cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/21451335

Many presenters, including Taylor and Marc Morano of ClimateDepot.com, framed climate change as an anti-democratic, left-wing plot to consolidate global power, echoing conspiracy theories associated with recent Covid-19 measures.

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/46128382

https://archive.is/pHndN

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/46109509

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/21923465

The Ministry of Family and Social Policy argues this is necessary to protect Polish workers from unfair competition and to safeguard vulnerable immigrants.

Translation: we want to retain our whiteness.

Further context (in Polish): https://archive.is/LQlDe

Big Tech is facing increasing governmental attempts to challenge its monopolistic power. But Big Tech itself, as well as the law firms defending these behemoths from antitrust investigations, are recruiting former regulators through the revolving door, and with seeming impunity.

For example, law firm Monckton Chambers caught a real big fish earlier this month when it recruited Nicholas Khan KC, a member of the commission's legal service.

Khan has represented the commission in hundreds of cases before the European Court of Justice, including some of the most high-profile cases, such as the Google antitrust cases and the Illumina/Grail merger cases.

He won’t be a stranger to his new colleagues. Monckton Chamber has been involved in exactly the same competition cases from the other side of the aisle, defending corporate clients the commission has been investigating.

And Khan’s insider knowledge of how the commission carries out antitrust investigations is set to benefit his new employer. Monckton Chamber explicitly welcomes Khan’s “unmatched expertise of how the European Commission investigates infringements of EU competition law”.

Muslims across Europe are grappling with a “worrying surge” of racism that is being fuelled in part by “dehumanising anti-Muslim rhetoric”, the EU’s leading rights agency has said, as it published a survey in which nearly half of the Muslim respondents said they had recently experienced discrimination.

Published on Thursday by the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), the survey of 9,600 Muslims across 13 member states found that racism and discrimination threads through most aspects of their lives.

People reported children being bullied in school, inequalities in accessing job opportunities and prejudice when it comes to renting or buying homes.

https://archive.is/haF5d

Northvolt has been plagued by problems from incompetent management and poor safety standards to over-reliance on Chinese machinery, according to current and former workers at the cash-strapped Swedish battery maker.

Northvolt grew so fast in terms of employees and projects that processes were chaotic and management often incompetent, most of the workers said.

Since 2021 Northvolt has been involved in 47 workplace accidents involving chemicals classified as particularly dangerous by Sweden’s work environment authority, according to public broadcaster SVT.

As Big Tech’s market power grew, so did its political clout. Now, as the EU tries to rein in the most problematic aspects of Big Tech – from disinformation, targeted advertising to unfair competition practices – the digital giants are lobbying hard to shape new regulations.

Read the full report.

In 'The Lobby Network', Corporate Europe Observatory and Lobbycontrol offer an overview of the tech industry's EU lobbying firepower. For the first time, we map the 'universe' of actors lobbying the EU’s digital economy, from Silicon Valley giants to Shenzhen’s contenders; from firms created online to those making the infrastructure that keeps the internet running; tech giants and newcomers.

We found a wide yet deeply imbalanced ‘universe’:

• with 612 companies, groups and business associations lobbying the EU’s digital economy policies. Together, they spend over €97 million annually lobbying the EU institutions. This makes tech the biggest lobby sector in the EU by spending, ahead of pharma, fossil fuels, finance, and chemicals.
• in spite of the varied number of players, this universe is dominated by a handful of firms. Just ten companies are responsible for almost a third of the total tech lobby spend: Vodafone, Qualcomm, Intel, IBM, Amazon, Huawei, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook and Google spend more than €32 million making their voices heard in the EU.
• out of all the companies lobbying the EU on digital policy, 20 per cent are US based, though this number is likely even higher. Less than 1 per cent have head offices in China or Hong Kong. This implies Chinese firms have so far not invested in EU lobbying quite as heavily as their US counterparts.
• digital industry companies are not just lobbying individually. They are also collectively organised into business and trade associations which are themselves important lobby actors. The business associations lobbying on behalf of Big Tech alone have a lobbying budget that far surpasses that of the bottom 75 per cent of the companies in the digital industry.