In light of the revelation today of DHS’s massive operation to spy on social media critics of their policies, remember this I posted a few months ago about the tech they bought that can do just this—and how the company markets itself to do political surveillance.

Matthew Guariglia@mguariglia.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Just learning that ICE has a $4.2 million contract for social media surveillance/AI analysis with Fivecast. A few years ago I came across a brochure of theirs which used as an example for potential police customers their ability to map left-wing groups. www.eff.org/deeplinks/20...

Significant new report from @dianecoyle1859.bsky.social & colleagues makes the case that the UK has a mismatch between highly centralised institutions of spending control and increasingly fragmented systems of public service delivery (more so if devolution) www.nuffieldfoundation.org/news/opinion...

The myth of Treasury control: What’s wrong with the UK’s public spending system and how to fix it - Nuffield Foundation

The long-standing model of centralised Treasury control over public spending has inadequately adapted to the realities of public service delivery.

nuffieldfoundation.org

women have two roles in these videos. in three of them women are victims of foreign men. but this one is different: a woman is portrayed as a collaborator, a "foreign lackey" who serves foreign interests. this is an established gendered trope too bsky.app/profile/many...

Manya Koetse@manyapan.bsky.social · 2d ago

More about this in my latest newsletter, where I unpack this trend.

Open streets to people, close them to cars

Brent Toderian@brenttoderian.bsky.social · 4d ago

Do you know about soccer tennis? Saturday nights are tournament night for the sport on the Granville Street Pedestrian Zone, & these teams are no joke! Nice way to cap off a great day on the people-street. Overheard one family talking about how they “can’t believe how great Granville Street is now.”

The British are gonna racism themselves out of having a national health service... jesus wept. And as others pointed out in 1971 31% of NHS staff were immigrants, in 2025 it was 21%. Its racism on the rise & the problem. Y'all want healthcare, stamp this shit out. Nick Robinson can do one too

Jonathan Portes@jdportes.bsky.social · yesterday

"There's a real thing going on in the composition of the staff...does that not have to be looked at as well?" Nick Robinson, on Today, discussing this news.sky.com/story/nhs-st...

The London report was a few years back but little is likely to have changed. It’s how the Russian intelligence services (and Chinese) operate.

In a report endorsed by the former head of MI6, the Henry Jackson Society said a staggering 50% of the Russians in London - 75,000 - were informants for Putin. Russia has many operatives across Europe.

POLITICO Europe@politico.eu · 2d ago

A Paris court today rejected Russian television star Xenia Fedorova's appeal against a ruling that she must leave the country, a week after French authorities accused her of acting as "a conduit for disinformation campaigns" orchestrated by Moscow.

More evidence that Reform voters are not like other people in the UK. Show them some potential corruption and they’re all in.

@tibetwatch.org documents the continued remaking of #Tibetan sacred space in #Drago: the site of the demolished 99-foot Maitreya Buddha is now a horse racing track, & the nearby Geden Buddhist School has been replaced with new buildings. tibetwatch.org/tibetan-budd...

Tibetan Buddhist landmark transformed into racecourse

Once home to a 99-foot Buddha statue in Sengdeng Village, the sacred site has been converted since 2023 into a racecourse.

tibetwatch.org

But they will be

Steffen Rayburn-Maarup@rayburnmaarup.bsky.social · 3d ago

I don't think people are ready for this kind of joke yet.

"I don't understand why you, a fantasy writer, don't appreciate the value of making bargains with the fae."

John Scalzi@scalzi.com · 2d ago

Every now and then someone takes a run at me along the lines of "I don't understand why you, a scifi writer, don't appreciate 'AI'," and I'm all, motherfucker, it's *because* I'm a science fiction writer I have the positions I have, how many times do we have to fucking yell "torment nexus," my dude

Each time a "historical claim" by the CPP appears in media, it should be followed with: "Historians say that this claim is false." Editors have no trouble doing that for many similarly bogus claims, from conspiracy theories to flat earth. The lack of such correctives helps legitimate China's lies.

Michael Turton@michaelturton.bsky.social · 3d ago

My column for Monday. Inspired by Macabe Keliher's excellent paper on how Taiwan became "Liuqiu", I glance at the problem of how the PRC's Taiwan history is a construct scholars know is fake, but is seldom challenged in the media. www.taipeitimes.com/News/feat/ar...

"the target isn't really the books: it's the spaces + the ppl who offer them (and a visual warning for the rest of us)." If you've been to the likes of Book Punch, Hunter Bookshop and Have a Nice Stay, you'll see this as they're set up to also host talks + exhibitions, and spend quality time in.

John dEFR0G has never had 1 million likes@defrog.bsky.social · 3d ago

GovHK clearly has the ability to stop "dangerous" books from being imported. I think they're also aware most of these books can be bought, read and shared digitally. So the target isn't really the books: it's the spaces and the ppl who offer them (and a visual warning for the rest of us). 2/2

"’Burt demands that you talk to him,’ said Maria Aveni, a VT Kinney Drugs customer… ‘There's no option to use a keypad to enter what you want to, which has been the case w/other telephone interactions I've had. So it's more of a talk to Burt or don't get your drugs’.”🛟

Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 3d ago

“The AI assistant, which Kinney Drugs named Burt, after its founder, was built by a third-party AI pharmaceutical company, Synerio. In the pharmacy’s terms, Kinney Drugs states that ‘Burt may not be accurate, complete or up-to-date and may be misleading or contain errors and omissions.’”

The original source for this appears to have more info: substack.com/@netaskari/p...

Sharp Eyes: Mass surveillance of foreigners in China - Part 1

A publicly exposed web front reveals new details on a tracking system for foreigners and delivers many insight into the capabilities of security organs to track individuals in real time.

substack.com

Phelim Kine@phelimkine.bsky.social · 3d ago

Chilling. "Chinese authorities aggregate vast amounts of data to monitor and analyze the behavior of foreign residents. It had fields for places they frequented, hospital visits and gas payments, as well as flights and trains taken, including seat numbers" www.nytimes.com/2026/08/02/w...

Just a random reminder that immigrants are good for society and good for the economy.

The Truth About Immigrants and the Economy | Robert Reich

No matter what you hear on Fox News, immigrants are good for the economy and our society. Watch.

youtube.com

Hoisted by their own historical petard. ‘Amid unwanted chatter about the significance of 1644, the film’s positioning of Qing conquerors as heroes of national unity has been problematized by a countervailing narrative casting those same conquerors as illegitimate outsiders’.

Taiwan Conquest Film Shelved

A Chinese blockbuster dramatizing the 17th-century Qing conquest of Taiwan has been abruptly postponed. Why are China’s authorities so uneasy about a film that was meant to celebrate “unification”?

open.substack.com

When you think about it, HKers are actually being forced to pay for the people and weapons used to repress them, which is all sorts of effed up. Same in a lot of other places as well.

The Economist@economist.com · 3d ago

Hong Kong’s police seem eager to justify the HK$18bn ($2.3bn) spent on national security since the pro-democracy protests in 2019. And authorities want to please a watchful China

I so hope the official term will be "das Pervertglas" or something similar...

Sven-Erik Volberg@volberg.bsky.social · 4d ago

Under German law, selling or owning recording devices disguised as everyday objects is strictly prohibited. Because Meta Glasses closely resemble regular eyewear, the Federal Network Agency (Bundesnetzagentur) is reviewing a nationwide ban with fines already being issued 2/2

Under German law, selling or owning recording devices disguised as everyday objects is strictly prohibited. Because Meta Glasses closely resemble regular eyewear, the Federal Network Agency (Bundesnetzagentur) is reviewing a nationwide ban with fines already being issued 2/2

My "Irish Measurement Systems Flowchart" was warmly received by r/Ireland so I'm reposting it here having fixed one error, but without many smaller additions suggested, might do a v2 some time later! #speirgorm

In view of UNESCO having just inscribed the Mount Amel Castles (of which Beaufort Castle is on) onto the World Heritage list just this year, you'd think it was trying to send a message to Israel to NOT bomb/destroy it. But... 😡

Mount Amel Castles

The serial property comprises five fortified sites located across the historic region of Jabal Amel in southern Lebanon: Qalaat Al Chakif (Beaufort Castle), Qalaat Tibnin (Toron Castle), Qalaat Chakra...

whc.unesco.org

Oubao Moin 𓆏𓆌𓆉𓆈𓆚 🇵🇷🇱🇧|🍉🌻🌿 #VivaPuertoRicoLibre@astrophobia.bsky.social · 5d ago

Israel just destroyed (AGAIN) parts of the Beaufort Castle in southern Lebanon, a UNESCO World Heritage Site dating back to the Crusaders, by detonating “Hezbollah tunnels” near and beneath it. If I say what I’m thinking right now, I *will* get suspended.

Alas, Jackie Chan does not know how to get lost

egg nog fan@wimble.bsky.social · 5d ago

They should have made The Odyssey in Hong Kong in the 90s directed by Lau Kar-leung starring Jackie Chan where he has sick martial arts fights with the Cyclops and Circe and all them

So... they probably weren't migrants

POLITICO Europe@politico.eu · 5d ago

More than 48,300 of the approximately 50,000 people who entered the Spanish exclave of Ceuta from Morocco have returned, a Spanish government official told POLITICO.

Hong Kong dentist says she lost job after staging solo demo on the 2019 mob attack anniversary 🔗 hongkongfp.com/2026/07/31/h...

It is funny how officials who for the longest time have insisted to the whole world HK *is* just another big Chinese city now sees "just another big Chinese city" as derogatory

Hong Kong Free Press HKFP@hongkongfp.com · 6d ago

Official criticises ‘anti-China bias’ after ex-banker calls Hong Kong ‘just another big Chinese city’ 🔗 hongkongfp.com/2026/07/30/o...

in a world of john cleeses, be a michael palin

George Monbiot@georgemonbiot.bsky.social · last wk.

Just loving how John Cleese, now reduced to one of his own caricatures, rages about immigrants coming to the UK and failing to accept "our" culture, from his home in ... (checks notes) ... Nevis in the Caribbean.

Someone in America pointing out that the country was better off under Biden kind of feels like someone saying that they were better off before being struck by lightning while getting run over repeatedly by a clown car that’s on fire, after contracting a deadly flesh-eating disease. Kind of obvious.

BlueScotty Will Not Obey@bluescottyp.bsky.social · 6d ago

Its so easy to see that he was simply better in every way… #ProudBlue

And disgustingly under the radar. "Concerns of fairness" after a *year*?! Where are interventions by democratic states? Oh, that's right, the interests of expat chambers of commerce override all. 😡

Eli Friedman@elifriedman.bsky.social · 6d ago

"police alleged Au had colluded with an unspecified anti-China group outside the city" As with HK book shop, detaining people for unspecified activities. Cowardly, deeply insecure, behavior.

We’ll know if Binface is likely to win Clacton because Farage will announce he’s stepping aside saying the Deep State is working against him. He can’t be seen to lose, and neither can Reform .