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Reposted by Davey Alba

Aaron W. Gordon @agordon.me · 8d

The amazing thing about the hundreds of billions of dollars being spent on AI development is it doesn't even include all the externalized costs like higher electricity prices for hundreds of millions of people.

AI Data Centers Are Sending Power Bills Soaring

Wholesale electricity costs as much as 267% more than it did five years ago in areas near data centers. That’s being passed on to customers.

www.bloomberg.com

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Karen Attiah @karenattiah.bsky.social · 14d

Some news.

The New York Times @nytimes.com · 14d

Karen Attiah, a Washington Post opinion writer fired this month for her social media posts about the assassination of Charlie Kirk, has filed a grievance arguing that she should have been allowed to share her views on news events under the company’s labor agreement and social media policy.

Karen Attiah Says Firing by Washington Post Violated Labor Agreement

The company fired Karen Attiah this month for her social media posts related to Charlie Kirk’s assassination.

nyti.ms

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NPR @npr.org · 15d

Duterte was arrested in March by Philippine authorities on a warrant issued by the ICC. He is now being held at an ICC facility in the Netherlands.

ICC charges former Philippine President Duterte crimes against humanity

Duterte was arrested in March by Philippine authorities on a warrant issued by the ICC. He is now being held at an ICC facility in the Netherlands.

n.pr

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Kwame Opam @kwameopam.bsky.social · 15d

Speaking over a radio, the federal agent who told police that Villegas González tried to use his car as a weapon said his partner had suffered “a left knee injury and some lacerations to his hands.”

“Nothing major,” the injured agent said.
chicago.suntimes.com/the-watchdog...

ICE officer said his injuries were 'nothing major' after deadly shooting near Chicago, video shows

The immigration agent’s partner said he suffered a “knee injury" and "some lacerations to his hands,” according to police body camera footage obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times. But the feds reported h...

chicago.suntimes.com

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Zahra Hirji @zhirji.bsky.social · 20d

This story isn't just a look back at what happened last hurricane season. It also looks forward at the threat today.

bsky.app/profile/zhir...

Zahra Hirji @zhirji.bsky.social · 20d

New docs obtained via FOIA reveal how the personal attacks to FEMA staff last hurricane season were much worse than previously known, including swatting & doxxing of officials.

Story @bloomberg.com, w/ @davey.bsky.social @jasonleopold.bsky.social (gift link): www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Chaos Inside FEMA as Death Threats Distract From Hurricane Response

Internal documents show how online conspiracies and personal attacks disrupted FEMA during back-to-back hurricanes last year.

www.bloomberg.com

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Reposted by Davey Alba

Zahra Hirji @zhirji.bsky.social · 20d

Oh, did I mention: We published all of the hundreds of FOIA docs with this story. Now you can look through them yourself:
assets.bwbx.io/documents/us...

bsky.app/profile/did:...

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Reposted by Davey Alba

Jason Leopold @jasonleopold.bsky.social · 20d

NEW: More than 500 pages of #FOIA docs @zhirji.bsky.social @davey.bsky.social & I obtained from FEMA detail previously unreported threats against personnel in the aftermath of Hurricanes Helene & Milton, including the swatting of then-FEMA Director Deanne Criswell
🎁 www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

This document details extraordinary steps taken to protect Deanne Criswell, the head of FEMA during hurricanes Helene and Milton. Criswell was a subject of a swatting incident

The document says: Secretary Mayorkas determined that there was a clear and present danger to Deanne Criswell, the Administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and that home-to-work transportation was essential for the performance of the duties of the FEMA Administrator. Because of recent serious threats to Administrator Criswell, he authorized her use of a government vehicle for home-to-work transportation ineluding use of an appropriate security detail provided FEMA and the Transportation Security Administration at FEMA's request."

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Reposted by Davey Alba

Zahra Hirji @zhirji.bsky.social · 20d

New docs obtained via FOIA reveal how the personal attacks to FEMA staff last hurricane season were much worse than previously known, including swatting & doxxing of officials.

Story @bloomberg.com, w/ @davey.bsky.social @jasonleopold.bsky.social (gift link): www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Chaos Inside FEMA as Death Threats Distract From Hurricane Response

Internal documents show how online conspiracies and personal attacks disrupted FEMA during back-to-back hurricanes last year.

www.bloomberg.com

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Reposted by Davey Alba

Elderest Millennial @ebwell.bsky.social · 20d

“‘The profit-driven platform model, where sensational falsehoods outperform factual updates in emergencies, ensures this problem persists across political cycles and it can put lives at risk,’ said Callum Hood, head of research at the nonprofit Center for Countering Digital Hate.”

Davey Alba @davey.bsky.social · 20d

The new docs on hurricanes Helene and Milton reveal unreported details, including the doxxing of at least 7 senior FEMA staffers. The records also highlight how misinformation remains a major threat to the agency amid recent cuts to its staff and funding

www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Chaos Inside FEMA as Death Threats Distract From Hurricane Response

Internal documents show how online conspiracies and personal attacks disrupted FEMA during back-to-back hurricanes last year.

www.bloomberg.com

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Davey Alba @davey.bsky.social · 20d

As a personal aside, even though this story was sobering to work on, it was cool teaming up with my former colleagues from BuzzFeed News (RIP). Hoping for more collabs with @zhirji.bsky.social @jasonleopold.bsky.social in the near future 🤍

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Davey Alba @davey.bsky.social · 20d

In @melissaryan.bsky.social's view, this political climate—in which public officials who try to provide transparency are politicized and attacked—is an even bigger obstacle than budget cuts in the fight against false claims.

www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Trump’s team has already overseen a massive scale back of FEMA’s staffing, funding and programming. As part of a review of contracts, FEMA ended its agreement with ZeroFox, according to a former official familiar with the situation. A FEMA spokesperson confirmed that it ended the ZeroFox contract in April.

For Melissa Ryan, founder of Card Strategies, a consulting firm that researches disinformation, the current political climate — in which public officials who attempt to provide transparency are often politicized and attacked — is a bigger obstacle than budget cuts in the fight against false claims. “So many of the new government appointees are Trump loyalists, and attempting to actually respond effectively to disinformation would make whoever made the attempt a target for MAGA and the administration,” she said.

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Davey Alba @davey.bsky.social · 20d

FEMA even hired cybersecurity firm ZeroFox to take down misinfo on social media, but the effort was cut short. House Republicans, led by Jim Jordan, were investigating tech companies for alleged censorship; after internal discussions, FEMA quickly ended all social media content removal requests

Afterwards, FEMA put together a Workplace Protection Task Force involving security, intelligence and communications professionals to manage incoming threats. Protective measures included using specialized software to flag personnel previously targeted online as at risk of more harassment.

But there were limits to how far the government could influence content moderation. At the time, outspoken Republicans led by House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan were investigating tech companies, alleging that the platforms were censoring conservative viewpoints under federal government pressure.

After initially approving ZeroFox to assist with facilitating takedowns, FEMA later asked that the company end all social media content removal requests. Per internal documents, the move came after staff discussions that it wasn’t advisable for the agency to contract for services that took any action beyond passive threat monitoring. ZeroFox declined to comment.

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Davey Alba @davey.bsky.social · 20d

The new docs on hurricanes Helene and Milton reveal unreported details, including the doxxing of at least 7 senior FEMA staffers. The records also highlight how misinformation remains a major threat to the agency amid recent cuts to its staff and funding

www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Chaos Inside FEMA as Death Threats Distract From Hurricane Response

Internal documents show how online conspiracies and personal attacks disrupted FEMA during back-to-back hurricanes last year.

www.bloomberg.com

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Davey Alba @davey.bsky.social · 20d

NEW: Bloomberg obtained 100s of pages of agency emails & other docs via FOIA, shedding new light on how disaster-related misinfo affects the govt's emergency response, sucks up resources & puts staff at risk.

with @zhirji.bsky.social @jasonleopold.bsky.social

www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Headline: Chaos Inside FEMA as Death Threats Distract from Hurricane Response

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Reposted by Davey Alba

Dave Lee @davelee.me · 21d

Important detail here as we think about AI deals for the long haul -- Reddit looking for dynamic payment based on use in answers (in addition to payments for training)

Davey Alba @davey.bsky.social · 21d

Scoop: Reddit is in talks with Google to strike a new AI content deal—one that would get the platform paid more for its data, which has become crucial for training Google's AI & powering search results

w/ @rileyraygriffin.bsky.social & @shiringhaffary.bsky.social

www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Headline: Reddit seeks to strike next AI content pact with Google, OpenAI

- Moving past a dollars-for-data model, Reddit seeks new deals
- The social platform looks to bring new users into its forums

Reddit Inc. is in early talks to strike its next content-sharing agreement with Alphabet Inc.’s Google, aiming to extract more value from future deals now that its data plays a prominent role in search results and generative AI training.

Reddit, more than a year and a half after its first data-sharing deal with Google for a reported $60 million, is in talks for deeper integration with Google’s AI products, according to executives familiar with the discussions. It’s proposing a new kind of partnership that would encourage users to become active contributors to Reddit’s popular online forums, so Google traffic could help the company grow and generate content for future training.

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Davey Alba @davey.bsky.social · 21d

Scoop: Reddit is in talks with Google to strike a new AI content deal—one that would get the platform paid more for its data, which has become crucial for training Google's AI & powering search results

w/ @rileyraygriffin.bsky.social & @shiringhaffary.bsky.social

www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

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Reposted by Davey Alba

Zahra Hirji @zhirji.bsky.social · 29d

The Trump administration, from the CDC to EPA to NOAA, is going to war with established climate science.

I, along w/@blkahn.bsky.social @eroston.bsky.social, try to capture the big picture of what's already happened & what's at stake.

Gift link @bloomberg.com: www.bloomberg.com/features/202...

Trump Is Dismantling Climate Science at a Dangerous Pace

The White House has blocked efforts to measure, respond to and fight global warming. That puts all Americans at risk.

www.bloomberg.com

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Davey Alba @davey.bsky.social · Sep 3

As Mitch Stoltz of @eff.org told me, in the history of antitrust rulings over the past few decades, Mehta’s order on remedies could prove to have an even more minor impact than when Microsoft lost its antitrust case a quarter-century ago.

www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

In the history of antitrust rulings over the past few decades, Mehta’s order on remedies could prove to have an even more minor impact than when Microsoft Corp. lost its antitrust case a quarter-century ago, said Mitch Stoltz, senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation who focuses on antitrust issues.

“Even though the court didn’t order a breakup of the company following the appeals, I think the case overall had a really significant effect on Microsoft’s conduct,” he said. Some of the conduct remedies that were imposed on Microsoft ironically kept it from hobbling a younger Google 25 years ago, Stoltz argued.

“This ruling, I think, is going to be less consequential than that,” he said. “I don’t think it will change Google’s corporate culture.”

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Davey Alba @davey.bsky.social · Sep 3

Even the data-sharing idea was defanged to the point that it is unlikely to meaningfully help competitors, critics said. The details of the court order show how Mehta severely narrowed data-sharing remedies. Google will only have to share a one-time snapshot of its search data with some competitors.

Even the data-sharing idea was defanged to the point that it is unlikely to meaningfully help competitors, critics said. “A snapshot of Google’s search index and some query data will be helpful for competitors, including OpenAI, by giving them data that will improve their results,” said Yory Wurmser, an analyst with Emarketer. But Google hasn’t been compelled to reveal its more sensitive website and personal data that lets it provide tailored responses and run its massive advertising business. “So, it could give smaller competitors a needed boost, but it probably won’t undermine Google too much.”

Data-sharing
The details of the court order show how Mehta severely narrowed the idea of data-sharing to help competitors. Mehta denied the government’s request to compel Google to share its Knowledge Graph, a database that links people, places, and things to provide accurate search results.

He also rejected the DOJ’s request for access to a wide range of data used for ad targeting, bidding and auction models. And while Google does have to share click-and-query data — the raw user data it collects after someone types something into a search bar and decides which results are helpful — the court said that it would cap the number of times the search giant had to disclose the information.

Under the ruling, Google also doesn’t have to share key ranking signals in its search index, including those related to popularity, quality and authoritativeness.

Instead of a periodic disclosure of search index data to competitors, Mehta simply ordered a one-time snapshot that must be provided to each qualified Google competitor. He rejected the request for data used to train Google’s generative AI models, finding that the AI market was highly competitive and “the evidence did not show…that Google’s GenAI product responses are superior to other GenAI offerings.”

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Davey Alba @davey.bsky.social · Sep 3

Some expected Mehta to come down hard on Google, given his definitive finding of liability—that Google is a search monopolist. That original ruling, sources said, was surprising in its breadth and suggested a new approach to antitrust cases in the tech world. These remedies are a missed opportunity.

Bloomberg Law analyst Eleanor Tyler called the decision “terrible” in the judge’s refusal to actually attack the market imbalance. “We’re talking about a tech behemoth whose power is in the interlocking businesses,” she said. “He was clear about how bad things are, but then the ruling doesn’t do anything.”

While Mehta ordered some data-sharing, “he brushed aside almost everything else the government asked for,” said Bill Kovacic, a former chairman of the Federal Trade Commission who now teaches antitrust at George Washington University Law School. “You can tell Mehta was worried about doing too much rather than too little. The race to prevail on AI overshadowed everything.”

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Davey Alba @davey.bsky.social · Sep 3

New analysis: Google avoided the most severe outcomes in its search antitrust case because of the growing threat from generative AI. The result is a letdown for many who hoped for accountability for Big Tech in a landmark legal battle.

From me, @sisco.bsky.social & @leahnylen.bsky.social

Google Saved From Breakup in Antitrust Case by AI Threat

Alphabet Inc.’s Google, found by the US last year to have a monopoly in online search, avoided the most severe outcomes because the judge in the case concluded that its business was already under a gr...

www.bloomberg.com

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Davey Alba @davey.bsky.social · Aug 13

Google's lobbyists are a major force in D.C., yet they're not at the top of the spending charts. A colleague has a great story explaining the workaround

www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

A new analysis of federal lobbying data by the nonprofit Tech Transparency Project shows that Google and its parent company, Alphabet Inc. used an internal reorganization to exclude the value of lobbying by its senior executives from disclosures. The move helped keep Google off the top of the lobbying charts even as it maintained a robust network of advocates pushing its interests in the capital, during federal challenges to its dominance in search and advertising and the beginnings of artificial intelligence regulation.

The findings, which were confirmed by a Bloomberg analysis of lobbying records, show that the effect of the accounting change was to lower the amount that Google reported spending to influence the federal government, likely by millions of dollars.

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Sarah Myers West @smw.bsky.social · Jul 21

The study finds that in 2022 over 26% of systems reviewed gave a disclaimed that they aren’t providing medical advice. Now? Less than 1%.

Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · Jul 21

“There are a lot of headlines claiming AI is better than physicians…Patients may be confused by the messaging they are seeing in the media, and disclaimers are a reminder that these models are not meant for medical care.”

AI companies have stopped warning you that their chatbots aren’t doctors

Once cautious, OpenAI, Grok, and others will now dive into giving unverified medical advice with virtually no disclaimers.

www.technologyreview.com

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Aaron Bady @zunguzungu.bsky.social · Jul 4

A thing that makes that Times story especially odious is that Zohran Mamdani's father was LITERALLY expelled from Uganda during Idi Amin's fascist effort to scapegoat Asian Ugandans as not really African www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Mahmood Mamdani · The Asian Question: On Leaving Uganda

President Yoweri Museveni was careful not to refer to Asians as citizens; he explained that they were ‘investors’,...

www.lrb.co.uk

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Davey Alba @davey.bsky.social · Jul 1

A little bit of news from me and @julialove.bsky.social: Google isn’t pushing through with its Quick View Recipe feature, which food bloggers had feared could erode their search traffic

www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Soon after news of the test program surfaced, creators made their concerns known, said Tomiko Harvey, a travel and food blogger at Passports and Grub, who attended a Google creator summit in May.

“I’m actually feeling hopeful about this decision from Google,” Harvey wrote in an email. “Canceling the Quick View Recipe feature feels like a rare but welcome acknowledgment that creator feedback matters.”

Although Google’s decision has some creators feeling relief, they likely haven’t seen the last of the search giant’s experimentation in a vibrant corner of the web. In recent years, many food bloggers have padded their recipes with lengthy preambles to ensure their content ranks well in Google Search, irritating readers in the process.

As it crawls the web, Google will glean information about recipes’ core principles — say, the basic proportions of broth and meat in a recipe for chicken noodle soup — which it can then use to inform its own answers, Slater said.

“Recipes are, by definition, facts, and facts are not copyrightable,” Slater said. For Google, “there’s always going to be a tension between giving the user exactly what they want,” he added, “and directing the user to another site.”

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