Tootfinder

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.

Hear hear!
Universiteit Groningen probeert zich los te rukken van big tech: ‘Geen alternatief voor Microsoft’ | BNR Nieuwsradio
https://www.bnr.nl/nieuws/tech-innovatie/10593189/universite…

For Google Gemini this is a large improvement (OpenAI and Anthropic already do this). The thing is the model could already do this (in the CLI version), but they blocked it in the web version, until now.

You can now easily generate files in Gemini.
Move from a brainstorm to a polished document, sheet or PDF with a single prompt in Gemini.

Fox, Sinclair, and NAB file FCC comments urging US regulators to address the trend of Big Tech companies buying sports rights, saying it could weaken local TV (David Shepardson/Reuters)
https://www.reuters.com/sustaina…

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.

Investors have grown accustomed to buying into major selloffs because stocks recover quickly
— not this time so far.

"This is a little bit of a more protracted, longer duration selloff than what investors have become used to,"
"Ironically, I think that's keeping people from feeling that they can buy the dip."
Big Tech firm's are spending at such a record rate to fund their AI ambitions, their capital expenditure is a bigger driver…

“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.”

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

„The European Commission incorporated a secrecy provision drafted by Microsoft and tech lobby group DigitalEurope into European Union law, blocking public access to critical information on data centers' environmental impact“
https://www.techpolicy.press/how-big-tech-…

@alineblankertz@indieweb.social "We want ... hack and shut down ... Big Tech". Als Elon Musk 90% der Software Engineers bei Twitter entlassen hatte, dachte ich es seine Frage von Wochen, bis script kiddies Twitter irreparabel zerlegt hätten. Aber offenbar sind die leute, die das könnten, selbst zu abhängig von funktionierender Big Tech, dass sie es eben nicht machen.

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.

This is a good listen, investigating what many others have called out as fraudulent dealings by tech companies like #Coreweave, #nscale and #Microsoft and a

UK’s big, risky AI bet – podcast
Reporter Aisha Down explores the UK’s ‘phantom investments’ in AI, and the risk the government has taken in betting so heavily on the technology if it all goes bust

Why is Big Tech covering up the truth about goblins?

If your stated goal is to make computing into a “utility” (aka subscription) you can only obtain from Big Tech and if your entire industry is comprised of rentiers, it makes perfect sense to also make actually owning a general computing device as expensive as possible.
As far as Big Tech is concerned, this is a feature, not a bug.
It’s capitalists acquiring capital and pricing it out of the reach of those they want to make dependent on them.
Also: fuck these people.

Big Tech Should Pay for What It Has Done to Us
"The truth is, it’s hard for profit-motivated companies to decide to make less money. So we can raise the cost of bad behavior. It worked with smoking. You can still smoke, but it could cost $15 a pack and you often can’t find a place where it’s allowed these days."

Opinion | Big Tech Should Pay for What It Has Done to Us
We are beginning an era where the social-media companies are finally held accountable for their harm.

This might be why the Fediverse is such a nice place, but also why it doesn't seem to be as engaging (for some people) as the big tech alternatives. People are just so interesting here. I definitely don't see the rage posting that is present on other platforms..
Rage in the age of X - 🎁 from @…
https://giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/actions/redeem/389cac17-bf6f-40eb-8c5e-da2a4a5512d4

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.…

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…

Interessant initiatief.
https://www.

Zeven Nederlandse cloudbedrijven bundelen krachten en komen met alternatief voor Amerikaanse techreuzen
Digitale soevereiniteit: Door samen te werken, vormen we een serieus alternatief voor Big Tech bij overheidsopdrachten, hopen zeven Nederlandse ict-spelers. Ze willen dat Nederland doorpakt met de transitie naar meer digitale onafhankelijkheid.

Layoffs.fyi: layoffs affecting 45,800 tech employees were announced in March 2026, making it the worst month for reported tech job cuts in at least two years (Wall Street Journal)
https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/the-ai-splurge

Die gefährlichsten Firmen der Welt - Big Tech
Überwachung, Datenhandel, Manipulation - welche Macht haben globale Digitalkonzerne? Wie verändern Daten und Algorithmen Wirtschaft, Politik und Gesellschaft?
📺 https://www.zdf.de/dokus/zdfinfo-die-gefaehrl…

Die gefährlichsten Firmen der Welt - Big Tech
Google, Meta & Co.: Welche Macht haben globale Digitalkonzerne? Wie verändern die Datenhändler unsere Welt? Und wie schwer sind sie zu kontrollieren?

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.

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

7️⃣ Nachdem Elon Musk Twitter übernommen, das Team entliess, dass Hassrede etc. moderieren sollte und sogar gebannte Personen wieder auf die Plattform einlud, begannen Werber sich zurückzuziehen, aus Angst um ihren Ruf. Eine Richterin hat nun entschieden, dass dieser gemeinsame Schritt nicht gegen das Kartellrecht verstosse. Im Übrigen sähe es so aus, dass Musk mittels der Discovery-Phase vor den Verhandlungen vor allem an Geschäftsinterna der Firmen gelangen wollte.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/03/elon-musk-loses-big-in-court-x-boycott-perfectly-legal/?utm_social-type=owned

ohno.jpg #AI
https://fortune.com/2026/04/28/nvidia-executive-cost-of-ai-is-greater-than-cost-of-employees/

‘The cost of compute is far beyond the costs of the employees’: Nvidia executive says right now AI is more expensive than paying human workers
Big Tech has announced $740 billion in capex this year, but AI has yet to show evidence of widespread increased productivity.

It's so scary and painful to watch the speed and enthusiasm with which the bastion of software freedom that we built the past 40 years is being ripped apart by rust-infatuated drones doing Big Tech's biddings. Remove Copyleft protection at all cost so that we can steal all your work for our proprietary evils.
"So this is how liberty dies...with thunderous applause" -- Padmé Amidala
#FreeSoftware

Europe should regulate Big Tech instead of banning kids from social media, Estonia says https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-should-stand-up-to-big-tech-instead-of-imposing-social-media-bans-estonia-says/

Europe should regulate Big Tech instead of banning kids from social media, Estonia says
Banning kids from social media won’t work, as they “will find very quickly the ways to go around and to still use social media,” Estonian Education Minister Kristina Kallas said.

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.

“A jury in LA has delivered a damning verdict for two of the world's most popular digital platforms, Instagram and YouTube.
It ruled those apps are addictive, and deliberately engineered that way – and that its owners have been negligent in their safeguarding of the children who have used them.
…
Some experts have described the verdict as big tech's "big tobacco" moment, and we know how that worked out - although it didn't stop people smoking altogether…

What next for big tech after landmark social media addiction verdict?
The ruling could be the beginning of the end of social media as we know it, writes the BBC's technology editor Zoe Kleinman.

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

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

Exclusive: Big Tech companies band together to fight global scams
https://www.axios.com/2026/03/16/tech-companies-scam-accord-google-meta-amazon

Exclusive: Tech, retail companies band together to fight global scams
Scammers have only become more organized and impactful in recent years, forcing tech companies to rethink their strategies for protecting their users.

Tech stocks suffer their worst week in almost a year, driven by the Iran war and Meta's legal defeats; Meta fell 11%, Alphabet fell ~9%, and Microsoft fell ~7% (Ari Levy/CNBC)
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/03/27/tech-stocks-iran-war-meta-verdict.html

Tech stocks suffer worst week in nearly a year, driven down by war worries, Meta legal woes
Meta's twin legal defeats this week and a big selloff in Micron spurred a drop in technology stocks, which were broadly hit by rising oil prices.

"Europe pretends to be weak when it comes to big American and international corporations," but that's a "pretense," Kallas said. She called on the EU to "actually take this power and start regulating the big American corporations."
https://www.

Europe should regulate Big Tech instead of banning kids from social media, Estonia says
Banning kids from social media won’t work, as they “will find very quickly the ways to go around and to still use social media,” Estonian Education Minister Kristina Kallas said.

Sam Altman vs Elon Musk.. Can they somehow both lose please?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn8dedv8w8xo

« J’ai décidé de faire mes adieux Š Gmail » : ces initiatives pour se passer des Big Tech américaines
https://www.lemonde.fr/pixels/article/2026/03/14/j-ai-decide-de-faire-mes…

« J’ai décidé de faire mes adieux à Gmail » : ces initiatives pour se passer des Big Tech américaines
Accompagnés par des associations, des particuliers et des collectifs abandonnent les Gafam au profit d’autres solutions, libres, sobres, locales et non marchandes.

Gruselig! 😬
Hörsaal - Deutschlandfunk Nova: Digital-Oligarchie - Der Rechtsruck der Big-Tech-Bosse
Webseite der Episode: https://www.deutschlandfunknova.de/beitrag/digital-oligarchie-der-rechtsruck-der-big-tech-bosse
Medi…

Der Rechtsruck der Big-Tech-Bosse
In der Ideologie der US-Tech-Bosse und in der aktuellen US-Politik macht der Politikwissenschaftler Christopher Coenen faschistische Tendenzen aus.

The Guardian view on changes to copyright laws: authors should be protected over big tech
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/mar/13/the-guardian-view-on…

Vraag: ik ben best ver met het loskomen van Amerikaanse bedrijven en Big Tech. Iets dat ik nog gebruik is PayPal. Wat zijn daar de alternatieven voor?

Court docs: Zuckerberg texted Musk approvingly about his work with DOGE in February 2025, offering to "take down content doxxing or threatening" DOGE staffers (Karissa Bell/Engadget)
https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/mark-zuc

Mark Zuckerberg offered to 'help' Elon Musk with DOGE in 2025
According to court documents, Mark Zuckerberg texted Musk approvingly about his work with the now-defunct Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

Konferenz "Cables of Resistance": Widerstand gegen Big Tech
Was tun, wenn Rechenzentren das Grundwasser verbrauchen? Wie umgehen mit digitaler Gewalt? Auf einer Konferenz in Berlin suchten Aktivisten nach Antworten.

Cowboys Interested in Explosive 6-foot-3 WR Ahead of 2026 NFL Draft https://www.si.com/nfl/cowboys/onsi/draft/dallas-cowboys-interested-explosive-6-foot-3-wr-2026-nfl-draft

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…

Der "Big Tech Tobacco Moment", analysiert von @… :
"Es geht um viel mehr. Das Urteil könnte die Big-Tech-Konzerne in ihrem Innersten treffen, weil es nicht auf die Inhalte, sondern die Plattformlogik zielt: Infinite Scroll, Autoplay, Benachrichtigungen, Filter Bubble und Echokammer."
und:
"Wenn die Plattform bei den Teenag…

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

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.

Investigators have discovered that the European Commission bowed to the demands of Big Tech lobbyists that the environmental impact of individual datacentres be kept out of the public eye.
https://www.…

EU bowed to Big Tech lobbying to keep datacentre impact secret
Investigators have discovered that the European Commission bowed to the demands of Big Tech lobbyists that the environmental impact of individual datacentres be kept out ...

What @… forgot to mention is that you can (and should) attend her talk at #CablesOfResistance today at 11 am:
Cables of Resistance - Bewegungskonferenz gegen Big Tech: The AI/Energy/Fascism Nexus: An Ana…

This is why Digital Independance Day is so important:
Big tech banning apps when politics want it:
#fosdem #fosdem2026

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 @…

DeepSeek V4 Pro has 1.6T total parameters, its largest model by the metric, and V4 Flash has 284B parameters; both models have a context window of 1M tokens (Vincent Chow/South China Morning Post)
https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article

Developing | DeepSeek releases next-gen AI model with ‘world-leading’ cost efficiency
The company claims its much-anticipated V4 model is competitive with top closed-source models from OpenAI and Google DeepMind.

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 @…

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.

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…

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.

Bonusaflevering: Big Tech in de cockpit | NPO Start
#Argos #CCA

"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.’

Ruling in the LA bellwether case could impact Meta and other platforms, opening up a flood of litigation challenging product design and bypassing Section 230 (Wall Street Journal)
https://www.wsj.com/tech/do-back-to-back-courtroom-losses-her…

«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.

This whole thread is such a joy to read, about migrating away from big tech and taking back control of a digital life. #TechSovereignty #TechEmpowerment
#DanmarkSkifter

Tencent releases Hy3-preview, its first AI model developed under former OpenAI researcher Yao Shunyu; the model features 295B parameters, down from HY2's 400B (Vincent Chow/South China Morning Post)
https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article

Tencent unveils first flagship AI model under former OpenAI researcher
The model is relatively small with only 295 billion parameters, bucking a recent trend of large models with trillions of parameters.

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.

Imani Thompson, along with the New York City-based tech organizing coalition "Cypurr Collective",
is the host of "Break Up With Google".
Its purpose is to help attenders understand how to mitigate their vulnerability to surveillance through major tech services.
But it’s important for people to have fun while they do it, Thompson said
– hence the DJs playing until the wee hours of the morning.
“Learning to script a little at your local bar …

A friend recently wrote me on Instagram that she can understand me, leaving the platform.
Her wishes / pain points:
* reduce my screentime
* get out of doomscrolling
* Not having to check every post whether it's AI generated (= Authenticity)
* funny cat videos
* book recommendations
Quite Fediverse ... what she doesn't mention: privacy, big tech, federation
And then I thought about the websites promoting the fediverse. Well - it's just a…

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

Digital-Oligarchie - Der Rechtsruck der Big-Tech-Bosse
Big-Tech-Bosse vertreten verstärkt rechte Ideen und nehmen vermehrt politischen Einfluss. In ihren ideologischen Konzepten und in der aktuellen US-Politik macht der Politikwissenschaftler Christopher Coenen faschistische Tendenzen aus.
📻 https:…

Der Rechtsruck der Big-Tech-Bosse
In der Ideologie der US-Tech-Bosse und in der aktuellen US-Politik macht der Politikwissenschaftler Christopher Coenen faschistische Tendenzen aus.

If I have one more fucking techbro explain to me that actually, I’m the problem for criticising Big Tech (and, yes, fucking Linux distributions and components tied to trillion-dollar corporations is also Big Tech) I am going to scream.
(Actually, I’m just going to block and move on and not give you another thought this lifetime. And maybe also scream.)

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.’

A look at EU efforts to cut reliance on US tech; study: Amazon, Microsoft, and Google hold ~70% of EU cloud and US vendors get 80% of enterprise software spend (Politico)
https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-big-tech-donald-trump-alexan…

The problem with Europe’s Big Tech breakup: It’s still hooked
Thanks to Trump, EU governments are trying to break their overreliance on U.S. technology. It won’t be cheap or easy.

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.

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

An independent journalist argues against using AI to help journalists write, saying "the process is the purpose" even if you don't always enjoy it (Marisa Kabas/The Handbasket)
https://www.thehandbasket.co/p/refusing-to-accept-big-t…

Refusing to accept big tech's AI-poisoned 'future of journalism'
There is no pride in relying on a machine to do deeply human work.

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.

Trump threatens to "put a big tariff on the UK" if it does not drop its digital services tax, which he views as unfairly targeting US tech companies (Connor Stringer/Telegraph)
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2026/04/24/trump-dr…

Trump threatens Starmer with ‘big tariff’ over tech tax
President tells The Telegraph he will retaliate if Britain continues to ‘target’ major American companies such as Apple, Google and Meta

Der "Big Tech Tobacco Moment", analysiert von @… :
"Es geht um viel mehr. Das Urteil könnte die Big-Tech-Konzerne in ihrem Innersten treffen, weil es nicht auf die Inhalte, sondern die Plattformlogik zielt: Infinite Scroll, Autoplay, Benachrichtigungen, Filter Bubble und Echokammer."
und:
"Wenn die Plattform bei den Teenag…

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.

«Weg von Google und Paypal — EU will digital unabhängiger werden:
Die gängigen digitalen Dienstleistungen kommen in der Regel von US-amerikanischen Big-Tech-Unternehmen wie Alphabet oder Meta. Unter Trump ist das ein Problem»
Ich wohne nicht in der EU und deswegen wird dies wahrscheinlich in meiner Umgebung nicht so schnell von den US-Konzerne lösen. BigTechs haben auch Standorte in der CH.
🔊

Weg von Google und Paypal – Wie die EU digital unabhängiger werden will
Suchmaschinen, online Bezahlen, Cloud-Server: Die meisten digitalen Dienstleistungen in der EU übernehmen Big-Tech-Konzerne aus den USA. Die Abhängigkeit ist ein Problem.

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.

Q&A with New Mexico AG Raúl Torrez about the New Mexico and LA social media trials, Big Tech's "Big Tobacco" moment, what it means for Congress, and more (Tyler Katzenberger/Politico)
https://www.politico.com/newsletters/digit

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

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.

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…

Ruling in the LA bellwether case could impact Meta and other platforms, opening up a flood of litigation challenging product design and bypassing Section 230 (Wall Street Journal)
https://www.wsj.com/tech/do-back-to-back-courtroom-losses-her…

Arizona sues Kalshi for allegedly operating an illegal gambling business and unlawfully facilitating betting on elections; Kalshi faces a similar suit in Nevada (Anna Washenko/Engadget)
https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/arizona-

Arizona attorney general sues Kalshi on illegal gambling charges
Kalshi has been sued by Arizona's attorney general, the latest state-level accusation that the prediction market is an unlicensed gambling business.

Google, Microsoft, LinkedIn, Meta, Amazon, OpenAI, Adobe, and Match sign a voluntary pledge to share threat intelligence on scammers abusing their services (Sam Sabin/Axios)
https://www.axios.com/2026/03/16/tech-companies-scam-accord-google-meta-amazon…

Exclusive: Big Tech companies band together to fight global scams
Scammers have only become more organized and impactful in recent years, forcing tech companies to rethink their strategies for protecting their users.

A profile of Strider, an intelligence firm that leverages agentic AI and public records to help the US Air Force, NATO, and others identify foreign state actors (Jamie Tarabay/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/20

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…

Series, founded by two seniors at Yale to build an AI-powered social network on iMessage, raised a $5.1M pre-seed from Reddit CEO Steve Huffman and others (Dominic-Madori Davis/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2026/04/24/two-

Two college kids raise a $5.1 million pre-seed to build an AI social network in iMessage | TechCrunch
Series, a social networking app that's grown popular on college campuses, announced a $5.1 million pre-seed round from some big names in tech.

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.

Some startups and researchers who can't access the most advanced chips are adopting a "frugal AI" approach, building smaller models on open-weight systems (Rina Chandran/Rest of World)
https://restofworld.org/2026/frugal-ai-big-tech/

Nations priced out of Big AI are building with frugal models
Amid a widening global divide in AI adoption, low-cost AI models that can deliver sovereignty and efficiency with a smaller environmental footprint are gaining ground.

Google unveils Home updates to fix a long list of annoyances and idiosyncrasies, and debuts Live Search to let Gemini analyze and describe live camera feeds (Thomas Ricker/The Verge)
https://www.theverge.com/tech/888008/big-google-home-updat…

Big Google Home update lets Gemini describe live camera feeds
Google Home updates fix a long list of annoyances and introduces Live Search to give Gemini the power to describe what your cameras see.

OpenAI buying TBPN makes little sense, par for the course for a company that, like Twitter, stumbled into a big market and may never build a functional business (Ben Thompson/Stratechery)
https://stratechery.com/2026/openai-buys-tbpn-tech-and-the-token-tsunami/

OpenAI Buys TBPN, Tech and the Token Tsunami
OpenAI’s purchase of TBPN makes no sense, which may be par for the course for OpenAI. Then, AI is breaking stuff, starting with tech services.

The US Senate passed COPPA 2.0 again, which would create new protections for young users; the bill now heads to the House, where it has struggled to pass (Anna Washenko/Engadget)
https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/coppa-20-passes-the-sen…

COPPA 2.0 passes the Senate again, unanimously this time
Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act, aims to create new online protections for younger users and their personal data.

Filing: Anthropic spent $1.6M and OpenAI $1M on lobbying in Q1, vs. $360K and $560K in Q1 2025, respectively; Meta topped Big Tech lobbying spending with $7.1M (Ashley Gold/Axios)
https://www.axios.com/2026/04/21/anthropic-outspends-openai-biggest-lobbyin…

Anthropic outspends OpenAI in biggest-ever lobbying quarter
Both Anthropic and OpenAI posted their biggest-ever lobbying spends in the first quarter of 2026.

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…