Forwarded from Ministry of good ideas
Good Idea: Connect with people
https://lightcapai.medium.com/the-loneliness-epidemic-threatens-physical-health-like-smoking-e063220dde8b
Loneliness is a public health crisis that is literally killing people, rewiring their bodies, and driving up death and dementia rates by a third.
🙏Thanks to @fuckgrass and @oddlymotivational
https://lightcapai.medium.com/the-loneliness-epidemic-threatens-physical-health-like-smoking-e063220dde8b
Loneliness is a public health crisis that is literally killing people, rewiring their bodies, and driving up death and dementia rates by a third.
A community really is nothing more than a system of relationships. You DO foster community by hosting parties, or meetups or gatherings. It might not sound as impactful as like, hosting an activist workshop at your local makerspace but having fun with other people is SO important to making strong connections.
🙏Thanks to @fuckgrass and @oddlymotivational
Forwarded from Jammish's new festive spooky disabled gay af random memes
Forwarded from Lesbean Compost Pub 🍉
Telegram is not a secure and private messenger: it's a marketing scam used by a lying billionaire to make more money.
Here are some examples of why Telegram is not secure nor private and doesn't keep you safe from big companies, oppressive governments and malicious users
• Telegram does not implement end-to-end encryption in regular chats. This means that Telegram Inc has the keys to decrypt all of your messages and can access them at any moment.
• Telegram is not fully open source. Only the piece of software on your phone is: you don't know what happens once the data leaves your device, because the server-side code is closed source.
• Durov is lying about his struggles with Russian authorities. (He's the Telegram CEO btw) Despite his misleading narrative about being exiled from Russia, 120 trips in and out of there have been documented over the course of 5 years, with some suspicious timings regarding Putin's government halting its struggle to ban Telegram.
• It has been confirmed that Russian oligarchs close to Putin fund Telegram, implying very probable ties with the Kremlin.
• Telegram hands over data to authorities, and then tries to hide it. They have repeatedly collaborated with tribunals, police and interpol by handing many users' data and via censorship. A transparency report has been promised for years to document any instance of data being given to authorities, but none has been published so far and Telegram Inc's claims about this are intentionally misleading and omissive.
• After recent Durov's arrest in France, Telegram Inc. has decided to collaborate even more with authorities for crimes such as drug dealing and copyright infringement, and there is nothing preventing the list from extending. We've seen what happened with Elon Musk at Twitter, who is gonna stop Durov if he goes full Elmo and helps right wing governments crack down on oppositions?
• Telegram is getting unusable for free users. Ads (often for crypto-scams and ai-generated slop) and premium features/prompts are covering more and more screen space, making Telegram insufferable to use for free users without heavily modified clients.
• Premium is a scam. While it was advertised as the only way to economically sustain Telegram, the truth is that the money is going to Durov's pockets, grown from 11 billion dollars in 2023 to 17 billion in 2025. Stop giving your money to billionaires.
• Telegram doesn't care about security and privacy at all: their priority is making money. The asymmetry of usability and features between free and premium users isn't limited to fancy gimmicks: some privacy options are paywalled as well, like restricting who can send you messages and voice messages, and writing messages as a public channel instead of using your personal account (which used to be a free feature btw).
• Premium membership intentionally weaken users' privacy. The option to restrict who can send you messages doesn't affect premium users, making it easy for stalkers to circumvent it by making multiple VoIP (sim-less numbers) accounts with just one premium subnoscription (a person I know was stalked like this firsthand).
• It's the second time over a short period of time that an exploit has been discovered that allows external accounts to send spam and scams in groupchats where messages are restricted to members-only. This is very concerning, and casts doubts on the robustness of any privacy and security features, since the full telegram source code can't be checked and audited.
• Many "privacy" features do not work as advertised, like the "Restrict saving content" option which doesn't actually restrict anything, since pictures are downloaded and stored unencrypted in the Telegram folder.
TL;DR Telegram is not a secure and private messenger: it's a marketing scam used by a lying billionaire to make more money. You should move away from this platforms.
Far better alternatives include (but are not limited to) Signal, Session and XMPP for private messengers, and for team chats (Discord-like) there are Element / Matrix and Status (has crypto stuff)
Here are some examples of why Telegram is not secure nor private and doesn't keep you safe from big companies, oppressive governments and malicious users
• Telegram does not implement end-to-end encryption in regular chats. This means that Telegram Inc has the keys to decrypt all of your messages and can access them at any moment.
• Telegram is not fully open source. Only the piece of software on your phone is: you don't know what happens once the data leaves your device, because the server-side code is closed source.
• Durov is lying about his struggles with Russian authorities. (He's the Telegram CEO btw) Despite his misleading narrative about being exiled from Russia, 120 trips in and out of there have been documented over the course of 5 years, with some suspicious timings regarding Putin's government halting its struggle to ban Telegram.
• It has been confirmed that Russian oligarchs close to Putin fund Telegram, implying very probable ties with the Kremlin.
• Telegram hands over data to authorities, and then tries to hide it. They have repeatedly collaborated with tribunals, police and interpol by handing many users' data and via censorship. A transparency report has been promised for years to document any instance of data being given to authorities, but none has been published so far and Telegram Inc's claims about this are intentionally misleading and omissive.
• After recent Durov's arrest in France, Telegram Inc. has decided to collaborate even more with authorities for crimes such as drug dealing and copyright infringement, and there is nothing preventing the list from extending. We've seen what happened with Elon Musk at Twitter, who is gonna stop Durov if he goes full Elmo and helps right wing governments crack down on oppositions?
• Telegram is getting unusable for free users. Ads (often for crypto-scams and ai-generated slop) and premium features/prompts are covering more and more screen space, making Telegram insufferable to use for free users without heavily modified clients.
• Premium is a scam. While it was advertised as the only way to economically sustain Telegram, the truth is that the money is going to Durov's pockets, grown from 11 billion dollars in 2023 to 17 billion in 2025. Stop giving your money to billionaires.
• Telegram doesn't care about security and privacy at all: their priority is making money. The asymmetry of usability and features between free and premium users isn't limited to fancy gimmicks: some privacy options are paywalled as well, like restricting who can send you messages and voice messages, and writing messages as a public channel instead of using your personal account (which used to be a free feature btw).
• Premium membership intentionally weaken users' privacy. The option to restrict who can send you messages doesn't affect premium users, making it easy for stalkers to circumvent it by making multiple VoIP (sim-less numbers) accounts with just one premium subnoscription (a person I know was stalked like this firsthand).
• It's the second time over a short period of time that an exploit has been discovered that allows external accounts to send spam and scams in groupchats where messages are restricted to members-only. This is very concerning, and casts doubts on the robustness of any privacy and security features, since the full telegram source code can't be checked and audited.
• Many "privacy" features do not work as advertised, like the "Restrict saving content" option which doesn't actually restrict anything, since pictures are downloaded and stored unencrypted in the Telegram folder.
TL;DR Telegram is not a secure and private messenger: it's a marketing scam used by a lying billionaire to make more money. You should move away from this platforms.
Far better alternatives include (but are not limited to) Signal, Session and XMPP for private messengers, and for team chats (Discord-like) there are Element / Matrix and Status (has crypto stuff)