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The United Kingdom generates less electricity per person than in the 1970s
Globally, electricity generation per person has grown by more than 50% this century.
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The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 4,917 posts.
Society, Policy & Culture
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32
Nobel Peace Prize for 2026 to Navanethem Pillay
The Nobel Peace Prize 2026 was awarded to Navanethem Pillay "for her efforts to promote peace and international law"
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Across the Globe, People Increasingly Say Social Media Is Harming Democracy
Most think social media leads to manipulation and division, but they also say it informs people and gives them a voice in politics.
34
Toronto-Based VPN Provider Plans to Quit Canada over Lawful-Access Bill
Psiphon, a software company that helps internet users under oppressive regimes evade online censorship, plans to leave Canada if the lawful-access bill passes.
35
Denmark data breach exposes 8.8M people's personal data
Det Centrale Personregister (CPR) har konstateret en alvorlig sikkerhedshændelse. Ved at misbruge en dansk virksomheds lovlige adgang til at søge...
36
In Ukraine, distributed renewables foil Russia's assaults
In an easterly suburb of Mykolaiv, drinking water flowed from kitchen taps, as it has since last year thanks to a small off-grid solar field tucked inconspicuously into its midst. Paul Hockenos reports.
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An algorithmic failure beneath the secret ballot
The secret ballot is one of the load-bearing walls of democracy. In Georgia, as in most states, this allows you to know whether your neighbor voted, but never who they voted for. Yet, in multiple states including Georgia, that guarantee is actively at risk.
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Court agrees with EFF: Utah's VPN law demands a technical impossibility
In a win for digital rights, a federal judge has issued a preliminary injunction blocking Utah’s SB 73, the state’s draconian anti-VPN age verification law. The decision comes as EFF submitted our comments to the Utah Department of Commerce, detailing how forcing platforms to detect and block privacy-preserving tools…
39
DraftKings is using AI to behaviorally target chronic gamblers
Online sports betting company DraftKings is using AI to target customers who are most likely to place losing bets and respond to gambling promotions. This kind of targeting is a form of online behavioral advertising, which is when companies personalize the ads they show you based on the data they’...
40
Armada: Encrypted, Open-Source, Discord Alternative (Built on Nostr)
A free, open source, end-to-end encrypted Discord alternative: servers, channels, voice, and moderation, with no company in the middle. Now in open beta.
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Unsealed Briefs in Authors’ Case v. Microsoft/OpenAI
(New York, September 21, 2026) Explosive new documents released last Thursday in Authors Guild v. OpenAI—the major book authors’ ongoing lawsuit alleging OpenAI and Microsoft illegally trained their products on copyrighted books—show that executives and employees at both companies intentionally […]
42
Dutch governments builds alternative for Microsoft based on NixOS
DAWO.community, working together on a digitally autonomous workplace for the Dutch government.
43
F-Droid 2.0
After more than a year of hard work, we are thrilled to announce the launch of F-Droid 2.0, a complete redesign of the official F-Droid app and the largest a...
44
Seattle City Council votes to ban surveillance pricing in sale of groceries
If signed, Seattle will become the first city in the nation to prohibit the pricing tactic Seattle, Washington – The Seattle City Council today passed…
45
An update on how we confirm your age group on Discord
We’re launching a revamped, privacy-focused age assurance solution including methods that won’t require an ID or selfie. Here’s how it works.
46
9 Ads per Minute: FIFA Cup 26 – "the price of the beautiful game"
More than 93,000 visible appearances of brands promoting unhealthy food and drink, alcohol, gambling and speculative products were recorded during coverage of the largest FIFA World Cup in history, new research has found. Unhealthy food and drink brands accounted for more than seven in ten, with 65,722 appearances.
47
Suspension of the de minimis administrative exemption for imports $800 or less
The DRUGS Act (‘Domain Reform for Unlawful Drug Sellers Act, H.R. 6352 & S.3399) is legislation that would rob you and millions of Americans of daily medications that keep them healthy and alive. Worse yet, the legislation is backed by Big Pharma front groups.
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US Revokes Limits on Power Plants' Climate Pollution
Pollution and steam are seen rising from the stacks of the Miami Fort Power Station along the Ohio River, in North Bend, Ohio, on July 23, 2026.
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Second Circuit allows government to search electronic devices at the border
NEW YORK—The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit today held that border agents may search travelers’ electronic devices without suspicion. The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (RCFP) submitted an amicus brief in the case, arguing that…
50
CCC invites all model citizens to 40C3
The word is on the street: the Chaos Computer Club is hosting 40C3 from 27 to 30 December 2026 – Europe’s biggest hacker party, conference and platform for technology, society and civil liberties. We understand the Congress to be a huge shared stage and therefore invite you to help shape it. The Call for Participation…
51
ER visits for gambling disorders doubled after expanded online gambling market
ER visits for gambling disorders doubled after single-event sports betting was legalized and Ontario's online gambling market expanded.
52
Negativland, Culture Jamming, and the Art of Making Something New
In 1980, Negativland released its first self-titled album with handmade covers and distributed it through a few record stores in the California Bay Area. “We thought we might sell 100 in the next five years, and we sold all 500 in three months. So we kept going,” said band co-founder Mark Hosler of the experimental
53
An update on Wayback Machine access
We've heard you: "Fix the Wayback Machine!" Here's what's going on. The Internet Archive's Wayback Machine has been hit by waves of high-volume automated traffic, and we've put protections in place to keep the service running. One recent change: we rewrote the message you see when a request is blocked with a 429 error…
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Let's make quality the norm again
A more circular economy is not only important for the environment. It can also strengthen consumer rights and improve societal resilience. In this report, we show how consumer policy can make circular choices easier, safer and more attractive for consumers.
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Silicon Valley is transforming the military-industrial complex? (2024)
Anthropologist Roberto González (Professor, San José State University) examines how America’s military-industrial complex has been rapidly expanding from the Capital Beltway to Silicon Valley. Although much of the Pentagon’s budget is spent on conventional weapons systems, the Defense Department has increasingly…
56
What will our economic future look like?
The Anthropic Economics Team models the effects of AI on the economy of 2030.
57
Harvard study predicts most suicide attempts a week in advance
Researcher Matthew Nock pioneered the technique of using smartphone technology to survey high-risk adults and adolescents in real time. In a new study, Nock and his team report using the technology to predict 75 percent of suicide attempts in the week before they occurred.
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PISA 2025 Students' reading and mathematics performance declined across the OECD
Student performance across OECD countries has continued to decline, reaching the lowest average ever recorded by the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) in mathematics and reading. Across the OECD, one in five 15-year-old students is now a low performer in science, mathematics and reading, up…
59
There's a new "Google Jail" for independent wikis
Big week! We just finished moving the Overwatch and Fortnite wikis off of Fandom. It’s still my favorite thing in the world to help wiki editors grab control of their projects and make them awesome (and not covered with a dozen auto-playing video ads!)
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Keep Our Servers Running
“Universal access to all human knowledge is within our grasp. Our job is to put the best our world has to offer within the reach of our children.” —Brewster Kahle, Internet Archive Digital Librarian Every time you search the Wayback Machine or explore a collection at the Internet Archive, you are accessing a global…