Steph Brown
@stephjayb.bsky.social
4.8K followers 1.6K following 720 posts
Author | Watching Women: Militant Suffragists Write the British Surveillance State | U Toronto Press, 2024 Assoc Prof English in Tucson | Surveillance | C20/21 Caribbean and British Lit | GWS rock scrambler | hawk enthusiast | she/her
Posts Media Videos Starter Packs
Reposted by Steph Brown
disabilitystor1.bsky.social
It will also disconnect students from each other—and in a world fractured by various flavors of technofascism, I cannot think of a more disastrous thing (which is likely partly why AI fetishists are pushing for AI in schools and universities)
hypervisible.blacksky.app
“One of the negative consequences AI is having on students is that it is hurting their ability to develop meaningful relationships with teachers, the report finds. Half of the students agree that using AI in class makes them feel less connected to their teachers.”
Rising Use of AI in Schools Comes With Big Downsides for Students
A report by the Center for Democracy and Technology looks at teachers' and students' experiences with the technology.
www.edweek.org
Reposted by Steph Brown
rstilling.bsky.social
“In reality, the “compact” is a maximalist document, demanding a near-complete surrender of core academic freedoms of the university. “
Reposted by Steph Brown
lorak.bsky.social
Please - stop doing the screenshot no link thing on Bluesky. This platform does not punish you for posting a URL. You picked up the habit from Meta apps? Stop doing Mark Z's bidding. Link ESPECIALLY to authors, reporters, bloggers, etc. where you quote the work.
Reposted by Steph Brown
normative.bsky.social
The endgame for all of this is constructing a military that will obey orders when ordered to fire on citizens. That's the throughline to half of what Trump is doing.
jamellebouie.net
yeah, this is hegseth straightforwardly announcing that it is free play time for bigots in the ranks. and together with his comments on standards, he clearly wants to purge as many women, black and brown people as he can from the armed services. a white man's military.
atrupar.com
Hegseth: "We are overhauling an inspector general process that has been weaponized, putting complainers and poor performers in the driver seat. We are doing the same with the equal opportunity policies. No more frivolous complaints, no more anonymous complains ... no more walking on eggshells."
Reposted by Steph Brown
jamellebouie.net
reminder that one of the first things Hegseth did was end DOD recognition of Black History Month.
atrupar.com
Hegseth: "No more dudes in dresses. No more climate change worship ... we are done with that shit."
Reposted by Steph Brown
jenbmiller.bsky.social
Smart move by two young upstate NY reporters: they filed a FOIA for body cameras worn by the sheriff’s deputies at an ICE raid. These are almost always civil raids so there’s no ongoing criminal investigation that would require that footage to stay confidential. Replicable by any media outlet.
Reposted by Steph Brown
raxkingisdead.bsky.social
of all the dumb shit that sucks these days, the dumbest and pettiest shit that sucks is the way people fetishize debate. i would like to revert to the old roughly agreed-upon cultural understanding that debate club is for boring friendless nerds
stephjayb.bsky.social
Who wants to put "Stall. Slack. Loaf." on a t-shirt for me?
mattseybold.bsky.social
Yes, it is important not to place too much faith in court cases & elections, many doomed to fail by partisan judges & gerrymandering

But also, fascism abhors delay.

Theater of illiberal democracy takes time.

Yarvin keeps saying, "It's not moving fast enough"

He may be right.

Stall. Slack. Loaf.
stephjayb.bsky.social
...Would definitely read a sustained consideration of all the ways individuals are trying to protect ourselves/each other when faced with the combo of institutional refusals to lead and tech illiteracy.
stephjayb.bsky.social
At my uni, we're being told not to put things in writing, but then my dept head insists that we use AI transcription for all of our meetings...
stephjayb.bsky.social
Absolutely. They've been great.
stephjayb.bsky.social
Not an expert on this one, but I would say that anyone contracting someone else to store/access that footage should read their terms of service carefully (and pay attention to changes in those terms).
Reposted by Steph Brown
klracine.bsky.social
They didn't tell us they were going to slash the post office because they knew we wouldnt vote for that. Ergo, they shouldnt be doing it.
breachmedia.ca
Carney’s attack on the public postal service isn’t just brutal austerity—it’s a missed opportunity.

Dru Oja Jay argues the government could harness the unparalleled infrastructure of the postal network to offer public banking, elder check-ins, and more. breachmedia.ca/government-i...
Government is suppressing postal workers. It should be learning from their innovative ideas ⋆ The Breach
If the government listened to postal workers, they could be implementing win-win measures that create secure meaningful jobs as well as address the crises of affordability, isolation, and climate brea...
breachmedia.ca
stephjayb.bsky.social
🧵 This might be the aspect of surveillance that ppl who aren't obsessed with this stuff are least aware of: the line between corporate and state surveillance no longer exists, and legal rights (to privacy, etc.) don't matter when the police can contract out violations of those inconvenient rights.
mguariglia.bsky.social
Big takeaway here is a mass erosion of barriers between governmental and corporate data collection/surveillance--and the idea that the one-off surveillance of walking past a single CCTV camera is over, the consolidation of ALL data means true mass surveillance from 100 redundant pieces of data.
Reposted by Steph Brown
mguariglia.bsky.social
I spent the week at the police surveillance convention and let me tell you my biggest observation: The name of the game now is consolidating as much information as humanely possible from surveillance devices, the internet, other governmental data, and literally a million other places. 🧵
stephjayb.bsky.social
For no reason at all thinking about the time someone asked Margaret Thatcher what her greatest accomplishment as PM was and she responded “Tony Blair.”
tabouchadi.bsky.social
The success of the far right is not only measured in votes and seats but in its impact on rhetoric, policy and ideology. The fact that a (nominally) social democratic head of government with a huge majority choses to say and do this is maybe the biggest success of the far right in Europe yet.
Reposted by Steph Brown
gunstreet.bsky.social
the post office is a public service. it doesn’t need to make money. public transit doesn’t need to make money. the library doesn’t need to make money. some things exist for the public good and we desperately need lawmakers to stop thinking about them in terms of capitalism. these are not businesses.
Reposted by Steph Brown
rcolesworthy.bsky.social
Cuts to and closures of university presses are 100% part of the separation (or as @mattseybold.bsky.social has called it "unbundling") of research and teaching in the humanities and the devaluation of both quite frankly--in this case at the expense of the career training admin claims to care about.
rcolesworthy.bsky.social
"Bucknell has decided to close its highly respected, decades-old UP in June 2026. The stated reason? The press serves scholars, not Bucknell undergrads. Bucknell undergrads—& some grad students as well—disagree." FANTASTIC piece on BUP's student internship program. networks.h-net.org/group/discus...
Bucknell UP Closure Would Also Mark End of Vital Student Internship Program | H-Net
A post from Feeding the
networks.h-net.org
Reposted by Steph Brown
meganc.bsky.social
For whatever reason I'm seeing more Arizona slander than usual on the timeline & I just want you all to know that it only makes us desert rats stronger.
Reposted by Steph Brown
meganfaragher.bsky.social
Never forget who is making good things happen and never let your administrators forget.
miriamposner.com
To read the university’s triumphant all-campus email about restored NIH funding, you’d think UC administrators made it happen. But that’s not true. In fact the UC *Faculty Association* organized the lawsuit; administrators kept their heads down and hoped it’d go away.
Reposted by Steph Brown
gilduran.com
1/ A longtime Wired editor just wrote a mush-brained essay about how he totally missed the political rot of Silicon Valley (& still doesn't get it).

But in the late 1990s, a Wired journalist warned of a toxic ideology bubbling up from tech. Paulina Borsook has largely been erased. Let's change that
photo of paulina borsook
Reposted by Steph Brown
theferocity.bsky.social
Like, what kind of life are you living that Isaac Chotiner feels the need to interview you????

A life of sin, I tell ya!!!
Reposted by Steph Brown
amandajean.bsky.social
Abortion bans making pregnancy more dangerous, shaming women for using tylenol, making the world more dangerous for babies: this is all pronatalist because pronatalism is about recreating mandatory childbearing, not making childbearing easier.