A #dighum #dighum2026 special – I've put all my thoughts about about "hyperscalers" and allegedly US AI in one place. Featured a bit is @helenamalikova.bsky.social of course #digitalGovernance #DMA #AIRegulation #antitrust #GAFAM #transnationalUtilities joanna-bryson.blogspot.com/2026/06/work...

[Commentary] #Tech: #BigTech’s shadow market power. Big Tech firms are amassing market power through strategies that bypass current rules, by @helenamalikova.bsky.social , @briannarock.bsky.social & Anna Marchese | @projectsyndicate.bsky.social www.pubaffairsbruxelles.eu/opinion-anal...

Read. This. Excellent piece by the brilliant @helenamalikova.bsky.social. Below the surface, invisible to the naked eye, American tech has acquired even more power in Europe than you thought. Europe really, urgently needs to wake up.

Big Tech firms are amassing market power through investment strategies that bypass current rules for oversight and intervention. We interrogate this shadow market power in @projectsyndicate.bsky.social with co-authors @briannarock.bsky.social &Anna Marchese. prosyn.org/27KPJov?h=AE...

Last year @globsec.org the US was on a full press about how China didn't have regulations (false: CN is the most heavily regulated in AI in the world.) This year it's that "you need homogeneity (giant monopolies) to get good stuff." Politicians, military, & GAFAM saying that on stage. Also false 1/2

Call to boycott the 4th of July party organised by the US government in Brussels www.brusselstimes.com/2121018/got-...

The emperor has no clothes. Takes a queen to tell. @wavesblog.eurosky.social "I cannot really express enough how bad [Europe's] industrial organization economics approach to antitrust has been," Simonetta Vezzoso "I am totally against that type of economics." 🙌👑 x.com/politicoeuro...

Finance ministers of Germany, Spain, Portugal, Austria & Italy are calling on the EU to introduce a windfall profits tax on energy companies. This is a no brainer and should be implemented swiftly. Our democracies can’t take another redistribution shock. www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/h...

"The DMA is here because the horses have bolted long ago" 👏 @helenamalikova.bsky.social

In June 2007, investment bank Bear Stearns froze redemptions from two of its hedge funds. The funds had reported losses on their subprime mortgage assets triggering withdrawals by investors. The rest is history - of the financial crisis.

"After the rapid growth of data centers triggered pushback from politicians, utilities and local residents over the pressures they place on the grid, tech companies are now building their own fleet of private power plants, mostly fueled by natural gas."

US media didn't warn US voters loudly enough that Trump and Maga were out to create a kind of police state this time around. Thanks Pamela Moriniere @rtbf.be and @ifjglobal.bsky.social for the opportunity to hammer this point home.

Thousands protest in Spanish city Bilboa against fascism and imperialism on 31 January.

Full room and standing ovation for @timothysnyder.bsky.social in Brussels tonight. Resistance needs to work collectively and develop a positive notion of freedom. Europe should avoid the US tech race to the bottom. So-called “innovation” makes us dumber! #DefendDemocracy #HandsOffOurEU🇪🇺

Explosions hit Venezuelan capital Caracas. It looks like Trump has decided to go to war, quite a move for a wanna-be Nobel Peace Prize candidate

Useful background on TESCREAL - transhumanism, extropianism, singularitarianism, cosmism, rationalism, effective altruism, and longtermism bsky.app/profile/j2br...

🗳️ for your choice of book of the century. @theobserveruk.bsky.social selected a short list for you. www.smartsurvey.com/t/observerbo...

More negative than I am about the state of AI governance globally, & doesn't mention strengths in markets outside US & CN that I first documented with @helenamalikova.bsky.social & have since only increased, but good to debunk the "Chinese AI has no regulation" myth. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Every upcoming summit of EU leaders is meant to be about "competitiveness". Then stuff happens. And thus: No summit of EU leaders ends up actually being about "competitiveness".

When in NYC

Post WWII, the allies (mostly US / UK) told DE & JP "break up your monopoly & put competition law in your new constitution. Because whenever a company gets too large, either it takes over the government or the government takes over it, and either way you get autocracy." 1/2 wapo.st/3L3lFHT

"Companies love to claim that they give users control over data collection. But offering scattered privacy settings isn’t the same as meaningful control. A 747 aircraft has lots of controls, too. But that doesn’t mean just anyone can fly it"

goddamn is there anything Wikipedia editors can’t do www.nytimes.com/2025/10/17/n...

The final slide of my 10 minute talk. CC @helenamalikova.bsky.social @helene-rey.bsky.social

This racist violent rhetoric from Young Republicans is disgusting. I'm sure past and present members of the International Young Democrat Union like Youth of the European People's Party and European Young Conservatives will want to condemn their US counterpart. Right? www.politico.com/news/2025/10...

The journalists are some of the heroes. Thank you for not only writing your articles, but getting them where people see them. bsky.app/profile/dlkn...

Ellison warned the audience that #AGI was coming sooner than expected. What, Blair asked, should governments be doing? “The first thing a country needs to do is unify all of their data so that it can be consumed & used by the AI model,” Ellison responded. 🙄 Even if you accept A, B does NOT follow.

Goodmorning ☀️

Klein is making the case for bad-actors as if it's a debate about the Nazis marching in Skokie. Tolerance in that setting seems quaint now, but even Rawls suggested that when "the institutions of liberty are in danger," we might have to recalibrate. Klein does not move an inch. 3/

Ad history gone? 🤯 Disturbing report: Google appears to have deleted its political ad archive for the EU; so the last 7 years of ads, of political spending, of messaging, of targeting - on YouTube, on Search - for countless elections across 27 countries - gone www.thebriefing.ie/google-just-...

"Other passengers criticised her for filming. One passenger replied 'so what?' after she explained she had been racially abused. She said: 'I was shocked and angry about the children's reaction but the adults' reactions are what broke me and brought me to tears.'"

In case you were curious who funds this kind of thing, here's a partial accounting.

Less sexy than 🥂or cognac, 🇪🇺accounting standards are one of Europe’s best exports. Adopted by countries from Korea to Israel, European IFRS standards are more attractive for companies than the US GAAP alternative. Common reporting standards matter for accountability and investments on.ft.com/3VeDyVY

Women Against Fascism newsletter #10 is out: mailchi.mp/2cbefaf4401b...

With apologies to Anu Bradford, I think the real #BrusselsEffect is a bit simpler than she does. (I don't know much about the people who were interviewing me, maybe Kurdish?) #AIA #digitalGovernance #AIEthics cc @hertieschool.bsky.social www.gulanmedia.com/en/story/344...

NYC is in the middle of an affordability crisis of essentials like food now exacerbated by Trump’s austerity policies eroding SNAP. @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social’s municipal grocery stores are an important experiment. The old ways have failed. Policy innovation is necessary to pave a way out.

Question: how important is medical data in performance of AI capabilities? Is it just more data or does it have special value / premium value? @j2bryson.bsky.social anyone who knows? And any references to dispel or confirm any special interest for AI companies in medical?

@CEPS.eu Associate Senior Fellows and ex-EU envoys sign an open letter to top Commission and Council leaders demanding effective EU action against the Israeli government crimes in Gaza. They float measures that can be adopted without unanimity: www.politico.eu/wp-content/u...

Truly remarkable, the Trumpian fantasy of a technofascist state built on the places of dispossessed Palestineans. Every ugly vector of power knotted into one ugly vision.

For the enablers, not even the sky is the limit: BCG modelled plan to ‘relocate’ Palestinians from Gaza on.ft.com/403ORmH

Sad to see EU’s legitimacy contested in dramatic visual in front of European Commission’s HQ the Berlaymont in Brussels.

#BudapestPride #LoveisLove #Freedomcannotbebanned telex.hu/belfold/2025...

Latest Women Against Fascism newsletter out now: mailchi.mp/31832b2c36ac...

“Judge Blocks a Trump Effort to Prevent International Students at Harvard.” This decision was inevitable. What does Trump do now? www.nytimes.com/2025/06/20/u...

Democracy will not defend itself. We gathered today to protect European democracy. @sophieintveld.bsky.social @defenddemocracy.bsky.social

Zuck off! Musk off! European democracy is not for sale. Today we stand to defend democracy and the rule of law. @sophieintveld.bsky.social @defenddemocracy.bsky.social

Not surprising. They will capture it and then enclose it again. Isn’t that exactly what happened to data?

Speak up for Democracy! Join us this lunchtime : 13h @ Pl. Schuman, Brussels.

Democracy cannot defend itself, WE have to do that! A like on social media is not enough: we need to get up and speak out! Join us Wed 16/4 at 13h at Schuman for a strong message about protecting our democracy from Techbros, Trump and Putin #HandsOff More info: defenddemocracy.eu/europeans-st...