Europe

Chinese social media giant Bytedance was dealt a stinging blow last September when Ireland’s data privacy watchdog issued it a record $370 million fine over its failure to properly safeguard the personal data of children using its app TikTok. New corporate filings suggest that Bytedance expects more fines like this to come. The company has explicitly set aside $1 billion to cover future fines from European privacy regulators.

Bytedance has faced a barrage of lawsuits and investigations from regulators around the world over TikTok’s addictive design, handling of user data and lack of safeguards for teenage users. Only yesterday, the attorneys general of thirteen states and the District of Columbia filed separate lawsuits claiming that TikTok was designed to be used compulsively and had harmed children and teens as a result.

The $1 billion provision for future fines was revealed in corporate accounts for TikTok’s European operations filed this week with the United Kingdom’s Companies House. The accounts also showed that TikTok’s European revenues surged to $4.57 billion last year, up from $2.6 billion in 2022. Its losses have also nearly tripled to $1.3 billion in 2023, up from $512 million.

[...]

The scale of total fines and penalties facing TikTok on the European continent could be even larger than the $1 billion provision in its 2023 accounts. The European Commission opened an investigation into TikTok under the Digital Services Act (DSA) in February 2024. The European Union can fine companies up to 6% of global revenue for breaches of the DSA, or impose a ban.

This map shows the percentage of the population aged 0-17 years. In order to be able to identify differences within countries, the map shows the differences at a regional level.

Source: Eurostat

Are you surprised how many or how few children there are in a region in Europe?

https://archive.is/SolD7

cross-posted from: https://discuss.tchncs.de/post/19354113

Download the report (pdf)

[You need to register -it's free- for reading the linked article or you can use the link in 12ft.io.]

Concerns about China’s government gaining insight into the operations of foreign governments, segments of the economy, or citizens have been sufficient to cause the US House of Representatives to pass legislation requiring the sale of a social media platform or face a ban from US app stores. And a few experts have warned the European Commission of the risks entailed by Chinese state-owned companies owning infrastructure in the 27 member states. But oversight mechanisms the EU has put in place to guard against outside influence have not been enough to keep China's Cosco and CMG out of major European ports.

When Jacob Gunter, an economic analyst at the Berlin-based Mercator Institute for China Studies (Merics) heard about the 67 per cent controlling stake Cosco had managed to amass in Piraeus by late 2021, it set alarm bells ringing. “It seems bizarre to me that Cosco has managed to take complete control of a strategically located European port,” Gunter said. “Being dependent on a foreign power is always risky – we learned that after the Russian invasion of Ukraine,” when Moscow threatened to cut off its outsize share of the European energy supply in response to sanctions.

Shanghai-based Cosco owns 496 container ships and has 17,000 employees worldwide (including subsidiaries), which makes the state-owned company the fourth largest shipping company after Mediterranean Shipping Company S.A (Switzerland), A.P. Møller-Maersk A/S (Denmark) and CMA CGM (France).

Together with the Vienna Institute for International Economics, Merics was commissioned by the European Parliament to analyse Cosco and CMG’s acquisition strategies for critical infrastructure in Europe. Gunter found that state-owned companies’ interest in the Union is not limited to Greece. The 2023 report he co-authored determined that Cosco and CMG together have invested more than 9 billion euros just in the maritime infrastructure of member states, including the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Spain, and Greece.

Dissent is not tolerated in Vladimir Putin's Russia.

For years Kremlin critics have faced a host of laws which could be used against them, and since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine that toolbox of measures has swelled in size.

The laws target basic rights such as freedom of speech and freedom of assembly - even though they are enshrined in Russia's constitution.

The repressive nature of the punishments, often disproportionate to the offence, harks back to the methods of the old Soviet Union.

According to Natalia Prilutskaya of Amnesty International, the Kremlin uses laws to “legitimise repression”, partly by exploiting the vague wording of some Russian laws.

"This vagueness allows law enforcement structures to qualify basically any activity as a forbidden activity, or at least it makes it easier," Ms Prilutskaya says.

• Ilya Yashin is one of the most high-profile critics of the war to be convicted under this law. The former head of a Moscow disctrict council was given eight and half years in jail for a live stream on YouTube in which he urged an investigation into the murder of civilians in the Ukrainian town of Bucha.

• In April 2023, prominent opposition activist Vladimir Kara-Murza was sentenced to 25 years in jail on charges of treason and spreading "false information" about the Russian army.

• Russian-language tutor Raisa Boldova, 61, was handed a suspended one-year community service sentence for posting critical comments about attacks on civilians in Ukraine, including the bombing of the Mariupol maternity hospital.

• One man was fined for wearing blue-and-yellow shoes - seen as a violation of laws regulating political demonstrations.

• And a journalist from Vologda Region, Antonida Smolina, was visited by police after someone complained about photographs she had posted online showing her posing in a yellow coat against a blue sky.

The share of women in the European Parliament has decreased for the tirst time ever.

The newly elected European Parliament consists of 61.3% male, 38.6% female and 0.1% diverse MEPs. But what does it actually look like in the respective member states?

This visual illustrates the gender balance between female, male and diverse Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) in each member state.

Source: European Parliament

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/11683421

The EU has quietly imposed cash limits EU-wide:

• €3k limit on anonymous payments
• €10k limit regardless (link which also lists state-by-state limits).

From the jailed¹ article:

An EU-wide maximum limit of €10 000 is set for cash payments, which will make it harder for criminals to launder dirty money.

It will also strip dignity and autonomy from non-criminal adults, you nannying assholes!

In addition, according to the provisional agreement, obliged entities will need to identify and verify the identity of a person who carries out an occasional transaction in cash between €3 000 and €10 000.

The hunt for “money launderers” and “terrorists” is not likely meaningfully facilitated by depriving the privacy of people involved in small €3k transactions. It’s a bogus excuse for empowering a police surveillance state. It’s a shame how quietly this apparently happened. No news or chatter about it.

¹ the EU’s own website is an exclusive privacy-abusing Cloudflare site inaccessible several demographics of people. Sad that we need to rely on the website of a US library to get equitable access to official EU communication.

update

The Pirate party’s reaction is spot on. They also point out that cryptocurrency is affected. Which in the end amounts to forced banking.

#warOnCash

Archived link

The EU’s Consumer Protection Cooperation (CPC) regulators, who began their investigation after complaints from consumer watchdog groups, claim the company uses confusing language to explain how both the paid and “free” versions of Facebook and Instagram work and that its rollout pressured people to make a choice without enough time to consider how it would affect them. They also say that calling the ad-free versions of Facebook and Instagram “free” is misleading since it still requires users to consent to the use of their data for targeted ads.

Didier Reynders, EU Commissioner for Justice, says customers shouldn’t be “lured into” thinking they won’t see ads if they pay the subscription, or that it’s free despite the company profiting from their personal data. Companies must be transparent upfront about how they use user data, he added.

“Subscriptions as an alternative to advertising are a well-established business model across many industries,” Meta spokesperson Matt Pollard told The Verge in an email, “Subscription for no ads follows the direction of the highest court in Europe and we are confident it complies with European regulation.”

cross-posted from: https://awful.systems/post/1965658

Kind of sharing this because the headline is a little sensationalist and makes it sound like MS is hard right (they are, but not like this) and anti-EU.

I mean, they probably are! Especially if it means MS is barred from monopolies and vertical integration.

Archived link

"Hungary’s repeated uncoordinated steps to speak against EU unity must “have some formal consequences,” EU’s top diplomat Josep Borrell said.

Hungary chairs the rotating EU Council presidency until 31 December.

The step came after several EU member states said they would downgrade their participation in informal meetings planned in Budapest during Hungary’s EU presidency.

Some EU diplomats had even floated the idea of Borrell potentially calling the meeting symbolically in Kyiv, instead of Budapest. However, its backers remained in the minority.

Slovakia and Hungary have increased pressure on Kyiv after they said last week they had stopped receiving oil from Lukoil via Ukraine. Hungary receives 2 million metric tons of oil from the Russian group annually, around a third of its total oil imports, Hungary's foreign minister Peter Szijjarto said.

The two countries have initiated a consultation with the European Commission, he said, adding the Commission had three days to respond.

If the consultation procedure did not yield results, Hungary and Slovakia would take the issue to an international court of their choosing instead, he said.

The Ukrainian foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment, though the head of Ukrainian energy firm Naftogaz acknowledged a lack of oil from Lukoil.

Archived link

Preventing so-called technology leakage was top of the European Commission’s agenda when it in late 2023 named quantum technology as one of four critical fields it wanted to protect. Brussels has yet to publish a promised risk assessment, though, says Jeroen Groenewegen-Lau, Head of Program at the Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS).

Europe should also increase control over the export of critical components for quantum computers to China. All European countries should follow Spain, France and the UK in declaring these items dual-use, forcing exporters to apply for permits for components that can have military as well as civilian uses. As much equipment is too widely used for control through a dual-use lists, Europe should also add policy tools so that, like the US, it can restrict exports to companies and research institutions known to work against its interests.

Taking a clear stance on the risks of quantum technologies will also enable Europe to better compete in the field. More than in digital technologies like artificial intelligence, Europe is well positioned to profit from the technology’s power – optimizing flight routes or supply chains, simulating chemical and biological processes at the atomic level. Long-term investment in basic quantum research not only led to a Nobel Prize in 2022, but has spawned quantum valleys in München and Lower Saxony, a quantum delta in the Netherlands, and the “QuantAlps” around Grenoble, to name but a few clusters.

The persistent negative outlook among the Russian populace is most evident in their perception of the future. Even in the relatively prosperous year of 2019, 62% of Russians, according to the Public Opinion Foundation (FOM), felt that the country's situation was not conducive to life planning. But In the atmosphere of uncertainty and stress that has developed in Russia in the third year of the war, Russians avoid making plans for several years ahead or thinking about the future.

"This behaviour deepens the state of anxiety, especially if there are expectations of a negative outcome," writes Elena Koneva, sociologist and founder of ExtremeScan, a research organization.

According to ExtremeScan survey data from the autumn of 2023, the so-called "special military operation" came in third place among significant factors affecting respondents' personal lives, after health (their own and that of loved ones) and family income.

"Available research in Russia shows a significant increase in anxiety and depressed moods," Koneva says.

No future without an end to the war

Russian people want to believe in the future but they cannot, with respondents 35 years old or younger the most pessimistic, her research reveals. Those in the older age group tend to demonstrate optimism, though they admit that it is not based on facts but an unfounded belief in Russia's strength and luck.

"The experience of recent years shows that even if the bullet has been dodged for now, people should nonetheless prepare for a worsening of the situation in every sense," says Koneva.

"There are no factors militating for an improvement."

Archived link

The Kremlin’s policy of sending hundreds of thousands of Russian men, including many prisoners, to war in Ukraine with little to no training or equipment has had predictable effects back on the home front: numerous soldiers have committed violent crimes upon returning home, and the country reportedly has a critical shortage of psychologists trained to treat PTSD.

The Russian authorities have been reluctant to criticize these veterans, with Putin calling for them to become the country’s “new elite.” But according to inside sources, the Putin’s team is well aware of the risks the returnees pose and fears Russian society isn’t prepared to accept them.

The two strategic bombers crossed the border into Finland from Norway’s northern region. Over Lapland, they were met by three U.S. Air Force tankers and Finnish fighter jets.

“Today, Finland has implemented cooperation with the strategic bombers of the United States in the territory of Finland,” the country’s defense minister Antti Häkkänen said.

“It is a normal cooperation carried out in the territory of a NATO member country and it demonstrate the basic pillar of common defense and deterrence,” Häkkänen said.

Archived link

To outsiders, it may seem like an ordinary meeting place for Russian expats.

But German authorities are under growing pressure to close down the Russian House, amid concerns it is merely a front for Kremlin spies and propaganda purposes.

A senior figure in Germany’s opposition CDU party has warned that the centre is a front for “totalitarian” propaganda, and suspects it could be evading EU sanctions imposed after the invasion of Ukraine.

It could additionally serve as a “hub” for Russian agents according to Roderich Kiesewetter, the CDU’s crisis prevention spokesman and a former general staff officer of the Bundeswehr.