Joe Westby
@joewestby.bsky.social
Independent digital rights strategist & researcher. All things data, AI and confronting the power of Big Tech. Mastodon: @Joewestby@mastodon.social
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
@vonderleyen.ec.europa.eu fight for Europe and stand up to pressure from Trump and his broligarchy.
✊Take action now: StandUpUrsula.com
November 19, 2025 at 12:54 PM
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
@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
✍️ Add your voice now → StandUpUrsula.com #StandUpUrsula #EU #DataRights #GDPR
standupursula - People vs. Big Tech
STAND UP, URSULAFight for Europe - not for Trump and Big Tech Add your name now: demand the EU stand up to Trump and Big Tech - starting with breaking up
StandUpUrsula.com
November 19, 2025 at 9:51 AM
📣 Over 200,000 people have signed petitions demanding action. @wemoveeurope.bsky.social @avaaz.org
✍️ Add your voice now → StandUpUrsula.com #StandUpUrsula #EU #DataRights #GDPR
✍️ Add your voice now → StandUpUrsula.com #StandUpUrsula #EU #DataRights #GDPR
Reposted by Joe Westby
NEW: Internet infrastructure giant Cloudflare blamed this morning's massive internet outage on a "latent bug."
This is another stark reminder that the internet depends on just a handful of companies. According to an estimate, Cloudflare is used by 20% of all websites on the internet.
This is another stark reminder that the internet depends on just a handful of companies. According to an estimate, Cloudflare is used by 20% of all websites on the internet.
Cloudflare blames massive internet outage on 'latent bug' | TechCrunch
An outage at internet infrastructure giant Cloudflare took down several big websites and services, including ChatGPT, Claude, Spotify, and X.
techcrunch.com
November 18, 2025 at 3:44 PM
NEW: Internet infrastructure giant Cloudflare blamed this morning's massive internet outage on a "latent bug."
This is another stark reminder that the internet depends on just a handful of companies. According to an estimate, Cloudflare is used by 20% of all websites on the internet.
This is another stark reminder that the internet depends on just a handful of companies. According to an estimate, Cloudflare is used by 20% of all websites on the internet.
"Mistakes"? You mean tobacco companies ruthlessly profiting while ignoring and suppressing the risks? Good comparison actually.
AI firms must be clear on risks or repeat tobacco’s mistakes, says Anthropic chief
AI firms must be clear on risks or repeat tobacco’s mistakes, says Anthropic chief
Artificial intelligence will become smarter than ‘most or all humans in most or all ways’, says Dario Amodei
*
Business live – latest updates
Artificial intelligence companies must be transparent about the risks posed by their products or risk repeating the mistakes of tobacco and opioid companies, according to the chief executive of the AI startup Anthropic.
Dario Amodei, who runs the US company behind the Claude chatbot, said he believed AI will become smarter than “most or all humans in most or all ways” and urged his peers to “call it as you see it”. Continue reading...
www.theguardian.com
November 17, 2025 at 1:59 PM
"Mistakes"? You mean tobacco companies ruthlessly profiting while ignoring and suppressing the risks? Good comparison actually.
Reposted by Joe Westby
Anybody 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
Quick thread on the BBC and the political and societal significance of recent developments:
One of the main reasons the UK has historically been so much less polarised than the US, is that Britain has a shared source of information, consumed and trusted by most people regardless of their politics.
One of the main reasons the UK has historically been so much less polarised than the US, is that Britain has a shared source of information, consumed and trusted by most people regardless of their politics.
November 10, 2025 at 8:41 PM
Anybody 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
Reposted by Joe Westby
"Last year, I drove through the Obrikom oil and gas field,…where I saw crude petroleum gushing furiously from a broken pipe and into a river. The sight of that blackened water was horrifying. That the pipeline wasn’t fixed for months was even more appalling."
My father, Ken Saro-Wiwa, died fighting for a clean Nigeria. Thirty years on it’s time to stop sucking on the dirty teat of the oil cash cow | Noo Saro-Wiwa
In 1995, as one of the Ogoni Nine, he was hanged after protesting against Shell’s oil pollution. With education and a move towards renewable energy, we can honour his legacy
www.theguardian.com
November 10, 2025 at 4:08 PM
"Last year, I drove through the Obrikom oil and gas field,…where I saw crude petroleum gushing furiously from a broken pipe and into a river. The sight of that blackened water was horrifying. That the pipeline wasn’t fixed for months was even more appalling."
Reposted by Joe Westby
I’ve written to Keir Starmer, Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage urging them to condemn Donald Trump’s attack on the BBC.
The BBC belongs to Britain, not Trump. We must defend it together.
The BBC belongs to Britain, not Trump. We must defend it together.
November 10, 2025 at 11:29 AM
I’ve written to Keir Starmer, Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage urging them to condemn Donald Trump’s attack on the BBC.
The BBC belongs to Britain, not Trump. We must defend it together.
The BBC belongs to Britain, not Trump. We must defend it together.
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
AI Is the Bubble to Burst Them All
I talked to the scholars who literally wrote the book on tech bubbles—and applied their test.
www.wired.com
October 27, 2025 at 11:50 AM
"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
Reposted by Joe Westby
Teens who reported feeling bad about their bodies saw more 'eating disorder' content
Posts featured chest, buttocks, or thighs and “explicit judgement” about body types
www.reuters.com/business/ins...
Posts featured chest, buttocks, or thighs and “explicit judgement” about body types
www.reuters.com/business/ins...
Exclusive: Instagram shows more ‘eating disorder adjacent’ content to vulnerable teens, internal Meta research shows
Meta researchers found that teens who report that Instagram regularly made them feel bad about their bodies saw significantly more “eating disorder adjacent content” than those who did not, according to an internal document reviewed by Reuters.
www.reuters.com
October 21, 2025 at 8:24 AM
Teens who reported feeling bad about their bodies saw more 'eating disorder' content
Posts featured chest, buttocks, or thighs and “explicit judgement” about body types
www.reuters.com/business/ins...
Posts featured chest, buttocks, or thighs and “explicit judgement” about body types
www.reuters.com/business/ins...
Reposted by Joe Westby
It seems to be time to post this again:
October 20, 2025 at 10:45 AM
It seems to be time to post this again:
Reposted by Joe Westby
Definitely nothing can go wrong with OpenAI having a full record of your sexy chatbot interactions.
October 14, 2025 at 8:36 PM
Definitely nothing can go wrong with OpenAI having a full record of your sexy chatbot interactions.
Reposted by Joe Westby
Margrethe 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...
"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...
The Future of Democracy: Speech, Thought, Sovereignty, and Power in the Age of Platforms and AI
YouTube video by Open Markets Institute
www.youtube.com
October 15, 2025 at 10:59 AM
Margrethe 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...
"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...
Reposted by Joe Westby
“Without genuine accountability, successful lawsuits against AI companies become Pyrrhic victories. They amount to micro-successes and macro-failures that do nothing to compel AI companies to do better, design more safely, or prioritize the people using their products,” writes Pete Furlong.
$1.5 Billion Speed Bump: What the Anthropic Settlement Tells Us About AI Accountability | TechPolicy.Press
Pete Furlong discusses how billion-dollar AI settlements raise headlines but fail to change incentives, leaving accountability for tech giants in question.
buff.ly
October 9, 2025 at 2:32 PM
“Without genuine accountability, successful lawsuits against AI companies become Pyrrhic victories. They amount to micro-successes and macro-failures that do nothing to compel AI companies to do better, design more safely, or prioritize the people using their products,” writes Pete Furlong.
Reposted by Joe Westby
Big piece in POLITICO asking about the independence of Ireland's process of appointing people to its Data Protection Commission. There is deep unease in Brussels about Ireland appointing a former Meta lobbyist as Meta's watchdog. Now questions about who was involved.
www.politico.eu/article/big-...
www.politico.eu/article/big-...
Big Tech lawyer played key role in picking Ireland’s new privacy regulator
Former Meta lobbyist Niamh Sweeney will co-lead the Irish Data Protection Commission from mid-October.
www.politico.eu
October 9, 2025 at 8:27 AM
Big piece in POLITICO asking about the independence of Ireland's process of appointing people to its Data Protection Commission. There is deep unease in Brussels about Ireland appointing a former Meta lobbyist as Meta's watchdog. Now questions about who was involved.
www.politico.eu/article/big-...
www.politico.eu/article/big-...
Reposted by Joe Westby
📣 Germany's close to reversing its opposition to mass surveillance & private message scanning, & backing the Chat Control bill. This could end private comms-& Signal-in the EU.
Time's short and they're counting on obscurity: please let German politicians know how horrifying their reversal would be.
Time's short and they're counting on obscurity: please let German politicians know how horrifying their reversal would be.
We are alarmed by reports that Germany is on the verge of a catastrophic about-face, reversing its longstanding and principled opposition to the EU’s Chat Control proposal which, if passed, could spell the end of the right to privacy in Europe. signal.org/blog/pdfs/ge...
signal.org
October 6, 2025 at 6:46 AM
📣 Germany's close to reversing its opposition to mass surveillance & private message scanning, & backing the Chat Control bill. This could end private comms-& Signal-in the EU.
Time's short and they're counting on obscurity: please let German politicians know how horrifying their reversal would be.
Time's short and they're counting on obscurity: please let German politicians know how horrifying their reversal would be.
Reposted by Joe Westby
NEW: UK asked Apple to backdoor iCloud encryption.
Backdoors create a massive target for hackers & criminal groups.
Dictators will inevitably demand that Apple do the same for them. 1/
www.ft.com/content/d101...
Backdoors create a massive target for hackers & criminal groups.
Dictators will inevitably demand that Apple do the same for them. 1/
www.ft.com/content/d101...
October 1, 2025 at 1:47 PM
NEW: UK asked Apple to backdoor iCloud encryption.
Backdoors create a massive target for hackers & criminal groups.
Dictators will inevitably demand that Apple do the same for them. 1/
www.ft.com/content/d101...
Backdoors create a massive target for hackers & criminal groups.
Dictators will inevitably demand that Apple do the same for them. 1/
www.ft.com/content/d101...
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...
Meta to mine AI interactions to help target advertising
Changes signal how the social media giant will make money from its costly artificial intelligence efforts
www.ft.com
October 1, 2025 at 1:51 PM
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.
To stop bad actors developing AGI that could kill us all, we need good actors to develop AGI that could also kill us all
Read more:
alignmentalignment.ai/caaac/blog/a...
Read more:
alignmentalignment.ai/caaac/blog/a...
To make AI safe, we must develop it as fast as possible without safeguards
Ia Magenius explains why we need to make AI as powerful as possible to ensure it can't have power over us
alignmentalignment.ai
September 29, 2025 at 2:56 PM
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 Westby
3. 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.
FIX THE GODDAMN COST OF LIVING INSTEAD YOU FREAKS.
September 26, 2025 at 8:28 AM
3. 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.
FIX THE GODDAMN COST OF LIVING INSTEAD YOU FREAKS.
Reposted by Joe Westby
Discourses around digital sovereignty and public infrastructure often ignore workers' needs and the positive role of publicly and worker-owned infrastructure. If more unions join this call, there are chances to make a difference and create a more democratic digital public infrastructure.
🌨️Europe can’t rely on private tech giants for public services.
EPSU is calling for worker-owned & public clouds, full implementation of the AI Act, and workers’ say in digitalisation.
Read more in Euractiv’s coverage of our letter to the Commission: dlvr.it/TNDnhl
EPSU is calling for worker-owned & public clouds, full implementation of the AI Act, and workers’ say in digitalisation.
Read more in Euractiv’s coverage of our letter to the Commission: dlvr.it/TNDnhl
Public servants want 'worker-owned' European clouds for AI | Euractiv
Call for sovereign AI by the EPSU public servants' union also presses the Commission to give workers a say in how workplaces are digitised, per letter seen by Euractiv
dlvr.it
September 24, 2025 at 7:28 AM
Discourses around digital sovereignty and public infrastructure often ignore workers' needs and the positive role of publicly and worker-owned infrastructure. If more unions join this call, there are chances to make a difference and create a more democratic digital public infrastructure.
“Shoving AI into everything doesn’t necessarily lead to growth” @melissahei.bsky.social www.ft.com/content/e93e...
America’s top companies keep talking about AI — but can’t explain the upsides
FT analysis of hundreds of filings suggests the S&P 500 businesses are clearer about the risks than benefits
www.ft.com
September 24, 2025 at 8:04 AM
“Shoving AI into everything doesn’t necessarily lead to growth” @melissahei.bsky.social www.ft.com/content/e93e...
Reposted by Joe Westby
The main issues in the revision of the e-Privacy Directive is not cookies but governments aiming to further widen the scope for (mass) surveillance. And of course the @ec.europa.eu is happy to oblige.
In a bid to slash red tape, the European Commission wants to eliminate one of its peskiest laws: a 2009 tech rule that plastered the online world with pop-ups requesting consent to cookies.
Europe’s cookie law messed up the internet. Brussels wants to fix it.
The European Commission wants to take a bite out of privacy rules that force websites to run cookie banners.
ow.ly
September 22, 2025 at 7:55 AM
The main issues in the revision of the e-Privacy Directive is not cookies but governments aiming to further widen the scope for (mass) surveillance. And of course the @ec.europa.eu is happy to oblige.
Reposted by Joe Westby
Trump is launching a full blown attack on free speech while his harem of billionaires buys up every media platform. This is no coincidence. It’s a coordinated attack on your fundamental right to speak freely without worrying if you’ll lose your job or worse.
ABC Pulls Jimmy Kimmel Off Air for Charlie Kirk Comments After F.C.C. Pressure
www.nytimes.com
September 18, 2025 at 2:40 PM
Trump is launching a full blown attack on free speech while his harem of billionaires buys up every media platform. This is no coincidence. It’s a coordinated attack on your fundamental right to speak freely without worrying if you’ll lose your job or worse.
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". 🤮
September 18, 2025 at 2:16 PM
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.
September 18, 2025 at 9:54 AM
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.