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J. Nathan Matias 🦣 @natematias.social.coop.ap.brid.gy · 18h

It’s hard not to see deepfake apps like Sora as a strong threat to the common human decency that I have spent the last 15 years working for. So I would genuinely like to know what public goods are worth all this.

J. Nathan Matias 🦣 @natematias.social.coop.ap.brid.gy · 18h

I remember being so proud to learn that neural networks I worked on were helping Professor Hawking (with whom I had mutual friends) write his final book.

A few years later, as part of my dissertation research, I learned about the ugly culture of mocking disabled people with disturbing jokes […]

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J. Nathan Matias 🦣 @natematias.social.coop.ap.brid.gy · 18h

Genuine question - what are OpenAI’s Sora and other video generation tools good for?

I am honestly trying to understand what is so important that it’s worth the cost. If you have examples, I would be interested to hear them […]

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J. Nathan Matias 🦣 @natematias.social.coop.ap.brid.gy · 19h

Hank Green asks the central question: what is OpenAI’s Sora good for?

https://youtu.be/Vz0oQ0v0W10?si=RGDstwDmXvon0zsS

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J. Nathan Matias 🦣 @natematias.social.coop.ap.brid.gy · 1d

As a scientist, advocates sometimes encourage me not to study a topic, not because the truth can't be found, but because they worry that the knowledge might be misused. And they might be right.

Example: social media + mass violence

Curious: what's an issue you've wrestled with in this way?

J. Nathan Matias 🦣 @natematias.social.coop.ap.brid.gy · 3d

This semester, my students are compiling & classifying > 1k phone policies across NY state. We're building a baseline understanding of how this law is being implemented & how it varies.

We hope the dataset will be useful to others, so if you have ideas of what we should record, please respond! […]

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J. Nathan Matias 🦣 @natematias.social.coop.ap.brid.gy · 3d

Are you a scientist, journalist, or civil society researcher studying New York State's distraction-free school policy, the one that bans internet-enabled devices in schools from bell to bell?

If so, I want to hear from you, as I refine a project to archive & classify published school policies.

A child holds a cellphone next to notepads and a purse. Photo by Katerina Holmes.

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J. Nathan Matias 🦣 @natematias.social.coop.ap.brid.gy · 4d

For more about Gloo, see this article in the Wall Street Journal:

https://www.wsj.com/business/media/churches-new-members-personal-online-data-analytics-gloo-11640310982

J. Nathan Matias 🦣 @natematias.social.coop.ap.brid.gy · 4d

The MIT Tech Review has retracted a news story about Gloo, a company whose privacy practices were reported on by the WSJ.

Not sure what to make of this, since they leave so much unsaid. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/08/19/1121389/ai-data-church-surveillance-america/

When tech gets religion: How churches use data and AI

Spiritual care and technology are converging across the country, reshaping the theology of trust.

www.technologyreview.com

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J. Nathan Matias 🦣 @natematias.social.coop.ap.brid.gy · 6d

Rode today from Nebraska City to Omaha, to catch up with @ethanz for lunch. Crossing the Missouri at sunrise & traveling gravel farm roads was magical.

I also visited the grave of Amelia Bloomer, 19th century designer & activist. Bloomer realized that the work […]

[Original post on social.coop]

Mist rises from the road at sunrise along the Iowa bluffs that line the Missouri River basin

Sunrise over the Missouri River, with a splash of pink lining a band of gray clouds

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J. Nathan Matias 🦣 @natematias.social.coop.ap.brid.gy · 13d

> My soul into the boughs does glide;
> There like a bird it sits and sings,
> Then whets, and combs its silver wings;
> And, till prepar’d for longer flight,
> Waves in its plumes the various light.

-- Andrew Marvell, from "The Garden"

#outdoormoments

A white house with a slanted metal roof sits underneath a blue sky with rays of sunlight spreading across the clouds

A row of elevators in a gravel quarry slant at diagonals, carrying the stone up from the deep chasm into hoppers for crushing and transportation.

A telephone pole stands out against a span of white, and dark grey clouds and a deep blue sky, above a field of bright yellow goldenrod.

Two hills converge in the distance beneath a gray and amber sunset, with a row of red and russet trees separating the horizon from a field of harvest corn.

J. Nathan Matias 🦣 @natematias.social.coop.ap.brid.gy · 17d

"Prior estimates overstate support for political violence because of random responding by disengaged respondents and because of a reliance on hypothetical questions about violence in general instead of questions on specific acts of political violence." […]

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Reposted by J. Nathan Matias 🦣

Jim Killock @jim.killock.org.uk · 19d

Great website, via @sarahalsherif

https://tech-litigation.com/

detailing lots of case law on automated decision making

#ai #automateddecisionmaking #adm #dataprotection

Tech Litigation

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Reposted by J. Nathan Matias 🦣

Dan Gillmor @dangillmor.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 19d

Please read Josh Marshall's take on the Trump regime's escalating attacks on freedom of speech -- Kimmel's removal only the latest but probably most extreme example.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/a-few-thoughts-on-kimmelgeddon/sharetoken/9b9c2c6c-bc94-4280-a74f-6fc8e2158cf8

The most […]

Original post on mastodon.social

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J. Nathan Matias 🦣 @natematias.social.coop.ap.brid.gy · 19d

Had a conversation today with @pluralistic onstage about hacking tractors then ran into this beauty in progress on my ride home

J. Nathan Matias 🦣 @natematias.social.coop.ap.brid.gy · 20d

As a friend said to me today, “the earth is so generous!”

Garlic hanging from the porch of a wooden house, with vine leaves on the pillars of the porch.

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J. Nathan Matias 🦣 @natematias.social.coop.ap.brid.gy · 23d

“The mind, that ocean where each kind
Does straight its own resemblance find,
Yet it creates, transcending these,
Far other worlds, and other seas;
Annihilating all that’s made
To a green thought in a green shade.”

—Andrew Marvell

#outdoormoments

Reposted by J. Nathan Matias 🦣

J. Nathan Matias 🦣 @natematias.social.coop.ap.brid.gy · 25d

If you're looking for resources on how your org can handle influxes of allegations based on someone's social media posts, here are two guides:

1. PEN America's guide for journalism employers: https://onlineharassmentfieldmanual.pen.org/best-practices-for-employers/
2. The Researcher Support […]

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Reposted by J. Nathan Matias 🦣

J. Nathan Matias 🦣 @natematias.social.coop.ap.brid.gy · 25d

I am seeing a broad effort to search social media & pressure organizations to fire people who have said negative things about Charlie Kirk in recent days.

The State Department has also warned immigrants against "praising, rationalizing, or making light" of his death […]

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J. Nathan Matias 🦣 @natematias.social.coop.ap.brid.gy · 25d

@Mab_813 interestingly, I have seen some republican governors resist efforts in their state to oust state employees, based largely on first amendment grounds.

J. Nathan Matias 🦣 @natematias.social.coop.ap.brid.gy · 25d

If you're looking for resources on how your org can handle influxes of allegations based on someone's social media posts, here are two guides:

1. PEN America's guide for journalism employers: https://onlineharassmentfieldmanual.pen.org/best-practices-for-employers/
2. The Researcher Support […]

Original post on social.coop

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J. Nathan Matias 🦣 @natematias.social.coop.ap.brid.gy · 25d

If you are someone with any kind of institutional power, are not personally at risk, & are asking what can you do, here are some tips:

1. Check your state laws and your org's policies (if any) that cover social media allegations
2. Let org leaders know that this is happening and could be […]

Original post on social.coop

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J. Nathan Matias 🦣 @natematias.social.coop.ap.brid.gy · 25d

Many org leaders are unprepared to field a deluge of complaints about their employees.

They don't have a process to assess claims and don't know relevant employment law (in NY for ex, there are restrictions on employer access to private social media).

So people get unjustly fired or suspended.

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J. Nathan Matias 🦣 @natematias.social.coop.ap.brid.gy · 25d

So this week is dangerous because many people have been harmed by violent, antisemitic, white supremacist communities that Kirk surrounded himself with.

As people process this moment online, they are becoming become targets. There are too many stories of this, so here's Google News […]

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J. Nathan Matias 🦣 @natematias.social.coop.ap.brid.gy · 25d

As Matthew Boedy shared today with WBUR, "throughout the history of the church using martyrdom often rallies people to go after their enemies... martyrdom creates a legacy of really reinforcing people's beliefs and reinforcing their anger, reinforcing their desire for vengeance."

I don't think […]

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