Heather Burns
@heatherburnstech.bsky.social
freelance tech policy x digital rights / human rights / good trouble / midlife MPhil student @ Strathclyde / IANAL / https://heatherburns.tech / 💬 on Signal / open to work / 🇺🇦 / "bad ass Glaswegian" apparently
Pinned
Queen of the hill – Hi, I'm Heather Burns
I somehow managed to not fling myself off my chair.
heatherburns.tech
Some personal news. I've had such good fun doing a midlife masters @lawstrath.bsky.social that I'm going to stick around for another two years and do an MPhil in technology regulation and human rights. Huge thanks to everyone who got me up that hill.
heatherburns.tech/2025/08/21/q...
heatherburns.tech/2025/08/21/q...
Reposted by Heather Burns
Founders on LinkedIn still seem to be struggling with the difference between telling people about their humble beginnings and admitting to straight up committing fraud.
November 24, 2025 at 11:17 PM
Founders on LinkedIn still seem to be struggling with the difference between telling people about their humble beginnings and admitting to straight up committing fraud.
It has been exasperating to live through years of moral panic over "the children" when the very people pushing the worst hatred and racism are their own grandparents sitting across from them at the same table. It has been equally exasperating how that fact is taboo because "the pensioners".
God it's so cool that so much of British and European nationalist politics has broadly been shaped by warehouse clickfarms rented by guys in South Asia running "how to make money from racist old people" workshops, and that this has had more influence on media and politics than any grassroots group
November 25, 2025 at 6:26 AM
It has been exasperating to live through years of moral panic over "the children" when the very people pushing the worst hatred and racism are their own grandparents sitting across from them at the same table. It has been equally exasperating how that fact is taboo because "the pensioners".
Reposted by Heather Burns
Seen a lot of people wondering why X, The Everything App would have a feature that gives away how much of the popular right wing accounts are foreign actors and this is why. They thought every left wing account would be that way because every accusation is also a confession.
Planned Parenthood uses a VPN so its twitter location is shown as Germany and now all of MAGA twitter thinks Planned Parenthood is a fake organization based in Europe.
November 24, 2025 at 7:09 PM
Seen a lot of people wondering why X, The Everything App would have a feature that gives away how much of the popular right wing accounts are foreign actors and this is why. They thought every left wing account would be that way because every accusation is also a confession.
Fortnite, IN SPRINGFIELD.
A group of immigrant rights organizers are helping people use Fortnite to practice what to do if they encounter ICE agents in the wild.
Inside an ICE Defense Training on Fortnite
A group of immigrant rights organizers are helping people use Fortnite to practice what to do if they encounter ICE agents in the wild.
www.404media.co
November 24, 2025 at 3:23 PM
Fortnite, IN SPRINGFIELD.
Everywhere I go on my travels, I stumble onto stolpersteine (that being the point of them), so this makes me very happy.
www.heraldscotland.com/news/2564320...
www.heraldscotland.com/news/2564320...
First Stolperstein in Scotland to be unveiled for woman who died in Auschwitz
Scotland’s first brass Stolperstein memorial plaque for a Scottish Holocaust victim will be unveiled on Monday as 'we must never forget the…
www.heraldscotland.com
November 24, 2025 at 7:12 AM
Everywhere I go on my travels, I stumble onto stolpersteine (that being the point of them), so this makes me very happy.
www.heraldscotland.com/news/2564320...
www.heraldscotland.com/news/2564320...
Reposted by Heather Burns
Twitter accounts are based in Russia. BlueSky accounts are based in homes with, frankly, too many books, plants, obsolete cables, and pieces of rustic pottery, that could do with a bit of a tidying up, to be honest.
November 23, 2025 at 8:29 PM
Twitter accounts are based in Russia. BlueSky accounts are based in homes with, frankly, too many books, plants, obsolete cables, and pieces of rustic pottery, that could do with a bit of a tidying up, to be honest.
Reposted by Heather Burns
But "child safety" is so important to this and previous governments that the whole population must be forbidden confidential conversations and encrypted backups or cloud storage.
November 24, 2025 at 12:30 AM
But "child safety" is so important to this and previous governments that the whole population must be forbidden confidential conversations and encrypted backups or cloud storage.
In which an MP is genuinely ~shocked~ that six years of allowing pearl-clutching white saviours and Christian fundamentalists to craft the rules of content regulation is resulting in the censorship of discussions about menstruation and lady gardens.
www.politicshome.com/opinion/arti...
www.politicshome.com/opinion/arti...
Big tech's sexism is jeopardising women's health
An internet on which you can’t say the word “vagina” in its proper context feels like something out of The Handmaid’s Tale. But it’s here, and it’s...
www.politicshome.com
November 23, 2025 at 4:24 PM
In which an MP is genuinely ~shocked~ that six years of allowing pearl-clutching white saviours and Christian fundamentalists to craft the rules of content regulation is resulting in the censorship of discussions about menstruation and lady gardens.
www.politicshome.com/opinion/arti...
www.politicshome.com/opinion/arti...
In a first for me, I gave up on a book from a major publisher and publicity tour, requested a refund, and happily watched it disappear from my Kindle, after trudging through page after page of histrionic, clichéd, chatGPT-generated word vomit. I don’t DNF lightly, but GTF.
November 23, 2025 at 7:20 AM
In a first for me, I gave up on a book from a major publisher and publicity tour, requested a refund, and happily watched it disappear from my Kindle, after trudging through page after page of histrionic, clichéd, chatGPT-generated word vomit. I don’t DNF lightly, but GTF.
As visual metaphors go, looking up into the dark starry Scottish sky and seeing one person’s toys, all over the place, stomping through the heavens, is a bit much.
November 22, 2025 at 6:59 AM
As visual metaphors go, looking up into the dark starry Scottish sky and seeing one person’s toys, all over the place, stomping through the heavens, is a bit much.
Reposted by Heather Burns
in case you missed this hideous effort by trump's eeoc to force penn to disclose names of jewish students, faculty, staff & many others, here's @penamerica.bsky.social's statement
Trump Administration’s Legal Effort to Compel Disclosure of Jewish Names at the University of Pennsylvania is a “Shocking Abuse of Power”
PEN America today called on the federal court in Philadelphia to deny the Trump administration’s attempt to enforce a subpoena against the University of Pennsylvania to disclose the names and other id...
pen.org
November 21, 2025 at 11:56 PM
in case you missed this hideous effort by trump's eeoc to force penn to disclose names of jewish students, faculty, staff & many others, here's @penamerica.bsky.social's statement
Reposted by Heather Burns
BIG: FBI spied on Signal group chat of immigration activists CourtWatch, classifying them as violent terrorist extremists for quietly sitting in on court cases, as revealed in intel bulletin we obtained & shared w/ @samtlevin.bsky.social @us.theguardian.com. #FOIA www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
The FBI spied on a Signal group chat of immigration activists, records reveal
Exclusive: Agency accessed private conversations of New York ‘courtwatch’ group that was observing public hearings
www.theguardian.com
November 21, 2025 at 4:13 PM
BIG: FBI spied on Signal group chat of immigration activists CourtWatch, classifying them as violent terrorist extremists for quietly sitting in on court cases, as revealed in intel bulletin we obtained & shared w/ @samtlevin.bsky.social @us.theguardian.com. #FOIA www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
This. Is. Glorious.
omg they made Jeffrey Epstein Inbox Simulator '25 jmail.world
Jmail, logged in as [email protected]
You are logged into [email protected], Jeffrey Epstein's email. Sourced from the November 2025 House Oversight Committee data release.
jmail.world
November 21, 2025 at 5:17 PM
This. Is. Glorious.
Reposted by Heather Burns
Roses are red,
And so are my dearests.
They’re
And so are my dearests.
They’re
November 21, 2025 at 2:44 PM
Roses are red,
And so are my dearests.
They’re
And so are my dearests.
They’re
Reposted by Heather Burns
From the Department of Tragic Irony:
On the day the Harvard Law School releases a digital archive of the Nuremberg Trials, the President threatens the lives of members of Congress who utter its most basic truth: That everyone, especially soldiers, must follow the law.
nuremberg.law.harvard.edu
On the day the Harvard Law School releases a digital archive of the Nuremberg Trials, the President threatens the lives of members of Congress who utter its most basic truth: That everyone, especially soldiers, must follow the law.
nuremberg.law.harvard.edu
Nuremberg - Explore the Nuremberg Trials!
The Harvard Law School Library's Nuremberg Trials Project is an open-access initiative to create and present digitized images and full-text versions of the Library's Nuremberg Trials documents,…
nuremberg.law.harvard.edu
November 21, 2025 at 1:24 PM
From the Department of Tragic Irony:
On the day the Harvard Law School releases a digital archive of the Nuremberg Trials, the President threatens the lives of members of Congress who utter its most basic truth: That everyone, especially soldiers, must follow the law.
nuremberg.law.harvard.edu
On the day the Harvard Law School releases a digital archive of the Nuremberg Trials, the President threatens the lives of members of Congress who utter its most basic truth: That everyone, especially soldiers, must follow the law.
nuremberg.law.harvard.edu
Reposted by Heather Burns
The comments on this post are illuminating.
Bellingcat’s contact email has always been a magnet for people with fairly unusual views; paranoid delusions, sprawling conspiracies, the works. But recently, the pattern has shifted, we’re seeing more and more emails clearly written with ChatGPT.
November 21, 2025 at 6:27 AM
The comments on this post are illuminating.
Reposted by Heather Burns
This article documents good practice for civil society folk in the digital/rights space, for whom getting … strange approaches from randos is a weekly occurrence.
www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...
www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...
UK holds talks with LinkedIn on clamping down on Chinese espionage
Government wants social media platforms to be less attractive for foreign agents after recent intelligence warnings
www.theguardian.com
November 20, 2025 at 7:20 AM
This article documents good practice for civil society folk in the digital/rights space, for whom getting … strange approaches from randos is a weekly occurrence.
www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...
www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...
Reposted by Heather Burns
Will be published at midnight - I hope of interest
November 19, 2025 at 11:42 PM
Will be published at midnight - I hope of interest
Update: the bill in South Carolina introduced by Christian fanatics to threaten abortion patients with the death penalty, ban most birth control, and criminalise reproductive health websites … died in committee last night.
Can I get an amen 🙌
h/t jessica.substack.com/p/sb323-sout...
Can I get an amen 🙌
h/t jessica.substack.com/p/sb323-sout...
November 20, 2025 at 7:04 AM
Update: the bill in South Carolina introduced by Christian fanatics to threaten abortion patients with the death penalty, ban most birth control, and criminalise reproductive health websites … died in committee last night.
Can I get an amen 🙌
h/t jessica.substack.com/p/sb323-sout...
Can I get an amen 🙌
h/t jessica.substack.com/p/sb323-sout...
Hitting my to do list today like
November 19, 2025 at 7:15 AM
Hitting my to do list today like
Reposted by Heather Burns
so wait you're telling me someone is making money on internet censorship
Yoti revenue surges amid boost from Online Safety Act rules
The Online Safety Act, which was passed in October 2023, introduced age verification requirements for access to adult content.
www.cityam.com
November 18, 2025 at 5:40 PM
so wait you're telling me someone is making money on internet censorship
Not coping with the Epstein files vote and a Scotland goal in the span of 15 minutes
November 18, 2025 at 7:59 PM
Not coping with the Epstein files vote and a Scotland goal in the span of 15 minutes
Reposted by Heather Burns
I went to a museum about this kind of thing once, in East Germany.
a bounty hunt program for retired cops, what could go wrong www.404media.co/contractor-p...
Contractor Paying Random People $300 to Physically Track Immigrants for ICE
“The more I listened to it, the more I’m like, something doesn’t sound right,” a person who was briefed on the pilot plans told 404 Media.
www.404media.co
November 18, 2025 at 5:01 PM
I went to a museum about this kind of thing once, in East Germany.