Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Giancarlo Fiorella

@giancarlofiorella.bsky.social

21K followers 490 following 210 posts

Director of Research and Training | Bellingcat Assistant Professor | Utrecht University PhD, Criminology & Sociolegal Studies | University of Toronto www.giancarlofiorella.com

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Pinned

Giancarlo Fiorella @giancarlofiorella.bsky.social · Sep 3

I'm re-starting my charity Twitch streams starting tonight at 7:00 PM EST via @extralife4kids.bsky.social! Come hang out in the chat, and if you've got a dollar, donate it to Toronto's SickKids Hospital.

100% of proceeds go directly to the hospital!

www.twitch.tv/gianfiorel

gianfiorel - Twitch

Hi! I live in Toronto and I stream to raise funds for SickKids via ExtraLife! Here is my ExtraLife page: https://www.extra-life.org/participant/548667

www.twitch.tv

1 2 6

Reposted by Giancarlo Fiorella

Edward Luce @edwardluce.bsky.social · 2d

"None — repeat none — of America’s fentanyl has been found to originate from Venezuela. Yet Trump and Pete Hegseth, his compulsively strutting “secretary of war”, insist that the country is fuelling America’s opioid epidemic." Me on Trump's wag the dog script. www.ft.com/content/5b3e...

Venezuela is Trump’s useful enemy

Despite the president’s claims, the South American country is nowhere close to being the US’s biggest drug supplier

www.ft.com

21 290 780

Reposted by Giancarlo Fiorella

Tomi McCluskey @tomi-mcc.bsky.social · 10h

Colombia's President claimed US struck a "Colombian vessel" with Colombian citizens aboard.

NYT now reports: Unnamed US officials confirm Colombian nationals were on at least one struck vessel - but make no statement about the vessel's nationality.

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/08/w...

Colombia’s President Says Boat Bombed by U.S. Was Carrying Colombians

www.nytimes.com

3 13 38

Reposted by Giancarlo Fiorella

Gabòr Friesen @gaborfriesen.bsky.social · 17h

For my 2nd undergraduate thesis, I researched the feasibility of using Convolutional Neural Networks to automate the process of mapping military trenches. Thought this summary might interest some of you.
medium.com/@gaborfriese...

Using AI to Detect Military Trenches on Satellite Imagery

This article provides a simplified and summarised view of my second undergraduate thesis. For access to the full thesis on this topic (14 pages) or underlying datasets, please reach out to me …

medium.com

2 5 26

Reposted by Giancarlo Fiorella

David Corn @davidcorn.bsky.social · 13h

That got dark quickly.

Juno Rylee Schultz @junoryleejournalism.com · 1d

David Simon, creator of ‘The Wire’, being interviewed by Ari Shapiro (NPR)

SHAPIRO: OK, so you've spent your career creating television without Al, and I could imagine today you thinking, boy, I wish I had had that tool to solve those thorny problems...
SIMON: What?
SHAPIRO: ...Or saying...
SIMON: You imagine that?
SHAPIRO: ...Boy, if that had existed, it would have screwed me over.
SIMON: I don't think Al can remotely challenge what writers do at a fundamentally creative level.
SHAPIRO: But if you're trying to transition from scene five to scene six, and you're stuck with that transition, you could imagine plugging that portion of the script into an Al and say, give me 10 ideas for how to transition this.
SIMON: I'd rather put a gun in my mouth.

51 130 900

Reposted by Giancarlo Fiorella

Tim Onion @bencollins.bsky.social · 13h

Autism antibodies are stored in the foreskin.

Justin Baragona @justinbaragona.bsky.social · 15h

Besides linking Tylenol in pregnant women to autism, RFK Jr. now says circumcision is part of the reason why kids are autistic.

"Children who are circumcised early have double the rate of autism, and it's highly likely because they're given Tylenol. None of this is positive..."

660 990 6.1K

Reposted by Giancarlo Fiorella

Jack Jenkins @jackjenkins.me · 14h

NEW: A federal judge has issued a temporary restraining order barring Chicago-area fed agents from several violent actions they’ve taken against journalists, activists and “religious practitioners” protesting ICE — including Rev. Black, a plaintiff in the case. www.courtlistener.com/docket/71559...

5 190 540

Reposted by Giancarlo Fiorella

Joseph Cox @josephcox.bsky.social · 16h

New from 404 Media: a data hoarder created a searchable data of Epstein files. "This is a public service project. All documents are from public releases. This archive makes them more accessible and searchable."

www.404media.co/data-hoarder...

Data Hoarder Uses AI to Create Searchable Database of Epstein Files

The open source project has been mirrored as a torrent file and represents one of the easiest ways to navigate a messy data dump.

www.404media.co

5 84 230

Reposted by Giancarlo Fiorella

Tim Onion @bencollins.bsky.social · 16h

Jeffrey Epstein: Bad Pedophile debuts tonight on The Onion's YouTube channel at 7 p.m. ET.

Finally somebody will release some dang Epstein Files if you know what I'm sayin'!!!

30 540 2.8K

Reposted by Giancarlo Fiorella

Bellingcat @bellingcat.com · 18h

Join us in one hour's time as we discuss the role of universities and the open source research community in tackling misinformation discord.gg/bellingcat?e...

27 86

Reposted by Giancarlo Fiorella

Rory White @rorywh.bsky.social · 1d

Today we launch Civic Searchlight, a tool for searching local government meeting transcripts across 550 municipalities in Canada.

Access is open for researchers and journalists:

civicsearchlight.nationalobserver.com

CivicSearchlight - by Canada's National Observer

Search transcripts of municipal meetings across Canada. Find discussions about topics that matter to your community with Canada's National Observer's search tool.

civicsearchlight.nationalobserver.com

10 22

Reposted by Giancarlo Fiorella

George Conway 👊🇺🇸🔥 @gtconway.bsky.social · 21h

So yesterday a reporter asked Donald Trump about the writ of habeas corpus, and he had no idea what it was.

"I don't know," he said. "I'd rather leave that to Kristi."

Well, It turns out Sen. Hassan asked Kristi Noem about it in May, and this was Noem's response:

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · May 20

HASSAN: What is habeas corpus?

NOEM: Habeas corpus is a constitutional right that the president has to be able to remove people from this country

HASSAN: That's incorrect

290 2K 5.7K

Reposted by Giancarlo Fiorella

Sarah Posner @sarahposner.bsky.social · 1d

So of course the weirdest and most alarming thing here is that Trump intended to DM the AG on Truth Social to order her to indict Comey and accidentally posted it publicly. But there are other very weird details within...

www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

Inside the Justice Department Where the President Calls the Shots

The president has executed a wholesale transformation of the Justice Department, taking control in ways he could have only dreamed of in his first term.

www.wsj.com

9 110 330

Reposted by Giancarlo Fiorella

Prem Thakker ツ @premthakker.bsky.social · 1d

My gosh. After the US bombed multiple boats in the middle of the ocean, murdering people on grounds that they were allegedly "carrying drugs," the US Attorney General says "Just like we did with cartels, we're going to take the same approach, President Trump, with Antifa."

290 1.3K 3.3K

Reposted by Giancarlo Fiorella

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 1d

Q: Are you going to work with your administration to designate antifa a foreign terror organization?

TRUMP: You mean anti-terror?

Q: Antifa

TRUMP: Antifa?

Q: A foreign terror organization

TRUMP: Would you like to see it done? I'd be glad to do it. Does everybody agree? It sounds good to me

250 240 880

Reposted by Giancarlo Fiorella

Justin Baragona @justinbaragona.bsky.social · 1d

Incredible.

Jack Posobiec references the earliest version of antifa -- the anti-fascists in the Weimar Republic who were opposed to the Nazi Party -- as the bad guys.

370 2K 6.1K

Reposted by Giancarlo Fiorella

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 1d

Trump on Portland: "It's like the movies you see for the kids, I guess not only the kids, adults also, where you have these bombed out cities and these bombed out people. It's like, worse than that."

400 190 740

Reposted by Giancarlo Fiorella

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 1d

Trump: "I think they work in conjunction with some of the media. I think ABC Is very bad. I think NBC is very bad. CBS has a new owner, so we have hope for CBS. CBS has a great new owner."

80 110 430

Reposted by Giancarlo Fiorella

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 1d

Trump: "We took the freedom of speech away because that's been through the courts and the courts said you have freedom of speech, but what has happened is when they burn a flag it agitates and irritates crowds."

840 1.7K 4.9K

Reposted by Giancarlo Fiorella

404 Media @404media.co · 1d

BREAKING: Apple removed an app for preserving TikToks, Instagram reels, news reports, and videos documenting abuses by ICE

🔗 www.404media.co/apple-banned...

Apple Banned an App That Simply Archived Videos of ICE Abuses

Eyes Up's purpose is to "preserve evidence until it can be used in court." But it has been swept up in Apple's crackdown on ICE-spotting apps.

www.404media.co

56 560 910

Reposted by Giancarlo Fiorella

Chatham House @chathamhouse.org · 1d

Self-defence, terrorism and a state of conflict have all been invoked as justification for attacks by the US military near Venezuela. None are convincing.

Attacks on ‘drug boats’ are pushing the US away from the consensus on the rules of international law

Self-defence, terrorism and a state of conflict have all been invoked as justification for attacks on the high seas. None are convincing.

www.chathamhouse.org

9 18

Reposted by Giancarlo Fiorella

Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 1d

#WarRavagedPortland

1.3K 11K 36K

Reposted by Giancarlo Fiorella

Keith W. Dickinson @keithwdickinson.bsky.social · 1d

Today is a day when arts degrees are worthless, but the product of those degrees is so valuable it would kill an entire industry if they were made to pay for it.

The Verge @theverge.com · May 26

Nick Clegg says asking artists for use permission would ‘kill’ the AI industry

Paul McCartne, Elton John and others signed an open letter.

buff.ly

410 9.5K 25K

Reposted by Giancarlo Fiorella

Kurt @flglchicago.bsky.social · 2d

Here’s video of the incident

260 1.7K 4K

Reposted by Giancarlo Fiorella

competentposter @competentposter.bsky.social · 5d

wizard frog is insane

240 3.7K 13K

Reposted by Giancarlo Fiorella

Aunty Em @everycourthouse.bsky.social · 2d

He froze because he realized, in real time, that what he’d just said carried serious constitutional implications. Which now will be used against the Trump administration in court. He invoked “plenary authority.” That phrase means complete authority, basically the president has dictatorial powers.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 3d

CNN: Does the administration still plan to abide by that court ruling?

STEPHEN MILLER: The administration filed an appeal this morning ... ... ...

CNN: Stephen? Stephen? Can you hear me?

MILLER: ... ... ...

13 130 210