Writing for the New Yorker, Ronan Farrow reports on Pegasus, “a spyware technology designed by NSO Group, an Israeli firm, which can extract the contents of a phone, giving access to its texts and photographs, or activate its camera and microphone to provide real-time surveillance — exposing, say, confidential meetings.” Read more…
“As more and more workers have fallen under the gaze of algorithms, a growing chorus of experts have noted how platform companies have paralleled the practices of colonial empires,” writes MIT Technology review, “in using management tools to surveil and exploit a broad base of cheap labor.” But resistance rose Read more…
People using self-driving cars will be allowed to watch television on built-in screens under proposed updates to the Highway Code. From a report: The changes will say drivers must be ready to take back control of vehicles when prompted, the government said. The first use of self-driving technology is likely Read more…
The world’s biggest technology companies could face billions of dollars in fines for breaches of new European Union legislation, details of which are expected to be agreed upon by lawmakers as soon as Friday. The landmark Digital Services Act is the EU’s answer to what it sees as a failure Read more…
Twitter is banning advertisements that promote climate change denial in an effort to curb the reach of groups seeking to downplay the extent of the environmental crisis. Under the new policy, advertisements that contradict the “scientific consensus” on climate change will be prohibited along with other types of banned-ads such Read more…
Librarians say Holocaust deniers, antivaxxers, and other conspiracy theorists are being featured in the catalogs of a popular ebook lending service. In February, a group of librarians in Massachusetts identified a number of Holocaust denial and anti-Semitic books on Hoopla, including titles like “Debating The Holocaust” and “A New Nobility Read more…
European Union lawmakers have secured a provisional deal on a landmark update to rules for digital services operating in the region — grabbing political agreement after a final late night/early morning of compromise talks on the detail of what is a major retooling of the bloc’s existing ecommerce rulebook. The Read more…