New from 404 Media: Google just removed seven years of political advertising history from 27 countries. Google's Ad Transparency Center no longer shows political ads from any countries in the EU. Much harder for accountability now. www.404media.co/google-ad-tr...

In 2026, Russia will increase funding for state TV channels (propaganda) to 106.4 billion rubles ($1.12 billion), a 54% increase over what was previously planned. Source: verstka.media/rashody-byud...

An unprecedented violation of our civic and Constitutional traditions. Calling every military leader in the world back to the U.S. to hear a wildly inappropriate partisan campaign speech followed by a fascist call to use the military against Americans.

Trump’s awful but it’s important to note he’d be different and potentially less harmful kinds of awful if he weren’t advised and manipulated by some of the most evil people in American history.

As I sort of suspected.. a lot of the stupid is an act.

Yesterday, Meta unveiled a new "feed" on its platforms that will exclusively feature AI-generated videos. This overshadowed another big announcement... On Tuesday, Meta launched a super new PAC geared towards electing politicians that will block any AI regulation. Hello?

This is a very important story in the context of Nigel Farage’s publicly expressed - if apparently unconnected - admiration for Putin and other links with a regime that only wants to harm our country.

Kind of feels like a big deal that a Reform/Brexit Party former MEP has been convicted of taking bribes to promote Russian interests in Ukraine, and it feels like a bigger deal that this isn’t being treated as the major scandal that it clearly is.

Imagine being a country dependent on a big US tech firm that could and would switch off your government if they disagreed with it.

this blew my tiny mind

... aaannnnnnnd theeeey're buuuuuuuyiiiing the escalatooooooor to Heaaaaveeeeeeeeeen. #DonaldTrump #Escalator #Rapture

This resonates for me - both my kids have been following the Charlie Kirk and Jimmy Kimmel stories blow by blow, while knowing next to nothing about what is happening in British politics. TikTok is the reason.

I teach 16-17. None of them read newspapers. None of them watch the news. None of them visit news sites. Source of all news: = TikTok

This is, without any exaggeration, exactly how Putin and Orbán proceeded — using antisemitism to discredit the idea of civil society and political opposition, and as an excuse to undo the rule of law. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/25/u...

It's also worth noting that Torsten Bell - ex of this particular parish - knew this to his core, yet sat there on the flipping tellybox defending NOT lifting it. If the people who do this research and lobby for this change then go into government and...do nothing...where do we stand? I don't know.

Alec nailing the current climate in Trump land www.tiktok.com/@alecwithpen...

Mrs R: "There was a woman on the ward today who didn't want to take paracetamol. We've had to explain that we're not giving it to her because she's got a fever and we want her to feel better, but because she's got a fever and if we don't get her temperature down then her baby is going to die."

A few replies along the lines of “well obviously, America is important” but it’s not reported as important foreign news the way it is in eg Germany, it’s covered breathlessly and obsessively by the UK media bubble as if Beltway talking points are a central fixture of our national conversation

Why are the American president's claims about autism the first item on British news bulletins? He's not our president, the advice doesn't apply here and he's not presented any evidence to support his assertions. So why spread these claims? What make this the biggest story in the UK?

Capitalism. It’s all that matters.

Before politicians and media get themselves into a mess. Let me clarify. For most Muslims, Sharia means living ethically, praying, and giving to charity. Any councils are advisory and are not above the law and are no different to Jewish Beth Din courts that have existed in the UK since the 1800s.

This is best story by far about the SIM farm uncovered in New York by Secret Service. The intent of the farm is not, as suggested by other stories, to disrupt Secret Service protection of dignitaries attending the UN or taking out mobile service for all NY but about managing criminal enterprises

Yodel is a nightmare at the moment. No idea if this is due to the InPost acquisition shenanigans or what. Parcel #1 permanently stalled at the delivery depot. Parcel #2 has languished inside the network for five(!) days. #1 was refunded, so reordered via another seller who also use Yodel. 😩

This consumer AI boom has all the same hallmarks of the early 2000s dot.com bubble. Everyone thinking it’s some new amazing wave of tech, wild unfounded valuations, investors throwing money out like it’s confetti and yet.. no sense of where the profit actually is, if ever.

Another aspect of AI being a leech on the internet. AI scrapers (remember they are not paying for the content they scrape) are out consuming genuine traffic and decreasing web performance:

the rapture is in beta testing right now so you’ll need an invite code from someone who’s already there

This is horrific and feels like it should be a bigger deal. Business Insider reports that people who have worked at xAI have seen Grok create images and written material with child sex abuse material. www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-gr...

Mobster government; Trump always wants a taste. Literally demanding "a fee" that could amount to billions.

White nationalist livestreamer Nick Fuentes has never been more popular, and he has a plan in place to leverage that popularity to infiltrate all aspects of US society to spread his racist, antisemitic worldview. And it's already happening... www.wired.com/story/nick-f...

Useful reminder from Peter Kellner on the problems we refuse to acknowledge are getting better, and the politics of hopelessness that this breeds open.substack.com/pub/kellnerp...

Cravenly obeying the US on a batshit crypto hallucination, because Brexit made us desperate.

Someone once said to me that it's best to assume that you have immediately lost control of any photo that you post online. These companies are horrendous and we should all be very careful about what we give to them www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

had to read the article to understand wtf was going on here which is that Meta is literally feeding Instagram pictures parents took of their teenage daughters to middle aged men as ads for Threads

I was thinking yesterday that eventually, in time, the American conservatives will turn on each other.

Really dangerous. There is now a clear project to impose the MAGA worldview on Britain. www.thetimes.com/article/bffa...

Trump’s allies now control X, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, & TikTok. They own Fox News, CBS, WaPo, WSJ & NY Post. They own Sinclair Broadcasting which has 200 tv stations and local news in 100 markets. “Freedom of speech” is now what Trump and his billionaire pals say it is.

Fuck me this is bleak. But please, do continue to use GenAI slop thumbnails for your YouTube videos, or your album art, or your book covers or whatever else. I'll continue to refuse to watch/listen/read any of them, knowing already they're not worth the time & that you're a disappointing lazy hack.

of all the things I am not going to buy, this is the thing I am not going to buy the most

Yes, we’re going to bugger up the look of all the app icons for previous iOS versions as we glassify everything.. #apple #ios #glass

I think what is most astounding is the FCA trying to stop the obvious fraud and then just caving in.. How. Is. This. Possible. We’re a country that is not at all serious about crime if it’s done by someone wearing a nice suit.

It's not just the authoritarianism — it's how shameless, how *gleeful* this administration is about it

These feel very 'nonce-tech'

All very Black Mirror. I’m not sure what it is that doesn’t make someone at Meta stop and think.. Hey should we be doing this? Is this really needed?

This feels like one of those things (hello genAI chatbots) where lots of really terrible consequences are incredibly obvious but no one with any power to do so is prepared to say “hold on, maybe we should think about ethics and regulation,” so all those terrible consequences are just going to happen

"In Thailand a regular VOA slot on the Thai state broadcaster has already been replaced by a Chinese outlet. An Indonesian channel that hosts a weekly program for the country’s Chinese diaspora no longer features reports in Mandarin from VOA; it has replaced them with China’s state-run television"

Pretty much the prefect video for our times. They insist their tech is about to reach the level of self-awareness but it still autocorrects were for we're.

👀"Pupils could not recall similar contests linked to previous visits over the past year, nor political memorabilia being offered as prizes in the past." (Source: www.localauthority.news/p/farage-foo...)

Oh look – it is the beginning of what @georgemonbiot.bsky.social calls an onanocracy – including one guy suing another for $15bn for pointing out he’s a pervert, but all friends in power really.

For me one of the biggest disappointments in Starmer is not bothering to fix up broken parts of our democracy. If Reform is coming then why aren’t we plugging all the holes in donation rules? Gove’s neutering of the Electoral Commission, etc etc. Hardly controversial stuff.

Our small rectangular son, Character Limit, is one year old today! Thank you for making @rmac.bsky.social & my first year as authors so incredible! We are continually grateful to share this story with readers. 💙