DISASTROUS. This means they will send people to horrific situations with no due process — in direct violation of promises the Solicitor General made to the Court in previous cases. This greenlights sending people to be enslaved in Libya or tortured in any random foreign country.

You’ve seen the “don’t share this code with anyone” SMS messages when you log in to your most sensitive online accounts: banking, messaging, #Google , #Meta, #Amazon. But who else might have seen them before you?

We got unprecedented access to the AI model that Amsterdam developed to try to fairly detect welfare fraud. The result is one of the first in-depth looks at a system using responsible AI guidelines—and what happens when those big promises meet messy reality.

Most reporting on AI examines worst-case systems deployed under the guise of efficiency. But what would a good faith effort at Ethical AI look like? For two years, we’ve been looking over the shoulder of a city trying to do things differently.

So happy that our project «Inequality for the law» is on the shortlist. 🏆 Lucky to have been collaborating with the talented people at @lighthousereports.com. @elenadebre.bsky.social @gabrielgeiger.bsky.social @jusbraun.bsky.social

🎙️ New episode of #Backlight is out! Want to dig deeper into financial investigations, but not sure where to start? In our latest episode, @margotgibbs.bsky.social and @giacomoza.bsky.social share how reporters can use financial clues to crack open investigations.

NEW: @bloomberg.com analysis of +13 years of ICE detentions shows immigrants transferred to the South and SW from interior US at unprecedented rates. Reducing the odds of winning their cases. w/ @elenamejia.bsky.social @racheladhe.bsky.social @pollymosendz.bsky.social bloom.bg/43am95w

It shouldn't matter if Trump’s victims have criminal records. If we only defend the “innocent,” the fascists will argue that their victim “was no angel.” An anti-fascist rhetoric that carves out exceptions for imperfect victims is a gift to our opponents. New from me for @us.theguardian.com:

Good job, Stanford admin. More of this. “America’s univs are a source of great national strength, creating knowledge and driving innovation and economic growth,” they also wrote. “This strength has been built on government investment but not government control.“ stanforddaily.com/2025/04/15/l...

Europe frames migration as a crisis—but this masks the reality of its aging population and skills shortages. Over 18 months, with 20+ journalists, across 7 countries we answered: What’s the true cost of shutting migrants out of jobs? Hear from the reporters:

Many people rightly point to the core role that mainstream right parties play for defending liberal democracy against the far-right threat. However, solely focusing on the centre-right ignores the errors that leftwing parties have committed that have empowered the far right. A few thoughts …

I just sent our university president and provost an urgent request to defend First Amendment freedoms at Stanford, given this administration’s willingness to punish those who disagree with it. I urge you to do the same with your university leaders.

Here’s the reality: This government—despite what they’d have us believe—cannot simply do whatever it wants. The moment we accept that bullshit, we become complicit in this blatantly authoritarian move by the president and his administration. With a loud, collective voice, we must say: fuck this!

Bellingcat's new US division is looking for an executive director to make Bellingcat US the best Bellingcat it can be. Details of the role and compensation can be found here: www.on-ramps.com/jobs/3408

I’ll keep pushing this line of analysis because I’m increasingly convinced the clearest path out of this mess is for Dems to adopt a relentless anti-corruption, anti-inequality, anti-oligarchy, pro-democracy platform. The Dem leadership hasn’t realized it yet, but they’re now a reform party.

New episode of #Backlight is out! This month, we are talking about how journalists can incorporate AI reporting into their beat and hold companies and governments to account.

If you’re a reporter looking to take on AI accountability investigations, consider giving this a listen!

The IRS was a simple test for DOGE: was it really interested in efficiency and state capacity? If so, you support the tax enforcement, the biggest ROI in govt. Or did it want to minimize parts of the state that bothered billionaires? We have our answer. open.substack.com/pub/donmoyni...

New paper with @ankuepfer.bsky.social accepted at EJPR🎉 When do MPs debate each other & when do they avoid discourse? Applying a new framework to study the emergence of elite discourse, we find that ideology and gov/opp dynamics shape MPs incentives to seek & avoid dialogical interactions. #polisky

Ich musste an diese Kontroverse um Laschet denken und wie ähnlich die Struktur der Position der CDU heute ähnelt: Die CDU würde nie mit der extremen Rechten zusammenarbeiten, sonst würde sie die ja normalisieren. Das hat sie ausgeschlossen. Also kann, was passiert ist, keine Zusammenarbeit sein.

Wow! Demo für Demokratie in München: „Die Polizei spricht von 200 000 Menschen, die Veranstalter sogar von 320 000 Teilnehmern.“

The list is mostly black people. This is KKK shit folks. Out in the open.

NEW: A 25-year-old engineer tied to Elon Musk now has direct access (admin privileges) to a Treasury Department system that controls Social Security payments, tax returns, and more. W/ @telliotter.bsky.social, @leahfeiger.bsky.social, @timmarchman.bsky.social www.wired.com/story/elon-m...

Norway’s criminal justice system has often received high praise for its equity and fairness; it has rarely been under scrutiny in data-driven criminal justice journalism.

In 2022, Frank went to prison. A richer man convicted of the same crime went free.

In 2022, two men were convicted for driving under the influence. Frank in a cheap, old car, unemployed with debt. Jakob in a new, expensive Audi, worth millions. Their cases were nearly identical, but their sentences could not have been further apart.

The crimes you’re convicted of should determine your punishment, not who you are. But even in Norway – one of the “fairest” criminal justice systems – @lhreports.bsky.social & NRK reveal that there are disparities in sentence length by income and gender www.lighthousereports.com/methodology/...

The Internet Archive has to date downloaded 500 terabytes of US government websites, which it crawls at the end of every presidential term. The whole archive is fully searchable. This effort's housed by a donation-funded nonprofit, not a branch of the US government. blog.archive.org/2024/05/08/e...

It is simply not enough for universities to say, “Our grants & research offices are looking into how research will be affected by the latest directive.” University leaders must actively and very publicly make the case for the kind of work many of us do. The silence on this front is deafening.

Wenn eine schwarz-blaue Regierung beschließt, dass mein Antifaschismus gegen die FDGO verstößt, verliere ich meine Staatsbürgerschaft. Normal, oder?

OpenAI furious DeepSeek might have stolen all the data OpenAI stole from us 🔗 www.404media.co/openai-furio...

OpenAI says it has evidence China’s DeepSeek used its model to train competitor https://www.ft.com/content/a0dfedd1-5255-4fa9-8ccc-1fe01de87ea6

This keeps getting better #DeepSeek

I see the mask is off completely now

Skilled migrants contribute more to public finances than working Britons, report finds https://www.ft.com/content/a9665565-eebd-47cd-bad0-57c61eed9ab3

Over a year, we collected & analyzed data on drowning deaths along Texas' stretch of the US/Mexico border on the Rio Grande Yesterday our collaborative investigation went out on the front covers of @washingtonpost.com + @eluniversalmx.bsky.social @lhreports.bsky.social

Texas has become the blueprint for the militarization of the US-Mexico border. This politically-driven show of force has sent the Rio Grande death toll soaring. We reveal for first time the true human cost of this

If we want better fashion culture in the US, we have to lower the cost of housing and commercial real estate, support independent craftspeople, build denser neighborhoods, improve walkability, and get rid of overly restrictive zoning laws. Let kook culture thrive.

Neue Recherche: Im Januar fanden Streifenpolizisten in der Wohnung des Geflüchteten Mahdi Ben Nasr eine riesige Blutlache, die Fensterscheibe zerbrochen, er selbst weg. "Vermisstenfall", notierten sie. Was sie übersahen: inmitten des Bluts lag ein Projektil. Es stammte aus einer NS-Pistole. Thread/

As we gawk at the $250M Musk spent elect Trump, take a guess how long it took him to “earn” it back in the market? It took just 15 minutes. I'm not kidding... 15 minutes. According to Bloomberg, his net worth soared by $8B just today. That’s billionaire math for you—and it’s all of our problem.

One of the joys of “peer-reviewed” journalism is getting to interact with the academic community in more substantive ways than “I just need a quote.” Eike was incredibly helpful and perspective on ML fairness refreshing — do recommend all interested to read his work.

Amazing work by @gabrielgeiger.bsky.social on the latest @lhreports.bsky.social suspicion machines investigation. This is a crazy tale of AI ethics washing: The welfare agency had been told that it's tool was crappy. It responded by making up a ludicrous fairness definition.

I do a lot of FOIA and I’m used to stonewalling. But Sweden surprised me. After 3 years of telling me no, a high level official at Sweden’s welfare agency Försäkringskassan accidentally left me on cc, writing “Now we must hope that we are done with him.”

Männer sind einfach zu emotional für die Politik.