Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Sue Timmis

James Ball @jamesrball.com · 3d

Just noticed the Conservatives’ British ICE proposal also involves using mass deployment of facial ID – still an unproven and unreliable technology that particularly struggles with non-white faces – to enable deportations.

Which would inevitably mean false positives leading to detention of citizens

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Peter Jukes @peterjukes.bsky.social · 3d

🔴NEW🔴

Thread 🧵

@bylinetimes.bsky.social can now reveal that, during the crucial period when convicted Reform leader Nathan Gill was most active, working directly with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s most senior ally in Ukraine, he was also one of Nigel Farage’s closest confidantes 1/12

‘Thick as Thieves’: Nathan Gill and Nigel Farage’s Putin Problem

Far from being distant from the Reform UK Leader, insiders told Byline Times that the former MEP convicted of bribery was one of Farage’s closest aides, while we reveal how Gill worked on the Kremlin’...

bylinetimes.com

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folukeifejola @folukeifejola.bsky.social · 6d

"The film ends with these lines spoken by the character of Gandhi, ‘When I despair, I remember that the way of truth and love has always won. There may be tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it: always.’"

folukeifejola @folukeifejola.bsky.social · 6d

My reflection on the movie "Gandhi" (1982) notes that for any movement for social justice to achieve its goals, it requires the endurance of the long-distance runner more than the brief burst of speed of the sprinter.
folukeafrica.com/gandhi-the-m...

Gandhi The Movie: A child in the 80s learns about resistance

‘There may be tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall.’

folukeafrica.com

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Kris Ten @littlebitkreyn.bsky.social · 6d

I was just talking to my students on Monday about how settler colonialism creates the conditions of data extraction that we encounter today. I ended class by talking about Blackboard (which we use) & asking them if they know how their data is being used and who it is being shared with.

Ben Williamson @benpatrickwill.bsky.social · 6d

If your institution requires you to use Blackboard for teaching (like me), be aware its parent company is broke and it's getting new private equity owners whose plans for the platform, and how they'll capitalize on it, remain unknown (bet it includes "AI") onedtech.philhillaa.com/p/anthology-...

What This Means for the LMS and EdTech Markets

For campus leaders: Blackboard will continue operating through the case, but the ownership and investment thesis behind the LMS are changing. This could affect long-term product direction and stability.

For EdTech executives: This is a textbook example of distressed-debt control in our sector. It shows how private equity cycles, first driving aggressive expansion, now dictating asset sales, reshape vendor landscapes.

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Reposted by Sue Timmis

MAREcus 👻/ 🏳️‍🌈🇧🇧 @marcusjdl.bsky.social · 10d

The migrant crisis is a crisis for the migrants. They are in crisis and need safe routes, asylum and compassion

weegingerdug @weegingerdug.bsky.social · 11d

Sky News and the BBC repeatedly mention the "migrant crisis" in doing so they are normalising and legitimising far right talking points. There is no "migrant crisis", there is only migrant hysteria, which the British media is feeding into instead of countering.

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folukeifejola @folukeifejola.bsky.social · 21d

"Anti-immigrant march" is such a telling phrase. An immigrant is just a person who exercises the freedom they are born with, which is recognised by all human rights legislation, and moves across imaginary lines on the ground. Being "anti-immigrant" means anti-movement, anti-freedom and anti-person.

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James O’Brien @mrjamesob.bsky.social · 14d

Explained exactly this yesterday.
In the same studio

Tom Freeman @tomfreeman.bsky.social · 14d

This is how it begins, with indirect insinuations and fake-humble pleas of uncertainty, as if online conspiracy theories, cranks and grifters carry equal weight to the overwhelming body of scientific evidence and medical expert opinion. Then they get into power and start shredding the health service

LBC @lbc.co.uk · 14d

"We were told thalidomide was a safe drug and it wasn't..."

Nigel Farage says he has 'no idea' if Donald Trump is right about paracetamol being linked to autism.

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The Nana Yaga @nanicoolj.blacksky.app · 18d

Oh. So when you trained them on the notes of medical doctors they repeated the same biases.

Odd that.

Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 18d

The findings “suggest that medical AI tools powered by LLMs have a tendency to not reflect the severity of symptoms among female patients, while also displaying less ‘empathy’ towards Black and Asian ones.”

AI medical tools downplay symptoms in women and ethnic minorities

Large language models reflect biases that can lead to inferior healthcare advice to female, Black and Asian patients

www.ft.com

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Dominic Manchee @dpmanchee.bsky.social · Sep 7

I fail to see how Reform UK can distance themselves from this - it was Farage and his team that gave Aseem Malholtra a platform for his vaccine conspiracy theories.

As @drrachelclarke.com says, vaccines save lives. If you have concerns then speak to an NHS doctor or nurse.

bsky.app/profile/drra...

Dr Rachel Clarke @drrachelclarke.com · Sep 6

This is exactly the kind of despicable scaremongering that Aseem Malhotra has made his modus operandi. Insinuations, hearsay, anti-vaxx, non-evidence-based, lurid, self-enriching, anti-scientific claptrap. Of course Reform UK lapped it up. 1/4

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Nick Plant @thenickplant.bsky.social · Sep 3

Nice to see prompt policy coverage from the new Green leader: simple, principled, assertive, clear and progressive proposition we need to hear much more of!

Peter Stefanovic @peterstefanovic.bsky.social · Sep 3

'This country needs migrants'

Zack Polanski, the new leader of the Green Party in England and Wales, speaks to #BBCBreakfast about his views on immigration

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BremainInSpain @bremaininspain.com · Sep 3

Look how easy it is

This is what Labour should be saying

New leader of the Green Party @zackpolanski.bsky.social on immigration

We need stark truth and some left populism. Let’s hope it brings the same media fascination as it does for Farage’s lies & far right populism

Peter Stefanovic @peterstefanovic.bsky.social · Sep 3

'This country needs migrants'

Zack Polanski, the new leader of the Green Party in England and Wales, speaks to #BBCBreakfast about his views on immigration

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Bylines Network @bylinesnetwork.co.uk · Sep 2

Stop, look and listen, for here comes the AI antichrist

AI is trained not to give the unbiased truth, so what will protect us from potential manipulation or darker agendas?

By Professor Juliet Lodge

@yorkshirebylines.co.uk

Stop, look and listen, for here comes the AI antichrist

AI is trained not to give the unbiased truth, so what will protect us from potential manipulation or darker agendas?

yorkshirebylines.co.uk

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Adam Bienkov @adambienkov.bsky.social · Aug 26

Reform UK, which has a grand total of four MPs, was just given an uninterrupted platform for an hour and a half on the BBC and Sky News channels, in order to talk about its plans for mass deportations

When was the last time the Greens (with four MPs) or the Lib Dems (with 72) were given the same?

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Kate Starbird @katestarbird.bsky.social · Aug 9

Researchers (including some fantastic people at UW) found that chatbots can persuade people on political issues, and that they often do so by shifting the frames of the debate: www.washington.edu/news/2025/08...

With just a few messages, biased AI chatbots swayed people’s political views

University of Washington researchers recruited self-identifying Democrats and Republicans to make political decisions with help from three versions of ChatGPT: a base model, one with liberal bias and....

www.washington.edu

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Reposted by Sue Timmis

Carla Denyer @carladenyer.bsky.social · Aug 9

Today a far right protest is expected to take place outside a hotel housing asylum seekers in Bristol

Let me be clear: the far right are not welcome in Bristol. They don’t represent us, or what we stand for

But I also want to be clear about what’s driving this wave of unrest...

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Robin Hayward 🌳 🏳️‍⚧️ @canopyrobin.com · Aug 8

OpenAI doesn't realise that PhD-level expertise has very little to do with the stuff you know and more to do with how you can think. I forget facts from mine all the time!

The value in my PhD is knowing how to reliably generate, evaluate, and defend or dismiss information that's new to the world.

Dave Hemprich-Bennett @davehb.bsky.social · Aug 8

OpenAI: we’re giving you PhD-level expertise in your pocket!

Everyone with PhDs: I know exactly who you’re automating and I hate him

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Kneecap @kneecapceol.bsky.social · Jun 28

📺 A chairde Gael,

The propaganda wing of the regime has just contacted us.

They WILL put our set from Glasto today on iPlayer this evening for your viewing pleasure.

The crowd expected today is far greater than West Holts capacity so "you'll need to be very early to catch us father...VERY EARLY"

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Christopher Dornan @chrisdornan.bsky.social · Jun 21

Just a reminder that Orwell’s protagonist in 1984, Winston Groom, works as a copy editor, except that his job entails endlessly “correcting the data” so that the archival record conforms to the Party’s preferred fictions, and what is “known” becomes a principal instrument of conformity.

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George Monbiot @georgemonbiot.bsky.social · Jun 10

When did you ever hear the BBC stating that it must alter “story selection” and “other types of output, such as drama”, to win the trust of Green voters, or of unrepresented people on the left?
All the shifts are in just one direction.
bylinetimes.com/2025/06/09/b...

BBC Bosses Draw Up Plans to Win Over Reform Voters by Changing News and Drama Output

The Director General Tim Davie and other executives discussed altering BBC “story selection” in order to secure the "trust" of supporters of Nigel Farage’s party

bylinetimes.com

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DAPPER DON DHARSHI @dapperdondharshi.bsky.social · Jun 7

This is amazing 🤯🤯

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Sue Timmis @suetim.bsky.social · Jun 4

Nigel Farage says abortion laws are “utterly ludicrous.”
MPs are watching.
We have days to show them: the public backs abortion rights.

Join me and sign the petition now! you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/de...

Decriminalise abortion and make it a protected human right.

Women’s rights are under threat from the far right. Nigel Farage just called our current abortion provisions “utterly ludicrous” – and others in power are paying attention. A vote in Parliament could ...

you.38degrees.org.uk

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Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan @london.gov.uk · Jun 4

Congratulations to the brilliant Bernadine Evaristo on receiving the Womens Prize Outstanding Contribution Award.

It was a joy welcoming her to City Hall back in 2020 to discuss her groundbreaking work. An inspiration to so many—and a true London literary icon.

Bernardine Evaristo and the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, stand together at City Hall. The Mayor is holding a copy of Evaristo’s book Girl, Woman, Other.

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Reposted by Sue Timmis

British Journal of Sociology of Education @bjse.bsky.social · Jun 4

New article alert:
@llrsyu.bsky.social has written a fascinating paper: '‘Dancing with bonds’: embodied transitions of rural students into higher education'. Huge congrats Tongyu! @rachelbrooks.bsky.social @coralinglingxu.bsky.social @chiedmobilities.bsky.social
www.tandfonline.com/eprint/BU2SN...

‘Dancing with bonds’: embodied transitions of rural students into higher education

This article explores the often-ignored embodied dimension of rurality and its role in shaping students’ transitions into higher education. Drawing on a ‘figured worlds’ framework, this narrative s...

www.tandfonline.com

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Helen Barnard @helenbarnard.bsky.social · May 24

Good. Worth noting that our research with WPI Economics found that the cost of lifting the 2 child limit would deliver £3.1 billion in fiscal & public spending savings, off-setting nearly the whole cost.

www.trussell.org.uk/news-and-res...

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