Being a global multinational sure is hard! Yesterday, World of Warcraft maker Blizzard faced global criticism after it disqualified a high-stakes tournament winner over his statement of solidarity with the Hong Kong protests — Blizzard depends on mainland China for a massive share of its revenue and it can't afford to offend the Chinese state.

In The Independent, Dora B writes about experiencing a growing and disturbing awareness that they were being shunned and excluded from their field of specialism. Dora eventually used the GDPR—Europe's recent law providing access to the data held on you by companies and institutions—to expose what was going on. — Read the rest

Politico shares an investigation into why the GDPR's lead regulator Ireland has failed to bring a single enforcement action against the big tech companies it is supposed to watchdog.

Politico:

Last May, Europe imposed new data privacy guidelines that carry the hopes of hundreds of millions of people around the world — including in the United States — to rein in abuses by big tech companies.

The European Union's General Data Protection Regulation is a gnarly hairball of regulation; on the one hand, it makes it virtually impossible to collect mountains of data and buy/sell/trade/mine it to a corporation's heart's content; on the other hand, it imposes a ton of expensive compliance steps on its targets like high-cost record-keeping, and it apportions liability to website operators whose advertisers are out of compliance with the regulation.

British Airways was outed by security researcher Mustafa Al-Bassam for telling passengers they couldn't help with delays and other problems unless they posted their personal information publicly to Twitter, in order "to comply with the GDPR."

Dolan Darker (YouTube) welcomes the world to the web of 2018.

Because of #GDPR, USA Today decided to run a separate version of their website for EU users, which has all the tracking scripts and ads removed. The site seemed very fast, so I did a performance audit.

May 25 is Towel Day, when fans of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy jokingly adorn a towel and praise the household item as if it prepares the owner for any sticky situation. Author Douglas Adams was a master of these tongue-in-cheek references to our modern existence, helping the reader (and listener) feel as if they might one day walk across their livingroom and into a silly, star-spanning adventure.

The European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) goes into effect this month and will completely overturn the way that businesses gather and circulate data about internet users.

TikTok illegally transferred user data to servers in China and Ireland's Data Protection Commission levied a €530 million (~$600 million) fine on it Thursday. Among the most significant breaches of the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) yet to hit the "find out" stage for big tech companies, the fine came with an order that the company take "corrective measures" to guarantee future compliance. — Read the rest

ChatGPT fabricated a horrific false story about a Norwegian man murdering his children, sparking a new privacy complaint that challenges AI companies' responsibility for their tools' hallucinations.

The AI chatbot generated a detailed but completely fictional account claiming the man (we aren't including his name here) had killed two of his sons and attempted to murder a third, resulting in a 21-year prison sentence. — Read the rest

The Australian government is planning to lock most children out of social media completely, backed by a general purpose age-verification system of the kind that can be put to other uses.

Australia is trialing an age-verification system to assist in blocking children from accessing social media platforms, as part of a range of measures that include some of the toughest controls imposed by any country to date.

The European Union's privacy regulator fined Meta, parent company of Facebook, 91 million euros for storing users' passwords in plaintext. It was a bug—sloppy, but not intentional—and they turned themselves in. The fine was for failure to implement "data protection by design and by default." — Read the rest

Clearview AI, one of the shadiest outfits in a sketchy business, is to be fined by Dutch privacy regulators over making and maintaining a database of nationals' faces without their knowledge or consent.

The Netherlands' Data Protection Agency, or DPA, also warned Dutch companies that using Clearview's services is also banned.    

Hookup app Grindr is accused of revealing users' HIV status in a lawsuit filed in London's High Court. The lawsuit claims that user data was shared with Grindr's advertisers via "covert tracking technology," identifies more than 650 claimants, and claims thousands of users were affected. — Read the rest

A Florida nurse who allegedly poisoned two cats and a pregnant dog faces three counts of felony animal cruelty and one of depositing poison in a public area. Polk County Sheriff's Office announced Thursday that they arrested Tamesha Knighten, 51, after the three pets were killed. — Read the rest

On May 1, 2023, Hayley Kiyoko, who Arts Sphere, Inc. has named as one of its "LGBTQ+ Heroes," included drag performers at her show in Nashville, Tennessee, defying the new Tennessee law that bans drag shows in public spaces, as well as orders from local law enforcement that she received during soundcheck before the show. — Read the rest

Andrew Wodzianski is a DC-area artist whose work often riffs off of nerdy pop cultural touchstones and ephemera. His pieces make references to comic books, 8-bit video games, monster movies, and tabletop gaming.

To celebrate the 35th anniversary of Star Trek: The Next Generation, September 28, 1987, he created pieces of meme-styled art that draw inspiration from the Star Trek coloring books and ship blueprints of his youth. — Read the rest

Jolyon Ralph created a guide to the rocks and minerals of Minecraft: "Have you ever wondered how similar the Minecraft resources are to rocks and minerals in the real world? Let's find out!"

"Wait," I hear you shout, "Dirt isn't a rock!"

For years, you've heard experts talk about having a solid VPN service to safeguard everything you do online. It's sound advice, especially when you consider what can happen if someone gains access to sensitive information, like your bank access details or online account logins. — Read the rest

In the late 1980s, Nancye Ferguson, then-wife of DEVO's Mark Mothersbaugh along with Bob Mothersbaugh, his daughter Alex, and then-DEVO drummer David Kendrick, formed Visiting Kids. Mark Mothersbaugh wrote some of the tunes and he and Bob Casale (Bob 2) produced their self-titled sole LP. — Read the rest