@svitvojimilioni@echo_pbreyer We would not comply. Then what would happen would happen, which per the law would amount to somehow being prevented from operating in the EU. Likely through app store deplatforming but who knows.
This brilliant, if sobering, piece by @Mer__edith is well worth your time (it's in English). It is so good to hear one of the leading agents of resistance to Big-Tech, so clearly and eloquently stating the deep connection between so-called "AI" and the Advertising Industrial Complex and how the former so fundamentally relies upon the Big Compute infrastructure and Big Data of latter. https://www.helmut-schmidt.de/aktuelles/detail/die-rede-der-zukunftspreistraegerin
IMO we need to dismantle the surveillance advertising biz model & the surveillance and centralized control at its heart.
But this doesn't do that. Instead, it advocates for 'transparency' w/o accountability + inexplicably ONLY names e2ee encryption as a "risk" to children.
What's clear here, broadly, are the sharp limits of shareholder-driven activism when it comes to curtailing a toxic-yet-profitable business model.
Ceasing targeted ads, killing the "find a friend" feature, curbing engagement driven objective functions...all would actually work to curb the harms to children/democracy/etc.
A transparency report + eliminating the small refuge of privacy that Meta provides will not make a dent. Indeed, the implication that the ability to communicate privately is dangerous is itself a v dangerous claim.
Esp now, in 2024 when Jessica Burgess is living in prison bc Facebook turned over messages detailing her accessing reproductive care in a state where this had been made illegal.
I'd love to work w Francis + others on REAL solutions. & I'm frustrated that so much of the purported "solution space" is occupied by toothless, even dangerous proposals that are implicitly limited by unwillingness to touch the (profitable) business models core to these harms.
Ignoring expert consensus, feeling no shame following exposés showing tech lobbyists shaping these EU surveillance proposals, EU politicians are at it again
So, we'll reiterate: Signal would rather leave the EU market than subject our users to mass gov surveillance. FULL STOP
I'm a huge fan of @Mer__edith . I often like to understand where people come from, but there's surprisingly little I can find from internet searches.
As far as I can tell, she got a BA in rhetoric and psychoanalytic theory (I guess Lacan or something?), and in 2006 entered the Googleplex as a CSR. 12 years later she's leading an AI-focused lab, organizes workers, and then she's testifying before Congress and running Signal.
What happened in the middle there? What happened before?
@neilk I studied Rhetoric and English Lit at Berkeley. Then Google hired me in 2006. And in 13 years I did and learned and founded a lot before leaving Google for NYU, then FTC, then Signal. There ya go?
Last week I had the honor of accepting the 2024 Helmut Schmidt Future Prize
Instead of a traditional speech, I gave this talk on the history of AI, the business of surveillance, & why the use of AI "ad targeting for killing" in Gaza should be illegal👇
@Ea5iyl And who will have the resources (without licensing them from AWS, GCP, Azure) to run these models? Or the access to markets if not via cloud monopolies/surveillance ad platforms?
Telegram is notoriously insecure and routinely cooperates with govs behind the scenes while talking a big game about speech and privacy. Even their limited opt-in (roll their own) encryption is sus. The more you know 🌈
@ljrk@zenspider Open source ≠ contributions accepted from anyone. Open source allows people validate and examine our work. Building and maintaining usable robust high availability software is a huge amount of forever work, and requires close coordination and sustained effort. Sometimes we do accept outside contributions. But this is not a volunteer led effort nor could it be and continue to serve the many many millions of people who rely on signal for secure, private comms.
Anyone who cares about free speech & expression should be feeling cold blood in their veins as USG rushes to silence, censor, & brutalize those critical of Israel's extremist gov.
Bills like this are political weapons. Once forged, they will be wielded for much, much more.
My wife and some of her friends are heavy users of @signalapp. Three times now, she has had spam (email and/or ads, popups on other sites) start occurring for products she has only mentioned in a Signal conversation.
Enough to know it's not a coincidence.
Is Signal selling keywords to advertisers? The Mac OS text edit client?
It's not possible to understand the state of BigTech, or its pathologies at the moment, without understanding these companies' transformation into defense contractors, in addition to their central role as surveillance providers to the state. 👇
(Yes, gentlemen, I know about ARPA and the US-military origins of networked computation. But I'm sure there's someone else out there who'd love an explanation.)
