There are people all across Belfast helping relocate people, get them food, clothes, meds and more. You will likely never hear about them on the news. But they are many. And *they* are Belfast.

When Trump won re-election, a lot of people, me included, said it would be a fiasco. Wanting to attend World Cup matches in the USA was always going to be problematic under Trump. However, I’m still staggered by how badly he is screwing up this world event.

I cannot believe today of all days some are still discussing immigration in a way that dehumanises. It’s damaging. There is no such thing as illegal. They have human rights. And they make up just 3% of all migrants. And the majority of those allowed to work make a valid contribution to the country.

If Muslims or members of the Asian and Black community had set fire to white people’s homes with children running for their lives, do you think we would be discussing legitimate concerns or focussing on who radicalised them and ideological and contributing cultural factors?

Here's my bottom line as far as E2EE is concerned: I won't give it up. If that means physical key distribution to my immediate family, so be it. The real point is this: do governments want to bet that serious criminals and hostile nation states are *less* motivated than ne, in that regard?

Developers from Signal (including its protocol's co-creator) along with Microsoft and Harvard unveil Encrypted Spaces, an open-source codebase for a new generation of private collaboration apps. Think Slack, Discord, Google Docs, all end-to-end encrypted. www.wired.com/story/signal...

Article from 2025: “41% of 899 people arrested for taking part in the violent disorder [in summer 2024] had been reported for crimes associated with intimate partner violence.” www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

When they say "protect our women and children" we need to take the "our" seriously. This isn't motivated by concern over violence. They just want to be the ones doing the violence. www.thedetail.tv/articles/one...

This is perhaps one of the best books about Roman activity in Scotland that I've read. And now it is Open Access, totally free. #RomanBritain #Archaeology #RomanEmpire

For the avoidance of doubt as to where I stand: in a society that doesn't educate people about finance at all; & where women are already massively financially disadvantaged + under-diagnosed & under-supported for umpteen related disabilities, YES WE SHOULD COMPENSATE WASPI WOMEN. But Burnham won't.

Weird: that was supposed to be a QP of this, by the excellent @jamesrball.com: bsky.app/profile/jame...

"The spectacle of two tattooed white men pummelling each other in a cage, offered to a fee-paying public by an autocrat who despises them, is the perfect metaphor for the USA at 250": Discuss. 🙄

h/t @brokenbottleboy.bsky.social The UK has a serious problem: media coverage of online safety is ill-informed and lacks serious attention to the risks inherent in the Government's dangerously intrusive policies. brokenbottleboy.substack.com/p/the-naked-...

If you don’t have time to read what I wrote today about the Far Right — and particularly Loyalist — exploitation of the Belfast knife attack, just keep this section in mind when you consume media coverage… brokenbottleboy.substack.com/p/radio-elon...

Every world cup or Olympics, I get asked about all the new surveillance infrastructure. Let me say it again: It stays. Just like building athlete dorms or putting up adversarial architecture--cameras, vendor contracts, and relationships with federal or private entities become part of the city.

The UK should not be an enabler of illegal settlements or the forced displacement of civilian populations. It should not be complicit in war crimes. This is not a complicated ethical issue.

This is a fire that Governments are very much going to regret fanning. They may think they can turn the resulting public outrage to their own advantage. They can't. They weren't able to stop the fire from being lit: they certainly won't be able to control the billionaire-funded populists.

This remains one of the weirdest of the dark timelines.

Inside the White House Freakout Over the Epstein Files www.nytimes.com/2026/06/10/m...

I've heard some arrant guff about border control and the UK/RoI Common Travel Area today. It was obvious that Brexit couldn't satisfy both the CTA *and* the Belfast Agreement, but Brexiters pretended the problem didn't exist. When a policy is based on lies, it can't stand contact with reality. 1/2

Russell Crowes deutsche Stimme ist bei Netflix künftig nicht mehr zu hören. Er ist nicht der einzige Fall. Weil der Streamingdienst von Synchronsprechern verlangt, ihre Stimmen für KI-Training freizugeben, verweigern immer mehr Sprecher die Unterzeichnung einer Klausel und die Zusammenarbeit.

And as someone brought up in Belfast during The Troubles, who lost too many friends, of both main religions, my contempt for those stirring things up is beyond measure.

This is not just my perspective for instance this posting from #Chayn provides robust support for *end-to-end encryption that is worthy of the description* rather than being diluted by client side scanning into being a mere marketing figleaf: blog.chayn.co/encryption-i...

Elon Musk is using his X platform to incite violence on our streets. It’s time the government and the rest of us shut his cesspit platform down!

New: the FCC is trying to ban burner phones by forcing all telecoms to store ID information on all new and renewing customers. That includes a government issued ID number. Massive privacy-impacting change “We never thought that would happen here,” the ACLU says www.404media.co/fcc-wants-to...

1/ The obligation to register the legal identities of mobile users is a global problem … it’s in place in over 160 countries & is an egregious violation of privacy & other fundamental rights & freedoms .. & imo built on a lie. Along with industry colleagues I www.comparitech.com/blog/vpn-pri...

Hello! There are no "privacy preserving ways" to check uploaded content against a database of illegal content without opening a door to that database being expanded for political surveillance. Any such mechanism defeats the purpose of end to end encryption. alecmuffett.com/alecm/e2e-pr...

An impartial journalist might contextualise the Belfast knife attack with *evidence*: 282 knife offences every day on average & foreign born nationals under-represented in violent crime. Chris Mason spoke instead of right wing *narratives* of migrants, borders & crime. www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cr...

The bullet train in 🇯🇵-as glorious as everyone says. A reminder the Japanese built their first high speed train for the 1964 Olympics and it became national by the 80s. They’re now building Maglevs (floating trains). Meanwhile in 🇬🇧 we can’t be sure we’ll connect HS2 to Euston. Pathetic.

In less than a year and a half, Trump's regime has reduced the USA to a state of such weakness and dysfunction that it cannot cope with the existential risk represented by... an internationally accredited professional sports adjudicator.

I have written a slightly unhinged newsletter about forms buttondown.com/justenoughin...

We've had a decade of this experiment in self harm. Even Rees Mogg said he thought it would take 30-50 years for the benefits [sic] of Brexit to materialise. The last 10 years show we can't afford to wait that long. End it, before the country goes down the pan. 1/2

Itamar Ben-Gvir is under criminal investigation in Italy after the Israeli cabinet member recorded videos of himself publicly abusing and torturing members of the Global Sumud Flotilla, including Italian citizens. If indicted, it'd be the first European-specific indictment of an Israeli minister.

After all, what's a bit of tuberculosis, brucellosis, diphtheria, scarlet fever, Q-fever, Salmonella, Listeria, Yersinia, Campylobacter, Staphylococcus aureus, and Escherichia coli between friends? Sure, we *can* make milk safe to consume... but why bother? 1/2

So...the originators of the nudity detection software which UK gov mandated today say this is all God's doing, so it's a good thing there isn't a Christofascist regime anywhere looking for technology partners or anything like that. www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkPm... h/t @owenboswarva.bsky.social

Oh great. Too much to hope they'll have written any of the details down, then. Good job they're not giving the undefined category of "tech companies" three months to implement something intangible, or face literally indescribable consequences.

I watched the urgent question in Parliament this afternoon where the handful of technically astute questions on "what does this actually involve" were answered with "the children".

It is shocking to me that screen free parent groups and these tech “safety” groups get everything given to them, taking well meaning support. Meanwhile if you want to talk to families or teachers or the public about tech harms or digital rights you will be labelled extremist

In the UK, the Tories and Reform are falling over one another to adapt the Trump administration's most nakedly white supremacist postures to a British context, with mixed results.

Once it was Europe. Then it was immigration. Now Reform has a new enemy: net zero. Reform says net zero is bankrupting Britain. But what if scrapping climate policies means higher bills, fewer jobs and less control over our energy supplies?

Musk functionally ran the US government for 6 months last year and managed to: increase spending, slash services, kill 100,000s, and help nurture both Ebola & Screwworms. Yet somehow no one mentions this when they talk about the company he is going to take public this week.

Trump’s limited ability to dictate the war’s direction was on display as Israel and Iran traded fire for the first time since a truce began in early April, John Haltiwanger writes.

A friendly reminder as you enjoy tonight’s Knicks game: Madison Square Garden, where the match is being held, is an insane surveillance panopticon. Read our @wired.com investigation if you haven’t already:

Ah yes. The fact that there’s not a shred of evidence just shows how “diabolical” the conspirators are.

Today, Tuesday 9 June, is International Day of Celtic Art. www.daysoftheyear.com/days/interna... Also, World Pet Memorial Day. www.daysoftheyear.com/days/world-p... And it’s happy 65th birthday to American screenwriter, playwright, and filmmaker Aaron Sorkin. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_S...

also in my opinion, but age verification harms everyone's civil liberties. to verify that someone is underage is to verify EVERYONE and the tech is both too bypassable and invasive today

"SignalTrace “links devices that regularly travel together, correlating them to license plate.” It is a surveillance product that will sweep up and add all sorts of Bluetooth and other data to license plate readers, linking specific devices—and people—to cars."

Whatever else you think this is, it's the death of privacy. It's the Prime Minister calling for all messages, all photos, sent from anyone's phone, to be subject to automated, intrusive scrutiny, "For the sake of the children". This is blanket censorship.