Meta announced it will stop selling political, electoral and social issue advertising across its platforms (Facebook, Instagram, and Threads) in the European Union starting in early October 2025[^1][^2].

The decision comes in response to the EU's new Transparency and Targeting of Political Advertising (TTPA) regulation, which takes effect October 10, 2025. Meta called the rules "unworkable," citing "significant operational challenges and legal uncertainties"[^2].

The TTPA requires platforms to:

• Label political ads with transparency information
• Disclose who paid for ads and their costs
• Show which elections or referendums ads target
• Maintain ads in a public database
• Follow strict conditions for user targeting[^3]

Companies face fines of up to 6% of annual global revenue for violations[^2]. Google made a similar move in late 2024, also announcing it would stop serving political ads to EU users before the rules take effect[^4].

Meta emphasized that users can still discuss politics and politicians can share content "organically" on its platforms - they just cannot use paid advertising to amplify their messages[^2].

[^1]: Bloomberg - Meta to Stop Selling Political Ads in the EU, Citing Regulation

[^2]: AP News - Meta will cease political ads in European Union by fall

[^3]: Euronews - Meta halts political advertising in the EU due to 'unworkable' rules

[^4]: Economic Times - Meta to halt political advertising in EU from October

Privacy.sexy is an open-source privacy tool that helps users implement security and privacy best practices on Windows, macOS, and Linux operating systems[^4].

Key features include:

• Hundreds of customizable privacy and security scripts
• Free and transparent codebase
• Reversible changes if issues occur
• Web version requiring no software installation
• Desktop version with additional direct script execution capabilities
• Independent, portable scripts without cross-dependencies
• Extensive testing and community verification[^4]

The tool comes in two versions:

1. An online web version that runs without installing software
2. An offline desktop version with expanded functionality for running scripts directly[^4]

The project is built using TypeScript and Vue.js, with the desktop application created using Electron[^8]. All aspects of the application, including infrastructure and deployments, are open-source and automated through a system called "bump-everywhere"[^4].

[^4]: PrivacyTools - Enforce Privacy & Security Best-Practices on Windows and macOS

[^8]: Made with Vue.js - privacy.sexy - Tool to support privacy on Windows, macOS & Linux

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/33650112

Hey, everyone. If you're looking for a fresh privacy podcast, we recently started a new one called Signal Jam.

Here's a bit about why we made Signal Jam and what we're hoping to do differently.

We even have preliminary ways for you to participate in the project, which you can read about here.

Feel free to connect with us on Proton, Tuta, Signal, or here on Lemmy. Looking forward to your feedback and thoughts!

cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/8611451

Well-said about how the courts treat data privacy and doxxing.

Your thoughts?

It's a nice commentary / news video.

This is what is shown now when you have to verify

Here is another I found as well as the one I previously posted earlier

Copilot Vision is an extension of Microsoft's divisive Recall, a feature initially sort of exclusive to the Copilot+ systems with a neural co-processor of sufficient computational power. Like Recall, which was pulled due to serious security failings and subject to a lengthy delay before its eventual relaunch, Copilot Vision is designed to analyze everything you do on your computer.

It does this, when enabled, by capturing constant screenshots and feeding them to an optical character recognition system and a large language model for analysis – but where Recall works locally, Copilot Vision sends the data off to Microsoft servers.

According to a Microsoft spokesperson back in April, users' data will not be stored long-term, aside from transcripts of the conversation with the Copilot assistant itself, and "are not used for model training or ads personalisation."

In May 2020, Sacramento, California, resident Alfonso Nguyen was alarmed to find two Sacramento County Sheriff’s deputies at his door, accusing him of illegally growing cannabis and demanding entry into his home. When Nguyen refused the search and denied the allegation, one deputy allegedly called him a liar and threatened to arrest him.

That same year, deputies from the same department, with their guns drawn and bullhorns and sirens sounding, fanned out around the home of Brian Decker, another Sacramento resident. The officers forced Decker to walk backward out of his home in only his underwear around 7 am while his neighbors watched. The deputies said that he, too, was under suspicion of illegally growing cannabis.

When you imagine personal data stolen on the internet, like your address, phone number, internet history, or even passwords, you probably think of hackers passing it to identity thieves. Maybe you think of cops getting their hands on it in less-than-legal ways, or maybe an insurance company spying on its customers. But apparently anyone can buy this data, from a U.S. company, for as little as $50.

That company is Farnsworth Intelligence, an “open-source intel” startup from 23-year-old founder Aidan Raney. And it’s not being coy about what it’s doing. The company’s primary consumer-level product is called “Infostealers,” and it’s hosted at Infostealers.info. (Yup, what a URL.) According to an exposé from 404 Media, a simple purchase starting at fifty bucks can get you access to a searchable database of personal data from people all over the United States and the world.

cross-posted from: https://gregtech.eu/post/16189047