Wow, it’s been a long, tough year already.

As we’ve just celebrated the new year, a lot has gone down.

The fires in Los Angeles are but one of the burning topics on the table, as just a few hours ago, an important felony conviction, the 34th, came down on the future american president elect. That would be big news on any day.

However, as of 48h ago or so, Meta announced it was removing any form of fact checking, triggering a massive exodus reaction, and for good cause, seeing as the social media giant, which includes Facebook and Instagram, has made drastic choices, and implemented them on a whim. Do we really need more disinformation?

Happy 2025!

’24 was well filled with surprises and the new year looks like it won’t be quiet – or at least, it started with a few bangs.

For example, the recent outrage regarding Meta’s AI profiles is an interesting conversation starter : Is it really a social media if some of the profiles aren’t actual people?

This second article from ArsTecnica asks interesting questions regarding privacy rights, notably stemming from consumer goods that are supposed to be owned by the consumer, but wind up essentially spying on their users… Who also happen to be their owners. Yes – These capabilities can become an asset in more extreme situations, but is that really a positive development for the consumer?

Bonne année 2025!

2024 était bien remplie, et sur le plan de l’information, ca s’annonce assez chargé pour 2025.

Par exemple, le tollé récent concernant les profils IA sur Meta posent une question intéressante: Est-ce encore un média social si une partie des utilisateurs sont faux, d’origine artificielle?

Ce second article d’ArsTecnica pose des questions intéressantes sur la question de la vie privée et de l’utilisation des données de vie privée que les géants de la tech collectent à travers des objets, qui sont sensés être la propriété privée de l’acheteur. Certes, ces capacités peuvent être un plus dans certaines situations extrêmes, mais est-ce vraiment une avancée pour le consommateur?

What is the internet?

Why, Mastodon user “Viss”, made this video about just that, and is glad you asked.

Comme une lettre à la poste – Like parcel through the mail

Sometimes, things change quickly.

Herebelow, a skewer of noteworthy articles, interesting for each their own reasons, when considering the avalanche of changes that have occured in the past few weeks – enjoy the read !

This article, an essay on America’s handling of it’s own healthcare system, is quite interesting, as it tells a tale of profit before humanism, on a level that is only occuring there. Food for thought, for americans and the rest of us.

Most recently, this article about the changes that the Harper government had made to the Scientific sector, which Poilièvre is likely to imitate, should he be put in power despite a security clearance.

Or, this Wired article about Data brokers, and the kind of data they make their business with, regarding targets that would be likely very sensitive.

And, from a little while back, this article shreds AI, calling it “money laundering for copyrighted data”.

Parfois, les choses changent rapidement.

Ci-bas, une enfilade d’articles que j’ai trouvé notoires, intéressant dans l’avalanche de changements que nous connaissons depuis quelques semaines – Bonne lecture !

Mon pays, ce n’est pas un pays sans sa démocratie

Récemment, un flot alarmant de faux comptes publient des critiques incroyablement positives, et étrangement similaires, sur une visite de Pierre Poilièvre à Kirkland Lake. L’article du Devoir raconte certains détails des résultats d’une recherche sur la provnenance de ces messages… Mais est-ce que cette recherche suffit?

Nécéssairement, ces comptes et ces informations sont apparues de quelque part, par quelqu’un soit intéressé par l’idée de convaincre des gens, ou, comme l’article le dit, dans l’optique d’atteindre un résultat ultérieur.

Il est normal que nos lois soient à la remorque de faits, d’observations, de tendances, mais il faut, un moment donné, aussi poser les bonnes questions. Par exemple, la récente décision du gouvernement Biden, sur les taxes en lien avec les publications web et les grandes plateformes dans le contexte de l’Alena, sont juste des lettres à la poste, ou un signe que nos deux états pourraient mieux collaborer?

Tech over consciousness

This article from Techpolicy.press is incredibly engaging, and asks giant questions of immense relevence.

What is the role of tech in our society? Do we need socialized tech? What values are we reinforcing within our society with generative AI? Theses questions deserve answers. If you know the history of the automobile, we are witnessing a similarity of “accidental evolution”. The very same way we started with “it’s brand new, what could possibly go wrong?” and then found ways, we are adopting AI at an incredibly fast rate, even before it’s accurate enough, some would argue. And yet, Uk is introducing teacher-less classrooms – with at least the benefit of sparking the debate about this.

How much of this can we really tolerate, in today’s world?

And up, some more.

As the days are passing, I’m noticing even more interesting questions relating to the culture of data.

First up is this Mastodon post, where we see a screenshot of a Google search, post AI. I’ll shortcut to the obvious conclusion that nobody needs a search engine that comes up with falsehoods and re-writes history, and if you’re willing to argue that space exploration began in 1889 and that we were in mars before word war 1 started, please, feel free to do it elsewhere.

Regardless of how you cut this, it’s very hard to argue for system such as these to have access to massive scale biometric data, just yet.

This “new low in the ongoing erosion of fundamental rights” is exactly what we, at DataCulture.Online, are interested about. Tech is great. Humans are great. we just saw Terminator, and see why not every robot should be able to find Sarah Connor, and seeing how certain actors are always edging towards more power, it is reasonable to empower ourselves with the full capacity that the digital environment allows for, and channel it in the right direction.

The article, written in Germany, indicates that “every smartphone would become a potential state video surveillance system.”, and in the context of two provinces of that specific country’s recent elections, aren’t there a few opportunities for interesting conversations right there?

Vaya con dios, xitter

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, or maybe if you’ve just been living your normal life within the current state of disinformation and misinformation, you may have heard that Brazil is having a feud with Xitter (twitter), and that it is becoming a somewhat serious argument.

And then, it adds up.

As I keep developing this project, it’s interesting how articles, facts, topics and discussions relating to the topic are just lining up, and piling on.

This first thought experiment went drastically wrong (besides being in german – good thing we have tech!. Story goes something like this : Journalist fires up MS Copilot, asks him to dig into himself. The AI came out with a slew of insulting, criminal allegations and accusations towards the journalist, with the proper adress, family names, credentials, et al. The journalist files a report against MS for producing this data that’s highly corrosive, and dangerous for his personal future and safetuy… But the police turns down the request, because it’s not a person that created the data. What happens then?

This other article is in relation to a LA Times article makes an absolute echo to the preceding article, herebelow. The conversation about the cost to benefit analysis of AI remains to be truly understood.

The conversation is afoot

Every passing day, I’m seeing more articles that really speak to the nature of what we, at DataCulture.online, are trying to have.

Let’s start with this one article from Europe, we learn that there are initiatives to ensure that customers, who legitimitaly buy a videogame, are having to fight to garantee their right to enjoy this videogame, in the long term. Ok, it’s actually a petition, so that videogame publishers take some kind of steps to ensure that the videogame remains usable, in the long term, and may be rendered useless, at the will of the publisher, at any given time and for any given reason. But the bottom line remains: In the world of intangible, why are you paying tangible money for intangible products that you may be removed access to, without recourse? Sounds like something Mario and Luigi might save a princess for, maybe?

Moving on, here’s yet another example of what is afoot: There’s this (Paywalled…) article on Bloomberg about tech giants hiding the real carbon footprint of their operations, specifically what relates to AI. Now, while I encourage everyone to subscribe to every service and source of information, this particular image was shared, on social media, with this image, which is striking:

Now to me, those numbers speak masses, and spark a really interesting conversation with regards to climate change, and the real cost of our transition to big data.

Now keep in mind that this, in the context of energy scarcity, is a key strategic perspective, regardless of where you sit on the political spectrum. Indeed, if Data is bigger than oil, the conversation about both data and energy is quite a substantial one.

Speak of the devil…

As I’m scrolling through my morning feed, I stumble upon this fascinating article from The Conversation.

Wether we’re talking about Human Rights or intellectual property, there is a big conversation to be had about how tech is already meshing with the very fabric of our lives, and where what begins.

We expect the tech sector to keep striving for new innovation, but are we ready to have the conversations that surround these innovations?

While innovations like Neuralink and Emotiv headsets are amazing, and breakthroughs in both what they are and what they do, how comfortable will we really be when the sector has grown to 24 billion$, by the end of the decade?

As the very discussions about AI privacy and copyright issues are barely emerging, it is clear and obvious that this new #technology will change our relationship to privacy, and it’s garanteed to be a very gray area, with a nuanced learning curve and a myriad of consequences.

Seeing how big platforms have been behaving, can we trust this tech? How? With which legal tools, or civic protections for the user?

Key questions that go well beyond the notion, and use, of a “terms and conditions” form that nobody reads, quite probably.

On the shoulders of giants

Nothing gets built overnight or in a day.

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Yes, we’re working on getting enterprise scale datacenters, and a slew of other innovations – But why argue with those who already have that?

Data is Everything.