’Denmark Switches.’ A national campaign to collectively move off Big Tech.

@lin11c

https://www.forbes.com/sites/rashishrivastava/2025/11/07/why-sam-altman-wont-be-on-the-hook-for-openais-massive-spending-spree/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/andreahill/2025/08/21/why-95-of-ai-pilots-fail-and-what-business-leaders-should-do-instead/

William Gibson's early work never envisioned a future where such devices would be manufactured by companies that go regularly bankrupt, stranding their consumers, vendors, & patients.

https://www.netspi.com/newsroom/netspi-in-the-news/the-ai-journal-when-your-ai-provider-goes-bankrupt-a-hidden-security-risk-cisos-cant-ignore/

He did predict a world where the hacking, data theft, & data harvesting would be used to threaten, coerce, surveil, extort, & blackmail.

https://www.politico.com/story/2015/11/the-koch-brothers-intelligence-agency-215943

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/03/27/the-reclusive-hedge-fund-tycoon-behind-the-trump-presidency

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/03/cloak-and-data-cambridge-analytica-robert-mercer/

1/

@CiaraNi very good. I did most of this myself. I don't know how long it will take Tuta to introduce their drive, but you can use #Tresorit instead of onedrive. I use it for years.

@sebastian @Flatus Thanks for the tip. I did browse around in NextCloud's solutions but couldn't see a simple off-the-shelf one for a non-tech person like me who just wants it to plug-and-play work. I've been waiting to see Tuta's drive. Then the DanmarkSkifter campaign nudged to me to stop faffing around - get off OneDrive now, get the photos backed up, then pick the right cloud solution after that. Otherwise I'll never take that final step.

2/
The scale of the manipulation of public sentiment against vaccines and democracy are just two reprehensible examples.
https://therecord.media/chatgpt-health-draws-concern-privacy-critics

He did predict a world where societal trauma is deliberately manufactured then weaponized for corporate & ideological gain by the rich.
https://wp.nyu.edu/greenestreetreview/2019/12/04/hard-wired-traumas-a-retrospective-review-of-william-gibsons-neuromancer/

He saw the "DNA hacking" capabilities of AI

DNA-enabled disassemblers as a tool of "judge, jury, & executioner" police forces & kleptocratic warfare "The Peripheral"

https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/prescriptionsforabrokensystem/114977

@CiaraNi
A handy list! (“ ’Tell me you hang out in the Fediverse without telling me you hang out in the Fediverse.’ “)
I can tick 3 off as well! (More to come, obviously.)

Before I could pick my 2026 goal for #DanmarkSkifter, I did a digital status. I was mildly surprised when I saw my 2025 digital changes together. I looked at the list and thought: ’Tell me you hang out in the Fediverse without telling me you hang out in the Fediverse.’

From Outlook to Tuta
From Office to Libre
From MS Authenticator to Ente Authenticator
From Google Play to F-Droid
From Spotify to AntennaPod
From Firefox to Vivaldi
From DuckDuckGo to NoAIDuckDuckGo
And I bought a back-up drive.

@Pepijn @CiaraNi
May I ask: what do you use to do your backup?

@CiaraNi take a look on Linux Mint @linuxmint instead of Windows?

@CiaraNi @sebastian @Flatus Check Hetzner's Storage Share. That's basically a hosted and very affordable Nextcloud. I'm using it myself.

Before I could pick my 2026 goal for #DanmarkSkifter, I did a digital status. I was mildly surprised when I saw my 2025 digital changes together. I looked at the list and thought: ’Tell me you hang out in the Fediverse without telling me you hang out in the Fediverse.’

From Outlook to Tuta
From Office to Libre
From MS Authenticator to Ente Authenticator
From Google Play to F-Droid
From Spotify to AntennaPod
From Firefox to Vivaldi
From DuckDuckGo to NoAIDuckDuckGo
And I bought a back-up drive.

@CiaraNi you made me finally install F-Droid, and at so little effort, tnx for this motivational push!)

@martijn_geerdes Ah! It was someone in here that recommended it to me, so we're passing it on nicely by word-of-mouth I found it simple too.

@CiaraNi toot-to-toot?

@BashStKid @CiaraNi I mean, yeah, but I've been wanting a NAS for the last 5 years because they're so *cute* (and also useful) but it's really hard to justify the expense.

@lin11c

https://www.forbes.com/sites/rashishrivastava/2025/11/07/why-sam-altman-wont-be-on-the-hook-for-openais-massive-spending-spree/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/andreahill/2025/08/21/why-95-of-ai-pilots-fail-and-what-business-leaders-should-do-instead/

William Gibson's early work never envisioned a future where such devices would be manufactured by companies that go regularly bankrupt, stranding their consumers, vendors, & patients.

https://www.netspi.com/newsroom/netspi-in-the-news/the-ai-journal-when-your-ai-provider-goes-bankrupt-a-hidden-security-risk-cisos-cant-ignore/

He did predict a world where the hacking, data theft, & data harvesting would be used to threaten, coerce, surveil, extort, & blackmail.

https://www.politico.com/story/2015/11/the-koch-brothers-intelligence-agency-215943

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/03/27/the-reclusive-hedge-fund-tycoon-behind-the-trump-presidency

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/03/cloak-and-data-cambridge-analytica-robert-mercer/

1/

@Su_G @Pepijn In my case, I'm using a simple, old-fashioned solution - I bought a SanDisk portable external hard drive. I just bung it in my computer and do a manual backup.

@Su_G Until I saw them listed together, I hadn't realised that I had already made (relatively speaking) quite a few changes. I've been radicalised by the Fediverse I have more to do too, same as you. It's such a palaver of a process! But we're getting there.

2/
The scale of the manipulation of public sentiment against vaccines and democracy are just two reprehensible examples.
https://therecord.media/chatgpt-health-draws-concern-privacy-critics

He did predict a world where societal trauma is deliberately manufactured then weaponized for corporate & ideological gain by the rich.
https://wp.nyu.edu/greenestreetreview/2019/12/04/hard-wired-traumas-a-retrospective-review-of-william-gibsons-neuromancer/

He saw the "DNA hacking" capabilities of AI

DNA-enabled disassemblers as a tool of "judge, jury, & executioner" police forces & kleptocratic warfare "The Peripheral"

https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/prescriptionsforabrokensystem/114977

@Su_G @Pepijn In my case, I'm using a simple, old-fashioned solution - I bought a SanDisk portable external hard drive. I just bung it in my computer and do a manual backup.

@janeishly @BashStKid @CiaraNi

NAS is lovely but still a risk unless you also have an offsite copy. I have family members in different parts of the country but ideally I'd like to be able to keep a copy on the other side of the planet...

There's a fedi service waiting to be created! (how to stop it becoming just another cloud service?)