I’ve been screening our documentary with organizing communities in the South. So far, the organizers mention data centers first at every single event. From racial justice orgs to old school activists who don’t usually think about tech policy. This has legs.

This isn't to say kids don't need protection; it *is* to say that protection will not come from a panoptic surveillance state that not only their parents but also any predator with a keyboard can franchise into their very own home.

I say again, "These surveillance regimes will not keep you or your children safe because they are actively preying on you": Rather than the predators, people focus on rigidly controlling children's ability to explore the world, from no third spaces to tracked online life,thus making Them targetable

Achai@achai.bark.how · 2w ago

the push for ID checks online is designed to make children easier to target; Meta is one of the companies lobbying for these types of legislation. the whole idea is to continue to target children as a lucrative market by assuring parents that giving children unmanaged tablets is safe.

He’s right. You should read this.

Ken Armstrong@bykenarmstrong.bsky.social · 20h ago

If you read only one story today, please make it this one. Paywall is lifted. So is the registration wall. By Olivia Carville for @bloomberg.com @businessweek.bsky.social

This is the play in every single industry at the moment. A massive bailout for mediocre white underachievers .

Jake_Vig@jakevig.bsky.social · 2d ago

After a middling WNBA career, blonde haired, blue eyed Sophie Cunningham has positioned herself for post-basketball success and riches as a conservative mouthpiece. This is the pattern that always works because conservatives are very very dumb and will latch onto anyone who promotes hate.

Correct, the point isn’t to make them feel shame. The point is to reinforce the group norms.

Betsy Humphrey@betsyvt.bsky.social · yesterday

They may be shameless, but shunning, booing and not accepting them into public spaces is the correct response.

That's what taxes are, man. That's the definition of taxes. "You are subsidizing things you might never use" man shut the fuck up. My taxes currently subsidize like oil company exec private jets, you think I'm upset at low-income people eating inexpensive bananas?

USA TODAY Opinion@usatodayopinion.usatoday.com · 2d ago

Opinion: Mamdani's idea may sound appealing, but it's NYC taxpayers who will take the hit, subsidizing discounts they may never even use.

Good framing.

Kindergarten girls targeted for invasive exams by new GOP-led ballot measure

Washington State voters will decide the fate of a ballot initiative that would require girls from kindergarten through high school to undergo sex-verification testing before playing school sports — a ...

rawstory.com

It’s important to understand that when 1.2 million Americans are dying from a disease, any government action is excessive and tyrannical, but if a dozen trans women want to play soccer no government action can go far enough

An initiative on the ballot in Washington state in November would require all athletes seeking to play girl's sports from kindergarten to high school to undergo "genetic screening, a testosterone-levels test, or an examination of their reproductive anatomy" before they can play

Yep. And it had a lobster tank, live fish and a McDonalds and… Let me stop 😢

BonaFidePeach@bonafidepeach.blacksky.app · 3d ago

Wasn’t Walmart open 24/7 at one point?

I wonder if students today would be less likely to lean on AI for writing assignments if schools had made sure they could touch-type (at least 60wpm) before having them submit all their assignments online. 1/🧵

The WNBA has never had a trans woman play in the league’s 30-year history and now the right and other anti-trans activists are hammering the league over something that has never been an issue, proving once again it isn’t about protection but exhibiting cruelty toward trans people.

Fifty is generous, too. The whole idea is for these things to run themselves. There was an article recently about how some are using those Boston dynamics robot dogs rather than hiring security guards. The troubleshooting is mostly automated, with the exception of the part swapping listed below.

Chris DeLeon Ⓥ make your own games@chrisdeleon.bsky.social · 5d ago

many of the data centers need as few as 10-50 permanent workers. they aren't software engineers making apps/services. it's $60k/yr people who can check if a hard drive failed and swap it out and monitor if a cooling fan fails even the one-time construction jobs aren't local, they bring in outsiders

An Atlanta-area police chief accessed Flock cameras 500 times to track the movements of his ex-girlfriend and her teenage daughter. At least 50 cops have been similarly charged with misusing Flock "including to stalk women without their knowledge or consent"

How rogue officers turned a nationwide camera network into a tool for stalking

Flock’s array of license-plate cameras was built to fight crime. But at least 50 law enforcement officers were charged with or accused of misusing it and other systems.

wapo.st

Pritzker has been told directly how this is a bad law that does real damage to kids, increases surveillance and is likely unconstitutional. He chose to sign it anyway because it'll give him headlines about protecting children and taking on big tech for his presidential run. A huge disappointment

Governor JB Pritzker@govpritzker.illinois.gov · 4d ago

When addictive social media feeds depend on keeping a child's attention at any cost, their well-being takes a back seat. Enough is enough — we’re requiring these companies to make social media safer for the future of Illinois.

Listen. I'm gonna say the quiet part out loud: the only way you "can't figure out" how to make a Blade movie is white supremacy. Full stop. The narrative writes itself, there are plenty of Black actors and martial artists who'd jump at the chance. It's not rocket surgery.

starting a collection of quotes like this

If pocket calculators regularly and randomly gave you incorrect answers to your queries like ChatGPT does, we would have left the technology behind, not insisted that 2+2=5 is HERE TO STAY, BABY.

Uncle Fuzzzy 🦆@unclefuzzzy.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Funny, that’s what we thought about pocket calculators in 1974

This is a metaphor so on the nose it hurts. Literally, they are removing knowledge from the public domain to feed their machines and permanently deny your access to it. The privatization of knowledge and information is their goal.

chiller@chiller.eurosky.social · last wk.

This is ... horrific

Parents are fed up with friends and relatives giving their kids “personalized” AI-generated storybooks with characters resembling their kids. Apart from data privacy concerns, literacy experts say these garbled and convoluted narratives could be an impediment to learning how to read.

Boomers Can’t Stop Gifting Their Grandkids AI-Generated Slop Books

Parents are getting fed up with garbled bedtime stories that feature characters based on actual photos of their children.

wired.com

I’m telling you, it’s got legs.

Yashar Ali 🐘@yasharali.bsky.social · last wk.

1. Two country music legends, Willie Nelson and Tanya Tucker, are speaking out about different pieces of the same enormous industrial buildout in Texas. Tanya Tucker is speaking out against the massive transmission lines crossing private land to accommodate the state’s surging electricity demand.

Why is everything so transparently evil now?

If your project is so destructive and unpopular that you need to have people arrested for the audacious crime of clapping at a public meeting, your product is garbage and they arrested the wrong person.

High School Teacher Arrested for Clapping in Support of Anti-Data Center Activists

A local high school physics teacher was hauled out by four police officers for clapping six times during a city commission meeting.

futurism.com

This white woman is actively making her workplace unsafe for her Black queer colleagues & not in just like an uncomfortable way which is already unacceptable but in a pitchforks & burning crosses type of way. This is fucking disgusting & violent.

Jim Snowden@snowdenwriter.bsky.social · last wk.

Great. Nice to know Sophie Cunningham is attracting these kinds of minds to the game I have tickets to. Goddamn it. Thanks a bunch, TERF. #wnba thecomeback.com/wnba/anti-tr...

Exclusive from me — Daniel Moraff, one of the political operatives behind Graham Platner's rise and fall, has been accused of sexual assault. Full story here:

Exclusive: Political operative behind Graham Platner's rise accused of sexual assault

A spokesperson for Daniel Moraff said: “Any suggestion that he committed a criminal offence is false and without foundation."

thehandbasket.co

16) Stole this one from a recent skeet I saw: If generative AI could REALLY make the next GTA in 6 months with 10 staff, or write the next bestseller, or produce 10 blockbusters a day? They wouldn't be trying to sell it to YOU. They would keep it for themselves and guard it from you ferociously.

The middle class, 1970: steady job, nice paycheck, health insurance, retirement The middle class, 2026: no regular paycheck, no health insurance, wtf is retirement, thank god I get to make 80 hours of video a week that the algorithm might sink

Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · last wk.

Is this why people think BS followers equates to cash.

Many many people in this country cannot recognize Islamophobia because they are swimming so deeply in it on a daily basis and have so internalized it that it isn't actually legible to them as racism. It's why it's so casually deployed in a way that other forms of racism in the country are not.

For many years, people didn’t randomly film others in public—not because we didn’t have the technology, but because the social contract said you didn’t do that. That’s why Meta is going full court press on their PR and celebrity endorsements. They remember how people ran google glass outta town.