#AI#GenerativeAI#BigTech#SiliconValley: "The heart of the problem is that generative AI is not really designed to address actual social problems. We urgently need the expertise of social scientists to be able to make much-needed collective decisions about the future of generative AI that we want; we can’t leave it to business, markets or technologists. We need to turn to these experts to understand our social or collective problems and the challenges we want generative AI to address. We then need to work out whether – not simply how – artificial intelligence can contribute to finding viable solutions, and then getting AI companies to focus on producing those solutions." https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/commentary/article-generative-artificial-intelligence-is-simply-a-waste-of-our-time-and/
#EU#EC#Neoliberalism#Antitrust#Competition#BigTech: "In 2019, a year after the GDPR came into force, Johnny Ryan appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee and told them that “things I think are looking very bleak for our colleagues at Google and at Facebook … it is highly likely that they will be forced to change how they do business.” At the time, he was working for Brave, a privacy-focused web browser founded by the author of the Javascript programming language.
I asked Ryan what happened. “I was a naïve young man,” he chuckled. In fairness, at the time he added the caveat that the Europeans had yet to enforce their own policy. The Commission shipped out enforcement to member states’ data protection authorities, without much pressure to apply the law as written. Tech platforms quickly realized that if they headquartered in one EU country, they could funnel all GDPR regulatory enforcement there. Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Meta set up shop in Ireland, and Amazon in Luxembourg; both are notorious tax havens with incentives to be friendly to Big Tech. Ryan made a public records request asking how many Irish investigators were working on GDPR, and was told the agency didn’t even have records to find out who was investigating.
“If you have free movement within the EU but strong national state authorities in their territories, it’s obvious that corporates will play them against each other,” said Repasi, and that’s what happened. A parallel problem is that the GDPR didn’t focus enforcement toward the biggest purveyors of data, meaning that the smallest website operators—“local sports clubs and dentists,” Ryan said—felt the biggest relative impact.
“When a member state doesn’t enforce European law,” Ryan added, “the European Commission is the guardian of the treaties of the EU and they should take that state to court … [but] 10 to 15 years ago the Commission stopped taking cases against member states. It’s love instead of power.”" https://prospect.org/world/2024-04-03-eurocrats-on-the-brink/
A new bill from #SanFrancisco Assembly Member #MattHaney would clearly outline when companies can communicate w/their #employees during off hrs, following other countries that have passed “right to disconnect” #laws.
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#AI#GenerativeAI#BigTech#SiliconValley#Cartography: "The set of relationships presented here forms a mosaic that is difficult to grasp because it involves the linking of objects and knowledge of different kinds and scales. The discourses surrounding AI often have a strong mythic charge and are accompanied by a series of recurring metaphors and imaginaries: algorithmic agencies detached from human action, the non-negotiable technology that imposes the future on us, the universality of data, or the ability to produce models free of bias or worldviews. The set of discourses that surround these technologies, whether they are more specialised or more popular, end up shaping them in one way or another. For this reason, the Cartography of Generative AI project is based on the motivation to offer a conceptual map that covers a large part of the actors and resources involved in this complex and multifaceted object we call Generative AI. Drawing on a long genealogy of critical cartographies dedicated to wresting the function of maps as producers of hegemonic truths, this visualisation aims to map the phenomenon, taking into account the tensions, controversies and ecosystems that make it possible." https://cartography-of-generative-ai.net/
Han pasado más de cinco meses de genocidio contra el pueblo palestino con la complicidad de los Estado-Nación occidentales y la inoperatividad de las principales organizaciones internacionales. Cada día somos más conscientes del papel que juega la tecnología y la tecnología digital a la hora de hacer la guerra, sobre todo a través de las grandes empresas tecnológicas o #BigTech. Del impacto que estas tienen en la geopolítica internacional, y en este concreto momento en la aniquilación rápida y sangrienta del pueblo palestino en Gaza, del permanente apartheid en Cisjordania, así como en el borrado determinante de lo que es #Palestina de la memoria histórica digital del mundo.
En #Sindominio llevamos más de 25 años promoviendo un internet y un uso horizontal de las tecnologías, buscando así impulsar la transformación social. Como colectivo tecnopolítico nos queremos sumar y mostrar nuestro rechazo al uso de las tecnologías como métodos sistémicos de aniquilación de un pueblo, en este caso el palestino. Aunque reconocemos que ésta no es la primera ni la última vez que se utiliza la tecnología con fines militares de dominación y aniquilamiento, sí creemos que el caso del genocidio palestino de estos últimos meses, marcará un antes y un después en la forma de entender el mundo, y somos conscientes que esto es en gran parte, por el uso tecnológico multidisciplinar y militar con el que se está perpetrando, como resultado de la colaboración entre las #BigTech y el Complejo Militar Industrial.
Well, I have finally installed F-Droid on my Android mobile as I continue to move away from Big Tech. Most of the open source applications I'm using have an official version on the store! Signal seems to be the exception, so any thoughts on Element as a possible replacement please? Obviously, views on other alternatives just as welcome! #fdroid#bigtech#foss#opensource#signal#element#privacy#security
「Industry participants, including Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud, Oracle, Ericsson, and Snap Inc. are supporting Valkey. They are focused on making contributions that support the long-term health and viability of the project so that everyone can benefit from it」
Last night I finally deleted my #LinkedIn account. It was last #BigTech owned service I used (and rarely even log in last two years).
So am I fully #corpfree now? :blobcattilt:
It was also ethical matter for me, I didn't want to deal with #Microsoft, so morally bankrupt corporation, in any way. Both for data stealing, #privacy violations and disrespect for users and for compliance with authoritarian governments and creating #surveillance technologies for oppression.
Yes, I wrote this in form as a reason, in more detailed way, until I used character limit.
Now I feel... More coherent? And it's good feeling.
This is quite the headline in The Times using a detail they later state to be 'rumour' to make a definite claim in the headline in order to help Palantir's reputation washing attention grab. It is at best an exaggeration of the firms role. Poor reporting or PR? #palantir#thetimes#tech#bigtech#ukraine#israel#intelligence#propaganda@potemkinvillage
#Journalism#Media#News#BigTech#SiliconValley#TechJournalism: "This apparent about-face of Silicon Valley prompted Swisher to undertake some agonized soul-searching, the results of which have been published as Burn Book: A Tech Love Story, a tortured and tortuous memoir that, in remixing swaths of past reporting and commentary, as well as regurgitating tales she’s told ad nauseam, tries to answer two burning questions: How did Silicon Valley end up in that room with Trump? And, more importantly, how did a tech journalist as good and uncompromising as Kara Swisher fail to anticipate this turn to the dark side?
The long and short of it is that Swisher is not a good journalist—or, framed more generously, that she thrived in an industry with remarkably low standards for which we are still paying the price. For decades, tech journalism and criticism has primarily consisted of glowing gadget reviews, laudatory profiles, and reprinted press releases, all of it colored by Silicon Valley’s self-aggrandizing vision of itself as a laboratory of a brighter future.
#EU#CJEU#GDPR#DataProtection#BigTech#AdTech#TargetedAds#OnlineTracking: "In a landmark decision on 7 March 2023, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) issued a groundbreaking judgment against online targeted ads prohibited by the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). This ruling has far-reaching implications for major platforms, including giants like Google and TikTok, that rely on the online personalised advertising industry as part of their business model. The Court recognised that invasive tracking and profiling cannot be sanctioned through ‘consent’ pop-ups, responding to a complaint that focused on the mechanisms facilitating the covert profiling and monitoring of the private activities of a majority of individuals across the digital realm. The court’s decision emphasised the need for stricter controls on the online tracking and advertising industry." https://edri.org/our-work/europes-highest-court-delivers-landmark-judgment-against-iab-europe-in-gdpr-consent-spam-pop-ups-case/
Reminder that until Apple is legally forced to allow users to disable Notarization on their mobile devices, you still can't write and distribute an app for iOS anonymously or without paying $99/year, rendering 3rd party app stores utterly useless
It's crazy that our governments are simultaneously leaving us to fend for ourselves against these predatory corporations, while steadily losing their ability to intervene in the future by consistently ceding ground to entities that believe they can monetize our very existence while answering to no one.
Real question: Has anyone seen research that compares the #energy#efficiency of decentralised versus centralised online services like social media?
What requires more energy: 3 billion users farmed on large #Facebook servers or the same number of people interacting on thousands of independently run instances?
@nemobis Yes, I would be really interested about the all-included numbers. I think as a community we should make sure that whatever replaced #centralised#bigtech platforms isn't worse in terms of #climate impact.