> ## Content Index
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> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.
# Monthly Mosh Pit - Sep 26
- URL: https://blog.rebeltechalliance.org/monthly-mosh-pit-sep-26/
- Published: 2026-10-06T15:08:02.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-06T15:08:02.000Z
- Description: 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!
- Author: Patrick Leavy
- Tags: News
#### SUMMARY (click to open)
Hear ye, hear ye, hear ye! Strap in, rebels. Another lunar cycle of trust and safety being strategical realigned in the name of operational efficiency.
Advertising trackers have been assisting retailers in locating military personal while on active deployments. Not a problem though as more AI will fix that, obviously.
Palan-effin'-tir went and bought a politician. Tom Watson is currently lobbying the Labour party on behalf of Palan-effin'-tir in his new role as Senior Vice President of the United Kingdom. Hopefully these titles are as meaningless as they are in the finance industry.
AI extinction fears continue to swirl. Researchers resign and "whistleblow", but do they? Perhaps it's a psyop. Or is it? Who knows. Maybe AI just wants your clothes, boots and your motorcycle.
You didn't think that your favourite goblins of misinformation had a quiet month did you? Fear not, The Neglect Factory Formerly Known As Facebook kept on trucking. Frankly it needs a list:
\- apparently they hosted AI generated videos of adults beating children
\- ran adverts for malware
\- ran listings for endangered animal parts
\- have a new toy called Muse that helps strangers investigate other people's children
\- Oh don't worry, Muse also collects information about you that you told it not to. Just in case you were concerned about that
As always, it’s not all bad, and there was quite a lot of good news in September! Courts are making Big Tech answer awkward questions, campaigners are challenging data centres, schools are restricting generative AI and police forces and a supermarket are ditching Palan-effin'-tir. There’s even an app to warn you about nearby camera pervert glasses.
Enjoy the read, move to Signal, check what your devices are collecting, subscribe to Peter Geoghan's Democracy For Sale blog and then delete something. After all, you're a rebel aren't you?
# In the Big Tech cesspit
> OK it's time for some healthy anger... let's open up this pit, people!
## General
👆🏼 An analysis of Meta's Houdini trick in the court case last month ([YouTube video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUMUJgjDvU0)), and [a great article](https://www.techpolicy.press/eight-years-on-cambridge-analytica-scandal-catches-up-with-meta-in-santa-fe/) that gives you access to the verdicts against Meta this year: just shy of 10.5 million violations 😳
[Meta Is Allowing Horrifying AI-Generated Videos of Adults Beating Children to Go Viral on FacebookFacebook is hosting huge numbers of horrifying AI-generated videos of violent child abuse, and Meta is barely taking them down.FuturismJon Christian](https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/facebook-meta-ai-generated-violent-child-abuse)
👆🏼 Meta happy for AI generated child abuse videos to stay on Facebook. And it's from **hundreds** of accounts 🤢
[Rhino Horn, Leopard Skin and Tiger Claws Sold Openly on Facebook - bellingcatBellingcat uncovers a Myanmar wildlife trafficker linked to endangered species sales, prompting account removals by Meta, WeChat, TikTok and YouTube.bellingcatZiyu Wan, Foeke Postma, Environmental Investigations Team](https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2026/06/24/rhino-horn-leopard-skin-and-tiger-claws-sold-openly-on-facebook/)
👆🏼 Meta happy to let people sell endangered species items on Facebook. Wtf.
[Mother Horrified When Meta’s AI Scours Instagram and Facebook for Invasive Information About Her Young DaughtersKalie Robins shared a video of her and her daughter singing. Meta AI started prompting her to investigate information about her family.FuturismMaggie Harrison Dupré](https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/mother-horrified-meta-ai-family)
👆🏼 Meta's AI on Facebook made sure people can identify and find a person's young daughter. How much more of this do we need to document before people boycott Meta?
[Uncovering StreamRat: From Meta Ads to Full Device TakeoverThreatFabric researchers have uncovered StreamRat, a new Android banking trojan promoted to Spanish-speaking users through Meta and TikTok advertisements.ThreatFabric B.V.John Doe](https://www.threatfabric.com/blogs/from-meta-ads-to-full-device-takeover-uncovering-streamrat)
👆🏼 Meta happily promote malware via their toxic ads system.
---
Again, the US Military finds that leopards will eat your face: they now disable ad trackers on their devices because - [as we've been warning about for years](https://www.rebeltechalliance.org/rtbsystem.html) \- anyone can track your precise location from RTB data via data brokers. A good reason for you to start your Big Tech Walkout [with our free course](https://rebel-tech-alliance.cademy.io).
[Google brings in more than €2 billion per week in EU despite breaking competition law - People vs. Big TechOne year on from EU ruling it’s “big business as usual for Google” with Trump fears holding back action 4th September 2026, Brussels - Google generated anPeople vs. Big TechVanessa](https://peoplevsbig.tech/google-brings-in-more-than-e2-billion-per-week-in-eu-despite-breaking-competition-law/)
👆🏼 The EU is failing to enforce its own monopoly ruling against Google, who continue to rake in the cash in the EU.
staying with Google, the EU has fined them a pathetic €403m for GDPR violations. Their entire business model relies on constantly violating the GDPR, and this fine is just a rounding error (in a single month's accounts) for Google.
Australia proposes that social media algorithms should be optional. We agree.
[TikTok’s parental controls fail to protect children from suicide, self harm and eating disorder content - People vs. Big Tech\*\*\* Trigger warning: this article contains references to suicide, self harm and eating disorders. If you are affected by any of these issues, ways of accessingPeople vs. Big TechVanessa](https://peoplevsbig.tech/tiktoks-parental-controls-fail-to-protect-children-from-suicide-self-harm-and-eating-disorder-content/)
👆🏼 Study finds that TikTok disregards their own child guardrails and show them harmful material e.g. eating disorder and self harm material. This breaks both UK and EU laws. Please don't let your child use TikTok 😔
tech bros including Musk have been invited by Hegseth to establish the "future of war". 😔 That should worry you, even if you're not from the US
## Palantir
[Former Labour deputy leader Tom Watson joins PalantirPeer takes full-time position at the controversial company as it fends off pressure from both Andy Burnham’s government and Sadiq KhanThe GuardianRobert Booth](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/sep/18/former-labour-deputy-leader-tom-watson-joins-palantir)
👆🏼 The tech / politics revolving door keeps spinning. A leading UK government figure joins Palantir. Spoiler alert for October's edition of the Mosh Pit: he starts pressuring Labour politicians almost immediately about Palantir policy.
## Death tech, smart spies and facial recognition
👆🏼 Smart TVs found to be snooping on you without consent ([YouTube video](https://youtu.be/6IFVTcM28KA)). Classic datarape data economy... This was reported on [here](https://www.notebookcheck.net/LG-smart-TVs-caught-logging-audio-with-screen-off-and-snooping-on-local-devices.1391214.0.html). Many people don't know how data hungry smart TVs are, so read this, then
> *Check your TV's privacy settings*!
Cars are just as bad. Chinese electric cars are easy to hack, as this Australian experiment found. Equally scary: they demonstrate the sheer amount of data leaving the car almost constantly.
> *Check your car's privacy settings*!
Apple are about to make their Apple Watch creepier - always on eavesdropping audio summaries of conversations near you. The way they handle the data is pretty good, privacy wise, but it's the non-consentual aspect, a la Meta's pervert glasses, that is alarming.
[Trial of live facial recognition in London stations leads to a false positive and no arrestsFreedom of information request finds six-month trial cost £320,000, used almost 100 police hours and led to just one – incorrect – alertThe GuardianDaniel Boffey](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/sep/29/trial-live-facial-recognition-cameras-london-stations-false-positive)
👆🏼 facial recognition cameras aren't working well for the UK police. So why are they rolling it out so fast?
[](https://rebel-tech-alliance.cademy.io)
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:
[Big Tech Walkout courses ](https://rebel-tech-alliance.cademy.io)
## Age verification & Digital ID
[EU to limit access to social media before age of 15New “EU KIDS Act” would require TikTok and Instagram to create safer accounts for younger users.POLITICOPieter Haeck and Eliza Gkritsi](https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-to-propose-new-legislation-on-minors-protection-on-thursday/)
👆🏼 the EU is unveiling its EU KIDS Act soon, which would force age verification to everyone 😔 It will cover social media and AI companions, but it's not clear which platforms are caught by the new law. Either way it's a privacy fail.
## In the AI bubble
[Exclusive: US military had close call after using AI for false intelligence report, sources say | CNN PoliticsThe episode shows the risks of using this new, relatively poorly understood technology in the middle of the Iran warCNNKatie Bo Lillis and Zachary Cohen](https://edition.cnn.com/2026/09/18/politics/us-military-ai-false-intelligence-china-ship)
👆🏼 **the US almost started a war with China** in the spring due to bullshit hallucinated by AI 😳 Good thing the US isn't pushing their military to use AI more and more... oh wait, yes they are.
Anthropic are developing a "pre-crime" product, Minority Report style, to spy on activists who oppose AI 😳
[‘Doom Loop’: OpenAI and Microsoft Admits LLMs Are Destroying the Web and Built on Theft“Millions of people around the world will soon consider large models ‘hoovering up’ all their work to be an astonishing theft of unprecedented proportions.”404 MediaJason Koebler](https://www.404media.co/doom-loop-openai-and-microsoft-admits-llms-are-destroying-the-web-and-built-on-theft/)
👆🏼 in a copyright lawsuit it was revealed that a Microsoft executive said "Millions of people around the world will soon consider large models ‘hoovering up’ all their work to be an astonishing theft of unprecedented proportions" Yeah buddy, we know. But amazing to hear *them* say it.
[Meta’s Muse Is Better at Surveilling Than Helping MeThe Muse app continues Meta’s trend of opting users into data collection for AI training. It also nudges you to share your bank account, email, and passport information.WIREDReece Rogers](https://www.wired.com/story/metas-muse-is-better-at-surveilling-than-helping-me/)
👆🏼 Meta's AI agent app, Muse, has been downloaded 900,000 times and [surveils you on an epic scale](https://neuromatch.social/@jonny/117325356932250166) (<- that link is code-level proof), and isn't much use. [It accesses information that you forbid, and records audio without permission](https://www.inc.com/jason-aten/metas-new-muse-ai-agent-read-my-private-messages-i-never-asked-it-to/91408202). And its "calling" service has [been revealed to be humans in call centres](https://www.404media.co/meta-tests-muse-ai-agent-calls-that-are-actually-made-by-humans-in-a-call-center/) 😡 ffs. And then we find out [Muse scrapes your Apple messages even if you tell it not to](https://appleinsider.com/articles/26/09/28/metas-new-ai-agent-blatantly-ignores-users-permissions). Please boycott this awful company.
the revolving door keeps revolving. The UK's "sovereign AI" minister joins Anthropic (who make the Claude models) 🤦♂️
a reminder of where AI was used before any of us had heard of it: boosting Facebook's ad revenue at the expense of everyone's mental health. And a reminder that if you use Big Tech social media products you've been 'using AI' for years - auto-photo tagging etc - you just didn't know it.
---
### The AI doomsday resignations
> A collection of articles about the "AI has a 10% chance of killing us all by 2030" panic that kicked off in September
[More Anthropic researchers warn of AI’s perils but Musk dismisses ‘psyop’Insiders at the firm fear tech’s advancement could cause human extinction, while others are calling their declarations of concern a ‘setup’The GuardianJohana Bhuiyan](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/sep/10/anthropic-researchers-warn-ai-musk)
👆🏼 Musk weighs in on the "I'm resigning because the product I worked on is going to kill us all" hype. To us it all looks like a massive billionaire circle jerk. And Trump [says the safety fears are all a hoax](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cw980n0nd0qjo). He compares it to the "global warming scam". Look to who benefit$... And now [someone from Google Deepmind is resigning](https://www.techmeme.com/260915/p8#a260915p8)... They're probably all off to start up another AI firm 🤦♂️ The Intercept [says that](https://theintercept.com/2026/09/14/ai-doom-apocalypse-risk/) "Talk of existential risk is a highly convenient way to not address the already known harms produced by AI technologies overseen by fascist billionaires like Musk and Palantir CEO Alex Karp." OpenAI have said they haven't done enough on alignment to justify pushing ahead so fast, and [will publish details of dodgy model behaviour in real time](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/9/17/openai-reports-more-incidents-of-models-acting-deceptively). Note that [Nvidia bought HuggingFace right after the OpenAI hack](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cr4vnr5g1k7o). And not to be outdone, Google say that [Gemini hacked companies too](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c607l0k72rlvo). *Why are the CEOs of these companies not being arrested? Hacking companies is illegal.*
Before you panic about the Terminator coming for you, have a read of this article by Cory Doctorow where he explains [what happened during the Hugging Face hack](https://pluralistic.net/2026/09/12/god-in-the-box/#llms-are-fake). TL;DR it was partly due to a poorly designed sandbox, and partly due to the experiment design: unlimited compute resources poured into guardrail-free new models endlessly prompting each other until they succeeded in their task.
The reality today is that AI agents *are* powerful, and the methods used in the hack *were* disconcerting, so for balance [here's a podcast with Helen Toner](https://crooked.com/podcast/have-you-tried-unplugging-the-ai/)'s view on the risks (she used to be on the board at Open AI, and was one of those that tried to get rid of Sam Altman). Either way, 404 Media point out that in the meantime AI agents have a [100% chance of being annoying on the internet and ruining it for the rest of us](https://www.404media.co/theres-a-100-chance-ai-agents-are-already-ruining-the-internet/).
---
[Trump admin using AI to deny medical care for seniors in disastrous experimentVendors rolling out AI have an “incentive to deny as many claims as possible.”Ars TechnicaBeth Mole](https://arstechnica.com/health/2026/09/trump-admin-using-ai-to-deny-medical-care-for-seniors-in-disastrous-experiment/)
👆🏼 One of the most nefarious uses of AI is in insurance, and this report shows what a disaster (and accountability sink) it has turned out to be (for Medicare in the US).
OpenAI hacked the Australian health service, didn't tell them for three months, then casually emailed about it. Altman should be arrested.
**humans are reading your ChatGPT prompts for fine tuning**. Big tech AI is built on exploitation of poor workers to maintain the illusion of magic. And then there's the privacy consideration:
> *Never put personal info into a chatbot*!
[Google’s Emissions Climbed 48% Since 2019\. AI Is Why.Google’s emissions rose 48% since 2019, driven by AI energy demands, putting its 2030 net-zero goal under serious pressure.Gadget ReviewAnnemarije de Boer](https://www.gadgetreview.com/googles-emissions-climbed-48-since-2019-ai-is-why)
👆🏼 Google's emissions are rising rapidly so their net zero targets are dead. Their AI powered search results use 10x the energy of a normal search result. Just search normally - and not on Google, [use a better search engine](https://www.rebeltechalliance.org/search.html).
# It's not all bad!
And.... breathe....
[ICCL secures landmark precedent against Big Tech - EnforceLandmark ruling will reshape how Big Tech companies defend themselves in court for EU-wide GDPR class actionsEnforceJohnny Ryan](https://enforce.ie/digital-data/iccl-secures-landmark-precedent-against-big-tech/)
👆🏼 ICCL won an important victory in its case against Microsoft - they set a precedent where big tech cannot hide behind blanket denials when challenged on GDPR violations! The burden of proof is finally on them! We're big fans of ICCL - well done them! 🥳
we might see AI regulation in the US after all 🥳
the EU has designated OpenAI, Reddit & Roblox as 'gatekeepers' under the DSA (Digital Services Act) 🥳
UK org Foxglove have launched a legal case to challenge the build of a hyperscale data center in Cape Town. This follows their win in April to block one in the UK 🥳
[ZuckOff | Camera glasses detectorZuckOff listens for the Bluetooth advertisements camera glasses emit and tells you when a lens is in the room. Everything stays on your phone.Camera glasses detector](https://zuckoff.app/)
👆🏼 Someone has made an app that will ping you if there are any Meta pervert glasses nearby! 🥳
The Frankfurt District Court has now ruled: Meta is responsible for its platforms to remove fake profiles and advertisements. 🥳
[Data Broker Radaris Loses Domains in Privacy Fight – Krebs on SecurityKrebs on SecuritySkip to content](https://krebsonsecurity.com/2026/09/data-broker-radaris-loses-domains-in-privacy-fight/)
👆🏼 A large group of data brokers in the US have had their domain names repossessed in a New Jersey court case. A rare look into the murky world of data brokers 🥳
[The largest US school districts restrict student AI use • StatelineThe country’s two largest school districts — New York City and Los Angeles — banned most student use of artificial intelligence in classrooms for this school year as anxiety over AI’s effect on learning intensifies.StatelineRobbie Sequeira](https://stateline.org/2026/09/08/the-largest-us-school-districts-restrict-student-ai-use/)
👆🏼 the schools of Los Angeles and New York have banned the use of generative AI by students. This will help prevent them churning out lazy smooth brain students 🥳
[Revealed: Five police forces to drop Palantir surveillance tool - Liberty InvestigatesPalantir’s UK policing ambitions take a hit as East Midlands forces end their involvement in controversial data pilotLiberty Investigates](https://libertyinvestigates.org.uk/articles/palantir-police-drop-nectar-surveillance-tool-east-midlands/)
👆🏼 5 UK police forces ditch Palantir 🥳
[Coles to end data analytics work with PalantirFuture platform choice unclear.iTnewsJuha Saarinen](https://www.itnews.com.au/news/coles-to-end-data-analytics-work-with-palantir-628693)
👆🏼 large Australian grocery chain Coles has ditched Palantir after a petition gathered 86,000 signatures 🥳
---
# Call to action!
A friend of ours made this great website to help people finally move away from WhatsApp: *Please send this URL to people you know*, and tell them that it's a short list of Meta's horror stories, and show's why Signal is much better.
[Rebel Tech AllianceEnrol in our world famous Big Tech Walkout courses! They’re free, and they’ll enable to you break free from big tech’s surveillance and control. About Us Rebel Tech Alliance is a non-profit whose main objective is to stop Big Tech spying on us and monetising our personal data. We do this by undermining the creepy targeted ads business model they use: Surveillance Capitalism (aka the Surveillance Economy, or the Attention Economy). And we do that by helping you switch to using different tech that doesn’t support that data-hungry business model. You can achieve this with our Big Tech Walkout programme. Why switch? Because Big Tech have become too rich to have to change. Too big to jail. There is a dark side to their addictive recommendation algorithms and the surveillance economy that you many not have realised: at scale they lay the foundations for a surveillance state and threaten democracy itself. And now AI is making all that much worse…Rebel Tech Alliance logo](https://rebel-tech-alliance.cademy.io)
👆🏼 While you're in action mode, sign up to our free online course 'The Big Tech Walkout' that will lead you step by step through ditching Big Tech products!
# Tech tip of the month
[FramaDate](https://framadate.org/abc/en/) \- a handy site for settling on a time/date that everyone can do. Similar to Doodle, this makes it easy to find out when everyone is free. And it's open source!
# Book recommendation
[Prophecy](https://www.awesomebooks.com/book/9780385552776/prophecy/new) \- the excellent new book by Carissa Veliz. She is a philosophy professor at Oxford university and writes about privacy. This book will open your eyes to how algorithms and AI are used in modern life and how prophecy is a power play.
# Blog recommendation
[Democracy For Sale](https://democracyforsale.substack.com/) \- this is a great blog led by Peter Geoghan that focuses on fact checking what politicians and tech bros are up to. In the same vein as Media Lens, they ask the hard questions.
# Film recommendation
[The Social Reckoning](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The%5FSocial%5FReckoning) \- this film is the follow up to 2010's The Social Network, and is [opening in cinemas this friday](https://www.odeon.co.uk/films/the-social-reckoning/HO00009472/) (9th October). Put your money where your mouth is and show the studios you care about digital privacy: go and see this film in the cinema!
---
[Rebel Tech Alliance](https://www.rebeltechalliance.org/) 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 turnreduces the surveillance state. And that's just good news all round.