#Ageverification "is a gift to every future dictator, every identity thief, and every would-be sexual exploiter of children, who will have access to the hacked, leaked, and badly secured troves of data that this doomed effort produces." pluralistic.net/2026/05/19/s... @doctorow.pluralistic.net

👇👇👇 "Over and over again, politicians are warned about the ways that their pet policies will a) produce enormous collateral damage, and; b) be easily evaded by the people they're seeking to control, giving rise to a cascade of ever-more extreme measures." @doctorow.pluralistic.net

Age verification "is a gift to every future dictator, every identity thief, and every would-be sexual exploiter of children, who will have access to the hacked, leaked, and badly secured troves of data that this doomed effort produces." Excellent read.

I say without hyperbole that this is the most brazenly corrupt action in US Presidential history. That it does not immediately lead to impeachment is a dangerous sign of how far the rule of law has declined.

Microsoft and DigitalEurope, a lobby group whose members include Amazon, Google and Meta, secured a secrecy provision in EU law to block public access to critical information on data centres’ environmental impact, Investigate Europe can reveal. euobserver.com/211609/how-b...

It’s very hard to digest how the explicit antimuslim racism on display in the streets of London on Saturday is passing by with no consequences. Very hard not to feel like we’re regarded as second class citizens and fair game to be sacrificed on the alter of pacifying angry voters. Very hard & scary.

"From the perspective of software engineering, current AI systems are unmanageable, and as a consequence their use in serious contexts is irresponsible" 👇

Ofcom's push for image scanning tech online is open to abuse. LBGTQ+ communities could be targeted by malicious reports, leading to content being wrongly censored. We raised this risk at consultation and Ofcom recognise it in the rights assessment. Its impact must be monitored and provide redress.

I have seen a lot of cursed stuff in my time in academia but this is among the *most* cursed. Grammarly is generating miniature LLMs based on academic work so that users can have their writing ‘reviewed’ by experts like David Abulafia, who died less than two months ago.

Across the US, people in cities and towns are fighting back against the construction of data centers. Today on the podcast, scholar Britt Paris joins 404 Media's @samleecole.bsky.social on why that gives her hope. Watch now: www.youtube.com/watch?v=5twr...

Nimesh Shah, a tax expert at accountancy firm Blick Rothenberg, reviewed the company accounts for the FT and said that they suggested money from Farage’s reality TV show appearance was not used to purchase the house.

‘Flag Man’ Behind Nazi-Linked Anti-Migrant Protests Pleads Guilty to Assaulting Woman Craig Kitts, who says he is fighting to 'protect our women and children' from migrants, admitted to assault by beating

Brazil: "Should there be no consensus once again on a Diplomatic Conference to negotiate the so-called broadcasting Treaty. Brazil proposes this discussion be set aside and removed from the agenda and program of work of this Committee." @doctorow.pluralistic.net #SCCR48 @wipo.int

This isn't a regulator having a bad year. The ICO has stopped doing its job. Behind all these scandals, real people are suffering real harms with no support. That's why we need a fundamental reset of the ICO that puts our rights first. Protect the public, not the powerful. Sign the petition ⬇️

The UK data watchdog is all bark, no bite. From failing to investigate complaints to forgoing regulatory action in favour of a slap on the wrist, the ICO isn't doing its job. It's time that the regulator is overhauled, because data protection laws only work if they're enforced. Read our blog ⬇️

You couldn't make it up...

The UK data protection authority is proposing to government "a new way to deliver online advertising without consent." b2fxxx.blogspot.com/2026/05/ico-...

The Information Commissioner's Office's (ICO) is failing us. It's time to reset the ICO. action.openrightsgroup.org/reset-ico @openrightsgroup.org

I know there’s a lot going on in the world, and we don’t have enough attention to pay to any of it. But the throttling of Cuba by the US should be a bigger story than it is. There are about 10 million people in Cuba, subjected to horrendous collective punishment. www.theguardian.com/world/2026/m...

AI chatbots are giving out your address and phone number on request, and there is no simple way to stop them. www.technologyreview.com/2026/05/13/1...

Where will your community source its clean water and power from after companies divert their supplies to service the massive demands of new AI Slop centres?

These two things *should* disqualify Wes Streeting as Labour leader, but in practice being an asset of the oligarch press, US health and tech corporations (and I would add being funded by the Israeli lobby) are exactly what secure you the top Labour job nowadays.

My next book, *The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI*, will be out in about a month. 1/

L.C., a minor child, by and through her father MASSIMILIANO CALI, MASSIMILIANO CALI, Plaintiffs, v. DONALD J. TRUMP, et al., ecf.dcd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/show... Injunction against US sanctions on @FranceskAlbs The judgment is a stinging rebuke, particularly of Marco Rubio.

New breach: Canada Life was named as a ShinyHunters victim last month, after which data containing more than 200k email addresses was published. The incident also impacted name, phone number and physical address. 47% were already in @haveibeenpwned.com. More: haveibeenpwned.com/Breach/Canad...

"LLMs are remarkably good generative statistical models of human language (including human-written computer code)." knightcolumbia.org/content/ai-a...

No matter what lawmakers claim, surveillance of encrypted communications is fundamentally a systemic vulnerability. www.eff.org/deeplinks/2...

When people are disconnected from the internet, it can impact everything — access to essential info, how they receive medical care, or communication with loved ones. Whether it’s from the government or natural disasters, you can prep in advance to limit the impact of such shutdowns. 🧵 (1/9)

Microsoft fires head of Israeli subsidiary and other managers over surveillance of Palestinians www.pcgamer.com/gaming-indus...

Those of you with very long memories may recall the scare story in the red tops, maybe eight or so years ago, which claimed that children under 10 were using the names of Nando's hot sauces as texting code for various sexual acts. That story placement? That was the vendor, drumming up publicity.

Fun fact: the magical child safety solution which Jess Philips cited in her resignation letter is a vendor-specific offering, which benefited from an intense PR and lobbying campaign, and was previously praised by ... Prince Andrew. I always keep the receipts. heatherburns.tech/2026/02/20/t...

Please remember that the purpose of the OSA was not child safety, it was to create a captive market for the AV and content scanning sectors, and sales pitches were what shaped the law, as I wrote here. internet.exchangepoint.tech/the-dog-that... They want their ROI and they want it now.

New from 404 Media: spoke to four people who attended a trade show where senior ICE officials spoke about how much Palantir is supercharging their arrests. List of 20 million people on ICE agents phones now; increased chance of successful arrest from 28 to 80% www.404media.co/ice-agents-h...

OUR NEW BMJ editorial: Andes virus should reset WHO’s default approach to airborne risk. 🧵 1/ For severe pathogens with person-to-person transmission, the starting point should be precautionary airborne protections — not waiting for definitive proof after spread occurs. www.bmj.com/content/393/...

Donella Meadows was terrific. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinkin... The @openuniversity.bsky.social offers a free introduction to systems thinking and practice www.open.edu/openlearn/di... plus systems diagramming module and more similar resources at our systems thinking hub www.open.edu/openlearn/sy...

I think everyone would benefit from learning at least the wikipedia basics of systems theory, as it applies broadly to so many aspects of the world we live in, and can give people valuable new perspectives.

Great thread as always from Doctorow here, this time on systems theory and how it applies to our current political landscape. When I was in the PhD program, my dissertation was going to be centered on modeling violent extremist groups as complex adaptive systems in order to better combat them.. 1/2

In other news, the government today announced 26 life peerages for hereditary peers, including for one Duke, three Earls, and three Viscounts. Such is the break with the status quo. www.gov.uk/government/n...

Starving Gaza bearing-witness.com/starvation-s...

The @no2id.bsky.social response to the UK government digital ID consultation is excellent www.no2id.uk/wp-content/u... and should be compulsory reading for all MPs b2fxxx.blogspot.com/2026/05/no2i...

Wacky story in @ftm.eu this morning – apparently Musk's xAI has listed a random office block in Estonia as its Europe-wide contact address, and even the building owners hadn't heard a thing about it. www.ftm.eu/articles/elo...

Meta is earning a fortune on a deluge of fraudulent ads, documents show www.reuters.com/investigatio...

Big tech lobbyists got EU to write EU law to keep environmental impact of individual data centres secret: COMMISSION DELEGATED REGULATION (EU) 2024/1364 of 14 March 2024 on the first phase of the establishment of a common Union rating scheme for data centres eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-conten...

The Czech government have claimed that mass #surveillance is good for #privacy www.irozhlas.cz/zpravy-domov... Wonder what Kafka would have made of that variation of the 'nothing to hide' deceit?

"the EU is beyond just complicit in the spyware scandals or inactive in reacting to this threat. Arguably, it’s an active enabler of the industry, wreaking havoc on people’s lives" edri.org/our-work/its...

The Muslim victim who wasn’t there: Golders Green & the ‘ghost logic’ of #Islamophobia www.middleeastmonitor.com/20260507-the... "The BBC is not... far-right... The Met is not... fascist... yet both... reproduced a hierarchy of victims that any Islamophobe would recognise and approve of."

Never trust Meta. And don’t use DMs on Insta anyway.

People, don’t be fooled into thinking Meta has turned off E2EE in its Insta messages because it cares about kids. It’s turned it off so it can train its A.I. on your messages. They know, as the real experts know, that turning off E2EE makes kids less safe. And they don’t care.

Watching the ‘neutral’ excitement of reporters on Reform’s gains makes it very clear how the Nazis succeeded in Germany. No context. No perspective.

In my recent conversation with Politico on my new coauthored book, Auditing AI, I discuss why AI audits matter, why accountability can’t be left only to computer scientists, and how we can evaluate systems for real-world harms. www.politico.com/newsletters/...