prof @laws.ucl.ac.uk, technology, law, policy, society, whimsical latvian top level domain names. michae.lv and fediverse https://someone.elses.computer/@mikarv 🏳️‍🌈https://bsky.app/profile/michae.lvhttps://bsky.app/profile/michae.lv/post/3mlrasbclb422“It has not been a productivity booster at all, it feels like a speedrun towards severe mental exhaustion” https://www.404media.co/software-developers-say-ai-is-rotting-their-brains/13 May 2026 21:30 +0000at://did:plc:ujstglmdsoymx3t2yffcvgtm/app.bsky.feed.post/3mlrasbclb422https://bsky.app/profile/michae.lv/post/3mlnqw2gmfk2umore Hugging Face content moderation challenges — the model marketplace finds itself hosting infostealers disguised as legitimate models https://www.heise.de/en/news/Infostealer-on-AI-platform-Hugging-Face-disguised-as-OpenAI-repository-11290946.html12 May 2026 12:08 +0000at://did:plc:ujstglmdsoymx3t2yffcvgtm/app.bsky.feed.post/3mlnqw2gmfk2uhttps://bsky.app/profile/michae.lv/post/3mlnabn6e442gDigital Markets Act sees jump in alternative browser usage on Android and iOS due to choice screens, says Firefox https://blog.mozilla.org/netpolicy/2026/05/11/six-million-selections-later-how-the-dma-is-giving-people-browser-choice/12 May 2026 07:10 +0000at://did:plc:ujstglmdsoymx3t2yffcvgtm/app.bsky.feed.post/3mlnabn6e442ghttps://bsky.app/profile/michae.lv/post/3mlna2viqua2eCanvas pays presumably enormous ransom to end extortion of universities and schools — receives questionable promise that data has been deleted. Moodle less of a monoculture but unis must harden it, possibly rebuild from the ground up in something other than PHP… https://www.theregister.com/security/2026/05/12/double-canvas-intrusion-confirmed-as-shinyhunters-resets-leak-deadline/523836112 May 2026 07:06 +0000at://did:plc:ujstglmdsoymx3t2yffcvgtm/app.bsky.feed.post/3mlna2viqua2ehttps://bsky.app/profile/michae.lv/post/3mln7q2skhd2hAmazon employees race to automate non-essential tasks to expend tokens to impress managers on internal AI usage leaderboards. Great outcome, all. https://giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/actions/redeem/4965c8a3-169e-4815-bd1b-16f5e9a22e7012 May 2026 07:00 +0000at://did:plc:ujstglmdsoymx3t2yffcvgtm/app.bsky.feed.post/3mln7q2skhd2hhttps://bsky.app/profile/michae.lv/post/3mlklyutv5r2eMusk’s xAI rapidly appoints an EU representative for the DSA following Grok investigation, choosing an entity with an address in Estonia but no registered presence in the country. https://www.ftm.eu/articles/elon-musk-ai-company-basement-address @alexfanta.bsky.social11 May 2026 06:02 +0000at://did:plc:ujstglmdsoymx3t2yffcvgtm/app.bsky.feed.post/3mlklyutv5r2ehttps://bsky.app/profile/michae.lv/post/3ml6pkf5kcp2zreally useful primer on data, ai and trade law from @streinz.bsky.social https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/cambridge-companion-to-world-trade-law/conceptualising-data-and-artificial-intelligence-in-world-trade-law/1D280F68D70CFBA9E0171B8C15939BCF especially good if the issue comes up in teaching06 May 2026 12:33 +0000at://did:plc:ujstglmdsoymx3t2yffcvgtm/app.bsky.feed.post/3ml6pkf5kcp2zhttps://bsky.app/profile/michae.lv/post/3ml666e5lw62uif screen time isn’t a useful concept, who benefits from it? this new paper argues that it’s tech firms (shift the heat off their design), govs (doing something!) and researchers (£££) https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1461444826144471706 May 2026 07:23 +0000at://did:plc:ujstglmdsoymx3t2yffcvgtm/app.bsky.feed.post/3ml666e5lw62uhttps://bsky.app/profile/michae.lv/post/3ml5zmwtnzc2cA good start to a proposal for reviews, requiring authors of submitted papers to expend tokens to submit and earn them back through reviewing. Needs to be more radical though in light of AI slop: cap on total submissions, earn further at steep rate through reviewing. https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/377092106 May 2026 06:01 +0000at://did:plc:ujstglmdsoymx3t2yffcvgtm/app.bsky.feed.post/3ml5zmwtnzc2chttps://bsky.app/profile/michae.lv/post/3ml4yyxsvzk2t‘Going to the cloud’: renting servers, or integration of deeply proprietary services? “both options go by the same name, and orgs often slide from the first into the second without realizing the fundamental difference, until it’s too late” @ccs.bsky.social https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1369118X.2026.2645879#d1e22805 May 2026 20:17 +0000at://did:plc:ujstglmdsoymx3t2yffcvgtm/app.bsky.feed.post/3ml4yyxsvzk2thttps://bsky.app/profile/michae.lv/post/3ml3z4waq7c2k2 year research postdoc at UCL @laws.ucl.ac.uk on data and democracy, public law focus — could focus on surveillance and/or AI issues https://www.ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/search-ucl-jobs/details?jobId=43885&jobTitle=Research+Fellow+%28Data+and+Democracy%2905 May 2026 10:47 +0000at://did:plc:ujstglmdsoymx3t2yffcvgtm/app.bsky.feed.post/3ml3z4waq7c2khttps://bsky.app/profile/michae.lv/post/3mksadpg3ps2hIt seem that archive.today has been blocked at some technical level by an order by the Roskomnadzor — seemingly from laws cited not for piracy (these sites, and their .is and .ph domains, avoid paywalls) but under disinformation law — they are often used to document/subvert Russian media censorship.01 May 2026 13:29 +0000at://did:plc:ujstglmdsoymx3t2yffcvgtm/app.bsky.feed.post/3mksadpg3ps2hhttps://bsky.app/profile/michae.lv/post/3mksacwekks2uIt seem that archive.today has been blocked at some technical level by an order by the Roskomnadzor — seemingly from laws cited not for piracy (these sites, and their .is and .ph domains, avoid paywalls) but under disinformation law — they are often used to document/subvert Russian media censorship.01 May 2026 13:29 +0000at://did:plc:ujstglmdsoymx3t2yffcvgtm/app.bsky.feed.post/3mksacwekks2uhttps://bsky.app/profile/michae.lv/post/3mkrlxddkmj2imore backlash to scraping, this time to Common Crawl — a notoriously intransparent org for what they moderate (if they moderate, or eg remove csam) or what they include https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-04-30/news-organizations-push-back-against-web-archive-used-for-ai01 May 2026 07:25 +0000at://did:plc:ujstglmdsoymx3t2yffcvgtm/app.bsky.feed.post/3mkrlxddkmj2ihttps://bsky.app/profile/michae.lv/post/3mkrheqjy7z2xFirefox raises the alarm about Google’s attempt to build ‘Prompt API’ into Chrome-like browsers — de facto standardisation towards local Gemini models, required agreements to terms of use despite being local — a Chrome infrastructure play all over again? https://www.theregister.com/2026/04/30/mozilla_pushes_back_against_googles/01 May 2026 06:03 +0000at://did:plc:ujstglmdsoymx3t2yffcvgtm/app.bsky.feed.post/3mkrheqjy7z2xhttps://bsky.app/profile/michae.lv/post/3mkpolnfmap2uOn 'Claw Code' — after 8,100 DMCA takedowns by Anthropic of leaked Claude Code source, devs used OpenAI Codex to reimplement it — thus no clear copyright claim — and are now building on it https://github.com/ultraworkers/claw-code see also ipkitten.blogspot.com/2026/04/the-claude-code-leak-that-spurred-8100.html30 Apr 2026 13:06 +0000at://did:plc:ujstglmdsoymx3t2yffcvgtm/app.bsky.feed.post/3mkpolnfmap2uhttps://bsky.app/profile/michae.lv/post/3mkpobkhd3z2xThe techlash against AI amongst the young – early signs, but culturally something to watch. https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/920401/gen-z-ai30 Apr 2026 13:01 +0000at://did:plc:ujstglmdsoymx3t2yffcvgtm/app.bsky.feed.post/3mkpobkhd3z2xhttps://bsky.app/profile/michae.lv/post/3mkowsiutlc2xStill waiting for the AI Act advisory forum (Art 67), meanwhile the all important, de facto compulsory, privatised harmonised standards, made w/o democratic process (yet part of EU law), charge ahead. EC opines on their suitability without civil society input or views. https://edri.org/our-work/the-eu-ai-office-must-prioritise-setting-up-the-advisory-forum/30 Apr 2026 06:01 +0000at://did:plc:ujstglmdsoymx3t2yffcvgtm/app.bsky.feed.post/3mkowsiutlc2xhttps://bsky.app/profile/michae.lv/post/3mkmj6kd5hi22wired italia highlight that when spyware companies say they’re going to cooperate with understanding how their tools have been abused against journalists etc, they often go immediately AWOL before the ink on the press release is dry https://www.wired.it/article/paragon-spyware-risposte-indagine-italia-procura/29 Apr 2026 06:52 +0000at://did:plc:ujstglmdsoymx3t2yffcvgtm/app.bsky.feed.post/3mkmj6kd5hi22https://bsky.app/profile/michae.lv/post/3mkmfmkpbud2gquite interesting (if very partial) interview from the NSA Deputy Director during the Snowden affair. he says the quiet part out loud — that people didn’t understand how the FISA law relates to technology was itself an NSA capability https://www.darkreading.com/cyber-risk/nsa-chief-during-snowden-affair-13-years-later29 Apr 2026 05:48 +0000at://did:plc:ujstglmdsoymx3t2yffcvgtm/app.bsky.feed.post/3mkmfmkpbud2ghttps://bsky.app/profile/michae.lv/post/3mkmex7eeu22xBlind and partially sighted students struggle to use SPSS as IBM misleads universities about its accessibility. Yet another reason to purge it from the curriculum in favour of open source tools. https://www.pocklington.org.uk/education/education-policy/spss-access-denied/29 Apr 2026 05:36 +0000at://did:plc:ujstglmdsoymx3t2yffcvgtm/app.bsky.feed.post/3mkmex7eeu22xhttps://bsky.app/profile/michae.lv/post/3mklkpyaaw62hkeep an eye on the post office’s new scandal, the Capture software system accused of miscarriages of justice while Horizon was still just a twinkle in the behemoth’s eye https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366642366/Court-of-Appeal-rejects-Post-Office-Capture-case-delay-request28 Apr 2026 21:47 +0000at://did:plc:ujstglmdsoymx3t2yffcvgtm/app.bsky.feed.post/3mklkpyaaw62hhttps://bsky.app/profile/michae.lv/post/3mklh3vu7752vall cool and normal as SXSW use automated trademark takedown requests to censor criticism of their event and funding model. context free takedown is seemingly growing (as trust and safety budgets fall) despite more potentially context sensitive AI tools than ever! https://www.404media.co/sxsw-used-ai-powered-trademark-tool-to-censor-dissent-on-instagram/28 Apr 2026 20:42 +0000at://did:plc:ujstglmdsoymx3t2yffcvgtm/app.bsky.feed.post/3mklh3vu7752vhttps://bsky.app/profile/michae.lv/post/3mkldmvfcsy2zcontent liability in the UAE - lessons of warning to those who have or want to make broad brush communications offences (cough england and wales cough) https://www.wired.com/story/why-sharing-a-screenshot-can-get-you-jailed-in-the-uae/28 Apr 2026 19:40 +0000at://did:plc:ujstglmdsoymx3t2yffcvgtm/app.bsky.feed.post/3mkldmvfcsy2zhttps://bsky.app/profile/michae.lv/post/3mkla6xtkzw2ma useful reminder that some countries still *shut down the internet for a time* to stop people sharing exam papers… https://www.accessnow.org/campaign/no-exam-shutdown/28 Apr 2026 18:38 +0000at://did:plc:ujstglmdsoymx3t2yffcvgtm/app.bsky.feed.post/3mkla6xtkzw2mhttps://bsky.app/profile/michae.lv/post/3mkkagcyv7622quite fantastical decision of the polish supreme court; if consent to data processing given, little a DPA can do to query failures in data minimisation/purpose limitation. Consent, they say, is consent - as long as it meets consent’s conditions. But whenever does it? #EUDP https://doi.org/10.1093/grurint/ikaf09428 Apr 2026 09:10 +0000at://did:plc:ujstglmdsoymx3t2yffcvgtm/app.bsky.feed.post/3mkkagcyv7622https://bsky.app/profile/michae.lv/post/3mkk4byrgbe25south africa withdraws own government AI policy over hallucinated citations https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/south-africa-withdraws-ai-policy-due-fake-ai-generated-sources-2026-04-27/28 Apr 2026 07:56 +0000at://did:plc:ujstglmdsoymx3t2yffcvgtm/app.bsky.feed.post/3mkk4byrgbe25