And yet despite this, Scotland, Britain and Europe still relies on America’s digital infrastructure on every level, which is a major problem not just for security, but for liberty itself. American social media and tech companies permeate our lives, Apple, Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, Meta and X run major parts of our lives but being American, they can, will, and have been used against us.

I needn’t remind people of the major roles Twitter has played in our landscape, or how Facebook has been used to manipulate politics. If major parts of infrastructure used by the people, businesses and government can be manipulated against us by the United States, then we may as well give Trump the keys to Number Ten. Even in our homes, computers running Windows 11 are sending screenshots to Microsoft’s servers every couple of seconds for “AI processing” under the Recall feature.

READ MORE: Making non-consensual sexual images on Grok to become criminal offence

However there is an alternative in free and open-source software (FOSS) and federated social media.

FOSS is software that is developed by volunteers, be them individuals or organisations, where the software (source code included) is free for anyone to use without interference from the developers. It is already being used everywhere, most servers and supercomputers run Linux and recently Linux on the desktop has seen massive growth due to Windows 11 being so terrible. Having software that we can fully control, be it on our desktop or self-hosted in Scotland, the UK, and Europe, is a billion and one times better than leaving so much of our digital infrastructure to the Americans.

On top of this, The Fediverse provides an alternative to the centralised, American-based social networks we see today.

The Fediverse is a collection of social media services called “instances” that can talk to other instances to form a wider social network, a little bit like how email works. The Fediverse already has a Twitter alternative in Mastodon, an Instagram alternative in Pixelfed, a Tiktok alternative in Loops, and a Reddit alternative in Lemmy and Piefed.

READ MORE: Keir Starmer issues eerie warning to Twitter/X amid Grok row

Would it not be better for our MPs or MSPs to have an account on an official government Mastodon instance, which could act as an alternative to the “Blue Tick”, than be at the whim of a eugenicist, racist, transphobe who uses his influence to manipulate people to the point of rioting?

People on other instances could easily follow them, allowing for announcements and statements to be released without a centralised service that can be manipulated to the whims of the American state or corporatocracy.

We are in very dangerous times but you wouldn’t believe it in the way we still rely on American technology.

Abbie Archer
via email

MANY longstanding ex-service SNP members have chewed the fat over a beer or two at conference, maundering about why Mr Brown, an ex-serviceman, is not more proactive in the defence debate, as we see this as a major weakness.

We are told “aye but, we have a policy, honest” and yet not one SNP high head yin has made clear what it is, which leaves you thinking, it is another back-of-a-fag-packet policy just like the wishy-washiness over currency? Why all the secrecy?

“We have to see what dregs we get from the UK Royal Navy/RAF/Army on independence before we can decide” is not a strategy, it is a co- out. It would also be reassuring to our future allies if they knew what a Scottish defence force would look like, so here is my pitch.

READ MORE: Questions the SNP have to answer on independence and defence

The nuclear deterrent will go from Scotland. Scotland’s navy will be based around a squadron of 12 Type 26 and 31 frigates, a beefed-up squadron of 12 deep-sea-capable patrol boats and six conventional submarines.

The future air force will focus on the maritime reconnaissance role along with a squadron of 12 Grippen fighter/bomber variants, Wildcat helicopters (in support of the frigates) and Merlins in the SAR/antisubmarine/army support role.

The current Royal Regiment of Scotland will become the Scottish Army and formed as a small but flexible, modern, light armoured division, operating drones and cyber defence with a marine support and airborne capability.

Where did I get this idea?

Well I looked at what Norway has done and it appears to me Scotland’s needs are compatible, in the most part, and affordable at 2.5% of GDP as an independent nation state.

All of the surface ships required will be built in Scotland at Scotstoun, Rosyth or, for the patrol boats, small yards around Scotland – aye and maybees even Fergusons. This will also bring long-term maintenance contracts to these Scottish yards in support of the fleet.

The rest of the kit is bought off the shelf, not with all the bells and whistles, but scoped to meet Scotland’s specific requirement for defence and inter-operability with the nearly-upon-us European Defence Treaty when Donald Trump annoys the EU and other allies, like Canada, for the last time, terminating Nato.

Peter Thomson
Kirkcudbright