That any gov't cares enough abt digital rights orgs to make a stink shows just how important surveillance and censorship are to preserving + expanding their power. But also shows the calls for privacy, security, freedom of expression are increasing...which means digital rights orgs are succeeding.

Please think of your friendly neighborhood digital rights organizations in these days. Pay attention to what they're doing, so often unnoticed, as Big Tech and govts chip away at your rights online. Send them a few bucks if you can. It's rough out there.

Rightscon being postponed by the Zambian government days before thousands of people from hundreds of countries fly in is quite chaotic: www.404media.co/rightscon-hu...

An advert promoting an AI company at Bristol Airport has been pulled after backlash. The advert showed a female AI worker who will 'never ask for a raise'.

I talk about how succeeding at using or advancing or knowledgeably regulating AI depends upon first closing the digital divide. You gotta crawl before you walk, and it's the same here. Which is why jerking states around on using fed $ on broadband access/affordability/adoption is counterproductive.

The best way to protect kids (and everyone else) online is to pass strong privacy legislation that prevents these companies from collecting so much data in the first place and using that data to power manipulative and addictive recommendation algorithms. www.fightforthefuture.org/news/2024-07...

Exactly. This is why the big push over banning TikTok never made sense to me. China doesn't need to use TikTok to do bulk collection of user data...cuz they can just BUY data on anyone (whether they're on TikTok or not). n.pr/4t5Y8GQ

Watching a Japanese figure skater compete to Stevie Wonder in the #winterolympics in Italy on global tv, and I guarantee most viewers knew the (awesome) song. The soft power of cultural dominance ain’t nothing.

The FBI was able to access Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson's Signal messages because she used Signal on her work laptop. The laptop accepted Touch ID for authentication, meaning the agents were allowed to require her to unlock it. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

ICE isn’t just brutal. It’s also big business. From 2008 to 2021 ICE spent *$1.2 billion* on geolocation tracking, $561M on data analysis, $252M on government databases, and $97M on data brokers. Most of that went to companies who will lobby for this system to stay in place.

A trenchant insider warning on how tech co's shameless pivot for short-term gain will bite them. He's right abt the coming techlash. It's already starting w/ people pushing back on AI data centers, gov't + corps sharing data, state AI preemption, kids on social media, privacy x.com/kumareth/sta...

I feel ya, guy - we don't want you here any more than you want to be here. washingtonian.com/2026/01/21/a...

Again, "I only make CSAM for money" would not help an ordinary person's defence, but would aggravate their sentencing.

Wildly off topic…but I want to express my gratitude for every single ice dance team who didn’t use the Backstreet Boys as part of their rhythm dance music this season. I have my Backstreet moments I guess but So. Much. Backstreet. #figureskating #prevagenuschamps

64 days in Chicago: The story of Operation Midway Blitz. Our team fanned out to cover the before, during and after of the federal government’s months-long raid on an American city. This is worth your time to understand the United States today www.chicagotribune.com/2025/12/28/c...

“Within days, Claudius had given away nearly all its inventory for free—including a PlayStation 5 it had been talked into buying for “marketing purposes.” It ordered a live fish. It offered to buy stun guns, pepper spray, cigarettes and underwear.”

A good explanation from @meredithmeredith.bsky.social on why AI agents present a risk to our privacy, our security (hello, encryption back door), and the future of encrypted comms tools like @signal.org. Hopefully these are all things we can agree on over the Thanksgiving weekend!

Love this on the power of listening and being heard. Alyssa is one of the very best. www.notus.org/perspectives...

We need to know how much our internet bill is going to cost so we can manage our budgets, and that's what the broadband nutrition label tells us. Yet the FCC is considering chipping away at it. Tell 'em what you think under “Proceeding 22-2,” choose “Express Reply” here: www.fcc.gov/ecfs/search/...

New America in the news: 1️⃣ @kevincarey1.bsky.social for @usatoday.com https://bit.ly/3XaeGj4 2️⃣ @ehaspel.bsky.social for @theguardian.com https://bit.ly/4qPiAvy 3️⃣ @chhayakapadia.bsky.social in @washingtonpost.com https://wapo.st/4omP4eH

Divali 2025: late but not ignored. Biryani, lapsi (sorta Gujarati bulgar pudding), candles for light to banish the darkness, a gin and tonic to make the darkness easier to manage, and a playoff baseball game that will make someone’s baseball dreams might come true. #divali #lightoverdarkness

Listening to D’Angelo’s Spanish Joint on Voodoo and the impeccable guitar solo by Chuck Brown. #mwahh #dcpride

Special #BannedBooksWeek edition of the @projectcensored.bsky.social show with Youth Honorary Chair Iris Mogul, ALA President @samhelmick.bsky.social,#BannedBooksWeekand Lee Rowland from @ncacensorship.bsky.social. https://www.projectcensored.org/banned-books-week-censorship-1984/

Glad to see more on the risks of an AI bubble. Yes, and...will lack of value to people be what slows the AI train enough to let public interest & human rights impacts (finally) catch up to the tech? Or do open source AI models (see: DeepSeek) demonstrate VC $$$$ aren't nec to build AI for all uses?

Enjoying today’s OTI’s 15th anniversary event today, and looking forward to a great discussion with OTI’s former and current leaders @saschameinrath.bsky.social @abdavidson.bsky.social @bankston.bsky.social @lcoral.bsky.social and Sarah Morris.

FABBS is hiring a short-term Tech Policy Fellow to focus on behavioral science and AI (link below). Share with early career policy wonks @ilpfoundry.bsky.social @asa-scipol.bsky.social @scipolguy.bsky.social @abankston.bsky.social @matthourihan.bsky.social @snapcoalition.bsky.social #scipoljobs

I just gave to support @51st.news and you should too if you can. National news is important but local news coverage is how you learn about the stuff that impacts your day to day living, which is even more valuable, so I’m glad to support.

“The societal benefit of a comprehensive guide to the cultural sector can’t be readily calculated on a balance sheet.” www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv... This was me too, and the ground level awareness of what was out there to see and do was so eye-opening for me.

If we really want to "win the global race to AI," it makes no sense to toss out gov't goals for faster speed and decide it doesn't matter whether people can afford their internet bills. Speed/service goals matter if you want people to use AI...as does being able to pay your internet bill.

DHS is urging law enforcement to treat even skateboarding and livestreaming as signs of violent intent during a protest, turning everyday behavior into a pretext for police action. www.wired.com/story/dhs-te...

I haven’t read Judge Alsup’s AI #fairuse case yet [she adds to stack/tabs], BUT noting that “training AI” makes it sound like it’s a person learning how to write by reading lots of books, to which they add their own thought and life experiences to create something original. /1

Here's how much of my personal data DOGE has access to. The results aren’t pretty. Take the quiz yourself now to discover how much of your sensitive info is now exposed. (And props to my colleagues at @techanddemocracy.newamerica.org!) #HandsOffMyData dogequiz.newamerica.org/share/?share...

Last night in northwest DC

The recent clowning of D's rural broadband infra efforts has been so disappointing and lazy. There's a bigger story about gov't capture by corporate interests that's much more illustrative of why we don't have nice things. Here's an ex:

Imagine the world were all of your data could only be shared or sold if you OPTED IN. And if the default were that nothing you shared with a tech company could be shared or sold otherwise…that’d be a game changing shift of power. wapo.st/4kBQ8d5 (gift article)

Certainly an argument for humans (both the engineering of the scam and their actual labor), but also perhaps an argument for open source AI??

Thanks to the FCC's Learn Without Limits program, libraries across the country are using #ERate discounts to support wi-fi hotspot lending. But some in Congress want to end the program. Tell your Rep to keep communities connected & protect this funding: bit.ly/TakeActionHotspots #ForOurLibraries

RIP Loretta Swit, known in her time in homes across America as Major Houlihan on M*A*S*H, a character she transformed over the course of more than a decade on the show from from a hardass villain to a sympathetic protagonist. www.nytimes.com/2025/05/30/o...

So asking permission of artists before you use their life’s work to create tech that will be used to supplant them is unreasonable and unworkable. Huh.

I appreciate this piece from @annalenhart.bsky.social on how kneecapping states' ability to regulate AI means that we undervalue states as incubators of ideas. After all, you need those ideas even more when the rest of the nat'l policymaking players seem poised to let AI co's do whatever they want.

Sometimes the “equity” in Digital Equity Act means that some people in rural areas are less likely to have high speed internet access than others and nothing more nefarious than that. Here’s a good take from @gregsargent.bsky.social on how cutting Digital Equity Act funds hurts red-state voters.

Just hours after the Copyright Office released its report on AI training—stating the obvious, that much unlicensed commercial training of AI on copyright-protected material is unlikely to qualify as fair use—President Trump has fired the Register of Copyrights. www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/tru...

"Ending" the Digital Equity Act is such a sad, unnecessary self-own. The digital inclusion work of DEA is 1 on 1, time-intensive, community-driven, and community-based--helping folks in rural areas, vets, seniors, people w/ disabilities, and yes, members of minority or ethnic groups. 1/

Your occasional reminder that while inappropriate uses of Signal for highly sensitive gov't work are bad for #nationalsecurity, there's still a FIRE HOSE of geolocation data on US citizens available for *anyone* worldwide to buy from unregulated data brokers. (article from Nov but still true!)

Nifty little 1 minute video on how Wikipedia works

A little joy for your day and a small reminder why living in a city can be randomly awesome (and a chance to say the word “Ronkonkoma,” which also brings me joy):

Had the pleasure of speaking with @davidalruiz.bsky.social, the host of Lock and Code @malwarebytes.com, about DOGE’s grab of tax records, student‑loan files—even medical info—and why that looks a lot like a data breach in plain sight.

Powerful insight from @theintercept.com on admin's willingness to condemn millions to civic and social death, from SSA marking immigrants as dead, to denying trans people any official existence at all. "This is not mere metaphorical killing: Expulsion from official public life can be truly deadly."

This thread is a good reminder that only those with internet access + skills to use that access (+ working SSA websites!) will be able to avoid going in-person to SSA offices. The consequences of being on the wrong side of the digital divide are getting bigger every day.