave a speech to fellow plutocrats calling Mamdani an anti-Semite and “enemy of the Jewish people”.^1^

Mamdani’s decision to retain Jessica Tisch as top cop conjures up photographs of general Augusto Pinochet standing innocently behind Salvador Allende in Chile before the 1973 military coup that overthrew the elected Marxist president.

The DSA’s ‘road to power’ in New York City was a campaign laser-focused on economic affordability demands - not the working class actually taking power, as they briefly did in Germany in 1918. New York’s DSA chapter is by far the largest in the country and is at the moment dominated by the right. However, its small leftwing minority have signed a joint-letter calling on Mamdani to drop Tisch. Naturally, though, this has been met by sneering condescension from of the NYC leadership.^2^

Mamdani was seen by comrades as a different breed than other ‘democratic socialist’ figures that the DSA has associated with, who have achieved political recognition nationally. Mainly, he was an active participant both in the chapter - even backing the Bread and Roses ‘1234’ plan for tightened electoral discipline at last year’s chapter convention. That as a leading member of the DSA fraction in New York State’s legislative lower chamber. It was correctly seen as a big deal when he actually participated in a recent electoral endorsement forum, which had to turn away people at the door of the large Manhattan church where it was held.

The way some comrades described it, he waltzed in like the world spirit on horseback to speak against the chapter endorsing New York City councilman and former DSA member Chi Ossé. Ossé was seeking to challenge US House of Representatives minority leader and arch-Zionist Democrat Hakeem Jeffries for New York’s 8th Congressional District. After all, Representatives Rashida Tlaib and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez do not run for delegate to DSA’s national conventions or participate in the debates: they are happy to come around to give a radical-sounding speech every now and again. They see the DSA as a constituent part of their electoral coalition, not a democratic political party they are accountable to and serve under.

So it went underremarked that comrade Mamdani’s arguments against the endorsement were in fact opportunist ones: he was concerned that taking on the Democrat establishment’s leadership and angering the ruling class (who might otherwise concede on bus fares) would jeopardise his ability to deliver on his campaign items.

US democracy

There were good reasons for opposing the endorsement too - the chapter’s left and right were both internally divided over the question. By all indications, comrade Chi is a bit of a fair-weather friend - he only recently rejoined the DSA, presumably after deciding he owed the international proletariat the duty of running for Congress.^3^ Comrades on both the right and left also wanted to save chapter strength for seats that were actually winnable, and two of them in particular.

Before discussing these cases, let us briefly review the sham of representative democracy in the US. When our lovely Thermidorian constitution^4^ went into effect in 1789, the lower branch of the bicameral US legislature had one representative per 33,000 people. This was supposed to be the democratic branch of government, balanced out by the ‘monarchy’ of the presidential executive and the ‘aristocracy’ of the judiciary (not to mention the Senate, which has always elegantly malapportioned representation upward to gentlemen reactionaries). In 1929, the number of representatives in the House was permanently set at 435, with each Congressperson representing something like a quarter-million citizens (now counting black people as full human beings instead of ‘3/5ths’, as it was in the antebellum).

Even a century ago, that was quite a bit less representative than Britain’s parliament is now, which currently has constituencies representing 73,000 Windsor subjects. With America’s population growth over the last hundred years, Congresspeople have around three quarters of a million constituents now. Not only does that make deputies less connected to their constituents, but it requires bigger and more difficult campaigns for a large number of votes, especially in a ‘first past the post’ system. Bigger campaigns means raising more money, which obviously gives capitalists a severe advantage. (We will set aside the role of the bourgeois media in all this.)

The average cost of House races is something like $2 million, but in 2024 candidates in Virginia’s 7th Congressional district raised a total of $25 million. In Texas a whopping total of $200 million was spent to ultimately send the Evangelical Christian, Republican and notorious pervert, Ted Cruz, back to the Senate. This is a very lucrative game to get in if you are a consultant for one of the two cabals American voters are allowed to choose from at the ballot box. As a design for an oligarchy that presents itself as democratic, the system looks flawless.

Herculean task

But, for a socialist organisation, winning a political voice on the national stage is a Herculean task. It requires the collective effort and organisation of a historically large section of the working class.

The DSA members elected to Congress since 2018 were more the results of happy accidents. The DSA endorsed and participated in their campaigns, and was more than happy to take credit when an upset win occurred. But these people were not elected with the expectation that they would act as tribunes of the people, or treat the DSA as the political party they answer to.

That type of electoral programme had to be built up painstakingly from the ground over the last several years, from the municipal to the state level. The reality is there are only a handful of Congressional districts in the country where the DSA can make a real intervention - several of them being in New York.

The blue ribbon prize for NYC DSA is NY-7 - demonstrably the most leftwing Congressional district in the country, and recently given the moniker, “commie corridor”. The area has since 1993 been represented by Democrat Nydia Velazquez, who voted with Joe Biden 100% of the time in the 117th Congress. Velazquez announced her retirement the day before voting closed on the NY-8 DSA endorsement vote - it is hard not to see that as a carrot for the DSA, handed out by the Congressional Democratic leadership, in order to sway the vote to prevent a high-profile challenge to House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries.

The stick followed a day later, with the passage of House Concurrent Resolution 58, entitled “Denouncing the horrors of socialism” - introduced by Republicans and passed with 86 Democrat votes, including Jeffries. The DSA is looking likely to put forward for the seat Claire Valdez, a State Assemblywoman who is a former chair of the NYC DSA. She is seen as a reliable DSA loyalist, in a way that DSA Congresspeople have not yet been - for now anyway.

The other opportunity is NY-10. It is currently represented by Dan Goldman, a militantly Zionist Democrat, whose net worth hovers around a quarter of a billion dollars, and who won his election in a crowded primary with only around a quarter of the votes. That certainly is an attractive seat for the DSA to pick off. The campaign would be a serious referendum on Zionism in the city - even more so than the mayoral election. But it is also one of the few places where the DSA can run a competitive race. The NYC DSA voted to endorse Alexa Aviles, a DSA city councillor, to take on Goldman. The endorsement vote seemed uncontroversial.

However, the liberal Zionist city comptroller, Brad Lander, has also been eyeing the seat. Lander was a mayoral candidate who became an ally of Mamdani, with a base in the city’s progressive middle class, and the two cross-endorsed each other for top two in the ranked-choice primary election. They developed a buddy-cop shtick. You can see where this might be going. Indeed, Politico is now reporting that Lander is set to launch his campaign any day now, with Zohran’s endorsement.

Pinochet

Mayor Mamdani having a ‘Pinochet’ holding a knife to his back is one thing. Skulls will be cracked by Officer Tisch, but they could be cracked by anybody. Surely there will be twists and turns and all sorts of compromises with the ruling class throughout the Mamdani administration of New York City. But using his platform to move against the DSA’s democratic process, when there is a candidate of the working class chosen by the DSA who he is supposedly loyal to, is tantamount to scabbing. It is an unforgivable transgression of basic class solidarity that jeopardises the entire socialist electoral programme, in order to fill a backroom deal made with a liberal Democrat (who wanted the job of deputy mayor before he was offered a seat in Congress!).

Not that we should be merely oriented towards elections. However, politics starts in the millions. The US working class does not have a voice on the national political stage that can constantly indict the imperialist oligarchy, the slaver constitution and the ruling class as a whole. Building a bench of socialists in Congress - a caucus separate from the Democrats, even if elected under their ballot line - is an imperative. In theory, these comrades could agitate, from a position of constitutional disloyalism, on a much wider scale. In theory also, they could be accountable to our party through methods of genuine democratic centralism.

But - in part because of mayor-elect Mamdani’s recent actions - it looks like we are still a long way off from this.^5^

1: www.theyeshivaworld.com/news/general/2482013/nypd-commissioners-brother-calls-nyc-mayor-elect-mamdani-enemy-of-jewish-people-at-met-council-charity-gala.html.

2: wolpalestine.com/statements/from-new-york-to-palestine-stand-against-zohran-mamdanis-reappointment-of-nypd-commissioner-tisch.

3: To his credit, Ossé accepted the vote and pledged to remain in the organisation: (x.com/ossechi/status/1992433754229604592?s=46).

4: See my letter in Cosmonaut: cosmonautmag.com/2023/02/letter-response-to-dan-lazare.

5: With some back-of-the-napkin math, it seems like Reichstag members represented around 100,000 citizens of the German empire after the addition of Alsace-Lorraine, around the time when the SPD had its first batch of several deputies elected. In 1906 (the first election after the formation of the SFIO, when it won 54 seats in the Chamber of Deputies) constituencies in France accounted for around 69,000 people. China has a unicameral National People’s Congress of 2,977 deputies representing 1.4 billion citizens, and is more representative than the US House, with constituencies under half a million, though it is indirectly elected, and is a rubber-stamp, non-standing body. India’s Lok Sabha is more unrepresentative than the US House, with constituencies of around 2.7 million. Pakistan’s lower house is very slightly more representative than the US house. Indonesia’s is more representative than the US, at around 490,000 people in a constituency. Of the top five most populous countries, only India has a lower house with larger constituencies than the US.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7082051

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/14399

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez gave a cheeky reaction after a poll suggested that she'd slightly edge out Vice President JD Vance in a hypothetical presidential election in 2028.

The survey of over 1,500 registered voters, published Wednesday by The Argument/Verasight, showed Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) leading Vance 51-49 and winning back several key voting demographics that propelled Trump's return to the White House last year.

As she walked out of the Capitol building Wednesday evening, the Bronx congresswoman was asked about the poll by Pablo Manríquez, the editor of Migrant Insider.

— (@)

She responded to the question with a laugh: "These polls three years out, they are what they are. But, let the record show I would stomp him! I would stomp him!" she said before getting into her car.

Neither Ocasio-Cortez nor Vance has officially announced a presidential run. But Vance is considered by many to be a natural successor to President Donald Trump. The president and his allies have suggested he could run for an unconstitutional third term.

Ocasio-Cortez, meanwhile, is reportedly mulling either a presidential run or a bid to take down the increasingly unpopular Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY).

More than two years out from a Democratic primary, Ocasio-Cortez is considered a likely choice to fill the progressive lane in 2028, with support for increasingly popular, affordability-focused policies, including Medicare for All.

However, despite her strong support among young voters, early polls show her behind California Gov. Gavin Newsom and former Vice President Kamala Harris for the Democratic nomination.

Wednesday's poll showed that in a hypothetical contest against Vance, Newsom had a 53% to 47% edge, a margin only slightly larger than Ocasio-Cortez's.

From Common Dreams via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7065833

Forks of Firefox like LibreWolf and Floorp are about to become more popular.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7074882

According to sources close to Reuters, China has developed a working prototype of an EUV machine, which is currently undergoing testing. This domestic achievement involved Chinese companies successfully reverse-engineering ASML's EUV lithography scanners and creating a functional version using second-hand components. The new EUV prototype reportedly takes up an entire factory floor, comparable in size to modern High-NA EUV machines from ASML. Chinese companies are said to have obtained parts from older ASML machines on secondary markets. The Chinese government initially set a goal of producing working chips from the prototype by 2028.

weak shit, smh give me some novel free electron laser shit, mrx chinese

In early 2025, we reported that a new EUV machine was undergoing testing at Huawei's Dongguan facility. This machine leverages laser-induced discharge plasma (LDP) technology, representing a potentially disruptive approach to EUV light generation. The LDP approach used in the Chinese system generates 13.5 nm EUV radiation by vaporizing tin between electrodes and converting it to plasma through high-voltage discharge, where electron-ion collisions produce the required wavelength. This methodology offers several technical advantages over ASML's laser-produced plasma (LPP) technique, including a simplified architecture, reduced footprint, improved energy efficiency, and potentially lower production costs.

although tpu suggest they are not doing full reverse engineering, but what on earth could take that much space with different light emission mechanism, they don't need tin inkjet printers

TL;DR: The big tech AI company LLMs have gobbled up all of our data, but the damage they have done to open source and free culture communities are particularly insidious. By taking advantage of those who share freely, they destroy the bargain that made free software spread like wildfire.

OpenAI is looking to populate its flagship chatbot with a host of new user experiences.

edit

As of version 1.14.3 I have also introduced XChaCha20 encryption (used as default) to allow both symmetric and asymmetric encryption types.

Hi all!

Just wanted to give an update as it's been about two months since the last post I made about Jotty - see it here

We are approaching end of year and I just want to thank this amazing community for the huge support I have received, it has sincerely given me an amazing escape from a lot of shit stuff I had going on in my life (and still, unfortunately, do).

For anyone not knowing about Jotty, the tl;dr is this little snippet here from the readme:

A self-hosted app for your checklists, tasks and notes.

jotty·page is a lightweight alternative for managing your personal checklists and notes.
It's extremely easy to deploy, keeps all your data on your own server with your own file
structure (no databases!) and allows you to encrypt/decrypt your notes for your personal
peace of mind.

Last thing I want is people thinking this post is AI, so I won't give a full on sales pitch, but a bit of context is always needed I suppose lol

You can read about it more on the repo: https://github.com/fccview/jotty
And here's the website with the demo in case you want to play around with it before installing it: https://jotty.page/

Anyhow, PGP encryption has been a much requested feature, for a few months actually, but I didn't want to rush something as delicate as that, so I took my time and I think it's working pretty neatly, passphrase is never stored on the server, private/public key can be generated straight from Jotty or you can import your own/mount them from whatever folder you want on your system on read only.

There's also a ton of new features since the last post two months ago, but this is the one I'm the most excited about.

Let me know what you all think about the feature and Jotty in general and I'll see you in the comments <3

cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/43886867

Web archive link

After the mass shooting of Hanukkah celebrants on Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, the Kremlin-linked disinformation network known as “Matryoshka” has been promoting claims of an alleged “Ukrainian trail” and frightening Europeans with threats of new terrorist attacks. The watchdog Bot Blocker project (@antibot4navalny), which has been monitoring the network, shared its findings with The Insider.

One video circulating on Twitter (X) and Bluesky is disguised as content produced by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW). It claims that experts found markings on the shotguns used by the attackers in Sydney that are supposedly applied to weapons delivered to Ukraine. The video falsely claims that Ukraine has become the “largest source of weapons for the black market.”

...

Another video, produced in English, uses the symbolism of Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service (Bundesnachrichtendienst). It begins with real information about planned terrorist attacks in German cities during the Christmas holidays, then mentions the shooting on the Australian beach — while claiming the perpetrators were connected to “representatives of Ukraine.” The video contains an error revealing poor fact-checking: it states that both shooters in Australia were killed, whereas only one was shot dead, while the second was wounded and detained. A similar video following the same template includes French subtitles and the symbols of French government agencies.

...

The bots are also spreading images of alarming graffiti that, supposedly, appeared in Berlin. The images depict a Christmas tree with a time bomb beneath it, as well as the date 25.12.2025. One of the posts, posing as an Instagram story from the BBC, read “Graffiti warning of a terrorist attack appeared in three boroughs of Berlin.”

...

The attack in Sydney took place on Sunday, Dec. 14, the first day of Hanukkah. The attackers opened fire on people gathered on Bondi Beach for an event organized by the Chabad movement. Fifteen people were killed and several dozen were wounded. According to police, the shooting was carried out by 50-year-old Sajid Akram, who was shot dead at the scene, and his 24-year-old son, Naveed Akram, who was wounded and is currently hospitalized. Flags of the terrorist organization Islamic State were found in their vehicle.

...

Follow Zelda’s journey back in time as she meets Rauru and Sonia, the first king and queen of Hyrule, and experience the canonical events that lead to the Imprisoning War against the Demon King Ganondorf from the Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom game.

Zelda meets new allies along the way, including Agraston, the worldly Goron chief, Qia, the skilled fighter and Zora queen, Raphica, the quick-witted leader of the Rito, and Ardi, a compassionate leader among the Gerudo. You’ll also meet a Korok named Calamo who travels with the Mysterious Construct that can transform and take to the skies.

Free updates for the game are now available that include fearsome enemies, a new sync strike with Zelda and Calamo, three additional weapons, an extra challenging difficulty level, and more.

Plus, you can receive in-game bonus items if you have save data from the Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom or Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity games on your Nintendo Switch 2.

Ver. 1.0.3 (Released 18 December 2025)

Features added

Phantom Ganon:

• Phantom Ganon is a new feature that randomly triggers in battles that you have completed.
• In addition, when you defeat powerful enemies, there is a possibility that Phantom Ganon may appear. You will be able to acquire more Pure Zonaite Steel than in normal battles.

Forbidden Difficulty:

• In the new Forbidden difficulty level, you can experience high-difficulty battles that are more challenging than the battles in Very Hard difficulty.
• If you complete a certain number of battles on Forbidden difficulty, you will receive special rewards such as Pure Zonaite Steel or an increase in the number of Special Rations that can be held.

New challenges and quests added:

• Similar to the first free update, this second update also adds multiple new challenges and quests to the Hyrule Map after the main game has been beaten.
• Lizalfos and Chuchus appear as new Vicious Enemies.
• The Tanagar Meditation Hall on the sky island is unlocked, and you will be able to perform a sync strike if you enter with two characters.

New Unique Skills added:

• New unique skills have been added to the Mysterious Construct for its one-handed weapons, two-handed weapons, and spears.
• With the one-handed weapon unique skill Shield Charge, you can break through dangerous attacks from charging enemies by raising your shield and stepping into them. Also, with correct timing against an enemy attack, you can deal a powerful spinning slash.
• You can learn these skills by completing the challenges and quests that are added in this update.

New weapons added:

*The Forbidden Blade, a one-handed weapon that was touched by Gloom and ominously transformed, was added. The Mysterious Construct and warriors of various peoples are able to equip it.

• You can acquire this weapon by completing battles that are added in this update.
• The battles below will be added as well:
  • Battles focused on the warriors.
  • A life-or-death struggle with a certain powerful enemy.

Improved Features

• Aside Quests that involve sync strikes as a condition have been changed so that they can also be achieved by characters you are not controlling while performing sync strikes.
• You can back out of bonus conversations in the Gallery with B Button.
• Adjusted display conditions and frequency in Tutorials for Dodge and Guard.
• When you have hit the upper limit of Zonaite Steel you can possess, you will be able to use the weapon enhancements below at the end of combat:
  • Raise Weapon-Level Limit
  • Remove Seals

Fixed Issues

• Fixed an issue where, when assigning Electric Lizalfos parts to the Material Sensor, a battle in which Electric Lizalfos don’t appear (“Terror of the Sands”) could be tracked.
• Fixed an issue where the Challenge “A Flash of Steel in the Desert“ would not appear until a number of other battles had been completed, even after all displayed requisite battles had been completed.
• Fixed an issue where, during two-player split-screen play, the second player’s attack sounds and other sounds could not be heard.
• Fixed an issue where, when assigning necessary materials to the Material Sensor (Assign to Sensor in Unlock Weapon Arts) a player would only be able to remove them from the sensor via the Materials screen.