Joe Westby
Independent digital rights strategist & researcher. All things data, AI and confronting the power of Big Tech. Mastodon: @Joewestby@mastodon.social
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- Reposted by Joe WestbyThe EU’s “Digital Omnibus” is being sold as simplification. Analysis shows something else: major changes that tilt the rules toward Big Tech-weakening privacy, AI safeguards, and accountability. corporateeurope.org/en/2026/01/a...
- “These are actions of people who do not fear consequences or backlash anymore. The market has failed to regulate itself. This is the tech we get when hard regulation does not exist” @swachter.bsky.social www.newsweek.com/sexualized-d...
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- As the Commission rolls out its Digital Omnibus to "simplify" - i.e. weaken - EU digital safeguards, we're rolling out billboards across Brussels. @vonderleyen.ec.europa.eu fight for Europe and stand up to pressure from Trump and his broligarchy. ✊Take action now: StandUpUrsula.com
- Reposted by Joe Westby📣 Over 200,000 people have signed petitions demanding action. @wemoveeurope.bsky.social @avaaz.org ✍️ Add your voice now → StandUpUrsula.com #StandUpUrsula #EU #DataRights #GDPR
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- "Mistakes"? You mean tobacco companies ruthlessly profiting while ignoring and suppressing the risks? Good comparison actually.
- Reposted by Joe WestbyAnybody 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
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- Reposted by Joe Westby"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
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- Reposted by Joe WestbyMargrethe 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...
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- 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.
- Reposted by Joe Westby3. 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.
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- “Shoving AI into everything doesn’t necessarily lead to growth” @melissahei.bsky.social www.ft.com/content/e93e...
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- 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". 🤮
- 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.
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- Reposted by Joe WestbyThe real Google anti-trust case to watch
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- “Alarm that Trump could weaponise Europe’s reliance on US cloud services to further a hostile political agenda is growing across the region.”
- Today's €2.95 bn fine against Google is a start, but is not enough. Big Tech shrugs off fines as just the cost of maintaining their toxic monopolies. But good the door is still open for tougher remedies. The EU Commission MUST finish the job and break up Google. www.politico.eu/article/eu-s...
- Reposted by Joe WestbyGoogle's monopoly power rips off consumers, pollutes our information environment, and destroys the news media. Today's €2.95 billion fine is a start, but won't touch Google's toxic ad-tech monopoly. The EU @ec.europa.eu must hold firm and now break up Google. www.politico.eu/article/eu-s...
- “You don’t find someone guilty of robbing a bank and then sentence him to writing a thank you note for the loot.,” @nidhihegde.bsky.social
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- Reposted by Joe WestbyIf true, this update is astonishing. The Commission climbed down from a planned break up of Google’s ad business to a mere fine, and then dropped even the fine for fear of offending Trump. This is for market violations that have been proven in U.S. court.
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- “If I stole any of the AI community’s source codes or algorithms and then tried to profit off them, they would unleash a tsunami of lawsuits against me.”
- “I truly felt like someone backed up a truck to my imagination and stole everything that I’ve created.” —David Baldacci The Authors Guild asked Baldacci to stand before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee, and he delivered a powerful testimony. Read about it! authorsguild.org/news/david-b...
- Today’s Sun and Mail pour more fuel on asylum seeker hatred and panic. If far right violence in Epping spreads into a ‘summer of unrest’, don’t forget that they instigated it.
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- Reposted by Joe WestbyFormer supreme court justice Jonathan Sumption in the New Statesman: Israel's conduct in Gaza is a war crime www.newstatesman.com/world/middle...
- WHY?? who thought this was a good idea?? www.404media.co/the-un-made-...
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- This has to be one of my favourite BS privacy notices, from the Telegraph. You are in control! Just give consent to hand over your data to us and *257* shady data tracking orgs!
- The tech surveillance industrial complex in action.
- The EU is at least talking about 'tech sovereignty' amid fears of over-reliance on Big Tech in the Trump era. Meanwhile over here in the UK, the government is ... handing over our public services to surveillance monopolist Google on a plate.🤦 www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
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- Israel describing this as a “humanitarian city” is truly Orwellian. Original post: mstdn.social/@Remittanceg...
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- Reposted by Joe WestbyNew poll shows huge majorities of Europeans--74% of Von Der Leyen's own CDU--want a tough stance on Big Tech. This is no time to roll over. Tech is vital infrastructure, and it can be ours again--with a three-part play: Break, build, enforce. w/ @robin.berjon.com: www.politico.eu/article/digi...
- Reposted by Joe Westby🚨 NEW POLL: roughly TWICE as many people in France, Germany & Spain want the EU to break up Big Tech giants, as those who don't. @ec.europa.eu will soon decide whether to dismantle Google's toxic adtech monopoly. Will it listen to EU citizens and #BreakUpBigTech? peoplevsbig.tech/large-majori...
- 🧵Out today: A large majority of people in France, Germany and Spain back the EU to enforce the law on Big Tech - even if it risks relations with Trump. New YouGov poll we commissioned @peoplevsbigtech.bsky.social @wemoveeurope.bsky.social. peoplevsbig.tech/large-majori...
- Ahead of Trump's tariff day deadline next week, our poll shows why EU leaders shouldn't give in to pressure and threats from Trump and his tech bro friends to weaken tech laws. www.euronews.com/my-europe/20...
- ChatGPT, can you give me an example demonstrating how Big Tech's business model is predicated on lax government regulation? www.barrons.com/articles/ai-...
- Reposted by Joe WestbyA 99–1 Senate vote against a 10-year AI regulation ban is a win for democracy and public safety. As @ambakak.bsky.social told @davelee.me at @bloomberg.com, we’ve seen what happens when tech regulation waits and we can’t afford to fall behind. Read more here: www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...
- Very interesting: Forcing Google to divest from Chrome is technically feasible. #BreakUpBigTech
- Fantastic result. Wild that such a moratorium is even under consideration - AI boosterism runs deep.
- "It is fair enough for tech companies with products to sell to repeatedly urge the world to “act now or lose out”. But the rest of us needn’t confuse a sales technique with anything more profound." @sarahoconnorft.ft.com www.ft.com/content/4688...
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- Reposted by Joe WestbyIDF soldiers have now themselves admitted they have been ordered to murder aid-seekers in Gaza. Truly an atrocity built on atrocity. www.haaretz.com/israel-news/...
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