Online "safety" (air quotes), authoritarianism
Online "safety" (air quotes), authoritarianism
Its interesting to ponder, if #bigtech did not flatten the digital ecosystem with its trillion dollar dinosaurs, what would internet life look like?
Which platforms would be wired, which stacks would be tired? What weird and wonderful decentral applications would have won the evolutionary races and found widespread adoption?
Hard to speculate, we have been robbed of that alternative universe so thoroughly, there isn't much to go by....
"Te vaak negeren we in Nederland opwinding over AI, simpelweg omdat we AI-ontwikkelaars niet vertrouwen. Maar het is logisch consistent om de integriteit van tech-ceo’s in twijfel te trekken én te geloven dat hun technologie de wereld fundamenteel zal veranderen."
https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2025/08/12/de-overheid-moet-zich-voorbereiden-op-ai-die-superintelligent-is-a4902765
#ai #bigtech
I got new stickers from @fsf so I fixed the outside of my 2012 Mini to match the inside which runs Trisquel GNU/Linux.
Many of us spend a lot of time using computers everyday and we can do more to make sure we use an OS and software that is built to respect our freedom, privacy and security.
Bonus: It runs great on old computers, is climate and resource friendly, saves money.
Kontext:
- Irland hat (mit Luxemburg) praktisch alle großen Zentralen von #BigTech-Unternehmen
- Das Land hat gesamt nur ca 200 Richter. Fälle kosten schnell €100.00+, in meinem Fall bis zu €10 Mio an Prozessriksio.
- Praktisch gilt EU-Recht hier nur am Papier. Real durchsetzbar ist es nicht, egal ob Datenschutz, Hate Speech oder banaler Vertragsbruch..
@noybeu versucht das zu ändern - mittels strategischer juristischer Prozesse, aber das sind dicke Bretter..
Repeat after me: The Linux Foundation are a bunch of Big Tech bellends. Don’t listen to a single thing they say.
#LettersAndPolitics welcomes #Karen Hao, author of #EmpireOfAI: Dreams and Nightmares in #SamAltman’s #OpenAI
https://kpfa.org/episode/letters-and-politics-august-11-2025/
#AI #ArtificialIntelligence #tech #BigTech #SiliconValley #techFutures #books @bookstodon
Not easy to do, but the more you can cut #BigTech companies out of your life the better off you will be.
Monday 10:00 at #WHY2025 we give a talk "Digital sovereignty and the FOSS-stack at school."
https://program.why2025.org/why2025/talk/XZBREW/
There is a live stream
IA, Robots, et la Terre avec moins d'1 milliard d'êtres humains ?
https://loma.ml/display/373ebf56-1468-9891-c832-b62217480439
@itsfoss
#### for file storage:
- nextcloud.
#### calendars and contacts:
- davx5
#### emails:
- tutanota
#### photos:
- immich
#### web browser:
- searxng
#### maps:
- comaps
#### find my location:
- nextcloud phonetrack/traccar.
#### music and videos
- jellyfin
- - -
Phone is split in personal and work mode, personal stores all fdroid and open apps, I only use 2 apps from google for cameras and they stay in the work profile.
#bigtech #tutamail #CoMaps #nextcloud #jellyfin #Immich #searxng
New Project - digitalprivacy.homes
A “side” project called digitalprivacy.homes is currently underway. This side project has grown much faster than I had anticipated. Some of you may have already noticed..
It is intended for home use only and provides several tools for protecting ...
Read more here:
https://digitalprivacy.diy/news/en/new-project-digitalprivacy-homes
…The #DataCenters needed to accommodate the #ArtificialIntelligence boom are still in the regulatory planning stages, & the Data Center Coalition, which represents #BigTech firms & data center developers, has said its members are committed to paying their fair share.
But growing evidence suggests that the #electricity #bills of some Americans are rising to subsidize the massive #energy needs of Big Tech as the US competes in a race against China for #AI superiority.
“A lot of this #infrastructure, billions of dollars of it, is being built just for a few customers & a few facilities & these happen to be the wealthiest companies in the world,” said Ari Peskoe, who directs the Electricity #Law Initiative at Harvard University. “I think some of the fundamental assumptions behind all this just kind of breaks down.”
Some #DataCenters could require more #electricity than cities the size of Pittsburgh, Cleveland or New Orleans, & make huge factories look tiny by comparison. That’s pushing policymakers to rethink a system that, historically, has spread transmission #costs among classes of #consumers that are proportional to electricity use.
Rising #power #bills are “something legislators have been hearing a lot about. It’s something we’ve been hearing a lot about. More people are speaking out at the public utility commission in the past year than I’ve ever seen before,” said Charlotte Shuff of the Oregon Citizens’ Utility Board, a consumer advocacy group. “There’s a massive outcry.”
Amid rising #electric #bills, states are under pressure to insulate regular household & business ratepayers from the costs of feeding #BigTech’s #energy hungry #DataCenters.
It’s not clear that any state has a solution & the actual effect of data centers on #electricity bills is difficult to pin down. Some critics question whether states have the spine to take a hard line against #tech behemoths like #Microsoft, #Google, #Amazon & #Meta.
Imagine a fascist state populated by citizens that happily volunteer to carry data/location tracking devices with them every minute of every day.
Every minute, everyday, reporting on yourself. That's you.
A fascist regime (I expect them to break out some sort of perverse new Nazi inspired logo armband and flag any day) but for now heavily armed, masked ICE agents will do.
Don't cooperate with your subjugation.