Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Emily Bell @emilybell.bsky.social · 12m

They are already hallucinatory, often racist, damaging to the environment and confidently wrong on even the most basic questions ….making them *more* magacentric might be hard…

Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 1h

The administration “is currently pressuring OpenAI and other AI companies to make their models more conservative-friendly.”

OpenAI is trying to clamp down on ‘bias’ in ChatGPT

GPT-5 is better at resisting liberal ‘pressure,’ the company says.

www.theverge.com

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Emily Bell @emilybell.bsky.social · 19m

Impossible to really enjoy discussing things you love and consider vitally important being ground into dust, but this was a good talk with the great @petergeoghegan.bsky.social

Peter Geoghegan @petergeoghegan.bsky.social · 1h

No Democracy for Sale newsletter this weekend as I’m sick as a pike, I’m afraid.

But would highly recommend watching last week’s interview with the indefatigable @emilybell.bsky.social, if you missed it

youtu.be/5lXeFzrYwI8?...

Trump is breaking the free press | Professor Emily Bell's warning

YouTube video by Democracy for Sale

youtu.be

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Emily Bell @emilybell.bsky.social · 23m

Some as a pike - great simile, sounds horrible. Get well soon - there’s a sh*t ton happening we need you for

Reposted by Emily Bell

Aunty Em @everycourthouse.bsky.social · 12h

Free gift article link: www.nytimes.com/2025/10/10/u...

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Erin Kissane @kissane.myatproto.social · 15h

This is what I do with a lot of my time right now. It's so wild that the "simple" things—like keeping the chronology, pointing to specific events—are so hard right now. But they need doing.

Unbreaking @unbreaking.org · 18h

The clear story in Immigration this week is the escalation of—and pushback against—the Trump administration’s militarized raids and warrantless stops in Democrat-run major cities. We’ve updated our timeline with a lot of events in this zone:

unbreaking.org/issues/immig...

Immigration — Unbreaking

How the administration is breaking the government, and what that means for all of us.

unbreaking.org

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Emily Bell @emilybell.bsky.social · 14h

I am so consistently over caffeinated now, it’s exhausting for my cohabitees

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Derek Willis @dwillis.bsky.social · 16h

Last year a @merrillcollege.bsky.social grad student told me she wanted to build a news app about evictions in DC. Given the schedule and amount of work, it was an ambitious project.

Taylor Nichols not only did it but got it published by a DC news org!

streetsensedc.github.io/evictions-ap...

Mapping evictions in Washington, D.C.

streetsensedc.github.io

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Emily Bell @emilybell.bsky.social · 14h

I am responsible for at least 30pc of this global shortage. Working among the young has made me an addict …from ‘why do you drink that disgusting pond water?’ to a house-losing 2 a -day habit in under a year. solve the shortage with grass cuttings for the sugared variety and a ban on green KitKats

Tony Tassell @tonytassell.bsky.social · 1d

Read of the day: Can Japan satisfy the world’s thirst for matcha? just a great story from Harry Dempsey and @urbandirt.bsky.social reporting from Shizuoka and Uji www.ft.com/content/be14...

Can Japan satisfy the world’s thirst for matcha?

Booming demand is straining a supply chain that prioritises quality and cannot expand quickly enough

www.ft.com

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Reposted by Emily Bell

Aaron S. Veenstra @asveenstra.bsky.social · 15h

The front page of the Milwaukee Journal 43 years ago today, as the Brewers prepared for their first winner-take-all home game. Check out the other headlines. Time is a flat circle.

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Emily Bell @emilybell.bsky.social · 15h

One of my favorite headlines from my own local paper was ‘Dog Escapes Through Front Hedge’ …I guess if it had got stuck in the hedge it might have made the bbc too

Del - Martian Observer @martian-observer.art · 1d

oh, Monty *smh*

Dog stuck in Moreton garden fence rescued by firefighters

Monty the miniature schnauzer is not hurt during the rescue at his home near Harlow.

www.bbc.co.uk

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Reposted by Emily Bell

Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 16h

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NightMar on Hicks Street, Part 4: The Rabbit’s Revenge @histoftech.bsky.social · 15h

The Virginia Senate just told UVA it’s not getting state funding if it accepts the compact since UVA exists to serve Virginia, its residents, & their interests—not be a tool of the federal govt. Scoop from our student newspaper, who’ve been doing vital reporting www.cavalierdaily.com/article/2025...

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Reposted by Emily Bell

O. Rose Broderick @rosebroderick.bsky.social · 1d

Jay Shetty built his brand as a health influencer. But his relationship to science is murky.

Great story from STAT's Alexa Lee!

www.statnews.com/2025/10/10/j...

Jay Shetty and his health advice are everywhere. It's by design

The wellness influencer and former monk Jay Shetty knows how to get attention and prop up his own interests.

www.statnews.com

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Emily Bell @emilybell.bsky.social · 1d

It’s almost as if a billionaire private equity executive isn’t the right person to give space to on the topic of academic freedom or reform ….

Jameel Jaffer @jameeljaffer.bsky.social · 1d

Quite a feat to go from this to "and therefore universities must ban faculty and students from belittling conservative ideas"

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Emily Bell @emilybell.bsky.social · 1d

This is so wonderful ❤️

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Emily Bell @emilybell.bsky.social · 1d

I feel very moved by the Portland resistance - inflatable people, hot-to-go dancers and twerking dinosaurs, as this piece outlines , it’s true courage, defanging fear

It also dismantles their narrative a little bit. When they try to describe this situation as "war-torn" becomes much harder to take them seriously when they have to post a video saying [U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security] Kristi Noem is up on the balcony staring over the Antifa Army and it's, like, eight journalists and five protesters and one of them is in a chicken suit.

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Emily Bell @emilybell.bsky.social · 1d

Ugh the Dodgers

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Emily Bell @emilybell.bsky.social · 1d

If you want me to pay my taxes……
you better come over here with a crucifix ….
and find my w2

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Reposted by Emily Bell

Loevy & Loevy @loevy.com · 1d

Today we won a major victory for the First Amendment, and dealt the Trump administration a defeat in its War on Chicago (and civil rights in general). A US District judge issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) reining in federal agents' use of force against protesters, clergy, and the press.

Federal Judge Issues Temporary Restraining Order, Reining in Federal Agents’ Use of Violence, and Protecting First Amendment Rights of Protesters, Clergy, and Press

Loevy & Loevy has a long history of big wins in civil rights, wrongful conviction, and police brutality cases. View multi-million verdicts.

www.loevy.com

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Emily Bell @emilybell.bsky.social · 1d

New Reuters Institute report on how people are increasingly using LLMs for search. no surprises (in many markets the figure will be higher) . It’s not really so much *replacing* what publishers do as ‘aggregating’ publisher material and failing to credit www.niemanlab.org/2025/10/peop...

People are using ChatGPT twice as much as they were last year. They’re still just as skeptical of AI in news.

"For news organizations, our findings are in some ways bitter medicine."

www.niemanlab.org

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Reposted by Emily Bell

David Carroll @davidcarroll.org · 1d

Article doesn’t mention how Truth Social is an unauthorized fork of Mastodon. Mastodon is notorious how it handles DMs in a non-standard way. This weird UI/UX probably confused the president which had legal implications. These articles should be inquisitive about it. newrepublic.com/post/201529/...

Trump Accidentally Posted Message That Could Destroy Entire Comey Case

It turns out Donald Trump didn’t mean to make that Truth Social post public after all.

newrepublic.com

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Emily Bell @emilybell.bsky.social · 2d

Otoh well done Canada. Countries that don’t bend the knee deserve to win rings

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Emily Bell @emilybell.bsky.social · 2d

If I never have to see Aaron Boone and his stupid bubblegum ever again it will not be a moment too soon

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Columbia Journalism Review @columjournreview.bsky.social · 2d

Across the world, well-meaning laws intended to reduce online fraud and other scourges of the internet are being put to a very different use, by Nalova Akua. www.cjr.org/analysis/nig...

How anti-cybercrime laws are being weaponized to repress journalism.

Across the world, well-meaning laws intended to reduce online fraud and other scourges of the internet are being put to a very different use.

www.cjr.org

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Emily Bell @emilybell.bsky.social · 2d

Underpants gnomes 3.0

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