New from 404 Media: Proton Mail, the privacy-focused email service, gave authorities data that let the FBI unmask an anonymous 'Stop Cop City' protester. It was payment data linked to the anonymous email account. From that, FBI ID'd them, then tracked their movements www.404media.co/proton-mail-...
BREAKING: @aoc.bsky.social just came out swinging in the House E&C hearing against dangerous & misguided "age verification" legislation (aka online ID checks) that would force everyone to upload government ID or get a face scan before accessing content or posting online.
Video incoming. This is big
Yes, there are still leftists there—that’s not the point I’m making, the point I’m making is that anyone of any political persuasion still on X is posting into a right wing radicalization pipeline. That may not change them but it absolutely influences what they’re seeing and the feedback they get
it’s only an echo chamber when it’s the left. when it’s the right they call it some bullshit like the Agora or the Town Square
I mean, it is odd that everyone decrying this place as an 'echo chamber' is totally comfortable hanging out on the Nazi CSAM web site run by a white supremacist who fine tuned its algorithm to turn users fascist
Yesss I think that’s a fair and accurate analysis. Out of all the platforms, I think it’s bar none the best for seeing and commenting on important news, while also keeping this in mind
I’m so sorry Rachel, but so amazed by your reporting and resilience ❤️
Sorry I'm not more open-minded about LLMs, it's just some fucking maniacs shoveled out a bunch of useless bloatware featuring that technology, did not give me any chance to opt out, reorganized the entire economy around it, zeroed out gains made by green energy, and made it impossible to buy RAM
Amazing news!!
Left can't resist being on wrong side of a war Whether it's Jeremy Corbyn or Zack Polanski, their foreign policy stances terrify voters outside core supporters
Well, here’s the thing about being antiwar as an ethical belief: it means you end up opposing most wars. Almost all of them, in fact. This is quite common in people who have consistent beliefs but looks insane to people who have none, or mostly just believe superior people should make the decisions.
That or they’ve been on X so long they don’t realize it’s bad anymore. I’ve talked to people like that!
If Bluesky was an artificially constructed left wing echo chamber that would honestly be very interesting and possibly cool but it’s not lol
And as someone who closely monitors both websites I can assure you that X is a right wing radicalization pipeline, including for people who consider themselves smart and progressive, while Bluesky is just an overwhelming left leaning platform. Those are very different things.
If a bunch of people who agree who hang out together is an echo chamber then sure, we’re all in echo chambers all the time. But what’s actually bad is a platform that the world’s richest man has weaponized to make people including “elites” who still use it bigoted and hateful and conservative
I’m so tired of seeing people bash Bluesky for being an echo chamber when X is an actual intentionally constructed echo chamber that is demonstrably radicalizing people across the political spectrum who still use it
I keep thinking about how many stories there will be about the U.S. camps and how there didn’t have to be any stories at all
They are torturing and killing people in our concentration camps, and I wish more people were actively bothered by that
love to pick up my phone and see 5 - 10 different things each of which successively makes me angrier than I’ve ever been in my entire fucking life
i have been to the emergency room for a dental abscess. it is a uniquely excruciating kind of pain. this man was tortured to death via medical neglect.
Sports fans know this isnt new. Many outlets started publishing "automated" game recaps using only the box score about 15 years ago. It sucked & it faded away. History will repeat. AI writing is bad, not good, which is why readers reject it.
But so far the latter has mainly been like “can grok make this photo of me look naked,” which is not a promising feature that shows how essential AI needs to be in all of our lives
I see a lot of “AI is coming for you whether you like it or not” stuff, but my decision to treat AI like a vampire that needs to be invited in has so far insulated me from needing to generate any kind of text or media—with the rare exception of needing to test an AI feature I’m reporting on
Going independent is certainly not easy and not for everyone, but thank god I don’t have to use any generative AI in my reporting or writing or feel any pressure to do so. The basics of talking to people, researching, and writing about what you find are more than enough.
Seeing people in the news industry say that articles should be AI-generated is absolutely bonkers and the antithesis of why so many of us became journalists in the first place—because we aspired to the art of reporting AND writing. I will never release AI slop under my byline.
Just realized that with Abolish ICE at +11, it's polling over 30 percentage-points ahead of Trump approval. Guess that means if the media wants to be representative, it should give at least like 40% more airtime to people who support abolishing ICE to Trump supporters
JUST IN: North Carolina's Dem lawmaker Carla Cunningham gave the GOP the decisive vote to pass a law forcing police to comply with ICE. She said "all cultures are not equal."
She just lost reelection BIG in the Dem primary to a progressive pastor & activist, Rodney Sadler. 70% to 22%!
Context:
"What Bryant Novak didn’t know, and what most people actually don’t know, is that much in the same way HR exists to protect the company, Title IX offices function as a way to protect the accused"
The partial sentence "[a]fter Rebecca got expelled following her Title IX complaint" tells you everything you need to know about how women are treated across academia (and not just STEM academia).
Very well said.
if you know (of) Neil Varon, you're not surprised by any of Bryant Novak's claims. also, r/classicalmusic (a subreddit i have written about & am writing about currently) continues to be a horrific corner of the internet
