That is a trend clearly heading in the wrong direction.

There is a new analysis regarding on the top 10 countries with the most widespread and invasive use of facial recognition:.

The UK is gaining ground, but China is clearly leading before Russia and the UAE.

1. China = 5 out of 40: It’s little surprise that China tops the list with it being frequently quoted as the largest purveyor of facial recognition technology. Its government and police use the technology extensively and often with invasive surveillance tactics. For example, police in some parts of Liaoning Province are reportedly making North Korean defectors download a facial recognition app so they can send daily selfies every morning. This is being done in a bid to prevent them from traveling to South Korea. And children don’t escape the privacy-threatening technology, either, as schools frequently use the tech to see how attentive students are. If the children appear unfocused, this is then reflected in their grades.

2. Russia = 8 out of 40: Russia’s appearance toward the top of the list is perhaps no surprise, either. With facial recognition evident in all of the categories we covered, Russia is another country that’s turning toward facial recognition in many different areas. Mass surveillance in Russia has been expanding at an exponential rate since the Ukraine invasion. Over the last few years there have been numerous examples of protestors being arrested through the use of FRT. They include Andrey Chernyshov, who was arrested numerous times at the metro station in Moscow throughout 2023 after protesting against the Ukraine war. Last year, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) also ruled that Russia’s use of FRT to arrest a protester in 2019 (also traveling on the subway in Moscow) was unlawful.

3. The United Arab Emirates = 9 out of 40: As with many of our top 10 countries, the UAE is rolling out facial recognition across many areas to help “speed up processes” and “eliminate fraud.” From using the technology to gain access to government services and public transport to registering attendance at schools, its use across the UAE is widespread. The police in Abu Dhabi had their patrol cars upgraded to include FRT in a bid to help them identify “suspicious and wanted people.”

4. The United Kingdom= 11 out of 40: Rising from 11th to 4th place this year is the United Kingdom. The country has seen a rise in biometric surveillance across four categories. This includes the worrying growth of FRT in the government and by law enforcement, including the introduction of live facial recognition bodycams by a number of UK police forces. The technology is increasingly used schools and on trains. A recent report from Network Rail highlighted how travelers using a number of stations, including Manchester Piccadilly, London Waterloo, and London Euston, as well as smaller stations, had their faces scanned for the last two years with Amazon AI software.

5. Brazil, Chile, India, Japan, and the USA = 12 out of 40: All of these countries have some use of FRT (or FRT is in discussion) across all of the categories we studied […]

6. Australia and North Korea […]

7. Mexico […]

8. Argentina and South Korea […]

9. France, Hungary, Malaysia, and Canada […]

10. Philippines and Taiwan […]

[Edit typo.]

This is unfortunately not limited to Germany but a global disease.

According to a Unicef study published a few weeks ago, one in eight women or girls alive today around the globe experienced rape or sexual assault before the age of 18.

A newer UN Women study on femicide—the most extreme form of violence against women and girls— says that globally, 85,000 women and girls were killed intentionally in 2023. 60 per cent of these homicides –51,100- were committed by an intimate partner or a family member. The data shows that 140 women and girls die every day at the hands of their partner or a close relative, which means one woman or girl is killed every 10 minutes.

That a huge problem across all continents, countries, and cultures.

No, not every user is a tankie there. I perfectly agree with that. Many users are unaware when they join the server.

But those who are responsible there are the same or at least have the same mindset like the Bear and Grad servers.

They are not back, they have never been away. And it’s not just the hedge funds but also the regulated banks that gamble with such risks (although the former hold much more assets).

There is a good analysis from May 2024. Among others, it says:

According to financial data at the [U.S.] Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC), as of December 31, 2023, JPMorgan Chase held $3.227 trillion off-balance sheet, of which $528.5 billion is undefined and marked as “other.” To put that in perspective, $528.5 billion is the size of the assets of the seventh largest bank in the United States and yet the public has no idea what the $528.5 billion off-balance sheet at JPMorgan Chase is made up of or what kind of risks it presents.

The article also deals with possible solutions. One major issue would be to prohibit deposit-taking banks from merging with investment banks, a measure that has been introduced in the U.S. as a response to the Great Depression in the 1930s and was ditched in the 1990s. The U.S. must urgently reintroduce such a law, and Europe and the rest of the world must follow.

So it’s the only community that is openly supporting genocide, right? That’s obvious I guess.

This is largely part of what Ukraine has been initiating in the late 2010s as the article suggests, and there is more to come by the EU.

EU launches Call for EU business to invest in Ukraine’s recovery and reconstruction

At [the] first “European Union - Ukraine Investment Conference” organised by the EU and the Government of Ukraine in Warsaw, Poland, the EU launched a Call for Expression of Interest to mobilise private EU investment in critical areas to support Ukraine’s rebuilding efforts.

Under the Call, EU businesses, including joint ventures, or consortia involving both EU and Ukrainian companies, are invited to submit proposals until 1st March 2025. Proposals will be reviewed and connected to the best suited investment projects funded the Ukraine Investment Framework, which is an integral pillar under the EU’s €50 billion Ukraine Facility. By encouraging business partnerships and EU private sector engagement in Ukraine’s recovery and reconstruction, the EU also helps further integration of Ukraine into the EU Single Market.

Addition: There are comprehensive analyses on Ukraine’s post-war reconstruction, its involvement of the Ukrainian people and civil society, and Ukraine’s future EU membership by the Bankwatch Network for those interested.

So what does that mean? If .lm communities openly support Russia’s war in Ukraine, is it a ‘stance of absolute moral superiority’ to condemn this because the same happens elsewhere? (It should be a matter of course, but just to mention it: We must condemn genocide everywhere, no matter where it happens.)

What the Russian government inflicts on Ukraine is atrocious but not entirely unparalleled.

What does that mean? The aggressor here is Russia, they started the war unprovoked. What exactly is ‘unparalleled’?

My point is there’s a social component to defederating that’s likely a bit bigger than just shutting out Russia/China enjoyers.

I have to disagree. It’s not just this community’s “West bad, Russia/China bad okay” hypocrisy and the fact that they convey their narrative and their narrative only (everything else gets immediately blocked, while they accuse others literally of ‘double standards’). One of my main points is that they support Russia’s war in Ukraine, which is a genocide. It’s the only community that openly supports an attempted genocide.

[Edit typo.]

Yes, they are more subtle in parroting propaganda, but they block everyone who is only slightly critical of China/Russia. They are the same people.

@ashley0_0@lemmy.blahaj.zone This puzzles me, too. That instance is a cheap propaganda instance that has been banned by Reddit some time ago for a good reason. I don’t know why we don’t defederate.

OPCW Investigation Confirms Russia’s Likely Use of Chemical Weapons Against Ukraine – (Archived)

Russia’s consistent denials that its military forces have deployed illegal chemical weapons in Ukraine were dealt a serious blow on November 18, when the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) announced that it had recently conducted a Technical Assistance Visit to Ukraine and established evidence of chemical weapons use. While the OPCW stopped short of attributing responsibility to Russia, a growing body of evidence points to numerous Russian chemical weapon attacks against Ukrainian front-line troops in violation of the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention, to which Moscow is a party.

The original OPWC report is here.

Other related news say that More Russian regions prepare bomb shelters amid fears of Ukrainian ATACMS strikes – (Archived)

We have news like this from Europe. In 2024.

This is not what I meant. It is, of course, a matter of production and the political framework for it. What I mean is that -in addition to that- we should have more transparency across supply chains. And China is one of the countries which opposes this transparency.

It’s not just Amazon, it’s also Temu, Shein, and the Chinese shops in that context as the article suggests. The numbers would be a bit different if there would be more transparency in supply chains and we could assign emissions -also- where they are consumed and not ‘only’ where they are produced. But this needed more transparency how and where these products are produced.

Why is it that some people frequently say something that Ukraine has ‘signed treaties’, or ‘the West must not cross red lines’ …

All this without naming the aggressor in this war which is Russia. Russia permanently violates airspace of Poland, Romania, Moldova. Russia deploys sabotage activities in multiple countries across Europe, in the North Sea, the Baltic Sea, espionage activities in the Irish Sea. Russia gets decisive support by China in its war in Ukraine. North Korea is sending troops. Iran has been sending drones.

What consequences should that have on the compliance of treaties by countries, @drolex@sopuli.xyz?

@NaibofTabr@infosec.pub No, investing your money into your own hardware and software isn’t protectionism. That’s obviously the right thing to do, even more so with regard to the current geopolitical landscape.

Breivik wore a dark suit, white shirt and brown tie. Both sides of his head were shaved to form the letter “Z”.

The letter “Z” has been a symbol of support for Russia’s war in Ukraine and Breivik on Tuesday described Russian President Vladimir Putin as “the foremost defender of Europeans globally”.

I also agree. He doesn’t appear to be serious about getting parole …

How is that ‘protectionism’ if you develop your own technology to gain independence? As someone already wrote in this thread, Europe can support Open Source projects, decentralization. That’s good for everyone.

This is basically the same what China does to non-Chinese companies in China, although Beijing has a lot more protectionist rules than Europe or almost any other bloc or country.

This is just a pilot, and the rules will be refined as the article also says. It will mean a tougher stance towards China forcing them to play by the same rules. It is simply what China is doing.

The requirements, while at much smaller scale, echo China’s own regime, which pressures foreign companies into sharing their intellectual property in exchange for access to the Chinese market. The criteria could be subject to change ahead of the tender, officials said.