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Dan Gillmor

@dangillmor.bsky.social
2.7K followers 111 following 1.5K posts

dangillmor.com/about Mainly at Mastodon: mastodon.social/@dangillmor

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Dan Gillmor @dangillmor.bsky.social · 18h
Filled out an online form, and to get a copy of my answers I am required to sign into Microsoft. Hell, no. One more reason I despise the greedy control freaks who run Big Tech at this point.
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Dan Gillmor @dangillmor.bsky.social · 19h
The bi-annual dilemma has arrived: Do I install the latest Ubuntu LTS (26.04) as an upgrade on top of 24.04 or do I wipe out the current (backed-up) drive and install from scratch and do the tedious reinstallation and tweaking of applications, scripts, settings, etc?
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Dan Gillmor @dangillmor.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
More and more it looks like the big "AI" companies are ripping off their customers. It's the American way, of course, but this stuff looks egregious -- and it's going to push people with common sense toward the open-source local models. www.nytimes.com/2026...
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Dan Gillmor @dangillmor.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
The past tells you a lot about the future: Larry Ellison and his nepo-mogul son have a long record of making promises they don't keep.
levernews.com
The Ellisons Have Made This Movie Before
With Paramount, you don’t need a catalog of failed consent decrees to understand what is to come. You only need the record of the family making the promises.
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Dan Gillmor @dangillmor.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
The tech oligarchs are rallying around Elon Musk to block a filmmaker from advertising a deeply reported documentary that lays bare what a slimy -- and dangerous -- person Musk is. www.hollywoodreporte... (Meanwhile, Corporate Journalism continues to support him. Of course.)
hollywoodreporter.com
The Major Social Media Platforms Are All Rejecting Paid Ads for Alex Gibney’s ‘Musk’ (Exclusive)
YouTube, TikTok and Meta have all turned down the trailer for the Oct. 9 doc, citing “political” content. X won't even take Bleecker Street's calls. The distributor is appealing.
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Dan Gillmor @dangillmor.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Succinct metaphor for sky-high stock market while regular people's lives worsen: "Watching the stock market and declaring the economy healthy is like watching the growing python [strangling its prey] and declare that everything inside its coils must be thriving."
dylanratigan.substack.com
The Tech-Monopolies Choking America Out
Watching the stock market and declaring the economy healthy is like watching the growing python and declare that everything inside its coils must be thriving.
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Dan Gillmor @dangillmor.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
All corruption, all the time in Trump world: U.S. taxpayers are footing the bill for Trump-praising advertisements running on right-wing media. It's a transfer of our money to media scumbags that are effectively part of the regime.
abcnews.com
Administration's pro-Trump TV ad is taxpayer-funded
The Trump administration is running a pro-Trump ad on cable news featuring Trump boasting about his record and vowing the US "will never be a communist country."
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Dan Gillmor @dangillmor.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Susan Collins isn't just a pretend-moderate Republican who's supported almost every catastrophic Trump policy and nominee (including all the current radical-right Supreme Court "justices"). She's also corrupt as hell. www.propublica.org/a... Fine reporting, as usual, from ProPublica.
propublica.org
The FBI Anti-Corruption Squad Was Circling Susan Collins — Until Trump Got in the Way
After the FBI caught a defense contractor’s CEO making illegal campaign contributions, it sought to launch a sweeping political bribery probe involving Collins and others. Then the second Trump administration dismantled the unit handling the inquiry.
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Dan Gillmor @dangillmor.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Latest reminder that you should assume the following about any statement from Trump's ICE/DHS goons claiming to exonerate the regime of bad acts: They're probably lying. www.ctinsider.com/ne...
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Dan Gillmor @dangillmor.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Today's "AI" uh-oh: I was inquiring with two chatbots (Claude and Gemini) about best techniques -- to the extent possible -- for removing data from an SSD I plan to sell. Both of them suggested command line (Linux) scripts that would have erased my main laptop drive. Oh sure I trust this stuff...
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Dan Gillmor @dangillmor.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
All corruption, all the time in Trump world: "World Liberty’s Crypto Ties Enriched Trump as Investors Lost Out" www.bloomberg.com/ne... It was obviously a scam from the start -- and just one element in what is by far the most corrupt presidency in American history.
bloomberg.com
Trump’s Crypto Venture Got Rich While Big Promises Fell Short
Donald Trump Jr., Chase Herro and a group of their business partners descended on Manhattan’s Jazz at Lincoln Center concert hall last year to promote an expansive vision for World Liberty Financial, the Trump family’s cryptocurrency venture.
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Dan Gillmor @dangillmor.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Ridiculous spam of the day warns me that "Every month you live with tinnitus [ringing in the ears], roughly 3% of your brain cells die off." If so, I've been making do with zero brain cells for at least 30 years. A miracle!
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Dan Gillmor @dangillmor.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
So California AG Bonta and his colleagues from other states were engaging in antitrust theater. Their "settlement" with the soon-to-be media giant Paramount -- that is, Larry Ellison and his sock-puppet son (and three Arab-oil dictatorships) -- is a pathetic cave-in. www.msn.com/en-us/ne...
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Dan Gillmor @dangillmor.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
No one covers the pernicious, pervasive reality of American racism than Nikole Hannah-Jones, and this is a must-read example of her work:
nytimes.com
In Fighting for Every Black Child, Did I Betray My Own?
A decade ago, I made a decision about my daughter’s education that I hoped would challenge New York City’s separate and unequal school system. Now 16, she thinks I made the wrong choice.
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Dan Gillmor @dangillmor.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Serial liars like Trump and his apparatchiks have a huge advantage over people who tell the truth, because they can count on journalists to parrot the lies in their coverage, thereby giving equal weight to reality and bullshit. Example: Trump spokesperson quote in this story:
variety.com
Alan Ritchson Says ‘Reacher’ Planned to Adapt ‘Die Trying’ Book for a Future Season Before ‘Someone Got Re-Elected’
“Reacher” star Alan Ritchson had planned to adapt the second book in the popular “Jack Reacher” series for the Prime Video show.
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Dan Gillmor @dangillmor.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
This is a worthy essay about the "This isn't who we are" trope, involving a white Texas businessman who suddenly awoke -- when it affected him and his fiance -- to our fascist reality. (The piece is somewhat repetitive, but I recommend it anyway.)
the-reframe.com
This is Us
Moving from "I'm one of the Good Ones" to actually becoming good.
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Dan Gillmor @dangillmor.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
If you use Fastmail for your email, you can now select to have your data reside in the EU rather than the US. If a nation state is out to spy on you, this won't fix much. But it does add a layer of surveillance protection in some ways.
fastmail.help
Choosing your data residency
Effective August 2026, Fastmail customers can opt to have their data stored in the European Union, encrypted at rest on Fastmail-owned secure servers in Amsterdam.At launch, existing customers with...
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Dan Gillmor @dangillmor.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Another fraud-slop empire thrives -- in part because Google lets it thrive (and profits in the meantime):
futurism.com
How Three Brothers Built an AI Slop Empire by Buying Legitimate News Sites and Turning Them Into Zombie Content Farms That They Say Get 50 Million Page Views per Month
Brown Brothers Media is a media empire raking in millions of clicks with AI, fake writers, and plagiarism.
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Dan Gillmor @dangillmor.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
The AI panic looks like an orchestrated con: The bosses of these rapacious, sleazy, and infinitely sloppy companies are angling for government permission to be a cartel. This would be followed, as certain as day follows night, by the bailout they all know they'll need when their bubble deflates.
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Dan Gillmor @dangillmor.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Sheeran's capitulation to right-wing arena owners has so outraged other musicians that they're pulling out -- at great financial cost to themselves -- of his tour.
nbcnews.com
Finneas and other acts exit Ed Sheeran tour to protest Macklemore being dropped over pro-Palestinian remarks
All of Sheeran’s listed openers have left the tour after New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft worked to have Macklemore removed.
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Dan Gillmor @dangillmor.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Putin-connected Russian oligarch's megabucks gift to Trump Jr. distills Trump world sleaze: flagrant graft and contempt for everyone not connected to by far the most corrupt crew ever in American business/politics. www.propublica.org/a... Great, great reporting by ProPublica.
propublica.org
Donald Trump Jr.’s Wedding Bankrolled by Putin-Linked Russian Oligarch
The oligarch, Umar Kremlev, spent hundreds of thousands on expenses like renting out a private island. He appears to have met Trump Jr. only recently, but he attended the intimate wedding with a large group of other Russian guests.
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Dan Gillmor @dangillmor.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
The Trump regime's war on mail voting has so thoroughly corrupted the Postal Service that it will take years to restore any trust in an institution that has been a bedrock for countless communities around the nation. Today's example:
democracydocket.com
In ominous sign, USPS initially rejected Florida county’s mail ballot over spacing issue
Read more here.
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Dan Gillmor @dangillmor.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Con man Musk is one of our age's most monumental sleazes, and his hugely deceptive -- and dangerous to your privacy-- "votesafe" website is just one more egregious example.
popular.info
The hidden dangers of Musk’s votesafe.org
The slick voter registration website, currently being promoted to millions of people, is a digital surveillance machine.
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Dan Gillmor @dangillmor.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
If you support "age verification" online, you are supporting a system that GUARANTEES privacy meltdowns -- endangering all of us -- because the giant databases of scanned IDs are perpetually hacked by criminals who sell private data.
techdirt.com
Hackers Had A Live Feed Of Every ID This Verification Company Scanned. For Over A Year.
From the very beginning of this recent obsession with identifying everyone online (yes, they like to call it “age” verification, but it always ends up as identity verification), we&#821…
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Dan Gillmor @dangillmor.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
The Bulwark (among other sites) is, increasingly a bunch of podcasts. I don't have time to listen to them. I would read transcripts. Yes, I know that chatting with cronies and guests is easier than, you know, reporting and writing. Just not for me....
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Dan Gillmor @dangillmor.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
Google has become an enemy of the open web, and it's increasingly locking down Android to dominate (with Apple) mobile computing. keepandroidopen.org/ A once-principled company gets more and more control-freakish, for money and power. Nothing Google does now is surprising, just predictable.
keepandroidopen.org
Keep Android Open
Your phone is about to stop being yours. In 2027, Google will block every Android app whose developer hasn't registered with them.
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Dan Gillmor @dangillmor.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
The Trump-infected US Postal Service isn't just threatening to wreck mail-in voting. It's under way. So we have to take our ballots to a dropbox or cast them in person. In other words, the regime's election fuckery has worked, while the press ho-hummed as usual. www.thurstoncountywa...
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Dan Gillmor @dangillmor.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
The odious surveillance company Flock has been teaching police how to spy on Americans who are exercising their First Amendment rights.
404media.co
Flock Taught Cops How to Surveil No Kings Protesters
A Flock webinar teaches police how to surveil protests, fireworks shows, parades, bike races, and more.
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Dan Gillmor @dangillmor.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
As Cory Doctorow notes, "Big Tech has proved that its only principles are not paying taxes, invading your privacy, and not being broken up by antitrust enforcers." So they've effectively joined the Trump regime, and any nation that dares challenge them risks a a great deal. pluralistic.net/2026...
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Dan Gillmor @dangillmor.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
After Trump took office in 2025, a technology industry friend I've known and respected for a long time flagged the naming of former Microsoft exec Doug Burgum at Interior Secretary as a sign that real grownups would be in top posts. Yeah, right.
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Dan Gillmor @dangillmor.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
Yet another example of the Trump regime and its minions openly defying a court order: www.npr.org/2026/09/... Also yet another example of a judge doing absolutely nothing about it. The regime is winning its war on the rule of law.
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Dan Gillmor @dangillmor.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Jesse Wells is a terrific protest-songwriter and singer. What worries me -- because he calls for social and economic justice -- is the degree to which he relies (though not entirely) on YouTube for distribution. Latest song channels Gil Duran's "Nerd Reich" -- excellent. www.youtube.com/watc...
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Dan Gillmor @dangillmor.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
The Bulwark and New York Times stand accused here of journalistic cowardice in the extreme, and if I was on the jury I'd vote guilty:
data4democracy.substack.com
The Bulwark Killed an Investigation into Political Fundraising Spam After Its Publisher Took the Consultants’ Side
This is a story about the Democratic Party captured by its consultants, and about what happens when the pro-democracy press is asked to say so.
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Dan Gillmor @dangillmor.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
Corporate control freaks against free speech, Exhibit 945,334 -- HBO Max posting BS copyright infringement claims against people who dare to post spoilers. www.msn.com/en-us/en... (I wish people would only post spoilers with LOUD DISCLAIMERS at the top, but would never try to censor them.)
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Dan Gillmor @dangillmor.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
Trump regime's despotism grows and grows. Banning a secure email service is just the latest step.
reason.com
Rubio uses terrorism law to ban secure email service
The State Department doesn’t accuse Autistici/Inventati of doing anything more than providing surveillance-free email accounts. But that’s enough to declare it a terrorist organization.
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Dan Gillmor @dangillmor.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
If you trust your data to a company like Microsoft, you are gambling with your future, as a slew of nonprofits discovered to their horror.
slate.com
The Quiet Decision Microsoft Made That Devastated Thousands of Nonprofits
When the tech giant retired a popular software grant, years of nonprofit data vanished with it.
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Dan Gillmor @dangillmor.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
Governments want nothing more than to control what people say and read and hear online, and corporate monopolists are their natural allies. So the "kid safety settlement" by Facebook and states is going to be disastrous for everyone who cares about free speech.
techdirt.com
Meta Just Paid Nearly $17 Billion To Make Sure It Gets To Write The Kid Safety Rules For Every Other Social Media Platform
By now you’ve almost certainly heard the news that Meta has settled with 52 state and local Attorneys General who had sued the company in some form or another over child safety on Meta’…
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Dan Gillmor @dangillmor.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
Republicans' vicious hypocrisy is the norm for them, but their gutting of support for Dolly Parton's best-of-breed books-for-kids charity is nauseating in the extreme, given their pious praise of this great human being now.
newrepublic.com
The Republicans Mourning Dolly Parton Gutted Funds to Her Charity
Republican lawmakers limited public funding for Parton’s children’s book foundation.
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Dan Gillmor @dangillmor.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
As a friend said elsewhere today, Dolly Parton was "the best of us." Rest in peace.
ms.now
Opinion | In a divided country, no one brought us together quite like Dolly
Willie Carver: In a world demanding we choose a side, Dolly loved all sides even harder.
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Dan Gillmor @dangillmor.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Some of Lenovo's Motorola phones will come with security-minded GrapheneOS pre-installed. This is something of a breakthrough.
androidpolice.com
Privacy-focused GrapheneOS to launch on Motorola flagship phones in 2027
Initial phones will be pricey
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Dan Gillmor @dangillmor.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
An otherwise blank text message requiring a download from a number I don't recognize gets one response from me. I report it as spam and block the number.
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Dan Gillmor @dangillmor.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
Top House Democrat perfectly demonstrates his party's strategy: Surrender in advance.
Jeffries, House minority leader, meets with Trump son-in-law in attempt to find common ground with a regime that does nothing but carpet-bomb Democrats.
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Dan Gillmor @dangillmor.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
This so-called "expert" witness in a liability trial used AI to create a supposed report on behalf of his corporate client. If there's any justice in the world, he's discredited himself forever as an expert -- and the company's lawyers (who lost the case) should be punished.
404media.co
‘Show How 3M Is 0% at Fault:’ Expert Witness Used ChatGPT to Write Report Defending Company in Deadly Explosion Lawsuit
ChatGPT prompts show how an expert witness report was created in a $61 million lawsuit over an explosion that killed three people.
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Dan Gillmor @dangillmor.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
The Fairphone 6+ looks like exactly what I want to buy for my next smartphone, except that I won't be able to use GrapheneOS on it. The combination of those two would be awesome, though it's not likely to happen, unfortunately.
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Dan Gillmor @dangillmor.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
NY Times columnist Tom Edsall gets into some details about Trump's massive corruption. But the headline downplays it to "conflict of interest" -- albeit a huge one. And the piece bends over backwards to be "fair" to the most corrupt administration in history.
nytimes.com
Opinion | ‘A Blatant and Gargantuan Conflict of Interest’
The Trump family’s crypto business exemplifies all of the sleaziest aspects of the president’s code of conduct.
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Dan Gillmor @dangillmor.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
Major new taxes on billionaires should be a bipartisan political campaign stance. But only a portion of one of the two major parties comes even close to this position. And the other party wants to help the ultra-rich loot the rest of us even more.
hamiltonnolan.com
Confiscate Their Money
Taxing billionaires out of existence must become a mainstream idea.
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Dan Gillmor @dangillmor.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
Persuasive reporting from Forever Wars: ICE and Customs/Border Patrol are criminal organizations, top to bottom. Department of Homeland Security leadership invites and supports that criminal culture. www.forever-wars.com/the-sex-crim...
forever-wars.com
The Sex Criminals and Child Abusers of ICE and CBP
Rape. Domestic violence. Epstein friendship. It's all tolerated by our valiant homeland-security apparatus. PLUS: COINTELPRO 2026
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Dan Gillmor @dangillmor.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
Another day, another Trump public attack on a female journalist. Also another day when the rest of the White House press corps -- not just the right-wing propagandists but also the "reputable" journos -- pretends it didn't happen. What a bunch of cowards these people are.
theguardian.com
White House launches personal attack on CNN reporter over question to Trump
CNN says attack ‘beneath the office’ after Kristen Holmes asked president about Jon Ossoff’s comments on key aide
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Dan Gillmor @dangillmor.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
Scientists cave in to the Trump regime's war on a human-livable climate: www.nytimes.com/2026... The continuing cowardice of major institutions in our society is a key reason we're in so much trouble.
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Dan Gillmor @dangillmor.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
Just one more reason why you should at all costs avoid doing business with Elon Musk's companies.
hamiltonnolan.com
Corporate Power Approaches Escape Velocity
A failed Tesla strike in Sweden is a flashing warning light.
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