@bungalowtill@lemmy.dbzer0.com Yah, I forget surveillance algorithms are only bad when they come from the West, right? (/s, just to be safe)

In other related news:

Romania orders election recount after TikTok bias claims

A recount of the votes cast in Sunday’s first round of presidential elections in Romania has been ordered by the country’s top court following allegations that social media platform TikTok gave “preferential treatment” to the surprise winner, Calin Georgescu.

@Ooops

… with social media as an innocent bystander just concidentally being there …

Social media - and Tiktok is no exemption, of course - is not an “innocent bystander”. Their algorithms deliberately surveill and manipulate users, and pursue a commercial and/or political agenda. In case of Tiktok, this agenda serves the goal of the regime in China (and their allies).

There is ample evidence for Tiktok and (almost) all other social media platforms pursuing a purpose. For the Romanian election case, there is an analysis by the European Media Observatory on the Romanian election – (Archived link).

On ‘TikTok’s role in Romanian politics’ and the ‘Candidate Performance Metrics’, it says, among others:

• Călin Georgescu: Notably surged in popularity, garnering 120 million views, particularly in the final two months. This increase was attributed to coordinated campaigns that used both direct promotion and indirect influence via unpaid influencers, often lacking appropriate labeling. A salient example is the #echilibrușiverticalitate campaign, which reached 2.4 million views through these tactics.

The analysis also says:

The lack of effective moderation allowed for widespread dissemination of unverified information, particularly affecting extreme-right candidates.

Concerns around unlabelled or undeclared political content in the 2024 Romanian presidential elections, particularly on TikTok are significant. They emphasize a lack of transparency in political campaigns, notably involving candidates like Călin Georgescu, who used the platform without disclosing the funding and motivations behind their promotion. The employment of influencers without adequate disclosure raises ethical issues complicates voters’ understanding of the content.

[…]

The notable gap between projected poll figures (around 10%) and actual results (over 22%) raises concerns about potential external influences, including foreign interference.

Emphasis mine.

[Edit typo.]

A new development: Sweden asks China to co-operate over severed cables, Beijing says it is “willing to work with related countries to find out the truth”, and Germany’s defense minister says “nobody believes that these cables were cut accidentally” without specifying who he believes was responsible

Yeah, there are many FOSS organizations in the U.S. like the Open Source Lab by the Oregon State University, the Open Source Software Institute, and many others. I guess they could do it, possibly if some join forces.

I agree in principal with that view, but there was pressure from VW’s top investors (Union Investment, Deka) to clarify the situation in Xinjiang. An audit turned out to be extremely flawed which put further pressure on the management. It’s hard to tell how much this contributed to the decision, but at least some shareholders weren’t indifferent about the situation.

The Asia Times is based in Hong Kong in the meantime, so the Chinese government will have a close hold on what they publish. That’s why I’d agree with what others already said to not trust them to much …

Just fyi: China does have its own national carbon trading scheme, but it appears to be as ineffective as those in the West.

Well, Putin’s and his autocratic regime’s true enemy is democracy. Maybe we can call it hegemony, but we in the West must understand that Putin won’t stop seeking to undermine democracy in all states of the former Eastern block (and possibly even beyond), thus it’s not only about Ukraine. As long as citizens in free democratic countries elect their own leaders and set their own course, Putin will try to undermine them as he fears -and as you suggest, if I get you right- independent countries, and that may have indeed severe consequences to Russia’s own politics. Putin isn’t fighting NATO nor “denazification” of Ukraine, as he claims, but for an antidemocratic regime change.

The USA can certainly do this, they have all what it takes. Public investments for such stuff will be hard to get in the next four years I guess, but there could be some private initiative?I don’t know the U.S. good enough in that respect, though.

The campaign of cyber and proxy attacks is intended not only to further Moscow’s usual goals of spreading division and demoralisation, but also to convey to Europeans a sense that their countries’ continued support for Ukraine is affecting their lives negatively.

It seems this is really a major reason of Putin’s war. As a former U.S. army officer recently said, “The Russians know they cannot win this war unless the West quits”. It’s important to understand that the only solution to this war in Ukraine is a complete defeat of Russia, no Neville Chamberlain-like appeasement.

In other news, it is said that companies around the world are starting to cut prices and costs and scale back activity in China.

The interesting bit is that the Asian Times doesn’t mention too many specific new German companies which allegedly have been investing in China recently. It just says things like German energy costs are higher.

[Edit for clarity.]

You can always find something in any article, but here these are red herrings (and, once again we notice, these red herrings emerge only for specific topics, working always in one and the same direction). Even RT itself says they are a propaganda channel receiving orders from the Kremlin.

Yes, this Euronews article doesn’t make sense.

Northvolt says that operations to continue as usual during Chapter 11 reorganization process, with company meeting obligations to customers, vendors and employees. Voluntary reorganization facilitates access to approximately $145 million in cash collateral and $100 million debtor-in-possession financing (from Scandinavian truck maker Scania). This is not even mentioned in the article.

In a nutshell, the liquidity crisis Northvolt faces is serious, we must not downplay that, but it’s far from what the article suggests for now. It’s not a collapse.

Strange. Here is the Reuters news about it: https://www.reuters.com/world/eu-proposes-sanctions-against-chinese-firms-helping-russia-bloomberg-news-2024-11-25/

It’s strange that people are defending Russian propaganda here …

There is an interesting analysis by the European Media Observatory on the Romanian election – (Archived link).

On ‘TikTok’s role in Romanian politics’ and the ‘Candidate Performance Metrics’, it says, among others:

• Călin Georgescu: Notably surged in popularity, garnering 120 million views, particularly in the final two months. This increase was attributed to coordinated campaigns that used both direct promotion and indirect influence via unpaid influencers, often lacking appropriate labeling. A salient example is the #echilibrușiverticalitate campaign, which reached 2.4 million views through these tactics.

The analysis also says:

The lack of effective moderation allowed for widespread dissemination of unverified information, particularly affecting extreme-right candidates.

Concerns around unlabelled or undeclared political content in the 2024 Romanian presidential elections, particularly on TikTok are significant. They emphasize a lack of transparency in political campaigns, notably involving candidates like Călin Georgescu, who used the platform without disclosing the funding and motivations behind their promotion. The employment of influencers without adequate disclosure raises ethical issues complicates voters’ understanding of the content.

[…]

The notable gap between projected poll figures (around 10%) and actual results (over 22%) raises concerns about potential external influences, including foreign interference.

If we didn’t just fucking kick those platforms and their CEOs into orbit then, we won’t do it now. We already lost. Our only chance is to remove English as an official language of the EU and go back to German or Spanish or French or something else that would increase the cost of mass manipulation.

What a logic. We won’t ban it now because we didn’t it then. But ‘removing English’ as ‘official language of the EU’ would help according to you. This is, of course, complete rubbish.

Yeah, and hats off to the judges.

This has long been done :-)

This is on topic. It shows where the UK stands regarding facial recognition. What’s the problem?

That is a trend clearly heading in the wrong direction.

There is a new analysis regarding on the top 10 countries with the most widespread and invasive use of facial recognition:.

The UK is gaining ground, but China is clearly leading before Russia and the UAE.

1. China = 5 out of 40: It’s little surprise that China tops the list with it being frequently quoted as the largest purveyor of facial recognition technology. Its government and police use the technology extensively and often with invasive surveillance tactics. For example, police in some parts of Liaoning Province are reportedly making North Korean defectors download a facial recognition app so they can send daily selfies every morning. This is being done in a bid to prevent them from traveling to South Korea. And children don’t escape the privacy-threatening technology, either, as schools frequently use the tech to see how attentive students are. If the children appear unfocused, this is then reflected in their grades.

2. Russia = 8 out of 40: Russia’s appearance toward the top of the list is perhaps no surprise, either. With facial recognition evident in all of the categories we covered, Russia is another country that’s turning toward facial recognition in many different areas. Mass surveillance in Russia has been expanding at an exponential rate since the Ukraine invasion. Over the last few years there have been numerous examples of protestors being arrested through the use of FRT. They include Andrey Chernyshov, who was arrested numerous times at the metro station in Moscow throughout 2023 after protesting against the Ukraine war. Last year, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) also ruled that Russia’s use of FRT to arrest a protester in 2019 (also traveling on the subway in Moscow) was unlawful.

3. The United Arab Emirates = 9 out of 40: As with many of our top 10 countries, the UAE is rolling out facial recognition across many areas to help “speed up processes” and “eliminate fraud.” From using the technology to gain access to government services and public transport to registering attendance at schools, its use across the UAE is widespread. The police in Abu Dhabi had their patrol cars upgraded to include FRT in a bid to help them identify “suspicious and wanted people.”

4. The United Kingdom= 11 out of 40: Rising from 11th to 4th place this year is the United Kingdom. The country has seen a rise in biometric surveillance across four categories. This includes the worrying growth of FRT in the government and by law enforcement, including the introduction of live facial recognition bodycams by a number of UK police forces. The technology is increasingly used schools and on trains. A recent report from Network Rail highlighted how travelers using a number of stations, including Manchester Piccadilly, London Waterloo, and London Euston, as well as smaller stations, had their faces scanned for the last two years with Amazon AI software.

5. Brazil, Chile, India, Japan, and the USA = 12 out of 40: All of these countries have some use of FRT (or FRT is in discussion) across all of the categories we studied […]

6. Australia and North Korea […]

7. Mexico […]

8. Argentina and South Korea […]

9. France, Hungary, Malaysia, and Canada […]

10. Philippines and Taiwan […]

[Edit typo.]