It's possible Signal could stop distributing the app through the Play Store and Apple App Store within Canada. Signal is likely to shut off all servers they rent that are hosted inside of Canada at the very least.

In terms of them deactivating people's accounts registered with Canadian numbers that seems less likely to me.

Even if they potentially blocked Canadian IP addresses, Signal already has support for proxies built in and those are ran by diverse people throughout the world. Some individuals host them.

This isn't exactly the same since each situation with each country is different in terms of the law but Signal is banned in some countries such as Iran, Qatar, UAE and others already and people still use Signal by using Signal TLS proxies, VPNs, and other censorship circumvention tools such as Tor.

They didn't deactivate accounts after being banned and they still allow phone number registration in those countries.

For Android people could download the apk file from Signal's website instead of getting it from the Play Store at least.

https://signal.org/android/apk/

While we don't know with certainty what they will do in each situation the past may be an indicator of what they will do to a large extent. But Signal has never pulled out of a country voluntarily before as far as I know so it is uncharted territory.

I think the intentional deactivation of current accounts is unlikely to happen in this case with Canada.

Yeah that argument is so ridiculous.

You can buy lightly used phones on Swappa for a large discount even when we are talking about flagship phones. There are also situations where someone could be poor but have enough credit to get a phone financed with monthly payments that they can afford.

There are pre paid MVNOs in the US where you can get unlimited talk, text, and on device data, that also includes unlimited hotspot at fairly decent speeds (plus there are ways of bypassing hotspot speed caps, TetherFuseNet is an example open source app) for less than 30$ a month taxes and fees included. For about 30$ a month or so plans exist with QCI priority that are the same priority as premium post paid plans. I have known people who have used their unlimited hotspot as their only internet at home.

Just because some of these people making these types of comments may have a high cell phone bill does not mean everyone else does.

Matrix, it is an open standard and the reference server implementation along with some other server implementationa and the various popular clients are open source. The Element X client and the main fork of it called schildiChat both look a bit like Microsoft Teams. But there are other clients and a company could fork an existing client and customize it to suit their needs or even create a new one if they really wanted to spend the resources.

Yeah someone has to be paying for the phones and internet access, both mobile internet and or home internet or if they don't have a phone yet, the tablet , desktop or laptop with internet access. It's usually the parents paying for this stuff.

There are parental controls built into the Android builds of all the various mainstream manufacturers. The main exception might be for example small companies selling phones with custom Android OS distributions or people who install their own where parental controls are not built in, but that isn't what the vast vast majority of people are using let alone installing on their child's phone.

There are parental control options built into IOS too. They allow parents to setup a variety of controls.

https://families.google/familylink/

https://support.apple.com/en-us/105121

The following article from the Electronic Frontier Foundation cites various research about how a majority of social media use even by people under 13 is often done with parents knowledge and even direct help.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/01/congress-wants-hand-your-parenting-big-tech

Most Social Media Use By Younger Kids Is Family-Mediated

If lawmakers picture under-13 social media use as a bunch of kids lying about their age and sneaking onto apps behind their parents’ backs, they’ve got it wrong. Serious studies that have looked at this all find the opposite: most under-13 use is out in the open, with parents’ knowledge, and often with their direct help.

A large national study published last year in Academic Pediatrics found that 63.8% of under-13s have a social media account, but only 5.4% of them said they were keeping one secret from their parents. That means roughly 90% of kids under 13 who are on social media aren’t hiding it at all. Their parents know. (For kids aged thirteen and over, the “secret account” number is almost as low, at 6.9%.)

Earlier research in the U.S. found the same pattern. In a well-known study of Facebook use by 10-to-14-year-olds, researchers found that about 70% of parents said they actually helped create their child’s account, and between 82% and 95% knew the account existed. Again, this wasn’t kids sneaking around. It was families making a decision together.

A 2022 study by the UK’s media regulator Ofcom points in the same direction, finding that up to two-thirds of social media users below the age of thirteen had direct help from a parent or guardian getting onto the platform.

The typical under-13 social media user is not a sneaky kid. It’s a family making a decision together.

Respectfully, this is a bit more nuanced than that. There are free VPNs ran by non profits supported fully by donations. Yes somebody is paying for it but it's people donating to the services.

For example there is an open source application called Bitmask that has 2 VPN providers by default, Riseup VPN and the Calyx Institute.

You can download the Bitmask app itself or download the RiseupVPN app which is based on Bitmask but just pre configured to only use that single Riseup provider.

https://bitmask.net/

https://riseup.net/en/vpn

I just installed Windows 11 not too long ago (maybe 4 months ago) on a computer and it worked without even using the command to bypass it I am pretty sure. I didn't use Rufus or any special option prior to writing it to the flash drive. All I did was disconnect an ethernet cable and install and at some point it just gave me the option to bypass the creation of a Microsoft account. I remember there used to be a special username and password you could use that would bypass it too but I didn't use that as far as I can remember. I may have possibly tried entering random info until it failed enough times that it allowed me to do it but I'm not sure.

Idk why my experience is different from what some others are reporting. I am pretty sure I didn't have to put the command in or do anything too special other than disconnecting from the internet and maybe possibly trying a couple of times to login till it failed multiple times but I don't remember if I did that. Obviously since it would have been disconnected from the internet logins to a Microsoft account would not work anyway but it might have still asked me but I just remember at some point it just gave me the option to create a local only account.

I used Windows 11 Pro.

I didn't put in a product key when I installed idk if that would have made a difference but that's one aspect I can think of that might be possibly different from some people's installs so I figured I would at least mention that even if it probably makes no difference. I know Windows can read the product key from the motherboard but in my case I installed it one of my computers that was bought from a linux hardware vendor so it would not have come with anything like that. (I know blasphemy hehe but I needed Windows for something Windows specific that has anti virtual machine detection too and many of the computers in my house are from linux hardware companies to support the linux ecosystem).

Edit : So someone I know said that if you use Windows 11 Pro there is a way to use an option for setting up for work and a domain that it will prompt you to create a local account. Maybe that is what I ended up doing that made the difference that made it so easy to bypass the Microsoft account.

I have never used a Windows machine with a Microsoft account for my own personal use, only if it was somebody else's PC that already had it. I just keep it disconnected from the internet during setup and it eventually gives me the option to not use it with a Microsoft account.

There is a command to disable the account setup too but I have only used that once. The disconnecting from the internet trick works for me.

I mostly use GNU/Linux for my own use but on the rare occasion I setup Windows for someone else or need to use it, I just disconnect it / don't connect it to the internet before setup.

Edit:

The reason bypassing the forced account with up to date Windows 11 was still so easy for me is likely because I used the Pro edition and possibly may have used the setup for work feature when I installed it recently.

It's interesting you mention the Baby Shark thing. In Oklahoma there were some prison guards who forced multiple people at various times to stand handcuffed in a stress position for hours listening to Baby Shark for the purpose of torturing them. There was also other forms of physical abuse that happened.

The guards were arrested but were given 2 years of probation. But you as an average citizen get caught up in some war on drugs bullshit where you didn't even victimize anyone and your unlikely to get the same treatment in many cases, especially in some harsher states.

Former Oklahoma jail officers sued over 'Baby Shark' torture tactic are placed on probation

Christian Charles Miles and Gregory Cornell Butler Jr. pleaded no contest to misdemeanor cruelty to a prisoner

A federal civil rights lawsuit four inmates filed in 2021 accused Miles and Butler of using excessive force and discipline tactics described as "torture events."

Joseph Mitchell, said he was pulled from his cell in November 2019 and placed in a room where he was forced into a "standing stress position" for three to four hours while he was handcuffed behind his back, according to the lawsuit. Officers then played "Baby Shark" on repeat so loud "that it was reverberating down the hallways," it said.

Ja’Lee Foreman Jr., another inmate, said in the suit that he was not forced to listen to the song but was placed in a stress position and then kneed in the back and slammed into a wall by Miles. Foreman alleged that Miles spat on him as Butler laughed.

In addition to probation, Miles and Butler must complete 40 hours of community service, and they were fined $200 and ordered to pay $300 in victims’ compensation. They are also no longer allowed to work in law enforcement, the court records state.

Butler's attorney, Lance Phillips, said his client is "happy this matter is behind him." If Butler remains out of trouble while on probation, he will not have a misdemeanor conviction on his record, Phillips said Wednesday.

I have ARFID and struggle with low appetite in general. I somewhat frequently eat like the equivalent of 1 days worth of calories over like 2 or 3 days but I try my hardest not to have that happen. There are times where it has been 1 days worth of calories over more days to the point where I lost a dangerous amount of weight.

This whole ignorant boomer logic of "they will eat it if they are hungry enough" is just some bullshit these people say because they don't have the critical thinking skills to question things they have been taught by their parents. In some cases it can lead to significant health consequences for their children.

I know it isn't as simple as just saying you shouldn't feel embarrassed but you can't help that your having these struggles with eating. These people who say these comments like you were talking about on Facebook likely would not even be able to function as well as you are with the struggles you have. This would especially be the case if they somehow switched lives with you for a time but didn't have the coping skills you have been forced to develop over a lifetime of dealing with this. These people have limited empathy for other people's situations.

Does anyone who has been to a store where something like this has been implemented know if this is at least likely to help with accessibility such as say a button to make it read the price labels, maybe larger font options and or a QR code to scan or various other options like that etc?

I know this would likely vary by manufacturer of these digital price labels. But if they are going to be switching to them I would hope that at least a side benefit would be increased accessibility for customers with disabilities.

I did see a post on reddit talking about how the OP actually found them harder to read but that obviously depends on the person.

I saw something about how there will be an LED light that will light up to help store employees find items faster for tasks such as online ordering. I wonder if this will be something customers can use too?

https://aira.io/walmart-us-wide/#%3A%7E%3Atext=Walmart+today+officially+announced+they%2Cblack+pants%2C+and+purple+shirt.

I know Walmart recently launched free Aira access using a geofence. It is a visual interpreting service which uses your phones camera so that someone can help you shop if you have a visual disability. But it would be nice if these digital price tags had some extra options too for people who don't want to download that app or maybe cannot very easily because they have a phone such as a GNU/Linux phone where idk what the status is of Android compatibility layers or maybe even a dumbphone if they are someone who prefers that or are older for example.

It would just be nice if we at least got an accessibility benefit out of these digital tags too.

Invidious like the open source youtube frontend ? /joking

https://invidious.io/

I have been saving up for a router and wanted to support a company that sells devices that are compatible with as much open source software as possible.

This really sucks. If I had known this was going to happen randomly I would have prioritised saving up faster and just not spent it on other things. I had no idea I needed to prioritise this.

But like I say frequently about the US. It is a very prohibitionist country. You never know when the next thing you do or use will be criminalized or prohibited. Then you will be at risk of being arrested and in some cases even sent to a literal for profit private prison ran by a place like CoreCivic. It is fucked up.

Even if I were to get a router from a foreign manufacturer now, it likely won't be legal for me to actually use it. The FCC could at the very least fine somebody depending on how this order will be enforced.

There is also possibly going to be a risk of it being seized at the border.

Who knows how this will even be enforced since the vast vast majority of consumer routers are not even made in the US. I don't even know of one truly made in the US. But a router from a foreign open source focused company will likely be considered even more of a "foreign manufacturer".