Notices by Malte Engeler (malteengeler@legal.social)

They joked:

„If libraries were invented today they would be illegal.“

Well. It’s not a joke anymore:

https://www.wired.com/story/internet-archive-loses-hachette-books-case-appeal/

Legal arguments are just social and economic interests in disguise. Some are obvious, some harder to spot.

One of the most devious legal tricks I read recently is this:

GDPR gives people the right to have illegally used training data removed. This would in many cases require the model to be trained again - without that data. BUT as training LLMs is such an obscene waste of resources the right to erasure is overridden by the public interest of mitigating climate change.

I mean. Wow. Just wow.

In case you missed it: The EU data protection board (EDPB), the umbrella org for the EU national data protection authorities, will soon publish its opinion on "pay or okay" (the force-people-into-consent-scheme of most tracking-financed digital services).

The privacy bubble is split on what to make of it. Most, including the EU court of justice, argue that consent remains valid as long as the subscription fee isn't too high. Others (me among them) warn that this would make privacy a luxury.

I just listened to someone explaining that without proper regulation the digital age will be shaped by the hunt for profit not the public interest.

I listened to the same person saying that regulators lack the political will to act.

I heard to the same person concluding that regulators need more data and knowledge about a subject.

I smiled tiredly.

"What is AI? It is a marketing term. It's a way to make automation sound magical. As such it is a way to dodge accountability by making machines sound like autonomous entities rather than tools created by people and companies. Discussion about this technology becomes much clearer when we replace "AI" with "automation" and ask: What is automated? Who is automating? Who is profiting and who is harmed?"
- @emilymbender

https://youtu.be/eK0md9tQ1KY?si=DmIPhir4VQ0tNg3O

🥲

@aral I am familiar with your work 😚👌

Good morning everyone. Some time ago I said that the left needs to stop idolizing the GDPR.

I decided to elaborate on that and explain how and where the political economy of neoliberalism is alive and kicking in the GDPR, how alternatives would look like and how we (don't) get there 👇

https://www.malteengeler.de/2023/09/14/the-left-needs-to-stop-idolizing-the-gdpr/

Dear privacy and data protection experts,

if you are surprised by the recent ECJ judgement C-252/21 (#Meta ./. #BKartA) giving the "pay or be tracked" model its blessing I would like to remind you that effective privacy and data protection has always been a privilege of the wealthy.

Privacy and data protection have always been a class issue. What else do you expect in a class-based society?

This radio feature hits the mark so well because it shows what #Mastodon actually accomplishes:

It is NOT the solution to centralised platform control or commercialisation of data in itself but ...

... it "tears a hole in the grey curtain of reaction which has marked the horizons of possibility under capitalist realism" (to quote Mark Fisher).

It shows that there is an alternative. And that is so much more powerful than actually being the solution already.

I highly recommend to follow both @Rainer_Rehak and @aral by the way.

Both were instrumental to my process of becoming aware of the structural issues with digital economy in their own way.

- Rainers work on the protective scope of data protection is excellent and
- Arals ideas around the "Universal Declaration of Cyborg Rights" were especially inspiring to my work around "digital integrity" as a part of Art. 8 EU-Charter of Fundamental Rights.

For German public radio broadcaster 'Deutschlandfunk Kultur' @monoxyd did a wonderful piece about decentralised social networks, #Mastodon and #SmallWeb, talking to @aral and @Rainer_Rehak.

If you are able to understand German I very much recommend you listen to.

https://www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de/dezentrale-netzwerke-als-alternativen-zu-twitter-und-co-100.html