'Dame @chionwurah.bsky.social , chair of the science and technology select committee, said she was "deeply" concerned about the cuts. "There is a real risk to the lives of TikTok users," she said.'

"This is obvious, blatant and unlawful union-busting," says Foxglove's Stella Caram - important piece on TikTok by @mickeycarroll.bsky.social news.sky.com/story/tiktok...

New: TikTok is facing legal action over union-busting measures against key safety workers in London: www.foxglove.org.uk/2025/12/19/p...

'“This is yet more evidence that the public is footing the environmental bill for some of the richest companies on Earth,” said Donald Campbell, the director of advocacy at Foxglove, a UK non-profit that campaigns for fairness in tech.' www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

In case you missed last week's good news re the European Commission and Google's theft of journalism:

UK public to subsidise Big Tech data centres: "households and businesses across the country contribute indirectly to infrastructure built for data centres they may never use" www.telegraph.co.uk/money/bills/...

💸 Our #donation recommendations this year are to organisations that oppose the environmentally damaging expansion of data centres: @honortheearth.bsky.social @algorithmwatch.org @foxglovelegal.bsky.social

'Rosa Curling, co-executive director of Foxglove - which had called on the Commission in June to tackle the impact of AI Overviews - said "clear & present" dangers to journalism and democracy remain. "We need an urgent opt out for news publishers to stop Google from stealing their reporting today."'

Good news: earlier this year, we called on the European Commission to act over Google's theft of independent journalists' work to fuel 'AI Overviews'. Today they announced that they've opened an investigation: www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

EC has formally opened an investigation into Google for using publishers’ content without meaningful consent or compensation for its AI Overviews feature. Big win for civil society orgs like @foxglovelegal.bsky.social who’ve been asking for this. ec.europa.eu/commission/p...

'Analysts...found that “the false positive identification rate (FPIR) for white subjects (0.04%) is lower than that for Asian subjects (4.0%) and black subjects (5.5%)”.' www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

The UK Home Office is refusing to release information on generative AI tools it's trialling in the cases of people seeking safety: "This secrecy suggests the Home Office knows the tools come with significant, known risks, but is determined to push on regardless” inkstickmedia.com/american-ai-...

Data centres are holding up housebuilding in London, according to a London Assembly Committee: www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

The UK Home Office is refusing to release information on generative AI tools it's trialling in the cases of people seeking safety: "This secrecy suggests the Home Office knows the tools come with significant, known risks, but is determined to push on regardless” inkstickmedia.com/american-ai-...

New data centres planned for Scotland will consume the equivalent of 3/4 of the whole country's peak electricity demand - raising concerns over climate emissions: utilityweek.co.uk/scottish-dat...

[email protected] reports on our latest efforts to stop Google stealing journalists' work and undermining independent news providers: digiday.com/media/from-l...

The Chair of Parliament's Tech Committee questions TikTok's safety claims: "It's alarming that they aren't offering us transparency over this information. Without it, how can we have any confidence whether these changes will safeguard users?"

“It is hard to see how unleashing these dangerously unreliable tools on some of the most vulnerable people — including child refugees — is anything other than a recipe for disaster”

New: data centres in Scotland's planning system would consume the equivalent of 75% of the country's total peak electricity demand, Foxglove research finds: www.foxglove.org.uk/wp-content/u...

Our research on data centres in Scotland picked up by @heraldscotland.bsky.social here: "data centres use huge amounts of electricity. And if you're using huge amounts of electricity and drawing it from the grid, then it comes with climate emissions.” www.heraldscotland.com/opinion/2566...

New: data centres in Scotland's planning system would consume the equivalent of 75% of the country's total peak electricity demand, Foxglove research finds: www.foxglove.org.uk/wp-content/u...

Why has the UK Govt's Environment Agency put its name to a dubious report produced by Big Tech lobbyists TechUK? inews.co.uk/news/uk-runn...

"At present Data centres are saying they are ‘Green’ because they use Scotland’s grid electricity. Under that definition every household and business in Scotland is green." If you don't laugh, you cry.

"Opponents claim the project...will lead to households incurring the cost of any upgrades to the power grid and that its predicted potential peak water usage of 6mn gallons per day will reduce availability in the county." www.ft.com/content/7f39... #datacentres

'“New data centres are directly causing utilities to build new gas plants and delay coal plants’ retirements, and that locks us into using dirty energy for decades at a minimum,” said Eliza Pan, a former worker in Amazon’s cloud computing arm'. www.source-material.org/amazon-data-...

Important story: Amazon's been using far more data centres - with a much higher environmental impact - than it let on in its reporting.

"Meta shut down internal research into the mental health effects of Facebook after finding causal evidence that its products harmed users’ mental health, according to unredacted filings in a lawsuit": www.reuters.com/sustainabili...

Why is the UK celebrating Microsoft & Google investing in data centres when they're "the bottom rung of the AI economy, private infrastructure that simply channels profits back to US headquarters," asks @superwuster.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/books/2025/n...

Important piece - academics found that "our testing across ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Meta AI revealed that these systems are fundamentally unsafe for the full spectrum of mental health conditions affecting young people"

"MPs on the select committee said the UK needed to develop greater “sovereign” technology capacity, award more contracts to smaller, local providers, and be less reliant on deals that resulted in government departments becoming locked into services with US firms." www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

"It’s astonishing that the Government is proposing to give multi-million pound energy discounts to some of the wealthiest companies in the world." www.thenational.scot/news/2563567... #datacentres #AI

"@labourlewis.bsky.social, who campaigned against Palantir’s work with the NHS, told me: “Its business is death and destruction. This is not an organisation you want running the democratic jewel of the postwar period.” www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/dem...

Important piece - why are European leaders uncritically parroting Big Tech's marketing pitch on "AI"?

Data centres in Scotland are being allowed to call themselves "green" despite using vast amounts of electricity and causing high levels of climate pollution.

“The data centre boom has a massive energy demand and that results in huge emissions." www.heraldscotland.com/news/2562119...

Press release: Meta “drag their feet” on incitement in Africa, says South African regulator www.foxglove.org.uk/2025/11/14/m...

Google's assault on the news industry is also an assault on the truth. Why are regulators so slow to act?

"The same incorrect information is has also appeared Google’s AI Overviews, which appear at the top of search results." pressgazette.co.uk/platforms/go...

“Who has control over the algorithms that dictate what content goes onto people’s phones?”…We need to be effectively regulating those social media companies.”

Press release: Meta “drag their feet” on incitement in Africa, says South African regulator www.foxglove.org.uk/2025/11/14/m...

5 days left to apply for the Head of Operations role at Foxglove: www.foxglove.org.uk/head-of-oper... Please share with anyone who might be interested:

jobs.theguardian.com/job/9893829/... Recruitment for a head of ops position at @foxglovelegal.bsky.social closes in a week! Please share widely and apply if of interest.

US Big Tech monopolists will dominate Europe's AI sector unless governments take action. Foxglove's been calling on Germany's cartel regulator to act urgently, before it's too late: www.foxglove.org.uk/2025/09/18/a...

Important story from @restofworld.org - in the UK, like in Chile, the Government has also parroted the inflated claims made by Big Tech on how many jobs data centres will produce:

Big Tech's claims on job creation by data centres are massively over-inflated: "filings show the largest data centers have the potential to create only hundreds of full-time jobs, mostly in security and cleaning." restofworld.org/2025/data-ce...

"when people are worried about surveillance, of course, there are huge dangers there, but you know, you will have far fewer rights if America’s not in the lead.” -> should the UK Govt be handing contracts for public data to this billionaire? gizmodo.com/palantir-ceo... #Palantir

UN Secretary General says new data centres must be powered with new clean energy: "Technology must be part of the solution, not a new source of strain." unfccc.int/news/un-secr... #COP30 #Belem

Just one new data centre recently approved in London will use "1,610,528 MWh per year, equivalent to the annual consumption of approximately 530,000 homes" www.foxglove.org.uk/2025/11/07/l...

Election results as a warning for data centre developers - and the politicians and governments that support them:

New: a London council has approved a data centre that would use four times more electricity than all the homes in the borough: www.foxglove.org.uk/2025/11/07/l...