While this *might* be relatively innocent tinfoil-hattery, it could also be an amazingly cost-effective example of asymmetric warfare (target the most gullible minds with a conspiracy theory that gives them an incentive to vandalize transport infrastructure).

Otto English@ottoenglish.bsky.social · 18h ago

As the government bans social media for kids further evidence emerges that it's a minority of retired adults we should really be concerned about. www.devonlive.com/news/devon-n...

Older people are more dangerous (and endangered) online that people under thirty. They turbo-charge disinfo, memes, AI slop, obvious grifts and scams, Islamophobia, there's NOTHING so nakedly false or obvious they wont swallow it.

Re-reading Asimov’s robot stories for the sheer joy of his witty prose - but also because there are so many profound points made in those stories that apply just as much to today’s tech, particularly to the dangers of ceding agency to tech, and of magical thinking about tech’s capabilities

Sousveillance tech (wearables, dashcams, ‘smart’ devices etc) brings unique and complex difficulties in data protection. It’s relatively easy to figure out Controllership for *surveillance* activities but far less so when everyone is recording everyone else and posting footage online

#IrregularVerb: to terrorise I exercise my democratic right to be heard You join a menacing pseudo-paramilitary march We cause peaceful disruption to get our point across Those Bastards Over There are bringing down civilisation

The Empty City@davidallengreen.bsky.social · 14h ago

NEW Why holding a placard is a terrorist act, while causing disruption in a balaclava is not The mess caused by ministers and the police not taking terrorism law seriously By me at @prospectmagazine.co.uk www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/ideas/law/th...

They achieve profits for the av industry. That was the whole point of the legislation. www.thenerve.news/p/under-16-s...

Scan your eyeballs, think of the children: how Britain sells surveillance as safety

Keir Starmer's under-16 social media ban can only work if everyone proves who they are. It is the natural conclusion of the Online Safety Act – and of a Brexit that was always about control, says digi...

thenerve.news

I think we're at the point where we can incredibly comfortably say that your attitude towards Reform, Restore, MAGA, the AfD etc is how you'd have responded to fascism in the 1930s

'Ai psychosis' is so powerful and so quick to take hold because the models are literally built to justify superstition and magical thinking. That is why they exist, full stop.

Big fan of how Russia can shut down a major UK port for half a day with just 5kg of cocaine and 100 severely divorced men.

From "The AI Con," by @emilymbender.bsky.social & @alexhanna.bsky.social : "We can't delegate science to machines because science isn't a collection of answers. It's a set of processes and ways of knowing." Seriously everyone should read this book.

#IrregularVerb: ‘non-legitimate’ protest I take a non-conventional righteous stand against evil Your tactics/values may be okay but your values/tactics are reprehensible We are imposing social consequences Those Bastards Over There are just trying to fuck things up for everyone else

One can legitimately exercise their right to peaceful protest even when the thing they are protesting is basic compassion and decency itself. There are legitimate reasons for peaceful protestors to want to conceal their identities - especially in the age of sousveillance, doxxing and dogpiling

The problem isn't whether the means are "legitimate" or not really. The problem is that they were fascists. To be honest, despite my initial reaction (and the obvious hypocrisy), I don't know if begging the police to be more aggressive will be as productive as people like.

YouGov@yougov.co.uk · 4d ago

Britons tend to feel the masked demonstrations over the weekend were not a legitimate way of protesting, by 38% to 31% Note: Only a minority of the public report following the news closely

whoops

Risk assessment is meaningless when you lack data on prevalence or consequence from which to derive probability calculations. Why waste your time making up useless numbers when you could adopt a practical, pro-safety approach instead? www.buymeacoffee.com/MissIGGeek/t...

The Hazards & Harms Toolkit — Rowenna Fielding

Post by Rowenna Fielding

buymeacoffee.com

Tech ethics isn’t just about not doing bad stuff on purpose, it’s also about considering wider & long-term consequences of applying tech. Protecting kids is a noble endeavour but automated age-gating has the opposite effect. Ignorant people are easier to confound. heatherburns.tech/2026/09/05/t...

UK media must be sorted out. Foreign owners with political agendas should be sacked.

Adam Bienkov@adambienkov.bsky.social · last wk.

The Nigel Farage and Reform foreign donations scandal excluded from all but one national newspaper front page this morning. No sign of it at all on the front pages of the two papers which splashed the polls secretly funded by a Reform donor earlier this year

For me, it’s not the profit motive or any theoretical breach of rights that is the problem, it’s the REAL WORLD HARMS caused by unfettered surveillance & datafication - exclusion, discrimination, manipulation, that may go unnoticed at an individual level but add up to large-scale suffering and harm

Privacy International@privacyinternational.org · last wk.

Our phones are the perfect profiling devices. They know all our habits and preferences that make us unique. We’re angry that there are apps indiscriminately making fortunes out of breaching our privacy. And you should be too.

Spot-on satire; savage 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽😂😂😂

The Daily Tism@thedailytism.com · last wk.

The existing diagnostic process of detailed interviews, forms, and observations is to be replaced by a few quick questions which will determine whether you are the genuine article or just a big fake autistic, one rent-a-gob psychologist has announced.

Always good to have a friendly face to talk to when recording data protection explainers! (Watch this space for exciting new project news)

One of my pet hates is when people misuse the verb “to lay” when they should be using “to lie” - but I recognise that it’s likely due to not knowing any better. So here’s how it SHOULD go: english-grammar-lessons.co.uk/easily_confu...

Surveilling children, taking away their access to community, information, third spaces, and suicide prevention resources is a *really* weird approach to child safety.

the most striking aspect of meta's proposed changes is that they are all about restricting teens and not about making these platforms more healthier/better for all

Dr Abeba Birhane@abeba.blacksky.app · 2w ago

"for all the people “celebrating” this as a win “against” Meta, you’ve been fooled. Meta just cut a deal to put itself in charge of how social media works going forward. this is Meta taking a “please regulate me Daddy” approach to the government, & getting exactly what it really has been asking for"

Nor will it end at ethnic cleansing. A machine built to eat people will keep eating people. Those who run it will always find a new category of unwanted humans.

John Carl Baker@johncarlbaker.bsky.social · 2w ago

This is a machine to ethnically cleanse the country - and anyone who pretends otherwise is kidding themselves

Isn’t this kind of like limiting the hours kids can spend at a facility where toxic waste is unsafely handled, rather than tackling the irresponsible handling of toxic waste itself? The problem of addictive platform design lies with the incentives and objectives of surveillance capitalism itself.

Paul Breitbarth@europaulb.seriousprivacy.eu · 2w ago

BREAKING NEWS - Meta settles the children’s harm lawsuit in the U.S. for almost $17 billion. First analysis in the next @seriousprivacy.eu #podcast our later today! @igrobrien.seriousprivacy.eu @heartofprivacy.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

TL cleanse

Not only do these devices give abusers more power over their victims, they also provide the means for well-intentioned but anxious helicopter types to become abusive without realising. Healthy families with wholesome relationships don’t need and won’t use this tech. Only the problematic ones will.

Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 2w ago

It’s like a one stop shop for a controlling and abusive family member.

It’s like a one stop shop for a controlling and abusive family member.

Luffu's New Health and Safety Wearable Isn't Just for You. It's for Your Entire Family - CNET

You can link your entire family together with Luffu's new wearable and app ecosystem.

cnet.com

Let’s talk about the perverse incentives of industrialisation. Data protection was once a niche profession that people tumbled into by accident and stayed with because protecting human dignity and welfare became a vocation. Then the commercial market for compliance started to grow….

Rowenna. 2 ‘n’s. Ro-WEN-na.@missiggeek.bsky.social · 2w ago

The purpose of data protection practices is not ‘compliance’ as an end in itself. The actual objective is protection of human dignity & fundamental rights while obtaining & producing social benefit from data capabilities. Beware of those who seek to maximise economic gain at the expense of humanity

The Nazis were the first to industrialise data profiling of individuals - labelling, hunting down, and eliminating those who didn’t fit the Übermenschen criteria. Human rights law - which later gave rise to data protection law - was created in direct response. We need it now, more than ever

Politics UK@politicsuk.com · 2w ago

🚨 NEW: Reform UK has announced it will scrap GDPR and replace it with a "light-touch" privacy law based on New Zealand