cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/49987153

A follow up of sorts to this article

Dublin ‘can’t trust itself to do the right thing’: Why Irish EU presidency should recuse itself from regulating Big Tech

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A one-word answer to why EU lost control of Big Tech: Ireland

My favourite bit of interviewing Dr. Johnny Ryan was when he yelled “just off a plane, so if you know the answer, I will lose my mind if you ask me to repeat myself for the recording again” at me.

It didn’t make it to the final interview, which was published on EUobserver.

Ryan is, among the much needed group of people who speak up against Big Tech, one of the more eloquent and direct. He’s also very friendly.

His work at the Irish Council of Civil Liberties’ Enforce includes major investigations into the many, many, many ills of online advertising/surveillance capitalism, a radical belief in the underutilised potential of GDPR (the EU’s main data rights law) and now, a plea to have Ireland recuse itself from all digital files in its upcoming EU council presidency.

For those who don’t know (I didn’t), the answer to why the EU has not been able to crack down on Big Tech more is simple. One word, in fact: Ireland.

Ireland’s job, by way of how the GDPR was drafted, is to defend the rest of Europe when it comes to the tech companies headquartered there. Meta, Google, TikTok, Microsoft, LinkedIn, X, Apple all picked Ireland. So did most of their AI activity. Which means, in Ryan’s words: “Ireland is responsible for defending the rest of Europe when those companies abuse Europeans’ data.”

And surprise surprise, they’re not doing so adequately.

Continue Reading Here - https://euobserver.com/218423/a-one-word-answer-to-why-eu-lost-control-of-big-tech-ireland/

https://archive.ph/uSqty

Sadiq, 51, from Didsbury, said that when he attended Ashton-under-Lyne police station on 15 May, two officers he believes were from Operation Wildflower – a response by Greater Manchester police (GMP) and others to the war on Gaza – asked to speak to him “man to man”.

The officers told him that having checked his devices, they knew he was “fully involved” with Palestine Action but that they would not be charging him in relation to last year’s arrest, Sadiq said.

“They said to me: ‘We need your help. Look, there’s benefits in helping us,’” he told the Guardian. “I’m like: ‘What kind of benefits? Financial benefits? Are you going to pay my taxes?’ They said: ‘Oh, we can help with things like that.’

“The other guy said to me: ‘Oh, there’s other benefits, too.’ They said: ‘We’re not saying you can go out and commit a serious crime but we can turn a blind eye to certain things.’”

alternative video upload: https://streamable.com/e/5q32w1

Former prosecutor Fatou Bensouda of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague said that Israel intimidated and pressured her while she was working and living in the Dutch city. She reported the incident to the Dutch government and authorities, but they did little to nothing, the Gambian former ICC prosecutor told Al Jazeera in an interview.

It started shortly after she started investigating Israel’s actions in Palestine in 2015. Two men showed up at her home in The Hague and gave her an envelope with $500 inside, saying it was from someone she had helped. She reported the incident to the ICC and the Dutch authorities.

“The assessment that was made was that it was to show me that they know where I live, that was the purpose,” Bensouda told Al Jazeera. She said the police concluded that the car the men were using had been rented from the airport earlier in the day and that their telephone numbers were Israeli. “I do not think the Dutch authorities did more.”

She said the incident left her feeling not intimidated, but definitely insecure. “I, of course, expected more support,” Bensouda said. “When it came to support from the Dutch government, I’m not aware of anything extra that was done to support me at the time.”

For almost 180 years after France abolished slavery, the Code Noir (Black Code) allowing enslaved humans to be treated as property and worked, beaten, sold, raped or killed, remained in place.

On Thursday, the country’s bitterly divided national assembly voted unanimously to repeal it, in a rare show of political unity.

The vote, passed by 254-0, puts an end to a 17th century law, signed by King Louis XIV in 1685, which codified the treatment of enslaved people in France’s colonies.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/8606326

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/52223

Workers and grassroots trade unions in Italy continue mobilizing against rearmament and the war economy, demanding a national industrial strategy that addresses their needs. At least 15,000 people joined a new demonstration in Rome on May 23 to reaffirm these claims and express solidarity with the people of Palestine, Cuba, and others affected by the ongoing war drive led by the West.

The trade union Unione Sindacale di Base (USB) described Saturday’s demonstration as a “working-class, grassroots, militant mobilization” that exposed connections between dissolving salaries, a failed industrial vision, and the rise of the war economy. “An event that brought together different disputes, regions, and sectors under a single demand: those who generate the country’s wealth must once again have a say,” USB stated.

Read more: Italy on strike again for Palestine

One central point was salaries, no longer sufficient to guarantee a dignified life for most of Italy’s population. A report by the national statistics institute ISTAT, published just days before the demonstration, shows that 11 million people are at risk of poverty, while 5.7 million already live in absolute poverty. According to the report, almost half of the entire population was unable to save anything last year, and “one in four people wouldn’t know how to address an unexpected expense,” the media outlet Contropiano wrote.

“The cost of living is rising, utility bills are going up, and essential goods are getting more expensive,” USB pointed out. “Paychecks are staying the same while everything else is getting more expensive.”

These numbers stand in stark contrast to claims made by the Meloni government, which chooses to focus exclusively on improved employment rates compared to previous years, and announcing more advancements as an effect of new investments in the so-called defense sector. “We are in the midst of a structural transformation of capital, driven by war, rearmament, precariousness, and the compression of labor,” USB warned ahead of the demonstration. “Rising prices, supply instability, and energy costs are direct consequences of this new order.”

“One key point emerges from this picture. Wages and war are two sides of the same coin. The policies that fuel the arms race are the same ones that squeeze workers and reduce their incomes.”

Source: USB

“In this country, the only policy that governments pursue – whether it’s Meloni’s government today or the centrist, ‘left,’ or technical governments of the past – is to allow large corporations and multinational companies to come here, take vast amounts of public money, incentives, subsidies, aid, handouts, you name it,” said Giuliano Granato from the left political party Potere al Popolo. “They come here, take the money, shut down, leave, lay off workers, and leave everything in ruins.”

“We can no longer afford 1,700 layoffs at Electrolux, layoffs at Jabil, the dismantling of our entire industrial fabric. We need not only to raise wages – which are the lowest in Europe, with skyrocketing inflation and soaring prices for fuel, staple foods, and utility bills – but we also need an industrial policy.”

Read more: Students and teachers in Italy strike against right-wing reforms and militarization

One of the central proposals for changing course that Potere al Popolo has been campaigning for is a minimum wage of 12 euros (approximately USD 14) per hour to ensure workers can make ends meet. Additionally, the left party and grassroots trade unions have insisted on taxing the extremely wealthy and upholding workers’ demands in the international arena – starting with severing ties with Israel in response to the genocide in Gaza and offering concrete support to Cuba in the face of ongoing US assaults.

These demands have been present on the streets for months, with tens of thousands of workers regularly demonstrating support for Palestinian liberation, and opposition to US imperialism and European rearmament. Contrary to claims of the “disappearance of workers,” widespread in liberal media and political establishment, it is the working class that has demonstrated how popular mobilization can effectively stand up to failed government policies. “Not only do workers exist, but they have also raised their heads and continue to fight,” added Marta Collot from Potere al Popolo. “This fall, we saw who truly drives the country forward and who has the ability and strength to bring it to a halt if they so choose.”

“Today we are back in the streets to make it clear, alongside USB and workers, that we must lay down arms and raise wages, and reverse the priorities against these policies of war, genocide, and a war economy that the workers of this country are paying the price of.”

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