Monthly Mosh Pit - Mar 26
Big Tech news is horrifying, but don't be angry about it every day. Instead focus your rage in the mosh pit once a month 🤘🏼 with our news roundup, then get back to your life!
Summary
March proved that the tech‑giants’ darkest practices are finally being dragged into the courtroom. In a Mexican court case, Meta was forced to pay $375 million after an undercover operation proved its platform caused child‑harm. A day later, a landmark verdict against Meta, Google, Snapchat and TikTok found their products addictively damaging to minors, giving a legal foothold to anyone harmed by “designer dopamine”. Both have echoes of the Big Tobacco trials in the 90's. Jump to those news items in this article by clicking here.
Whistle‑blowers have now confirmed that Meta, TikTok and X knowingly amplify toxic content to boost share prices—a story detailed in the BBC’s Inside the Rage Machine documentary. Meanwhile, U.S. Customs exploited real‑time‑bidding ad data to track citizens, and the Department of Homeland Security funded AI‑driven surveillance, pushing the nation further toward a surveillance state. Meanwhile the Iran war weaponises AI further, with AI causing Minab but via a typical human trait.
Big Tech’s product hype is also unraveling: Meta shut down its $80 bn Horizon Worlds VR project and is stripping end‑to‑end encryption from Instagram, while Google continues to rig search results and rewrite headlines with AI.
Palantir deepened its grip on public data, securing a cosy trial contract with the UK’s FCA and feeding ICE alongside Thomson Reuters data.
Amid the gloom, there were real wins. The EU Parliament voted down “Chat Control,” safeguarding encrypted chats; a NYC hospital cancelled its Palantir contract; a Dutch court ordered Meta to offer a chronological feed alongside its algorithmic one; and the UK has opened a three‑month public consultation on protecting children online. Grassroots tools now alert you to nearby Meta surveillance glasses, and an open‑source investigation exposed Meta’s lobbying for age‑verification laws.
In the Big Tech cesspit
March was a doozy for big tech horrors, so let's open up this pit, people!
Major court cases news
1️⃣ Meta - https://kancelaria-skarbiec.pl/en/meta-newmexico-trial/ Meta trial in Mexico - they ran an undercover op to prove the child harm to minors, and that Meta allowed in on purpose. RELATED: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cql75dn07n2o Meta ordered to pay $375m from this trial.
2️⃣ Meta, Google, Snapchat, TikTok - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c747x7gz249o just a day later the verdict from this trial also goes against Meta, but this time includes other social media giants Google, Snapchat and TikTok. A 20 year old proved that the addictive nature of their products harmed her mental health in the years prior (i.e. when she was still a child). Is the tide finally turning against the social media companies? Or will we just see 2018-style outrage and then everyone goes back to sleep scrolling?
General
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cqj9kgxqjwjo?ref=dispatch.the-citizens.com whistleblowers reveal that Meta, TikTok and X know how toxic their algorithms are, and ignore it to boost profits.
IMPORTANT: watch the accompanying BBC documentary Inside The Rage Machine https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002sw4z
Related: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cqj9kgxqjwjo Whistleblowers say that Meta and TikTok forced them to allow harmful content via the algorithm - to boost share price 🤦♂️
https://www.404media.co/cbp-tapped-into-the-online-advertising-ecosystem-to-track-peoples-movements/ US Customs control taps into RTB (Real Time Bidding) data for people's location. We have been warning you!
Related: the article above about Thompson Reuters in the Palantir section.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/mar/15/hacked-data-homeland-security?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other And the DHS in the US is funding companies that can expand its surveillance capabilities with AI. Full speed to a surveillance state!
https://www.wired.com/story/meta-is-shutting-down-horizon-worlds-on-meta-quest/ proving that every new product push is just hype to cover more surveillance, Meta have shut down their Big thing - VR worlds ($80 Billion spent) - in favour of pouring crazy money into AI ($140 Billion so far, and plans to spend about $120 Billion in 2026 😯).
https://cybersecuritynews.com/instagram-end-to-end-encryption/ Meta are removing E2EE in Instagram messages from May. Because they want to read them, or centralise all your messaging in WhatsApp for more coherent data harvesting (for their advertising profits, and for the government security services).
https://www.wired.com/story/google-ai-searches-love-to-refer-you-back-to-google/ Google search is rigged in favour of.... Google. No real surprise, if you know what Google are really like, but chilling to see how they still try to squeeze websites of traffic to boost their own ad profit via search.
https://www.theverge.com/tech/896490/google-replace-news-headlines-in-search-canary-coal-mine-experiment Google using AI to change article headlines. A reminder that, if you use their products, big tech controls how you see the world.
https://www.euractiv.com/news/metas-ad-model-still-violates-eu-tech-rules-say-consumer-groups/?trk=feed_main-feed-card_feed-article-content Meta 'pay-or-ok' ads model is still in violation of DMA, despite a €200m fine for this in 2025. Further proof that they just don't care and fines are just a cost of doing business. The only way past big tech is to ditch them.
Paedotech
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2026/02/meta-abortion-ai-chatbot-leak-teen-info-ban/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email and on top of that (harming children) they are censoring info on abortions to teens - most likely bowing to pressure from the Trump administration's hardline Christian nationalist staff.
https://www.politico.eu/article/netherlands-grok-x-ban-generative-pictures-penalties/ Dutch court says they can't be sure that X's measures to stop the nude images and child porn being generated by Grok would be effective, so they have threatened fines and bans for each transgression.
Death tech, smart spies and facial recognition
https://spectrum.ieee.org/digital-surveillance you knew smart devices are spyware, right? It's worse now... This article promotes the e-book Your Data Will Be Used Against You - recommended.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2026/mar/26/ai-got-the-blame-for-the-iran-school-bombing-the-truth-is-far-more-worrying Minab has been blamed on AI but was actually older data input wrongly by humans. And humans chose to rip quickly through that data using AI, without checking. It's death tech with no sense check.
If you take part in The Big Tech Walkout then the issues in these newsletters will not affect you so badly. Start now, it's fun and easy, and can be done at your own pace:
Age verification & Digital ID
https://www.hrw.org/news/2025/09/17/brazil-passes-landmark-law-to-protect-children-online Brazil’s Digital ECA came into effect 17th March 2026. Will require age gating - and it looks like it's at the OS level, even Linux 😒 And it's not only Brazil, but California, Colorado and New York states, so it's an unwelcome trend. Other links for this: https://www.demarest.com.br/en/eca-digital-entrada-em-vigor-em-17-de-marco-de-2026/ & https://www.montaury.com.br/pt/digital-law-in-brazil-current-hot-topics-brazil-s-digital-eca-and-its-impact-on-the-technological-ecosystem
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c20qwz9xzr9o Apple's latest update to iOS requires all users to send their ID to America. OS level age verification is not mandatory under UK law.
Palantir
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/mar/22/palantir-extends-reach-into-british-state-as-it-gets-access-to-sensitive-fca-data (or https://archive.is/FatCf to avoid pay-or-ok) Palantir get access to the UK's Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) data. It's a "a contract to investigate the watchdog’s internal intelligence data in an effort to help it tackle financial crime". There was only one other competitor for the contract, so it smacks of corruption.
Circumstantial evidence of that corruption: https://broligarchy.substack.com/p/the-broligarchys-war-on-journalism Palantir get free techwashing PR from the Observer - for their police product.
https://www.404media.co/how-thomson-reuters-powers-ice-and-palantir/ In the US, it's revealed that ICE and Palantir get data on citizens from Thompson Reuters. TR are both a media company and a data broker (!) This further underlines why you should never let your data get out in the first place.
But there's some good news - https://theintercept.com/2026/03/24/palantir-new-york-city-hospitals-contract/ a NYC hospital cancelled their contract with Palantir 🥳
Big Tech vs democracy
https://peoplevsbig.tech/x-and-tiktok-algorithms-favour-the-far-right-at-the-expense-of-moderate-parties/ investigation finds that TikTok and X push content more from far right, divisive parties in Europe just before voting for elections. No big surprise but it's good to have proof.
In the AI bubble
https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/grammarly-pulls-down-expert-review-feature Grammerly pulled the ability to mimic famous writers without their permission. Which is good, but why was this a feature in the first place?! Now they are being sued by writers
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clyg4wx6nxgo AI toys for toddlers? Big Tech wants your kids.
YouTube link - Sam Altman "Intelligence as a utility" OpenAI see themselves as a utility company. Having stolen it, they rent intelligence back to us. We've been warning about this: #rentintelligenceOwnIgnorance
https://www.securityweek.com/hackers-weaponize-claude-code-in-mexican-government-cyberattack/ Hackers use Claude Code to build a workflow that stole masses of Mexican government data. When privacy meets security.
https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/899850/openai-sora-ai-chatgpt OpenAI shut down Sora, their bullshit video app. It was there long enough to advertise that people can now flood the internet with realistic deepfakes, and to raise money in Sam Altman's never ending scam.
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/03/30/climate/data-centers-are-having-an-underrported Study finds that data centres dramatically increase the temperature of the area around them. So the eco problem with them is not just electricity and water use.
If you take part in The Big Tech Walkout then the issues in these newsletters will not affect you so badly. Start now, it's fun and easy, and can be done at your own pace:
It's not all bad!
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/landmark-consultation-seeks-views-on-major-measures-to-protect-children-on-social-media-gaming-platforms-and-ai-chatbots The UK gov is holding a three month consultation on what to do about social media. Add your views to it. Deadline is 26 May 2026. Our view is to make the social media platforms change their product to be safer, not to ban them outright (because the latter punishes us, the public, and imposes surveillance-encouraging age verification, whilst the SM platform don't have to do anything).
https://privacy4cars.com/aboutus/ this organisation now exists to help people avoid the surveillance that is so common in modern cars
https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/historic-chat-control-vote-in-the-eu-parliament-meps-vote-to-end-untargeted-mass-scanning-of-private-chats/ the EU Parliament voted against Chat Control! This is huge - it means encryption in chat and social media app is safe (for now) from governments trying to put surveillance back doors in.
https://github.com/upper-up/meta-lobbying-and-other-findings someone has built an open source investigation into Meta! The website for it is https://tboteproject.com/ By crowd sourcing the evidence they've shown that Meta massively lobbied to get age verification instated - because it facilitates surveillance (Meta's business model).
https://techcrunch.com/2026/03/02/nearby-glasses-new-app-alerts-you-wearing-smart-glasses-surveillance-meta-snap-bluetooth/ someone made an app that tells you if anyone nearby is wearing Meta surveillance glasses. Be warned about nearby creep freaks!
https://www.bitsoffreedom.nl/2026/03/10/court-again-rules-in-favor-of-bits-of-freedom-freedom-of-choice-for-instagram-and-facebook-users-remains-intact/ Dutch court rules that Meta must provide a chronological feed too, as a choice alongside the surveillance one (i.e. the algorithm driven recommender feed)
https://youtu.be/Cn8HBj8QAbk Karen Hao got some mainstream airtime on DOAC. Karen wrote Empire of AI, as listed in our books section, and it's great that she's getting primetime exposure.
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/03/26/meta-lawsuit-decision-zuckerberg-woes.html the two lawsuits that found against Meta this month (see above) resulted in their stock value going down by 8% - and stock value is ALL they care about 😄
If you take part in The Big Tech Walkout then the issues in these newsletters will not affect you so badly. Start now, it's fun and easy, and can be done at your own pace:
Tech tip of the month
A great, and private (E2EE), solution for sending large files to people is Wormhole. It's better and easier than WeTransfer, or using email or Signal, and it's free. For files up to 5GB they are stored on Wormhole's server (encrypted) for 24 hours. For files larger than that they use P2P technology (device to device) so both of you have to be online at the same time.
Check out our site for other Big Tech alternatives: https://www.rebeltechalliance.org/stopusingbigtech.html
Book recommendation
Privacy is Power, by Carissa Veliz. Of all the books that help convince you to take data privacy seriously, this is the most accessible. It is written in layman's terms and from a philosophy perspective, rather than a tech one.
Blog recommendation
The Citizens are a fantastic non-profit dedicated to fighting Big Tech dystopia. Their blog, The Citizens Dispatch, provides a concise weekly update of the most important things going on in this space. Enjoy (and consider a paid subscription to support their work)!
Film recommendation
Two documentaries: a recent one, Inside The Rage Machine (on BBC iPlayer) and an old one (2017) Nothing To Hide (on YouTube). These are an amazing combo that show you how things have changed (or not) over the last 10 years.
Rebel Tech Alliance is a non-profit dedicated to getting as many people off big tech products as possible. Why? Because that reduces screen addiction and the surveillance economy, which in turn reduces the surveillance state. And that's just good news all round.
