Pat Walshe - Privacy Matters 🇮🇪🇬🇧🇪🇺

MPs have rejected a proposed ban on social media for under-16s despite earlier backing from peers and campaigners including actor Hugh Grant.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/poli...

🚨 NEW: MPs have voted against an amendment to ban social media for under-16s

Yes: 173
No: 307

UK eyes sweeping powers to regulate tech without parliamentary scrutiny The U.K. government has laid two amendments that would let it sidestep parliamentary debate so it can update online safety laws.

www.politico.eu/article/uk-e...

Treasury Sec. Scott Bessent had insisted just a few days ago that oil sanctions relief on Russia was a “deliberately short-term measure".

I guess now we know what Trump's call with Putin this afternoon was about.

An American Family's Multigenerational Rise from Slavery to Harvard University In the account below, attorney and historian James H. Johnston describes six generations of descendants of Yarrow Mamout, a Muslim slave made famous by Charles Willson Peale’s 1819 painting of him in ...

more on this remarkable man and his family

Nepal's Gen Z Used TikTok and Discord to Win a Historic Election The election of rapper-turned politician Balen Shah was shaped by platforms and algorithms built on the other side of the world, writes Aaradhyaa Gyawali.

Nepal's Gen Z used TikTok, Discord & Reddit to flip their country’s political system, as rapper-turned-politician Balen Shah crushed the 6-time incumbent in last week's election. Aaradhyaa Gyawali offers an account of how events played out, and what it says about the role of technology in elections.

So predictable. While Trump and Hegseth posture, millions around world have their lives turned upside down by their cavalier, ill-thought-through attack on Iran, whose regime clings on, and people suffer. Everyone suffers from the devastating consequences, except the immoral morons who launched it.

Senator Graham speaking on Iran - "When this regime goes down we’re gonna have a new Mid East .. we’re going to make a ton of money .. no one will threaten the Straits of Hormuz again” <The US admin foreign policy = make a ton of money, forget the death & destruction & global economic turmoil

Russian Hackers 'Targeting Messaging Apps,' Dutch Spies Say - The Moscow Times Russian hackers have targeted messaging apps used by Dutch officials, intelligence services in the Netherlands said on Monday, part of what they described as a "large-scale global cyber campaign."

Russian Hackers 'Targeting Messaging Apps,' Dutch Spies Say www.themoscowtimes.com/2026/03/09/r...

Opposition to the United States' military action against Iran has risen by 10pts among Britons over the last week

Support: 25% (-3 from 2 March)
Oppose: 59% (+10)

yougov.com/en-gb/daily-...

How Researchers Won a Legal Fight to Access X's Data Under the DSA A Berlin court has delivered a consequential ruling, ordering X to grant Democracy Reporting International access to its publicly available data.

A Berlin court has ordered X to grant researchers API access under the Digital Services Act. Daniela Alvarado Rincón, Simone Ruf and Jürgen Bering explain how they won the case, and why it’s a major step for researcher data access.

Since June 2024, Hungary has been fined €1 million per day by the EU over asylum rules. The amount, added to the €200 million lump sum fine, will reach €1 billion by summer. 🙀
Hungary is suing @eucourtofjustice.bsky.social over the penalties. Now the case is before the court 👇

We are aware of recent reports regarding targeted phishing attacks that have resulted in account takeovers of some Signal users, including government officials and journalists. We take this very seriously. 1/7

It's been 65 days since Donald Trump invaded a sovereign state, abducted its leader, and declared the US will "run" the state indefinitely

It's been 9 days since Trump launched a war (his word) against Iran without congressional approval

No House member has filed articles of impeachment for either

❗️The kamikaze drone that struck the British airbase RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus was equipped with Russian military hardware.

The drone contained a Russian-made Kometa-B navigation system, which was first identified in drones intercepted by Ukrainian air defenses in December.

Senator Graham speaking on Iran - "When this regime goes down we’re gonna have a new Mid East .. we’re going to make a ton of money .. no one will threaten the Straits of Hormuz again” <The US admin foreign policy = make a ton of money, forget the death & destruction & global economic turmoil

Nike Is Moving Jobs to Low-Wage Regions of Indonesia After moving manufacturing to the developing world to save on labor, Nike and other apparel brands are shifting employment in their Indonesian supply chain away from high-wage parts of the country and...

After moving manufacturing to the developing world to save on labor, Nike and other apparel brands are shifting employment in their Indonesian supply chain away from high-wage parts of the country and into less-developed areas.

With @oregonian.com

Honderden verboden politieke advertenties overspoelen sociale media: ‘Gevaarlijk dat dit kan’ Meer dan 270 socialemediaposts die gaan over de gemeenteraadsverkiezingen voldoen niet aan Europese regelgeving en zijn niet toegestaan volgens het beleid van techplatforms als Meta. Maar ze zijn er t...

Meta's politcal ad ban exists on paper only.

Quoted at length in this @ad.nl piece on Meta's failure to enforce its rules in the Dutch municipal elections. Since this was written, I've found over 1000 clearly political ads on Meta from parties and politicians.

www.ad.nl/politiek/hon...

Listen to Tony Benn (RIP) on the Iraq war youtu.be/A7ciGW7h7PI

Blair was & is, wrong.

Tyrants.

On International Women's Day we remember that rights are never given, they have been fought for, and they must be defended.

And there is now an axis of autocracy from Washington to Moscow, and including Reform and others in the UK, that seeks to undermine women's rights.

I don't think it's impossible to communicate to the American people that, even if you think he got it right this time, normalising the President unilaterally deciding which foreign leader lives or dies places more faith in their judgement of both justice and consequences than is wise.

Israeli settlers killed two West Bank Palestinians in an assault on a West Bank town

Israeli settlers killed two West Bank Palestinians in an assault on a West Bank town https://aje.news/s1vevr

The Gist: The Very Hungry Killerpillar Seemingly to their own surprise, the Trump administration goes to war with Iran. This is the Gist.

"Which takes us to Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth, a man who achieves the rare feat of being both eager to show off his hard muscles and yet somehow also personifying erectile dysfunction."

www.thegist.ie/the-gist-the...

Had to doublecheck the date on this

A little bit obsessed with all the nut clusters currently ‘ashamed to be British’ because Starmer didn’t sign us up to this shit show.

thegist.ie I said CJEU judgments were succinct. But one of the ways they manage this is to be very information dense. To expand on that paragraph a little- where a person has a right covered by the Charter of Fundamental Rights or any other provision of EU law and access to those legal entitlements is being blocked by a failure to correctly record their gender (in line with the definition at paragraph 32 above as being defined by "lived gender identity, and not to the identity assigned to them at birth") then whatever national law that is causing that impediment is to just be set aside. It is a dead letter. Every_court, every. state body, every individual official has to behave as it it didn't exist. That's the consequence of incompatibility with EU law.

On discourse about trans people’s right to access to accurate ID, I’d like to remind that the EU’s top court, using data protection’s most fundamental principles, has declared that someone’s “lived gender identity” is what must be recorded to describe them.

www.thegist.ie/the-gist-tra...

How the right-wing British press became Trump’s trumpet Fleet Street is happy to ignore the real history of transatlantic relations to score points against Keir Starmer

How the right-wing British press became Trump’s trumpet

app.prospectmagazine.co.uk/story/72649/...

Indigenous Australians share the racist messages they receive online: ‘No one’s feeling safe’ Australia has announced an inquiry into racism and hate directed at First Nations people, as Lidia Thorpe says racism has ‘never been this bad’

Important read about the incredibly ugly racist hate, abuse & threats Indigenous Australians get

"Many noted a marked uptick in violent rhetoric since the failed voice to parliament referendum in 2023."

“A lot of people in general feel really comfortable being racist.” 1/

How democratic is the UK? The UK has a crisis of democracy

UK democracy in action

The state unable/unwilling to provide people with clean water, timely healthcare, social care, decent housing, pension, affordable education, energy, decent roads.

Corporate profits guaranteed through PFI, privatisations, outsourcing, subsidies, regulatory inaction.