March 13, 2025
🌎[NEWS -Emerging powers hopeful with emerging multi-polarity]
Munich Security Conference Report:
🇺🇸[NEWS – Google might still get broken up in the US]
“Google could lose Chrome as the Department of Justice doubles down on its antitrust demands..reaffirmed its demand that Google must sell Chrome and stop paying companies to make Google Search the default option…Final decision on how Google must change will be made in April”
https://www.androidauthority.com/doj-google-chrome-new-filing-3533403
🇨🇳🇮🇳[NEWS – India moves to block more Chinese apps?]
Government orders to block 119 apps on Google PlayStore on national security grounds. Most apps linked to China and Hong Kong // Google’s disclosure of the requested ban has since been deleted.
🇬🇧🇨🇳 [NEWS – UK MP argues Chinese IoT components represent a risk – calls for local production]
“Household items from fridges to cars that contain Chinese electronics may be at risk of being accessed remotely, the new chair of Britain’s cross-party coalition on secure technology has warned. Labour MP Graeme Downie urged ministers to encourage UK manufacturing capacity for cellular modules used in the “internet of things” in order to defend against the risk of cyber attacks.” https://www.ft.com/content/518e6b5d-068a-4375-a625-87d8c5b422a1
🇪🇺[ NEWS – Industrial-AI policy: More EU “AI Factories”?]
“The European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU) has selected six additional Artificial Intelligence (AI) Factories in the EU.
This follows the first selection of seven AI Factories in December 2024.
Austria, Bulgaria, France, Germany, Poland, and Slovenia will host the newly selected AI Factories, supported by a combined national and EU investment of around €485 million. The factories will offer privileged access to AI startups and small-and-medium sized enterprises (SMEs), fostering growth and more effective scaling up.”
“
🇩🇪[NEWS – Did Musk put his finger on the algorithm to boost the AFD’s reach?]
“.. the most viral posts are dominated by references to Elon Musk and his support for the AfD…Apart from the dominance of Musk as a personality, we did not see clear evidence of underlying algorithmic bias or other issues which we would consider “systemic risks to electoral processes” under the Digital Services Act.”
https://algorithmwatch.org/en/the-musk-effect
LONG READS:
🇧🇷AI and Sovereignty, Brazilian perspectives [Edited volume in Portuguese)
A collection of 13 essays and papers exploring the Brazilian economic and tech ecosystem, and how artificial intelligence has and will be impacting on it.
https://revista.ibict.br/liinc/issue/view/356
⚙️ Non-Alignment strategy picking up steam within European left?
“In the present context, this would mean forming an anti-technofeudal front that reaching beyond the left to various democratic forces and fractions of capital at odds with Big Tech. This hypothetical movement could adopt what we might call a ‘non-aligned digital policy’, aiming to create an economic space outside the grip of the monopolists in which alternative technologies could be developed.”
https://newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/fragile-leviathan
🌍🔭Scanning the horizon: The Future of Digital Rights & Resilience in the Global Majority
Based on interviews and desk research, the report covers three big trends affecting the work of digital rights activists and organizations: Geopolitics, technology, and funding.
Report launch & discussion:
March 20 | ⏰ 2:00-3:30 PM UTC 💻 Register here: https://digitalresilience.network/registration/
[ANNOUNCEMENTS]
📰Op-ed: Many of you contributed and/or signed on to an op-ed for Backchannels. It was published in late February (Thanks!!): “A Non-Aligned Tech Movement to take us beyond the age of informational capitalism” https://4sonline.org/news_manager.php?page=39356
📚Reading group: Guilherme Cavalcante Silva and Juan Ortiz Freuler are setting up a very informal reading group to understand the value of dependency theory for analyzing north-south tech dynamics. If you’re interested, send an email to juanof@protonmail.com , gcsilva@yorku.ca . The idea is to meet virtually every 3 weeks.
Newsletter curated by Juan Ortiz Freuler – input welcome [juanof @ protonmail.com] –> SIGN UP