Big Tech Tracker

Tracking Big Tech & AI’s anti-democratic influence in U.S. politics. Exposing human, ethical, and environmental costs to shift power back to the people.

[Big Tech Tracker @TrackBigTech]

AI is the new AIPAC.

[Rosemary's Yimby @loomdoop]

This is how you regulate big tech.

[Big Tech Tracker @TrackBigTech]

STOP AI Data Centers!

[Sunrise Movement 🌅 @sunrisemvmt]

AI BILLIONAIRES THOUGHT THEY COULD STEAL OUR FUTURES AND YOUNG PEOPLE SAID ABSOLUTELY NOT!!!!

We hit the streets at the NYC AI Walkout to hear what high schoolers have to say about AI and the billionaires trying to control our futures.

[Food & Water Watch @foodandwater]

A win out of Pennsylvania: Archbald Borough Council *unanimously* rejected the Wildcat Ridge Data Center. Here's to all the local organizers who stood up for their community against Big Tech! https://t.co/dLOTiZDRNO

[Bernie Sanders @BernieSanders]

Mark Zuckerberg’s threat to leave CA if voters approve a 5% billionaire wealth tax was a bluff.

He’s not alone. Since Prop 40 was filed, CA gained 32 billionaires & billionaires in CA got $381 billion richer.

Yes. It’s time for a billionaire wealth tax. It starts in California.

[The Tennessee Holler @TheTNHoller]

“A gaping wound of earth” 🌎 😕

Google illegally knocked down 250,000 trees in Finland to build a data center. @nonewdatacenters

(From the Guardian)

[Ben Inskeep @Ben_Inskeep]

🏗️Indiana regulators have issued a draft permit allowing Amazon to expand its fleet of backup diesel generators by more than 400 at its New Carlisle data center campus.

Comments are due November 18.

The lack of environmental protection in our state is failing Hoosiers.

[Lina Khan @linamkhan]

As AI firms recklessly unleash hacking agents across the internet, longstanding cybersecurity vulnerabilities are being exploited with even greater ease and frequency.

Hackers who compromise accounts or expose sensitive data can upend people’s lives.

This is not happening in a legal vacuum, and businesses across sectors face real legal duties.

At @FTC we routinely brought lawsuits against firms whose lax data security practices led to major hacks, exposing people to identify theft, stalking, and serious data misuse.

1. AI firms that are unleashing hacking agents could be held liable for engaging in “unfair or deceptive” practices under the FTC act and state UDAP laws, as well as other statutes.

2. Businesses whose systems get hacked because they’ve failed to follow basic security protocols may also be liable for failing to implement reasonable safeguards. Bad actors may be the ones exploiting these vulnerabilities, but that doesn't absolve businesses from having allowed the vulnerabilities to persist in the first place.

Here is a list we published of some basic security vulnerabilities businesses have a legal obligation to patch up: https://t.co/nCy7z79sVZ

3. CEOs can also be personally liable for presiding over lax data security practices, as we held in our case against Drizly: https://t.co/KjRye8y9SY

4. Lastly, businesses that suffer hacks or breaches must alert any affected parties with clear disclosures that are timely, accurate, and actionable. Failing to disclose security breaches can also violate the law: https://t.co/kd4ds1idef

[Luiza Jarovsky, PhD @LuizaJarovsky]

🚨 Many have not realized it yet, but there is a new 'cybersecurity game' going on, and it's AI vs. AI.

Meanwhile, we humans, and our imperfect institutions, systems, platforms, and governance frameworks, remain exposed in the middle of the AI crossfire, trying to catch up with the speed of the AI cyber fight.

Today, malicious actors can already rely on AI to find and exploit online vulnerabilities at scale, which would enable them to hack into, access, and control protected databases, documents, personal data, networks, grids, and more.

Unless cyber defense capabilities improve at scale and at a pace similar to that of cyberattack capabilities, there could soon be a situation in which users, website owners, governments, and institutions, including schools, hospitals, power grids, and other systems relying on internet connectivity, will be left scrambling to find solutions while people suffer the direct consequences of the hacks and unauthorized access.

As I write this edition of the newsletter, another cyber incident has been reported, as @MadisonMills22 reported below: U.S. banks have discovered unauthorized third-party AI agents inside customer accounts. Some are attempting actions that appear independent of user instructions.

This situation was, of course, predictable.

Every report on AI risk has warned that we might reach a point where AI fuels cyberattacks and makes them much harder to control.

We have no choice but to address it and plan for the future.

The most important lessons from the PHP incident, and from cyber incidents we will likely experience in the coming weeks, go far beyond cybersecurity, and professionals across fields and industries should be aware of them: (...CONTINUES...)

👉 CONTINUE reading my article (and join my newsletter's 102,700+ subscribers) below.

[Common Dreams @commondreams]

"At a time when lawmakers claim the country cannot afford investments in families and communities, some of the most profitable corporations in American history are paying little or nothing in federal income taxes." https://t.co/dEj2gGBxKI

[Sacha Haworth @sachalouise]

injecting this into my veins

[Institute for Policy Studies @IPS_DC]

If poor and low-income Americans voted at the same rate as higher-income citizens, they could sway elections in every single state(!).

Low-income Americans must unleash this power — and politicians must give them a powerful, tangible enough vision to draw them to the polls.

[Big Tech Tracker @TrackBigTech]

"And it’s not only data centers. The public anxiety over AI and distaste for the billionaires developing it, as well as backlash over encroaching tech like surveillance cameras, has turned the tech industry into a ubiquitous villain this election cycle.”

@commondreams @guardian

[Connie Chan 陳詩敏 @conniechansf]

They have the money. We’ve got the many.

It was inspiring to be with hundreds of Bay Area young people, @RoKhanna and so many friends at last night’s Students for Solidarity town hall.

Let’s make our voices heard — vote by November 3!

[Big Tech Tracker @TrackBigTech]

Big Tech💰 = Blood Money🩸

[World BEYOND War @WorldBeyondWar]

A company's global influence extends beyond the products it sells. On October 23, #SayNoToBloodTech organizers are calling for peaceful demonstrations outside Apple Stores to draw attention to Apple's relationship with Israel!

[Johann Spischak @SDGMasterglass]

Apple acquires Israeli company behind genocide and ethnic cleansing technologies in Gaza.

Apple acquired the Israeli company https://t.co/ll4nrar4wV in a deal valued at $2 billion.

[Justin J. Pearson @Justinjpearson]

For two and a half years, my constituents and I have said that Elon’s SpaceXAI has been building and operating their data centers while illegally polluting our air. The political establishment said no they aren’t and that we need their tax money more than healthy lives.

Thread⬇️

[Big Tech Tracker @TrackBigTech]

🚨@GOP's Brent Taylor and Elon Musk are poisoning your community with massive data centers so they can profit.

🗳️ Justin is not bought by Big Tech and will make sure the economy works for hard-working Tennesseans not billionaires.

#TN09, the choice is clear. 🇺🇸

[Big Tech Tracker @TrackBigTech]

70% of all websites are affected by critical vulnerability. Attackers can breach sensitive data from usernames and passwords, to addresses, emails, purchase histories and more.

Instagram: @hemu_rahman

[QuitGPT @quitchatgpt]

Hey @JimmyGomezCA, your constituents want to know! Do you reject your endorsement from ChatGPT Super PAC Leading the Future???

Or do you just like their $$$ too much?

[Public Citizen @Public_Citizen]

The No Kings coalition issued an open letter to Mark Zuckerberg after their account was censored & locked out during the largest single-day voting activation in U.S. history.

Our co-president @Lisa_PubCitizen reinforces that No Kings refuses to be silenced.