"Anyone at an AI company who stops to think for half a second should be able to recognize they have a vampiric relationship with the commons. While they rely on these repositories for their sustenance, their adversarial and disrespectful relationships with creators reduce the incentives for anyone to make their work publicly available going forward (freely licensed or otherwise). They drain resources from maintainers of those common repositories often without any compensation. They reduce the visibility of the original sources, leaving people unaware that they can or should contribute towards maintaining such valuable projects. AI companies should want a thriving open access ecosystem, ensuring that the models they trained on Wikipedia in 2020 can be continually expanded and updated. Even if AI companies don’t care about the benefit to the common good, it shouldn’t be hard for them to understand that by bleeding these projects dry, they are destroying their own food supply.

And yet many AI companies seem to give very little thought to this, seemingly looking only at the months in front of them rather than operating on years-long timescales. (Though perhaps anyone who has observed AI companies’ activities more generally will be unsurprised to see that they do not act as though they believe their businesses will be sustainable on the order of years.)

It would be very wise for these companies to immediately begin prioritizing the ongoing health of the commons, so that they do not wind up strangling their golden goose. It would also be very wise for the rest of us to not rely on AI companies to suddenly, miraculously come to their senses or develop a conscience en masse.

Instead, we must ensure that mechanisms are in place to force AI companies to engage with these repositories on their creators' terms."

https://www.citationneeded.news/free-and-open-access-in-the-age-of-generative-ai/

Citation Needed · 2d“Wait, not like that”: Free and open access in the age of generative AIThe real threat isn’t AI using open knowledge — it’s AI companies killing the projects that make knowledge free

#AI #GenerativeAI #BigTech

**diesUndDasMitTassen** @Andreas_Sturm@mastodon.social · 1d

diesUndDasMitTassen @Andreas_Sturm@mastodon.social

Manchmal ist man sooo eingefahren, an Gewohnheiten gebunden, daß man nicht merkt, wie sehr sich die (Konsum)Welt verbessert.

Durch Wechsel auf #Linux & #grapheneOS für privat habe ich feststellen dürfen, wie gut sich #FLOSS für Privatpersonen entwickelt. Jahrelang ignoriert.

Durch Verzicht auf #amazon habe ich festgestellt, daß sich #Onlineshopping und #Kundenservice bei vielen kleinen Shops maßgeblich verbessert hat, während amazon nachlässt.

#unplugtrump #bigtech #gafam

**Mia’s Simulacrum** @m@lgbtqia.space · 2d

Mia’s Simulacrum @m@lgbtqia.space

Had enough of big tech browser corpos like Google (Chrome) or Mozilla (Firefox) collecting your data and selling them to Advertisers?

Then it is time to uninstall them and get yourself a Norwegian browser Vivaldi with 0 external investors!

https://vivaldi.com/

Vivaldi BrowserVivaldi Browser | Powerful, Personal and Private web browser

More from

Clayton Dewey

**Victor Hugo Kebbe** @factolvictor@dice.camp · 3d *

3d *

Victor Hugo Kebbe @factolvictor@dice.camp

@pluralistic I’m reading chapter 12 of Chokepoint Capitalism and it’s really sad to see how we are very far away from fair antitrust policies, especially now with an oligarchical government run by the Big Tech. It’s somehow disheartening.

#bigtech #monopoly #monopsony #uspol #ChokepointCapitalism #books #reading @bookstodon

“Chokepoint Capitalism: how big tech and big content captures creative labor markets and how we’ll win them back” book cover.

**ỉƶo** @izo@queer.party · 3d *

3d *

ỉƶo @izo@queer.party

"Queers raus aus BigTech! Wie wir den kollektiven Exit aus X, Meta, Google & Co schaffen"

25. März 18:30 Uhr Online-Seminar

https://lambda-online.de/event/queers-raus-aus-bigtech/

Lambda BundesverbandQueers raus aus BigTech! Wie wir den kollektiven Exit aus X, Meta, Google & Co schaffen | Lambda BundesverbandAllerallerspätestens seit dem der „mächtigste Mann der Welt“ mit dem reichsten IT-Mogul der Welt gemeinsame Sache macht und sie sich offen unter queerfeindlichen Bannern versammeln, ist glasklar: als Queers können […]

#queer #bigtech #meta

**entschwört.Berlin** @entschwoert_Ber@troet.cafe · 4d

entschwört.Berlin @entschwoert_Ber@troet.cafe

"Trump und die Tech-Oligarchen gehen mit maximaler Härte und Entschlossenheit bei ihrer feindlichen Übernahme unserer freien Medienordnung vor. Einen Vorwurf werden wir ihnen später nicht machen können – dass sie ein Geheimnis aus ihren Plänen gemacht hätten. Seit Jahren haben sie ihre Vorhaben transparent gemacht."

https://zeitung.faz.net/faz/medien/2025-03-12/c213feab1b70c6a33cb4ab49d60ac3b6/?GEPC=s5

zeitung.faz.netBedrohung aus dem Inneren ignoriert

#regulierung #digitalisierung #desinformation

**Stefano Marinelli** @stefano@bsd.cafe · 4d

Stefano Marinelli @stefano@bsd.cafe

One of the things I've been advocating for years - and where I want to raise my voice even louder - is the importance of owning your data. #OwnYourData

Over the past few days, I’ve come across two examples of how misinformation is causing immense damage, leading people to believe that there's no alternative but to hand over their data to big corporations, putting themselves entirely in their hands.

- A well-known lawyer, just before a meeting, warned about using Teams and its new "virtual assistant," which joins conferences before anyone else and transcribes everything. When I pointed out that it would be wise to use alternative tools (like Jitsi, for example, but there are others), he abruptly ended the conversation, saying, "We've lost this war. There's no alternative anymore."
That wasn’t the right moment for a detailed discussion, so I just noted that alternatives do exist - but if no one starts using them, and if we passively accept certain behaviors from certain companies, things will never improve for us.

- Just now, I received another one of those emails that hurt more in the heart than in the wallet: "Our e-commerce is taking off, so we’re moving it to Shopify to better manage our growth."
I replied, trying to explain that handing over a growing e-commerce business to a third-party company (right now, they have full access to their own server - meaning all their databases, data, etc., are under their control) means losing ownership of it. Prices could change at any moment, contract terms could shift negatively, and, worst case scenario, if Shopify itself faced issues (which seems impossible today, but think of giants like Kodak), they could lose everything. Of course, they’ll do what they think is best, but I feel obligated to warn them.

Luckily, others are making the opposite choice. But I keep wondering: since these big platforms aren’t exactly cheap, rather than "selling themselves" to them just for (potentially) fewer headaches, wouldn’t it be worth paying someone (not me, of course, but someone working exclusively for them) to handle these things - ensuring they retain full ownership of their business and their data?

#DataOwnership #Decentralization #BigTech

**Et Al** @EtAl@mastodon.world · 4d

Et Al @EtAl@mastodon.world

#DiscoElysium Litigator Launches $500 'Creative Immunity' Certs
https://isglitch.com/article/2025-03-12-disco-elysuim-litigator

An arcade game as a witness in court with "Insert $500 to testify" on screen.

#isGlitch #tech #techNews

**Aral Balkan** @aral@mastodon.ar.al · 5d *

5d *

Aral Balkan @aral@mastodon.ar.al

Tech bros are living, breathing embodiments of the false authority fallacy; claiming that their professed understanding of basic logic qualifies them to reason expertly upon every conceivable topic while conveniently ignoring a fundamental maxim of their purported core area of expertise: garbage in, garbage out.

#techBros #technofascism #BigTech

**Ellie Wondering** @elliewonders@mastodon.social · 5d

Ellie Wondering @elliewonders@mastodon.social

Hi, I’m Ellie.

I’ve jumped to Mastodon after realising (again) how toxic big tech is. Trump and Musk’s obsession with controlling social media sealed it—I miss when it was about connecting, not just a tool for the rich to twist public opinion.

I’ll post a little bit about politics (Carol Cadwalladr fan!) but also pretty pictures, my pet, and travel snaps. Looking forward to actual conversations—not just whatever the algorithm wants me to see.

#Introduction #Mastodon #BigTech

Replied in thread

**Giacomo Tesio** @giacomo@snac.tesio.it · 6d

Giacomo Tesio @giacomo@snac.tesio.it

@ramin_hal9001@fe.disroot.org

I think you are focusing too much on the US, while #FreeSoftware is an international movement.

I'd also argue that right now they are eroding their own global hegemony on a daily basis, which is good for all other democracies.

So I think that the free software movement shouldn't rely on the rules of an increasily marginal nation ready collapse in a civil war.

Having said that, if I were within the US, I'd totally agree with you in abstract, but I'd recognize that it's not going to happen (without winning said civil war) because of the grip #BigTech corporations have over the Congress.

@garbados@friend.camp @ramin_hal9001@fe.disroot.org