“Facial expressions generally became angrier as inflation rose, which makes sense given their primary job is to keep inflation around two percent.
Both Draghi and Lagarde’s happy faces tended to lower market rates on government bonds.” https://euobserver.com/green-economy/ar57fbcd18
“Victims receive an email from an attacker impersonating a US government official, enticing the recipient to click on a QR code. [..] The code, instead of giving access to a WhatsApp group, connects an account to a linked device or the WhatsApp Web portal.” https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jan/17/russian-hackers-star-blizzard-whatsapp-accounts-ministers-officials
“Google's global affairs president Kent Walker said the fact-checking integration required by the [EU] Commission's new Disinformation Code of Practice "simply isn't appropriate or effective for our services" and said Google won't commit to it.” https://www.axios.com/2025/01/16/google-fact-check-eu
“A deal has been reached to form the next government, after an agreement was reached between Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and the Regional Independent Group. [..] The deal is expected to be finalised in the next 24 hours” https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/politics/fianna-fail-fine-gael-and-regional-independents-reach-deal-for-government/a93864208.html
“Chinese officials are evaluating a potential option that involves Elon Musk acquiring the US operations of TikTok if the company fails to fend off a controversial ban on the short-video app.” https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-01-14/china-discusses-sale-of-tiktok-us-to-musk-as-one-possible-option
“In a notice to shareholders, Apple’s board has recommended investors vote against the proposal because, it says, it already has the right compliance procedures to deal with any risks” https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jan/13/apple-investors-diversity-dei?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
“Britain’s new laws to boost safety and tackle hate speech online are “not up for negotiation”, a senior government minister has warned, after Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg vowed to join Donald Trump to pressure countries they regard as “censoring” content.” https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jan/11/tech-giants-told-uk-online-safety-laws-not-up-for-negotiation
“Citing internal Meta communications, the filing claims that the social network company’s chief executive backed the use of the LibGen dataset, a vast online archive of books, despite warnings within the company’s AI executive team that it is a dataset “we know to be pirated” https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jan/10/mark-zuckerberg-meta-books-ai-models-sarah-silverman
“Starting in the US, Meta will move to a so-called “community notes” model, similar to the one employed by Elon Musk’s X, which allows users to add context to controversial or misleading posts. Meta itself will not write community notes.” https://www.ft.com/content/7693fb45-4981-4f00-bfdf-4ce7a93349f7
“The Google result includes a search bar, an image that looks a lot like a Google Doodle, and even some small text under the search bar just like Google does. Microsoft even automatically scrolls down the page slightly to mask its own Bing search bar” https://www.theverge.com/2025/1/6/24337117/microsoft-bing-search-results-google-design-trick
“The question is essentially whether EU leaders are prepared to choose confrontation with the Trump administration before it has formally taken office.” https://www.politico.eu/article/elon-musk-interference-alice-weidel-x-livestream-afd-germany-eu-digital-services-act
“Thousands of ads on Facebook and Instagram have promoted “fuel filters” using videos demonstrating how they can be easily modified into gun silencers—a process that, without federal approval, could lead to felony charges.” https://www.wired.com/story/fuel-filter-gun-silencer-ads-facebook-instagram/
Interesting European Court of Justice Judgement expected on Wednesday:
⚖️ 08/01 (J): #PersonalData transfer to the #UnitedStates via "Connect with #Facebook" #meta (T-354/22) https://cdn.nostrcheck.me/68e7c72e43311a2c45987a5f1c5e74f9a2df51bef0e9c36c991f4a7a16b5842c/7d8f7fd327a464033d980f0a8923138b53228c33e35ead4971479c49c6636a0b.webp
“Pai and former Department of Treasury official Thomas Feddo filed a brief last week encouraging the justices to uphold the law that would banish TikTok’s operation within US borders despite Trump’s push to stop the ban” https://gizmodo.com/ajit-pai-asks-supreme-court-to-uphold-tiktok-ban-2000544379
“The manosphere [..] is widely recognised as a toxic space where young men are at risk of radicalisation. Now, say researchers, women and girls are being sucked into potentially dangerous online spaces of their own: the femosphere.” https://amp-theguardian-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2024/dec/29/welcome-to-the-femosphere-the-latest-dark-toxic-corner-of-the-internet-for-women
“For decades, attention has been the currency of the internet. [..] Unless regulated, the intention economy will treat your motivations as the new currency. It will be a gold rush for those who target, steer and sell human intentions.” https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/dec/30/ai-tools-may-soon-manipulate-peoples-online-decision-making-say-researchers
“The AfD backing from Musk, who also defended his right to weigh in on German politics due to his “significant investments”, comes as Germans are set to vote on 23 February after a coalition government led by the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, collapsed.” https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/dec/28/elon-musk-germany-afd-party?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
“They said listening and recording equipment was brought on to the 20-year-old tanker via “huge portable suitcases” along with “many laptops” that had keyboards for Turkish and Russian languages when calling at Türkiye and Russia.” https://www.lloydslist.com/LL1151955/Russia-linked-cable-cutting-tanker-seized-by-Finland-was-loaded-with-spying-equipment
“President-elect Donald Trump indicated on Sunday that he favored allowing TikTok to keep operating in the United States for at least a little while, saying he had received billions of views on the social media platform during his presidential campaign.” https://www.reuters.com/technology/trump-says-it-could-be-worth-keeping-tiktok-us-little-while-2024-12-22/
“Google is tracking your online behavior in the name of advertising, reintroducing a data collection process that ingests all of your online signals (from IP address to complex browser information) and pinpoints unique users or devices." https://mashable.com/article/google-digital-fingerprinting-user-tracking