Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

MJ Lira @mjlira.bsky.social · 23h

Last night the sky was insane.

Reposted by MJ Lira

Rafael Grohmann @grohmannrafael.bsky.social · 6d

Syllabus of the undergrad course I'm teaching this term on Media Workers & AI, with funding from University of Toronto’s Global Classrooms Funding Initiative, connected to the Creative Labour and Critical Futures project.

creativelabourcriticalfutures.ca/blog/teachin...

Teaching on AI: Media Workers & AI Course - CLCF

CLCF Co-Lead Rafael Grohmann is teaching a course on Media Workers and Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the Media Studies.

creativelabourcriticalfutures.ca

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Photini Vrikki @photini.bsky.social · 16d

🌱 Mine and Güneş's new paper calls for DH practices that prioritise environmental accountability, decolonial perspectives, and ethical collaboration.

Read here: dhq.digitalhumanities.org/vol/19/3/000...

#DigitalHumanities #Sustainability #EcologicalCare #EnvironmentalJustice

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MJ Lira @mjlira.bsky.social · 6d

Fantastic event last night with @couldrynick.bsky.social and Baroness Kidron. A genuine exchange of ideas and concerns around policy and the core issues involved in tackling Big Tech’s business model. A sliver of hope.

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LSE Department of Media and Communications @lsemedia.bsky.social · 9d

📢 Can human solidarity survive in digital spaces shaped by commercial platforms?
Join us Thurs 2 Oct for the hybrid launch of The Space of the World by Nick Couldry — a deep look at how our online world has evolved and what’s next.

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MJ Lira @mjlira.bsky.social · 9d

* todas las anteriores.

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✨🌈 Home of Digital Rights Defenders @teamcommunity.bsky.social · 10d

The @acls1919.bsky.social has an open call for their Digital Justice Seed grants for projects that diversify the digital domain, advance justice and equity in digital scholarly practice, and/or contribute to understanding of racial/social justice issues. Deadline: November 20, 2025

ACLS Digital Justice Grants

The ACLS Digital Justice Grant program is designed to address the inequities in the access to support for digital work across various fields.

buff.ly

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Antonella Napolitano @svaroschi.bsky.social · 11d

In July, Keren Weitzberg, @empo11on.bsky.social and @margchee.bsky.social wrote about the digital ID proposal.

The three experts say that the current proposal presents a false choice between digital exclusion and mass surveillance.

A few key points 🧵
blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandp...

The Britcard – progressive or concerning? | British Politics and Policy at LSE

The Government is considering Labour Together's proposal to introduce mandatory digital ID cards in an effort to tackle irregular migration. There are problems with that.

blogs.lse.ac.uk

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MJ Lira @mjlira.bsky.social · 11d

Autumn crocus 🍂

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✨🌈 Home of Digital Rights Defenders @teamcommunity.bsky.social · 13d

@pulitzercenter.org seeks applications for their reporting initiative focused on AI and surveillance technologies and their impact on communities around the world. Deadline: December 31, 2025

AI Reporting Grants

We seek applications for our reporting initiative focused on AI and surveillance technologies and their impact on communities around the world. We value accountability and data reporting...

buff.ly

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Rachel Coldicutt @rachelcoldicutt.bsky.social · 13d

Here's the press release for digital ID and it is quite the shopping list of features. My first concern here is for the team who need to deliver quickly against the mix of a general purpose "do everything" app and a fairly specific set of features set out here www.gov.uk/government/n...

New digital ID scheme to be rolled out across UK

A new digital ID scheme will help combat illegal working while making it easier for the vast majority of people to use vital government services. Digital ID will be mandatory for Right to Work checks ...

www.gov.uk

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Mariel Garcia-Montes @marielgm.bsky.social · 16d

Insightful research on #surveillance in Peru by Hiperderecho documenting the legal framework, FOIA limitations, and especially a list of cases kept secret by the government (starts in p60). [In Spanish, pdf link]: hiperderecho.org/wp-content/u... Tagging @surveillancemw.bsky.social

hiperderecho.org

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Reposted by MJ Lira

Privacy International @privacyinternational.org · 20d

In a new collaborative research report, Hiperderecho explores how social media content moderation systems fail Quechua-speaking users across Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador - pointing to a new form of linguistic inequity.

Read the report: cdt.org/insights/mod...

Moderating Quechua Content on Social Media

In this project we seek to critically examine how content moderation systems operate in non-English contexts, particularly in indigenous and other languages of the Majority World (i.e., the Global…

cdt.org

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MJ Lira @mjlira.bsky.social · 24d

Proud to be part of this initiative. Hope, solidarity and enjoyment in tech are acts of rebellion. Join us! ✨

Rachel Coldicutt @rachelcoldicutt.bsky.social · 24d

Morning! Society for Hopeful Technologists newsletter #2 is arriving in inboxes now. A little bit on Musk and X, much more about future plans + organising buttondown.com/society-of-h... and great to have a group of fellow organisers coming together 💪

#2: Hopeful Actions

What's next for the Society for Hopeful Technologists: events, principles, and opportunities to get involved.

buttondown.com

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Dr. Elinor Carmi @elinorcarmi.bsky.social · 24d

🙋‍♀️Our Society for Hopeful Technologists newsletter #2 is out! 📩Make sure you have subscribed to it to get all the news📨 It's such a pleasure to be part of this group and strategise towards a more Hopeful tech future 🌅
We will be organising events and come together to decide how it will work ✨️

Rachel Coldicutt @rachelcoldicutt.bsky.social · 24d

Morning! Society for Hopeful Technologists newsletter #2 is arriving in inboxes now. A little bit on Musk and X, much more about future plans + organising buttondown.com/society-of-h... and great to have a group of fellow organisers coming together 💪

#2: Hopeful Actions

What's next for the Society for Hopeful Technologists: events, principles, and opportunities to get involved.

buttondown.com

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Rafael Grohmann @grohmannrafael.bsky.social · 25d

Other Tech Worlds Are Possible. Comic book is available in English, Spanish and Portuguese! Partnership with the Tech Sector of the Homeless Workers’ Movement in Brazil (MTST), @germana-fazgibi.bsky.social

English: digilabour.com.br/comic-book-o...
Portuguese: www.nucleodetecnologia.com.br/hq

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Amnesty International UK @amnestyuk.bsky.social · 26d

A hate-driven agenda stoked by politicians & pundits has fuelled violence, intimidation & division.

But we know the truth:
❌ Free speech is NOT a cover for hate speech
❌ Inciting hatred is NOT defending freedom
❌ Migration is NOT to blame for political and economic turmoil. It’s a scapegoat.

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Rachel Coldicutt @rachelcoldicutt.bsky.social · 28d

Working on the next update of the Society of Hopeful Technologists newsletter today, which will be wending its way to inboxes soon. There are currently 564 subscribers ❤️. You can join them here buttondown.com/society-of-h...

Society of Hopeful Technologists

Sign-up to keep in touch with the discovery phase of the Society for Hopeful Technologists (working title).

buttondown.com

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Reposted by MJ Lira

Karen Gregory @karengregory.bsky.social · 29d

The artist is here: www.instagram.com/spellingmist...

Karen Gregory @karengregory.bsky.social · 29d

As seen on FB, reminds me of @jomc.bsky.social's book:

scontent.fman2-2.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t51.82787-...

Image of a man inside a self-check out machine with text "staff needed to work inside our new AI powered self service check out"

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MJ Lira @mjlira.bsky.social · 29d

Lima es una ciudad inhabitable.

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MJ Lira @mjlira.bsky.social · 29d

se rompe fácil

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MJ Lira @mjlira.bsky.social · 29d

a black and white drawing of a person with the word weeze written above them

ALT: a black and white drawing of a person with the word weeze written above them

media.tenor.com

MJ Lira @mjlira.bsky.social · 29d

dafuq

MJ Lira @mjlira.bsky.social · Sep 6

Bluest sky there ever was. 3,500 meters above sea level.
📍Laguna de Huaypo

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Reposted by MJ Lira

Dr Abeba Birhane @abeba.bsky.social · Sep 6

this should be a compulsory read to everyone in higher education regardless of your proximity to AI

Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ @olivia.science · Sep 6

Finally! 🤩 Our position piece: Against the Uncritical Adoption of 'AI' Technologies in Academia:
doi.org/10.5281/zeno...

We unpick the tech industry’s marketing, hype, & harm; and we argue for safeguarding higher education, critical
thinking, expertise, academic freedom, & scientific integrity.
1/n

Abstract: Under the banner of progress, products have been uncritically adopted or
even imposed on users — in past centuries with tobacco and combustion engines, and in
the 21st with social media. For these collective blunders, we now regret our involvement or
apathy as scientists, and society struggles to put the genie back in the bottle. Currently, we
are similarly entangled with artificial intelligence (AI) technology. For example, software updates are rolled out seamlessly and non-consensually, Microsoft Office is bundled with chatbots, and we, our students, and our employers have had no say, as it is not
considered a valid position to reject AI technologies in our teaching and research. This
is why in June 2025, we co-authored an Open Letter calling on our employers to reverse
and rethink their stance on uncritically adopting AI technologies. In this position piece,
we expound on why universities must take their role seriously toa) counter the technology
industry’s marketing, hype, and harm; and to b) safeguard higher education, critical
thinking, expertise, academic freedom, and scientific integrity. We include pointers to
relevant work to further inform our colleagues.

Figure 1. A cartoon set theoretic view on various terms (see Table 1) used when discussing the superset AI
(black outline, hatched background): LLMs are in orange; ANNs are in magenta; generative models are
in blue; and finally, chatbots are in green. Where these intersect, the colours reflect that, e.g. generative adversarial network (GAN) and Boltzmann machine (BM) models are in the purple subset because they are
both generative and ANNs. In the case of proprietary closed source models, e.g. OpenAI’s ChatGPT and
Apple’s Siri, we cannot verify their implementation and so academics can only make educated guesses (cf.
Dingemanse 2025). Undefined terms used above: BERT (Devlin et al. 2019); AlexNet (Krizhevsky et al.
2017); A.L.I.C.E. (Wallace 2009); ELIZA (Weizenbaum 1966); Jabberwacky (Twist 2003); linear discriminant analysis (LDA); quadratic discriminant analysis (QDA).

Table 1. Below some of the typical terminological disarray is untangled. Importantly, none of these terms
are orthogonal nor do they exclusively pick out the types of products we may wish to critique or proscribe.

Protecting the Ecosystem of Human Knowledge: Five Principles

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