Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Liberal Jimocrat

The Guardian @theguardian.com · 2h

GB News viewers more likely to wrongly believe net migration to UK rising, study finds

Research also finds majority of people are against letting politicians front current affairs programmes A larger proportion of people who frequently watch GB News wrongly believe that net migration to the UK is increasing than those of other major channels, according to a study examining public attitudes to broadcasting impartiality. Research by Cardiff University, seen by the Guardian, also found public opposition to allowing politicians to front current affairs programmes – contradicting research carried out by regulator, Ofcom. Continue reading...

www.theguardian.com

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Rebecca McKee @rebeccamckee.bsky.social · 2h

On Monday the government announced updates to the ministerial code

👀 One change is the Cabinet Office will now advise the PM before any decision to establish a public inquiry is taken, and before the ToRs are agreed

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John Bull @garius.bsky.social · 1h

Should add really that if you're a smol newsletter bean who would dearly love to NOT be on Substack, then I will happily roll (and manage) a Ghost install for you for cost + a small maintenance fee.

I'll talk you through setting up your own mailgun and stripe. Do that and you keep ALL your revenue.

John Bull @garius.bsky.social · 1h

Okay, Ghost V6 integrated with Tinybird for analytics is pretty damn filthy.

Been running @theupfront.media on Ghost for a while as part of our "No Nazi platforms" stack. Very happy with it (and with our Germany-based email hosting instead of Google Business)

The technology you use is a choice.

In many instances, the choice of platform or technology that a publisher makes can no longer be seen as neutral. Nowhere is that more clear than in journalism in the 2020s.

We are proud that The Up Front and all of our supporting digital infrastructure (like our email servers, data storage and collaboration tools) are either self-hosted and managed, or use trusted third parties who have policies that align with our values.

We reject platforms and technologies where our use would represent tacit support for — or tolerance of — the views of their owners or major funders where we disagree fundamentally with those views and the impact they have on the world.

We’re very selective in the socials we operate: we’re on Bluesky as our network of choice and use its atproto as our commenting system, curating a community of thoughtful feedback on our work and elevating other voices. We also have a LinkedIn page, because we understand its importance for our industry audience.

Perhaps more importantly, we don’t use toxic socials like Instagram, Facebook, Threads or X, which drive really unproductive behaviour in media outlets, journalists, readers and companies.

We choose our technical backend and partners carefully, selecting independent European vendors rather than US-based Big Tech, for ethical reasons, for data privacy, and because we care about supporting the good parts of the digital sector in the same way we know our subscribers care about supporting the good parts of the media sector.

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Brilliant Maps @brilliantmaps.bsky.social · 4h

Map Showing Where Each Chess Piece Is Usually Captured

More about how it was made: brilliantmaps.com/chess-pie...

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Stuart Jones @owenthesignal.bsky.social · 1d

‘Which fonts do you want for the sale poster?’

‘Yes’

#fonts #typography #museum #allthefonts
@fontsinuse.com @themerl.bsky.social

All the fonts, including a surprisingly modern 1960s style italic font, advertising the sale of Ashton Farm by auction at the Crown Hotel Bishops Waltham in 1908.
Photo from Bishops Waltham Museum, from the Austin & Wyatt archive

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karl rove knausgård @uhactually.bsky.social · 3h

Every time a Democrat gets caught on tape saying like “Some Trump voters are racist” we have a national scandal and JD Vance demands an entirely new kind of apology and meanwhile every Republican group chat is like “Good morning fellow SS members. Who’s ready to respect Hitler today?”

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Rob MacWolf, Werewolf Hitchhiker @robmacwolf.thevoice.dog · 19h

When we write or draw porn or erotica, we get banned from having a bank account and our livelihoods get seized even if we give it away for free.

When billionaires steal what we've written or drawn to churn out a slop-approximate of porn, they're allowed to charge for it.

Matt Burgess (WIRED) @mattburgess1.bsky.social · 22h

Oh good, ChatGPT is getting "erotica for verified adults" later this year

We made ChatGPT pretty restrictive to make sure we were being careful with mental health issues. We realize this made it less useful/enjoyable to many users who had no mental health problems, but given the seriousness of the issue we wanted to get this right.

Now that we have been able to mitigate the serious mental health issues and have new tools, we are going to be able to safely relax the restrictions in most cases.

In a few weeks, we plan to put out a new version of ChatGPT that allows people to have a personality that behaves more like what people liked about 4o (we hope it will be better!). If you want your ChatGPT to respond in a very human-like way, or use a ton of emoji, or act like a friend, ChatGPT should do it (but only if you want it, not because we are usage-maxxing).

In December, as we roll out age-gating more fully and as part of our “treat adult users like adults” principle, we will allow even more, like erotica for verified adults.

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Stephen Bush @stephenkb.bsky.social · 4h

It’s not quite “sanewashing”, because often the attempts to turn what Badenoch has said into a concrete policy suggestion make her sound nuts, but it’s funny to me how angry people are about a thing she didn’t say, because she is too lazy.

Stephen Bush @stephenkb.bsky.social · 4h

No - her speech and the CCHQ briefing had basically no detail in it, the English, Anthropology stuff is solely about some media outlets trying to impose coherency where there was none.

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David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 4h

“A clarinet player was arrested after playing her instrument to the tune of the ‘Ghostbusters’ theme song outside of a Portland ICE facility…”

Musician playing ‘Ghostbusters’ outside ICE facility is arrested by agents

‘Taking us citizens out of state to detain them without charge is a new action from the Feds and should be opposed,’ her band said

www.independent.co.uk

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A Mere Solicitor @ameresolicitor.bsky.social · 4h

Looking back at this and seeing a Labour government choosing option 3 in the most petulant manner possible…

…because this Labour government is determined to be worse than Thatcher for LGBTQIA+ people.

A Mere Solicitor @ameresolicitor.bsky.social · 1d

He’s flagging that 🇬🇧 is in breach of it’s obligations with the result being:

1. They change the approach

2. They lose when this gets to the ECHR

3. The 🇬🇧 leaves the international human rights body we imposed on Europe to stop the rise of fascism happening again.

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Jonty @fairless.xyz · 4h

Windows 10 goes out of support today. My fave useless fact about w10 is that the iconic blue desktop background is a *photograph* - not CGI.

Tiny 'making of' vid here - youtu.be/_2RacX9DgWM...

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🦇🤘 Rigg-or mortis 🔶️🏳️‍🌈 @rigg.lgbt · 3h

Ok, THIS is interesting.

If the Supreme Court's judgement in FWS is correct then the UK has NEVER been compliant with the judgement in Goodwin (2002) and ought to be subject to enforcement...

Victoria McCloud 🏳️‍⚧️🌈‍♾️ @humanrightsvicky.bsky.social · 19h

We have jointly applied to the Council of Europe formally to seek re-opening of enforcement of the case of Goodwin v UK under rule 9 of the Rules for the supervision of the execution of judgments and of the terms of friendly settlements, in the European Court of Human Rights. T

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Robin Mar-Witch 🧙🏻‍♀️ @electricland.bsky.social · 12d

Today in “AI is a scourge”: I’m in an embroidery group on Facebook, and it feels like every day brings a new person who says “I bought this pattern on Etsy but it didn’t come with instructions and I don’t understand how they got this effect”

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John McCafferty @jdmccafferty.bsky.social · 6h

When you decide to draw a zebra but rely on secondhand accounts, Antonio Tempesta c. 1650 (Rijksmuseum)

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Dmitry Grozoubinski @explaintrade.com · 5h

"What are you dressing up as for Halloween?"

"No idea. I'm completely stumped."

A stump that looks like a terrifying face.

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Pascal Jacquemain @jacquep.bsky.social · 8h

Meanwhile in Norway

Norway pulls plug on world’s first ship tunnel amid spiralling costs share.google/EO39HF9x5ayh...

Norway pulls plug on world’s first ship tunnel amid spiralling costs

Pioneering project is just too expensive, prime minister says

share.google

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Liberal Jimocrat @liberaljimocrat.bsky.social · 3h

I’m not sure I’d generally describe Starmer or Badenoch as superb media performers either

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Tootlefish @tootlefish.bsky.social · 5h

It simply should not be possible to make a steam train out of our marginal taxation rate graph.

UK marginal taxation chart crudely turned into a steam train

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Liberal Jimocrat @liberaljimocrat.bsky.social · 4h

Leaving aside the horror of the situation for a moment, to accuse these people of LARPing as badass tactical operators would be an insult to milsimish LARPers everywhere

50501: The People’s Movement ❌👑 @50501movement.bsky.social · 15h

Please remind us who the domestic terrorists are again.

Photo from Chicago: DHS militarized agent holding a gun up directly in someone’s face as the victim has their hands up, pleading for them not to shoot.

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James Ball @jamesrball.com · 5h

It certainly suggests something about the teacher’s broader attention to detail and commitment to their job…

Luke Plunkett @lukeplunkett.com · 7h

kids teacher just sent this home as part of an assignment he's doing and i want to smash every computer at the school

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Stephen Bush @stephenkb.bsky.social · 5h

One manifestation of Labour’s “everything is polling” approach to government is that they visibly think of policy not in departmental solos but in issue polling silos. Your immigration choices and your levies on business are the same picture!

Stephen Bush @stephenkb.bsky.social · 5h

B2 or not B2? Some thoughts on the government’s latest announcement on immigration (and why the most striking bit isn’t the posturing about English):

Labour’s big blind spot in UK immigration policy

To make it seem tough on legal routes, the government introduces radical measures with uncertain effects

www.ft.com

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Liberal Jimocrat @liberaljimocrat.bsky.social · 4h

Was not expecting today to bring a Poirot’s Moustache style origin story for your Soup Opinions

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Asawin Suebsaeng @swin24.bsky.social · 14h

Yep another U.S. attorney who Trump HANDPICKED this time around who team trump quickly determined: nope sorry not authoritarian enough, next

Adam Klasfeld @klasfeldreports.com · 15h

Extraordinary NYT story:

Trump’s DOJ pressured out another US Attorney in WESTERN Virginia for finding that a grand jury probe his bosses demanded was unwarranted.

They wanted a case discrediting the Russia probe — evidence be damned. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/14/u...

U.S. Attorney Was Forced Out After Clashes Over How to Handle Russia Inquiry

www.nytimes.com

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BeijingPalmer @beijingpalmer.bsky.social · 14h

also of course we are now getting to the point where the music of a 60 year old grandparent's young years is from the mid-80s.

J. Westerby @jwesterbyhsb.bsky.social · 14h

My favorite genre is “songs you thought were a hundred years old but were written in your parents’ lifetime.”

BeijingPalmer @beijingpalmer.bsky.social · 14h

there are some songs which feel so much like traditionals that it's a little alarming when you find out someone wrote them in the 20th century. Long Black Veil was written in 1959!

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Jess Calarco @jessicacalarco.com · 14h

They're trying to prevent the student newspaper from printing news, period. Not just a particular story.

"The Media School directed us to print no news in the paper... nothing but information about homecoming — no other news at all, and particularly no traditional front page news coverage."

Jess Calarco @jessicacalarco.com · 15h

Indiana University has fired the staff director of the student newspaper, after disputes in which university leadership tried to pressure him to prevent students from publishing news.

IndyStar 2 . Follow
1h:
"All Media School and IU students, faculty and staff
should be scared by this blatant attack on someone
standing up for what's right," student Editors-ln-Chief
Mia Hilkowitz and Andrew Miller said in a statement.
Read more: bit.ly/43ebKW1
IndyStar.
IDS
The original investigative student
newsroom of Indiana University
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Indiana University fires IDS
adviser amid push to control
student newspaper's content

The director of student media at Indiana University was fired amidst a dispute between university leadership and editors at the Indiana Daily Student over what content gets printed in the student newspaper.

As director of student media, Jim Rodenbush did not directly oversee or have any say over the content published in the IDS, per a charter between the IDS and the university. But he told IndyStar his firing follows a series of meetings with IU Media School leadership in which it grew increasingly apparent they were expecting him to officially prohibit students from publishing news.

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