Background: Amazon is providing the Israeli military with “endless” cloud storage holding surveillance data on nearly every person in Gaza — a trove that has been used to support airstrikes — while the company itself seems blissfully unbothered by its starring role in population-scale mass surveillance.
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/amazon-israeli-military/
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Background: A coalition of legal and human rights groups formally notified Microsoft that its cloud and AI services — which powered Israel’s surveillance and “kill target” systems in what’s been called the world’s first AI-powered genocide — expose the company and its executives to criminal and civil liability under international and U.S. law,.
https://abolitionistlawcenter.org/2025/12/02/microsofts-aiding-of-israels-genocide-against-palestinians-exposes-company-and-its-leadership-to-legal-liability/
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Background: After workers demanded the company drop a Pentagon contract called Project Maven in 2018, Google introduced the AI Principles, guidelines to ensure ethical use of Google’s AI. Google, however, continued taking military contracts, and when they could no longer deny what their AI was being used for, they opted to drop the principles rather than the contracts.
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/02/04/google-removes-pledge-to-not-use-ai-for-weapons-surveillance.html
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Background: Protesters gathered outside the UN’s “AI for Good” Summit in Geneva to condemn the very companies sponsoring it — Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and others — for simultaneously supplying the AI and cloud infrastructure reportedly used in military operations in Gaza. Big Tech sees no difference between “Ethical AI” and war crimes. #techlash #Fired50 #NoTechForApartheid
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"“Everyone, collectively, is feeling this sense of the world is shifting around us,” Venkatasubramanian says. “We don’t know how it’s going to play out, but the people we look to, whether it’s [national] politicians or tech leaders seem to have no answers or don’t care.”
AI ethicists for years have been saying that building guardrails and protections around AI tools is like adding seatbelts to cars and lanes to highways, he points out. The regulation allows people to go fast in a safer way.
“You don’t get to a place of trust by just convincing people to trust companies and others, you get to it by acting,” Venkatasubramanian says. “And those actions at the national level have been few and far between. The states have tried very hard to legislate, but they’re also being hampered, ironically, by the very tech companies who parachute into states and block them from doing anything to build more trust and to put up guardrails on AI.”
In addition to regulation of energy use, pollution, and environmental impact, there must also be genuine corporate accountability, Nelson says.
“Actual governance structures with teeth,” Nelson says. “The path forward is not better messaging. It’s sharing power.”"
Why I Quit Streaming And Got Back Into Cassettes
https://www.404media.co/why-i-quit-streaming-and-got-back-into-cassettes/?ref=daily-stories-newsletter
This filled me with Christmas cheer:
"People are leaving Spotify, and those who aren’t seem embarrassed about using it. Major artists pulled their music off the platform this year in protest of the company’s ICE recruitment ads and connections to military drones, and posting your Wrapped stats has gone from a ubiquitous year-end pastime to a cultural faux pas."
French lawmakers progress tax on American Big Tech amid huge pushback | POLITICO
Basically all European tech regulation is envy & avarice, not user protection:
France’s National Assembly voted Tuesday night in favor of hiking a digital service tax on tech companies including Google, Apple, Meta and Amazon to 6 percent, up from 3 percent … Lawmakers had initially pushed to hike the levy to 15 percent to hit back at U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff war
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