NEW: Thomson Reuters, the media company which is also a data broker, has long provided personal data for ICE tools, according to documents obtained by 404 Media and sources. There are also indications its data is now part of the Palantir system ICE uses to find which neighborhoods to target.

Do not take access to information and public data for granted. Keep access to public information and knowledge a priority in our public agendas. nsarchive.gwu.edu/special-exhi...

Almost exactly four months ago, I wrote about how the Trump administration was preparing to ban TP-Link routers, citing the company's alleged links to China. Now, the FCC has decided to ban *all* new models of foreign-made routers, even though many U.S.-made routers are also full of security flaws.

NEW | Hundreds of companies are pitching shady surveillance tech to EU migration agencies through industry events that evade lobbying transparency rules. See the 450+ companies involved ⬇️ www.accessnow.org/companies-po...

We are starting our #OpenDataDay event at @okfn.bsky.social Join us! okfn.org/en/events/th...

A Berlin court has ordered X to grant researchers API access under the Digital Services Act. Daniela Alvarado Rincón, Simone Ruf and Jürgen Bering explain how they won the case, and why it’s a major step for researcher data access.

Do we really have full, free, open access to knowledge without anonymity? I do not think so. I will tell you why at the very inspiring gathering in Lisbon ps.logos.co#day-1-agenda together with Harry Halpin and Iness Ben Guirat. See you soon!

You should be able to criticize your government anonymously online. Full stop. "Age verification" legislation is just a pretty name for "forced online ID checks," meaning everything you post is associated with your government name We have to stop this. theintercept.com/2026/03/05/k...

Learning.

DHS calls whistleblowers a “threat to national security.” But without leaks to the press, the public wouldn’t know that ICE is entering homes without warrants, labeling protesters “domestic terrorists,” building surveillance tools, or pushing propaganda.

Investigative journalists needed!

45 years ago, we were discussing the same.

We need open, accountable systems safeguarding cognitive freedom. What would they look like? @okfn.bsky.social seeks investigative journalists willing to engage in a paid collaborative storytelling exercise. Pitches by Mar 5, 2026. okfn.org/en/jobs/tech... #Neurotech #BCI #openness

#Europe is a good place to plant the seed of #TheTechWeWant. Check the study by Allianz Foundation next-generations-study.com/explore/myth...

Understanding how AI works and applying it to practical work builds confidence in the communities we work with. It is improving their caution in how and when they apply AI to their work. And also, rapidly, opening new paths to adoption with clear boundaries and trustworthy.

When I got the contract to write a history of concentration camps in 2014, I hoped to keep the US from ending up here. That didn't work out! But now it's critical to understand how much is already in process and the enormity of what's coming. The sooner we act to stop it, the more people we'll save.

What do we want? Fossil databases! 🐚🦕 When do we want them? Forever! 🗓️ Nice new paper highlighting how academic funding systems and digital architecture need to change, to ensure we can protect and sustain our precious fossil data 📚 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

It is very hard to claim "AI sovereignty" without owning and fully governing the data centres that power it. Thinking about the unfortunate influence of Big Tech lobbyists around well-intentioned projects like #LatamGPT. I doubt it will ever migrate to nationally owned, sovereign infrastructure

Do you know of anyone using automation and AI creatively to monitor corporate accountability?

"Charting AI’s development within its proper economic and geopolitical context...Srnicek’s guide can help us maintain a long-term, realistic perspective of the technology’s likely trajectory.” @jacobinmag.bsky.social review @nsrnicek.bsky.social's 'Silicon Empires' jacobin.com/2026/02/ai-b...

Seeds are resistance. Seeds are memory. Seeds are future🌱 Don't let industrial agriculture erase them.

Every seed holds✨Generations of selection & adaptation ✨ Culinary traditions passed down through families ✨ Spiritual connections to the earth ✨ Community identity and autonomy When we defend peasant seeds, we're defending: 💪 The right to food 💪 Cultural survival 💪 Biodiversity 💪 Self-determination

🌾 Seeds Carry More Than DNA—They Carry Memory, Resistance, and Identity. Peasant and native seeds are more than what we plant in the soil. They are living archives of culture, knowledge, and belonging. When traditional seeds are lost, we lose entire worlds. 🌍💔

The 3 forms of academic content assetization we explore are: - universities enclosing educators' content for use in platformized learning programs - edtech companies building databases of academic assignments and manuscripts - publishers licensing academic papers to AI companies for LLM training.

New OA article just out on "assetizing academic content" led by @jkom.bsky.social with me, @keanbirch.bsky.social & Klaus Beiter, exploring how academic materials are turned into value-generating digital assets by HE institutions, edtech platforms, and AI companies link.springer.com/article/10.1...

We cannot aim at Digital Sovereignty or even some degree of digital autonomy if both students and workers are trained to serve the interests of Big Tech. And they are influencing every curricula and capacity building program in private, public and social sector!

‼️New article out "Thirsty Forests and Expansive Droughts: The Environmental Impacts of Data Centers in Latin America" where we investigate the feral effects of cloud industry's compensatory projects to mitigate environmental impacts. journals.sagepub.com/doi/epub/10....

Like many services, as Signal grows, it becomes a more appealing place for scammers to try and cause harm. We've put together tips to help you protect yourself from phishing, scams, & impersonation attempts. Plus info about how Signal support communicates. support.signal.org/hc/en-us/art...

Dear @okfn.bsky.social community, our discussion infrastructure is back discuss.okfn.org. It was down while we moved to a self-hosted option to keep our conversations truly ours. Please check all is working fine, and, why not? Start the year discussing new topics or responding to old ones!

Back in Europe after six weeks in Guatemala. I left a bit heartbroken after the ongoing security situation over there. www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/1/... Worried about family, friends...

Swiss Government Agencies Transition to Open Source Cloud Solutions. This recent article by the European Commission’s Open Source Observatory (OSOR) explores this development in depth. interoperable-europe.ec.europa.eu/collection/o...

L’enquête #IsraelFiles, menée par @mediapart.fr en collaboration avec @eicnetwork.bsky.social, révèle les efforts déployés par l’État d’Israël pour accentuer la répression judiciaire du mouvement BDS (Boycott, désinvestissement, sanctions) en France. www.mediapart.fr/journal/inte...

Trabajo de Project Manager en @okfn.bsky.social, de especial interés para para centroamericanos! okfn.org/en/jobs/proj... es un rol que perfectamente se puede combinar con estudios o trabajo independiente y es una excelente oportunidad para su portafolio profesional. Es imprescindible saber inglés

We need more, much more of this. Awareness everywhere.

This 2006 #Wikileaks Diplomatic Cable discusses the Venezuelan government's #opensource law during Chavez's time. wikileaks.org/plusd/cables... Almost twenty years ago, Latin American governments had a clear route and were working towards sovereignty, including digital sovereignty.

Very happy about this. We will also bridge the world of open technology research with the tooling and standards our communities have created to make data and research reproducible and knowledge accessible. #openscience #dataquality

An immediate collective goal should be to take advantage of whatever we can grab for the digital commons after the AI bubble bursts. The imminent crisis coming must not go to waste. Ideas?

Missing the people who have actually advocated for digital commons for decades at the stage of whatever is happening in Berlin.

As industrial operations move to Texas, residents find that their drinking water has been promised to companies. https://newyorkermag.visitlink.me/s_zeKn

Meanwhile OpenAI plans to open datacenters that will use more energy than the entire country of India and emit more pollution than ExxonMobil

Taiwan faced a drought that caused chipmaker TSMC to compete with local farmers for water. Nvidia’s carbon emissions rose 87% in 2024 alone. Workers face grueling schedules to keep up, and factory emissions are worse for global warming than CO2.

This is a fantastic deep dive with a ton of great info that debunks all the shallow arguments against how AI destroys the environment.

I discovered @penpot.app at Decidim Fest and I am LOVING IT!

Exclusive: Based on documents viewed by this newsletter, OpenAI spent over $12.4 billion on inference from 2024 to September 2025. As part of its Microsoft revenue share, it sent $493.8m in 2024/$865.8m Jan-Sep 2025, implying lower revenues than previously reported. www.wheresyoured.at/oai_docs/

NEW: A group of Senators and Congresspeople are warning Governors that their states are providing ICE “with frictionless, self-service access to the personal data of all of your residents.” The data sharing is managed by a nonprofit called Nlets, which is managed by state police agencies.

New: a judge has ruled that Flock surveillance images are public records that can be requested by anyone. Shows that at least in some cases, police cannot withhold the data collected by its surveillance systems. www.404media.co/judge-rules-...

📚🎊✨ yay - joint book launch for @nsrnicek.bsky.social's Silicon Empires, @mayameme.bsky.social's Auto-Correct and my Public Data Cultures, in discussion with @joannazylinska.bsky.social & @noortjem.bsky.social on 3rd Dec, 7-9pm 💜 www.tickettailor.com/events/kings... @politybooks.bsky.social

Unsere Privatsphäre ist natürlich wichtig. Aber die Geschäftsmodelle der KI-Unternehmen sind leider wichtiger.

Must read @begopramirez.bsky.social @publico.es and thank you, @wereontheditch.bsky.social ! x.com/publico_es/s...

If Municipalities were adopting a commons-based stack for their functions, it would not only be twice as cheap. This could result in a 50–70% lower carbon footprint for a shared, open digital commons stack. And more accountability!