one day you unwrap() what you shouldn't have, another day you again unwrap what you shouldn't have. What should I do with you bigtech? #cloudflare #whatsapp #bigtech
So Google is building a massive AI data centre on Christmas Island, a tiny remote Australian territory with 1,692 people, and it’s exactly the kind of dystopian tech imperialism you’d expect. They’re militarising a small island community in the name of cloud computing, partnering with the Australian Defence Department to monitor Chinese submarines and enable AI powered warfare systems. The island becomes a pawn in great power conflicts while Google extracts strategic value. Meanwhile, locals are promised vague economic benefits while their homeland gets turned into a surveillance node with subsea cables linking to US Marine bases. Classic extractive colonialism dressed up as innovation. The energy demands alone, powered by a local mining company, naturally, are staggering. Big Tech continues doubling our electricity costs for AI toys while communities bear the burden. Christmas Island is known for red crab migrations, not military infrastructure. But when you’re a trillion dollar corporation, even the most remote ecosystems are just real estate for your empire.
@bsi TBH: I feel the same way, but IMHO it is like everywhere else in open source: people & #bigtech are using it but rarely contributing to the ecosystem
I used the LINE messenger for the very first time the other day. Downloaded from the official source, my goal was simple: a single, private chat with one person, which LINE claims is protected by End-to-End Encryption (E2EE).
Our "conversation" was minimal – mostly just test messages. One single contact.
A few days later, I log in to find my account has been temporarily (for how long? =)) blocked.
This raises a cognitive dissonance for me:
Promise vs. Reality: We're told E2EE means no one, not even the company, can read our chats. If that's true, on what basis was I blocked? I have to assume it's related to something in the chat, because I literally did nothing else in the app. But if it is E2EE, how could they know? Does this mean E2EE is just a marketing buzzword and monitoring is happening anyway? I'd genuinely like to know what the real factors are.
Absolute Opacity: This is the real issue. I received zero explanation. No email, no warning, not even a vague hint at which policy I "violated." And look, I'll be the first to admit I didn't read the 100-page Terms of Service – who does? But that's not the point. Even if I did technically violate some obscure rule, the core problem is the total lack of transparency. I was left with no idea, not even a guess, as to what happened. This opaque, black-box process is the real problem.
This situation is deeply concerning. What if I lived in a country like Japan, where LINE is the default, essential messenger? I'd just be cut off from my digital life without cause or appeal. And if this happens on LINE, what stops WhatsApp from doing the same? (And let's not even talk about Telegram, which is 100% cringe and a lost cause for privacy anyway).
My takeaway: To be honest, I went into this as an experiment, and this incident 100% confirmed my expectations.
This isn't just a LINE problem. We see it constantly from Big Tech like Meta and Google. They ban users, often with no explanation, because they have the full legal right to do so. We all agreed to this when we blindly clicked "accept" on their Terms of Service.
This is exactly why my advice is this: you must factor in this risk with all commercial messengers. When you use any private, centralized platform, you have to accept the fact that you can be denied service at any time, for any reason, and they don't even have to tell you why. That is the price of admission we all paid.
The promise of a "private chat" apparently doesn't include the guarantee of access to the platform itself.
Soon your data like your resumes and profile information will be used to train LinkedIn, Microsoft, and Co.'s artificial intelligence. And no, you didn’t opt-in. Take action and stop this now.
Negative headlines, fake news, and Grok AI summaries continue to fill X users’ feeds, so it’s no surprise people are ditching Musk’s platform. Luckily there are alternatives.
I'm quite proud of the fact that I usually find out about downtime of #bigtech services from the news.
For years, almost all of my personal online tools have been self-hosted or run in data centres of small regional providers. They aren't immune to downtime, but when they're down, it isn't half the internet.
Monocultures may seem efficient, but they aren't resilient.
Soon your data like your resumes and profile information will be used to train LinkedIn, Microsoft, and Co.'s artificial intelligence. And no, you didn’t opt-in. Take action and stop this now.
Since I was a kid, I've always wondered how people could have let the Nazis do it... now I know : « #Google’s $45 million contract to spread #Netanyahu's #propaganda »
Google is in the middle of a six-month, $45 million propaganda contract with Netanyahu’s office and was described as a “key entity” supporting Israel's messaging.
"Microsoft can't protect French data from US government access"
"The Senate hearing exposed tensions between sovereignty rhetoric and practical implementation. While French officials promote digital independence, procurement decisions consistently favor non-European solutions for critical infrastructure projects."
So you think that Big Tech monitoring your every move isn’t a problem?
But what if you show up at the hotel at 9pm and the hotelier can ask a credit bureau how much you can afford to pay for the room? What if they can find out that you’re in chemotherapy, so you don’t have the stamina to shop around for a cheaper room? What if they can tell that you have a 5AM flight and need to get to bed right now? What if they charge you more because they can see that your kids are exhausted and cranky and the hotel infers that you’ll pay more to get the kids tucked into bed? What if they charge you more because there’s a wildfire and there are plenty of other people who want the room?
Say bye to #BigTech lock-in and hi to Nextcloud Workspace, the European alternative to Microsoft 365 for bigger organizations, in partnership with IONOS.
Apropos @peertube francouzský vývojářský kolektiv @Framasoft se v současné době snaží získat (pro #bigTech směšnou) částku 75 000 EUR na vývoj opensource aplikace #fediverse, která je konkurencí #Youtube. Možná jim přihoďte pár eur, pokud vám to přijde užitečné? support.joinpeertube.org/en/ #Czech @archos pls boost!
Incredible (but predictable) : #Microsoft has blocked the International Criminal Court's access (#ICC) to its services on the orders of the #Trump mafia.
Read that carefully : an international organisation that has no presence in the United States and no US legal rights has had its work tools blocked simply because it disagrees with the Trump administration. 🚩
For weeks I have been telling reporters that #Trump could have the power to switch off our tech in #Europe. It felt a bit alarmist until I just read that #Microsoft, on the behest of the #US gov, has suspended the email account of Karim Khan, the #ICC chief prosecutor.
One of the most important international courts and a legal bulwark against #genocide, crimes against humanity, and #warcrimes is threatened by #BigTech dependency.
As long as we talk about tech independence or digital #sovereignty primarily in terms of geography and jurisdiction, we will lose as users and as people with rights:
1. Because this narrative can easily be co-opted by antidemocratic, nationalistic forces.
2. It takes away attention from what actually provides us with independence: software #freedom, #interoperability, a power shift away from #bigtech to small, decentralised, ethical tech.
Please consider hosting videos on other places than just #YouTube.
#Google is making it increasingly difficult to view their videos in ways that don't make you choke on their surveillance, ads and cookies. I will *never* load a video directly from YouTube, and I know I'm not the only one.
Please consider posting them on #PeerTube and sync that to YT for the people who still don't understand how evil Google is.
Ik laat Marieke De Hoon universitair hoofddocent internationaal strafrecht, hier achter met een fragment uit 📺 EenVandaag van 7 feb 2025… (slechts) 2️⃣ weken na de inauguratie.
Wil je begrijpen waarom soevereiniteit cruciaal is voor landen, organisaties en de manier waarop we verweven zijn met Big Tech? Klik op play. Of beter nog: stel jezelf de vraag wat er gebeurt als jouw organisatie maandag niet kan inloggen of deelnemen aan betalingen 🤔.
"If anyone wants to do business in [the] EU, they have to comply with the rules," Christel Schaldemose. 👏 At Tuta, we too believe that Big Tech must comply with EU regulation.
We commend these efforts by EU lawmakers to ensure the digital privacy of EU citizens.
TIL that on #Meta platforms now one can write terrible, offensive slurs against LGBTQIA+ folks and immigrants… with zero repercussions. But the second one mentions a #Fediverse project like #Pixelfed, the post is automatically removed.
Meta “moderation” policies in 2025: racism, xenophobia, transphobia, homophobia and sexism are allowed; mention of competition is strictly forbidden.
Meta unveiling big changes to Threads, Instagram, and Facebook today. Zuckerberg is abandoning fact checkers in favor of an X inspired Community Notes system in a move to restore “free expression” and reduce moderation mistakes
zastanawiałam się, czy wrzucać dodatkowo u siebie, jako osobnego toota, skoro już krąży po sieci, temat kontrowersyjny, a ja cierpię na chroniczny niedobór doby ;)
ale w sumie mogę zapuścić linka i dodatkowo otagować:
Czy polska szkoła musi być uzależniona od Big Techów? Państwo promuje zagraniczne korporacje w polskich szkołach. Osoby szanujące prywatność sprowadza do "roszczeniowych dziwaków". My wszyscy natomiast to finansujemy z naszych podatków.
Did you know IBM helped Hitler carry out the Holocaust? Is it in any way surprising that we can’t do anything about Big Tech and toxic oligarchs like Elon Musk when even those who helped carry out one of the worst tragedies in human history remain unpunished? Should it come as a shock that the very same bastards are funding and pining for fascism today?
