Leftovers

• James G ☛ What we see in our websites (and why I am so excited about the web)

  With every personal website made, every web page published, every story told, every experiment embarked on, we can expand the aperture of the web. We can introduce people to its potential. We can expand the potential of the web, too. I sometimes hear people talk about the “old web”, a term that I increasingly think is not apt. While speaking to a creative time on the web, I am more excited about the question: given all that we have done with the web, what can we do now? What excites you?

• Jacobin Magazine ☛ Tuning Out the Algorithm at WFMU

  For the DJs of WFMU, free-form radio is not simply a means to play music without boundaries. It is a vital alternative to corporate streaming platforms like Spotify, which treat music as nothing other than monetizable data.

• The New Atlantis ☛ The New Control Society

  As we approach the moment when all information everywhere from all time is available to everyone at once, what we find is not new artistic energy, not explosive diversity, but stifling sameness. Everything is converging — and it’s happening even as the power of the old monopolies and centralized tastemakers is broken up.

  Are the powerful platforms now in charge? Or are the forces at work today something even bigger?

• Science

  • Rolling Stone ☛ Donald Trump and DOGE [sic] Are Threatening America’s Weather Forecasting

    The weather app you use? It almost certainly relies on the observational data that NOAA collects from dozens of doppler radars across the U.S., geostationary satellites, its weather balloon network, surface stations, buoys out in the ocean and more. If NOAA can’t operate at its usual levels, the forecasts you get from that app could become a lot less accurate.

    These weather forecasts are critical for the transportation industry and many other industries. It’s also important to be able to accurately predict the weather when severe weather events threaten communities across the nation.

• Career/Education

  • Kansas Reflector ☛ A century ago, an explosion of free thought burst from Kansas. It filled pockets — and minds.

    Making a connection with a physical book is a reminder that you and it are of the world. There is comfort in the feel and smell and heft of books, new and old. They were our first mass medium and they remain vital in communicating important, world-changing ideas. Most of us can readily name the handful of books that shaped our lives. Near the top of my list is 1975’s “The Monkey Wrench Gang.”

• Hardware

  • The Conversation ☛ 2025-04-04 [Older] Taiwan’s latest computer chip has serious implications for technology – and the island’s security

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-04-10 [Older] German fencer talks about bulimia and calls for change

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-04-10 [Older] Prostate cancer: A new at-home saliva test beats blood test

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-04-09 [Older] Cheeto Mussolini tariffs: Why won't countries buy US meat products?

  • CBC ☛ 2025-04-06 [Older] Tariffs on Canadian goods having a 'devastating effect,' U.S. farmers say

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-04-08 [Older] What can be done to tackle 'forever chemicals?'

  • NYPost ☛ Psychologist reveals 3 major benefits of being alone — despite the stigma

    Psychologist Virginia Thomas explains some of the health benefits associated with "positive solitude."

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Hongkongers warned air pollution health risk to remain high into Monday

    Hong Kong’s Air Quality Health Index (AQI) health risk category reached “very high” at 8 of the Environmental Protection Department’s (EPD) 18 monitoring stations on Sunday. The EPD warned that the risk may reach the “high” category or above at some stations into Monday.

  • Futurism ☛ MRI Scans Causing Nasty Material to Form Inside Body, Scientists Find

    As a University of New Mexico (UNM) press release explains, researchers at the institution's medical school believe they've found a link between oxalic acid — a molecule found in foods as disparate as sweet potatoes, spinach, chocolate and almonds, as well as some Vitamin C supplements — and the toxic building of gadolinium, the heavy metal element used in contrast dyes that works with an MRI's magnetic field to help doctors see internal organs on scans.

  • Futurism ☛ Doctors Say They’ve Found a Way to Clean the Microplastics Out of Your Body

    In a similar vein, the desire to get those foreign and synthetic particulates out of one's blood, and to clean one's blood in general, makes some degree of sense. According to Cohen, longevity influencer Bryan Johnson's interest in so-called "total plasma exchange" — a more extreme apheresis procedure he used to get his son's blood filtered into his own — where all of the body's plasma is removed and replaced with proteins and antibodies, has been a big boon for her business.

  • Marcy Wheeler ☛ This Is Your Social Safety Net on DOGE [sic]

    You already know how that works out for the U.S., because it’s one of the biggest single differences between the cost of living in other first world countries and the U.S.

  • The Independent UK ☛ Measles exploded in Texas after stagnant vaccine funding. New cuts threaten the same across the US

    The easily preventable disease, declared eliminated in the U.S. in 2000, ripped through communities sprawling across more than 20 Texas counties in part because health departments were starved of the funding needed to run vaccine programs, officials say.

  • Chris O'Donnnell ☛ 8 Days Without Facebook

    Today marks 8 days since I disabled my account. I thought muscle memory would bring me to the login page regularly for a few days at least, but that has not been an issue.

• Proprietary

  • CISA ☛ 2025-04-04 [Older] Ivanti Releases Security Updates for Connect Secure, Policy Secure & ZTA Gateways Vulnerability (CVE-2025-22457)

  • India News ☛ Bad news of employees of this tech giant as many to be sacked due to… [Ed: These clickbait titles are becoming annoying]

    TikTok is already struggling due to the US tariffs on China in the United States and has now laid off its employees who failed to meet performance expectations last year.

  • Kernel Space

    • Hackaday ☛ Learning Linux Kernel Modules Using COM Binary Support [Ed: Seems like the wrong approach, but this is about warping the narrative]

      Have you ever felt the urge to make your own private binary format for use in Linux? Perhaps you have looked at creating the smallest possible binary when compiling a project, and felt disgusted with how bloated the ELF format is? If you are like [Brian Raiter], then this has led you down many rabbit holes, with the conclusion being that flat binary formats are the way to go if you want sleek, streamlined binaries. These are formats like COM, which many know from MS-DOS, but which was already around in the CP/M days. Here ‘flat’ means that the entire binary is loaded into RAM without any fuss or foreplay.

      Although Linux does not (yet) support this binary format, the good news is that you can learn how to write kernel modules by implementing COM support for the Linux kernel. In the article [Brian] takes us down this COM rabbit hole, which involves setting up a kernel module development environment and exploring how to implement a binary file format. This leads us past familiar paths for those who have looked at e.g. how the Linux kernel handles the shebang (#!) and ‘misc’ formats.

  • Artificial Intelligence (AI)

    • Futurism ☛ Poll Finds Americans Are Largely Disgusted by AI-Generated News

      As the United States' biggest news brands experiment with artificial intelligence in their content, readers remain unimpressed.

      In a new poll conducted by Poynter and the University of Minnesota, nearly half of the survey's respondents said they don't want AI reporting the news to them — and 20 percent say that news publishers shouldn't be using the technology at all.

    • Wired ☛ Small Language Models Are the New Rage, Researchers Say

      But this power comes at a cost. Training a model with hundreds of billions of parameters takes huge computational resources. To train its Gemini 1.0 Ultra model, for example, Google reportedly spent $191 million. Large language models (LLMs) also require considerable computational power each time they answer a request, which makes them notorious energy hogs. A single query to ChatGPT consumes about 10 times as much energy as a single Google search, according to the Electric Power Research Institute.

    • The Verge ☛ Simulated Musk, Zuckerberg voices are speaking from hacked crosswalk buttons

      Crosswalk buttons in at least three California cities appear to have been hacked this weekend to give them the seemingly AI-generated voices of Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. In videos posted online, the apparent voice of Musk begs listeners to be his friend, or that of Zuckerberg brags about “undermining democracy” and “cooking our grandparents’ brains with AI slop.”

    • Pivot to AI ☛ How to sell AI slop to the US military — with Vannevar Labs and MIT Tech Review

      Lowdon says, “We still need to validate the sources.” This is because LLM vendors know perfectly well that LLMs don’t do detail or accuracy, so when it fails, they must blame the user.

      This is a critical component of the AI snake oil. They know that nobody who uses an LLM checks the output — you sell these machines to people because they don’t want to double-check the output. Even better when you’re looking for targets!

    • Socket Inc ☛ The Rise of Slopsquatting: How AI Hallucinations Are Fueling...

      The term slopsquatting was coined by PSF Developer-in-Residence Seth Larson and popularized in a recent post by Ecosyste.ms creator Andrew Nesbitt. It refers to the practice of registering a non-existent package name hallucinated by an LLM, in hopes that someone, guided by an AI assistant, will copy-paste and install it without realizing it’s fake.

      It’s a twist on typosquatting: instead of relying on user mistakes, slopsquatting relies on AI mistakes.

    • Futurism ☛ OpenAI Is Taking Spammers' Money to Pollute the Internet at Unprecedented Scale

      AkiraBot's bottom line seems to be directing traffic to its dubious SEO scheme — and with GPT-4o-mini, that process seems to have been automated at scale. Having attempted to spam roughly 420,000 sites and successfully getting its trash through to some 80,000, the humans behind AkiraBot were almost certainly paying for access to OpenAI's API — and we've reached out to the Altman-run company to confirm.

      The bot's chief targets, per SentinelOne's investigation, were small and medium-sized businesses — and specifically, the contact forms and chat widgets on those companies' websites. Using GPT-4o-mini to craft templates based on whichever type of contact module was at play, the spammers customized unique messages for each website in ways that got around spam filters at least part of the time.

    • Seth Godin ☛ The AI effort gap | Seth's Blog

      If all that’s needed is the push of a button, we can find someone cheaper than you to push it.

  • Social Control Media

    • Tech Central (South Africa) ☛ Social media's Big Tobacco moment is coming

      A new documentary, Can’t Look Away, which follows parents suing tech companies after the deaths of their children, is difficult to watch. It should be. The film lays bare what many parents already know: that social media is rewiring their children’s brains, creating a generation of short attention spans and social anxiety. While viewing the film, what became clear is that tech platforms aren’t doing nearly enough to stop it — and probably never will.

    • Mark Hysted ☛ hedging my social media position | mark hysted

      update: I am going to use only mastodon for a while. I can't manage three social networks.

    • [Old] Business Insider ☛ Regulate Social Media to Prevent Civil War, Says Barbara F. Walter, an Expert on Political Violence - Business Insider

      "People ask me: 'What's the single easiest thing that the United States could do to reduce our risk of civil war?' And my answer is always the same: regulate social media," Walter said.

  • Windows TCO / Windows Bot Nets

    • YLE ☛ Centre Party website under attack on Election Day; suspicions point toward Russia

      "The election result and its reliability cannot be affected by denial-of-service attacks," said the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC-FI).

• Security

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • CBC ☛ 2025-04-04 [Older] Canada updates travel advice to warn of U.S. border officers' power to search electronic devices

    • Futurism ☛ Google Is Helping Government Build an AI-Powered Border Surveillance System

      Google's servers will process the video feed of every Tuscon-area CBP camera to identify approaching people and vehicles.

    • CNN ☛ Judge relaxes ban on DOGE [sic] access to sensitive US Treasury information

      Judge Jeannette A. Vargas said in a written opinion late Friday that one DOGE [sic] worker, Ryan Wunderly, can access sensitive payment and data systems if he completes training that Treasury employees typically go through before given such access and submits a financial disclosure report.

    • Politico LLC ☛ Judge relaxes ban on DOGE [sic] access to sensitive US Treasury information

      The lawsuit contended that Musk’s ‘DOGE [sic]’ team was composed of “political appointees” who should not have access to Treasury records handled by “civil servants” specially trained in protecting such sensitive information as Social Security and bank account numbers.

• Defence/Aggression

  • New York Times ☛ Texas Muslims Want to Build Homes and a Mosque. Gov. Greg Abbott Says No.

  • The Register UK ☛ Are they hacktivists or state-backed goons in masks?

    But don't let the Guy Fawkes avatars fool you. Today's "hacktivists," especially those going after critical infrastructure, often have less in common with just the digital vandals of the Nineties and Naughts than with government-backed cyber operators. Threat intel analysts say their tactics, targets, and timing suggest something calculated, and far more connected to nation-state interests.

  • The Verge ☛ People are turning on Elon Musk

    According to Silver Bulletin, negative views of the billionaire have been especially trending upwards in the wake of his heavy support — in part by paying voters — for Trump’s second Presidential campaign and, not long after, the beginning of his work at DOGE [sic]. That work has seen widespread federal agency layoffs as DOGE’s operatives access, or attempt to gain access, to sensitive areas of the government, including IRS records, the US Treasury’s payments system, and the US Social Security Administration.

    However accurate Silver Bulletin’s average is, the site is not alone in noting Musk’s unpopularity. Outlets like Fox News, Politico, and Axios have all recently pointed to polls showing a growing distaste for the billionaire.

  • Mike Brock ☛ 20 Lessons on Tyranny

    I'm particularly struck by Lesson #10: "Believe in truth. To abandon facts is to abandon freedom. If nothing is true, then no one can criticize power because there is no basis upon which to do so." This is why I stand here. This is what Notes From The Circus is to me. To stand on behalf of coherence. On behalf of love. Of truth. The love of truth.

  • The Telegraph UK ☛ How Sweden’s multicultural dream went fatally wrong

    “We have so many child soldiers that nobody can count anymore,” sighs Salihu, an investigative reporter for SVT, Sweden’s answer to the BBC. “There are kids as young as 13 being arrested.”

    Barely a week passes in Sweden today without a teenager being arrested for such a hit, keeping Salihu extremely busy, and the public in the grip of a national crisis like no other before it. A softly-spoken former tabloid journalist, the 41-year-old could be a character from a Scandi-noir novel, shining light in society’s darker corners. The body count on his beat, though, is far higher than any Stieg Larsson novel, and holds out little prospect of a satisfactory ending.

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-04-09 [Older] Americans convicted in DR Congo coup attempt, repatriated

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-04-10 [Older] Panama on edge as US targets China's canal influence

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-04-10 [Older] South Sudan visa dispute exposes diplomatic divide

  • Defence Web ☛ 2025-04-10 [Older] South Sudan on the brink of civil war: bold action from the international community is needed

  • Defence Web ☛ 2025-04-09 [Older] US Senate hears of growing terrorist threat in Africa

  • Defence Web ☛ 2025-04-08 [Older] Ethiopia’s war may have ended, but the Tigray crisis hasn’t

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-04-08 [Older] US Official Reaffirms Washington's Commitment to Peace in East Africa During Rwanda Visit

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-04-08 [Older] Rising Populism Should Not Stop Discussions on Reparations, Says African Union Official

  • The Local DK ☛ 2025-04-07 [Older] Why new defence deal could mean armed US security guards in Denmark

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-04-07 [Older] US Admiral at NATO Fired in Expanding National Security Purge

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-04-07 [Older] Pakistani Security Forces Kill 9 Militants in a Raid Near the Afghan Border

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-04-04 [Older] US Far-Right Activist Raises Loyalty Test That Could Deepen Purge of Security Agencies

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-04-04 [Older] Taiwan's Top Security Official Visits US for Talks, Source Says

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-04-10 [Older] Concern in Poland about US decision to reposition troops

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-04-10 [Older] Sudan accuses UAE of fueling Darfur 'genocide'

  • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-04-07 [Older] South African Lawmaker Accuses Minister of Trying to Change Law for Musk's Starlink

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-04-09 [Older] Pressure mounts for probe into Palestinian medics' deaths

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-04-08 [Older] Fact check: Paramedics killed in Gaza were not armed

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-04-08 [Older] Can French 'war culture' lead Europe's rearmament push?

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-04-08 [Older] Germany orders halt on UN refugee resettlement program

  • The Straits Times ☛ South Korea’s ousted leader Yoon due in court as criminal trial starts

    The charge of insurrection faced by the impeached president is punishable by life imprisonment or death.

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-04-09 [Older] NATO's Rutte wants closer ties with Japan in changing world

    • Meduza ☛ Russian missile strike on Ukraine’s Sumy kills more than 20 people — Meduza

    • Meduza ☛ At least 21 killed and 117 injured in Russian missile attack on Ukraine’s Sumy — Meduza

• Transparency/Investigative Reporting

  • TED ☛ This is what a digital coup looks like

    “We are watching the collapse of the international order in real time, and this is just the start,” says investigative journalist Carole Cadwalladr. In a searing talk, she decries the rise of the “broligarchy” — the powerful tech executives who are using their global digital platforms to amass unprecedented geopolitical power, dismantling democracy and enabling authoritarian control across the world. Her rallying cry: resist data harvesting and mass surveillance, and support others in a groundswell of digital disobedience. “You have more power than you think,” she says. (This talk contains mature language.)

  • [Old] TED ☛ Facebook's role in Brexit — and the threat to democracy

    (NOTE: This video has been edited as a result of judgment in the Court of Appeal in England and Wales in a libel action by Arron Banks, the funder of the Leave.EU Brexit campaign, against Carole Cadwalladr. A judge found that the talk was lawful at the time of delivery, however due to a subsequent change in circumstances part of the talk was found to be unlawful in England and Wales and has therefore been removed.)

• Environment

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-04-10 [Older] Germany: Unusually dry spring affecting lakes and rivers

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-04-10 [Older] Glitter: Shiny stuff of dreams, drama and eco-dilemmas

  • Kansas Reflector ☛ As demand for AI rises, so do power thirsty data centers

    As more things moved online, and computing hardware and chip technology supported faster processing, AI models became attainable to the general public, Acosta said. Current AI models use thousands of GPUs to operate, and training a single chatbot like ChatGPT uses about the same amount of energy as 100 homes over the course of a year.

    “And then you multiply that times the thousands of models that are being trained,” Acosta said. “It’s pretty intense.”

  • Energy/Transportation

    • The Straits Times ☛ One still missing, days after subway construction site collapse in South Korea

      Experts say that structural defects and unstable ground conditions may be behind the accident.

    • US News And World Report ☛ 2025-04-09 [Older] US Lawmakers Move to Block IMF Central Africa Support Over Oil Fund Dispute

    • CBC ☛ 2025-04-07 [Older] Canadian Labour Congress blasts U.S. auto union leader on tariffs

    • Nebraska Examiner ☛ As demand for AI rises, so do power thirsty data centers

      “Each one of these AI models has to sit on a server somewhere, and they tend to be very, very big,” he said. “So if your millions or billions of users are talking to the system simultaneously, the computing systems have to really grow and grow and grow.”

• Finance

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-04-08 [Older] Cheeto Mussolini's tariffs trigger recession alarm

  • CBC ☛ 2025-04-05 [Older] Why Canada is on the cusp of a housing construction crisis

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-04-10 [Older] Cheeto Mussolini tariffs drive China, EU to diversify trade

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-04-09 [Older] Boycott USA! Cheeto Mussolini tariffs prompt backlash against US goods

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-04-09 [Older] British PM Keir Starmer takes center stage — thanks to Cheeto Mussolini

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-04-09 [Older] EU readies €20 billion retaliation against Cheeto Mussolini's tariffs

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-04-08 [Older] Cheeto Mussolini tariffs hit Africa's exports hard

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-04-08 [Older] What's really behind Cheeto Mussolini's 'reciprocal' tariffs?

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • Futurism ☛ Google Is Allegedly Paying Top AI Researchers to Just Sit Around and Not Work for the Competition

    Known as "garden leave," this type of cushy clause is the luckier stepsister to so-called "noncompete" agreements, which prohibit employees and contractors from working with a competitor for a designated period of time after they depart an employer. Ostensibly meant to prevent aggressive poaching, these sorts of clauses also bar outgoing employees from working with competitors.

  • Business Insider ☛ Google DeepMind's Weapon in the AI Talent War: Aggressive Noncompetes

    Google DeepMind has put some employees with a noncompete on extended garden leave. These employees are still paid by DeepMind but no longer work for it for the duration of the noncompete agreement.

  • [Old] ZDNet ☛ Borland and Microsoft settle lawsuit | ZDNET

    The Borland suit accused Microsoft of "systematically raiding" its personnel in an "insidious" attempt to weaken the smaller company's efforts to right itself. Microsoft used lavish signing bonuses, sabbaticals and vacations to woo Borland employees. Borland said it lost 34 key software architects, marketing managers and engineers to Microsoft over 30 months.

  • Mike Brock ☛ A Simple Act of American Dignity

    Symbols matter. They're the visible signposts of our shared commitment. When we surrender them to those who would twist their meaning, we surrender something precious—the common language of citizenship, the embodied expression of our constitutional inheritance.

    The American flag isn't the property of any party, ideology, or faction. It belongs to all of us—to everyone who believes in the project of democracy, however imperfect its execution. To everyone who stands against autocracy. To everyone who believes that power must be constrained by law.

  • CBC ☛ ChatGPT now lets users create fake images of politicians. We stress-tested it

    New updates to ChatGPT have made it easier than ever to create fake images of real politicians, according to testing done by CBC News.

    Manipulating images of real people without their consent is against OpenAI's rules, but the company recently allowed more leeway with public figures, with specific limitations. CBC's visual investigations unit found prompts could be structured to evade some of those restrictions.

  • Pete Brown ☛ If you are proposing that government regulations and process are the problem, you need to be specific.

    But you know what else were “problems we faced in the past”? Measles and whooping cough. They didn’t seem like problems anymore, so a bunch of grifters were able to convince a bunch more idiots that we didn’t need vaccines any more, and now measles and whooping cough are problems again.

    These bothersome laws and regulations that Klein is constantly on about are the same. I guess he has convinced himself that we have all learned our lessons, that we can eliminate the laws the require environmental impact studies and abutter comment and tenant protections and we will not go right back to evicting residents, tearing down neighborhoods, and dumping toxic waster into rivers.

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-04-09 [Older] Who is Friedrich Merz, Germany's likely next chancellor?

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-04-08 [Older] Bonhoeffer: Murdered by the Nazis 80 years ago

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-04-08 [Older] Brazil's democracy is 'inefficient' but solid

  • CBC ☛ 2025-04-04 [Older] A new ballot question: How should Canada define its relationship with the U.S.?

  • CBC ☛ 2025-04-06 [Older] Should Canada build a foreign spy service like the CIA?

  • CBC ☛ 2025-04-06 [Older] As a pastor, I preach forgiveness. As a concerned dad, I see the need for bail reform

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • Barry Kauler ☛ More EV misinformation from mainstream media

      A couple of months ago, I posted about mainstream media misinformation:

      "Coordinated misinformation in mainstream media"
      https://bkhome.org/news/202501/coordinated-misinformation-in-mainstream-media.html

      Sam has had to contend with another attack, that he has posted about a few days ago: [...]

    • The Walrus ☛ The Kids Are Leaning Right: How the Manosphere Is Shaping Voters

      Americans increasingly get their news [sic] from right-wing podcasts and social media content, according to a report published in mid-March by the nonprofit Media Matters for America. In Canada, according to Triton Digital’s 2024 report on podcast listening habits in the country, news is the third most listened to genre behind comedy and true crime.

    • SBS ☛ The migrant voters who could see more misinformation this federal election

      With the federal election campaign underway, experts are warning migrant communities could see more misleading and false information before casting their vote.

      Migrants, especially those speaking English as a second language, are disproportionately targeted during crises, elections and referendums when mis- and disinformation are amplified, overseas research has found.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-04-09 [Older] After Berlinale success, Iranian director duo sentenced to prison

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-04-08 [Older] US academic arrested in Thailand for insulting monarchy

  • The Independent UK ☛ Hong Kong's biggest pro-democracy party gets mandate to move closer to disbandment

    Hong Kong's biggest pro-democracy party on Sunday received its members' mandate to proceed with steps toward a potential disbandment, part of the erosion of political freedoms as China cracks down on dissent in the southern city.

  • US News And World Report ☛ Harvard Professors Sue Over Trump's Review of $9 Billion in Funding

    The Harvard faculty chapter of the American Association of University Professors and the national arm of the academic organization said in a lawsuit filed on Friday in a Boston federal court that the administration was trying to unlawfully undermine academic freedom and free speech on the school's campus.

  • [Old] UK ☛ DAME VICTORIA SHARP, PRESIDENT OF THE KING’S BENCH DIVISION LORD JUSTICE SINGH and LORD JUSTICE WARBY; Between : ARRON BANKS Claimant/Appellant - and - CAROLE CADWALLADR Defendant/Respondent

    12. The claimant is a businessman who was a leader of the campaign for the UK to leave the EU. The defendant is a freelance journalist and writer. The TED Talk was given by the claimant on 15 April 2019 at the TED2019 Conference in Canada. It was recorded and thereafter published on the TED.com website. The words complained of were: “And I am not even going to get into the lies that Arron Banks has told about his covert relationship with the Russian Government.” The claimant’s solicitors wrote a preaction letter complaining about the TED Talk. On 24 June 2019 the defendant posted the Tweet. The words complained of were: “Oh Arron. This is too tragic. Nigel Farage’s secret funder Arron Banks has sent me a pre-action letter this morning: he’s suing me over this TED talk. If you haven’t watched it please do. I say he lied about his contact with the Russian govt. Because he did.” The Tweet contained a hyperlink to the TED talk. The claimant brought this action.

    [...]

    27. The judge rejected the defendant’s contention that in the eyes of most viewers the claimant would have had no or no meaningful general reputation to be harmed. She held that it was impermissible for the defendant to rely for this purpose on earlier publications by the defendant and others of the allegation that the claimant had lied about his contact with the Russian government. That was contrary to the principle affirmed by the Supreme Court in Lachaux SC at [24], that “damage to the claimant’s reputation done by earlier publications of the same matter is legally irrelevant” to the question arising under section 1, as it is when assessing harm to reputation at common law (Dingle v Associated Newspapers Ltd [1964] AC 371 (“Dingle”)). The judge also rejected a contention that investigations by the Electoral Commission and others, and media reporting, had given the claimant a general bad reputation. At [90] the judge held that the claimant had established that publication of the TED talk caused serious harm to his reputation, so that the onus fell on the defendant to show that she had a defence.

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-04-09 [Older] US: Judge orders White House to lift AP restrictions

  • [Old] CJR ☛ Journalism’s Gates keepers

    As philanthropists increasingly fill in the funding gaps at news organizations—a role that is almost certain to expand in the media downturn following the coronavirus pandemic—an underexamined worry is how this will affect the ways newsrooms report on their benefactors. Nowhere does this concern loom larger than with the Gates Foundation, a leading donor to newsrooms and a frequent subject of favorable news coverage.

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • NDTV ☛ "Leave Now...": A 30-Day Warning For Foreign Nationals Staying In US

    This decision will not directly impact those in the US on visas such as H-1 B or student permits, but it signals stricter enforcement of laws to prevent foreign nationals from staying in the US without proper authorisation. In cases where an individual on an H-1 B visa loses the job but does not exit the country within the specified period, he/she may face action. Students and H-1 B Visa holders will, therefore, need to ensure that their stay in the US fulfills compliance requirements.

  • Kansas Reflector ☛ For-profit immigration detention expands as Trump accelerates his deportation plans

    Private immigration detention is growing fast — again. The Trump administration is rapidly expanding immigration detention through billion-dollar contracts with private prison companies, including GEO Group and CoreCivic. Dozens of facilities may reopen across at least eight states, including places with long histories of abuse. But while some communities and states are concerned about oversight and are pushing back, others see economic opportunity.

  • Vox ☛ Trump’s team wrongly deported this man. The story gets more alarming from there.

    Essentially, the administration is saying it can’t deliver information on Abrego Garcia on time because he is in the custody of a foreign government, and that facilitating his return may require sensitive foreign policy considerations. The US is paying the Salvadoran government to imprison hundreds of deportees, 90 percent of whom have no criminal record.

    But immigration law experts said that foreign policy cannot justify the Trump administration’s failure to return Abrego Garcia.

  • International Business Times ☛ Bon Jovi Restaurant Feeds The Homeless But Why Is New Jersey Mayor Bent On Shutting It Down?

    In Toms River, New Jersey, a noble effort to combat hunger has sparked an unexpected feud. Rockstar Jon Bon Jovi and his wife, Dorothea, run JBJ Soul Kitchen, a nonprofit restaurant that's been serving meals to those in need since 2011.

    Their latest pop-up, opened on 11 February 2025 at the Ocean County Library, has fed thousands, yet it's drawn fierce criticism from Mayor Daniel Rodrick, who wants it gone by May. With the initiative backed by £7.8 million ($10 million) in donations over the years, why is the mayor so determined to close this beacon of hope? Let's explore the clash.

  • Pro Publica ☛ Inside Rümeysa Öztürk’s Journey From Scholar to Trump Target in Louisiana Cell

    With a line of cars waiting behind them at the train station, the two women hugged tightly as they said goodbye at the end of a spring break that hadn’t turned out to be the relaxing vacation they’d imagined.

    Their girls trip had transformed into endless conversations about security precautions as one of the friends, 30-year-old Turkish national Rümeysa Öztürk, grew increasingly worried she would become a target of the Trump administration’s deportation campaign.

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-04-10 [Older] New German coalition to abolish 3-year citizenship path

  • Deutsche Welle ☛ 2025-04-10 [Older] Pakistan expels thousands of Afghans in migrant crackdown

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• Counter Punch ☛ 2025-04-07 [Older] Holding Meta Accountable in Africa

• Wired ☛ FTC v. Meta Trial: The Future of Instagram and WhatsApp Is at Stake

  Meta (then Facebook) bought the photo-sharing startup Instagram for $1 billion in 2012. About two years later, the company snatched up the chat tool WhatsApp for roughly $22 billion.

  The FTC, one of the nation’s antitrust enforcement agencies, wants Judge James Boasberg to hold the tech giant liable for executing these mega deals to illegally maintain a social media monopoly. It has called on Boasberg to restore competition by ordering Meta to sell off its prized assets. A victory for the government could deter big tech companies from acquiring startups in the future, cutting off a key source of innovation and investment returns for venture capitalists.

• Copyrights

  • Mike Brock ☛ Intellectual [sic] Property [sic] in the Age of AI

    This conversation isn't happening in a vacuum. As the article notes, it emerges “at a time when AI companies... are facing numerous lawsuits alleging that they've violated copyright to train their models.” The timing suggests not a principled stance on creative freedom, but a response to legal challenges that might limit how these companies use others' work without permission or compensation.

    I've always been an advocate for open source software and creative commons approaches. During my time in the tech industry, I witnessed firsthand how these models can foster innovation and collaboration. But what makes these approaches powerful is precisely that they operate within intellectual property frameworks rather than against them—they depend on creators having rights they can then choose to share under specific terms.

  • Torrent Freak ☛ Block Mirror: Dystopian Site-Blocking Triggers Circumvention Innovation

    Site blocking and similar censorship measures are vulnerable to circumvention, helping to popularize VPNs and other encrypted solutions all over the world. That includes Spain, where LaLiga is ramping up its pirate site blocking efforts and at the same time (and with the court's blessing) rendering thousands of innocent sites inaccessible due to overblocking. People are now fighting back against dystopia, transforming conventional site blocking workarounds into tools that reinstate freedom of expression.