Palantir loses legal challenge against Swiss investigative magazine

Accessing the article / archive.today debate

• Multiple comments focus on trouble resolving archive.ph; workarounds include using archive.is or other TLDs.
• Some attribute failures to ISPs “censoring” the site; others say archive.is is the misbehaving party.
• Several warn against using archive.today at all, citing Wikipedia guidance: claims it injects DDoS code using visitors’ browsers and tampers with archived pages; ad-blockers reportedly mitigate some behavior.

Paywalls, archives, and funding journalism

• One side argues that paywalled articles and subscription “dark patterns” are what drive the use of archiving sites; they prefer one-off article purchases.
• Others respond that major news subscriptions are relatively cheap and that readers should “just do without” if they won’t pay, since journalism isn’t owed for free.
• Counterpoint: it isn’t one subscription but many across outlets, which adds up, similar to how fragmented streaming revived piracy.
• Several urge directly supporting investigative journalism (subscriptions, donations, buying merch) rather than treating information as free.

Palantir in Europe and surveillance concerns

• Commenters highlight that some European officials want to reduce dependence on US tech like Palantir, though one claims Denmark is actually expanding use (including Greenlandic police integration).
• Others note German police expanding Palantir use, while some call for building European alternatives; skeptics say Europe routinely “talks big” but underdelivers, though firms like Mistral and Stackit are cited as counterexamples.
• Many express strong hostility to Palantir, calling it a “cancer” and rejecting its presence in Europe or the US, linking it to expanded surveillance and loss of local control over data.

LotR naming, symbolism, and tech ideology

• Extensive discussion revolves around the Tolkien reference: palantíri in the books often provide true information that nonetheless leads users (Denethor, Saruman, even Sauron) to disastrous strategic decisions.
• Many see “Palantir” as an ironically poor or revealing name for an intelligence/decision-support company.
• Some argue the choice signals a shallow or warped reading of Tolkien, or even an embrace of an authoritarian, technocratic worldview (with references to positive views of Mordor/technology and alternative retellings like The Last Ringbearer).
• Detailed lore debates cover who can safely use palantíri (rightful kings vs stewards), how Denethor was corrupted, and Tolkien’s attitudes to monarchy, power, and industrialization.

Palantir leadership, politics, and trustworthiness

• A clip of the CEO describing Trump’s election as a “landslide” is cited as evidence that Palantir functions more as propaganda than serious analytics, undermining confidence in its strategic value.
• A long subthread discusses the CEO’s reported shift from progressive views to alignment with right-wing populism; explanations offered include pursuit of money or power as the real ideology.
• Others broaden this to criticism of “anti-woke” branding and the idea that much tech-sector progressivism was superficial “woke capitalism” that disappeared when inconvenient.
• Some argue the US is drifting toward a hybrid, more authoritarian regime; others say such figures should simply not be platformed.

General sentiment about the case and company

• Many celebrate Palantir’s legal loss against the Swiss magazine and mention a potential “Streisand effect,” though some also see it as a waste of judicial time.
• A link is shared to the Swiss outlet’s full investigative dossier on Palantir.
• Palantir’s self-description as privacy- and democracy-focused is widely mocked in the thread.
• One anecdote from a 2014 job fair describes a company representative deflecting questions about intelligence work and emphasizing NGO projects, which the commenter took as evasive and off-putting.