Aaron Martin

"'Starlink bans' are better understood as assertions of telecom sovereignty, with governments applying existing tools to force LEO providers back inside national regulatory and security perimeters."

www.ictworks.org/stop-fightin...

Good stuff from @wayanvota.bsky.social

h/t @emryss.bsky.social 🎩

Amen!

Is anyone monitoring AI companies' compliance with California's Generative Artificial Intelligence Training Data Transparency Act (AB 2013), which came into effect on January 1st?

"Social media age limits would be better set at a European level — rather than nationally — the EU’s digital chief [Henna Virkkunen] said on Tuesday. The European Commission aims to present a proposal before the summer." www.mlex.com/mlex/technol...

The Digital Sovereignty Observatory | King's College London The Digital Sovereignty Observatory examines how emerging technologies reshape social and political boundaries.

Our new research initiative @digsovobs.bsky.social has a page! Give us a follow.

The Digital Sovereignty Observatory examines how emerging technologies reshape social and political boundaries.

@kerenweitzberg.bsky.social @sixfouronea.net @emryss.bsky.social

www.kcl.ac.uk/research/the...

EU capitals say deleting US tech is not realistic Europe is dreaming of digital independence but every country runs on American gear.

“A full technological ‘decoupling’ from the United States is neither a realistic objective nor one that would serve Europe’s broader strategic interests,” said Lithuania’s economy minister, Edvinas Grikšas.

www.politico.eu/article/eu-c...

Data Protection Office Confirms Full Deletion Of Worldcoin’s Biometric Data Office of the Data Protection Commissioner (ODPC) confirmed that Tools For Humanity has deleted all biometric data previously collected from Kenyan citizens.

Kenya's data protection authority has confirmed that the biometric data collected by various Worldcoin affiliated companies has finally been deleted after its illegal collection 👁️

thekenyatimes.com/law/data-pro...

Grace Mutung’u, Magda Brewczyńska and I have a paper on this case coming out soon 🖋️

"Global humanitarianism is in crisis. The movement that grew up after the Holocaust, drew strength from the cold war and fed off the international outrage at the genocides in Bosnia and Rwanda in the 1990s is bewildered and besieged."

www.ft.com/content/8600...

TikTok Strikes Deal for New U.S. Entity, Ending Long Legal Saga

@anupamchander.bsky.social with the money quote:

“My worry all along is that we may have traded fears of foreign propaganda for the reality of domestic propaganda.”

www.nytimes.com/2026/01/22/t...

"Cybersecurity expert Fleur van Leusden likens tech company attempts to sell sovereignty as a service to vegan chicken breast; it cannot be both. Technology is either sovereign or it is foreign."

www.ft.com/content/8fc2...

New York looks at biometric age verification to curb underage sports gambling | Biometric Update The governor of New York State is considering regulating online sports gambling with requirements for biometric age checks.

"The governor of New York is considering regulating online sports betting with requirements for biometric age checks."

www.biometricupdate.com/202601/new-y...

Thanks for all of these :-)

Refreshing my undergrad data ethics syllabus. Making decisions on the most instructive controversies to include as case studies. Any obvious omissions?

23andMe data sale
AVs/safety
Facial recognition/bias
Algorithmic sentencing (COMPAS)
Mental health (Crisis Text Line)
Gen AI & IP
TikTok in the US

In 2026, We Are Friction-Maxxing In the face of technologies that sell us escapism at every turn, we need to build up tolerance for “inconvenience.”

"Children are the easiest targets for tech companies because they don’t know the difference between suffering and friction — one difference between children and adults is that adults do. Or at least, we’re supposed to."

www.thecut.com/article/broo...

<< From 1989 to 2014, battle-related deaths from cross-border conflicts averaged less than 15k a year. Beginning in 2014, the average has risen to over 100k a year. As states increasingly disregard limits on the lawful use of force, this may be just the beginning of a deadly new era of conflict. >>

Opinion | The Great Unraveling Has Begun

<< In Ernest Hemingway’s novel “The Sun Also Rises,” the character Mike Campbell explains how he went bankrupt: “Gradually and then suddenly.” The decades of imperfect but transformative peace that the U.N. Charter helped create now faces the same fate. >>

www.nytimes.com/2026/01/06/o...

OpenAI and Anthropic will start predicting when users are underage OpenAI is readying an age prediction model for ChatGPT.

OpenAI and Anthropic will start predicting when users are underage

Economy and Society dedicated an issue to him: 54(3)

Pleased to share my article examining how circulations of data, capital, and discourse shape migrants' im/mobilities through the case of the UK's ASPEN Card – proudly in Ulla Berg, Carolina Sánchez Boe & @dbyler.bsky.social's SI in @survstudiesnet.bsky.social

ojs.library.queensu.ca/index.php/su...

Sweden’s push for an ex-IKEA CEO to lead UNHCR signals a new refugee order Corporate logic is reshaping refugee protection as states pull back.

"[Corporate humanitarianism] began around two decades ago but has now become the dominant model of humanitarian engagement... Can the UNHCR profit from being led by IKEA’s CEO?" aje.io/r7ifs3

Tim Wu: "In some ways, the American AI race looks not unlike the race to build the grandest cathedrals in late medieval Europe. Then, the motives were a mixture of pride, economics and a sincere religious belief the structures would bring humanity closer to salvation."

www.ft.com/content/1258...

This entire grift relies on convincing people that they don't know how to do the things they have always known how to do, and ironically, if it works, we will, in a very short amount of time, forget how to do all the things we have always known how to do.

Excited to announce @leverhulmecal.bsky.social posts - we are looking for 7 interdisciplinary fellows to join our Leverhulme Centre for Algorithmic Life, closing date 30 January 2026 (1/3) durham.taleo.net/careersectio...

'Unauthorized' Edit to Ukraine's Frontline Maps Point to Polymarket's War Betting It looks like someone invented a fake Russia advance in Ukraine to manipulate online gambling markets.

So it sure looks like someone invented a fake Russian advance in Ukraine to manipulate the online gambling market Polymarket. Gamblers are making money by betting on the outcomes of battles big and small in the war. Edited map is run by DC-based think tank

www.404media.co/unauthorized...

6️⃣6️⃣6️⃣

"Pockets of resistance to data centres are growing across the US, which now has more than 4,000, the most in the world, according to research company Data Center Map. Georgia has 163, making it seventh. Virginia, at the top, hosts 666 facilities."

www.ft.com/content/7f39...

DeepState API used without permission to integrate with bets on the occupation of Ukrainian territory on Polymarket The developers of the PolyGlobe map, which visualizes bets from Polymarket with geolocation, have unauthorizedly used the API of the Ukrainian OSINT project DeepState. In this way, they wanted to impr...

There is currently about $100m of bets staked on moves in the Ukraine war on Polymarket.

To make a more compelling interface on this war betting,
the guys who do the Pentagon Pizza thing are accused of scraping frontline mapping data without permission.

#NotBlackMirror

dev.ua/en/news/deep...

Enable chats with Satan [enabled] Premium subscription required

Silicon Valley, 1990s: Free and open access to all the world’s knowledge will usher a new utopian age of information!

Silicon Valley, 2025:

Data Protection in Humanitarian Action: Responding to Crises in a Data-Driven World This book is the product of a collaboration between the data protection offices of the ICRC and UNHCR, alongside the Global Privacy Assembly, to reflect on a decade of progress in data protection in h...

We are proud to share that Professor Aaron Martin (@empo11on.bsky.social) co-edited Data Protection in Humanitarian Action, marking 10 years of ICRC & UNHCR data frameworks. A milestone on how data protection drives responsible humanitarian action. Read open access: https://bit.ly/47TYiIm

God bless the editors

48!