😵 🤯 Last year a #Meta Lobbyist became a new head of the #Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC). Today, the former head of the DPC announced that she is now working for MHC - the Irish law firm for Meta that was previously defending Meta before the #DPC in #GPDR cases - basically a 360° seat swap between the Irish regulator and Meta.

This is not just extreme #CorporateCapture of a regulator and makes #Ireland a laughing stock within the EU, but moves like this also undermine any public...

Since the #39c3 in December, every first Sunday of the month has been a "Digital Independence Day" for trying out alternatives to dominant/big tech platforms.

If you're looking to explore alternatives to Google or Apple Maps, why not give CoMaps – or any of the other open source map-applications that are based on data from #OpenStreetMap – a try!

You can learn more about the #DIDay here: https://edri.org/our-work/didit-edri-members-spark-movement-for-alternatives-to-big-tech/

#DIDit

The Alliance for Open Media has started developing OAC, a new open-source audio codec intended as the long-term successor to Opus.
https://linuxiac.com/aomedia-begins-developing-oac-next-generation-open-audio-codec/

#opensource #audio

New blog post: Reviving a Nexus 9 with mainline Linux

(May contain traces of postmarketOS)

How tenaciously Palantir courted Switzerland

The controversial tech company Palantir provides surveillance technology to militaries and intelligence services around the world.

In Switzerland, however, its pitches have been rejected by both government authorities and the army. Internal documents have now revealed why.

Our articles from December 2025 finally available in english and paywall-free!

Because of THIS article (there is another one) Palantir is suing us.

Please read and spread it. And if you want donate and support us, you can donate us for this specific article without subscribing.

We are commited to journalistic standards, we have a huge documentation and provided lots of evidence to the court.

https://www.republik.ch/2026/02/18/how-tenaciously-palantir-courted-switzerland

I want to make sure any interested parties know that 185 organizations have been announced for Google Summer of Code 2026 (GSoC - not the Grand Slam of Curling). More information on the Google Open Source blog at https://goo.gle/gsoc2026-organizations

@[email protected] #opensource @[email protected]