Journalist Carole #Cadwalladr helped break the data abuse by #Facebook with the Cambridge Analytica Story, effectively taking on all of #SiliconValley . She was sued, digitally stalked, and paid a huge price for speaking truth to power, as you can see in this new talk at TED, a venue she has chosen very consciously. Her dire warning: Cambridge Analytica was chicken feed compared to the #broligarchy coup happening today
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TZOoT8AbkNE&t=811s&pp=2AGrBpACAQ%3D%3D #musk #trump #putin #surveillance #privacy
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Despite the tariff pause, the EU's willingness to target U.S. digital giants reflects a broader ambition to more tightly regulate the technology industry and ensure that foreign firms comply with EU standards. Via Pymts.com. #EU #SiliconValley #Trade #Tech #Technology https://flip.it/jo4SN4
PYMNTS.com · Europe Signals ‘No Compromise’ on Trade, Prepares Counter-Tariffs on US Tech | PYMNTS.comThe U.S.-initiated tariffs have been paused for three months and the negotiation posturing has begun. Brussels is bracing for a fresh escalation in the
I’ve wrestled this swinging chair outside to take pictures of it. I’m selling it for $20 because I definitely don’t want to move it! #siliconvalley
"Yes, Facebook lied to the press often, about a lot of things; yes, Internet.org (Facebook’s strategy to give “free internet to people in the developing world) was a cynical ploy at getting new Facebook users; yes, Facebook knew that it couldn’t read posts in Burmese and didn’t care; yes, it slow-walked solutions to its moderation problems in Myanmar even after it knew about them; yes, Facebook bent its own rules all the time to stay unblocked in specific countries; yes, Facebook took down content at the behest of China then pretended it was an accident and lied about it; yes, Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg intervened on major content moderation decisions then implied that they did not. Basically, it confirmed my priors about Facebook, which is not a criticism because reporting on this company and getting anything beyond a canned statement or carefully rehearsed answer from them over and over for years and years and years has made me feel like I was going crazy. Careless People confirmed that I am not.
It has been years since Wynn-Williams left Facebook, but it is clear these are the same careless people running the company. When I wonder if the company knows that its platforms are being taken over by the worst AI slop you could possibly imagine, if it knows that it is directly paying people to flood these platforms with spam, if it knows it is full of deepfakes and AI generated content of celebrities and cartoon characters doing awful things, if it knows it is showing terrible things to kids. Of course it does. It just doesn’t care."
https://www.404media.co/careless-people-is-the-book-about-facebook-ive-wanted-for-a-decade/
404 Media · 'Careless People' Is the Book About Facebook I've Wanted for a DecadeI've reported on Facebook for years and have always wondered: Does Facebook care what it is doing to society? Careless People makes clear it does not.
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The vision for #Greenland, one of the people said, could include a hub for #AI, autonomous vehicles, space launches, micro #nuclear reactors & high-speed rail.
The discussions reflect a longstanding #SiliconValley movement to establish low-#regulation cities globally, including in the #US, which #Trump himself promised to do in a 2023 campaign video. Proponents use different names for variations on the idea, …with the common goal of spurring innovation through sweeping regulatory exemptions.
JFC
As the #Trump administration intensifies efforts to acquire #Greenland from #Denmark — or take it by force — some #SiliconValley #tech investors are promoting the frozen island as a site for a so-called freedom city, a #libertarian utopia with minimal #corporate #regulation, three people familiar with the matter told Reuters.
#broligarchy #technocracy #plutocracy #kleptocracy #autocracy #law #geopolitics
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/greenland-freedom-city-rich-donors-push-trump-tech-hub-up-north-2025-04-10/
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‘#TED is ground zero of the #AI gold rush. But there was also cheerleading and l’ve been overwhelmed by huge love and support from others who see exactly what is happening. It’s the weirdest time to be here.
And it was the weirdest energy from an audience of any talk I’ve ever given. But then, it was intended to make them uncomfortable.
Politics is technology now.
#SiliconValley is desperate to deny that, but it can’t and nor can we.’
Carole #Cadwalladr
I am enjoying the hell out of "Picks and Shovels" by @pluralistic and I bet you will, too (full disclosure: I have been grokking computers since the early 1980s, which makes so much of the book's geeky name-dropping resonate with me; and my absolute lack of any knowledge of accounting does not detract from the enjoyment).
I’m gonna say it louder for the folks in the back: Mozilla is not what you think it is. Mozilla is not what they say they are. Mozilla is just another for-profit Silicon Valley tech company that has a not-for-profit doing its PR.
#mozilla #BigTech #SiliconValley #bullshit https://eupolicy.social/@ilumium/114306918813909843
EUpolicy.social - A Mastodon server for the EU bubbleJan Penfrat (@ilumium@eupolicy.social)Wow so the #Mozilla engineer disagrees and claims "#GDPR has done a great deal of harm" (I didn't understand his argument why) but now diverted to saying the #browser should be the platform collect all the personal data and then provide it in aggregated form to advertisers.
This would "give control to people while also unlocking the data". 🥱
And all in a sudden, #SurveillanceAdvertising is not a #humanrights issue any more but merely a question of "governance".
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For the past several years, I've been arguing with AI advocates about the purpose of the technology they're enamored with. I mean don't get me wrong, I'm aware that there are use cases for so-called AI programs that aren't inherently evil, but when you take a look at the nazi billionaires who're behind the projects to force widespread adoption, their long term plans to establish city-state dictatorships out of the hollowed out core of the nation-state era, and what these guys ultimately do with it, it's pretty clear AI is a fascism machine; just as much as IBM's punch card computers were a genocide machine for the Nazis. It doesn't have to be this way, but this is the way it is.
As such, I can't say I'm shocked that after Elon Musk bought himself a president, the first thing he started doing is using AI purge his political enemies as well as their ideas, sort surveillance data to identify targets for a white nationalist regime, and now spy on federal workers in search of those with insufficient loyalty to God Emperor Trump, the regime, and Musk himself.
Exclusive: Musk's DOGE using AI to snoop on U.S. federal workers, sources say
"Reuters’ interviews with nearly 20 people with knowledge of DOGE’s operations – and an examination of hundreds of pages of court documents from lawsuits challenging DOGE's access to data – highlight its unorthodox usage of AI and other technology in federal government operations.
At the Environmental Protection Agency, for instance, some EPA managers were told by Trump appointees that Musk’s team is rolling out AI to monitor workers, including looking for language in communications considered hostile to Trump or Musk, the two people said.
The EPA, which enforces laws such as the Clean Air Act and works to protect the environment, has come under intense scrutiny by the Trump administration. Since January, it has put nearly 600 employees on leave and said it will eliminate 65% of its budget, which could require further staffing reductions.
Trump-appointed officials who had taken up EPA posts told managers that DOGE was using AI to monitor communication apps and software, including Microsoft Teams, which is widely used for virtual calls and chats, said the two sources familiar with these comments. “We have been told they are looking for anti-Trump or anti-Musk language,” a third source familiar with the EPA said. Reuters could not independently confirm if the AI was being implemented.
The Trump officials said DOGE would be looking for people whose work did not align with the administration's mission, the first two sources said. “Be careful what you say, what you type and what you do,” a manager said, according to one of the sources."
Naturally the regime and DOGE have denied that they're using AI to conduct "thought" policing inside the federal workforce, but I think given how readily the Trump administration has engaged in clear ideological warfare and suppression against its perceived political enemies, that denial sound a lot like a hollow lie. Speaking broadly however, I can't say I'm surprised at all that this is where a technology like AI and the billionaire nazis who're pushing it, have lead us as a society. There are a near infinite number of things "AI" technology is terrible at, but one thing it does really well is sort through the vast amounts of data and metadata collected as part of our already existing police state panopticon society; in fact, without automation we really wouldn't be able to sift through that amount of data at all with human eyes. AI doesn't have morals, it doesn't have humanity, it doesn't have any sense of what's right and wrong; it presumes the world it's programmed to presume, and engages in the tasks it's purposed to engage in - and billionaire nazi cultists who want to build their own technofeudalist dicatorships are the guys in charge of the coding and tasking of this technology. Whether it's picking out targets for extermination by the IDF during a genocide in Gaza, hunting down student protestors in vast seas of education and immigration data, or spying on federal workers for anti-Musk sentiments, the fact is fascist oppression and violence *can* be automated - particularly if you don't give a fuck about false positives because you're a soulless nazi murderbot.
Stop legitimising Mozilla.
They’re sucking all the oxygen out of the room.
“We’re just another Silicon Valley tech company.” – their then head of public policy to me
“When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” – Maya Angelou
(Or in this case the second, third, fourth… what are we on? I’ve lost count.)
#mozilla #BigTech #SiliconValley #bullshit https://eupolicy.social/@ilumium/114306753465182268
EUpolicy.social - A Mastodon server for the EU bubbleJan Penfrat (@ilumium@eupolicy.social)At a #Mozilla event in #Brussels this morning about "#privacy-first online #advertising". I am _very_ curious where this weirdest of things Mozilla does is going. 🤔
Speakers: Petra Wikström, policy person at #Schibsted, @rvaneijk@mastodon.nl, @eff@mastodon.social's Svea Windwehr and Mozilla's own Martin Thompson.
#onlineads #SurveillanceAdvertising #TrackingFreeAds #gdpr #dataprotection
Looking for moving boxes in the #southbay. Anybody have to spare in #Sunnyvale, #MountainView, #Cupertino ? #siliconvalley
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@Catvalente Surely the lesson here is for creators who seek patronage to set up a co-operative money-handling service and stop using services provided by #SiliconValley #VultureCapitalist #Broligarchs, whose sole purpose in life is to rip you off?
Later this month, #TechWontSaveUs turns five years old. It’s hard to believe I’ve been making the show for this long!
Over that time I’ve interviewed hundreds of guests to spread critical perspectives on tech far and wide — and I know it’s had an impact.
The good news for Marc Andreessen and Silicon Valley accelerationists is that they backed Trump and he won. The bad news for these people is that Trump is also the Decel-in-Chief. Read more at @404media. #Trump #SiliconValley #AndreessenHorowitz #Tariff #Semiconductors #Tech #Technology https://flip.it/Ir39BS
404 Media · Big Tech Backed Trump for Acceleration. They Got a Decel President InsteadEffective accelerationists didn’t just accidentally shoot themselves in the foot. They methodically blew off each of their toes with a .50 caliber sniper rifle.
US big tech wants to end Australian tech rules. Local tech is subtler. https://www.byteseu.com/891605/ #Australia #BigTech #DonaldTrump #NewsMediaBargainingCode #Politics #SiliconValley #TechLobbies #Technology #USPolitics
The Brewing Transatlantic #Tech War:
How #SiliconValley Got Entangled in #Geopolitics—and Lost.
"#BigTech risks losing access to one of its biggest markets: #Europe."
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/brewing-transatlantic-tech-war
Foreign Affairs · The Brewing Transatlantic Tech WarHow Silicon Valley got entangled in geopolitics—and lost.
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If you want to understand the horrifying future these tech billionaire nazis have in store for humanity, it helps to understand what parts of our "glorious past" as a species they're looking to recreate. This interview with University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign information sciences and media studies professor Anita Say Chan talks a bit about the history of data and eugenics, what it means that guys like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel (along with most of Silicon Valley's movers and shakers) are devout believers in eugenicist philosophies, and how that's reflected in their efforts to reshape society in horrifying, and objectively fascist ways. In terms of our discussion about the uber rich fascists who heavily influence the Trump regime they bought and paid for, I'm mostly including this here to point out that these guys have gone on record in support of a lot of openly fascist shit and for the most part, your media pretends we don't already know these guys are nazis; it's not a secret, it's just not "worth mentioning" when media orgs are fawning over technofascist billionaires destroying our planet and our lives.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/01/eugenics-isnt-dead-its-thriving-in-tech/
Eugenics Isn’t Dead—It’s Thriving in Tech
"Big Tech successors like Musk and PayPal billionaire-turned-arms dealer Peter Thiel have overtly promoted fraudulent race science, with Musk amplifying users on X who argue that people of European descent are biologically superior. In response to another user’s deleted post suggesting that students at historically Black institutions have lower IQs, Musk posted, “It will take an airplane crashing and killing hundreds of people for them to change this crazy policy of DIE”—diversity, equity, and inclusion, misspelled. In 2016, Thiel buddied up to a prominent white nationalist, and, the same year, was said by a Stanford dorm-mate to have complimented South Africa’s “economically sound” system of racial apartheid."
Mother JonesEugenics isn't dead—it's thriving in techA new book takes on the throughline from the rise of 20th-century eugenics to Silicon Valley.
@Remittancegirl Haven't these things already suggested to people to go kill themselves?
But then the Tech Bros pushing this crap don't actually care what effect it has on us, just so long as they get some Coin.
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