Who's in the room when legislators make tech decisions? What makes communities visible? What makes science legible? Some highlights from CAT Lab @cornelluniversity.bsky.social Summit on NY State tech policy. citizensandtech.org/2025/10/at-c... w @eleag.bsky.social @natematias.bsky.social

defend science and the rule of law.

HRDAG remains a nonpartisan, nonpolitical organization. Our mission is focused on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Today, we denounce violations of human rights occurring in the United States. hrdag.org/in-the-face-...

BREAKING @knightcolumbia.org just won their case against Trump admin’s policy arresting/deporting noncitizen stud. & fac. participating in pro-Palestinian activism This is a threat mailed to chambers of the 84yo Reagan appointed judge. He started the opinion with it and this is how he ended. 1/2

We’re a small team of just four full-time data scientists, but our work has a global impact. Every donation helps us take on the toughest challenges, from exposing state violence to ensuring that victims are never erased from history. Please support us today. hrdag.networkforgood.com

A man with his shoes off in first class on this airplane, reading an email called “15 Subtle Habits to Make People Secretly Respect You More”

Read part two of @hrdag.org's "Gathering the Data" series on substack, in which we explore how human rights workers document evidence even in the face of death threats and potential violence. substack.com/home/post/p-...

Watch this compelling interview with @hrdag.org's Patrick Ball on @plutopia.io . "People who commit violence and, even more so, those who apologize for people who commit violence, always lie about it." youtu.be/7mG4Tt5rEEM?...

One of grants frozen at Cornell: $6.7M (4 yrs) to develop heart pumps for babies born w/ heart defects. It took decades of work to get to point of prepping device for in-human clinical trials. No private company could do this. The cruelty of the Trump administration is heartbreaking. So to speak.

Peeps always think they can control the insight machine because they learned how to talk down to their human underlings but they forget the underlings make the administrative wheels and rules that eventually shape the whole institution while all the while smiling and taking condescension on the chin

Friends attending #CHI2025, keep your eyes peeled for the AMAZING @cyberbya.bsky.social. She's doing incredible research on anti-harassment using community-led and anti-colonial practices! citizensandtech.org/2025/04/embo...

Why everyone needs privacy. @meredithmeredith.bsky.social of @signal.org explains. #SXSW Surveillance power can be used to devastate anyone.

Wear a suit, they said. But don't wear a trouser suit if you're a girl. Enough jewelry to display status, but not too many earrings. Tattoos only in quiet, covered places. Make sure, they said, not to offend with your dress.

This scrum of pot-bellied, sunken-chested betas trying to bully an all-black clad badass Eastern European wasteland survivor while dressed like Men’s Wearhouse mannequins is peak cinema.

Given recent actions by the new admin, more folks looking to encryption. We thought we'd share early reflections from a survey of encrypted app users. Participants share that privacy means a lot of things, but importantly, for folks at risk, privacy IS safety. opcandado.citizensandtech.org/blog/

The US has been in a situationship with digital identity for a long time. We've never had a mandatory digital identity system, but critical data about us is spread across hundreds of systems, each with decisive input to how we live our lives. 🧵

News that wiki editors are facing threats from Musk and the Heritage Foundation because of “bias” should be raising alarm bells for platforms that rely on user moderation (basically all of them, but Reddit esp. since its mods have come under fire recently).

Much how-to safety work and rights material has been drafted for specific constituencies and often we don’t fit into those categories as cleanly. lots of historical reasons why. Read widely and broadly to see what you personally can use.

We're just going to leave this here…

Last year, we at the Citizens and Technology Lab we did a deep and interesting dive into how to collaborate on evidence for platform accountability. @mwoluchem.bsky.social followed up to create insights we're excited to share with you. With thanks to all the participants! @lmbing.bsky.social

Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More (Alexei Yurchak) (my roman empire) It's not every day your fav history about the collapse of the Soviet Union gets an insta reel relating it to today's experience of truthiness and soured information channels www.instagram.com/distill_soci...

“Social media is The New Public Square!” was always bankrupt and hollow. It was a lazy, ahistorical analogy by grandiose founders desperate to prove a path to $$$, not an accurate model of social media’s role in the democratic process. A really damaging idea. www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

Strategy-making takes a lot of effort— work that pays off when events are happening too fast to slow down & build consensus. I'm SO grateful to @eleag.bsky.social & @sarahagilbert.bsky.social for the collab on CAT Lab's plan & I feel more ready than ever to take our work into 2025 and beyond. <3

The AI safety net is moving slower than the AI boom. How can researchers and lawyers work together for safer, fairer tech policy? Learn how CAT Lab @knightcolumbia.org & partners are working to close the gap. www.techpolicy.press/new-tools-mo... via @techpolicypress.bsky.social and @jedm.bsky.social

as we're seeing the extraordinary unfold in #Syria, this work from @hrdag.org counting deaths in custody is a testament to years of collaboration & the critical professional work of many civil society organizations who witness, document, share, process, and retain human rights data. thank you all.

HRDAG's newsletter: Witnessing Syria on Human Rights Day mailchi.mp/hrdag/2024-yea-5

Perhaps bluesky, for me, is a place to start things off with posts about the infrastructure of data that is the infrastructure of our digital age (that scare me a little bit)🧵 www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

My experience with 'tech for good' boils down two things I'd like to discuss at large: 1. efficiency is not the same as legitimacy. 2. emergency is a bad time for emergence.

92% dumbass for sending my genetic material to an unregulated website