The European Union created rules designed to prevent harm before it happens but proposals such as the Digital Omnibus risk moving the EU’s digital rules in the wrong direction, write Itxaso Domínguez de Olazábal and Chiara Casati.

I could almost taste the TK red lemonade there

Never dream

Two juries delivered verdicts against Big Tech companies this week. But the most consequential outcome of these trials may not be the damages awarded. It may be the information forced into the public record, and what that evidence now demands of lawmakers, writes Mariana Olaizola Rosenblat.

The European Data Protection Board has published a case digest (by myself) on decisions made under the one-stop-shop system which consider legitimate interest as a legal basis. www.edpb.europa.eu/system/files...

Algorithmic pricing is already changing what we pay. Rent pricing tools enabled coordinated hikes. Grocery apps can show different prices to different users. States are acting, but enforcement—and oversight—remain uncertain, says Georgetown University Tech and Public Policy Scholar, Max Morgan.

Ahead of a crucial hearing in Anthropic's legal standoff with the Pentagon, outside groups filed briefs largely rebuking the Trump administration's effort to restrict government use of the company's products. Here's a breakdown of what legal experts and advocates had to say.

For an article, @lokapila.bsky.social is looking at the rise of "landlord tech" in Dublin, from apps for building access and "digital butlers" to systems for rental payments and maintenance requests. Have there been recent changes in your building? She'd love to hear from you [email protected]

I’ll be on @rteradio1.bsky.social shortly talking to Brendan about the boom in predictive markets & war gambling

Is the net tightening in Ireland around Big Tech?

Me heading out for my little walk around the block

My first piece for @techpolicypress.bsky.social - a primer of sorts on Ireland’s role in EU tech regulation Context for the year ahead, as the 2 foundations of the economy - the 2 forces that dragged post independence Ireland out of poverty - the EU & US FDI - go to war

As an Irish person who lived through the Great Financial Crisis, I have an instinctive antipathy towards banks. But on the subject of online financial scams - for which banks are subject to duties to compensate customers - I feel genuine sympathy. They're effectively carrying the can for Big Tech.

So we learnt this week that 1 in 10 ads we’re shown on social media are scams; and tech companies are banking billions from the criminals behind them An inevitable end point for a bloated industry eating itself as it attempts to squeeze every last penny out of advertisers

How any more days of this can we withstand before we just vanish into the sea?

oh great

But can I focus long enough to read any of it?

I wrote this song on Saturday, recorded it yesterday and released it to you today in response to the state terror being visited on the city of Minneapolis. It’s dedicated to the people of Minneapolis, our innocent immigrant neighbors and in memory of Alex Pretti and Renee Good. Stay free

The Black & Tan hodgepodge uniforms are a little on the nose

The FT got is architecture critic Edwin Heathcote to write about data centres and it's wonderful. www.ft.com/content/7692...

I write in today's @irishexaminer.bsky.social about the laws that are broken when online AI platforms facilitate the production of child sex abuse material. No new laws are needed. Companies (and their executives) are accountable as well as users. www.irishexaminer.com/opinion/comm...

This headline should read: "World's richest man decides to start charging for his CSAM factory" He did NOT turn it off, he realised it is profitable

I would have thought condemning an company producing child abuse material on an industrial scale for profit would be an easy one. But here were are.

This insistence on appeasement - this cowardice - is debasing, embarrassing - & - IT WILL NOT WORK Look at Maria Machado, she bent over backwards to praise and appease these guys, and what did she get? Passed over They got what they wanted from her & saw no obligation to return the favour

Real subtle, Jeff. Real subtle

“It’s not an ideal situation for international law” Irish Minister right now 🫠

"in our hemisphere" 😐

US disclosed that Cyber Command conducted cyber operations to suppress Venezuelan defenses during th strike on Caracas. Non-kinetic cyber effects from US Cyber Command were deployed before kinetic strikes began, playing a major role in neutralizing air defense systems. No details

Wrote a thing: The carnage associated with fossil fuel is why speeding the transition to renewables is good for international stability as well as everything else. Fossil fuel is inseparable from violence, and dependence on it it has created a brutal world order....

By pure coincidence- a piece I wrote for @irishexaminer.bsky.social was published this morning www.irishexaminer.com/opinion/comm...

It means absolutely nothing to anyone concerned right now but here's what the United Nations says about kidnapping Heads of State. legal.un.org/ilc/texts/in...

Maduro is awful but this is a bad move. No clear objective, likely to induce rally-around-the-flag in Venezuela (not the U.S. as Trump hopes), and some of the dumbest people available leading the effort.

A note that just because the President of the United States used the word 'captured' doesn't mean news organisations should just use it without attribution... or maybe at all really?

It's official: Bulgaria is in the euro-zone. An excerpt from an atypically emotional NYE address by the Central Bank governor: "Thank you, friends. We are home. This is not a protocol. It is a feeling. In this sense, the euro is not just an economic solution... www.bnb.bg/AboutUs/Pres...

Asshole www.irishtimes.com/politics/202...

Amazon secures permission to build three data centres in North Dublin

I've a piece in the paper today

AI is doing to words - literature, journalism, entertainment - what polyester did our clothing There used to be natural fabrics and clothes meant something; now we are drowning in shitty, toxically & exploitatively produced crap, and yes most is cheap but even high end stuff is also now mostly sh!t

‘The hundreds of billions of dollars companies are investing in AI now account for an astonishing 40 per cent share of US GDP growth this year… Outside of the AI plays, even European stock markets have been outperforming the US this decade’ on.ft.com/4pTQ3US

I honestly don’t know why we buy children toys 📦

Adopt far-right policies to stop the far right gaining influence - continues to be the stupidest idea in European politics today. www.theguardian.com/law/2025/dec...

📻 I’m going to be on @rteone.rte.ie shortly to talk MAGA madness Will try my hardest not to say “batshit” live on air 🦇

📣 I am hiring a postdoc! aial.ie/hiring/postd... applications from suitable candidates that are passionate about investigating the use of genAI in public service operations with the aim of keeping governments transparent and accountable are welcome pls share with your networks

The European Commission is now digging deeper in to our complaint against Ireland’s process by which Ireland appointed ex-Meta lobbyist as its Data Protection Commissioner www.rte.ie/news/2025/11...

Well, it's a little clearer now why billionaires are so invested in technology that produces better written emails.

If gave you €1 every second since you were born: You would have €1 million within a week and a half. You would have €1 billion by 32. You would never have €1 trillion. Generations upon generations after you would not reach €1 trillion. Because it would take over 31,700 years to reach €1 trillion.

Always nice to see our work picked up and amplified by other, bigger media. These survey results have been on RTÉ radio, Newstalk, FM104, and others are planning to cover it too.

The Washington Post thinks the White House Ballroom is a splendid idea and anyone who thinks otherwise is a NIMBY. In other news Post owner Jeff Bezos is helping to pay for the Ballroom

Don't get your hopes up yet, but it looks like Geert Wilders is on track for a pretty bad performance in the Netherlands election this week. If this poll is right, it looks like making a non-Wilders coalition will be pretty easy. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

"Connolly was advised to avoid her hobby of rollerblading down Galway’s prom for fear of injury." 🤌 Jack Horgan-Jones piece inside the successful Catherine Connolly campaign: From gaining cross-party support to digital dexterity www.irishtimes.com/politics/202...