Erin Brokovich is now on the trail of data centre damage. She's calling on affected communities to submit issues. The website shows more than 2,700 reports from across the US raise various concerns.

#datacenters #ai #datasociety #digitalrights

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intelligence/erin-brockovich-starts-tracking-ai-data-centers-calls-on-affected-communities-to-submit-issues-website-shows-more-than-2-700-reports-from-across-the-us-raising-various-concerns

WEBINAR MAY 7 18:00 UTC – What If We Could Rebuild the Internet?

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On Thursday May 7, 2026 at 14:00 EDT (18:00 UTC) Data & Society hosts a book talk 'What If We Could Rebuild the Internet?'.

If we could start from scratch, how might we rebuild or reimagine the internet to be more just and equitable? In her new book Radical Infrastructures: Imagining the Int

https://isoc.live/20839/

#post #2026 #BookDiscussion #DataSociety #infrastructure

Thought for today - Digital Addiction.
Are we addicted to social media? Health apps? Work-function assistant apps? Organisation apps? News apps? E-commerce apps? Are we just addicted to life as techno-solutionism in all forms? Are we addicted to using any apps just because it feels like fun, a game, entertainment?

In the social media case, I believe a large amount of 'the addiction attraction' is hyper-personalised consumerisation. The interweaving of narcissism, social acceptance, conformism, life-worth-as-economic-value, life-worth-as-social-media-measurement, added to the intense emotional reward of buying things to reaffirm sense of self and fitting in, make the digital social+product marketplace a very alluring space to occupy. Instagram's whole business case is this.

Remember, the Iron Curtain did not fall due to intellectual debate or ideological challenge. It fell because of Levi jeans and Coca Cola.

Smartphones are really fun. Even old phones before the digital revolution were fun. Kids, mums and anyone who had time and felt sociable would be on the phone for hours. Calling friends when you were a teenager was a mandatory part of growing up. "Get off the phone!" was a common shout from your mother. We even stood in the phone box in the evenings because it felt like fun.

The breakpoint came when people started being born who did not know what life was like before the digital revolution. It's them that are now paying some kind of psychosis price for these addictive toys. But it's not only socmed, it's everything that is digital.

But you know, I love my phones. I love their character, their style, their functionality. They really are part of who I am. Somebody really should make completely customisable shells for phones. They'd make billions.

#socialmedia #socialmediaaddiction #digitalliteracy #datasociety #academia #academicchatter

Img:
Nhung Le/Unsplash

Decomputing in a Processed World.

From Dan McQuillan
(https://www.danmcquillan.org/resisting_genai_highered_cjuu.html)

*Resisting GenAI & Big Tech in Higher Education*

I suggest we situate our resistance to AI inside and outside higher education as forms of decomputing.
Decomputing rejects scale because that drives carbon emissions,
but also because our agency is undermined by our immersion in a system of machinic relations, which includes the contemporary university
Decomputing is based on the principles of degrowth, care and conviviality.
We need systems that don't depend on continuous expansion, whether that's AI, universities or entire economies.
We need to start from care to counter algorithmic detachment and eugenicist abstractions.
Conviviality gives us ways to collectively assess tech's effects on relatedness and bio-interaction.
Wherever AI is proposed as ‘the answer’ there's already a structural problem.
One that's best addressed through the direct social relations of those most affected.

#airesistance #decomputing #datasociety #academia

So why does Google keep hassling for my home address? What possible legitimate reason can it have?

This is a new thing, and it can still see my general location even though every location setting is off.

#google #surveillance #enshittification #datawars #datasociety #privacy

Macron is now openly calling out bigtech extractive practices and commidification of the user. Good. We need a lot more of this. We need universities to lead this pressure everywhere.

#digitalsovereignty #eu #Datasociety #academia #academicchatter

https://news-pravda.com/eu/2025/10/04/1744416.html

Today in cybercrime. The interesting thing here is the mention of introducing govt funded furlough schemes for SMEs affected by bigco's who need to shut down automated supply chain systems due to cyber attacks.

#cybersecurity #hacking #security #Datasociety

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/czdjn0lv64ro

I'm astonished to read about the Meta child chatbots that engage in "sensual" intimate conversations. How can Meta even make these bots let alone populate anyone's socmed feed with them? That's even before you consider the underage aspect. Just an astonishing level of capitalist malign practice towards users. Why do national governments just accept this?

#meta #socialmedia #Datasociety #digitalsovereignty #academia #academicchatter #ai #chatbots