Joe Westby

Anybody who had a vision to bring American levels of political, cultural and social polarisation to Britain - whether their motive was clicks or cash, ideology, boredom or anything else - would make it their top strategic priority to abolish the BBC, or to damage and diminish it at the very least

My father, Ken Saro-Wiwa, died fighting for a clean Nigeria. Thirty years on it’s time to stop sucking on the dirty teat of the oil cash cow | Noo Saro-Wiwa In 1995, as one of the Ogoni Nine, he was hanged after protesting against Shell’s oil pollution. With education and a move towards renewable energy, we can honour his legacy

"Last year, I drove through the Obrikom oil and gas field,…where I saw crude petroleum gushing furiously from a broken pipe and into a river. The sight of that blackened water was horrifying. That the pipeline wasn’t fixed for months was even more appalling."

it does seem ridiculous - but also, ask yourself which other news organisation reports on ITSELF when it is facing a crisis or scandal? Good luck seeing the tabloids reporting their own failures.

I’ve written to Keir Starmer, Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage urging them to condemn Donald Trump’s attack on the BBC.

The BBC belongs to Britain, not Trump. We must defend it together.

AI Is the Bubble to Burst Them All I talked to the scholars who literally wrote the book on tech bubbles—and applied their test.

"AI may not simply be 'a bubble,' or even an enormous bubble. It may be the ultimate bubble. What you might cook up in a lab if your aim was to engineer the Platonic ideal of a tech bubble. One bubble to burst them all." - @bcmerchant.bsky.social

Exclusive: Instagram shows more ‘eating disorder adjacent’ content to vulnerable teens, internal Meta research shows Meta researchers found that teens who report that Instagram regularly made them feel bad about their bodies saw significantly more “eating disorder adjacent content” than those who did not, according to an internal document reviewed by Reuters.

Teens who reported feeling bad about their bodies saw more 'eating disorder' content

Posts featured chest, buttocks, or thighs and “explicit judgement” about body types

www.reuters.com/business/ins...

All modern digital infrastructure is a precariously balanced pile held up by a project some random person in Nebraska has been thanklessly maintaining since 2003

It seems to be time to post this again:

Definitely nothing can go wrong with OpenAI having a full record of your sexy chatbot interactions.

The Future of Democracy: Speech, Thought, Sovereignty, and Power in the Age of Platforms and AI YouTube video by Open Markets Institute

Margrethe Vestager talks about the #googleadtech case (pending in the US & EU):

"Had we taken the decision 25 years go that we would not allow conflicts of interest [in digital markets], we would be in a different world. And it's going to get worse with AI."

www.youtube.com/live/KlO8ta8...

$1.5 Billion Speed Bump: What the Anthropic Settlement Tells Us About AI Accountability | TechPolicy.Press Pete Furlong discusses how billion-dollar AI settlements raise headlines but fail to change incentives, leaving accountability for tech giants in question.

“Without genuine accountability, successful lawsuits against AI companies become Pyrrhic victories. They amount to micro-successes and macro-failures that do nothing to compel AI companies to do better, design more safely, or prioritize the people using their products,” writes Pete Furlong.

Big Tech lawyer played key role in picking Ireland’s new privacy regulator Former Meta lobbyist Niamh Sweeney will co-lead the Irish Data Protection Commission from mid-October.

Big piece in POLITICO asking about the independence of Ireland's process of appointing people to its Data Protection Commission. There is deep unease in Brussels about Ireland appointing a former Meta lobbyist as Meta's watchdog. Now questions about who was involved.

www.politico.eu/article/big-...

📣 Germany's close to reversing its opposition to mass surveillance & private message scanning, & backing the Chat Control bill. This could end private comms-& Signal-in the EU.

Time's short and they're counting on obscurity: please let German politicians know how horrifying their reversal would be.

NEW: UK asked Apple to backdoor iCloud encryption.

Backdoors create a massive target for hackers & criminal groups.

Dictators will inevitably demand that Apple do the same for them. 1/

www.ft.com/content/d101...

Meta to mine AI interactions to help target advertising Changes signal how the social media giant will make money from its costly artificial intelligence efforts

Beyond all the AI hyperbole, Big Tech is just using it to squeeze even more data out of us for its grubby invasive surveillance advertising profits www.ft.com/content/22f7...

This is good satire because you *almost* can’t tell it apart from the real proponents of AGI. That’s where we are.

3. ⁠this is not the moment for an incredibly expensive increase in state surveillance infrastructure to be run for profit by private tech firms just before Labour ushers in an (even more) authoritarian right wing government.

FIX THE GODDAMN COST OF LIVING INSTEAD YOU FREAKS.

Discourses around digital sovereignty and public infrastructure often ignore workers' needs and the positive role of publicly and worker-owned infrastructure. If more unions join this call, there are chances to make a difference and create a more democratic digital public infrastructure.

“Shoving AI into everything doesn’t necessarily lead to growth” @melissahei.bsky.social www.ft.com/content/e93e...

The main issues in the revision of the e-Privacy Directive is not cookies but governments aiming to further widen the scope for (mass) surveillance. And of course the @ec.europa.eu is happy to oblige.

ABC Pulls Jimmy Kimmel Off Air for Charlie Kirk Comments After F.C.C. Pressure

Trump is launching a full blown attack on free speech while his harem of billionaires buys up every media platform. This is no coincidence. It’s a coordinated attack on your fundamental right to speak freely without worrying if you’ll lose your job or worse.

For those not watching, Keir Starmer - standing alongside Trump - just said with a straight face that AI is going to "make us richer and freer" and "strengthen the cause of democracy not tyranny". 🤮

Most of the media coverage is no better. BBC's Faisal Islam led News at 10 last night saying "the future of economies depends on who gets hold of Nvidia chips". Is this the news or a Nvidia press release??

Have they not thought to ask what Big Tech is getting in return?

The "Tech Prosperity deal" shows UK Gov has fallen hook line and sinker for Big Tech PR around AI. Uncritically stating as accepted facts that 1) AI will be a huge boost for growth and the economy 2) AI will create lots of jobs 3) AI will solve energy/health/etc.

The plutocracy in action.

All political tribes can be hypocritical but the right's current level of hypocrisy on free speech is deliberate. It's an assertion of power not a blindspot.

Last week Farage said that comparing Reform to Nazis was hate speech, so presumably this extends to the Spectator? Or do they not realise the implications of their Weimar analogy?

If this happened anywhere else, it would be a scandal for the organisation hosting + enabling it. We can't have a different set of rules exempting one billionaire promoter + protector of hatred from what applies to every other org if we want to protect our values, social norms and the rule of law.

Starmer and Badenoch are handling the far-right march all wrong A look back to the days of Enoch Powell suggests a better model

this is really good from @stephenkb.bsky.social. It's about leadership on the norms we've embraced: racism is unacceptable; the UK is a multicultural country and so much the richer for it. We need to live those values; leaders need to lead on them www.ft.com/content/fbbd...

After the far right’s march on our streets, Londoners must show Trump we reject his politics of fear | Sadiq Khan These are dark times, but those who seek to divide us will not win. The capital’s soul and spirit are as inclusive and optimistic as ever, says London mayor Sadiq Khan

President Trump has fanned the flames of the far-right.

And now a toxic form of politics is spilling out onto our streets.

These are dark times, but those who seek to divide us will not win. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Just the Telegraph sanitising the Tommy Robinson march.

Sure, it was all just smiley happy ordinary people.....

Sigh