Corporate lobby organisations grow fat selling the lie that data centres are green and sustainable. Greenwashing the path to climate catastrophe. Their grandchildren will curse them.

Justin Hendrix@justinhendrix.bsky.social · 4h ago

As opposition to data centers grows across the United States, the tech industry is "pulling from tried-and-tested playbooks" to bypass it, write Dean Jackson and Samantha Totoni—from nonprofit front groups to super PACs to tightly managed public forums.

Fascist tax dodgers bloated by UK government contracts

fife4europe #FBPE #RejoinEU@fife4europe.bsky.social · 8h ago

Palantir hoovering up European defence and NHS contracts whilst funnelling earnings back to the US to pay negligible corporate tax is a complete failure of digital sovereignty. European states must stop enriching tech firms that drain public coffers. Is it time to ban them? #FBPE

Over the past two years, the Georgian government has built a comprehensive facial recognition enforcement system. This new story follows several ordinary people realising their presence at a demonstration is now a permanent, reconstructable data record. ➡️ Read now: algorithmwatch.org/en/russian-s...

EU wants to wean itself off the teat of Thiel. So should the UK. www.politico.eu/article/euro...

Europe wants to kick its Palantir habit

The U.S.-based data crunching firm is deeply embedded in the most sensitive European workflows, from policing to intelligence to health care. Finding alternatives won’t be easy.

politico.eu

Politechs podcast speaks to Karen Hao about her excellent book The Empire of AI. pca.st/podcast/d66f...

Politechs

A podcast exploring the inherently political nature of technology

pca.st

UN report documents how generative AI companies have reversed the climate gains made before its launch. AI’s rapid growth drives huge energy, water, and land use, raising environmental and equity challenges across its global infrastructure. unu.edu/inweh/collec...

Environmental Cost of Artificial Intelligence: Carbon, Water, and Land Footprints

AI’s rapid growth drives huge energy, water, and land use, raising environmental and equity challenges across its global infrastructure.

unu.edu

Data annotation jobs are now one of top five fastest growing job types in the US. www.linkedin.com/jobs/data-an...

Politechs podcast featuring Anna Colon from The Data Bank on technology, democracy and AI. pca.st/episode/8710...

Democracy - Anna Colom

We welcome our favourite political scientist, Dr. Anna Colom, back on the show to dive into democracy: what is it really, how does AI threaten it, and how can it be built for real? Anna is a…

pca.st

The Trump administration tried to use visa denials and deportation to silence researchers who study social media. A court said no. Sunday Tagliasacchi and Elisabeth Snyder, former legal externs at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, break down the CITR v. Rubio ruling.

Trump Cannot Use Immigration Law to Silence Technology Researchers

Sunday Tagliasacchi and Elisabeth Snyder detail an initial court victory for the Coalition for Independent Technology Research in CITR v. Rubio.

buff.ly

Safe spaces

Farage wasn't too impressed with our Royal Navy in 2022. And he spelt gunwales wrong.

Crop yields down, our countryside scorched and over 2800 people are dead due to this summer's heatwaves. Meanwhile fossil fuel giants are raking in record profits. We must end this rampant profiteering, and cut fossil fuels from our energy mix as soon as possible.

Damian Carrington@dpcarrington.bsky.social · yesterday

BP profits more than double to $5.7bn in three months as Iran war sends oil prices soaring - "While BP banks enormous profits, millions of households are paying the price" #energycrisis #climatecrisis www.theguardian.com/business/202...

Don't forget to de-Flock everyday after brushing your teeth. Also, on a completely unrelated point, how to cut through a metal pole in 12 seconds.

Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 2d ago

Can’t believe I’ve lived long enough to witness the advent of people juicing the algo by using an anti-surveillance message.

How ICE Is Weaponizing Social Media Against Its Critics Agency says its surveillance program searches for threats to agents, but critics see free-speech infringements [$] www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

How ICE Is Weaponizing Social Media Against Its Critics

The agency says its surveillance program searches for threats to agents, but critics see free-speech infringements.

wsj.com

Everything he touches fails. UFC loses $30m on Freedom 250 event at White House - www.bbc.co.uk/sport/mixed-...

UFC White House: UFC loses $30m (£22m) staging Freedom 250 event at the White House

UFC owners lose $30m (£22m) staging the Freedom 250 event, which was attended by President Donald Trump, at the White House in June.

bbc.co.uk

Beer nor baby were ever at risk

Massimo (mirror)@rainmaker1973-m.bsky.social · 3d ago

Possibly the greatest single male athletic performance of all time Original post

BBC News: Reform UK's Richard Tice under investigation from the parliamentary commissioner for standards Sky News: Reform UK's Nigel Farage under investigation from the parliamentary commissioner for standards BBCQT: Reform UK's Muhammad Zia Yusuf rejected by Reform UK to stand in by-elections

‘Palantir was willing to spend more on securing political access than almost all of its British and Continental competitors. It made donations to London think tanks and hosted parties at Davos.’ @petergeoghegan.bsky.social and @lucasamin.bsky.social: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Peter Geoghegan and Lucas Amin · ‘This looks absolutely rubbish’: Palantir and the NHS

A decade ago Palantir was largely unknown in the UK. It now holds public contracts worth hundreds of millions of pounds...

lrb.co.uk

The next time a climate change denier comes at you with that excuse:

"Prejudices are what rule the vulgar crowd." ~ Voltaire

It would already be a shame on us all if a single person went to bed hungry for being unable to buy food. It is an utter disgrace that 2.7 BILLION people cannot afford a healthy diet... while we choose to spend $ trillions on surveillance infrastructure. I'll only vote for🧍‍♀️ 👨‍👧 who will do better.

SDGCounting@sdgcounting.bsky.social · 3d ago

A healthy diet costs an average of $4.28 a day at purchasing power parity. The international extreme poverty line is $3. FAO's chief economist calls that gap a mathematical impossibility for the poorest, and 2.7 billion people cannot cover the cost.

www.reddit.com/r/PoliticalH...

Pervert glasses still pervy.

Meta’s Smart Glasses Are Still Creepy Despite Anti-creep Update

Recent efforts to bolster the effectiveness of Meta's capture LED might be falling short.

gizmodo.com

Just Work. An all new comic about the gig economy, platform capitalism, delivery riders, and their battle for worker rights. You can read a responsive phone/desktop/tablet friendly online version of it - for FREE - here: tomhumberstone.com/just-work

Just Work | Tom Humberstone

Just Work

tomhumberstone.com

Priorities, preferences and choices.

GodlessPrimate@godlessprimate.bsky.social · 3d ago

It's all about priorities. The tech bros gave politicians a lot of money.

BREAKING Reform UK's Richard Tice is being investigated by the parliamentary standards watchdog over an allegation that he failed to declare an interest.

Nigel Farage just took a question from a 'journalist' at his press conference, who turned out to be his former chief adviser Raheem Kassam, who asks him why the media are being so unfair to him

I'm absolutely furious that facts and information like this are allowed on social media while every Reform MP is working so hard to spread misinformation and lies and stir up our gullible supporters who will believe any old bollocks.