otter

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[–] otter@lemmy.ca 1 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

The title makes it sound like the allegations were brought through official channels

Zhou addressed the audience in Mandarin, asking for his supporters to come to a council meeting today to oppose a motion on social housing scheduled to be heard by the city’s policy and governance standing committee.

The motion [...] would build “drug houses” for “drug users,” Zhou said.

In a translation of the video commissioned by The Tyee, Zhou then said:

“I can also tell everybody that the non-ABC councillor is themself a drug user. Before Christmas, they openly dispensed drugs on the streets.”

Zhou does not name the specific councillor, and The Tyee’s translator noted that it is unclear whether Zhou is referring to one or multiple councillors.

“This video has now been shared thousands of times online. That scale matters. When statements like this spread widely, they shape how people understand city policy and how they view elected officials,” said Bligh, who alleged Zhou labelled her an “extremist” in the video for her motion calling for a staff report on the impact of Vancouver pausing all new social housing projects.

Nearly four hours after Fry, Maloney, Bligh and Orr’s press conference, Zhou issued a written public statement apologizing for the remarks he made about the councillors in the video that were “based on incorrect information.”

“I am retracting my statement, and I’ve taken down the video. I fully support the pause of net new supportive housing, and I do believe that there are significant issues around how many facilities operate,” his statement reads.

Taking down the video limits the spread, but does nothing to undo the damage. The bare minimum for intentionally spreading disinformation should be to release a followup video statement on the same platform and leaving it up, with hope that some of the same viewers will see it. Inflammatory disinformation is much more likely to go viral so even that won't undo the damage of the original action.

Sim declined to comment on the video when he passed reporters on his way into an in-camera council meeting Tuesday afternoon.

But in a statement emailed to The Tyee, Sim thanked Zhou for “acknowledging his mistake and taking responsibility for sharing information that was not accurate.”

...

 

Note:

  • this is related to the fallout and backtracking from Discord's age verification changes
  • I haven't confirmed what license this is being released under

Despite the issues with the companies involved, maybe there is something here that Fediverse platforms can benefit from. Whether it is using the tools directly, or using it for ideas when building something better.

From the site:

Coop provides content review tools and includes the ability to route reviews to the experts, show relevant information for a comprehensive review, and take action. The platform includes built-in integration with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children’s (NCMEC) API for mandatory reporting of child sexual abuse material (CSAM), ensuring compliance with relevant regulations.

Osprey is an open-source investigation and incident response tool that allows safety teams to understand what is happening on their platforms and take actions at scale. Osprey’s lightweight, user-friendly design makes it especially valuable for platforms of all sizes, from grassroots communities to established platforms that need powerful tools without enterprise-scale infrastructure.

Bluesky is taking from it already:

"We're excited for the implementation and release of Osprey," said Aaron Rodericks, Head of Trust and Safety at Bluesky, which plans to adopt Osprey. "This represents exactly the kind of open collaboration needed to democratize safety tools. By implementing Osprey, we're helping prove that effective safety infrastructure can work for platforms of all sizes, not just those with massive resources."

[–] otter@lemmy.ca 19 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago)

In short: it is bad to help any regime do collective punishment on a group of people.

[–] otter@lemmy.ca 16 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Or the reaction videos where the original video plays in the corner while the person points, nods, and makes faces

[–] otter@lemmy.ca 17 points 2 days ago (3 children)

Some places already ban physical ads. There are better sources than these but this is what I found so far:

Digital ads would be harder to get rid of. At the individual level, it's relatively easy to disable an adblocker if something breaks. That's harder to do if you block it city wide.

A PSA campaign might work better to get people to turn on adblockers

[–] otter@lemmy.ca 13 points 3 days ago

Looks like an arrest gone wrong

Four cartel members were killed at the scene, while another three died while being flown to Mexico City, among them El Mencho.

I've seen discussion about whether political pressure was the cause of how they went about it

[–] otter@lemmy.ca 1 points 3 days ago

I should clarify, I meant to ask if the main thing it's doing is taking care of the IP addresses/browser trackers

What they're doing is helpful, but I believe it's limited to sending them queries and having them contact the LLM provider on our behalf. If there is any personal information in the queries we send (ex. Passwords, secrets, names), those are passed along to the provider.

As opposed to something like Confer (which isn't out yet), where the provider can't see anything

https://arstechnica.com/security/2026/01/signal-creator-moxie-marlinspike-wants-to-do-for-ai-what-he-did-for-messaging/

[–] otter@lemmy.ca 7 points 4 days ago

It would be best to ask on !meta@lemmy.ml

[–] otter@lemmy.ca 27 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (5 children)

Lemmy in general

Lemmy software doesn't block VPNs, this is done by individual instances as a way to handle bots / attacks.

Your instance blocks VPN & Tor users: https://lemmy.world/post/11967676

[–] otter@lemmy.ca 6 points 4 days ago

Some more details

“I really thought this was just going to be something more organized, but it’s obviously not,” DeMario said about Trump’s deportations. “They just blanket everybody.”

DeMario said Alcantu moved to the U.S. from Cuba 25 years ago through a Visa Lottery, a State Department program. They didn’t think her immigration status would be a problem, and he voted for Trump.

DeMario said Alcantu had a minor run-in with the law during a traffic stop, and as a result of the case, she received a deportation order in 2008.

“They go through her purse, and then they dump the purse out, and three Xanax pills fall out,” DeMario said.

[–] otter@lemmy.ca 3 points 4 days ago

I should have included the tag, I made it up 😄

[–] otter@lemmy.ca 10 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (5 children)

Fun fact, the ketchup chips in Canada were inspired by these

/s

[–] otter@lemmy.ca 13 points 4 days ago (1 children)

most depictions of magic carpet flights have the carpet move very erratically because they have a mind of their own

That might be a good thing. If you fall, the carpet will rush down to catch you

 

I just finished Oliver Sacks’ excellent Everything in Its Place. In it, he mentioned as an aside that the Ginkgo biloba tree is hundreds of millions of years old, and its phenotype has been practically frozen since then – a living fossil.

Of course, this is the same tree that grows ぎんなん (Ginkgo nuts), an East Asian delicacy found in many dishes, 茶碗蒸し (Chawanmushi) for example.

Ginkgo has been around so long, it predates the dinosaurs! And we still eat it! How cool is that. This got me thinking – what are the oldest foods we consume today?

Criteria:

  • Must be edible by humans
  • Must be morphologically unchanged since its fossil age
 
 

When officers entered the school on Tuesday afternoon, they found six victims deceased, RCMP confirmed.

An individual believed to be the shooter was also found deceased with what appears to be a self‑inflicted injury.

Two victims have been airlifted to the hospital with serious or life‑threatening injuries. A third victim died while being transported to hospital. Approximately 25 others are being assessed and triaged at the local medical centre for non‑life‑threatening injuries.

The active shooter alert was lifted at 5:46 p.m. PT.

 

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/60145815

 

Seven Toronto police officers, four of whom have been suspended without pay, have been arrested and charged in connection with what York Regional Police (YRP) are calling a “lengthy investigation into organized crime and corruption,” multiple sources have told CP24 and CTV News Toronto.

Sources told CP24 that the Toronto officers charged worked in 11 and 12 Divisions as well as the Guns and Gangs Unit.

 

Austin Appelbee swam four kilometres to shore to raise the alarm after he got into difficulties on Friday with his mother, Joanne Appelbee, 47, brother Beau, 12, and sister Grace, 8, police said.

Austin said he initially set off for help on an inflatable kayak that was taking water. He abandoned the kayak, then took off his life jacket because it impeded his swimming.

He said he tried to focus on positive thoughts as he swam for around four hours through rough seas for shore, raising the alarm at 6 p.m.

"The waves are massive and I have no life jacket on. … I just kept thinking, just keep swimming, just keep swimming," Austin said on Tuesday. "And then I finally I made it to shore and I hit the bottom of the beach and I just collapsed."

The family, from the state capital, Perth, were on vacation and were using kayaks and paddle boards hired from their hotel around noon when rough ocean and wind conditions started dragging them out to sea.

A search helicopter found the mom and two children wearing life jackets and clinging to a paddleboard at 8:30 p.m., police said. They had drifted 14 kilometres from Quindalup in Western Australia state, after spending up to 10 hours in the water.

"The actions of the 13-year-old boy cannot be praised highly enough — his determination and courage ultimately saved the lives of his mother and siblings," Insp. James Bradley said.

Joanne Appelbee told reporters on Tuesday she sent her oldest child for help because she could not leave the three children.

"One of the hardest decisions I ever had to make was to say to Austin, 'Try and get to shore and get some help. This could get really serious really quickly,'" she told Australian Broadcasting Corp.

She said she was confident he would reach shore but was filled with doubt as the sun set and help had not arrived.

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submitted 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) by otter@lemmy.ca to c/opensource@programming.dev
 

B.C. Transplant is encouraging more British Columbians to consider signing up to be organ donors after 2025 saw a record 575 people receive life-changing surgeries in the province.

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