Mark Vanderbeeken

@Marloezovic@mastodon.nl @_elena@mastodon.social @EUCommission@ec.social-network.europa.eu @robin@mastodon.social My hypothesis: this is all about identity verification, supposedly to “address child abuse”. The fact that the president of EU Parliament is asking the EU Council to override a decision by the EU Parliament is very telling: https://www.politico.eu/article/president-vs-parliament-roberta-metsola-overrides-meps-bid-force-child-abuse-law/ Side effect: it will kill Mastodon.

@aral@mastodon.ar.al @_elena@mastodon.social The political question: why are so many of the EU's top institutional AT protocol accounts (the European Commission, European Central Bank, European Parliament, EU Council, European Committee of the Regions, Ursula von der Leyen, Antonio Costa, Christine Lagarde, Roberta Metsola, Kata Tüttő) now run by a tiny private provider, whose tech team is outside the EU (i.e. Ukraine)?

@_elena@mastodon.social @aral@mastodon.ar.al Although he founded it, he sold it in May 2023 to the Belgian media company Mediahuis in what became the company's first international media platform acquisition.

@_elena@mastodon.social @aral@mastodon.ar.al Good point. He was also yesterday in Brussels - see https://youtu.be/jHVwjBLp17o (56:54).

@aral@mastodon.ar.al @_elena@mastodon.social Commission accused of promoting European social media platform https://www.euractiv.com/news/commission-accused-of-promoting-european-social-media-platform

@aral@mastodon.ar.al @_elena@mastodon.social Besides a legal analysis, this also needs a political one. The closed source platform. The identity verification. The alignment with the EU. The EU's questionable approach of advertising the platform of one private company, even though there are others. X but one letter less in the alphabet.

@aral@mastodon.ar.al @_elena@mastodon.social True, but an argument can be made that the EU should be present on various platforms and they are on Mastodon with their own instance. The ATProtocol problem I flagged is that they chose for a private player's PDS (instead of running it themselves) and then started advertising that private player (for completely non transparent reasons). I would like to see some legal expert weighing in on this.

@aral@mastodon.ar.al @_elena@mastodon.social Is it even legal for the EU (European Commission, European Central Bank, European Parliament, EU Council, European Committee of the Regions, von der Leyen, Costa, Lagarde, Metsola) to promote a private for-profit at the expense of other providers (Eurosky, Leafplaza)? Can they go to court and claim damages?

Aerospazio in 5D (25-30 maggio, Torino) è un percorso di incontri, esperienze e dimostrazioni dedicato al futuro dello spazio, pensato per avvicinare pubblici diversi, studenti, famiglie, professionisti e curiosi, alle nuove frontiere dell’aerospazio.
https://torino.futureweek.it/aerospazio-in-5d/
https://www.steamexperience.org/aerospazio-in-5d/
#steamexperiencehub #aerospazioin5d #futureweektorino

This is huge for Europe
https://www.politico.eu/article/us-congress-judiciary-committee-big-tech-private-communication-eu-officials/

Handbook on cognitive biases "that are particularly common and relevant to intelligence work" (67 pages) published by the Swiss Federal Intelligence Service (FIS)
https://www.vbs.admin.ch/dam/en/sd-web/K489QrrPSDvt/vbs-ddps-ndb-handbuch-kognitive-%20verzerrung-en.pdf

Gillian Tett wrote in the Financial Times today an article on cognitive biases in the global threat landscape, referring to a manual by the Swiss Federal Intelligence Services on cognitive blind spots.
https://www.ft.com/content/d8b26855-c6d8-4d76-b9f2-663e90548d6c
She links to the Situation Report of the Federal Intelligence Service “Switzerland’s Security 2025” but not to the manual.
Does anyone in this community have a link to this document?

Posting longer-form content (longer than 250 or 500 chars) is increasingly a challenge.
Reddit (US-based) often removes content without explanation why, even if that content has received a great many upvotes in the hours before.
Lemmy (EU-based) is promising but small.
Discord (US-based) too but - to me at least - not easy to use.
Substack (US-based) and Ghost (UK-based) are largely paid platforms.
I have noticed many people using personal sites again. The return of the blog.

The EU is a “digital colony of the US”. This Italian is trying to change that, with some success.
https://lemmy.world/post/41040949

DeepL translation of this article in Dutch newspaper NRC:
https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2025/12/30/hoe-een-italiaanse-powerlady-brussel-overtuigt-om-in-te-zetten-op-een-europese-techindustrie-a4916400

@bert_hubert@eupolicy.social
@francescabria@mastodon.uno
@euro-stack.bsky.social@bsky.brid.gy

Related:
Europe has ‘lost the internet’, warns Belgium’s cyber security chief
https://www.ft.com/content/854fcad0-0d39-438b-975b-adf9d8b89827

I just had the stunning experience where a factual but critical Reddit post with 40 upvotes in about one hour and no critical comments was suddenly and abruptly removed by Reddit for violating its content policy. I have no idea why and there is no redress available. This is the first time this has happened to me and it makes one question a lot about posting on US-based social media.

Who in Europe is working on the implications of the fast growing development of Agentic AI? If most web content is AI generated (already the case), less than half of the “users” on the web are human (already the case), the next version of the web will be built for machines not for humans (The Economist), and people’s UIs to the web are increasingly chatbot rather than websites and apps, we face an immense power shift with citizens and brands at the short end of the stick. @vanderbeeken@mastodon.online

@jameskanter@mastodon.green @MargSchinas@respublicae.eu A “barrage” against populism? Not so, when you live in Italy.

@Rushkoff@social.coop Well done, @Rushkoff. With nearly 60k followers not an easy decision to make. But you did. #chapeau!

@Rushkoff More here: https://www.teamhuman.fm/episodes/267-leaving-x-and-social-media-behind