Outside the Old Bailey in 2018, a reinvented Tommy Robinson flashed his perfect new teeth to 2,000 diehard supporters at a “free Tommy” rally on a stage that blocked the street.

Robinson was suddenly flush with US funds that transformed him from rightwing agitator to self-styled “citizen journalist”, with slick videos and a vast social media following that helped his Unite the Kingdom demonstration draw 110,000 protesters to the streets of London on Saturday.

Money from one man – US tech billionaire Robert Shillman – ties Robinson to a Who’s Who of far-right influencers with millions of followers online. Among them was US conservative activist Charlie Kirk, who was murdered in Utah last week.

Approximately 100,000 on a far right march in London. A grim new milestone in post-war political history, and one conventional politics has spent all summer cultivating. What, for instance, did the big brains in the Labour Party think was going to happen after tailing the extreme right on immigration, and saying the tiny band of fascist-led protests against asylum seekers - which were self-evident efforts at repeating the same kind of disorder we saw last year - "had a point"? This is the culmination of Keir Starmer's rancid approach to immigration, one that has, alongside blanket media coverage, legitimated and amplified Reform in the first instance, and now enabled mass far right street politics. Never mind the Peter Mandelson scandal, Labour MPs should be demanding his resignation for this catastrophe.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/36325152

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At least 25 people were arrested and 26 police officers were injured – including four who were seriously hurt – at Tommy Robinson’s “Unite the Kingdom” protest in London yesterday, the Metropolitan police said.
[…]
Business and trade secretary Peter Kyle was asked by Sky News’ Trevor Phillips this morning if the demonstration – organised by far-right activist Tommy Robinson – “disturbed” him.

Kyle said the number of people who turned out for the protest shows free speech is “alive and well” in the UK.

He explained:

"It doesn’t disturb me, because it’s actually proof that we live in a country where free speech, free association, is alive and well.

The bit that disturbs me is that when a minority go to an extreme and end up perpetrating violence against the police. That is unacceptable and those people should and will pay for it.

“The flag was waved quite a lot and I do want to make the point that the flag belongs to all of us,” Kyle added.

“That flag means a lot of different things to a lot of people, but it is about essential British and English values and principles.”

Direct link to ORG's briefing.

Over the past few months in particular, the Social Web Community Group has seen an increase in heated discussions online that have been arguing protocol superiority and creating conflict between ActivityPub and AT Protocol, or trying to promote one over the other. These discussions have generally not been productive, created contention within the community that stands in the way of collaboration, and been a hotbed for conflict, disagreements, and misinformation. There has often been significant biases exhibited within these conversations.

ActivtyPub in its current usage does make different design decisions to AT Protocol, but ActivityPub is not necessarily that different from AT Protocol: both are open social web protocols.

There is an entire section of the ActivityPub specification that isn't as well known or widely adopted but which, at a high level, provides fairly similar ideas to those emphasized within the AT Protocol community for separation between data, identity and applications. Recently, a taskforce within the Social Web Community Group has been established to advance what is now known as the ActivityPub API.

Whilst we may have our differences at present, over time those gaps will narrow, as we share a lot more in common than we have differences.

There does not have to be a “winning” protocol. We do not build a better open social web for everyone by fighting and arguing about protocol superiority. That is not how we achieve a better open social web. Instead, we must work together, cross-pollinate and share ideas, and participate within each other's communities with respect and mutual understanding. Arguing between us only emboldens those that seek to derail and destroy efforts to build an open social web.

The practice of collaboration outside of our own groups has a long history within the standards community, whether that is with competing companies working together on standards or protocols, or collaboration between different standards bodies like the W3C and IETF.

There has already been cross-pollination of ideas between the people working on ActivityPub and AT Protocol. For example, AT Protocol adopted an internet draft that was originally written to support the ActivityPub ecosystem, and projects within ActivityPub have adopted some ideas on content labeling and starter packs from the AT Protocol ecosystem.

Both ActivityPub and AT Protocol can and do co-exist. This co-existence is perhaps best emphasized by the outstanding work of Bridgy Fed project, which connects ActivityPub, AT Protocol, and other protocols together allowing for interoperability and community that crosses between protocols. If you wanted to summarise this letter on a t-shirt, it would be “People > Protocols > Platforms”.

This statement is a call for cooling the temperature of discussions and a reminder to be respectful of each other and the huge amount of work everyone is putting in to build a better open social web. We do not win by tearing each other down, which only emboldens and empowers those who do not want either protocol to succeed.

This statement was written following an initial discussion at this month's Social Web Community Group meeting, and has been reviewed by several members of the CG.

Mark Zuckerberg, a bankruptcy lawyer from Indiana, has filed a lawsuit against Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta.