"We traded our privacy for no reason..." you say. "They obtained permanent access to our private details by deception", I say. It was never about giving protection to kids, but taking protections away from all of us, and those drafting the legislation the way they did knew it.

Australia’s eSafety commissioner buried a report (released Friday afternoon) that shows the under 16 social media ban didn’t tangibly reduce teen social media use, and also resulted in parents tuning out of kids usage. We traded our privacy for no reason. theconversation.com/more-than-80...

More than 80% of kids still using social media despite ban, new eSafety report finds

The report provides more evidence Australia’s world-leading social media ban isn’t going to plan.

theconversation.com

this is not true. there was no conspiracy. it didn't matter whether the streetcars were publicly owned (seattle, detroit) or private (los angeles, atlanta). a thread (because i wrote a whole-ass book on this): 1/?

David Ho@davidho.bsky.social · 3d ago

Is everyone aware of the General Motors streetcar conspiracy? In the mid-20th century, auto and oil interests bought up electric streetcar systems across the US and systematically replaced them with bus routes and paved roads, funneling commuters toward private cars.

Glad someone senior from the sector is pushing back. Labour MPs need to understand the serious real anger from graduates and the people who produce them. And the dangerous financial situation they have allowed to fester, or indeed worsened, in one of Britain’s leading sectors.

Labour has harmed universities as much as Trump, London School of Economics head says

LSE vice-chancellor Larry Kramer points to domestic student fees freeze, international student limits and rise in employers’ national insurance

ft.com

NEW: UK journalists are self-censoring stories about Trump and the right over safety fears Government-backed investigation finds risks are normalised in newsrooms. The abuse now means some journalists are changing what they write about… Grim findings: www.theguardian.com/media/2026/j...

UK journalists are self-censoring stories about Trump and the right over safety fears’

Government-backed investigation finds risks are normalised amid ‘a narrowing of the public conversation’

theguardian.com

Why is a large, out of control cyclospora outbreak in the USA trending as 'Entertainment'?

Superb thread, by Robin. He’s totally spot on. He’s very eloquent and uses far less swear words than I want to use 🤣 Read it, repost it and understand it. This is our liberties being removed by the myth of sAvE tHe ChIlDrEN

Robin Wilton 🇱🇧@komadori.eurosky.social · last mo.

Age verification laws in the UK and EU must, legally, satisfy the conditions of necessity and proportionality, because of the personal and sensitive personal data they require individuals to disclose. The UK is failing to ensure that that's the case, and @openrightsgroup.org is fighting back. 1/n

If a policymaker denies that that's the intended outcome - or even a by-product of it - the test is simple: ask them to show what, in the law and its implementation, prevents this from creating a surveillance state. 7/7

🥵Why are so many Europeans/Britons unnecessarily sweating through a heatwave without cooling? Why are portable AC units so crap? The answers are both interesting and maddening. My latest on air conditioning👇 edconway.substack.com/p/the-missin...

The Missing Pipe

A short history of how Britain chose the wrong heating system a century ago, and why we are unnecessarily sweating our way through a heatwave in 2026

edconway.substack.com

This is... insane. The EU spent untold hours of human labor and political effort to create the DSA's intricate system of rules for platforms. And the CJEU is just smashing it, like a toddler.

Steve Peers@stevepeers.bsky.social · 2mo ago

EU, tech law CJEU: Member States can require age verification for porn, and ban rebroadcast of traffic cop information also ***a website that controls what viewers see via an algorithm is liable for the content*** curia.europa.eu/site/upload/...

There’s no Schaltung like Gleichschaltung, like no Schaltung I know … 🎶

Julian Sanchez@normative.bsky.social · 2mo ago

My opponents are all communists. In unrelated news, my government will be taking ownership of the means of production.

Every summer I repost this article on how to spot drowning. Please read it and pass on. In the last few years I’ve had SIX messages from people who saved a kid’s life after clicking on the link from my feed. slate.com/technology/2...

Drowning Doesn’t Look Like Drowning

Drowning is not the violent, splashing call for help that most people expect.

slate.com

Saw this meme and I did it. Opening line to Neuromancer.

A fool and their data are soon parted

Centre-left and LW people who are reacting in horror to this, Millennials and older in particular: what did you think The Science™ meant, guys? Vibes? Papers? Essays?

Carl Sagan - 'A Glorious Dawn' ft Stephen Hawking (Symphony of Science)

YouTube video by melodysheep

youtube.com

X2Y@x2y.tech · 6mo ago

SAM ALTMAN: “People talk about how much energy it takes to train an AI model … But it also takes a lot of energy to train a human. It takes like 20 years of life and all of the food you eat during that time before you get smart.”

It wasn’t just the child tax credit. And it’s not just the Republicans.

@7z7z7z.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Pretty much all of this is the expansion (by Democrats) of the Child Tax Credit, followed by its expiry (by Republicans). While it was in place there was no positive movement in economic sentiment, when it was taken away republicans paid no electoral penalty.

This chart doesn’t account for number of hours worked (which have declined), non-wage income, or how CPI is based on the spending habits of higher income people.

Matt Darling@besttrousers.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Here's real wages (Real means adjusted for inflation)

A big share of future historians will conclude that the difference btw US und EU in the 2020s was not in the scale or violence of their respective deportation enforcement regimes but in the scale and ferocity of public opposition to it. On average, Europeans cared far less.

On the hellish detention and deportation system built by EU countries. With quotes from the current and the former German chancellors expressing their commitment to the inhumane cruelty of this apparatus, described here in forensic detail.

Inside a Detention Site at the Heart of Europe’s Harsh New Approach to Immigration

nytimes.com

"A modern-day concentration camp ... People have been killed by the staff here." Irish citizen Seamus Culleton has been in ICE detention since September, despite having a valid work permit and his own business in the US.

Irishman living legally in the United States for >20 years incarcerated by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) since September 2025. Report @klillington.bsky.social www.irishtimes.com/world/us/202...

‘Absolute hell’: Irish man with valid US work permit held by Ice since September

Seamus Culleton has been in a detention facility in Texas for nearly five months despite having no criminal record

irishtimes.com

Irish Times: US aircraft carrying out secretive deportations to Africa and the Middle East have landed in Shannon Airport on 10 occasions in the last year. Deportees are kept in chains on the aircraft. Our Govt does not want to know. www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2026... @gbrockell.bsky.social

Shannon Airport used for refuelling Ice deportation flights 10 times in past year

The controversial agency chartered small private aircraft for the removal operations

irishtimes.com

www.thedailybeast.com/xerias-troll...

Troll Who Created Trump’s Racist Obama Video Was Behind Another Viral Outrage

The same content creator made the Obama video and the bizarre clip of President Trump poop-bombing ‘No Kings’ protesters.

thedailybeast.com

Trump's assistance to the Russian attack on Ukrainian power and heating last night was so egregious that I put together this short, free piece on it. He helped Putin kill Ukrainians. If the USA does not do something soon, the US should be seen as a Putin ally. open.substack.com/pub/phillips...

Trump Helps Putin Kill Ukrainians: A Case Study

Hi All,

open.substack.com

everything 👏 is 👏monocausal 👏 and 👏 specifically 👏 results 👏 from 👏 whatever 👏 shit 👏 I'm 👏 on 👏 about 👏 at 👏 any 👏 given 👏 time

(RTing as I can’t reply:) Not an expert, but: after the companies do go bankrupt he’s going to use that $1tn US of personal wealth to lead a management buyout, right? AFAICS that’s nearly the only reason he’d even need that kind of cash, & he doesn’t seem to want to build Coleridge’s Xanadu.

Micah@rincewind.run · 6mo ago

I would so dearly love for the markets to punish either Elon Bullshits Shiny New Thing Coming in Two Years or Elon Company A Bails Out Elon Company B but at this point it’s just never going to happen, he’s going to be worth a trillion dollars, bullshit bullshit bullshit I hate it here

Unfriendly reminder, AI is being used to destroy trust. Do not normalize the use of AI. AI can not reliably enhance videos or low-quality images. This is the quiet replacement of reality. Do not let this be normalized.

Buy paper. Fund lousy, money losing entertainment. Bezos next needs to lose a governor’s race and mourn the pure, simply days of youth with his sled on fresh snow.