Aral Balkan

@aral

I mainly post on my blog at (RSS: ) and interact on my Mastodon . Please follow me there.

Terra firma
ar.al
Joined December 2006
5,020 Photos and videos Photos and videos

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  1. Pinned Tweet
    Aug 17

    A quick note that I am uninstalling all my Twitter apps. I won’t be checking Twitter regularly but I might forward some things here from time to time. If you want to find/interact with me, please do so on the fediverse: To join:

    3 replies 12 retweets 53 likes
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  2. Aug 27

    Mozilla, Defender of Your Privacy™ And A Force For Good In The World™ presents: an “experiment” that shares your browsing history with a third party to give you a “personalised feed of quality content” For additional sarcasm see

    3 replies 41 retweets 48 likes
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  3. Aug 27

    Better Blocker: two year review and thoughts on the future To talk about this, join the fediverse () and look me up ().

    Screenshot of the Better Blocker Website with a header showing a blue sky with sunbeam and white clouds, in front of which Better is shown running on Mac, iPad, and iPhone. The headline reads: “The web, tracker free.”" caption="The Better Blocker web site.
    8 retweets 6 likes
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  4. Aug 22

    To see what I’ve been sharing lately, check out my Mastodon: You can join the fediverse at I don’t cross-post/reply here. You can also follow my blog () via RSS () & send mail@ar.al

    Screenshot of my Mastodon timeline in the Tusky native app showing my latest post on an interesting alternative ergonomic keyboard layout.
    Screenshot of my Mastodon timeline in the Tusky native app with a post on my recent submission of an app to Flathub.
    Screenshot of my Mastodon timeline in the Tusky native app showing a post in which I profess my love for Mastodon while acknowledging that it is a bridge to a fully peer to peer world.
    Screenshot of my Mastodon timeline in the Tusky native app showing a post with a tip on exporting icons from the excellent cross-platform Gravit Designer app.
    2 replies 3 retweets 16 likes
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  5. Aug 17

    The key reason you should have your own Mastodon instance at your own domain: you can move it to any host at any time without losing your social graph. For third-party instances, the discussion on account migration (with some great input), is going on at

    2 replies 8 retweets 18 likes
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  6. Aug 16

    I don’t know what’s worse: a relative handful of psychopaths running the show or their having convinced masses of people that they too can be psychopathic if they work really hard at it.

    12 retweets 27 likes
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  7. Aug 16

    Centralised → Federated → Peer-to-peer

    1 reply 3 retweets 8 likes
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  8. Aug 16

    2 replies 11 retweets 16 likes
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  9. Aug 16

    Fuck you, Erdoğan, fuck you very much. PS. I stand by every word I said. Tyrants come and go. I will visit the land of my birth again one day. PPS. Remember this next time you feel like booking a holiday to Erdoğan’s Turkey.

    Screenshot of conversation with Laura where she sends me a link to a news report about another German citizen arrested in Turkey. Her note reads "you definitely can't go back to Turkey or Cyprus"
    3 replies 10 retweets 19 likes
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  10. Aug 16

    And we need a free press, not the behavioural advertising industry.

    A Free Press Needs You
    1 retweet 10 likes
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  11. Retweeted
    Aug 14

    "However, Facebook is refusing to release its transcript and tape of the gathering." Oh, I just *bet* they are!

    Cooperate Or Die: In Private Meeting, Top Facebook Exec Threatened News Outlets
    3 retweets 6 likes
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  12. Retweeted
    Aug 14

    New on my blog: 📌 Accessibility for Everyone Audiobook

    12 retweets 25 likes
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  13. Retweeted
    Aug 14

    New on my blog: 📌 Interview with Shannon Fisher about Accessibility For Everyone

    4 retweets 4 likes
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  14. Retweeted
    Aug 14

    cc/

    1 retweet 4 likes
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  15. Retweeted
    Aug 14

    This is scandalous. 'Creepy and wrong' sums it up. A perfect demonstration of what calls 'surveillance capitalism'

    4 replies 12 retweets 19 likes
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  16. Aug 14

    Folks: yes, venture capitalists and Silicon Valley gave us surveillance capitalism but now they say they’re sorry and want to give us the cure. Shouldn’t we just let them? Me: “Insanity is repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results.” – Narcotics Anonymous, 1981.

    1 reply 11 retweets 27 likes
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  17. Retweeted
    Aug 13
    Replying to

    Balzac, a famous novel writer here in France, wrote a lot about some family's history, dynasty-style novels. He said once: "Each great wealth is hiding a great crime" (translation's mine) Can't agree more.

    1 reply 4 retweets 12 likes
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  18. Retweeted
    Aug 13
    Replying to

    "Hackers don't break anything. They simply demonstrate that it was already broken."

    18 retweets 37 likes
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  19. Aug 13

    * The problem with surveillance capitalism – the panopticon built by venture capitalists and Silicon Valley. “Hackers” aren’t the problem; the problem is that these are surveillance devices by design. Amazon, Inc., having a microphone in your house is the problem.

    The problem with connected microphones in our houses: Hackers find exploitable vulnerabilities in Amazon Echo, turn one into a listening device
    4 replies 41 retweets 58 likes
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  20. Retweeted
    Aug 13

    My original column.

    1 reply 4 retweets 3 likes
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