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/...
Protesters holding a banner in front of a building with the text 'New America in the News.' The USA Today headline on a phone screen reads 'Trump's education plan leaves kids, parents to suffer,' dated October 26, 2025.
Screenshot of a Guardian news article from November 1, 2025, discussing the enduring inequality in the American healthcare system, highlighted by pay-to-play aspects impacting families, written by Elliot Haspel, a fellow at Culture of Care Narrative.
Text displayed on a mobile device screen showing an article from The Washington Post with the headline "The Washington Post subscription service that's going to complicate things..." by Chhaya Kapadia.
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, and 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.
It’s all worth seeing, hearing and experiencing…if only the tech and/or law could make it happen.
I had always hoped that the internet would drive solutions to problems like these. Still do.
Same with movies and tv: unless a DVD was released and you bought it (and you have something that plays DVDs), that show or movie you love will come and go from streaming services, perhaps not to be available again.
It’s the same with other culture too: rights issues prevent the true jukebox in the sky that I was promised would be the future! Streaming services are woefully incomplete and don’t scratch the service of all of the music that’s been recorded, or even being released now.
“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...
That’s it, no original thought or lived experience or burning drive to create. Is the result of that “learning” transformative, per fair use? I don’t know, but the way tech company folks talk about AI always irks me, like it’s a person they’re training, and that’s just not the case.
In reality, “training AI” means (yes, simplistically!) the machine catalogs the text of the books, scrambles it, and spits out a mish-mash of those books per your instructions. An LLM can’t create something original because the ONLY thing it “learns” from is what it’s been trained on. /2
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...
