Gateklons

Hurray! This German State Decides to Save €15 Million Each Year By Kicking Out Microsoft for Open Source Schleswig-Holstein's migration to LibreOffice reaches 80% completion, with a one-time €9 million investment on cards for 2026.

Schleswig-Holstein ditches Office 365 for Libre Office.

Claims it will save over €15 million in license costs in 2026. This is money the state previously paid Microsoft for Office 365 and related services.

itsfoss.com/news/german-...

is there no fascist policy that #starmer will not validate...?

Now? Are you kidding me 😉?

Decem: NOOSA! ASABALL LIFE'S A BEACH festive favourites delicious. Liftout inside today AS POMS DITCH TRAINING P10-11- Courier Mail Today childhood will be REBOOTED Today is the day humanity reboots childhood - with Australian kids the first in the world to be banned, by law, from using social media until they turn 16. Lives will be changed. Lives will be saved. These are laws that will unshackle our kids from an online world they are not old enough to handle, freeing them to grow up in a society that protects them. Social media harms our children. Let's just let them be kids. EDITORIAL P52 | PARENTS' GUIDE P4-5

The fuck is this

Putin’s Russia: “Don’t call us, we’ll call you.” Possible ban on incoming phone calls from “unfriendly countries” under consideration.

On balance, though, it's not at all clear that the median 13-year-old is better off spending several hours a day on Instagram, Snapchat, or TikTok. Particularly when we know how ruthless these companies are about building features to boost engagement and send children ever further down infinite rabbit holes of content. To the platforms' chagrin, this line of thinking is rapidly becoming the global conventional wisdom.

Australia's ban on under-16s on social media is well on its way to becoming the global norm. I wrote about how platforms lost the argument www.platformer.news/australia-so...

Chart showing YouTube stands out for being used by nearly all teens. Roughly nine-in-ten report ever using it. About six-in-ten or more say they use TikTok and Instagram. A somewhat smaller share say they go on Snapchat (55%). Fewer use Facebook (31%) and WhatsApp (24%). And no more than about one-in-five say the same of Reddit or X (formerly Twitter). WhatsApp is one platform that stands out for its growth in recent years. Today, roughly a quarter of teens say they use WhatsApp, up from 17% in 2022. X and Facebook have declined in use over the past decade. Today, 16% of teens use X, down from 23% in 2022 and 33% in 2014-15. And Facebook, once the go-to platform for teens, is used today by about three-in-ten teens. This is far lower than the 71% in 2014-15, though on par with 2022. The shares of teens who use other sites or apps, like YouTube, TikTok and Instagram, have stayed relatively stable in recent years.

NEW DATA: Where the teens are
YouTube 92%
TikTok 68%
Instagram 63%
Snapchat 55%
Facebook 31% (down from 71%)
WhatsApp 24%
Reddit 17%
X 16% (down from 33%)
https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2025/12/09/teens-social-media-and-ai-chatbots-2025/

EU says easier iPhone-Android switching is proof the DMA is working - 9to5Mac The EU says Apple and Google’s new iPhone-Android switching tools show the DMA is working, delivering easier, faster data transfers for users.

EU says easier iPhone-Android switching is proof the DMA is working 9to5mac.com/2025/12/09/i...

"European journalism and democracy are at stake."

>70 press freedom orgs, businesses, think tanks, urging
@vonderleyen.ec.europa.eu and @teresaribera.ec.europa.eu
to reject Google’s bid to keep its monopoly grip on Europe's €120bn adtech market--and break it up.

rebalance-now.de/wp-content/u...

Substack is being very tentative to start, but I'd be shocked if this doesn't end in mandatory programmatic ads attached to all free Substack posts

This is an important problem to look at and we shouldn't think only about traditional media. What would it look like to finance social media infrastructure like public service media?
www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/publications...

I really want the splinternet for christmas this year

what if we were to replace the quirky individuality of lived experience with a homogenized and badly automated blandness shaped largely by the country's weirdest sociopaths and shittiest companies

wouldn't that be nice

Instagram Is Generating Inaccurate SEO Bait for Your Posts Instagram is generating headlines for Instagram posts that appear on Google Search results. Users say they are misrepresenting them.

Instagram has gotten into the automated SEO spam game, exciting stuff:

www.404media.co/instagram-is...

Hot new cover design for Verge featured stories ;) -> www.theverge.com/features/839...

📊 The #DSA data access portal is live, and VLOPs/VLOSEs have begun publishing their data catalogues.
Trying to collect the links again: docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

Oooh here's an operational change for platforms post-Russmedia. Encourage anyone requesting content removal to reformulate the request to be based on GDPR/personal data issues. Let them know that by doing so, they can deprive the uploader of an opportunity for appeal or review by Art 21 ODS body. 1/

A screenshot of a Bluesky interface saying "Age Assurance" and "It looks like you haven't added your birthdate. You must provide an accurate date of birth to use Bluesky" and giving me only options to add my birthdate or logout

Is this a new thing? Bluesky on desktop just now asking me to give them my date of birth - not for messages, for the home feed

YouTube video by More Perfect Union We Had 400 People Shop For Groceries. What We Found Will Shock You.

EXCLUSIVE: We found that Instacart is using AI algorithms to charge customers different prices for the same items.

It's not just online. It's in physical grocery stores too.

Our months-long investigation with @consumerreports.org and @groundwork.bsky.social found it could cost families $1200/year.

"There is a more nuclear option if X continues not to comply — the platform could be suspended in the EU for up to four weeks." that's wrong; should be permanent.

also: get off this platform, @ec.europa.eu, staying on it makes you look hypocritical and rather stupid...

Secrecy Tracker: The EU’s plan to classify (almost) everything The latest Secrecy Tracker warns that a proposed EU law could restrict public access to documents, while also covering controversies over EU transparency in Gaza, preservation of von der Leyen’s email...

Secrecy Tracker: The EU’s plan to classify (almost) everything - euobserver.com/rule-of-law/... "we are ending the year with some dire news. The right to access documents in the EU is potentially coming to an end." #foi

I have just posted on SSRN my paper on DIGITAL OMNIBUS: PROPOSED CHANGES TO THE DEFINITION OF PERSONAL DATA IN THE EU GDPR ANALYSED IN THE LIGHT OF THE SRB AND EARLIER CJEU JUDGMENTS. It is available at:
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

EU strikes deal to weaken corporate sustainability laws The European Union reached a deal on Tuesday to scale back its corporate sustainability laws, after months of pressure from companies and governments including the United States and Qatar.

EU lawmakers have reached a deal to 'simplify' corporate sustainability reporting and due diligence 👇

Sounds technical but it's bad news.

Diluting rules designed to keep big business honest about its impact on people + planet will make it harder for consumers to invest their money sustainably.

Google hit with EU antitrust investigation over use of online content for AI It's the latest in a string of actions the European Commission has taken against U.S. big tech companies.

In the most obvious AI antitrust move yet, the EU is probing Google for scraping web content for AI Overviews without paying and no way to opt-out but still stay in search. They're also targeting YouTube data usage.

Once I saw Gemini accessing YouTube while ChatGPT couldn't, I knew this was coming

EU Member States are concerned that changes to the personal data definition could weaken GDPR rights and complicate data transfers. The EDPB and EDPS note these revisions go beyond recent CJEU case law. Multiple stakeholders agree, as highlighted by @gzf.bsky.social. Below are Douwe Korff’s views.

A.I. Videos Have Flooded Social Media. No One Was Ready.

"The advent of realistic videos has been a boon for disinformation, fraud and foreign influence operations"

www.nytimes.com/2025/12/08/b...

What is the positive use case for an easy-to-use fake video tool?

If you're in Switzerland, you get more AI-generated answers using Russian state-controlled media.

I am slowly getting convinced that the Commission prepared a digital enforcement advent calendar and will announce a new decision every day until Christmas.

Man Charged for Wiping Phone Before CBP Could Search It The exact circumstances around the search are not known. But activist Samuel Tunick is charged with deleting data from a Google Pixel before CBP’s Tactical Terrorism Response Team could search it.

New from 404 Media: a man has been charged for allegedly wiping a Google Pixel phone before CBP could search it. Search was by a CBP Tactical Terrorism Response Team, which ACLU says "interrogate innocent travelers." Man is described as an activist online

www.404media.co/man-charged-...