Tag: big tech

Amazon’s Ring and Google’s Nest Unwittingly Reveal the Severity of the U.S. Surveillance State

That the U.S. Surveillance State is rapidly growing to the point of ubiquity has been demonstrated over the past week by seemingly benign events. While the picture that emerges is grim, to put it mildly, at least Americans are again confronted with crystal clarity over how severe this has become.

The latest round of valid panic over privacy began during the Super Bowl held on Sunday. During the game, Amazon ran a commercial for its Ring camera security system. The ad manipulatively exploited people’s love of dogs to induce them to ignore the consequences of what Amazon was touting. It seems that trick did not work.

The ad highlighted what the company calls its “Search Party” feature, whereby one can upload a picture, for example, of a lost dog. Doing so will activate multiple other Amazon Ring cameras in the neighborhood, which will, in turn, use AI programs to scan all dogs, it seems, and identify the one that is lost. The 30-second commercial was full of heart-tugging scenes of young children and elderly people being reunited with their lost dogs.

But the graphic Amazon used seems to have unwittingly depicted how invasive this technology can be. That this capability now exists in a product that has long been pitched as nothing more than a simple tool for homeowners to monitor their own homes created, it seems, an unavoidable contract between public understanding of Ring and what Amazon was now boasting it could do.

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Axios: Insiders Are in a Panic About the Dangers AI Poses

Yesterday I wrote about concerns from economists that the quick adoption of AI might mean a significant disruption of the job market. There seemed to be a wary realization that AI was probably going to do away with some jobs permanently but whether that change would necessarily create a crisis in the marketplace depended on how fast the change happened. If it took ten years, they the economy would adjust. If it took half that, we might have a problem.

Today, Axios has a story highlighting concerns coming not from economists but from people inside the AI industry, several of whom have recently expressed serious concern about how fast things were moving.

His letter reads in part, “The world is in peril. And not just from AI or bioweapons but from a whole series of interconnected crises unfolding in this very moment.” In a footnote he mentions that some people are calling it the “poly-crisis.”

Another researcher at OpenAI also expressed some concern about where things were heading as AI became more competent.

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Big Tech news apps pushed 86% negative or context-free ICE coverage

A watchdog group analysis finds that major Big Tech news aggregation apps overwhelmingly promoted negative or context-free coverage of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) following a fatal shooting in Minnesota.

According to Media Research Center (MRC) Free Speech America, Apple News, Google News, MSN and Yahoo News collectively ran 118 stories about ICE operations in Minnesota over a 15-day period in January 2026. The analysis found that 86% of those headlines were negative or missing key context.

Only one story portrayed ICE in a positive light, while 16 were neutral, according to the report.

MRC researchers reviewed top-featured headlines following the Jan. 7 shooting death of anti-ICE activist Renee Good. ICE has said the agent involved acted in self-defense after Good struck him with her vehicle. However, the watchdog group found that none of the headlines promoted by the four news apps mentioned that detail, even though it was part of ICE’s account of events.

The study also found a sharp ideological imbalance in sources promoted by the apps. Eighty-six percent (86%) of the stories came from left-leaning outlets, while just 3% came from right-leaning sources, all of them from Fox News.

MRC said the dominant narrative across the platforms framed ICE and the Trump administration as responsible for unrest in Minnesota, while omitting context about alleged crimes committed by illegal aliens or the stated purpose of ICE’s operations.

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The View TURNS on Bill Gates as Epstein Files Close In on Tech Billionaire

Something unexpected has happened on cable TV, and it’s a sign that disaster is coming for tech billionaire Bill Gates.

In the latest tranche of the Epstein Files, emails drafted by Jeffrey Epstein suggest that Gates contracted an STD from sleeping with “Russian girls” and had planned to secretly medicate his then-wife, Melinda.

Bill has denied the allegations, but Melinda interestingly did not. Instead, she expressed “unbelievable sadness” reflecting on their marriage and Gates’ association with Epstein.

When asked about this during an interview with 9 News Australia, Bill Gates said he doesn’t know what Epstein was thinking with the email, suggesting Epstein may have been trying to “attack” him in some way.

The reporter challenged Gates on why this accusation against him wasn’t true when other Epstein file revelations were accurate.

Gates sidestepped the question and asserted his own version of events.

“It’s factually true that I was only at dinners. I never went to the island. I never met any women,” he replied.

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House Report: EU Pushed Tech Giants to Police US Speech

A newly released report from the House Judiciary Committee reveals a coordinated effort by European Union regulators to pressure major technology companies into enforcing censorship standards that extend far beyond Europe’s borders.

The findings, drawn from thousands of internal documents and communications, detail a long-running strategy to influence global content moderation policies through regulatory coercion and the threat of punishment under Europe’s Digital Services Act (DSA).

The Committee’s latest publication, “The EU Censorship Files, Part II,” coincides with a scheduled February 4 hearing titled “Europe’s Threat to American Speech and Innovation: Part II.”

We obtained a copy of the report for you here. 

According to the materials, European officials have been meeting privately with social media companies since at least 2015 to “adapt their terms and conditions” to align with EU political priorities, including restricting certain kinds of lawful political expression in the United States.

Internal records from TikTok, then-Twitter, and other firms show that the Commission’s so-called “voluntary” DSA election guidelines were in fact treated as mandatory conditions for doing business in Europe.

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France’s Raid on X Opens New Front in Europe’s War Over Online Speech

French prosecutors staged a morning raid at the Paris offices of social media platform X, part of a criminal investigation coordinated with Europol.

The operation, launched in 2025, targets allegations ranging from the alleged distribution of sexual deepfakes to algorithmic manipulation.

The cybercrime division in Paris is exploring whether X’s automated systems may have been used in an “organized structure” to distort data or suppress information.

The alleged offenses are as follows:

  • Denial of crimes against humanity (Holocaust denial)
  • Fraudulent extraction of data from an ⁠automated data processing system ​by an organized group
  • Falsification of the operation ‌of ‌an automated data processing system by an organized group
  • Defamation of a person’s image (deepfakes of ​sexual nature, including minors)
  • Operating of an illegal online platform by an organized group

Prosecutors have now summoned Elon Musk and former CEO Linda Yaccarino for questioning in April. “Summons for voluntary interviews on April 20, 2026, in Paris have been sent to Mr. Elon Musk and Ms. Linda Yaccarino, in their capacity as de facto and de jure managers of the X platform at the time of the events,” the office said.

Yaccarino, who left in mid-2025, might find herself reliving the company’s most volatile months, when X faced regulatory crossfire across the continent for refusing to comply with what it called political censorship demands.

The case actually began with two complaints in January 2025, including one from French lawmaker Eric Bothorel, who accused X of narrowing “diversity of voices and options” after Musk’s takeover.

Bothorel cited “personal interventions” in moderation decisions, a line that seemed more about ideology than algorithms.

As the investigation grew, prosecutors took interest in Grok, X’s AI system, which allegedly produced “Holocaust denial content” and “sexual deepfakes.” The Paris prosecutor’s office soon announced it was examining “biased algorithms.”

Musk called the whole affair a “politically-motivated criminal investigation,” and considering Europe’s recent appetite for speech regulation, it’s not a stretch to see why he’d think that.

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Microsoft confirms it will give the FBI your Windows PC data encryption key if asked — you can thank Windows 11’s forced online accounts for that

Microsoft has confirmed in a statement to Forbes that the company will provide the FBI access to BitLocker encryption keys if a valid legal order is requested. These keys enable the ability to decrypt and access the data on a computer running Windows, giving law enforcement the means to break into a device and access its data.

The news comes as Forbes reports that Microsoft gave the FBI the BitLocker encryption keys to access a device in Guam that law enforcement believed to have “evidence that would help prove individuals handling the island’s Covid unemployment assistance program were part of a plot to steal funds” in early 2025.

This was possible because the device in question had its BitLocker encryption key saved in the cloud. By default, Windows 11 forces the use of a Microsoft Account, and the OS will automatically tie your BitLocker encryption key to your online account so that users can easily recover their data in scenarios where they might get locked out. This can be disabled, letting you choose where to save them locally, but the default behavior is to store the key in Microsoft’s cloud when setting up a PC with a Microsoft Account.

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Google agrees to $68m settlement over claims it recorded private conversations

Google is facing a class action after its users claimed the company was spying on them.

The company has agreed to pay $68 million to settle a lawsuit as users accuse the company of violating their personal privacy.

Google’s virtual assistant, an AI powered software available on android phones and tablets, has been accused of recording private conversations.

The software activates when users use “wake words”, a verbal cue prompting the device to actively listen to commands, like “Hey Google” or “Okay Google”.

The assistant is designed to only switch from passive monitoring to active listening when it hears wake words.

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EU Targets X (Again) in Grok AI Probe

European regulators have launched a new investigation into Elon Musk’s X, focusing on alleged failures to control sexually explicit imagery generated by the company’s AI chatbot, Grok.

The case is being pursued under the European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA), a law that grants the European Commission expansive powers to police digital platforms for potential “harms.”

In a statement, the Commission said, “The new investigation will assess whether the company properly assessed and mitigated risks associated with the deployment of Grok’s functionalities into X in the EU.”

The agency added that the review includes “risks related to the dissemination of illegal content in the EU, such as manipulated sexually explicit images, including content that may amount to child sexual abuse material.” Officials stated that these threats “seem to have materialized, exposing citizens in the EU to serious harm.”

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Meta, TikTok, YouTube Face Trial Over Youth Addiction Claims

Three of the world’s biggest tech companies face a landmark trial in Los Angeles starting this week over claims that their platforms — Meta’s Instagram, ByteDance’s TikTok and Google’s YouTube — deliberately addict and harm children.

Jury selection starts this week in the Los Angeles County Superior Court. It’s the first time the companies will argue their case before a jury, and the outcome could have profound effects on their businesses and how they will handle children using their platforms.

The selection process is expected to take at least a few days, with 75 potential jurors questioned each day through at least Thursday. A fourth company named in the lawsuit, Snapchat parent company Snap Inc., settled the case last week for an undisclosed sum.

At the core of the case is a 19-year-old identified only by the initials “KGM,” whose case could determine how thousands of other, similar lawsuits against social media companies will play out.

She and two other plaintiffs have been selected for bellwether trials — essentially test cases for both sides to see how their arguments play out before a jury and what damages, if any, may be awarded, said Clay Calvert, a nonresident senior fellow of technology policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute.

KGM claims that her use of social media from an early age addicted her to the technology and exacerbated depression and suicidal thoughts. Importantly, the lawsuit claims that this was done through deliberate design choices made by companies that sought to make their platforms more addictive to children to boost profits.

This argument, if successful, could sidestep the companies’ First Amendment shield and Section 230, which protects tech companies from liability for material posted on their platforms.

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