Ancestors

Toot

Written by Aline Blankertz on 2025-01-21 at 09:06

This is no longer about free markets. This is about accumulating power and exercising it at will. We once counted on tech firms to defend at least some liberal rights. This hope was always built on thin air, but now it has completely evaporated. Big Tech is willing and able to become an implementer of fascism, full stop.

(📸: The front row of Trump's inauguration, with Zuckerberg, a woman (can someone identify her?), Bezos, Pichai and Musk; photo by Julia Demaree Nikhinson, AFP)

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Descendants

Written by Aline Blankertz on 2025-01-21 at 09:10

Remember the walk-outs at Google to constrain military use of tech? Some sensible content moderation (while imperfect)? The implementation of E2EE? We should not trust that anything that is not yet used against us will stay that way.

Digital technologies are so powerful because they structure our interactions with friends, what we read, where we have dinner, which route we take. The best immediate response I can think of is to work against concentrated power: competition policy and regulation.

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Written by Daniel Gerber on 2025-01-21 at 09:13

@alineblankertz This is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lauren_Sánchez

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Written by Fionn on 2025-01-21 at 09:13

@alineblankertz

At the #inauguration of #feudalist kings, it has always been tradition to call the mightiest men of the country to the front row, paying their respects and pledging their loyalty for the public to witness.

Make no mistake what is happening here.

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Written by AGF : poemproducer on 2025-01-21 at 09:11

@alineblankertz gamergate, qanon, cambridge analytica +++

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Written by Daniel Gerber on 2025-01-21 at 20:56

@alineblankertz I recently came across this image, which shook me to my core. I know that the lead was significant, but if you really see it visualized, it’s something else. Not quite sure what do now.

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Written by Aline Blankertz on 2025-01-22 at 12:09

@Gerbsen And what is your interpretation of this? This is market cap based on company HQ, I guess. Most of the economic activity is spread more evenly between US and EU, with the EU still accounting for a disproportionate part compared to e.g. users in the global South. A key problem in this is the challenge of holding these companies more democratically accountable, with regulation being a second-best substitute.

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