Watching The American Revolution and it’s fascinating. So far, both the English army and the us militia under Washington seem like keystone cops. (How didn’t Washington get fired? He seems to have misjudged every major move of the oppo.)

The latest issue of In Formation starts off with a bang. No notes. 🧑‍🍳💋

Data breaches affect everyone, and this year we saw plenty of them, ranging from the novel to the predictable. www.eff.org/deeplinks/2...

I want to drive a dump truck of cow manure to the Microsoft headquarters and drop it off in the lobby as a thank you. They didn't ask for it, they didn't want it, but maybe they can figure out how to get rid of it.

📣 Calling all word-nerds: we're updating our glossary of terms in our open-to-the-public Software Safety Standards Panel. We've synthesized definitions from extant AI and other laws worldwide to arrive at a clear and complete list of terms. /1

I mean, is he serious? He can’t seriously believe in his glorified word salad spinner, can he? for me, the most troubling thought is that he actually believes in the quality of the extrusion machine, that he isn’t just a snake oil huckster.

But talking about “risk” is a trap. It’s an on-ramp to incrementalism. bsky.app/profile/sonj...

Many journalists are tracking the procurement and deployment of new technologies and tactics, but it's hard to get the entire picture. A generational threat to civil liberties that I suspect future governments will struggle (or refuse) to roll back. Dramatic reform/abolition will be required.

💯this 👇

nailed it:

Powerful keynote on human dignity and moral nihilism by Bhikku Bodhi. “(1) The first factor pushing us toward moral nihilism is the transnational economic system driven by unregulated predatory capitalism.” /1

I don’t see how, as a society, we can tolerate or accept this set of “ai” technologies woven into every aspect of our lives. youtu.be/5mtcSL4S3HQ

As I get older the most unrealistic thing I see on tv is people over the age of 50 making dinner plans for 8 pm.

1/ A longtime Wired editor just wrote a mush-brained essay about how he totally missed the political rot of Silicon Valley (& still doesn't get it). But in the late 1990s, a Wired journalist warned of a toxic ideology bubbling up from tech. Paulina Borsook has largely been erased. Let's change that

But here’s a thought: maybe the solution isn’t tweaking consent mechanisms or expanding exceptions. Maybe it’s time to kill third-party cookies by law – simply prohibit them along with other unsanctioned tracking.

At Internet Safety Labs, we're committed to making the digital world a safer place. If you find our work valuable, consider supporting our mission! Your donations help us continue to provide critical insights and transparency in software safety. 👉 Donate here: internetsafetylabs.org/donate

Calling all parents! We're updating our app safety labels (if you've never seen one, here's an example appmicroscope.org/app/403/) and we're going to be adding in a bunch of information about app behaviors that present unique risks to children.

You can add up all the enjoyable pursuits of LLMs and the work productivity hacks and none of them, separately or together, will be more important than AI’s ecological costs or political disruption. “We” is more important here.

I know there's a lot going on right now and one thing that's going on is the Trump admin is trying to roll back rules for making new buildings accessible. There are six days left to make comments about it.

Currently reading @naomiaklein.bsky.social Doppleganger and her mention of Chaplin’s speech at the end of The Great Dictator couldn’t be more timely. youtu.be/J7GY1Xg6X20

But it would be a mistake to focus too much on which statutory power is being used here. What matters it that Trump is federalizing the Guard for the purpose of policing Americans’ protest activity. That’s dangerous for both public safety and democracy. 8/19

meta is spying on android users' browsing data in an even sleazier and sneakier way than previously known this is the stuff you get when you live in a country that's too corrupt to pass a modern privacy law

Heavily armed paramilitary forces stormed a local San Diego restaurant today, deployed stun grenades against a crowd of onlookers, and kidnapped a handful of kitchen workers.

I know, norms and all that, but the default Dem position should be: We think this is illegal but if the courts say you can do this then we are going to rip the guts out of the entire conservative movement. No more Heritage, FedSoc, etc. All of them lose their tax exempt status.

Digital surveillance and data collection via school laptops is a HUGE issue and every parent (or very involved aunt) should understand it and be able to explain it to the kids they love

What do we really know about the apps we install? We mostly know what the maker deigns to tell us. @internetsafetylabs.bsky.social is putting our apps under an App Microscope to reveal their makeup. Lisa LeVasseur explains why we need this info. podcast.firewallsdontstopdragons.com/2025/03/31/m...

Synthetic teachers is right up there with synthetic monks and priests. Innately wrong.

Note to editors and producers: If an executive order demands action that is illegal or outside of the president’s authority, then you should not describe it as ordering something. You should say it seeks to achieve some outcome and then note it is illegal or beyond the power of the president.

wow. And sure, a personal surveillance bot assistant sounds great. What could possibly go wrong? And yes ai teachers/tutors etc 💯 the enshittification of education.

23andMe has filed for bankruptcy to sell itself, which means any data they hold about you is going to change hands soon. If you're worried about your privacy don't rush in and delete your account - scramble it first. This way, any residual data they retain after deletion will be useless too 🧵

The below walks you through how to delete your DNA data from 23andMe before it goes bankrupt.

We should be talking more about musk's comparing Social sec to a ponzi scheme. It's so pointedly inaccurate. Clearly the understanding of someone for whom SS matters not. (and if "entitlement" means the return of my own money that the govt is holding then, sure, I'm entitled to my own money.)

#IWD2025 is an important day to celebrate women's social, economic, cultural & political achievements, but it's also a good occasion to call for gender equality. The #SheFigures report on R&I describes the challenges women researchers face, but also highlights ideas to help them. 🔗 buff.ly/3EJDkB4

Seems like this deserves more press and discussion?https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/democracy-index-data-economist-governments-b2705687.html Democracy scores higher in the UK than the offshoot US which was <checks notes> founded as a rejection of monarchy/authoritarianism.

This is not a presidential speech. It is a disinformation operation.

Reminder: we are being trained not to care about other people. It underlines the attacks on migrants, on DEI, on trans youth, on so-called "wokeness." Sure there are legitimate critiques but this is not about critiques. It's about supercharging capitalism's culture of uncare.

If DOGE is a federal agency, it can’t shield its records from the public. If it’s not an agency, then its tens of millions of dollars in funding weren’t legally allocated and should be returned, some contend.

Small change, big impact: we added the number of data brokers the app talks to in our safety labels. 🎉

And I am an ally. If you are too, let the world know.

@archive.org I've been getting 503s off and on for the past two days. Are you ok?

Uh-oh wayback machine is...having issues.

Oh. So this administration is going to take our hard earned citizen tax dollars (social security and medicare contributions) and invest in crypto scams isn't it?

Anyone interested in contributing to a public list/record of govt actions that are impacting public safety? We started one last week.

Living through an object lesson in how governing a country is different from overseeing a business. One of the key differences is how "safety" is prioritized. Arguably govt's primary objective is citizen safety. But biz has always resisted safety-- product and employee.

DOOMERISM ISN'T A STRATEGY.

Are there any other AT protocol implementations than Bluesky social?

2024 saw the [literal] enshittification of food. www.npr.org/2024/12/09/n...

The idea of animal sovereignty popped up in What an Owl Knows and rocked my world. Really love the essence of this idea; feels innately like the right way to view our fellow earthlings. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...