Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

LightNews

David Karger

@karger.bsky.social

690 followers 120 following 86 posts

Professor, MIT EECS/CSAIL http://people.csail.mit.edu/karger

people.csail.mit.edu

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

David Karger @karger.bsky.social · 1d

Nice to dream but I expect trump will pardon them all preemptively

Reposted by David Karger

Amanda Katz @katzish.bsky.social · 3d

Horrific reporting from the AP on the Myanmar families watching their kids starve to death from Trump and Musk’s aid cuts apnews.com/article/myan...

Starving children screaming for food as US aid cuts unleash devastation and death across Myanmar

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has repeatedly said “no one has died" because of his government’s decision to gut its foreign aid program.

David Karger @karger.bsky.social · 4d

Nice coverage in MIT News of my student @theias.place 's new infrastructure that lets you build your own social application in a single web page and interact with your friends without running a server at all. Want to try? We're happy to answer questions.

news.mit.edu/2025/system-...

System lets people personalize online social spaces while staying connected with others

The Graffiti system lets individuals create customized social applications that can seamlessly interoperate with one another, allowing users to move between multiple apps without losing their connecti...

David Karger @karger.bsky.social · 9d

Graffiti and its protocol differ in interesting ways from Bluesky and the AT protocol. The paper discusses the reasons for our different design choices---including wanting to support a much broader range of social apps.

David Karger @karger.bsky.social · 9d

If you want to try building your own social app, we'd love to talk to you. It only needs basic JS using our Vue.js component library. You can find all the necessary libraries and documentation on the Graffiti site at graffiti.garden . Or you can read the paper here: dl.acm.org/doi/full/10....

5/

graffiti.garden

David Karger @karger.bsky.social · 9d

Theia has already implemented Graffiti analogues of facebook, twitter, whatsapp, and wikipedia, all interoperating. And a social app for her housing co-op which hosts local music events---a perfect example of the niche applications that can't afford massive server infrastructures.

4/

David Karger @karger.bsky.social · 9d

Even better, all the social apps interoperate---anyone can post content in one app, and anyone else can read it in whatever different app the want. This means nobody is stuck using an app "platform" they don't like just because that's where their friends are.

3/

David Karger @karger.bsky.social · 9d

Graffiti does away with any notion of a centralized platform. In fact, Graffiti apps are serverless. All you do to is implement the browser-side front end, and the Graffiti protocol delivers its posts to anyone who wants to read them.

2/

David Karger @karger.bsky.social · 9d

My student Theia Henderson just presented at UIST (and earned a best paper award) for her work "Graffiti: Enabling an Ecosystem of Personalized and Interoperable Social Applications".

If you want to build a social app, Graffiti makes it simple and serverless; I explain why below.

1/

Reposted by David Karger

Bill Wolkoff @billwearsties.bsky.social · 13d

Indie director Barbara Marques has been kidnapped by ICE. She is legally married to a U.S. citizen & was at a green card mtg when she was abducted and prevented from seeing her lawyer. Her husband Tucker May does not know where she is. Please spread the word so he can find her /1

David Karger @karger.bsky.social · 14d

I think douthat is doing a useful service, eating these people into condemning themselves with their own words for the historians. It's revealing when she transitions straight from demanding meritocracy to complaining that "only" 50% of students are American.

David Karger @karger.bsky.social · 18d

read the replies

Jesse Kriss @jklabs.net · 19d

Technologically advance a band:

OLED Soundsystem

Reposted by David Karger

Boboloca @boboloca.bsky.social · 19d

Reposted by David Karger

Mike Masnick @mmasnick.bsky.social · 19d

Trump had his accounts suspended on January 7, 8, and 9th 2020. WHEN HE WAS STILL PRESIDENT. It was not Joe Biden because Biden was not President.

Katie Fallow @katiefallow.bsky.social · 19d

It says something about Trump’s all-out war on free speech that the New York Times couldn’t find a more credible person than “presidential historian” Craig Shirley to defend it. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/21/u...

Craig Shirley, a presidential historian and biographer of President Ronald Reagan, said Mr. Trump's experience was so searing that he did not believe the president would improperly restrain others' free speech, whatever his public exhortations.
"We all especially know Biden used government to censor Trump, kicking him off many media platforms, a clear violation of the law," Mr. Shirley said. "As his own First Amendment rights were abridged, my guess is he's especially sensitive to anyone else seeing their First Amendment rights taken away."

Reposted by David Karger

David Avallone @davallone.bsky.social · 20d

Post the wins, even when they’re just California wins.

I’d like to see other states do this. It’s a crime that DC can’t.

The Associated Press @apnews.com · 20d

Gov. Gavin Newsom signs a law banning most law enforcement officers from wearing masks during some operations.

California bans most law enforcement officers from wearing masks during operations

California will be the first state to ban most law enforcement officers from covering their faces while conducting official business. Gov.

Reposted by David Karger

Helen Kennedy @helenkennedy.bsky.social · 20d

I can’t repost so I’ll screenshot. This is an excellent point:

Scott Imberman @imbernomic... • 9m
This post alone would get the case dismissed with prejudice by the judge before it even begins.

& Kyle Cheney @kyledch... • 39m
Trump criticizes Pam Bondi for not charging his adversaries quickly enough, in a Truth Social post that looks a lot like a DM.

truthsocial.com/@realDonaldT...
Donald J. Trump 0 0
@realDonald Trump
Pam: I have reviewed over 30 statements and posts saying that, essentially, "same old story as last time, all talk, no action.
Nothing is being done. What about Comey, Adam "Shifty" Schiff, Leticia??? They're all guilty as hell, but nothing is going to be done." Then we almost put in a Democrat supported U.S.
Attorney, in Virginia, with a really bad Republican past. A Woke RINO, who was never going to do his job. That's why two of the worst Dem Senators PUSHED him so hard. He even lied to the media and said he quit, and that we had no case. No, I fired him, and there is a GREAT CASE, and many layers, and legal pundits, say so. Lindsey is a really good lawyer, and likes you, a lot. We can't delay any longer, it's killing our reputation and credibility.
They impeached me twice, and indicted me (5 times!), OVER NOTHING. JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!! President DJT
423 ReTruths 1.13k Likes
Sep 20, 2025, 6:31 PM

Reposted by David Karger

Brendan Nyhan @brendannyhan.bsky.social · 22d

Suddenly, when it's about the media, everyone starts portraying the authoritarian threat clearly. Better late than never...

Will Stancil @whstancil.bsky.social · 22d

I'll say it: against all expectations, the media are covering the Trump censorship story right. They're not pretending it's about Kirk, they're covering Trump as a broad threat to free press and speech, and they're speaking broadly about the stakes.

It can be done!

Reposted by David Karger

Matt Binder @mattbinder.bsky.social · 23d

the Colorado school shooter from the same day that Charlie Kirk was killed posted himself holding his gun on Twitter / X where he followed multiple far right accounts

weird how you wouldn't call on Elon Musk too to testify at an online radicalization hearing

Rep. James Comer
@RepJamesComer
X.com
BREAKING
I'm calling on the CEOs of Discord, Steam, Twitch,
& Reddit to testify at an Oversight Committee
hearing on October 8.
The hearing will examine the radicalization of
online forum users, including instances of open
incitement to commit politically motivated acts.
10:50 AM • 9/17/25 • 301K Views

Reposted by David Karger

Jon Cooper @joncooper-us.bsky.social · 24d

Yes, release the Epstein files!!!

Reposted by David Karger

Brendan Nyhan @brendannyhan.bsky.social · 24d

Another member of the ever-expanding leopards eating faces club

jen sometimes aph 🌻 @bunnibytz.bsky.social · 24d

“Pam Bondi just said there’s hate speech. That's a lie. Any attempt to impose hate speech laws is a denial of the humanity of American citizens and cannot be allowed under any circumstances.” - Tucker Carlson

Reposted by David Karger

Mike Masnick @mmasnick.bsky.social · 24d

It is truly incredible how blusteringly incompetent these guys are.

Catherine Rampell @crampell.bsky.social · 24d

according to an immigration attorney representing several arrested workers, ICE agents chose to arrest the Korean workers to fulfill the quota of 3,000 daily immigrant arrests set by Stephen Miller www.forbes.com/sites/stuart...

Stephen Miller’s Quota Likely Drove Korean Arrests In Immigration Raid

When ICE agents arrested over 300 Korean workers at a Georgia battery plant, a daily immigrant arrest quota was likely on their minds.

Reposted by David Karger

Republicans R Evil 👿 @republicansrevil.bsky.social · 28d

Reposted by David Karger

Popehat Agitates And Irritates @kenwhite.bsky.social · 29d

Charlie Kirk fans threaten HBCUs because they want to lash out at Charlie’s enemies, and theirs, and they’re conceding that means black people. Not ONLY, but definitely.

CNN @cnn.com · 29d

Multiple Historically Black Universities and Colleges in the South were on lockdown or have cancelled classes on Thursday over a potential threat.

Potential threats trigger lockdowns at several HBCUs across the South | CNN

Multiple historically Black colleges and universities in the South were on lockdown or cancelled classes on Thursday over potential threats.

Reposted by David Karger

Rebecca Solnit @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social · Sep 11

So is Jane.

Stone Cold Jane Austen @abbyhiggs.bsky.social · Sep 11

MAGA 3 days ago: Chicago is about to find out the meaning of WAR

MAGA today: the left needs to stop condoning violence

Reposted by David Karger

Popehat Agitates And Irritates @kenwhite.bsky.social · Sep 9

This formulation is popular: contrasting SCOTUS' intolerance of race as an admissions factor with SCOTUS' tolerance of race as a detention factor. There are, in fact, doctrinal, historical, and logical distinctions between the positions, that one could use to dismiss this comparison.

But...
/1

Athul K. Acharya @athul.acharya.cc · Sep 9

"Harvard can't use race as a factor in admissions, but ICE can use race as a factor in detentions" is a retrenchment essentially to a pre-Civil War understanding of the Constitution. It's vanishingly few steps removed from "Latinos have no rights which the white man is bound to respect."