Notices by Jan Penfrat (ilumium@eupolicy.social)

For those following #Meta's $17bn settlement in California to avoid conviction for harmful platform design, #CDD has an excellent commentary:

“The settlement reaches the features of Meta’s platforms but not the engine that drives them. Meta earns nearly all of its money from #advertising. Young people’s attention is the inventory it sells. Design that captures and holds that attention is not a flaw in the business model, it is the business model working as intended. -->

"Meta can remove “like” counts. What it will not remove is the reason it built them. The penalty does not change that calculation. Roughly $17 billion paid over ten years is about $1.7 billion a year, or roughly ten days of #Meta’s annual profit. Children were harmed for years while this business model ran unchecked. This settlement addresses some of what that produced. It does not touch what produced it."

https://democraticmedia.org/publishings/meta-settlement-reaches-the-features-not-the-engine

When your business is destruction and misery:

https://www.theguardian.com/business/ng-interactive/2026/aug/04/revealed-major-oil-firms-make-93bn-profits-amid-war-and-climate-crisis

@dalias I don't own a car but whenever I rent or borrow one I use @CoMaps for routing (which should be pretty similar since its a fork of OrganicMaps) and it works pretty flawlessly.

I'm in Europe though, not sure this makes a difference.

But I'm also not sure I understand what "routing to an unknown address" means?

Who would have thought that #surveillance cameras in public spaces would be abused by men, eh sorry I meant creeps.

In other news, Belgian #police has since recently gained warrantless real-time access to 21,000 surveillance cameras in trains, subways, trams, busses, and stations. What could possibly go wrong. 😓

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jun/17/milan-tram-drivers-used-whatsapp-for-sexist-chat-about-female-passengers

#privacy #HumanRights #Belgium #stib #sncb #delijn #tec

This week I spoke to a room full of non-techy NGO people and for the first time there were more folks with #Fediverse than #Threads accounts in the room 🎉

You know something is off in your #democracy if somebody complying with a court order is considered newsworthy.

You know your product is bad if you need to send lobbyists to the freakin' #Pope.

#AI #Vatican #BigTech #lobbying

Youth organisations demand social media change, not bans

https://www.brusselstimes.com/belgium/2089712/youth-organisations-demand-social-media-change-not-bans

#DigitalRights #FreedomOfExpression #AccessRights #children #SocialMediaBan

Who needs astronauts or scientists on #ArtemisII ? NASA should have just sent a bunch of pro photographers with their EOS R5 up there.

Hey @loops, thanks to the EU #DigitalMarketsAct #DMA, #Tiktok has created an #API for third party apps / competitors that is supposed to enable real-time #DataPortability for users who wish to switch.

Have you considered putting an Tiktok account import function on the #Loops roadmap?

The German federal government currently pays €481 million in licensing fees to #Microsoft every year.

I'm sure @zendis could build some nice stuff with half the money and make it available for everybody else to re-use.

#DigitalSovereignty #DigitalCommons #FOSS

German #competition regulator fines #Amazon €59M for abuse of market power 🎉

https://www.bundeskartellamt.de/SharedDocs/Meldung/DE/Pressemitteilungen/2026/26_02_05_Amazon.html?nn=52004

#antitrust #marketpower #bigtech

The liberal group in the European Parliament #Renew has an #Instagram campaign for leaving #BigTech platforms. That's cool.

What do you think @bartgroothuis, is that an opportunity to bring some of your colleagues over to the Fediverse?

Feel free to invite them to join our Mastodon server http://eupolicy.social - it is made specifically for the EU bubble.

#DigitalSovereignty #OpenSocialWeb #LeaveX

@forteller I did, thanks!

So cool: @radboud University has announced to switch to #Fairphone for (all?) their employees. 🎉 They explicitly cite #sustainability, cost efficiency and management support as reasons.

https://www.ru.nl/en/staff/news/radboud-university-selects-fairphone-as-standard-smartphone-for-employees

"#Trump regime asks University of Pennsylvania to hand over list of #Jews"

and

"European #military mission with soldiers from Denmark, France, Germany and Norway to be deployed to #Greenland"

was not the kind of news I wanted to read tonight.

While the #US has become an authoritarian state that tramples on the rights and freedoms of people around the world, EU member states want to grant US authorities direct and far-reaching access to #biometric data stored in European #police databases. 😠

https://www.heise.de/en/news/Biometrics-Deal-EU-Council-Paves-Way-for-US-Data-Exchange-11120427.html

#HumanRights #DigitalRights #privacy

This is what civil society, in particular the #DigitalRights community, is up against now: #Trump has barred leaders of @hateaid, the Global #Disinformation Index, and the Centre for Countering Digital Hate from entering the US. Expect more restrictions, threats, and intimidation against public-interest NGOs globally.

https://apnews.com/article/state-department-trump-immigration-rubio-visas-87c8a4692f3184e4f83fdd8ed5093886

#DigitalServicesAct #DSA #EU #authoritarianism #USA

Today, the #EU will launch a new legal entity aimed at supporting the development of the #DigitalCommons.

The so-called European Digital Infrastructure Consortium (#EDIC) is a legal instrument that allows EU countries to pool resources and "coordinate with communities to develop, maintain and scale digital commons and facilitate their uptake."

Depending on who leads it, this #DCEDIC might become something great, or it could end in failure just as #GaiaX did. 🍿

https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/news/commission-launch-digital-commons-edic-support-sovereign-european-digital-infrastructure-and