Substack data breach.

Curious re: who is using paid ads to shape your thinking re: politics & social issues on Facebook & Instagram? We've an app for that. PoliDashboard Unveils 25 New Country-Specific Dashboards, Advancing Global Transparency in Political Advertising on Meta Platforms. socialmedialab.ca/2026/02/04/p...

My family was imprisoned behind barbed wire and armed guards by our own government. Not for what they did. But because of who they were. I was born in that internment camp. My family history lives with me every day. It drives me to fight for my neighbors—for their rights and for their dignity.

Machines decide faster than humans can supervise. With AI agents on the rise, Virgilio Almeida, Fernando Filgueiras and Ricardo Fabrino Mendonça call for "polycentric governance"—distributed human oversight through sandboxes & auditing—to keep agents accountable.

My position at The Post was eliminated, along with many other journalists of color hired after the 2020 racial reckoning.

great people. great news. thousands of pre-sign ups to eurosky from just a few posts on here to raise awareness - shows the huge pent up demand for open social media. rtft

American-made munitions have played a significant role in Israel’s operations in Gaza. Bellingcat has collated scores of incidents where the remnants of US-made munitions have been found in the aftermath of Israeli strikes. Read here: www.bellingcat.com/news/2026/01...

ohhh ‘democracy dies in darkness’ was aspirational

Tethered drones can also be used to provide emergency cellular connectivity after disasters. unmannedsas.com/tethered-dro...

Since people are worried about this: I analyze the use of small drone tech in both peace and conflict for a living. I believe there is simply very little strategic reason for US law enforcement to use kamikaze FPV drones (like those in Ukraine or Gaza) for internal purposes at this time.

Please send me any photos, videos, or reports of ICE, Border Patrol, and DHS using drones that you come across!

I’m going to share some posts from amazing Wpost reporters who lost their jobs today. I’m regularly jealous of Nitasha’s reporting and know from my days at BuzzFeed that she is a wonderful and generous colleague.

"European security officials believe two Russian space vehicles have intercepted the communications of at least a dozen key satellites over the continent."

Is the misogyny of big tech bug - or feature? @beccalew.bsky.social, on Silicon Valley's decades long fight against the “pussification” of tech.

Your smartwatch, Ring doorbell, and Alexa monitor your most intimate moments, with data just a warrant away from the authorities. In @techpolicypress.bsky.social's episode, Andrew Guthrie Ferguson talks about his upcoming NYU Press book, "Your Data Will Be Used Against You."

Most of the Washington Post’s tech reporters were laid off today, including me. I have loved my time at the paper, which is where I wanted to work from age 15. I take some consolation in not being among the survivors who will have to work harder with less for fewer readers. On to better things.

New from 404 Media: the FBI has been unable to get into the iPhone of raided Washington Post journalist because the phone had Lockdown Mode enabled. Apple markets Lockdown Mode mostly to stop spyware like NSO. Here, a real world example of it stopping access too www.404media.co/fbi-couldnt-...

Last week the story was that TikTok censored anti-Trump/ICE/Pretti videos after the U.S. ownership change. We investigated with a large set of US TikTok data and found some interesting results, short thread...

My story on Elon Musk cutting safeguards at xAI is on the front page of today's @washingtonpost.com. I’m also among 100’s of reporters laid off. I absolutely loved my job my brilliant coworkers & the thrill of reporting @ the center of forces upending the world: AI & Silicon Valley’s political power

I wrote some words for TechCrunch about how Homeland Security is using administrative subpoenas, which aren't subject to judicial oversight, to seek data from tech giants about Trump critics and anonymous accounts of ICE trackers. Featuring really great reporting by Bloomberg & Washington Post.

Floored by this story. A man wrote a pollite email to a federal prosecutor objecting to the deportation of an Afghan seeking asylum. DHS responded with an administrative warrant to get the man's info from Google, then visited his home to intimidate him.

In two weeks, world leaders and tech executives will descend on Delhi for the AI Impact Summit 2026. There, power brokers will paint a pretty picture of the role AI will play in saving the world - from sharing prosperity to fixing climate change.

Significant mass atrocity risk in #SouthSudan, w/violent, ethnicised rhetoric from military leaders. www.ohchr.org/en/press-rel...

Spyware maker is hijacking diplomatic efforts to limit commercial hacking, civil society warns | The Record https://therecord.media/spyware-maker-pall-mall-process-reputation

Looking for tools to detect AI deepfakes? A hands-on collection of methods and tools for identifying deepfakes and other AI-generated content and and verifying digital media. deepfakestracker.org/digital-fore...

La Russie a lancé sa plus grosse attaque de drones et missiles depuis le début de l'année, laissant des milliers de personnes sans chauffage par des températures glaciales, à la veille de négociations destinées à mettre fin à quatre ans de guerre. ➡️ u.afp.com/S2gs

DHS said that the woman CBP shot in the chest in Portland was “involved” in a gang shooting. Her ~involvement~ was that suspected gang members sexually assaulted and robbed her.

A retiree wrote this email to a DHS attorney. Within five hours, DHS demanded Google turn over records for his account. A Kafkaesque form of domestic surveillance, intimidating Americans for lawful speech. New from us at the Post: www.washingtonpost.com/investigatio... @johnwoodrowcox.bsky.social

We're getting a lot of questions about Signal group chats, and how to use them as safely as possible. Share widely: freedom.press/digisec/blog...

Media coverage of Gaza has plummeted. So today on @thenation.com, we're doing something pretty special: we're only running pieces by people in and from Gaza. We're calling it "A Day for Gaza." You can find links to all of the incredible pieces here. Please read! www.thenation.com/article/worl...

ICYMI, I legitimately think this is one of the most interesting interviews I've ever conducted!

The incredible @mahsaalimardani.bsky.social !!

I believe NSO Group has one goal: Bring Pegasus spyware to America. They're trying to create the perception that they are a reformed company. But they just got caught trying to hijack diplomatic efforts to whitewash Pegasus spyware 1/

“Rand Hammoud, the surveillance campaigns lead at Access Now, said Pall Mall leadership needs to set up “clear criteria for industry engagement … to protect the credibility of an initiative that depends on good faith participation.” therecord.media/spyware-make...

ICYMI: Yesterday we published the results of a survey of 100+ security researchers and journalists asking about the legal and criminal threats they face for doing their jobs. A very interesting takeaway: While legal & criminal threats are common, most of our respondents *did not* give in to them.

Kudos to @thenation.com for this.

The ICO has opened formal investigations into X and X AI LLC (X AI) covering their processing of personal data in relation to the Grok artificial intelligence system and its potential to produce harmful sexualized image and video content. ico.org.uk/about-the-ic...

"The French offices of the social network X, owned by Elon Musk, were raided on Tuesday, February 3, the Paris prosecutor's office announced." www.lemonde.fr/pixels/artic...

The idea dates back to ancient Greece, when three warring kings — Iphitos of Elis, Cleisthenes of Pisa and Lycurgus of Sparta — are said to have signed a treaty allowing the safe passage of athletes and spectators from their city-states to the Olympic Games.

Campbell’s analysis showed that the Edge tool (used by the Belgian police) was not fit for purpose, had produced significant errors, and did not produce evidence to the standard required for criminal trials. www.computerweekly.com/news/3666384...

We’ve long gone from the age of data about you being obtained in targeted, human rights based lawful investigations , to data about you being obtained en masse to trawl for individuals/communities of interest & law being abused & human rights being dismissed

Banning #MSF bc they won't put their own workers at risk of being surveilled, detained, or killed by Israel. What callous disregard for humanitarian principles & human life... Remember this when Israel claims it doesn't impede food or aid. bbc.com/news/article... #Gaza

NEW: The developer of the long-running and popular open source text editor Notepad++ has confirmed that China government-backed hackers hijacked the software's update feature for months during 2025. The hackers could access computers of victims who were running hijacked versions of Notepad++.

If you’re looking for citations, quick thoughts: Varshney outlines a similar dynamic in Hindu-Muslim violence in Ethnic Conflict & Civic Life; Straus makes this case in The Order of Genocide: Race, Power, & War in Rwanda; Paxson’s The Plateau examines a place sheltering people during WWII in France

something the research on genocide, ethnic cleansing, & communal violence shows us is that the processes tend to stop where local officials & local people refuse to participate in them. there may be obstacles to refusal—being threatened, being overpowered—but violence isn’t inevitable once it starts

It must have taken a dozen people or more to abduct Liam Ramos and send him to Texas. At any one point, someone could have disrupted the process. That they didn’t is horrifying. That they *could* is important. They have agency and they’re making choices.

when we say complex processes of repression & violence are highly contingent & dynamic, we mean they depend on active choices people make—nothing is inevitable. we know from lots of research that people can interrupt violent processes by making choices that reflect their values. this is an example.

I interviewed an expert on what's happening with connectivity in Iran: The longest blackout in Iran's history. Thousands dead. Documentation of war crimes dependent on Starlink. A regime that uses AI's ubiquity to undermine the credibility of evidence. www.theverge.com/policy/87184...

“I don't think this is just a phase.” As the backlash grows against U.S. tech dominance, companies, countries, and individual users are trying to find alternatives: restofworld.org/2026/big-tec...

Quantum hype is picking up steam, curious to see when we we will pass the cap of "this deserves more scrutiny" into "will this save/doom humanity"