https://mastodon.online/@Geri/116076206873295788

https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/A-10-2026-0010_EN.html

Kaja Kallas says other countries ‘look up to us’ and rejects idea Europe faces ‘civilisational erasure’

The EU’s foreign policy chief has denied claims levelled by the US that Europe is facing civilisational erasure, rejecting what she condemned as “fashionable euro-bashing” by Washington.

Kaja Kallas also said the US was discovering that it could not settle the war in Ukraine without Europe’s involvement and consent.

Her remarks capped a difficult three-day Munich Security Conference attended by world leaders and security officials in which the health of the transatlantic alliance, a stronger European pillar inside NATO, and the Ukraine peace talks dominated discussions.

Instead of discarding stock, companies are encouraged to manage their stock more effectively, handle returns, and explore alternatives such as resale, remanufacturing, donations, or reuse.

The ban on destruction of unsold apparel, clothing accessories and footwear and the derogations will apply to large companies from 19 July 2026. Medium-sized companies are expected to follow in 2030. The rules on disclosure under the ESPR already apply to large companies and will also apply to medium-sized companies in 2030.

New York City’s public hospital system is paying millions to Palantir, the controversial ICE and military contractor, according to documents obtained by The Intercept.

Since 2023, the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation has paid Palantir nearly $4 million to improve its ability to track down payment for the services provided at its hospitals and medical clinics. Palantir, a data analysis firm that’s now a Wall Street giant thanks to its lucrative work with the Pentagon and U.S. intelligence community, deploys its software to make more efficient the billing of Medicaid and other public benefits. That includes automated scanning of patient health notes to “Increase charges captured from missed opportunities,” contract materials reviewed by The Intercept show.

Palantir’s administrative involvement in the business of healing people stands in contrast to its longtime role helping facilitate warfare, mass deportations, and dragnet surveillance.

Instead of discarding stock, companies are encouraged to manage their stock more effectively, handle returns, and explore alternatives such as resale, remanufacturing, donations, or reuse.

The ban on destruction of unsold apparel, clothing accessories and footwear and the derogations will apply to large companies from 19 July 2026. Medium-sized companies are expected to follow in 2030. The rules on disclosure under the ESPR already apply to large companies and will also apply to medium-sized companies in 2030.

So im sorta a child of a hoarder but ive also done some stuff aswell, its nothing like whats on tv, but its still a problem as we want to move. My mother keeps saying she wants me and her to get the junk out first but shes having trouble terterming whats trash compared to me, nor can we really afford some team to clean everything up.

What would be the best course of action here, because 2 people is not working.

Whether you agree with the Guardian’s conclusions or not, the underlying issue they’re pointing at is broader than any one company: the steady collapse of ambient trust in our information systems.

The Guardian ran an editorial today warning that AI companies are shedding safety staff while accelerating deployment and profit seeking. The concern was not just about specific models or edge cases, but about something more structural. As AI systems scale, the mechanisms that let people trust what they see, hear, and read are not keeping up.

Here’s a small but telling technology-adjacent example that fits that warning almost perfectly.

Ryan Hall, Y’all, a popular online weather forecaster, recently introduced a manual verification system for his own videos. At the start of each real video, he bites into a specific piece of fruit. Viewers are told that if a video of “him” does not include the fruit, it may not be authentic.

This exists because deepfakes, voice cloning, and unauthorized reuploads have become common enough that platform verification, follower counts, and visual familiarity no longer reliably signal authenticity.

From a technology perspective, this is fascinating.

A human content creator has implemented a low-tech authentication protocol because the platforms hosting his content cannot reliably establish provenance. In effect, the fruit is a nonce. A shared secret between creator and audience. A physical gesture standing in for a cryptographic signature that the platform does not provide.

This is not about weather forecasting credentials. It is about infrastructure failure.

When people can no longer trust that a video is real, even when it comes from a known figure, ambient trust collapses. Not through a single dramatic event, but through thousands of small adaptations like this. Trust migrates away from systems and toward improvised social signals.

That lines up uncomfortably well with the Guardian’s concern. AI systems are being deployed faster than trust and safety can scale. Safety teams shrink. Provenance tools remain optional or absent. Responsibility is pushed downward onto users and individual creators.

So instead of robust verification at the platform or model level, we get fruit.

It is clever. It works. And it should worry us.

Because when trust becomes personal, ad hoc, and unscalable, the system as a whole becomes brittle. This is not just about AI content. It is about how societies determine what is real in moments that matter.

TL;DR: A popular weather creator now bites a specific fruit on camera to prove his videos are real. This is a workaround for deepfakes and reposts. It is also a clean example of ambient trust collapse. Platforms and AI systems no longer reliably signal authenticity, so creators invent their own verification hacks. The Guardian warned today that AI is being deployed faster than trust and safety can keep up. This is what that looks like in practice.

Question: Do you think this ends with platform-level provenance becoming mandatory, or are we heading toward more improvised human verification like this becoming normal?

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/43214341

Brett Wilkins
Feb 12, 2026

“We are sailing to Cuba, bringing critical humanitarian aid for its people,” the flotilla organizers said on their website. “The Trump administration is strangling the island, cutting off fuel, flights, and critical supplies for survival. The consequences are lethal, for newborns and parents, for the elderly and the sick.”

“That is why we are launching the Nuestra América Flotilla, setting sail from across the Caribbean Sea in solidarity with the Cuban people,” the organizers continued. “And we are asking for your support, to help us prepare the mission and purchase the food and medicine that we will bring to the Cuban people.”

Source

I have a limited 20Mbps upload speed but 16 TB of storage. I’m kinda just asking if there’s anything I can use it for. I’ll donate one purpose: seeding Anna’s Archive. Not sure on other causes.

Hacker News.

Just a decade after a global backlash was triggered by Snowden reporting on mass domestic surveillance, the state-corporate dragnet is stronger and more invasive than ever.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/43212707

Feb. 15, 2026

Stoking concerns is news that lack of fuel is hampering the UN World Food Programme’s efforts to relieve suffering from last year’s Hurricane Melissa. The organisation, which keeps a low-key presence on the island, is now having to draw up plans for a new, far larger crisis. “We’re already seeing the impact in the availability of fresh produce in the cities,” said Étienne Labande, the WFP’s country director.

Diplomats expressed concern at how fast the lack of fuel – for electricity, water and the transport of food – could cause extreme suffering. “It’s a matter of weeks,” said one. “The view is that people in rural villages like Viñales may be OK, but those in the cities would be at terrible risk.”

Happy Lenten season and Ramadan Mubarak to all who celebrate! Both seasons will commence on the 18th of this month. Sigma atheists cucked by communitymaxxing traditioncels.