Unfortunately, Bluesky is unavailable in Mississippi right now, due to a new state law that requires age verification for all users. While intended for child safety, we think this law poses broader challenges & creates significant barriers that limit free speech & harm smaller platforms like ours.

🧘‍♀️ Struggling to find a moment of calm amidst all the bad news this summer? MindLab offers practical, science-based techniques to help science supporters manage stress, regulate emotions & navigate uncertainty. Join us for free virtual sessions every Wednesday, 11:30 am ET.

The Confederacy has invaded Washington DC.

So it hurts the very people who still don’t have access to high speed internet. To this dictatorship, as long as the people who look and sound like them have access, it’s a success.

🎯 And here in this @theatlantic.com article is proof that it’s being done on purpose They call it “sludge” But I like Cory Doctorows word for it “enshittification” www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

Another Starlink outage just as the Trump regime is making states re-do their broadband expansion plans to move $$ away fr fiber builds to lining Elon’s pockets with tax dollars for satellite Internet And they call it they’re calling it the “benefit of the bargain” with a straight face 🙄

Lots to chew on/argue in this But it’s a good intro to the convergence of AI, bioengineering, quantum computing and the containment problem staring us in the face It’s at times hopeful (and naive in some ways) but also pretty blunt about the frightening “fragility amplifiers” lurking 📚 #booksky

Hey, as a librarian I have to tell you You don't have to finish a book that doesn't interest you. Life's too short for that. Not your jam? You have my permission to move on to the next book.

Cities aren’t scary. You are scared. There’s a difference

"Building local networks of support, learning to rely on those who are different from us — in direct defiance of the forces intent on dividing us — is the exact kind of infrastructure we need to defeat fascism."

Has your electricity bill gone up dramatically this summer? The heat isn’t the only force to blame. Dr. Sasha Luccioni and Yacine Jernite's piece for Tech Policy Press explores how AI data centers are causing home electricity bills to skyrocket across the country. buff.ly/9sx8Lws

Hmmmm …

"PhD-level experts in your back pocket" is a completely nonsensical description of AI but a pretty good description of social media if you follow the right people

Yeah kids… Thid is how it sounded when you got online when the Internet first became publicly avail circa 1992ish 🌐🛜☎️📀💻

"I'm so tired of the FO when I didn’t FA." I wish the FO only happened to those who FA... but naw, we all get it.

Fire at AT&T facility in Gardena knocks out 911 service, causes cellphone, internet disruptions

The Martha’s Vineyard Black Book Festival was lit Got to hear Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson read and speak, didn’t even know she was slated to be there I also didn’t know you’re not supposed to take pics of SC justices — until I was politely informed by a super friendly US Marshall

Also when I came to Bluesky I largely gave up arguing online and I genuinely haven't been happier on a social media instance for years

This may be good time to point out again that Joyce, as chairman of the House Approps subcommittee overseeing the FCC, was personally responsible last year for blocking the main proposal to save the FCC's Affordable Connectivity Program, hiking Internet bills for 70,000+ households in his district.

A trip down memory lane

THE Spike Lee has a new movie coming out NEXT WEEK starring THE Denzel Washington and I haven’t seen a single ad for it or any promo except fr Spike Either the studios SUCK at marketing - or something else is going on 🤔🧐🤨 Me? Oh I’m there. If Denzel is in a movie, I’m going 🎥🎬🍿

Enshittification eventually infects every corporate business, esp “innovative” tech companies But what do we have here? Evidence that the rate of enshittification is outpacing even Moore’s Law?

No one should be surprised that MAGA campaigned on “making America more affordable” and then do the exact opposite once in office Here I write about yet another way the current regime is undermining affordable broadband legislation in states across the nation 🌐 🛜 💻 ⬇️

In Washington, the so-called Department of Government Efficiency has slashed federal regulation and left consumers in harm’s way. Now California is following this dangerous path of weakened regulation, aided and abetted by state politicians and regulators, Sara Geoghegan writes:

Yes I’m a huge fan of just about every Scorsese movie I’ve seen And if I was old enough to have seen the storyboards he was making as an 11 year-old, I woulda been calling him a cinematic prodigy way back then, esp because I can barely draw stick figures

Just as the current ruling regime pushes for more subsidies for Starlink, as if Starlink is a better, less expensive answer to building fiber networks… This went down yesterday — literally

So are any of these broadcast companies gonna say no and fight for, ya know, First Amendment protections — in and out of court or nah?

Deadline extended! Make sure to get your application in by Friday, August 1 ➡️ bit.ly/C4Cminigrants

Reminds of the African proverb (I’m paraphrasing off the dome): “When elephants wrestle, only the grass is hurt” We’re the grass

A big reason why I’ve been working with an army of digital equity advocates on solving the digital divide AI is poised to widen it exponentially Working on expanding Internet access and all its tangents is, at its most fundamental, a digital civil rights movement

Here’s a shot I took just before sunrise in Lisbon. If you like my photos then I hope you consider getting yourself one. fineartamerica.com/profiles/1-a...

I’m a broken record on making this point But it’s something that bears repeating and so I’m glad @cnet.com quoted me saying it again in this article — for the ppl who like to breeze over the broadband affordability crisis

Who - or what - killed California's proposed broadband affordability law? Wrote about it below and man...I sure hope the CA Assembly member who sponsored the bill is wrong B/c if she's right, it's bad news for other states that have filed similar bills 🛜💻🌐⬇️ communitynetworks.org/content/whod...

@cnet.com: "Wi-Fi Experts Reveal How Trump’s Budget Bill Could Slow Down Your Wi-Fi" — featuring @publicknowledge.bsky.social Senior Vice President @haroldfeld.bsky.social:

Yes I’m part of the CBN team who believes the word Internet should always be capitalized no matter what the AP says 🤷🏾‍♂️ Not sure why that position is “controversial” 😂 but it’s almost up there with the Oxford comma debate

The Trump admin thinks Starlink can solve the digital divide so they changed the rules on how fed $$ could be spent on broadband infra to Elon’s benefit Here I write about a new analysis that blows a huge hole in that starry eyed billionaire giveaway ⬇️ communitynetworks.org/content/new-...

A lower court just ruled that 2 Democratic FTC commissioners were fired illegally & must be reinstated, but the recent precedent of SCOTUS allowing the firing to go forward is by now well established, even if they haven't made a final ruling that presidents can fire independent commissioners per se.

The Internet is Forever (TM)...unless you lose the link. In that case, you will never, ever find it again

By removing internet service costs as a “deduction” from the SNAP program, Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill means that families with internet access will have higher net incomes, and therefore get lower benefits. From Sean Gonsalves:

Nothing against digital books/audio books but I firmly *believe reading physical books works a diff mental muscle But my real hesitation with digital books/audio books is the same qualms I’ve come to have with digital music: I don’t get to own it. Miss a subscription and my entire library is gone

Me: I don’t feel well. Doctor: That’s because you’re alive.

gotta demonstrate you're sexist and racist to get those mergers approved

This morning the American Prospect @prospect.org published a piece I penned on how the so-called "One Big Beautiful Bill" will impact SNAP recipients It focuses on something overlooked in the major reporting on this new law: "a particularly narrow-minded Sophie’s Choice: internet access or food?"

I wrote a lil something about the consolidation happening in the telecom industry and how community broadband is a corrective alternative to the monopoly madness Thank you ProMarket at U of Chicago Business School for publishing www.promarket.org/2025/06/25/t...

It’s come to this … in America, the “land of the free” They are now arresting US Senators (Sen Padilla) just for asking questions

Megabill would cost poorest households $1,600 a year, boost richest by $12K, according to Congress’ nonpartisan scorekeeper.

I ran an experiment, simultaneously posting articles on Bluesky and X, and then testing to see how many people actually clicked and read them. The numbers on Bluesky are higher, both because the X algorithm downranks journalism, and because Bluesky attracts readers, not just shitposters.

With federal fascism on the march, it’s vital for communities to build & fortify resilience One way to do that: building publicly-owned, locally controlled telecom infrastructure It ain’t easy but my hometown Oakland is on the path 💪🏾 I wrote about it here communitynetworks.org/content/oakl...

one thing that isn't mentioned here is that Clearview AI has been providing neo-Nazi groups with free Clearview AI accounts since the company was founded