Christian

@xntrik.wtf

Aussie appsec dork, worked at a bunch of places. Opinions my own and all that jazz. https://xntrik.wtf

when i was a teen with a macbook, my lil bro would sneak up and quickly use the keyboard shortcut to open my Applications folder, then hit ⌘-A and ⌘-O

Berlin, Germany, March 27, 1936 An enormous banner of Hitler with the words "Freedom-Peace" on the front of the Berlin railway station Washington, DC, February 19, 2026 An enormous banner of Trump with the words "Make America Safe Again" on the front of the DOJ He's not even pretending anymore

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A new paper shows that less than 2 months of exposure to Twitter’s algorithmic feed significantly shifts people’s political views to the right. Moving from chronological feed to the algorithmic feed also increases engagement. This is one of the most concerning papers I’ve read in awhile.

The political effects of X's feed algorithm
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10098-2
Received: 16 December 2024
Accepted: 4 January 2026
Published online: 18 February 2026
Open access
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Germain Gauthier,5, Roland Hodler?5, Philine Widmer35 & Ekaterina Zhuravskaya3,4,5 m
Feed algorithms are widely suspected to influence political attitudes. However, previous evidence from switching off the algorithm on Meta platforms found no political effects'. Here we present results from a 2023 field experiment on Elon Musk's platform X shedding light on this puzzle. We assigned active US-based users randomly to either an algorithmic or a chronological feed for 7 weeks, measuring political attitudes and online behaviour. Switching from a chronological to an algorithmic feed increased engagement and shifted political opinion towards more conservative positions, particularly regarding policy priorities, perceptions of criminal investigations into Donald Trump and views on the war in Ukraine. In contrast, switching from the algorithmic to the chronological feed had no comparable effects.
Neither switching the algorithm on nor switching it off significantly affected affective polarization or self-reported partisanship. To investigate the mechanism, we analysed users' feed content and behaviour. We found that the algorithm promotes conservative content and demotes posts by traditional media. Exposure to algorithmic content leads users to follow conservative political activist accounts, which they continue to follow even after switching off the algorithm, helping explain the asymmetry in effects. These results suggest that initial exposure to X's algorithm has persistent effects on users' current political attitudes and account-following behaviour, even in the absence of a detectable effect on partisanship.

how do you stop your tummy from hurting without quitting coffee or alcohol or ordering the spiciest thing on the menu or feeling stressed out all the time

one way or another, your brain and your body will take breaks. you can do this intentionally, through planning for it, sharing skills, and passing things off… … or unintentionally, in ways that are more disruptive to you and others. you can take regular, shorter breaks, or burn out entirely.

Ian Coldwater 🧊🚫@lookitup.baby · 6mo ago

I paid my therapist a zillion dollars to tell me this, so I’m passing it on to anyone else in MN who needs to hear it: Think of taking time away to recharge not as not doing the work, but as doing quality control for the work. You’re not going to be able to show up to do it well if you’re depleted

Apple & Google removed ICE tracking apps in their app stores. TikTok reportedly suppressed videos criticizing ICE & the shooting of Alex Pretti. Meta blocked Facebook groups tracking ICE & links to a database of agents that the government wants to keep secret. Big Tech is enabling Trump's regime.

I think we should just shut down the entire concept of generating images using AI. Outlaw it, or as close as you can come to doing so. I know it's not possible to eliminate it completely, but we definitely can stop companies from scaling it up to "industrial-scale abuse".

kate conger@kateconger.com · 7mo ago

We set out to determine how many images of women and girls Grok created during its nudifying spree. What we found was “industrial-scale abuse,” experts said. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/22/t...