Tootfinder

Big Tech 2025: Alphabet und Nvidia dominieren die Börse – den übrigen fehlt Luft
Erstmals seit drei Jahren KI-Hype geriet der AI-Trade 2025 etwas ins Wanken. Das Jahr, in dem Big Tech an der Wall Street teilweise entzaubert wurde.

French President Emmanuel Macron criticizes the EU for being too slow to act on probes into Big Tech companies, attributing the delay to US pressure against DSA (Politico)
https://www.politico.eu/article/brussels-afraid-of-tackling-us-big-tech-em…

Macron says Brussels is ‘afraid’ of tackling US Big Tech
An “American offensive” has cowed the European Commission and some EU capitals, French president complains.

I really like Genoa! A big city, industrial and with an enormous port. But also a lovely city center very dense with tiny pedestrian streets. And of course lots of monumental Italian architecture.

Flying drones used during the Ukraine war have changed land battle tactics for ever.
Now the same thing appears to be happening under the sea.
Navies around the world are racing to add autonomous submarines.
https://www.theguardian.com…

39C3: Digital Independence Day – CCC-Sprecher über Weg raus aus Big Tech
Auf dem Hackerkongress 39C3 wurde der Digital Independence Day ausgerufen. Warum und was das bedeutet, erklärt CCC-Sprecher Linus Neumann im Interview.

“Big Tech’s AI hype is distracting users from the rapid and dangerous expansion of giant, energy and water-intensive data centres […].
There is simply no evidence that AI will help the climate more than it will harm it.
Rather than relying on credible and substantiated data, Big Tech companies are writing themselves a blank cheque to pollute on the empty promise of future salvation. We cannot bet the climate on these baseless claims.”

Wow. Finally a truly good article about moving away from big tech in the national news here in Denmark. And yes, Mastodon is in it. It’s not a perfect list, but it’s the first good one I’ve seen outside of personal blogs. https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/viden/teknolo…

Many are surprised as the owners/managers of big high-tech companies have embraced and paid de facto bribes to trump.
I was part of the silicon valley (and Boston) era when those now-huge companies got started.
Having observed many of the people who controlled those then-new companies, I am not surprised that those companies are now institutions of political reaction and economic concentration.
Back then the Silicon valley was filled with cocaine and money-worshiping people…

Good news, any progress in more federated social media is a good thing in my view.
https://openfuture.eu/blog/eurosky-dawns-building-infrastructure-for-sovereign-social-media/

Eurosky dawns – Open Future
The Eurosky initiative is building European social media infrastructure on the ATProtocol, representing a new step in Europe's digital sovereignty agenda as policymakers seek alternatives to Big Tech platforms that serve public interest rather than commercial imperatives.

OpenAI fired an employee for insider trading on prediction markets like Polymarket; Unusual Whales has flagged 77 suspected insider trades around OpenAI events (Kate Knibbs/Wired)
https://www.wired.com/story/openai-fires-employee-insider-trading-polymarke…

OpenAI Fires an Employee for Prediction Market Insider Trading
Prediction markets like Polymarket and Kalshi are big business, and some Big Tech employees are testing boundaries by making trades based on insider knowledge.

ICE Asks Companies About 'Ad Tech and Big Data' Tools It Could Use in Investigations (Caroline Haskins/Wired)
https://www.wired.com/story/ice-asks-companies-about-ad-tech-and-big-data-tools/
http://www.memeorandum.com/260125/p35#a260125p35

Zwei #Podcast Tipps zum Abend:
Im Hörsaal klärt Martin Andree noch einmal sehr kurzweilig darüber auf, dass das Versprechen der Techkonzerne von freien Internet eine Lüge ist und sie an der digitalen Oligarchie arbeiten.
Hörsaal - Deutschlandfunk Nova: Populismus als Waffe - Wie Big Tech Demokratie und Öffentlichkeit kaputtmacht
Webseite der Episode:

Leave big tech behind! How to replace Amazon, Google, X, Meta, Apple – and more;
A handful of companies monopolize the web, with unprecedented access to our data. But there are many more ethical – and often distinctively European – alternatives
https://www.theg…

Leave big tech behind! How to replace Amazon, Google, X, Meta, Apple – and more
A handful of companies monopolise the web, with unprecedented access to our data. But there are many more ethical – and often distinctively European – alternatives

Det var på tide med en god artikel om alternativerne hos DR! https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/viden/teknologi/kan-man-klare-sig-uden-amerikansk-big-tech-her-er-nogle-af-alternativerne

https://restofworld.org/2025/chatgpt-india-alternative-ai-llms/
Thanks @… for sharing!

ChatGPT is huge in India. These locally focused startups found a way to compete
Indian founders are building digital data sets for low-resource languages by involving the community, and count on local relevance to go against big tech platforms.

Series D, Episode 03 - Traitor
AVON: So Tarrant, this is your big moment.
TARRANT: If the teleport works.
VILA: It's working perfectly now, I checked it myself.
DAYNA: [Laughs] Yes, but would you use it yourself Vila? That's the real test.
https://blake.torpidity.net/m/403/176…

Ui, digitale Unabhängigkeit nimmt auch woanders Fahrt auf!
Leave big tech behind! How to replace Amazon, Google, X, Meta, Apple – and more
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/feb/26/how-to-replac…

Just saw how various websites are using 50 GB total in Chrome. A big culprit is every site with an embedded YouTube video seems to have its own copy of 313MB of YouTube crap. It's partitioned for privacy purposes and I'm guessing nothing is de-duping that storage. I wonder if every site has to download it too?

Hey @…, you want to incentivise small sustainable online organisations in the EU (e.g., small not-for-profits like Small Technology Foundation) as an alternative to Big Tech?
Raise the EU's €10,000 cross-border OSS threshold to €1M (or even €10M).
You’ll still stop Big Tech corporations from jurisdiction shopping and you’ll r…

Comments by heads of Amazon, Microsoft, Anthropic, OpenAI and others, many delivered at the World Economic Forum in Davos, reveal a shift of narrative from optimistic inevitability towards recognition of geopolitical tensions, energy scarcity, economic bubbles and the race to make AI truly useful.
https://www.

Big tech leaders opine on the future of AI
Big tech leaders have been opining this week, on the future of AI, taking on the bubble talk, resource constraints and opportunities.

Source: Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, xAI, Oracle, and OpenAI will sign White House's initiative to build their own electricity supply for AI data centers (Emma Colton/Fox News)
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/scoop-trump-brings-…

Scoop: Trump brings Big Tech to White House to curb power costs amid AI boom
President Donald Trump announces major tech companies must provide their own power for new AI data centers during White House meeting in March with Secretary Chris Wright.

Frankreich nimmt die digitale Souveränität selbst in die Hand. Mit der flächendeckenden Einführung der Videokonferenzplattform Visio verabschiedet sich der Staat von US-Diensten wie Microsoft Teams und Zoom.
Zum Artikel: https://heise.de/-11155120?wt_mc=sm.re<…

»USA und China rüsten bei KI massiv auf – diese Szenarien drohen Europa:
Digitale Souveränität statt Abhängigkeit von Big-Tech-Konzernen - Dieses für das demokratische Europa erstrebenswerte Ziel wird durch die KI-Offensiven der Amerikaner und Chinesen infrage gestellt. Eine aktuelle Studie zeigt vier Zukunftsszenarien auf.«
Ich frage mich wann die KI-Lücke real wird und in welchem Ausmaß für wen?
🤖

Wie Europa im KI-Rennen gegen die USA und China bestehen kann
Digitale Souveränität statt Abhängigkeit von Big-Tech-Konzernen? Eine aktuelle Studie zeigt vier Zukunftsszenarien auf.

"We also found that the evidence presented for examples of climate benefit, regardless of AI type, tend to be weak whether from companies or organisations like the IEA. The potential benefits are overstated, in surprising and significant ways."
(Original title: NEW REPORT – The AI climate hoax)
https://

NEW REPORT – The AI climate hoax
A new report on AI greenwashing, analysing the rhetoric and evidence behind the idea big tech will solve climate change

For this #blackfriday why not buy and build a #nocode website of your own. Break free of big tech and try #carrd.

Choose a Starting Point - Carrd
Templates

Interesting article about trust when providing services for others:
https://blog.avas.space/alternatives-trust/

Big Tech – ZDFinfo zeichnet das beunruhigende Porträt von Google, Meta, Amazon & Co: Aus einst idealistischen Start-ups wurden Datenkraken, deren Algorithmen entscheiden, was wir sehen, denken und wählen. Eine Warnung vor Datenmacht, Manipulation und demokratischer Fragilität. Pflichtsendung! #BigTech #Datenschutz

Everything Big Tech gets shittier and shittier. Yes I'm using an Android phone, bad. This is all self-inflicted.
Wondering about the weather tomorrow, I click "26 Feb Tomorrow" (yes it lists "Wed 25 Feb (2026)" for today, and "Fri" for the day after tomorrow, but the day of tomorrow shall not be named, apparently.).
It takes me to a website with ads (terrible!). But it lists "Tue 30". There isn't a Tue 30 in January, February, n…

Have you written any Anti-ICE Posts on Threads, Facebook or YouTube?
Meta & Google gave your name up to Trump, Kristi Noem & DHS. And Amazon is now turning over Ring camera footage.
☑️ Big Tech Confirms DHS Subpoenas: Meta and Google Users Targeted Over Anti-ICE Posts

Big Tech Confirms DHS Subpoenas: Meta and Google Users Targeted Over Anti-ICE Posts
Major tech firms acknowledged they have complied with DHS subpoenas aiming to ID anti-ICE protestors

Let's stop calling them "big tech" and start calling them "tech oligarchs".
"Big tech" is too ambiguous. E.g. Linux could be called "big tech" too.
Also the problematic aspect is immediately revealed: the individuals at the top, their corruption and misuse of the power.

Gemeinsam mit vielen anderen habe ich den Offenen Brief von @… gegen die "Chat-Kontrolle 1.0" an das Europäische Parliament unterschrieben.
Auch in der #ePrivacy Verordnung darf die Überwachung der Messenger nicht umgesetzt werden.

https://www.wired.com/story/doxers-posing-as-cops-are-tricking-big-tech-firms-into-sharing-peoples-private-data/

Doxers Posing as Cops Are Tricking Big Tech Firms Into Sharing People's Private Data
A spoofed email address and an easily faked document is all it takes for major tech companies to hand over your most personal information.

The EU gives Google a six-month deadline to lift technical barriers to rival AI search assistants on Android and give key data to other search engine providers (Samuel Stolton/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-…

Google Android Told by EU to Open Up to Rival AI Systems
Google was handed a six-month European Union deadline to lift technical barriers to rival AI search assistants on Android and give key data to other search engine providers in the latest round of its Big Tech crackdown.

Big tech is failing domestic abuse victim-survivors
https://www.crikey.com.au/2026/02/19/big-tech-domestic-abuse-victim-survivors/

Werk, werk, werk. Follow the Money en De Correspondent willen onaf­hankelijker worden van Amerikaanse tech (en laten iedereen meekijken in het proces).
Sterker nog, ze zoeken een projectmanager. Prima vacature-tekst dit:

Follow the Money wil onafhankelijker worden van Amerikaanse tech (en iedereen mag meekijken)
We berichten kritisch over de Europese afhankelijkheid van big tech. Ondertussen zit ons eigen platform vol met Amerikaanse technologie. Tijd om afscheid te nemen. Kijk mee hoe gemakkelijk of moeilijk dat is. We gaan dat namelijk transparant doen, samen met onze collega’s van De Correspondent. Wil je ons daarbij helpen? Dat kan, want we zoeken per direct een projectmanager voor deze klus.

heise | Tschüss, Big Tech: Acht sichere E-Mail-Alternativen aus Europa im Vergleich
Gmail, iCloud, Outlook – die größten E-Mail-Anbieter sitzen in den USA. Mit diesen europäischen Alternativen erklären Sie Ihre digitale Unabhängigkeit.

The Plan Is to Make the Internet Worse. Forever.
https://novaramedia.com/2025/12/07/the-plan-is-to-make-the-internet-worse-and-big-tech-rich/
An interesting interview with Cory Doctorow.

Doxers Posing as Cops Are Tricking Big Tech Firms Into Sharing People’s Private Data
A spoofed email address and an easily faked document is all it takes for major tech companies to hand over your most personal information.
👉 https://www.wired.com/stor…

let me rephrase that title : Big Tech basically flipped their script and bowed to the King (other images come to mind but would be very vulgar)
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/12/big-tech-basically-took-trumps-unpredicta…

Big Tech basically took Trump’s unpredictable trade war lying down
From Apple gifting a gold statue to the US taking a stake in Intel.

"Van het ministerie mag big tech de gesprekken over digitale autonomie zelf leiden"
https://www.

Van het ministerie mag big tech de gesprekken over digitale autonomie zelf leiden
Nederland wil minder afhankelijk worden van big tech, maar Binnenlandse Zaken laat de gesprekken daarover leiden door een branchevereniging die de belangen van big tech uitdraagt. De Nederlandse cloudaanbieders zijn bij de start buitenspel gezet. ‘Dit is als de tabakslobby laten meeschrijven aan anti-rookwetgeving.’

RE: #Microsoft #MS

Montag: Rückkehr der Vorratsdatenspeicherung, Deutschlandfonds für Tech-Boost
Gesetzentwurf in ministerieller Abstimmung Milliarden-Boost für Big-Tech Warnung von US-Firmen vor Visa-Prüfung Avatar-Spiel unterschätzt Trump pro Mond

Mistral and Accenture sign a multi-year deal to let Accenture deploy Mistral's models for its clients; Mistral has deals with IBM, Cisco, SAP, ASML, and others (Wall Street Journal)
https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/mistral-ai-lan

One thing that influenced my decision to use the iPhone with the Apple Watch as my main device instead of the Pixel with GrapheneOS for health reasons is this: I feel absolutely, ABSOLUTELY bad about it!
On the one hand, of course, because of the data protection issue, but since Trump, I also have the problem that most Europeans have: that you are becoming dependent on a big tech company from the US. A country that is clearly drifting toward fascism, where fundamental rights are being …

It's kind of funny: at work I was called a "cloud native champion" for our work in cloud adoption. - And at home im getting rid of all big tech.

What will people do when AI can handle most current white-collar tasks?
I don't know.
And that's the whole point.
Nobody knew what displaced agricultural workers would do, either,
-- until they did it.
The absence of a visible next chapter isn't evidence that there won't be one.
It's evidence that we're bad at predicting what humans will invent when constraints shift.

Everything is awesome (why I'm an optimist)
February is the month the internet decided we're all going to die. In the span of about two weeks, Matt Shumer's Something Big is Happening racked up over 80 million views on X with its breathless comparison of AI to the early days of COVID, telling his non-tech friends and

RE: https://cyberplace.social/@GossiTheDog/115944285350406235
Consejo no solicitado: Protejan su información confidencial e importante de las big-tech.

This is the most depressing thing I've read in a long time.
https://shumer.dev/something-big-is-happening
Of particular note:
"The people building this technology are simultaneously more excited and more frightened than anyone else on the planet. They believe it…

Something Big Is Happening
A personal note for non-tech friends and family on what AI is starting to change.

Da wir ja jetzt alle Big Tech verlassen wollen, so #DIDay und so, und vielleicht gilt das ja auch für Medium Tech: Kennt jemand eine gute, freie Alternative zu #Komoot? Es gibt ja tolle freie Kartenanwendungen wie @…

Al final, te van a obligar a usar la IA para que triunfe la IA.
“Big tech boss tells delegates at Davos that broader global use is essential if technology is to deliver lasting growth”
https://www.

No no, instead of regulating social media and requiring them to remove lies, violence and bullshit we’d rather have adults give up their privacy and anonymity instead, so big tech gets even more data.
While children are pushed to much worse corners of the Internet.
People who demand ID laws are child abusers.

For this #blackfriday why not buy and build a #nocode website of your own. Break free of big tech and try #carrd. https://try.carrd.co/adjb

Over the past month, the US paused talks on a tech pact with the UK, canceled a South Korea trade meeting, and threatened the EU over Big Tech regulations (Politico)
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/12/23/trump-administra…

Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos outlines increasing competition for customers' attention from YouTube, Instagram, linear networks that also do streaming, and more (Alex Weprin/The Hollywood Reporter)
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business

Ted Sarandos Warns “Instagram Is Coming” As He Lays Out Competitive Landscape for Netflix
"TV is not what we grew up on. TV is now just about everything," the Netflix co-CEO says, outlining the threat from traditional studios and networks, big tech and social giants, a preview of a potential regulatory fight.

Big Tech is dancing to the beat of algorithms.

For half a century, psychedelics largely belonged to the cultural left: anti-war, anti-capitalist, suspicious of the church and state. Now, one of the most politically consequential psychedelic drugs in the US – ibogaine – is being championed by evangelical Christians, Republican governors, military veterans, and big tech billionaires.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/26/us-right-champions-psychedelic-drugs?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

»Digitale Souveränität beginnt dort, wo Allianzen und Appeasement enden:
Airbus, SAP, Capgemini, Forschung, Big Tech: Warum Allianzen keine Sicherheit bieten, Appeasement keine Strategie ist – und digitale Souveränität nur durch Unabhängigkeit entsteht.«
Es ist nicht simpel absolut unabhängig von den Supportern zu sein und einen erheblichen Aufwand. Doch dies entschuldigt gewisse Gläubigkeit von gewissen Open-Source Tools nicht.
🐧

Digitale Souveränität beginnt dort, wo Allianzen und Appeasement enden
Airbus, SAP, Capgemini, Forschung, Big Tech: Warum Allianzen keine Sicherheit bieten, Appeasement keine Strategie ist – und digitale Souveränität nur durch Unabhängigkeit entsteht.

Warum weiter Big Tech folgen, wenn’s auch anders geht? Das Whitepaper „Reinvent Social Platforms“ vom SWR zeigt: Das Fediverse passt besser zu unabhängigen Medienwerten als kommerzielle Plattformen. Auf ~60 Seiten werden Chancen, echte Probleme und konkrete Lösungen skizziert. Journalismus braucht digitale Souveränität, nicht nur Klick-Optimierung. #SWR

FTM heeft een nuttig artikel (nuttig als in: lastig, anti-autoritair) over BZK en NLdigital.
"BZK wees branchevereniging NLdigital aan als ‘poortwachter’ voor het organiseren van de gesprekken van het aanjaagteam Cloud. En die keuze is opmerkelijk. Anders dan de naam doet vermoeden, maakt de belangenbehartiger met ruim 500 leden zich namelijk ook hard voor Amerikaanse belangen van leden als Microsoft, Google, Amazon, IBM en Oracle.”

Van het ministerie mag big tech de gesprekken over digitale autonomie zelf leiden
Nederland wil minder afhankelijk worden van big tech, maar Binnenlandse Zaken laat de gesprekken daarover leiden door een branchevereniging die de belangen van big tech uitdraagt. De Nederlandse cloudaanbieders zijn bij de start buitenspel gezet. ‘Dit is als de tabakslobby laten meeschrijven aan anti-rookwetgeving.’

In acht Tagen spreche ich im #39C3 Sendezentrum im c’t uplink Podcast mit @… und anderen Gästen über #DigitaleSouveränität.
Habt Ihr dazu in letzter Z…

Vom AI-Hype zur AI-Angst: Warum Tech-Aktien 2026 so stark verlieren
Backlash: Big-Tech-Aktien notieren seit Jahresbeginn im Minus. Die Wall Street ist über das Disruptionspotenzial besorgt.
https://www.…

RE: https://tech.lgbt/@somebitslinks/116058348297956373
I was suspicious of the etymology of molly-guard because it only dates to 1982, and the devices are much older. But Ed Krol from UIUC tells the story about his daughter Molly on page 14 of this PDF.
The only thing about it was that on one side was a big red switch—kid-sized, about 2 inches wide. ... I took my daughter Molly in to work with me. I said, ‘You play with your trucks on the floor while I work,’ and she saw this amazing big red thing and gave it a yank and turned it off.
/cc @…

Q&A with Skild AI CEO Deepak Pathak on building a general-purpose brain for robots, standing out among big tech's robotics efforts, the path to AGI, and more (Alex Heath/Sources)
https://sources.news/p/skild-ai-ceo-robotics-brain-davos

Skild AI's CEO on building one brain for every robot
My full Sources Live interview with Skild AI CEO Deepak Pathak from Davos.

RE: https://ketanjoshi.co/2026/02/17/big-tech-greenwashing-report/
Ketan Joshi, who has been on the beat for a long time, actually looked into the story of if "AI" can "solve climate change". Conceptually as well as evidence …

Hochul Caves to Big Tech on AI Safety Bill (David Dayen/American Prospect)
https://prospect.org/2025/12/11/hochul-caves-big-tech-ai-safety-bill-new-york/
http://www.memeorandum.com/251211/p117#a251211p117

Zo typerend dit,
"DNB laat na vragen in eerste instantie weten dat e-mail niet toegankelijk is voor Microsoft omdat de berichten ‘end-to-end beveiligd blijven’. Geconfronteerd met het oordeel van security-experts, erkent de bank vervolgens dat dit antwoord onjuist is en dat ‘technische toegang’ tot de data in ‘uitzonderlijke scenario’s’ mogelijk is."

De Nederlandsche Bank waarschuwt voor big tech, maar draait zelf op Microsoft
De Nederlandsche Bank maakt volop gebruik van systemen van Microsoft, waarin de Amerikanen kunnen meekijken. Bovendien schroefde DNB de beveiliging van e-mail verder terug. Terwijl de bank eerder waarschuwde voor afhankelijkheid van big tech en het ‘gure geopolitieke klimaat’.

SOTU: Trump says he told tech companies they must build their own power plants for their data centers; sources: the WH expects to formalize the effort in March (Richard Valdmanis/Reuters)
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/tr

As US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents wreak havoc on American communities,
big tech companies have been making themselves indispensable to the increasingly tyrannical state.
Among them is Amazon subsidiary Ring,
the company behind those AI doorbell cameras that have exploded in popularity over the last few years.
Back in October, Ring announced that its devices would soon be looped into a network of Flock AI surveillance cameras.
That network, an inv…

Fury as Amazon Ring Cameras Are Hooked Up to ICE System
Online activists are telling owners of Ring Doorbell cameras that it's time to get rid of their devices, which can be used by ICE.

De Nederlandsche Bank waarschuwt voor big tech, maar draait zelf op Microsoft - Follow the Money -
https://www.ftm.nl/artikelen/nederlandsche-bank-waarschuwt-voor-bigtech-microsoft
Archive link https://archive.ph/p3HuI
What the .... 🙈🙈
Maar goed ... Alles draait toch om de MS cloud, dus wat maakt t uit...
... Nou in zoverre dat DNB medewerkers niet alleen over NLse data en ideeën zullen beschikken, maar ongetwijfeld ook over data en documenten van collega centrale banken in andere landen die misschien wel beter beveiligd zijn.
(Via @… )

«Studie—Big Techs KI-Klimaversprechen entpuppen sich als leeres Greenwashing:
Nur 26 Prozent der KI-Versprechen zum Klimaschutz verweisen auf Fachstudien; 36 Prozent kommen ganz ohne Belege aus, so die deutsche NGO Beyond Fossil Fuels»
Dies erinnert mich sicherlich nicht um sonst an die Crypto-Currency Marketing-Verspreche(r)n. Weshalb aber plapern so gut wie alle Medien deren Marketing blind hinterher?
🧐

Studie: Big Tech betreibt KI-Klimagreenwashing
Nur 26 Prozent der KI-Versprechen zum Klimaschutz verweisen auf Fachstudien; 36 Prozent kommen ganz ohne Belege aus, so die deutsche NGO Beyond Fossil Fuels.

US Big Tech companies have been on an energy-related hiring spree; Workforce.AI says Microsoft has hired 570 people with energy-related expertise since 2022 (Tasmin Lockwood/CNBC)
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/14/big-tech-google-microsoft-energy-hiring-ai.html…

Big Tech is poaching energy talent to fuel its AI ambitions
Hires of energy-related talent by Big Tech was 30% higher in 2025 than pre-AI levels.

Digital Networks Act: EU verzichtet angeblich auf Milliardenstrafen für Big Tech
Der Digital Networks Act sollte Big Tech zur Kasse bitten. Doch statt harter Regulierung erwarten Netflix, Google und Meta nun Dialog und Handreichungen.

Is this the disturbed view of AI / BigTech optimists, or does he have a point?
"Something Big Is Happening"
#ai

Something Big Is Happening
A personal note for non-tech friends and family on what AI is starting to change.

Gutachter: EU-Kommission will eine "uferlose Sonderrechtszone" für KI
In einer Rechtsanalyse für Verbraucherschützer warnen Experten vor massiven Schutzlücken durch den geplanten "digitalen EU-Omnibus". Big Tech werde bevorzugt.

Tech whistleblowers like Yaël Eisenstat say coming forward has unexpectedly derailed their lives and careers; Meta is in litigation with Sarah Wynn-Williams (Naomi Nix/Washington Post)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/12/15/big-tech-whist…

Tech whistleblowers face million-dollar debts, job loss and isolation
After exposing the harms of Big Tech, many whistleblowers say they faced poor job prospects and isolation in Silicon Valley. They have no regrets.

At a time when the majority of Americans distrust big tech
and believe artificial intelligence will harm society,
Silicon Valley has built its own network of alternative media
where CEOs, founders and investors
are the unchallenged and beloved stars.
What was once the province of a few fawning podcasters
has grown into a fully fledged ecosystem of publications and shows
supported by some of the tech industry’s most powerful.

EU-Kommission verkauft den Digitalen Omnibus als Bürokratieabbau – laut NGO-Analyse liest sich das Gesetz aber wie eine Wunschliste von Big Tech. Datenschutz und KI-Regeln werden gelockert, digitale Rechte abgebaut. Stärkung der EU oder Aufschwung für US-Giganten? Autor: Tomas Rudl.
🔗 https://

Keep hitting US Big Tech with fines, Europe's Greens tell von der Leyen (Max Griera/Politico)
https://www.politico.eu/article/keep-hitting-us-big-tech-fines-europe-greens-tell-ursula-von-der-leyen/
http://www.memeorandum.com/251207/p28#a251207p28

A look at the fundamental questions facing OpenAI: its models have a very large user base but very narrow engagement, incumbents are matching its tech, and more (Benedict Evans)
https://www.ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2026/2/19/how-will-openai-compete-nkg2x

How will OpenAI compete? — Benedict Evans
OpenAI has some big questions. It doesn’t have unique tech. It has a big user base, but with limited engagement and stickiness and no network effect. The incumbents have matched the tech and are leveraging their product and distribution. And a lot of the value and leverage will come from new experie

Over the past year, tech industry lobby groups have used their lavish budgets to aggressively push for the deregulation of the EU’s digital rulebook.
The intensity of this policy battle is also reflected in the fact that Big Tech companies have on average more than one lobby meeting per day with EU Commission officials.  
This lobbying offensive appears to be paying off.
Recently, a string of policy-makers have called for a pause of the Artificial Intelligence Act,
a…

Big Tech lobby budgets hit record levels | Corporate Europe Observatory
New figures show that the digital industry as a whole is now spending €151 million a year on lobbying the EU, a major increase to what was already considerable firepower.

Excellent article on digital sovereignty.
#digitalsovereignty

Europe gets serious about cutting digital umbilical cord with Uncle Sam's big tech
Feature: Public bodies migrate in the bloc as hyperscalers claim sovereignty

Apple, whose capital expenditure is just a fraction of its peers, is the only Big Tech company that saw capex decline YoY in Q4, decreasing 19% to $2.37B (Rani Molla/Sherwood News)
https://sherwood.news/tech/apple-is-the-only-big-tech-company-…

Apple is the only Big Tech company whose capex declined last quarter
One of these companies is not like the others.

heise | Tschüss, Big Tech: Gmail-Postfach exportieren und E-Mails löschen
Sie haben Ihren E-Mail-Anbieter gewechselt? Dann müssen Sie jetzt noch Ihren Datenschatz aus dem alten Postfach heben. Wir erklären, wie das geht.

A healthy (in body and mind),
active, frugal, sociable, mostly offline citizen
who is highly educated and informed, in full control of their data, avoiding Big Tech’s platforms and algorithms,
with a positive self-esteem and self-image,
is probably persona non grata for the tech billionaires.
But a small, insignificant nuisance, like a fly
– they don’t care about ONE.
But imagine having thousands,
then hundreds of thousands,
then millio…

A new way to describe the Fediverse and its opposition to Big Tech
I may have finally found a compelling, accessible way to describe the Fediverse - and make it appealing to people not familiar with it.

Sources: tech lobbyists say that David Sacks' push for an EO blocking state AI laws undercut their efforts to craft a permanent, bipartisan federal solution (Politico)
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/12/20/big-tech-gets-worried-about-trumps…

Einige der zuletzt hier besonders häufig geteilten #News:
Gutachter: EU-Kommission will eine "uferlose Sonderrechtszone" für KI

Analysis: the top US tech companies spent $109M on DC lobbying in 2025, topping $100M for the first time; Meta spent $26.29M, Amazon $17.78M, and Google $13.1M (Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-…

Tech billionaires are leveraging tens of millions of dollars
to influence California politics
in a marked uptick from their previous participation in affairs at the state capitol.
Behemoths such as #Google and #Meta are getting involved in campaigns for November’s elections,
as are venture capitalist…

Zum Abend noch einige der heute besonders häufig geteilten #News:
Gutachter: EU-Kommission will eine "uferlose Sonderrechtszone" für KI

The World Economic Forum in Davos is now dominated by tech giants, whose interests shunt aside topics like climate change, as Trump and AI take center stage (Peter S. Goodman/New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/20/business/davos-trump.html

A.I., Big Tech and Trump Shine Most Brightly at the Davos Spectacle
The World Economic Forum is now dominated by global technology companies whose interests shunt aside most others.

Amazon, Google, and Microsoft reported a collective $1.1T backlog of cloud computing revenue in their latest quarterly earnings, including Microsoft's $625B (Jon Keegan/Sherwood News)
https://sherwood.news/tech/big-techs-usd1-1-trillion-cloud-computing-backl…

Big Tech’s $1.1 trillion cloud computing backlog
White-hot demand for cloud computing has created a backlog of revenue that Big Cloud can’t fulfill due to infrastructure constraints.

A look at the US tech industry's effort to influence Californian politics: fighting the 5% billionaire tax, super PACs, and seeking a new tech-friendly governor (Dara Kerr/The Guardian)
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/feb/15/californ…

FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson says the agency is examining Big Tech's acqui-hires to make sure "they are not an attempt to get around" its merger review process (Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/20

Poland's President Karol Nawrocki vetoes legislation meant to enforce the EU's DSA in Poland, arguing it would grant excessive powers to government officials (Wojciech Kość/Politico)
https://www.politico.eu/article/polish-pre

Polish president aligns with Trump to block Brussels’ Big Tech law
Nawrocki called EU social media law “Orwellian,” echoing Washington’s main line of attack.

DeepSeek researchers detail a new mHC architecture they used to train 3B, 9B, and 27B models, finding it scaled without adding significant computational burden (Vincent Chow/South China Morning Post)
https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article

DeepSeek opens 2026 with paper signalling race to train bigger models for less
DeepSeek has published a technical paper co-authored by founder Liang Wenfeng proposing a rethink of its core deep learning architecture.

Sources: ByteDance plans to spend about $14B on Nvidia's AI chips in 2026, an increase of about 18% from 2025 (Wency Chen/South China Morning Post)
https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3338191/bytedance-pour-u…

Exclusive | ByteDance to pour US$14 billion into Nvidia chips in 2026 as AI demand surges
Chinese unicorn’s computing needs have climbed across its portfolio of popular apps, cloud unit Volcano Engine and large language models.

GPT-5.3-Codex and Claude Opus 4.6 can handle the full app development lifecycle on their own, a sign of what's coming for most knowledge work within five years (Matt Shumer)
https://shumer.dev/something-big-is-happening

Something Big Is Happening
A personal note for non-tech friends and family on what AI is starting to change.

US investors are boosting Chinese AI-related tech stocks and adding cash to ETFs tracking China's tech sector, as US lawmakers push for tighter capital curbs (Wall Street Journal)
https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/u-s-i…

Anthropic partners with CodePath to help redesign computer coding curricula at hundreds of US community and state colleges, integrating Claude AI tools (Wall Street Journal)
https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/anthropic-take…

Big Tech got almost everything it wanted from President Trump, as he backs policies that allow the industry to grow unfettered, worrying some conservatives (Cecilia Kang/New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/28/technol<…

From A.I. to Chips, Big Tech Is Getting What It Wants From Trump
The president has backed policies that allow the industry to grow unfettered. The mutually beneficial alliance is causing concern among some conservatives.