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Joe Westby

@joewestby.eurosky.social
175 followers 245 following 69 posts

Independent digital rights strategist & researcher. All things data, AI and confronting the power of Big Tech. Mastodon: @Joewestby@mastodon.social

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Reposted by Joe Westby
Ed Zitron @edzitron.com · 06/10/2026
I know I've said this before, but OpenAI and Anthropic should not be allowed to go public. Nor should they be allowed to borrow from the open debt markets. They present an unacceptable risk to investors and lenders, and they need cash at a dangerous scale. www.wheresyoured.at/credit-crunch/
I realize I’ve gone through a lot of technical stuff so far, but the reality is pretty simple: Anthropic and OpenAI do not resemble the financial condition of any company I could find in the history of the stock market outside of WeWork. They are unprofitable, unsustainable, and the only conditions under which they could raise significant debt would involve catastrophic failures of regulatory and ratings bodies. 

Sidenote: When WeWork tapped the bond markets in 2018, it received ratings of B (from S&P) and BB- (from Fitch). Both sit below the BBB- threshold for investment-grade debt. 

And while WeWork resembles OpenAI and Anthropic, insofar as it didn’t actually own any of the workplaces it rented out to freelancers and startups, it differs in how much it wanted to borrow, seeking only $500m, and the fact that WeWork had a fairly diversified customer base, which is something that (as mentioned) credit ratings, but especially S&P, tend to look favorably on. I’ll add that the only thing worse than allowing them to go public will be to allow them to raise debt at anything other than the junkiest levels that the market has to offer. These are not stable businesses, nor are they run with much regard for their underlying capital or employees. Both of them have massive amounts of concentration risk, unstable customers, brittle economics, own virtually no assets, and have demonstrated little to no ability to reduce their costs outside of questionable accounting that doesn’t change the fact that they cannot afford their bills.

As a result of their $1.3 trillion in compute commitments, neither company can become “capital efficient” by cutting their training costs, because said training costs are the only means of further growth outside of massive price increases that are unlikely to grow their businesses.To make matters worse, both are cutting prices to compete with each other, and per Ramp, said price cuts aren’t increasing usage:


Neither company can afford to exist without near-infinite resources, and neither company can afford to slow down due to their massive compute commitments, which have become materially linked to the future growth trajectories of effectively every hyperscaler, as well as Broadcom, which — in pursuit of becoming NVIDIA — has added ruinous amounts of debt at the worst time in history to do so.

And that’s really the biggest problem here.
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Joe Westby @joewestby.eurosky.social · 06/10/2026
Oh look who drafted Trump's self-regulatory 'AI Accord'. The broligarchy strikes back www.semafor.com/article/09/3...
semafor.com
Exclusive: How Zuckerberg shaped Trump’s AI industry pledge
The Meta CEO started thinking about what became the Tuesday White House pact during last week’s state dinner, a source familiar told Semafor.
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Reposted by Joe Westby
Wolfie Christl @wchr.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
The web and mobile apps of major conversational AI engines transmit prompts, titles and conversation permalinks to advertising data firms, alongside device IDs, hashed email and other persistent identifiers. Comprehensive analysis, like always from this team: jorgegarciaherrero.com/wp-content/i...
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Reposted by Joe Westby
Patrick Galey @patrickgaley.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
We're suing the EU under the Aarhus Convention for its failure to disclose vital environmental and efficiency data around the bloc's data centre build out Investigators spent a year trying to access the information, now we're challenging the non-disclosure www.lighthousereports.com/methodology/...
lighthousereports.com
Why we made a legal filing to the Aarhus Convention Compliance Committee
Officials are holding key environmental impact figures for all AI data centres across Europe. They won’t let the public see them.
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Dr. Damien P. Williams, dread portent down from a mountain cave @wolven.blacksky.app · 01/10/2026
Oh hey look: exactly what a bunch of us said was already and would keep happening— data centers being placed in spaces where their harms will fall on those already most marginalized— is, in fact, happening.
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Katja Bego @katjabego.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
The tech-military complex intensifies: “Pete Hegseth announced on Wednesday that Elon Musk will co-lead a government project to study the future of warfare, marking the SpaceX CEO’s first return to government since he ran the chaotic [..] Doge.” www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
theguardian.com
Pete Hegseth appoints Elon Musk to US taskforce on future of warfare
A year after his explosive tenure at Doge, the SpaceX CEO is back in the Trump administration’s good graces
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Kashmir Hill @kashhill.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Meta is using a radical interpretation of a tax credit for “research and experimentation” to get billions of dollars off GPUs for its A.I. data centers. My latest with Jesse Drucker, @elitan.bsky.social and @mikeisaac.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/2026/09/30/t...
nytimes.com
How Meta Uses A.I. Data Centers to Avoid Billions in Federal Taxes (Gift Article)
Meta is exploiting a lucrative tax break intended to support research and experimentation. Its own accountants say the gambit is risky.
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Joe Westby @joewestby.eurosky.social · 30/09/2026
The absolutely last people on earth who should be in charge of regulating AI have all signed a one-page 'accord'. Yay.
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Reposted by Joe Westby
Karl Bode @karlbode.com · 30/09/2026
I'm absolutely fascinated by "journalism" that can't seem to tell readers an obvious truth. Like the fact this is absolutely meaningless bullshit designed to pre-empt real oversight
reuters.com
Trump releases AI accord with tech executives
President Donald Trump released a document on Tuesday that his administration cast as an accord ​on artificial intelligence and which he said earlier was signed by ‌him and tech executives that he met...
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Reposted by Joe Westby
Jason Koebler @jasonkoebler.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
New: Through a series of complex agreements with cities, the White House built a massive license plate camera database accessible to the feds. The program aggregates data across license plate companies (Flock, Axon, more) & is searchable by many agencies: www.404media.co/how-cities-a...
404media.co
How Cities Are Forced to Funnel License Plate Data to a Massive Federal Surveillance Program
How the federal government built a massive database of license plate reader data through an anti-drug trafficking program.
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Adam Rutherford @adamrutherford.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Remember: the hype IS the product.
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lauren @lauren.rotatingsandwiches.com · 28/09/2026
"I installed the Give Away Your Personally Identifying Info app made by the We Love Stealing Your Personally Identifying Info Corp headed by Mr. Steal Your Personally Identifying Info and it gave away all my personally identifying info"
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kate conger @kateconger.com · 24/09/2026
The latest update in the rogue A.I. saga: OpenAI agents that were supposed to be performing mundane data requests for things like health data, historic photos and wait times at theme parks resorted to hacking attempts when they couldn't access the data they wanted www.nytimes.com/2026/09/23/t...
nytimes.com
OpenAI’s A.I. Tried Breaching Four Other Targets, With No Prompting (Gift Article)
In each incident, the technology appeared to be conducting mundane data collection and resorted to hacking techniques to get it, researchers said.
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Pavel @spavel.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Sure, on the one hand Muse doesn't really do anything, but on the other hand it opens up a massive attack surface on literally all your shit
arstechnica.com
Muse, Meta's extraordinarily privileged AI assistant, has a serious 0-day
A simple ClickFix attack is only one way to completely hijack the new agent.
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Reposted by Joe Westby
Gijs Brekelmans @gys.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Meta removed a video by a satirist wearing Meta glasses asking unrecognizable Meta personnel about Meta glasses. Meta's ground for doing so - and please appreciate the irony here - is... harassment.
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Financial Times @financialtimes.com · 26/08/2026
Breaking news: Meta agreed to pay up to $16.68bn to settle its blockbuster legal battle with more than two dozen US states over alleged failures of child protection and social media addiction. ft.trib.al/5bEqrzY
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Alderik @alderik.eurosky.social · 24/07/2026
“The Commission preliminarily considers that TikTok [..] should adjust the default settings of minors' ‘public' accounts, so that their content is, by default, visible only to TikTok users whom the minor has accepted” ec.europa.eu/commission/p...
ec.europa.eu
Commission preliminary finds TikTok in breach of Digital Services Act for failing to ensure safe accounts for minors
Today, the European Commission sent TikTok preliminary findings indicating that TikTok accounts of minors do not meet the safety standards required under the Digital Services Act (DSA).
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Joe Westby @joewestby.eurosky.social · 23/07/2026
Great to see the EU's Digital Markets Act in action 👏. But let's be honest, the fine is pocket change and the behavioural remedies are nice to haves but hardly groundbreaking. To put the fine in context, Alphabet just disclosed its going to spank *$205bn* on AI this year alone.
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Reposted by Joe Westby
The Guardian @theguardian.com · 21/07/2026
Meta’s smartglasses mean any child can be covertly filmed. In the age of AI, how do we tackle that risk?
theguardian.com
Meta’s smartglasses mean any child can be covertly filmed. In the age of AI, how do we tackle that risk?
The company argues that it’s for individuals to ensure they don’t ‘actively exploit’ this technology. That won’t keep children safe, says Guardian columnist Gaby Hinsliff
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Joseph Cox @josephcox.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
New: cops are using Flock to track people, not cars. We reviewed Flock search data and found many, many cases of cops searching for people based on their appearance, race, tattoos, etc. Some searches are so vague like "tall man" that innocent people likely swept up www.404media.co/how-cops-use...
404media.co
How Cops Use Flock to Track People, Not Cars
Cops have used Flock's FreeForm search feature to look for people with tattoos and wearing specific sport shirts, and searches sometimes include the target's race, according to data reviewed by 404 Me...
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Reposted by Joe Westby
Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 15/07/2026
I write about this in the book. Increasingly, the proposition from these companies is “let us surveil you constantly.” That’s it! That’s the deal. In return you get the (supposed) benefit of a machine that “knows” you, whatever that’s supposed to mean. finance.yahoo.com/technology/a...
OpenAI's success in hardware will hinge on bringing a novel approach to the market — something it aims to do with the smart speaker. For instance, the device's technology is meant to become increasingly personalized and proactive as it gains a deeper understanding of its owner over time, according to the people.

OpenAI envisions the device anticipating needs, surfacing information proactively and serving as an expert on its user, they said. Though the speaker is designed to stay in the home, it will be easy to move around the house.OpenAI believes the product's defining feature will be its personality and ability to connect on a humanlike level with users. The speaker incorporates mechanical elements that can move on their own, creating a sense that it is alive and not just an object responding to commands. The machine also will draw on personal information such as emails to better understand its owner.
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Grace Blakeley @graceblakeley.substack.com · 15/07/2026
"Whether it’s the cartoon super-villainy of Alex Karp, the lies of Sam Altman, or the Hitler worship of Elon Musk, the mask is off and the psychotic personalities behind these companies have been revealed for all to see." Great new guest post from Ryan Ward open.substack.com/pub/gracebla...
open.substack.com
What you hate about AI is the capitalism
AI pulls the curtain back on the extractive logic that orders our lives
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Joe Westby @joewestby.eurosky.social · 14/07/2026
"AI, like VAR, is intruding, often unnecessarily, sometimes absurdly, sometimes disastrously, into key arenas of human practice, against the will of most and for the benefit of the few." @bcmerchant.bsky.social www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/what-var-t...
bloodinthemachine.com
What VAR tells us about AI
FIFA's semi-automated refereeing system promises neutrality but brims with bias. It's widely despised yet embraced by elites. It is, in other words, a lot like AI.
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Reposted by Joe Westby
People Vs Big Tech @peoplevsbigtech.eurosky.social · 18/06/2026
🚨 BREAKING: Overnight in Brussels We sent a clear message to EU leaders: 📣”Fight for us, not for Trump's billionaires.”
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AFP News Agency @en.afp.com · 18/06/2026
France's move to drop Palantir from its intelligence services is the latest sign of European unease with the American data-mining firm. A firm that has grown from a CIA-backed startup into one of the most powerful technology players of the Trump era u.afp.com/SzWH
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Dr Abeba Birhane @abeba.blacksky.app · 18/06/2026
"an audit by Lighthouse Reports of public data on the government’s chosen AI provider shows that its tech misclassified more than a third of 16-year-olds as adults and, in some tests, was shown to give the wrong assessment in 70 per cent of cases" www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home...
independent.co.uk
Home Office knew AI age checks for migrants were flawed — but rolled it out anyway
Exclusive: Government advisors describe the tool as ‘hideously flawed’ amid concern facial age estimation has ‘baked-in racial bias’ — and can wrongly identify a 14-year-old as an adult
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Tom Hearden @followtheh.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
So Eric Trump tried to insider trade the UFC fights and I think we might have a better idea who has been front running the Iran war announcements in the oil markets
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Joe Westby @joewestby.eurosky.social · 15/06/2026
And setting a very dangerous precedent that a future Reform government will no doubt exploit to target whoever they don't like as "terrorists". Labour seems intent on welcoming in authoritarianism.
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Kartik Raj @kartikraj.eurosky.social · 15/06/2026
1/n Response below from @hrw.org to today's Court of Appeal judgment that the UK Home Secretary's proscription of Palestine Action as a terrorist organization was lawful: www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026... The thread also has links to the judgment, @hrw.org research, and some legal commentary.
theguardian.com
Ban on Palestine Action was lawful, court of appeal rules
Judges overturn decision of high court that government proscription of group under Terrorism Act was wrong
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Vittoria Elliott @telliotter.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
SCOOP from me and @mollytaft.com: As data centers become a hot-button issue in the lead up to midterms, Congress and the White House appear to be allowing a little-known regulation on how the government regulates data centers that hold federal data expire. @wired.com www.wired.com/story/the-us...
wired.com
The US Government Is Letting a Key Data Center Regulation Expire
The federal government is planning to let a rule regulating federal data center operations sunset in September with no replacement.
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Eurosky Social @eurosky.social · 12/06/2026
If you have a Bluesky account, you can use mu.social with the same account, with all your connections and content the same. Mu has additional functions like post editing and a configurable news section - and we'll be adding new features all the time.
mu.social
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Momus Jones @boyq.bsky.social · 11/06/2026
FIFA Peace Prize winner on World Cup opening day:
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Joe Westby @joewestby.eurosky.social · 11/06/2026
Most polluting World Cup ever, nine million tonnes of CO2 emissions. I love football, but it does seem humanity has our priorities out of whack. But its ok, FIFA is going to "reduce food waste" at the stadiums. www.bbc.co.uk/sport/footba...
bbc.co.uk
World Cup 2026: The numbers behind 'the most polluting World Cup'
BBC Sport analyses the environmental cost of a 48-team World Cup held across North America.
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molly taft @mollytaft.com · 11/06/2026
NEW: on the eve of SpaceX's IPO, i spoke to folks in the memphis area still fighting the company's polluting data centers there, which are now also being leased by Anthropic "We’re the extracted and exploited colony of what is going to be one of the most highly valued entities in the world"
wired.com
People Living Near xAI’s Dirty Data Centers Are Pissed About the SpaceX IPO
Elon Musk is set to make hundreds of billions even as communities in Mississippi and Tennessee are fighting to stop the gas turbines powering xAI's supercomputers.
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Joe Westby @joewestby.eurosky.social · 11/06/2026
V interesting legal precedent. Big Tech can (and should!) be held liable for AI generated text. Google's response? People know AI is not accurate and should check for themselves! the-decoder.com/landmark-ger...
the-decoder.com
Landmark German ruling declares Google's AI Overviews are Google's own words and makes it liable for false answers
A German regional court has ruled that Google is directly liable for the content of its AI search overviews. According to the court, previous limited liability protections for search engine operators ...
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Tarik Abou-Chadi @tabouchadi.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
Another day of far-right violence and pogroms in the UK. A country that still labels these thugs “protesters”, that claims “this isn’t Britain”, that fails to take responsibility for empowering and enabling these thugs, where the media is too afraid to call the forces behind this “far right”
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Cas Mudde @casmudde.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
I am absolutely appalled by the POGROMS in Belfast. But it is lazy to just blame social media. POGROMS have been around for centuries. They are rooted in racism, which is fueled by elites. Look at Reform, Tories, and, yes, Labour. Look at GB News, Times, and BBC, before starting about Tik Tok.
theguardian.com
How Belfast knife attack became the latest far-right ‘trigger event’
The rapid spread of footage shows how social media is pivotal in enabling far-right agitators to mobilise internationally
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Sunder Katwala (sundersays) @sundersays.bsky.social · 09/06/2026
X owner Elon Musk has reposted his Sept 2025 call that pre-emptive inter-ethnic violence (civil war) is necessary for 'self-defence "Elon Musk was always right "You either fight back, or you die."
Elon Musk: "That's what it comes down to"

Inevitable West
"Elon Musk was always right
"You either fight back, or you die."
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Signal @signal.org · 08/06/2026
Our statement on the UK gov't's demand that all content on all devices sold or used in the UK be scanned, on the presumption of nudity, using a dystopian combination of age verification & content scanning. This proposal will not safeguard children. It endangers us all. signal.org/blog/pdfs/20...
signal.org
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Justin Hendrix @justinhendrix.bsky.social · 09/06/2026
Google calls it the biggest Search overhaul in 25+ years. AI Mode now has 1B+ monthly users—many defaulted in. Elise Silva asks what this shift means not just for competitors, but for billions of users, our shared information environment, and democracy.
techpolicy.press
Google’s ‘New Era for AI Search’ May Threaten Democracy
The rise of AI in search raises pressing questions about its impact on people and democracy, writes Elise Silva.
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Mike Masnick @masnick.com · 03/06/2026
I spent more time on this piece than almost anything else I've written in the last year. Building a better, more decentralized internet is an inherent necessity if you want a functioning democracy. I hope people find it a useful encapsulation of where we're at. www.liberalism.org/p/enshittifi...
liberalism.org
Enshittification, Despotification, and the Open Internet
It’s not about whether technology is inherently good or bad, liberating or oppressive. Architecture shapes incentives; incentives shape outcomes.
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Joe Westby @joewestby.eurosky.social · 04/06/2026
"Tech billionaire spends $16m to fight billionaire tax" ... proves exactly why we need to tax billionaires.
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Maria Farrell @mariafarrell.eurosky.social · 18/05/2026
yet another tech bro determined to destroy public media. but this one was invited in through the front door by the board and ok'ed by a Labour government. sometimes I truly despair for the UK. how deep will it go in its US tech obeisance? English ruling class seems to truly hate its own country.
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Wera Hobhouse MP @werahobhouse.org.uk · 13/05/2026
Men are using Meta AI glasses to secretly film women at beaches, shops, on the street & on nights out. They then post these clips online where they receive a barrage of misogynistic abuse. I’m campaigning to make this behaviour an offence. Women deserve to feel safe in public spaces.
bbc.co.uk
Smart glasses are 'an invasion of privacy' - Meta's are selling better than ever
The biggest tech firms are set to sell millions of smart glasses despite growing privacy concerns.
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Peter Jukes @peterjukes.bsky.social · 13/05/2026
Everyone is rightly interested in Harborne’s monetary support for Nigel Farage. But GB News provides him with an annualised salary of over a million pounds a year, 500,000 shares and unaccounted for millions in terms of free political advertising for Farage’s Party
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Joe Westby @joewestby.eurosky.social · 12/05/2026
This feels like an allegory for where British politics is right now
Lorry gets stuck in hole it was sent to fix in Somerset
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Joe Westby @joewestby.eurosky.social · 07/05/2026
Talk about saying the quiet part out loud. Yes we can defeat the far right by ... becoming the far right!
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Pippa Crerar @pippacrerar.bsky.social · 29/04/2026
EXCL: Nigel Farage was given an undisclosed £5m by crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne shortly before announcing he would stand in general election @annaisaac.bsky.social reveals www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
theguardian.com
Revealed: Nigel Farage was given undisclosed £5m by crypto billionaire in 2024
Reform leader changed his mind about standing as MP after gift from Thai-based crypto tycoon Christopher Harborne
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Jon Green @jongreen.bsky.social · 18/02/2026
X's algorithm is in fact doing what you think it's doing. www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Article: The political effects of X’s feed algorithm

Abstract: Feed algorithms are widely suspected to influence political attitudes. However, previous evidence from switching off the algorithm on Meta platforms found no political effects1. Here we present results from a 2023 field experiment on Elon Musk’s platform X shedding light on this puzzle. We assigned active US-based users randomly to either an algorithmic or a chronological feed for 7 weeks, measuring political attitudes and online behaviour. Switching from a chronological to an algorithmic feed increased engagement and shifted political opinion towards more conservative positions, particularly regarding policy priorities, perceptions of criminal investigations into Donald Trump and views on the war in Ukraine. In contrast, switching from the algorithmic to the chronological feed had no comparable effects. Neither switching the algorithm on nor switching it off significantly affected affective polarization or self-reported partisanship. To investigate the mechanism, we analysed users’ feed content and behaviour. We found that the algorithm promotes conservative content and demotes posts by traditional media. Exposure to algorithmic content leads users to follow conservative political activist accounts, which they continue to follow even after switching off the algorithm, helping explain the asymmetry in effects. These results suggest that initial exposure to X’s algorithm has persistent effects on users’ current political attitudes and account-following behaviour, even in the absence of a detectable effect on partisanship.Figure 2. ITT estimates of feed-setting changes on engagement and political attitudes. ITT effect estimates of switching the algorithm on and off (in s.d.). Left, effect of moving from the chronological to the algorithmic feed for users initially on the chronological feed. Right, effect of moving in the opposite direction for users initially on the algorithmic feed. For each outcome, the results of two specifications are reported. Blue, unconditional estimates with robust s.e., controlling only for the initial feed setting and, where applicable, pre-treatment outcome levels. Orange: conditional estimates, controlling for pre-treatment covariates using GRFs; 90% and 95% CIs are reported. Numerical effect sizes and P values correspond to the conditional estimates (all tests are two-sided). The unit of observation is respondent. From top to bottom, sample sizes are n = 4,965, n = 3,337, n = 4,965, n = 4,965, n = 4,596, n = 4,596 and n = 4,850. Tests are described in Methods. Supplementary Information Table 2.16 reports the exact numerical point estimates, s.e., CIs and sample sizes for every specification. All outcomes are standardized. Additional results are presented in Supplementary Information section 2. PCA, first principal component from principal component analysis.
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