@Hubi Grok knows all too well.

@Blaze @morrowind Unpopular opinion: Facebook until around 2016 or so (whenever it added stories for the 1st time) was the best social network in terms of UI and concept. It's just Zuck that decided to just copy everyone, every single feature, cram everything in a single website and gobble all user data (and now he's also supporting Trump and free speech). Oh, and the ads. The stupid ads getting you everywhere.

@kek no, democracy is not when you ban your opponents. Democracy is when you sanction contenders if they don't respect the rules of the game. When they declare 0 spending in online campaigns, when they don't properly label their political propaganda material as such (even when the law requests it), when they do not disclose their spending but they spend huge amounts of cash coming from far-right affiliates and other sketchy sources, when they threaten with riots or outright coups involving mercenaries that fought in Congo alongside Wagner, this is when the rules of the game are not respected.

I would be more concerned for democracy if we would have only two political forces and barring one from running would make the other one the only choice, than barring a sketchy guy from entering the race.

Just fyi, we had 11 candidates this election and we had 3 debates last week, where all of them were invited.

@Kennystillalive we sadly did. Many people voted for that guy and we, the others that are deeply attached to the EU and it's values are quite afraid of the possible outcome. Fortunately there is hope.

@Anarchotron666

I quit Meta because of tech bro fascism, and hated Twitter even before it was X because, let’s face it - nobody has ever changed their opinion on anything because of a Twitter conversation (I know I’m exaggerating, to get my point across). I was in Reddit for a few weeks [...]

I'm assuming you previously used Facebook mostly, right? If so, there's also a Facebook alternative called Friendica, with pretty much the same core functionality as Facebook (sans Marketplace). Besides that, you can also format your posts and comments, add titles to them, get a dislike button and customize your experience more than you could do there. Plus you can also follow Lemmy communities straight from there, as well as Mastodon accounts, Flipboard publications etc.

Check out friendica.world to try it out.

@Hotznplotzn I can totally understand the point of view of left-leaning people - in a world where fascism literally rose back from the ashes and is threatening the whole free world from the inside, a law like this seems just... odd?!?

However, keep in mind the fact that here in Eastern Europe communism caught a totalitarian shape, with regimes in Soviet puppet states systematically breaking human rights and suppressing political opposition. Protests were not allowed, freedom of expression was not guaranteed, and the political elite of the former regime was systematically destroyed.

Even after the Iron Curtain fell, former members of the communist apparatus managed to maintain power, one way or another, and sometimes even their Moscow links. The only way we truly managed to beat them were at the polls, and even there, barely, aided by the big cities and the diaspora in the West.

Here in Romania for example, FSN, and later PSD, successfully managed to take over the entire territorial network of the former communist party. So it was an easy win for them for over 30 years.

If such a law was passed in my country, I don't think it would have any effect on the unions, as they do not use any communist insignia or whatnot. I think it is rather a way of bonding a permanent rapture with the past, by not allowing bad faith actors to make an apology of totalitarianism.

/my 2c

@witty_username yesterday. There was a huge gathering in Bucharest and we marched from the University Square (the place of the bloodiest clashes in the 1989 revolution) all the way to the Victoria Square, where the largest protests hapened almost 10 years ago, when corrupt politicians like Dragnea were seizing the state institutions.

There were also gatherings in Iași, Timișoara, Cluj and other cities.

@Wizard_Pope Cancelled for good. The first round will start again in March, and all the candidates will have to go all the way to gathering the support signatures (which is the 1st step). We already have one new candidate - Nicușor Dan, the incumbent mayor of Bucharest, which just announced he'll run yesterday evening.

@FundMECFSResearch

@Steve It does sound geeky, but yes, it is technically correct to say about a year that is the hottest year on record.

And the fact you pointed that every single year becomes the hottest year on record makes it even more dangerous and shows that we need to take proper measures.

@Sunshine Hello, Romanian here:

• Anything made by Kandia dulce such as the ROM chocolate (literally a rum chocolate bar);
• Drinks made by Merlin's Beverages, like Pop Cola - check out https://merlinsbeverages.com/home
• The Pegas bicycles (sorry, I couldn't find an English version of the website, but if you go to BICICLETE you will see all their products)
• Dacia (owned by Renault) is a well-known car manufacturer in Europe
• The Csiki Sor beer

Also, if you stumble across any Romanian store, ask them if they got mici meat. They're basically sausage without the membrane. You fry them on the barbecue and eat them with mustard and optionally with a beer on the side :)

Additionally, you can also cook some sarmale, mămăligă or papanași really easily.

@Bienenvolk there's quite a strong propaganda, coming from the traditional parties (PSD - Social Democrats and PNL - National Liberals) claiming, but later taken by the extremist parties, demonizing him because he said he doesn't say I love you to his children (or something like that), because he's not married to his partner despite having children and living with her for so long, the fact that he's still living in a rented house at his age etc.

Most notably, he is a friend of a man called Matei Păun, who had business with Russia and Belarus and held some questionable views a while ago, but he emphasized repeatedly that he doesn't share his views. And George Simion is a persona non-grata in both Ukraine and Moldova, and pushed a lot of anti-Ukraine and anti-Moldovan narratives, so this fact was irrelevant as well.

He pretty much has the appearance of a modest man, just a regular guy doing every day stuff, driving a 20-year-old Renault Clio and living with his family, taking care of his children, something along the lines.

I'm personally following him since a while, and what I noticed was that in the previous campaign for the city hall of Bucharest, even when his opponents attacked him, they did it in a somewhat respectful way (don't know how to explain it). So he does seem like a man who gets respect and decency without explicitly asking for it.

Imo I think we'll have some interesting 5 years ahead.

@federalreverse Thanks for the context. Indeed, it was a nazi group and a highly overlooked one.

@khannie Lidl is better for existing in my country.

@Fitik So the only chance of Diaspora to survive is for Friendica to grow. Just like it happened with Mastodon back in the day, and I could see anything I wanted.

@Sunshine @Emperor

@Zero22xx There are multiple Friendica instances. You can check them in the Friendica Directory (in the servers section) or other more global lists of Fediverse servers like the-federation.info, FediDB etc. Friendica has groups too, but besides the !helpers@forum.friendi.ca (or probably even the !fediversenews@venera.social one) they're pretty much lacking activity (you're still free to post anyway, there are plenty of them).

If you need some help, you can also post on the former one by creating a regular post and mentioning the group with "!" or "@". I have also created a megathread with various resources and a small Q&A (it's actually vice-versa tbh, since the Q&A took the most space on it, but I digress) in order to get yourself started: https://libranet.de/...

@maegul

@akesi_seli Romanian here. In my opinion, no! not at all. We had much to gain from EU membership, not just financially. The fact that we also had some foreign institutions overwatching us when politicians tried to alter the rule of law weighed in a lot in our internal politics, and made the difference between democracy and dictatorship. We had the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism which helped the National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA) jail some high profile politicians like Adrian Năstase, Elena Udrea and many others.

Laura Codruța Kovesi, former head of DNA, is now the first European Prosecutor, due to her remarkable activity in heading the institution. She now has the power to investigate every corruption scheme in all member states, at a European level, and is actively aiding Moldova and Ukraine on corruption issues. Europe gained a lot because of her in this regard.

And stop asking if Europe has been expanding eastwards too soon. We have the same issues as you do: Russian meddling in the elections, supporting pro-Russian far-right candidates etc. What's the difference between Georgescu and that AfD member who said some SS members are not criminals? None. We are struggling with fascism as much as you do. And we are supporting NATO and EU especially in high numbers because we know it will help us get a better future for our country. Without you we are doomed!

@Joker

@chonglibloodsport well, for them it is their country. They had all the right in the world to return and fight for a change just as they had all the right to stay inside their adoptive countries in a relative safety (provided the Kremlin would not assassinate them there). They chose the former, probably thinking they would make a bigger impact inside the country. Well, turns it wasn't such a great idea.

@Five

@CAVOK Fuck...

@Zero22xx No worries! Whatever fits you best! :D I'm happy you found a place around here!

Hope Zuck doesn't create another streisand with this one, like he did with Pixelfed (or maybe I hope he does, idk)

I'll have a shot with you too. Or maybe two shots. Or maybe whatever gets me to hospital in coma (jk).

@Skyline Lime had it (probably still has it). I used to rent a Lime scooter just by choosing "try app". I would then enter the scooter code manually, and I could freely ride how much I wanted. It worked all the time. I'm no longer using this feature, as I have a new phone with a bigger storage, where I installed the Uber app, so whenever I would try the same way it would prompt me to use the Uber app to unlock the scooter.

@fne8w2ah