#BigTech
Fantastic excerpt from @pluralistic 's new book, in The Idler this month, talking about the big tech companies' use of swathes of law to prevent interoperability, and the pain of 'switching costs' - emotionally and professionally. #BigTech #socialnetworkstructure #socialnetwork #SocialMedia
If that's piqued your interest and if you can make it to #LosAngeles, come by #ChevaliersBooks this Wednesday, where Brian and I are having a joint book-launch (I've just published #TheInternetCon, my Luddite-adjacent "#BigTech Disassembly Manual"):
https://www.eventbrite.com/o/chevaliers-books-8495362156
Where is all this labor unrest coming from? Well as #SteinsLaw has it, "anything that can't go on forever will eventually stop."
23/
White House could force cloud companies to disclose AI customers
> The provision would direct the Commerce Department to write rules forcing cloud companies like #Microsoft, #Google, and #Amazon to disclose when a customer purchases computing resources beyond a certain threshold. The order hasn’t been finalized and specifics of it could still change.
https://www.semafor.com/article/09/22/2023/white-house-could-force-cloud-companies-to-disclose-ai-customers #AI #BigTech #US
#Google #Search #GoogleSearch #BigTech: "What is Google Search in 2023? A site that started 25 years ago as a list of blue links has mutated beyond recognition. Today, Google isn’t just an index to help sort through the endless libraries of online information—it’s a reference guide for the physical world too, having mapped most corners of the Earth and cataloged its contents. It is part encyclopedia and part predictive engine, guessing what you might be typing or thinking, serving information based on what others before you typed. It is Moviefone and the stock ticker, a well-trained chatbot, an image repository, a shopping mall.
It is also, like the modern web, creaking under the weight of its enormous size and an infinitely renewable supply of content, both human- and AI-generated. Unlike its streamlined, efficient former self, Google Search is now bloated and overmonetized.
It’s harder now to find answers that feel authoritative or uncompromised; a search for healthy toddler snacks is overloaded with sponsored product placement, prompts to engage with “more questions” (How do you fill a hungry toddler? “Meat and Seafood. Bring on the meat!”), and endless, keyword-engorged content. Using Google once felt like magic, and now it’s more like rifling through junk mail, dodging scams and generic mailers."
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2023/09/google-search-size-usefulness-decline/675409/
These confessions by @yoyoel the former head of trust and safety at #Twitter are shocking. Unbelievable. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/18/opinion/trump-elon-musk-twitter.html?unlocked_article_code=1HoG6kGj-wc7HFj4qpBK0IY8UV7jFyMu5Q_mTnKMVMRh5utKyx9mveRVfrwIZN0hCOqb4pn7Ctm557z5ohOZ0A2PL5mUAJ_QnjRj-gktjJVmVPZH3Bwp1g4fBZUTCSl8U1L6dEzMhQPErCp6GZuRKQwfGX8UcYeSmNj745HjIDEvBbb1JdCjbmkUkuh2cvSbUlDmI95XudLGDXrS272cqm3_9NKP6_1jn4BagQpDExgcXVU3a-oVlRzk2E-9Ke4Es4g9BgvNDejz7mV3lCfwqCG68FffySkiV8sE8IU44vhOCW61KmP_Z3AmZWF_5paGSyQhQVZmywG1z51tb15KXX0S&smid=url-share #BigTech #TwitterFiles #HumanRights #Musk
#UE #Google #AdTech #BigTech #DataProtection #Netherlands: "Google is facing class-action style litigation in the Netherlands which accuses the adtech giant of breaching European privacy laws. It’s demanding Google stops tracking and profiling consumers and is also seeking compensation for what it dubs “large-scale privacy violations” of the European Union’s data protection regime.
The representative action, which has been filed with the Amsterdam District Court, is being brought by two not-for-profits: The Foundation for the Protection of Privacy Interests (FPPI) and the Dutch Consumers’ Association (aka Consumentenbond).
More than 82,000 consumers have signed up to join the claim since it was announced back in May, per the pair."
https://techcrunch.com/2023/09/12/google-dutch-adtech-privacy-damages-suit/
#USA #DoJ #Google #Antitrust #BigTech: "The US Department of Justice has removed public access to emails, charts and internal presentations from Alphabet Inc.’s Google that had come out as evidence in its landmark antitrust lawsuit against the tech titan.
Google had challenged the government’s posting of the documents online, and the court was sympathetic to its concerns. The result: a trial much more difficult for the public to follow than the similarly monumental and widely watched antitrust case against Microsoft Corp. in the 1990s.
The trial, which is expected to last 10 weeks, is the biggest legal reckoning for a big tech company since then. With all the exhibits and evidence unearthed for discussion, it’s also a rare look at the inner workings of one of the most influential businesses of the modern era."
On the first day of hearings in major U.S. lawsuit against Google for illegally creating a search engine monopoly, the company was accused of billion-dollar agreements with companies such as Apple and Samsung.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/sep/13/google-internet-search-monopoly-antitrust-trial
Join @CJL4News, @openmarkets, @newsalliance on 9/27 to mobilize around policies to protect news & democracy from the monopoly platforms of the digital age. Tune in or join us in DC. #futureofnews #BigTech https://www.journalismliberty.org/publications/event-protecting-news-to-preserve-democracy
Gabriel Weinberg of #DuckDuckGo said that #Google’s deals to make its search engine the default on browsers and other platforms blocked its ability to compete effectively https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/21/technology/google-antitrust-duckduckgo.html #BigTech #Antitrust
Noticed this news late:
#EU is hitting #BigTech hard. Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, ByteDance, Meta, Microsoft were designated as “gatekeepers”, for controlling the operating systems and online markets we use, and have 6 months to comply with the rules set forth by the Digital Markets Act.
And those rules, oh my 🫢
https://social.network.europa.eu/@EU_Commission/111017787528870307
Julgamento: Google tenta barrar acesso a documentos, diz site
#JulgamentoDoGoogle #Julgamento #Google #BigTech #Antitruste #Pro
The #Climate Action Against #Disinformation Coalition (#CAAD) has just released a doucument called:
CLIMATE OF MISINFORMATION:
RANKING BIG TECH
SEPTEMBER 2023
If you’re leading the industry with 12 out of possible 21 points, I’d say that’s an F all around. Nothing laudable about any of this. #BigTech
https://caad.info/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Climate-of-Misinformation.pdf
#Canada #C18 #Media #Journalism #News #BigTech: "5. The government’s estimates from the law are now more than 50% higher than they were less than one year ago. No other country in the world has established what amounts to a 4% link tax. In fact, the 4% figure was never discussed at committee in Canada.
6. The effect of the news link blocking in Canada has led to smaller and innovative services laying off staff or stopping all new hiring. Some report losing as much as 50% of their website traffic.
7. The CRTC has established a timeline for it to address Bill C-18 regulations that stretch into 2025. In fact, there can be no mandatory bargaining under the law until certain CRTC regulations are concluded, which it says will not happen until late 2024 or early 2025.
8. News Media Canada, the lead lobbyist for Bill C-18, has now told the government that it wants the “temporary” support measures such as the Labour Journalism Tax Credit extended and expanded. The group is seeking government tax credits equal to 35% of labour costs. When combined with the roughly 35% envisioned by Bill C-18 (in the unlikely event that both Internet companies reach agreements), the groups wants 70% of news costs paid for government or through government regulation."
The man who drove #EU #DSA #bigtech regulation: “At the beginning, when I started this, I had almost everyone against me. Some member states, including the biggest of them – you can imagine who it is – were not happy. The US was not happy that we were doing this. All the platforms, each of them, tried to lobby me; they were trying to lobby everyone to stop us.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/20/eu-to-recruit-schoolyard-guardians-to-promote-new-laws-to-fight-online-harms
Project & letter by many NGOs in the US:
‘It’s time to ban surveillance advertising.
https://www.bansurveillanceadvertising.com/coalition-letter
#tech #privacy #dataprotection #surveillance #bigtech #law #politics
This such a fantastic and timely discussion.
https://jimruttshow.blubrry.net/cory-doctorow-2/
#interoperability #bigtech #historyofcomputing #intellectualproperty #copyright #fairuse #federation #moderation #socmed #socialmedia
Exemplo de como suporte corporativo 💸️ pode deixar mais a desejar do que uma comunidade engajada.
Uma pena, pois aparentemente o legado da Sun na Oracle é preservado por esta ao manter o #OpenJDK, base do meu ganha-pão por muitos anos, e estamos estudando implantar algumas VMs com OracleLinux no lugar do descontinuado CentOS, para sustentarem o proprietário banco de dados dessa #BigTech usado por alguns sistemas terceiros.
Ainda bem que nossos principais são 🐘️ #PostgreSQL com as 4 liberdades.
Big day for UK response to #disinformation….
Online Safety Bill: Crackdown on harmful social media content agreed https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-66854618 #onlinesafetybill #bigtech #socialmedia
🟢 Listen also to our latest Böll·Europe Podcast episode "Overheated: how climate misinformation goes viral on #socialmedia", with experts Ana Romero Vicente (EU DisinfoLab) & Jennie King (Institute for Strategic Dialogue) 🎧▶️ https://eu.boell.org/en/boell-europe-podcast-10
#ClimateWeek2023 #UNGA78 #DSA #BigTech #AI #ClimateAmbitionSummit @Zora @alexandrageese @GreensEP
🟢 How is #misinformation distorting #climate science & fact-based policy-making? How is this fuelling an #digital outrage economy? Are big #platforms doing enough? Read a 🆕 research by EU DisinfoLab's Ana Romero-Vicente ➡️ https://eu.boell.org/en/factsheet-platforms-climate-misinformation
#ClimateWeek2023 #UNGA78 #DSA #BigTech #AI #ClimateAmbitionSummit @Zora @alexandrageese
We need an FCC for Big Tech.
“ #BigTech giants exploit people’s data, invade Americans’ privacy, and crush competition. The #tech industry has shut down every attempt to regulate it or impose liability on it.
Enough is enough. We cannot let a handful of unelected Big Tech #billionaires govern our lives and govern our #democracy.” -Senator Elizabeth Warren #Agreed
https://www.vox.com/technology/2023/9/14/23870526/elizabeth-warren-digital-consumer-protection-commission-big-tech
#BioSurveillance has never looked better…
”Fitbit's radically redesigned app is ready for public consumption” https://www.engadget.com/fitbits-radically-redesigned-app-is-ready-for-public-consumption-171433809.html
#Health
#HealthTech
#DigitalHealth
#Google
#Alaphabet
#FitBit
#Privacy
#Sureveillance
#SurveillanceCapitalism
#Wearables
#BigTech
New Privacy Badger Prevents Google From Mangling More of Your Links and Invading Your Privacy
This is all of us, all western media, and the recruitment is for a myriad of topics, social and political, many control surfaces (red, blue, etc)...
You train it by using #bigtech ...
So #Twitter apparently has sneaky collaborator settings. You know, in case you’re ashamed of paying Elon #Musk. #x #socialmedia #bigtech
Please repost for visibility, so I can find people to follow. Like for me to take a look at your profile.
Likes/Interests: #Technology #OpenSource #FreeSoftware #FOSS #FLOSS #Fediverse #OnlineFreedom #Privacy #Anonymity #Anonymous #InfoSec #CyberSecurity #Manjaro #Linux #Science #Socialism #MultipolarWorld #Programming #Rust #Golang #RetroGaming #SelfHosted #TechNews #Matrix #Anime #Hentai #Futurology #AI #Singularity #Fitness #Health #Collapse #ClimateCrisis #Audiobooks #Books #Fanfiction #Conspiracy #CriticalThinking #DataHoarding #Piracy #FileSharing #Meshnet #Decentralized #Distributed #P2P #PeerToPeer #IPFS #Zeronet #Freenet #I2P #Tor
Dislikes/Disinterests: #Music #Memes #Cats #Dogs #Nazis #CIA #NATO #UsEmpire #Oligarchy #Plutocracy #Kleptocracy #Imperialism #Fascism #Racism #Capitalism #Billionaires #Woke #Wokeism #Liberals #Democrats #Republicans #Conservatives #BigTech #ClosedSource #Microsoft #Discord #Copyright #Censorship #WesternMedia #MaintreamNews #OfficialPropaganda #Surveillance #PoliticalCorrectness #SurveillanceCapitalism #DRM #DataMining #FakeNews #Misinformation #Disinformation #EchoChamber #FilterBubble #CorporateMedia #Consumerism #Materialism #Overconsumption #PlannedObsolescence #FastFashion #Waste #EnvironmentalDegradation #Gentrification #Inequality #Neoliberalism #Globalization
Best to worst: #fopnu #nicotine+ ( #soulseek ) #aMule ( #edonkey2000 #ed2k ) #EiskaltDC++ ( #dcpp ) #gnutella #Shareaza #qBittorrent ( #BitTorrent #torrent )
#5yrsago My closing #DecentralizedWebSummit keynote: “#BigTech’s problem is Big, not Tech” https://decentralizedweb.net/videos/keynote-cory-doctorowbig-techs-problem-is-big-not-tech/
#5yrsago Your life will be better if you turn off #PushNotifications (and all notifications) https://www.vice.com/en/article/7xjb79/turn-off-push-notifications
#5yrsago 30 years after #cyberpunk, #Japan is still the (greying, insular, shrinking, climate-wracked) future https://offramp.sciarc.edu/articles/a-slow-utopia
7/
#AI #USA #China #AIPolicy #BigTech #RevolvingDoor #Lobbying #Google: "In his previous comments to Congress on AI, Schmidt has delivered a relatively simple message: The US needs to keep both public and private money flowing to innovative companies to counter China’s technological advancements. Behind his testimony, he has complex layers of connections to drive that message home.
There’s the Special Competitive Studies Project, a private think tank he founded in 2021 and funded with an initial $2 billion. Located roughly a mile from the Pentagon and modeled on a Cold War-era initiative, SCSP focuses on how AI and other emerging technologies could upend the US economy and national security. It has sent experts this year to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee and advise the House committee studying the US’s “strategic competition” with China. At the think tank’s emerging technology summit later this month, Schmidt and his associates will once again share the stage with senior Biden administration officials.
Then there’s Schmidt Futures, his initiative to support scientists and entrepreneurs, some of whom have gone on to work for governments around the world. Politico reported last year that Schmidt Futures indirectly paid the salaries of some White House science office employees.
And Schmidt himself has been on high-profile advisory committees under the past three presidential administrations, including the National Security Commission on AI — mandated by Congress — which he led from 2019 to 2021."
#Luddites #Neoluddism #Tech #BigTech: "I test drove the first-generation Tesla Roadster. I once lived on Soylent powder shakes for a month. My Twitter account is almost old enough to drive. I wrote a book about the iPhone.
Also, I’m a Luddite.
That’s not the contradiction that it might sound like. The original Luddites did not hate technology. Most were skilled machine operators. In the early days of the Industrial Revolution, what they objected to were the specific ways that tech was being used to undermine their status, upend their communities and destroy their livelihoods. So they took sledgehammers to the mechanized looms used to exploit them.
It is that spirit that I’ve come to appreciate in the age of tech monopolies and generative artificial intelligence. The kind of visionaries we need now are those who see precisely how certain technologies are causing harm and who resist them when necessary."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/09/18/luddites-social-technology-visionaries/
81% of Americans support banning #bigtech from collecting people’s personal information and using it to target them with #surveillance ads.
Another attempt in the US to introduce legislation to #BanSurveillanceAdvertising 🎉
Let's see if they can be the pioneers instead of Europe this time.
Addendum 10
See also addendae 3-5
Ultrarich Techies Want to Build a City f. Scratch. What Could Go Wrong?
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/17/opinion/solano-county-flannery-associates-billionaires-build-cities.html
Mysterious company spent $800 million to buy thousands of acres of San Francisco Bay Area land
People behind deals a who’s who of tech industry
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/25/business/land-purchases-solano-county.html
#oligarchy #meritocracy #plutocracy #DefundBillionaires #WealthInequality #BigTech #corporations #DefundCorporations #inequality #neofascism #neoliberalism #democracy #California #PeterThiel
At NefariousSocial, we are ahead of the Web3 curve, not only monetizing every single Internet transaction but also everything your senses perceive. #Disruption #BigTech #Nefarious
:promoted: Promoted
#AI and You: #BigTech Says AI Regulation Needed, @MS Takes On #Copyright Risks
https://www.cnet.com/tech/computing/ai-and-you-big-tech-says-ai-regulation-needed-microsoft-takes-on-copyright-risks/#ftag=CADf328eec
Als je ziet hoe #BigTech maar ook #BigFinance in beweging komen op het gebied van digitale identeit en digitale wallets, dan zou je eigenlijk heel erg voor een democratisch gecontroleerde europese digitale identeit en wallet moeten zijn, ipv daar weerstand tegen bieden zoals sommigen doen. #EU #wallet #eIDAS #politiek
https://www.ft.com/content/d6322590-0520-459b-93d8-1387f4c0f147
Time to nuke the #BigTech #DataFarms And #ServerClusters from orbit.
It's the only way to be sure.
"""
There are 82 operational data centres in Ireland, 77% of which are the big tech hyperscalers, and they demand 18% of Ireland’s grid supply on a daily basis (as compared to the European-wide 2.7%).
"""
That's a crazy number, 18% of electricity supply in a country going towards data centers.
#BigTech #Oligopólios #GAFAM #RedesSociais: "Olha, a primeira parte da resposta é que nós ainda vivemos em democracias. Ainda temos espaços democráticos para dizer que elas estão causando danos sociais e têm que ser reguladas.
Você poderia dizer que, há cem anos, a empresa US Steel era muito poderosa. O bilionário John Rockefeller era muito poderoso. Assim como a indústria do petróleo. Mas nós conseguimos regular com base em legislação anti-truste. Então, nós podemos fazer isso.
Mas há outro elemento: hoje, a tecnologia do Google e do Facebook não são exclusivas nem estão protegidas por direitos de patente. Qualquer bom engenheiro, qualquer bom graduado em Ciência da Computação, poderia criar sua própria plataforma.
Então, a ameaça de dizer ao Google “se você não jogar de acordo com nossas regras, saia”, é uma ameaça poderosa. E vocês podem fazer ainda melhor criando uma plataforma brasileira, regulamentada dentro do Brasil, e talvez administrada em parte pelo governo, talvez em parte pelo setor privado. Aí os lucros irão para o Brasil, não para os EUA…
Portanto, acho que seria parte de uma boa política industrial criar esses mecanismos. Dizer: se você não vai jogar de acordo com nossas regras, você tem que sair. E temos a capacidade tecnológica para criar nosso próprio setor de tecnologia. E isso, na verdade, seria bom para a economia brasileira."
The world's most hated art style
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOom5YYv1qQ
CW: terrorism, war, natural disaster, police brutality, racism, suicide, cancer, death
#Illustration #Design #Art #BigTech #Liberalism #Woke #Representation #LGBT #Trans #Capitalism #Facebook #Buck #Apple #Google #Slack #Corporate #Alegria #fuckalegria #CorporateMemphis #ArtDeco #FlatDesign #FlatStyle #MaterialDesign
#Marx #Marxism #Capitalism #BigTech #AI #Automation: "The tech industry is structured for groupthink. It needs a perpetual supply of shiny new paradigms to impel new waves of investment. Generative AI seems to be the latest one. Still, there is more substance to generative AI than to cryptocurrency or the metaverse, which were the most recent candidates for the next new thing. Crypto never managed to become anything more than a casino, and the metaverse barely exists. By contrast, generative AI has all sorts of obvious use cases. It also has a “wow factor” that helps get the blood and capital flowing. ChatGPT, Midjourney, and the like may not signal the imminent arrival of an artificial superintelligence—I have my doubts—but they do demonstrate real technical sophistication of the kind that we didn’t see in, say, NFT apes.
As for what this shift means for worker struggles, it is important to note that generative AI is a labor-intensive technology. The data on which AI systems are trained needs to be sorted and labeled by humans. The outputs also need to be evaluated, especially to prevent AI interfaces from engaging in racist outbursts or other undesirable behavior. Most of the people who do this work are poorly paid; some are starting to organize. In May, a group of more than 150 Nairobi-based workers who helped to create ChatGPT and who maintain Facebook and TikTok voted to form a union. This is the sort of struggle that deserves the close and careful attention of journalists and organizers. AI tends to be presented in popular discourse as quite abstract, but at root it’s profoundly industrial, and the working conditions of the people turning its cranks can be downright Dickensian."
https://www.nybooks.com/online/2023/09/16/a-marx-for-all-seasons/
I think it would do us all a lot of good if we freely admitted to things we had got wrong.
My #meaculpa is that in the mid 2010s I didnt care about #BigTech harvesting our data. All I thought was "I don't care - who pays attention to ads anyway?"
Please feel free to jump into this thread and share things you got wrong!
#politics
#disinformation
#propaganda
#IAdmitIWasWrong
3/
In attesa di @quinta (con mascherina) e Vittorio Bertola per Internet fatto a pezzi. Sovranità digitale, nazionalismi e big tech al #PordenoneLegge 👍
@serapath @bengo @evan PS. The *Big Web* is hostile to peer to peer. The Small Web *is* (or at least will be, once it’s a thing) peer to peer.
Here is an interesting piece about some possible impacts that AI might have on online communities.
Shown here is one that I feel has been a problem for many years:
"... everything new posted online is created by a machine or by someone looking to turn a profit."
Although I do occasionally find other voices online, big social media has been very effective in silencing too many of them. Their algorithms-tuned-for-profit and use of dark patterns has made it increasingly difficult to hear the helpful voices over the ugliness and nonsense.
And we've allowed them to improperly use Section 230 as a shield to protect them from responsibility for the harms they have knowingly created.
🌐 https://techpolicy.press/will-ai-degrade-online-communities/
#SocialMedia #AI #Prosocial #Section230 #Law #BigTech #Technology @sociology @law
As usual, Tutemic has an enlighting and surprising take on the Unity game engine controversy - why we must force them to walk this back a 100%, or were all gonna pay dearly in the future.
https://youtu.be/TlCpqLV4W8I?si=oehH_A5CoRITd51e
#Unity #UnityEngine #gaming #tech #future #surveillance #privacy #business #bigTech #protest #Tutemic
“So regardless of the final verdict, the facts that come out at trial will help shape the future direction our elected leaders and judges take in addressing our increasingly monopolistic order. The point is, there’s a lot of bullshit in politics, but this trial is the big one, where the debates over big business that have gone on for years meet the law.”
The trial “is as much about how the public and members of Congress understand the trial as it is the legal outcomes themselves.”
“In other words, this trial isn’t just important because of the potential outcome, but also because the public and lawmakers are paying close attention. We’re going to learn a lot about how the internet itself was shaped, advertising, the coercion and power plays…, …deals between Google & Apple to divide up the world…."
“The rumor is Google is putting together a war room with dozens of PR professionals to spin the outcome, and I’ve heard from reporters that they are being lavished with attention like never before.”
The https://www.thebignewsletter.com hired a reporter to attend the trial and provide daily coverage:
#BigTech seems to be running out of control, seemingly focused on money 💰 & 📈 growth over everything it claims to stand for.
Watch this insightful #InfoQ video and find out how technology is shaping our lives and the role Big Tech plays: https://bit.ly/3RmkgwX
@malteengeler This.
Also see:
The Future of Internet Regulation at the European Parliament: https://ar.al/2019/11/29/the-future-of-internet-regulation-at-the-european-parliament/
Small Tech as the (non-colonial) alternative to Big Tech: https://small-tech.org/about/#small-technology
Join @neif & @wfryer for Episode 305 at 9 pm ET / 8 pm CT / 7 pm MT / 6 pm PT tonight! On YouTube LIVE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IL9w8KHv1FI & Facebook LIVE https://www.facebook.com/edtechSR
Discussing the new DOJ Google lawsuit, this week's Apple Event, & more!
The enshittification of the old, good web continues apace, but there has never been more energy to build a new, good internet - and banish the #enshitternet of #BigTech to the scrapheap of history.
In the same way, Toronto's much eroded urbanism, pluralism and liveability are both at their lowest ebb in my lifetime - and also at their most hopeful moment of the century.
18/
Enshittification is not something that was not shit becoming shit. Enshittification is you becoming aware of something being shit that was always shit.
Every new venture-capital funded startup is shit. The shit just happens to be covered in a thick layer of chocolate. That’s what they feed you. Until the chocolate runs out and, well…
#startups #ventureCapital #vc #privateEquity #SiliconValley #BigTech #enshittification
This is disturbing: https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/2018904768/tech-companies-are-evolving-into-military-contractors a #Google engineer (from near where I come from) who became #whistleblower and quit on ethical grounds... he explains the issue to Kathryn Ryan on #RNZ.
I seriously wish more people at #BigTech corporations would quit on similar grounds.
@TheEvilSkeleton @Qyriad I agree to your arguments when we are talking about #FLOSS which enables you to use, study, share, and improve #FreeSoftware. This allows the user and its needs to gain center stage.
Proprietary software exploits user needs for profit, grants the least possible rights in order to make the user dependent, and disregards users' privacy, especially if it a #BigTech product.
People who are deliberately using such software as a matter of #convenience and without any sense of #responsibility must at least be willing to try alternatives.
In my experience this is not what those people do. Instead, they force others into the same dependability of Big Tech or be excluded from #communication most of the times. It's like a #DrugScene that nobody cares about as it is just the #NewNormality.
Threads blocks searches related to covid and vaccines as cases rise by #WashingtonPost #GiftLink
#edtechSR #MediaLit #COVID #BigTech #SocialMedia #ContentModeration ##ConCW #conspiracy
#YouTube to support #RSS uploads for #podcasters by year-end, plus private feeds in YouTube Music | TechCrunch
#monetization and #bigtech
https://techcrunch.com/2023/08/25/youtube-to-support-rss-uploads-for-podcasters-by-year-end-plus-private-feeds-in-youtube-music/
A very good question. So much focus on #Millenials, when "People older than 50 now account for more than half of the world’s consumer spending, and their share is projected to grow to 60 per cent by 2050." And when we say older than 50, that's not just #Boomers. That's #GenX too. Sometimes this focus on broad demographics is highly un-useful.
"The tech industry’s hostility to ageing “continues to violate common sense,” Joseph Coughlin, the director of Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s AgeLab"
“The market is ageing. The market is numerous. The market has got more money than the people they have been building products for,” Coughlin said. “And yet they continue to ignore them.”
So much potential for business, if they'd only look.
#ageism #business #technology #bigtech
https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/they-love-tech-they-have-money-so-why-does-big-tech-ignore-old-people-20230907-p5e2o7.html
#5yrsago @bruces’s VR, Objective Reality, live life as an inert, resentful appliance https://www.wired.com/beyond-the-beyond/2018/08/automata-farm-objective-reality/
#5yrsago Trump wants to kill the #InternationalCriminalCourt to protect US #WarCriminals from prosecution for #Afghan crimes https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/10/trump-administration-to-take-tough-stance-against-the-hagues-icc.html
#5yrsago #BigTech is losing the public’s trust in just the same way that Big #Finance has https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/09/technology/internet-industry-hearings.html
#5yrsago Court nukes #Ontario’s Trumpian government bid to gut #TorontoCityCCuncil https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/judge-ruling-city-council-bill-election-1.4816664
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There still may be some hope, if we start dismantling #BigTech (well, Big anything) as @pluralistic suggests, and explains how they got so damn big. Quite interesting that the #future is built on the 19th century monopolistic capitalism, isn’t it?
#WIRED #monopoly #AntitrusLaw #zaibatsu
https://www.wired.com/story/the-internet-con-cory-doctorow-book-excerpt/
How Big Tech Got So Damn Big, from @pluralistic
https://www.wired.com/story/the-internet-con-cory-doctorow-book-excerpt/
*Internet Con* is a "#BigTech disassembly manual." It explains how Big Tech got so big (lax anti-#monopoly enforcement, which led to #RegulatoryCapture, which let Big Tech abuse our privacy, #labor rights, and #consumer rights), and how we can use #interoperability so it's no longer #TooBigToFail, nor #TooBigToJail:
https://www.versobooks.com/products/3035-the-internet-con
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Hey look at this
* How Some Men Play #DungeonsAndDragons on Texas’ #DeathRow https://www.themarshallproject.org/2023/08/31/dungeons-and-dragons-texas-death-row-tdcj (h/t @kottke)
* How #BigTech Got So Damn Big https://www.wired.com/story/the-internet-con-cory-doctorow-book-excerpt/
* To Regulate Tech, Nullify #ClickThroughContracts https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2023/9/275696-to-regulate-tech-nullify-click-through-contracts/fulltext
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@GottaLaff
Great piece about "the unchartered territory that #Ukrainian and #US officials [are] in – relying on the charity of an unpredictable #billionaire for battlefield #communications"
#WalterIsaacson via #CNN on #Russia #Ukraine #invasion #war #bigTech #Gafam #Musk
Hey look at this
* #BurningMan Is Always a Challenge, but Burners Like Me Know This Time Is Different https://pluralistic.net/nyt-burning-man
* #RightToRepair’s unlikely new adversary: #Scientologists https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/08/right-to-repairs-new-unlikely-adversary-scientologists/ (h/t Qaddi)
* #Interoperability Can Save the #OpenWeb: How to free users from #BigTech's walled gardens https://spectrum.ieee.org/doctorow-interoperability
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#Google results are bad and getting worse. Searching for things in the early 2010s linked to useful websites, and now it's mostly blogspam.
But how do these websites even happen? Who is responsible for this? What can we do about it?
The answer is, as I discovered, surprisingly straightforward. Join me as we explore how Google made me ruin a perfectly good website, an accidental case study on the #AI generated #internet:
W. T. F. « The European Commission has today designated, for the first time, six gatekeepers - Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, ByteDance, Meta, Microsoft - under the #DigitalMarketsAct (DMA) » 🤑 https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_23_4328
#Europe #Lobbying #BigTech #SurveillanceCapitalism #PeopleFarming
‘Airbnb bookings dry up in New York as new short-stay rules are introduced. Under the new restrictions, short-term renters will need to register with the city and must be present in the home for the duration of the rental’
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/sep/06/new-york-city-airbnb-short-stay-booking-rental-rules-laws-impact
#law #tech #bigtech #ny #us
Amazon, #Google, #Facebook and more: the EU officially names the gatekeepers of the digital economy
> Five American companies – #Alphabet, #Amazon, #Apple, #Meta and #Microsoft – and one Chinese – #ByteDance – have initially been categorised as gatekeepers. They will now face legal obligations to change the way their popular services, such as messaging, social media, video-sharing and Internet browsers, are offered online.
https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2023/09/06/amazon-google-facebook-and-more-the-eu-officially-names-the-gatekeepers-of-the-digital-eco #EU #SocialMedia #DMA #BigTech
'The European Commission has today designated, for the first time, six gatekeepers - Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, ByteDance, Meta, Microsoft - under the Digital Markets Act (DMA). In total, 22 core platform services provided by gatekeepers have been designated. The six gatekeepers will now have six months to ensure full compliance with the DMA obligations for each of their designated core platform services.'
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_23_4328 #law #tech #eu #ai #dma #economics #politics #bigtech
Woo just got my copy of https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/products/3035-the-internet-con
Made the mistake (given my massive reading backlog) of opening it and am now absorbed. Seems @pluralistic has successfully hijacked my brain 😁 #interop #bigtech #IndieWeb
#10yrsago RIP, Ann “AC” Crispin http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/015419.html
#10yrsago UK #censorwall bans VPNs https://torrentfreak.com/uk-internet-filter-blocks-vpns-australia-to-follow-soon-130905/
#5yrsago Don’t just fine #BigTech for abuses; instead, cut them down to size https://locusmag.com/2018/09/cory-doctorow-big-tech-we-can-do-better-than-constitutional-monarchies/
#5yrsago LA libraries replace fines for young readers with in-library “read-offs” https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-edu-no-library-fines-20171225-story.html
#5yrsago “#FreeMarket” conservatives, aghast at Big Tech’s hostility, become overnight Roosevelt-style #trustbusters https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/09/doj-we-will-examine-social-media-firms-that-may-be-hurting-competition/
5/
@ragectl our gov't policy makers clearly don't understand the US Cloud or Patriot Acts. If they did, they'd certainly not see the big cloud providers as somehow better if they were onshore. I suspect that they don't grasp most of the liabilities of using (US-based) #BigTech - they're probably only thinking of the latency and risk of cable disruption. In short, they don't know enough to do their jobs credibly. @JulianOliver @alcinnz
:drake_dislike: Big Tech went to shit.
:drake_like: Big Tech was always shit.
@ErikJonker @Wolven Almost as if the problem is the whole damn system or something.
#SurveillanceCapitalism #PeopleFarming #SiliconValley #VC #BigTech
"Why does every social media platform seem to get worse over time? This week’s On the Media explores an expansive theory on how we lost a better version of the internet, and the systems that insulate Big Digital from competition. Plus, some solutions for fixing the world wide web."
@onthemedia convo with @pluralistic :
https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/episodes/on-the-media-how-big-tech-went-to-shh
Friendly reminder:
People, stop using #Meta, #Google, and other #BigTech Apps that make YOU the product!
There are already so many right-wing governments.
You compromise your current or at least future security (e.g. profiling using LLMs.)
Use #Threema or #Signal instead.
#DeleteWhatsApp
#DeleteThreads
#DeleteFacebook
#DeleteInstagram
#DeleteTwitter
#DeleteTikTok
#DeGoogle your Android phone
Data collection comparison of messenger services (found on the web):