Maggie
maggiesteward.bsky.social
Maggie
@maggiesteward.bsky.social
Reposted by Maggie
The prime ministers of Norway, Sweden, and Finland have come forward with statements of solidarity with Denmark and Greenland.
January 5, 2026 at 12:38 AM
Reposted by Maggie
I’d be interested in reading an interview with Rex Tillerson about the Venezuela situation. He was Trump’s Secretary of State from 2017-2018 and was CEO of ExxonMobil for the decade prior to that. ExxonMobil was a major stakeholder in Venezuelan oil production before the resources were nationalized.
January 5, 2026 at 1:27 AM
Reposted by Maggie
The end goal of Grok sexual harassment is to make women afraid to be visible. It’s a punishment for daring to exist in a way the perpetrators can’t control. There’s no one solution to this, because the problem isn’t just technological. It’s cultural. It’s misogyny. This is just one expression of it.
January 5, 2026 at 1:10 AM
Reposted by Maggie
Keeping the social safety net as small and as punitive as possible helps to ensure that there will always be a steady stream of people for employers like Bezos to exploit--people in such a precarious position that have no choice but to take whatever underpaid, overworked job they can get.
No. No. No.

Punitive processes make narrowly targeted programs *less* efficient and *more* costly. Because more scrutiny requires more bureaucracy.

Punitive processes also make it *less* likely that people will get aid for which they qualify. Because of the roadblocks and stigma scrutiny creates.
January 5, 2026 at 2:43 AM
Reposted by Maggie
When Trump says it won’t end up costing the United States to illegally invade and “control” Venezuela because of the value of their oil, he means there will be a massive public cost, but that’s ok because private companies and oligarchs, including his family, will make a ton of money.
People wondering whether the US is going to be able to "run the country" of Venezuela at "no cost" might like to remind themselves it's a place one-third *larger* than Afghanistan, the running of which cost the US $2,260,000,000,000. (That's $2.26 trillion).
January 3, 2026 at 8:47 PM
Reposted by Maggie
America is a rogue and malevolent state and global bad actor
January 4, 2026 at 5:51 PM
Reposted by Maggie
On the "boots on the ground" question and Trump saying that it will mainly be about protecting oil operations.

Given this framing, we should expect a massive payday for politically connected mercenary companies, who will use this to expand their private armies.
January 3, 2026 at 5:38 PM
Reposted by Maggie
Blows my mind that some of the same journalists who see Trump as a want-to-be dictator at home are earnestly discussing the "challenges" for this same man to "bring democracy" to a country it just illegal invaded. Please grow up.
January 3, 2026 at 6:16 PM
Reposted by Maggie
It's why he is threatening Colombia + Mexico. Why he bought elections in Argentina + Honduras. And interfered in Brazil's courts.

Latin America's democratic left bloc is the most principled opposition to Trump in the world, defending international law while richer + more powerful nations cower. 2/3
January 4, 2026 at 6:35 PM
Reposted by Maggie
The weak response from Can, EU and UN to Trump's flagrant crimes in Venezuela is striking.

It exposes that much of the world has been cowed.

Most notable exception: the Latin American left.

That is why the Trump Admin has gone to enormous lengths to defeat the left across the continent. 1/3
January 4, 2026 at 6:35 PM
Reposted by Maggie
The Epstein Files Transparency Act is a law, passed by Congress on November 19 with an overwhelming vote. Complying with it was not optional. The Department of Justice did not comply.

I want to make sure this is very clear.
January 4, 2026 at 6:18 PM
Reposted by Maggie
The US was already sanctioning, blockading, and seizing Venezuelan oil prior to the abduction of Maduro.

Venezuela has been under US sanction for more than a decade, with punitive actions extending from the Bush administration through the Obama, first Trump, and the Biden administrations.
January 4, 2026 at 6:16 PM
Reposted by Maggie
I want to remind everyone that the US has sanctioned members of the International Criminal Court for going through a formal legal process to identify international leaders who engaged in war crimes, making them vulnerable to arrest.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Why wasn't congressional authorization necessary?

RUBIO: It wasn't necessary because this was not an invasion. We didn't occupy a country. This was an arrest operation.
January 4, 2026 at 4:50 PM
Reposted by Maggie
Folks bypass things like the fact that NYPD activated drones and 30 cop cars for a demonstration of 1000 people in freezing weather today. The levels of surveillance and potential repression are taken as regular order in this country.
January 4, 2026 at 12:36 AM
Reposted by Maggie
"We instituted a guardrail against suicide" means they simply grep for the word in its outputs and hardcode a response.

User instead uses a different word, not on that list? It goes right ahead and convinces them to do it while calling them a king.

Because it was trained on all the words.
November 17, 2025 at 2:05 PM
Reposted by Maggie
This is what genAI "guardrails" are, and why they are inherently insufficient.

genAI inherently outputs the statistically most likely sequence of words, and "guardrails" are basically just a list of words to filter from that output to the user.

And they stole literally all the words to train on.
One way of thinking about genAI is:

Suppose you steal every English word on the internet, and then look up what words are most likely to follow the word "throbbing."

And then whenever you see "throbbing" you slap on a likely word

You're gonna end up talking about throbbing dicks in weird contexts
November 17, 2025 at 1:55 PM
Reposted by Maggie
French Foreign Ministry: “The removal of Maduro from power and the violation of sovereignty constitute a serious act of aggression against the dignity of the Venezuelan people and their right to determine their own future.
January 3, 2026 at 3:02 PM
Reposted by Maggie
As the picture of what happened yesterday comes into focus, I think the proper analogy is a country bombing us, whisking Trump and Melania away for trial elsewhere, declaring that the Democrats have no hope of governing, and leaving Vance in charge as the guy they believe they can work with.
So when can you start
January 4, 2026 at 1:12 PM
Reposted by Maggie
A CBS News staffer told me this after Tony Dokoupil kicked off his CBS Evening News tenure tonight with a lengthy Pete Hegseth interview:

"If this is what Bari and Tony’s CBS Evening News is going to look like, then the we may as well just call ourselves Trump Administration State TV. Pathetic."
January 4, 2026 at 1:52 AM
Reposted by Maggie
"The list of reasons to resist this latest edtech mania is long — from the practical to the philosophical, pedagogical to ecological, egalitarian, and ethical."
There is growing concern about health, sanity and safety...
Rethinking Schools published my article about pushing back on some of the arguments made by those seeking to rush AI tools into schools.
Resisting AI Mania in Schools
A former English teacher takes on many of the arguments of AI promoters.
rethinkingschools.org
January 3, 2026 at 4:22 PM
Reposted by Maggie
Rethinking Schools published my article about pushing back on some of the arguments made by those seeking to rush AI tools into schools.
Resisting AI Mania in Schools
A former English teacher takes on many of the arguments of AI promoters.
rethinkingschools.org
January 3, 2026 at 3:51 PM
Reposted by Maggie
So for months they have tried to blame the entire fentanyl crisis on Venezuela and the indictment only mentions cocaine, which they pardoned a different guy for weeks ago
January 3, 2026 at 2:03 PM