Notices by Esra'a (alshafei@mastodon.social)

"We already have a billionaire-proof social media."

https://notes.ghed.in/posts/2025/bluesky-free-our-feeds-mastodon/

Proud to have played a role in this. VC-backed social media is not the answer. At Mastodon, we view this move as the best way to guarantee that the social web remains open and free from ads, data exploitation, manipulative algorithms or corporate monopolies.

https://www.theverge.com/2025/1/13/24342603/mastodon-non-profit-ownership-ceo-eugen-rochko

#Mastodon #Fediverse

"What's the point of trying to create something different, if your existence is predicated on being silent about genocide and apartheid?" - @timnitGebru

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/dec/03/tech-industry-gaza-palestine

#Gaza #Palestine #Tech #Nonprofits

Everyone has the right to browse, search, and speak online without the threat of their activities being tracked, sold to data brokers, or fed to the AI machine.

At Tor, we’re building tools to help people exercise that right to privacy easily (and at no cost)!

Please consider making a donation to Tor so we can keep building a better, privacy-respecting internet:

https://donate.torproject.org

#Privacy #Tor

Very happy to share that @MigrantRights was named the 2024 recipient of the Human Rights and Business Award.

The award recognizes "outstanding work by human rights defenders addressing the human rights impacts of business" -

https://www.humanrightsandbusinessaward.org/award-recipient/migrant-rights-org/

#Migrants #HumanRights #GCC #Gulf

"The marketing of a new military tech tool powered by Meta’s artificial intelligence is irresponsible and clumsy."

"It gives incorrect technical data that a nonspecialist user is less likely to question."

"Turning to an LLM for airstrike planning also means sidestepping the typical human-based process and the responsibility that entails."

https://theintercept.com/2024/11/24/defense-llama-meta-military/

#AI #Meta #BigTech #Military

"Niantic, the company behind the extremely popular augmented reality mobile games Pokémon Go and Ingress, announced that it is using data collected by its millions of players to create an AI model that can navigate the physical world" (and power robots)

https://www.404media.co/pokemon-go-players-have-unwittingly-trained-ai-to-navigate-the-world/

#AI

It should matter that one of Bluesky's investors is Alumni Ventures, which also funded Outlogic (formerly known as X-Mode Social) - basically a data broker that collected and sold location data by tracking various mobile apps (including dating, music, weather, and Muslim prayer apps.)

Among other controversies, Outlogic/X‑Mode had supplied location data to U.S. military contractors:

https://themarkup.org/privacy/2022/01/27/gay-bi-dating-app-muslim-prayer-apps-sold-data-on-peoples-location-to-a-controversial-data-broker & https://www.cyberdaily.au/security/10093-nsa-called-out-for-purchasing-data-from-illegal-data-brokers

#Bluesky #Privacy

"Billionaire Larry Ellison says a vast AI-fueled surveillance system can ensure citizens will be on their best behavior"

"Ellison said AI would be used in the future to constantly watch and analyze vast surveillance systems, like security cameras, police body cameras, doorbell cameras, and vehicle dashboard cameras."

https://www.businessinsider.com/larry-ellison-ai-surveillance-keep-citizens-on-their-best-behavior-2024-9

#Privacy #Surveillance #AI

60 organizations, including RSF, the Committee to Protect Journalists, and Free Press Unlimited signed a joint letter urging EU leaders to unequivocally and publicly call on Israel to meet the following press freedom demands:

- Provide access and uphold the freedom to report

- Protect the lives of journalists

- Ensure accountability and end impunity

https://rsf.org/sites/default/files/medias/file/2024/08/IOPT_EU_Joint%20Letter_8.21.2024_FINAL.docx.pdf

#Media #Press #Palestine #Gaza

"The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) plans to collect and analyze photos of the faces of migrant children at the border in a bid to improve facial recognition technology, MIT Technology Review can reveal. This includes children down to the infant"

https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/08/14/1096534/homeland-security-facial-recognition-immigration-border/

#Surveillance #Privacy

Pleased to announce the launch of Surveillance Watch, an interactive map and resource that documents the hidden connections within the opaque surveillance industry: https://www.surveillancewatch.io/

By mapping out the intricate web of surveillance companies, their subsidiaries, partners, and financial backers, we hope to expose the enablers fueling this industry's extensive rights violations, ensuring they cannot evade accountability for being complicit in this abuse.

#Privacy #Surveillance #InfoSec

"Between October 7 and November 14, a total of 9,500 takedown requests were sent from the Israeli authorities to social media platforms, of which 60 percent went to Meta with a reported 94% compliance rate."

"Alongside government takedown requests, free expression in Gaza has been further restricted by platforms unjustly removing pro-Palestinian content and accounts—interfering with the dissemination of news and silencing voices expressing concern for Palestinians."

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/07/digital-apartheid-gaza-unjust-content-moderation-request-israels-cyber-unit

More accurate marketing: "take photos of yourself, and then be surveilled with facial recognition forever"

#Meta #Privacy #WhatsApp

The most tech-enabled genocide in history.

https://www.404media.co/google-cloud-listed-then-removed-as-sponsor-of-israeli-military-tech-conference/

"Within a day of his ousting, Altman said he received 10 to 20 texts from presidents and prime ministers around the world. [...] He responded to the messages and thanked the leaders without feeling fazed."

I'm not sure getting so much support from world leaders is something I'd brag about. I interpret it as being an asset or a pawn to some really shady things they often do at the expense of human rights - things Altman's AI and crypto projects are surely enabling.

https://www.businessinsider.com/sam-altman-comments-openai-ousting-not-eating-sleeping-2024-5

Meta tried to discredit researchers in one of Brazil's top universities who identified fraudulent ads in its platforms:

"Defaming scientists has become a global strategy of Big Techs in order to try to silence critics in universities."

"In the United States, the social network has gone as far as banning researchers from accessing data after they did something that displeased the company."

https://nucleo.jor.br/english/2024-06-12-meta-tried-to-discredit-researchers-who-identified-fraudulent-ads-in-its-platforms/

#Meta #BigTech #Ads

Join the Global Encryption Coalition's Steering Committee in calling on Ministers in the Council of the EU to reject all scanning proposals inconsistent with the principle of end-to-end encryption, including client-side scanning and upload moderation, as it will create serious security and privacy risks with global implications:

https://www.globalencryption.org/2024/05/joint-statement-on-the-dangers-of-the-may-2024-council-of-the-eu-compromise-proposal-on-eu-csam/

#Privacy #Encryption #Surveillance

"Amid recent revelations exposing the alarming use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems by the Israeli army to automate target generation for bombings in the Gaza war, Access Now is demanding transparency from Google regarding the company’s involvement and complicity in human rights violations in Gaza."

https://www.accessnow.org/press-release/google-ai-war-gaza-israel/

#Google #Gaza #AI #HumanRights

@evacide It gets a bit worse, Telegram has a long-standing relationship with a Saudi organization that's essentially a govt arm in Riyadh, working in direct partnership to analyze and monitor an obscene amount of user data: https://www.saudigazette.com.sa/article/641746/SAUDI-ARABIA/Etidal-Telegram-remove-over-16-million-extremist-contents-in-early-2024

They claim this only targets terrorist groups. I can verify that it absolutely impacts groups run by queer communities in the Gulf, because I was in one such group that was monitored and shut down by Etidal.

Telegram can fuck off into the sunset.