This is a significant issue for democracy and trust in news media (already dismal, as we know). I'm so glad that Meta is taking action against this automated AI slop on their platforms by doing... *checks notes* nothing. #nzpol www.rnz.co.nz/news/nationa...

1. It was not an accident. 2. It was not a staffer. 3. While the president may have dementia his racism is not due to dementia. 4. He isn’t sorry. He means every racist thought he shares. 5. His base agrees with him. 6. He will do it again. 7. No one in power will hold him accountable.

We're at 37 weeks, folks 😱😱😱 iykyk

Benefits are too low, so debt cycle exacerbates. $802,105 pw [$41.8Mpa] was taken from income support & sent directly to creditors in Aug 2025 [nom 45% rise in 4.5 yrs.] Women [bc more families w children] are approx 2x as likely to have wages or benefits docked through attachment orders as men."

Who could have foreseen that making a lot of people redundant while doing nothing much to bring the economy back into growth for a whole year would result in high unemployment It's a mystery for the ages

people are drastically unprepared for what the media & discourse environment is going to turn into this year, I think consider the smears on Green & TPM MPs last year, the months long coordinated campaigns between muckrakers, politicians & media that led to death threats 2026 will likely be worse

The academic is Dr Samantha Marsh, a member of before16 a group pushing for a social media ban backed by wealthy (white) women. Platforms don't want regulation, duh. But what they're really scared of is legal duties of care, which a ban doesn't do (unfortunately) #nzpol www.rnz.co.nz/news/nationa...

DEADBOTS.

Doing my yearly listen to the Hunger Games trilogy audiobooks and it's, uhhhh

Things I've been told as the non-birthing parent during my wife's pregnancy: "Your wife will just know what to do b/c of all those hormones. But you won't." "Why are you taking so much time off? Your baby will just be obsessed w your wife." "You're having a boy? How are you going to deal w that?"

When charitable trusts are doing more for public health than the government that is responsible for public health 🫠 Would also be great if articles like these could mention the Greens are the only party in Aotearoa to have a policy of free dental care for everyone.

"The complaint alleges that “xAI has expressly programmed Grok to make any ‘adult sexual content’ requested by a user, without any restriction on its ability” to create nonconsensual images."

Elon Musk’s xAI is being sued over Grok allowing users to generate sexualised deefakes. "the lawsuit says xAI chose to “capitalize on the internet’s seemingly insatiable appetite for humiliating and nonconsensual sexual images,”" techpolicy.press/breaking-dow...

NEW: An AI toy company's web portal had basically protections, allowing anyone with a Gmail address to access some 50,000 transcripts of kids' chats with their stuffed animals. @agreenberg.bsky.social has the scoop: www.wired.com/story/an-ai-...

NZ has fallen into a 'crisis and response' pattern on climate disaster, experts say. Billions have been spent on storm recovery since 2023, while key climate adaptation funding and planning tools have been cut. My story looking at last week’s storms www.rnz.co.nz/news/nationa...

GenAI should be banned from use in political campaigning. What's next? Generating political opponents saying things they didn't say? (Aside from the fact this is the sloppiest AI slop that ever slopped. SHAME). #nzpol

2013: Recently former ACT leader writes a column arguing that slavery was better for slaves than democracy: www.nbr.co.nz/a-southern-s... 2026: ACT refuses to support anti-slavery legislation, forcing Grand Coalition www.rnz.co.nz/news/politic... I suppose consistency is a kind of virtue

Another shitty male judge screws over NZ women. Precedent now set that tricking women into sex isn’t rape. Disgusting.

many such cases

Thoughts on UpScrolled? Joined as a possible viable alternative to Instagram (and for keeping up with new social networking sites, for research 🤓).

If I have to see another blurred image of a woman in a sexual pose or clearly naked alongside stories about deepfakes, I'm going to throw my phone into the ocean. Can you report on this stuff without implicitly replicating the content? Omg.

I do remember when Judith Collins leaked the name and details of a public servant to the right wing attack blogger Cameron Slater and then the public servant received personal attacks and death threats. www.rnz.co.nz/news/politic...

Slashing all Marsden grants to social science and humanities another Judith Collins legacy www.rnz.co.nz/news/nationa...

TikTok's Trump-friendly new owners in the US say problems were caused by a data centre power outage and deny censorship. But even last night, I found ICE-related clips from US users would start to pixelate then freeze. Problem didn't affect videos on other topics www.nzherald.co.nz/technology/u...

I can't believe it's been ten years

Another trope I've heard a couple of times recently is that "the Greens used to be the party of environmentalism ...and they should go back to being just that" ...despite the fact we've more than doubled our number of MPs in that time 🤔

"If you create objectionable content, it will still be objectionable even if it is synthetic or fake and the penalties for creating content are very severe." (Eg child sexual abuse material or sexually violent content via Grok, Sora2, other generative AI tools) #nzpol www.rnz.co.nz/news/nationa...

X says that they are committed to safety, but are utterly failing to prevent the exploitation of women on their platform. We found that In just 11 days, Grok enabled an estimated 3 MILLION sexualized images of women and girls. Support in holding X & Grok accountable. Donate below ⤵️

It's easy

Regulation of AI and platforms helps counter mistrust and misinformation. Without it, the reflex when seeing real footage is "it's AI". An important overview of what happened online over the last few days: thespinoff.co.nz/society/26-0...

This government is defunding our health system.

Since it’s an election year I hope we can talk about how this government is responsible for deliberate withholding of healthcare to make some numbers on a piece of paper look good for their donors

RNZ turned off comments on Facebook. #nzpol

AI systems are trained on data that is socially informed not just cold "facts" (ie all of attitudes & stereotypes that support ongoing inequalities based on gender, race, sexuality etc) unsurprising AI chatbots are advising women & minorities to ask for less pay #nzpol www.rnz.co.nz/national/pro...

Racist not in scare quotes this time. Clearing the low bar of calling it what it is. www.rnz.co.nz/news/nationa...

Absolutely impeccable timing for this. Exquisite. Pristine.

This is embarrassing and we are fucking doomed.

Musk’s Chatbot Flooded X With Millions of Sexualized Images in Days, New Estimates Show www.nytimes.com/2026/01/22/t... @legallyfeminist.bsky.social

Disgusting attitude shown by #NZpolice in treatment of mother of kidnapped Phillips' children. Cops - texted film crew ~6.15am, - notice on website ~7.15am on serious incident in W Waikato, - told Phillips' family ~7.30am, + - children's mother told after 8am! #NZpol www.rnz.co.nz/news/nationa...

We set out to determine how many images of women and girls Grok created during its nudifying spree. What we found was “industrial-scale abuse,” experts said. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/22/t...

Universities, companies, and government agencies that continue to operate on X, now that this is clearly documented (majority of content included sexualized images of women and children) are actively supporting "industrial-scale abuse." Paid subscribers can still do this.

Days later, after people have lost their lives, our PM might make a statement now. Someone ask him about climate change. #nzpol

life ending and infrastructure destroying floods are now an annual occurrence in new zealand. there is no political recognition of this new reality, and thus there is no resourcing for its prevention. we are not ready

"Research would tell us that most ICE agents entered into these jobs in part because they want approval, and they want to affirm their masculinity in public," said sociologist Nicole Bedera. "An ICE watch works by surrounding these people ... with disapproval."

Philippines to restore access to Grok after developer commits to safety fixes reut.rs/4sRN151

Left: writing the damn paper in the shadows of an archive nearby. Right: presenting the said paper as a keynote at a fancy conference. #academicchatter

First thought about the election date: November 7 is right when a lot of university students (mostly first time voters) will be finishing up and heading home for the summer. It’s really important to make sure your young people know what to do if they are out of their electorate on election day.