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Reposted by Rebekah Baglini

JVG 骨 @jasonv.bsky.social · 9d

Absolute all-timer sentence in today's @nytimes.com

"some legal experts have called it a crime to summarily execute civilians" says today's New York Times, continuing their long tradition of whitewashing fascism

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Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 14d

The richest man on earth owns X.

The second richest man on earth is about to be a major owner of TikTok.

The third richest man owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.

The fourth richest man owns The Washington Post.

See the problem here?

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Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 23d

The free speech activist who built a list of professors he worked to get fired for their speech must be celebrated for his support of free speech, and anyone who quotes his speech accurately in context will be fired and/or face state punishment by the champions of free speech, do I have that right?

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Karen Attiah @karenattiah.bsky.social · 23d

Some personal news:

I've been fired from the Washington Post in the aftermath of the Charlie Kirk shooting.

Thread incoming.

substack.com/@karenattiah...

The Washington Post Fired Me — But My Voice Will Not Be Silenced.

I spoke out against hatred and violence in America — and it cost me my job.

substack.com

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Ketan Joshi @ketanjoshi.co · Sep 6

Incredible clip of tech CEOs fawning over Donald Trump. Someone store this clip in the underground archive vault

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Ben Williamson @benpatrickwill.bsky.social · Sep 6

Academic authors, here's a peek into the black box of journal publishing from an journal editor if you can bear it:

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Kaitlin Is Just Getting Started @gothamgirlblue.com · Sep 1

Every Labor Day I remember that the holiday was moved from May 1 to September not only for the Haymarket attacks but to break up the possibility between the US and the international labor movement (which celebrates in May). And it worked!

Dr. Damien P. Williams Wants A Better Sociotechnical Paradigm @wolvendamien.bsky.social · Sep 1

People literally bled & died fighting against corporate interests, robber barons, corrupt local & state politicians, cops & hired killers, & the federal government & US military for better working conditions for the rest of us so reflect on that today for just a bit while you're doing whatever else.

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Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · Aug 31

Look at this graph.

The share of national income going to the richest 10 percent was lowest (and share to lower 90 percent highest) when union membership was at its highest. As unions have weakened, inequality has widened.

This is why we must build back union power.

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Ken Tremendous @kentremendous.bsky.social · Aug 27

There can’t be any gun restrictions because we have to protect against federal government tyranny, and if kids get shot we just have to live with it. Also the President can send troops to cities because the federal government can do whatever it wants. These two ideas are consistent and reasonable.

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Courtney Milan @courtneymilan.com · Aug 27

Hi authors! Please remember to file a claim!

Ars Technica @arstechnica.com · Aug 27

AI advocates have warned that if every author in the class action filed a claim, it would "financially ruin" the entire industry.

Authors celebrate “historic” settlement coming soon in Anthropic class action

Advocates fear such settlements will “financially ruin” the AI industry.

arstechnica.com

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Mike Boylan-Kolchin @mbkplus.bsky.social · Aug 16

A great read on UChicago, arguing we’re seeing the result of decades of mismanagement: “The university’s trustees and leaders view it preeminently as a tax-free technology incubator, and its debt load is so great that it is abandoning ideals it once held dear in order to sustain that goal.”

The Crisis of the University Started Long Before Trump

The University of Chicago is in crisis. Under extraordinary financial strain, it has diminished its faculty-student ratio and hired hundreds of “lecturers”: teachers whom it pays little and whom it do...

www.compactmag.com

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Joel S. @joelhs.bsky.social · Aug 23

As sad as I am about the death of UChicago, my alma mater and one of the world's great universities, there is something tragically poetic about the university being done in by the very same neoliberal logic that the UChicago econ department did more than almost any other institution to foster.

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Nabalkattu @nabalkattu.bsky.social · Aug 23

Oh my God it's true
stanfordreview.org/uchicago-los...

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Paul Cohen @paulecohen.bsky.social · Aug 23

the crisis in which the University of Chicago is now engulfed -- one entirely of its own making, and which has led to the (hopefully temporary) suspension of admissions into numerous PhD programs in the humanities -- represents I think a seismic event in the history of American higher education

1/

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Dr. Nic, Namer of the Universe @quakefultales.bsky.social · Aug 11

every time I hear about "PhD level intelligence" as a benchmark for anything I think about how mass media has done one of the worst jobs ever at planting the fake concept of what a PhD actually is in the general public's mind

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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · Aug 11

Trump is invoking Section 740 of the D.C. Home Rule Act, which authorizes him to seize control of the entire DC police department for a maximum of 30 days.

This is insane stuff. D.C. is not in the grip of a crime wave. Crime has been falling for three years now. Violent crime is at a 30-year low.

Emergency Control of Police: SEC. 740. (a) Notwithstanding any other provision of law, whenever the President of the United States determines that special conditions of an emergency nature exist which require the use of the Metropolitan Police force for Federal purposes, he may direct the Mayor to provide him, and the Mayor shall provide, such services of the Metropolitan Police force as the President may deem necessary. In no case, however, shall such services made available able pureuaiit to any such direction under this subsection extend for a period in excess of forty-eight hours unless the President has, prior to the expiration of such period, notified the Chairman and ranking minority Members of the Committees on the District of Columbia of the Senate and the House of Representatives, in writing, as to the reason for such direction and the period of time during which the need for such services is likely to continue.
(b) Subject to the provisions of subsection (c) of this section, such services made available in accordance with subsection (a) of this section shall terminate upon the end of such emergency, the expiration of a period of thirty days following the date oh which such services are first made available, or the adoption of a resolution by either the Senate or the House of Representatives providing for such termination, whichever first occurs. (c) Notwithstanding the foregoing provisions of this section, in any case in which such services are made available in accordance with the provisions of subsection (a) of this section during any period of an adjournment of the Congress sine die, such services shall terminate upon the end of the emergency, the expiration of the thirty-day period following the date on which Congress first convenes following such adjournment, or the adoption of a resolution by either the Senate or the House of Representatives providing for such termination, whichever first occurs, (d) Except to the extent provided for in subsection …

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Faine Greenwood @faineg.bsky.social · Jul 26

I do firmly believe that refusing to outsource your basic cognitive functions to LLMs right now - as so many are stumbling over themselves to do right now, like hogs trotting to a pile of slop that’s been set up inside of a butcher’s delivery truck - will very much pay off in a few years.

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Bhaskar Mitra | ভাস্কর মিত্র @bmitra.bsky.social · Jul 17

A personal update.

Why I am leaving big tech…

After spending almost two decades in big tech, I was notified last month that I am being laid off.There have been massive waves of layoffs across the industry recently, and I am just one of the many t...

bhaskar-mitra.github.io

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Rebekah Baglini @rbkh.bsky.social · Aug 8

Welcome to the city of smiles!

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Petter Törnberg @pettertornberg.com · Aug 6

We built the simplest possible social media platform. No algorithms. No ads. Just LLM agents posting and following.

It still became a polarization machine.

Then we tried six interventions to fix social media.

The results were… not what we expected.

arxiv.org/abs/2508.03385

Can We Fix Social Media? Testing Prosocial Interventions using Generative Social Simulation

Social media platforms have been widely linked to societal harms, including rising polarization and the erosion of constructive debate. Can these problems be mitigated through prosocial interventions?...

arxiv.org

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TizzyWoman @tizzywoman.bsky.social · Jul 24

Republicans voted to completely gut Medicaid, which covers nearly 1/2 of all births in the U.S.
They did this despite the fact that the U.S. has the highest rate of maternal deaths among all wealthy countries. @aoc.bsky.social
always serves a potent #CupOfJoe !

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Amy Diehl, Ph.D. @amydiehl.bsky.social · Jul 20

Study finds A.I. LLMs advise women to ask for lower salaries than men. When prompted w/ a user profile of same education, experience & job role, differing only by gender, ChatGPT advised the female applicant to request $280K salary; Male applicant=$400K.
thenextweb.com/news/chatgpt...

ChatGPT advises women to ask for lower salaries, study finds

A new study has found that large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT consistently advise women to ask for lower salaries than men.

thenextweb.com

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Sheryl Weikal and the colorful Parrotlegals @leftistlawyer.com · Jul 18

A hugely underdiscussed effect of the creeping fascism of ICE is that debt collectors and landlords are filing more cases against immigrants, even when they're inflated or outright falsified, because they know immigrants are too fearful of deportation to show up to court to fight them.

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Max Berger @maxberger.bsky.social · Jul 18

The Democratic Party’s capitulation to the Crypto lobby is one of the most nakedly corrupt things I’ve seen in my life.

Crypto is a blatant scam with zero value that is designed to end popular control of our currency. Dems just co-signed the next global financial crisis. It’s unforgivable.

Jonathan Cohn @jonathancohn.bsky.social · Jul 17

The House voted 308 to 122 for the GENIUS Act, the corrupt crypto industry bill to set the stage for the next financial crisis, encourage money laundering, and bless Trump's corruption.

102 Democrats voted yes, including 4 out of the 5 memberships of House Dems's Leadership Team.

Pete Aguilar (CA-33) Shomari Figures (AL-02) Ro Khanna (CA-17) Jared Moskowitz (FL-23) Greg Stanton (AZ-04)
Gabe Amo (RI-01) Lois Frankel (FL-22) Raj Krishnamoorthi (IL-08) Seth Moulton (MA-06) Haley Stevens (MI-11)
Wesley Bell (MO-01) Robert Garcia (CA-42) Greg Landsman (OH-01) Johnny Olszewski (MD-02) Marilyn Strickland (WA-10)
Ami Bera (CA-06) Laura Gillen (NY-04) Rick Larsen (WA-02) Jimmy Panetta (CA-19) Suhas Subramanyam (VA-10)
Brendan Boyle (PA-02) Jared Golden (ME-02) George Latimer (NY-16) Chris Pappas (NH-01) Tom Suozzi (NY-03)
Julia Brownley (CA-26) Dan Goldman (NY-10) Susie Lee (NV-03) Nancy Pelosi (CA-11) Eric Swalwell (CA-14)
Nikki Budzinski (IL-13) Jimmy Gomez (CA-34) Mike Levin (CA-49) Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (WA-03) Emilia Sykes (OH-13)
Janelle Bynum (OR-05) Vicente Gonzalez (TX-34) Sam Liccardo (CA-16) Scott Peters (CA-50) Shri Thanedar (MI-13)
Salud Carbajal (CA-24) Maggie Goodlander (NH-02) Ted Lieu (CA-36) Brittany Pettersen (CO-07) Mike Thompson (CA-04)
Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (FL-20) Josh Gottheimer (NJ-05) Zoe Lofgren (CA-18) Nellie Pou (NJ-09) Dina Titus (NV-01)
Katherine Clark (MA-05) Adam Gray (CA-13) Seth Magaziner (RI-02) Mike Quigley (IL-05) Ritchie Torres (NY-15)
Herb Conaway (NJ-03) Josh Harder (CA-09) John Mannion (NY-22) Josh Riley (NY-19) Lori Trahan (MA-03)
Lou Correa (CA-21) Jim Himes (CT-04) Doris Matsui (CA-07) Raul Ruiz (CA-25) Derek Tran (CA-45)
Jim Costa (CA-21) Steven Horsford (NV-04) Lucy McBath (GA-06) Pat Ryan (NY-18) Gabe Vasquez (NM-02)
Angie Craig (MN-02) Chrissy Houlahan (PA-06) April McClain Delaney (MD-06) Brad Schneider (IL-10) Marc Veasey (TX-33)
Jasmine Crockett (TX-30) Jonathan Jackson (IL-01) Kristen McDonald Rivet (MI-08) Hilary Scholten (MI-03) Eugene Vindman (VA-07)
Henry Cuellar (TX-28) Hakeem Jeffries (NY-08) Morgan McGarvey (KY-03) Kim Schrier (WA-08) Debbie Wasserman Schultz (FL-25)
Don Davis (NC-01) Julie Johnson (TX-3…

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Iris van Rooij 💭 @irisvanrooij.bsky.social · Jul 13

Here is a simple heuristic:

If a digital tool is labeled “AI” you can be sure it is no good.

Good tools have more specific and informative names.

You’re welcome.

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