For those among you living within EU this might be of interest to you: The European Network of Digital Right (EDRI) Initiatives recently wrote a letter to the European Commission asking to remain firm with US-based Big Tech under Trump government.
The letter was signed by 42 organisations from across Europe:
Wait, they sent a begging letter to von der Leyen of all people, supporting the information-control policy package DSA and this is supposed to be a good thing? The best thing I can say about EDRi is that they are transparent about where their funding comes from: The notorious Open Society Foundations and various foundations connected to ultra-large new and old wealth (Stiftung Mercator, Allianz Foundation, Omidyar Network and others). Sorry, these guys are not on the side of privacy and free flow of information. Or only in countries where most /e/ users do not come from.
Someone told me recently that the Trump/Musk BFF tandem are supposedly planning to “hit back” against the UKs recent Digital “Safety” Act.
Is there a connection here? I’m too exhausted by digital influx to keep on top of politics these days, aside from the fact that nobody in that sphere seems to have public interests at heart.
This isn’t intended to be a political comment BTW, I’m mainly concerned about the impending privacy infringements being pushed through by the supposed spokespeople of what we used to call the left.
I know they’re having a stab at VPNs and encrypted messaging services, but I’m too unplugged from (and too mistrusting of) most media channels to even know where to look for an answer.
The EDRi letter is focused on the EU, but the background is likely the same, i.e. US social media companies now being backed up by the new US administration to legally challenge censorship packages anywhere in Europe (and beyond, I guess).
You said you don’t even know where to look for good information and became distrusting. I can absolutely understand that. That’s why I’m currently working on a list of critical news media, i.e. ones that do journalism like it’s supposed to and used to be (think people like Glenn Greenwald). Both German- and English-language ones. Drop me a PM if you’d like to get it. Also, anyone else drop me a PM if you’re interested.
