"AI may not simply be 'a bubble,' or even an enormous bubble. It may be the ultimate bubble. What you might cook up in a lab if your aim was to engineer the Platonic ideal of a tech bubble. One bubble to burst them all." - @bcmerchant.bsky.social

Teens who reported feeling bad about their bodies saw more 'eating disorder' content Posts featured chest, buttocks, or thighs and “explicit judgement” about body types www.reuters.com/business/ins...

It seems to be time to post this again:

Definitely nothing can go wrong with OpenAI having a full record of your sexy chatbot interactions.

Margrethe Vestager talks about the #googleadtech case (pending in the US & EU): "Had we taken the decision 25 years go that we would not allow conflicts of interest [in digital markets], we would be in a different world. And it's going to get worse with AI." www.youtube.com/live/KlO8ta8...

“Without genuine accountability, successful lawsuits against AI companies become Pyrrhic victories. They amount to micro-successes and macro-failures that do nothing to compel AI companies to do better, design more safely, or prioritize the people using their products,” writes Pete Furlong.

Big piece in POLITICO asking about the independence of Ireland's process of appointing people to its Data Protection Commission. There is deep unease in Brussels about Ireland appointing a former Meta lobbyist as Meta's watchdog. Now questions about who was involved. www.politico.eu/article/big-...

📣 Germany's close to reversing its opposition to mass surveillance & private message scanning, & backing the Chat Control bill. This could end private comms-& Signal-in the EU. Time's short and they're counting on obscurity: please let German politicians know how horrifying their reversal would be.

NEW: UK asked Apple to backdoor iCloud encryption. Backdoors create a massive target for hackers & criminal groups. Dictators will inevitably demand that Apple do the same for them. 1/ www.ft.com/content/d101...

Beyond all the AI hyperbole, Big Tech is just using it to squeeze even more data out of us for its grubby invasive surveillance advertising profits www.ft.com/content/22f7...

This is good satire because you *almost* can’t tell it apart from the real proponents of AGI. That’s where we are.

3. ⁠this is not the moment for an incredibly expensive increase in state surveillance infrastructure to be run for profit by private tech firms just before Labour ushers in an (even more) authoritarian right wing government. FIX THE GODDAMN COST OF LIVING INSTEAD YOU FREAKS.

Discourses around digital sovereignty and public infrastructure often ignore workers' needs and the positive role of publicly and worker-owned infrastructure. If more unions join this call, there are chances to make a difference and create a more democratic digital public infrastructure.

“Shoving AI into everything doesn’t necessarily lead to growth” @melissahei.bsky.social www.ft.com/content/e93e...

The main issues in the revision of the e-Privacy Directive is not cookies but governments aiming to further widen the scope for (mass) surveillance. And of course the @ec.europa.eu is happy to oblige.

Trump is launching a full blown attack on free speech while his harem of billionaires buys up every media platform. This is no coincidence. It’s a coordinated attack on your fundamental right to speak freely without worrying if you’ll lose your job or worse.

For those not watching, Keir Starmer - standing alongside Trump - just said with a straight face that AI is going to "make us richer and freer" and "strengthen the cause of democracy not tyranny". 🤮

The "Tech Prosperity deal" shows UK Gov has fallen hook line and sinker for Big Tech PR around AI. Uncritically stating as accepted facts that 1) AI will be a huge boost for growth and the economy 2) AI will create lots of jobs 3) AI will solve energy/health/etc.

The plutocracy in action.

All political tribes can be hypocritical but the right's current level of hypocrisy on free speech is deliberate. It's an assertion of power not a blindspot.

If this happened anywhere else, it would be a scandal for the organisation hosting + enabling it. We can't have a different set of rules exempting one billionaire promoter + protector of hatred from what applies to every other org if we want to protect our values, social norms and the rule of law.

this is really good from @stephenkb.bsky.social. It's about leadership on the norms we've embraced: racism is unacceptable; the UK is a multicultural country and so much the richer for it. We need to live those values; leaders need to lead on them www.ft.com/content/fbbd...

President Trump has fanned the flames of the far-right. And now a toxic form of politics is spilling out onto our streets. These are dark times, but those who seek to divide us will not win. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Just the Telegraph sanitising the Tommy Robinson march. Sure, it was all just smiley happy ordinary people..... Sigh

Elon Musk has made a major error - from being in a radicalised bubble - by speaking so overtly prominently for political violence + social violence in response to "replacement" Ministers had to respond to the call for civil war. This is an opportunity to Make Twitter Lawful Again on unlawful hatred

Europe won't compromise on its right to regulate American Big Tech companies despite threats by President Donald Trump, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said today.

The real Google anti-trust case to watch

“Rightwing populists all over Europe want to destroy the ability of the UK and the EU to regulate large tech platforms — a move that might threaten their disinformation campaigns with genuine political debate.” They use disingenuous claims of censorship to protect the tech companies.

Commission President Von der Leyen will have to explain this: barring an EVP from holding a press conference is unacceptable! @teresaribera.ec.europa.eu has shown the courage to defend the free press instead of pandering to authoritarian leaders and monopolistic tech companies.

“Alarm that Trump could weaponise Europe’s reliance on US cloud services to further a hostile political agenda is growing across the region.”

Today's €2.95 bn fine against Google is a start, but is not enough. Big Tech shrugs off fines as just the cost of maintaining their toxic monopolies. But good the door is still open for tougher remedies. The EU Commission MUST finish the job and break up Google. www.politico.eu/article/eu-s...

Google's monopoly power rips off consumers, pollutes our information environment, and destroys the news media. Today's €2.95 billion fine is a start, but won't touch Google's toxic ad-tech monopoly. The EU @ec.europa.eu must hold firm and now break up Google. www.politico.eu/article/eu-s...

“You don’t find someone guilty of robbing a bank and then sentence him to writing a thank you note for the loot.,” @nidhihegde.bsky.social

First, the court ruled Google’s search business is an illegal monopoly. But now the judge’s remedies fail to hold Google accountable for breaking the law. This ruling is a slap on the wrist. The Trump Justice Department must appeal to break up this Big Tech giant.

If true, this update is astonishing. The Commission climbed down from a planned break up of Google’s ad business to a mere fine, and then dropped even the fine for fear of offending Trump. This is for market violations that have been proven in U.S. court.

I understand (though I do not accept) the government's case for remaining on X. What is totally indefensible is the *exclusive* presence of many MPs & departments on that site. They are handing a monopoly of key government communications to a site that's increasingly run by & for the radical right

“If I stole any of the AI community’s source codes or algorithms and then tried to profit off them, they would unleash a tsunami of lawsuits against me.”

Today’s Sun and Mail pour more fuel on asylum seeker hatred and panic. If far right violence in Epping spreads into a ‘summer of unrest’, don’t forget that they instigated it.

A very cool technology that allows students to interact with John Maynard Keynes’ ideas as he develops them is called a book

The crackdown on civil liberties continue in the UK with at least 90 people arrested in London for opposing the UK government’s complicity in Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Courtesy of Labour www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

Labour knew this would happen and didn't care. Is this the most right wing Government Britain has ever had? www.theguardian.com/world/2025/j...

Former supreme court justice Jonathan Sumption in the New Statesman: Israel's conduct in Gaza is a war crime www.newstatesman.com/world/middle...

WHY?? who thought this was a good idea?? www.404media.co/the-un-made-...

Media outlets can't pivot to AI to save themselves. It's not a business strategy and it's not going to work. The only path forward is for journalists to lean into their humanity, to do things AI can't, and to make clear they are writing for people, not algorithms: www.404media.co/the-medias-p...

This has to be one of my favourite BS privacy notices, from the Telegraph. You are in control! Just give consent to hand over your data to us and *257* shady data tracking orgs!

The tech surveillance industrial complex in action.

The EU is at least talking about 'tech sovereignty' amid fears of over-reliance on Big Tech in the Trump era. Meanwhile over here in the UK, the government is ... handing over our public services to surveillance monopolist Google on a plate.🤦 www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

No thanks: Google lets its Gemini AI access your apps, including messages www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/20...

Israel describing this as a “humanitarian city” is truly Orwellian. Original post: mstdn.social/@Remittanceg...

FT reveals Tony Blair’s staff took part in ‘Gaza Riviera’ project with BCG and suggested the term. Now trying to frantically distance themselves ↘️ on.ft.com/4lJ8FnV