Firefox will give users the option to disable AI features

22 December 2025

From a post on the Firefox for Web Developers Mastodon account:

Something that hasn’t been made clear: Firefox will have an option to completely disable all AI features. We’ve been calling it the AI kill switch internally. I’m sure it’ll ship with a less murderous name, but that’s how seriously and absolutely we’re taking this.

There’s no escaping AI, and that may not always be a bad thing, but it seems inevitable that web browsers of the future will eventually be like Altas, the ChatGPT/OpenAI browser. I don’t however like the idea of taking an existing browser, and fitting it out with AI functionality, as Mozilla intends to do.

As I wrote about two months ago, if Mozilla wants to release an AI browser, it should be separate from the existing Firefox browser. If people want to use an AI-powered version of Firefox, fine, they can do so. But if people don’t want that, it shouldn’t be foisted upon them. That’s probably thinking that’s a tad too simplistic however. The AI “kill switch” it will have to be.

Users may have to pay to post links on Facebook pages. Time to get a website

22 December 2025

Ivan Mehta, writing for TechCrunch:

Over the last week, several users have spotted Meta’s test, which impacts link posting. Social media strategist Matt Navarra noted that users part of the test can only post two links unless they pay for a Meta Verified subscription, which starts from $14.99 per month.

The proposed regime will apply to those who use professional mode on the social network.

Like many website owners, I can post as many links as I want to here, without the need to pay a cent to Meta, or be “verified” by them.

X moves to head-off claim on ‘abandoned’ Twitter branding

20 December 2025

Sarah Perez, writing for TechCrunch:

Elon Musk’s X is updating its Terms of Service to indicate it still lays claim to the “Twitter” trademark. The move to add this detail to the company’s terms follows an announcement from a Virginia-based startup, which recently filed an application to trademark the term “Twitter.”

No surprises there. Anyone hoping to obtain the rights to the Twitter trademark must know they face an uphill struggle to do so.

Former police officer warned of potential Bondi Beach mass shooting ten years ago

20 December 2025

Steve Buttel, a former NSW police officer, speaking to Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) reporters Lia Harris and Pablo Vinales:

A former NSW Police sergeant claims he repeatedly warned his superiors years ago that local officers would not be equipped to respond to an active-shooter attack in Bondi.

Between 2008 and 2016 Steve Buttel was based at Waverley police station, which was responsible for patrolling Bondi Beach as part of the Eastern Suburbs Police Area Command.

Mr Buttel told the ABC he informed his bosses “it was only a matter of time” before there would be a terror attack targeting the local Jewish community.

It’s horrifying to think, despite strict gun control laws in Australia, there were some police officers concerned a mass shooting event might occur one day at Bondi Beach.

Mastodon members prefer Linux operating systems

17 December 2025

The poll will probably be closed by now, but New York City based software developer Rafael Pérez was asking other Mastodon users what their preferred non-work operating system (OS) was.

Perhaps it will come as no surprise to learn that GNU Linux or UNIX OS’s, were, as of the time I type, favoured by sixty-two percent of respondents. This from over seven-thousand-two-hundred votes.

I was among that number as Linux is both my work and non-work OS. Apple OS’s were enjoying nearly twenty-five percent of the vote, while Microsoft offerings were coming in a distant third.

Obviously a poll on conducted on a social network may not be one-hundred scientific, but I think it says a lot about the OS preference of Mastodon members.

Copywriters who lost work to AI tell their stories

17 December 2025

Brian Merchant has been collecting stories from copywriters who have lost their jobs to AI powered technologies, as part of a series, AI Killed My Job, that he has been compiling this year.

I’m a writer. I’ll always be a writer when it comes to my off-hours creative pursuits, and I hope to eventually write what I’d like to write full-time. But I had been writing and editing corporate content for various companies for about a decade until spring 2023, when I was laid off from the small marketing startup I had been working at for about six months, along with most of my coworkers.

This is a constant worry to me, as a part time copywriter. To date the company I work for has succeeded in convincing clients that people are better at writing copy than AI is.

But how long that stays the case remains to be seen.

Australian gun laws set to be tightened following Bondi Beach shooting

16 December 2025

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has flagged more restrictions on gun ownership. At present, to legally possess a gun, a person must, among other things, be “fit and proper”, have a genuine reason for ownership, belong to a gun club, and undertake to store the weapons securely.

Chris Minns, the Premier of the Australian state New South Wales (NSW), where Sunday’s shooting took place, is considering recalling the state parliament, which is currently in recess for the year-end holidays, to enact further gun control measures in NSW.

One of the Bondi Beach perpetrators had held a gun licence, allowing him to own the weapons, for ten years. The person in question had six guns in his possession.

Reddit: the Australian social media ban is unconstitutional, in a way

15 December 2025

Social news aggregator Reddit has filed a lawsuit in the High Court of Australia, claiming the ban preventing Australians aged under sixteen using social media intrudes on free political discourse.

The Australian Constitution does not protect free speech as such. In fact, the document seems more concerned with matters pertaining to the Australian government, parliament, and judiciary. However, in 1992, the High Court found that an implied freedom of political communication exists.

The thing is, the social media ban doesn’t curtail this freedom for young Australian as such, it merely means they have to find other channels to express themselves. A personal website, or blog, is of course an option. But let’s see what the High Court of Australia has to say about the Reddit filing.

EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert, with 2001: A Space Odyssey vibes

15 December 2025

While making the Elvis biopic, which was released in 2022, Australian filmmaker Baz Luhrmann succeeded in finding unseen, but rumoured to exist, footage of American singer Elvis Presley.

The reels, located in a Warner Bros. archive in the US state of Kansas, featured much unused footage of Presley, originally recorded during the production of two documentaries made about him in the 1970’s. The found footage also contained interviews with Presley which apparently have not been heard before.

Combining the unseen footage and the interviews, Luhrmann has produced EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert. The documentary, though Luhrmann prefers to see it as a continuation of the Presley story, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival earlier this year, where it was reportedly received enthusiastically by audiences.

EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert will begin screening in cinemas from February 2026.

But how good is the trailer?

Numerous people killed in terrorist incident at Bondi Beach Australia

14 December 2025

Terrible news from Bondi Beach, this evening. As of the time I type, twelve people, including one of two perpetrators, are dead. Some sixteen people, including two police officers, have been injured.

Here’s hoping there are no further causalities.

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Australia, current affairs, Sydney

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