Late to the party but just wanted to mention that it's hard to over-estimate the importance of the French constitutional court's decision to strike down #Macron's ill-advised social media ban for kids.
#DigitalRights #FreeExpression #RegulateBigTechNotChildren #France
"Imagine you’re an Olympic athlete. You set out to sprint from Clapham to Balham. You know if you take the bus, it will be faster. But you also know that the point was never being in Clapham or Balham. It was the strength, the speed and knowledge of your body that you gained.
A student’s essay on Macbeth has no value as a product. It’s what you learned in the reading and writing – the swiftness and resilience and suppleness of thinking you built – that was the point.
When your business is destruction and misery:
Me: Yay the @EUCommission has a new #AISafety team under the #AIAct to make sure #AI is not harmful.
Also me: Oh no, their number 1 core concerns is AI enabling a chemical, biological, or nuclear attack. 🙄
What a waste of public resources.
The think tank #cfg has published a very interesting analysis about how existing EU laws like the #AIAct, #GDPR, #DSA, and #DMA can address and regulate various #AI products and services and how the industry is trying to evade responsibility by claiming "AI" was too novel a thing to fall under these laws.
While #France and #Spain are burning, #Bangladesh received a record 412.3mm (!) of rainfall in 24 hours. Unprecedented rainfall across #Asia brings flash floods and typhoons as a result of climate breakdown.
ICYMI #DigitalServicesAct news:
The Austrian #DSC #RTR #KommAustria has published a quantitative study that shows how "fraudulent and problematic #advertising on #Meta’s platforms is not a marginal phenomenon, but constitutes a #SystemicRisk within the meaning of Art 34 #DSA as it spans 8 thematically distinct #fraud schemes involving large numbers of ads."
This should be enough ammunition for the @EUCommission to start investigating Meta for breach of DSA (again!).
10 days ago, the @EUCommission accepted #X's commitment to improve data access for researchers under the #DSA. The lack of access had been part of a larger EC investigation into X's breaches of the law that led to a €120m fine (which X currently contests in court).
While the commitment is good news, it showcases the terrible lack of transparency of the enforcement process, where the only source of public info is vaguely worded press releases: (1/2)
Important reminder that tech solutions like #encryption, panic buttons, and duress #passwords alone are unlikely to save us from #authoritarianism.
#Democracy and #HumanRights need organising and real-world resistance to be protected.
RE: https://mastodon.social/@eunews/116979393065998604
Of course it does. #venezuela #icc
"The historians [of the future] are our children. We will find no mercy from them."
-- Philipp Ruch
I mean this fantasy plot is as believable as any Roland Emmerich disaster movie but it's a lot more dangerous.
Because while some of its authors might just want to further the big #AI grift and cash in, others seriously and religiously believe that Europe will be destroyed if it doesn't win The Race ™️.
And these authors are incredibly well funded and well connected.
I don't know if anyone here has read #Europe2031, a made-up #fantasy plot in which physical and environmental boundaries don't exist, #cybersecurity works like in Sandra Bullock's "The Net", and only radical "far-right and far-left populists" can possibly be anti-AI.
The plot could be a B-movie but is sold as foretelling the future if Europe doesn't go "all in" with the #AI tech bros.
It's so bad I feel uncomfortable linking to it.
(Edited hashtags)
Revealed: how #Europe’s most powerful #farming lobby killed EU’s #pesticide law
#ClimateCrisis #ClimateJustice #lobbying #nature #biodiversity #agriculture
Here's a brilliant essay about the abusive relationship we have with our phones. Go read it.
"A smartphone worthy of our love and trust would want the best for us and would actively help us to achieve it. [...] Instead of monetizing our distraction, a trustworthy smartphone would help us do the sustained intellectual and creative work that gives our life meaning. It would deepen and broaden our relationships, not exploit them for a social graph. It would dive into immersive storytelling and communication with the goal to make new ways for us to love and be loved."
Guess what: #Apple is not the only one deliberately undermining and circumventing its obligations under the #DigitalMarketsAct:
"We find that #Microsoft still employs a number of harmful patterns, including Trick Wording, Obstruction, Visual Interference, and Preselection" to prevent people from switching to competing #browsers.
https://research.mozilla.org/files/2026/07/Over-the-Edge-2.0.pdf
Another pretty cool #NGO #job opening:
Digital #Campaigner @ #Foxglove
RE: https://mastodon.online/@apti/116917486656628265
Such a brilliant idea! #DigitalRights #fedibooks
RE: https://social.heise.de/@heiseonlineenglish/116894635345643401
Oh my, @heiseonline you should really know better than peddling #Anthropic's PR bullshit and selling it as "research."
No, #Claude does not "lie" or "cheat" and has no "consciousness" or "secret thoughts" just because the company makes those claims.
Is this supposed to be tech journalism or just copy-pasting industry press releases?
(Maybe something for @mystery_ai_hype_theater to disect?)
The proposal explicitly suggests:
"It takes time for a #ZeroDay #vulnerability to be remedied through patches by manufacturers following publication by the Office for Information Security (#BSI); the Intelligence Service (#BND) can use this time to carry out important work. If the BSI is asked to share findings immediately, the time between internal processing, notification to manufacturers, patch provision & installation may be long enough to exploit it for valuable work."