David Scales

Tear Gas, Pepper Balls Among Weapons Deployed Against Illinois Protesters A judge recently issued a restraining order on crowd-control tactics by federal agents in the state, including those involved in Operation Midway Blitz.

New from Bellingcat: “‘Pattern of Extreme Brutality’ — Tear gas, pepper balls among weapons used by federal agents at Illinois immigration protests.”
Read the full investigation:
www.bellingcat.com/news/2025/10...

Interesting paper! When you ask people about the most important issue "facing the country," they often say immigration. But when you ask them about issues facing them personally, it doesn't crack the top 10.

This indicates that voters are reacting to media narratives, not their own experience.

YouTube video by Eleanor Morton We Have AI Now

Literal perfection. ;) www.youtube.com/shorts/8-lgJ...

84% of political science experts said creating such a force poses a threat to democracy, including 65% who said the threat was extraordinary or serious brightlinewatch.org/violence-red... However, it is overwhelmingly popular among Republicans brightlinewatch.org/violence-red...

cool cool cool cool cool

A Politico headline with an image of Zohran Mamdani and a headline that reads Zohran Mamdani’s meteoric candidacy is deeply polarizing New York

Please note that it is Mamdani’s opponents who are running horribly racist ads that are putting all Muslim New Yorkers at risk but somehow it is Mamdani who is polarizing New York with his message of improving the quality of life of all New Yorkers.

Inside Israel’s deal with Google and Amazon To secure Project Nimbus, the tech giants agreed to disregard their own terms of service and tip Israel off if a foreign court demands its data.

“To secure the lucrative Project Nimbus contract, the tech giants agreed to disregard their own terms of service and sidestep legal orders by tipping Israel off if a foreign court demands its data”

www.972mag.com/project-nimb...

Opinion | A Nazi Tattoo Exposes Democrats’ Greatest Weakness

honestly the only piece worth reading on the platner situation. @tressiemcphd.bsky.social is absolutely cooking here. (gift link)

The Strategist’s Fallacy in American politics The average American voter does not think about politics the way elite strategists and pundits do

The GOP has been extremely effective at shaping perceptions of the Democrats, claiming they support policy positions they don't actually support

If your strategy, as a Dem, for winning in 2028 *STARTS* by buying their spin and lies, then you've already lost
www.gelliottmorris.com/p/the-strate...

ICE detains British journalist after criticism of Israel on US tour Trump ally Laura Loomer took credit for Sami Hamdi’s detainment in move denounced as ‘affront to free speech’

ICE detains British journalist after criticism of Israel on US tour

I wish they said explicitly that there's $5 billion in emergency reserves they're refusing to use instead they're happy to let people - mostly children, the disabled, and elderly, starve.

It’s been a year since Canada’s measles outbreak started. What have we learned? | CBC News A year since measles started raging in Canada, the outbreak's subsided, but the virus shows no signs of being stamped out. Doctors say problems here — from distrust of medical officials in vulnerable...

Disinformation is very much a major issue in Canada, just like the United States

cc @peterhotezmdphd.bsky.social @michaelemann.bsky.social @angierasmussen.bsky.social

www.cbc.ca/news/health/...

Three schematic diagrams. The first illustrates selective publishing of internal resection, the second selective causal focus, and the third selective access and funding for researchers.

1. We ( @jbakcoleman.bsky.social, @cailinmeister.bsky.social, @jevinwest.bsky.social, and I) have a new preprint up on the arXiv.

There we explore how social media companies and other online information technology firms are able to manipulate scientific research about the effects of their products.

LLMs are not search engines. LLMs are not search engines. Rinse, repeat.

A meta-analysis of 13 studies comparing health care professionals vs generative A.I. showed the latter was more likely to be perceived as more empathetic in all but 1 study
academic.oup.com/bmb/article/...

OpenAI Loosened Suicide-Talk Rules Before Teen’s Death, Lawsuit Alleges An amended complaint from the parents of Adam Raine, a 16-year-old who died by suicide, alleges the changes were part of a push to increase engagement.

“OpenAI twice loosened ChatGPT’s rules for discussing suicide in the year before 16-year-old Adam Raine took his own life using a method the chatbot advised him on, according to an amended lawsuit filed by his parents on Wednesday.”

Verification, Deliberation, Accountability: A new framework for tackling epistemic collapse and renewing democracy Demos is Britain’s leading cross-party think-tank. We produce original research, publish innovative thinkers and host thought-provoking events.

🧵 Across the world, democracy isn’t just under pressure, it’s facing epistemic collapse: a breakdown in the shared ability to know what’s true, to reason together and to hold power to account.

A new guest paper by @eliothiggins.bsky.social and @drnataliemartin.bsky.social explores how to fix it.

The silence and lack of collective action is complicity in the destruction of our institutions

X will start selling inactive usernames to paid users Elon Musk's social network will start auctioning off disused handles to subscribing users.

Twitter really is Disinformation Ebola virus at this point.

mashable.com/article/x-tw...

The largest mass protests by number of participants in US history happened yesterday and the only mention on the front page of the NYT is Jamelle Bouie's opinion column: no diner-diving for sentiments of the unheard masses, no coverage of the Trump video, no sense for what it says about the moment.

The networks took the much smaller Tea Party movement so seriously they broadcast a Tea Party rebuttal to Obama’s 2011 SOTU on top of the normal GOP one.

I'm grateful to @60minutes.bsky.social featuring our study published @justsecurity.org.

Link to the study (on the 'presumption of regularity'): www.justsecurity.org/120547/presu...

the Muppets have been real quiet since the Louvre heist

How To Be A Digital Revolutionary Mini Zine Vol. 1 This mini 'zine is a 7-page collection of the most essential personal and digital security advice for those attending protests, rallies, marches, or other events where there's an element of risk. Lock...

If you're protesting this weekend: Prep a burner phone, learn to move in crowds and what to do if things get violent, understand how you'll be surveilled, and find resources for storing media and remotely locking or erasing your phone: www.digitapub.com/collections/...

We need to talk about how social media algorithms push moms down a slippery slope of distrust.

From "Are my kids getting enough support in school?" To "Maybe I should homeschool." To "Maybe modern medicine is bad."

I've seen this first-hand in research I'm doing on parenting apps. 1/🧵

101 TikTok accounts masquerading as real news spread misinformation to millions Shallow impersonations of Telemundo, CNN, Fox News and other media got more than 200 million views posting fake ICE arrests and bombastic AI slop about geopolitics

NEW on @indicator.media:

I found 101 accounts impersonating Telemundo, Televisa, CNN and other media outlets spreading clickbaity falsehoods to millions on TikTok.

The company took them all down after I reached out.

Facebook suspends popular Chicago ICE-sightings group at Trump administration’s request The group, "ICE Sighting-Chicagoland," has been increasingly used in the last five weeks of President Donald Trump’s intense deportation campaign to warn neighbors that federal agents are nearby.

At the request of the U.S. Department of Justice, a Facebook group used by nearly 80,000 people to report sightings of federal immigration agents in the Chicago area has been taken down by the social media giant Meta, Facebook’s parent company.

Today following outreach from @thejusticedept, Facebook removed a large group page that was being used to dox and target @ICEgov agents in Chicago. The wave of violence against ICE has been driven by online apps and social media campaigns designed to put ICE officers at risk just for doing their jobs. The Department of Justice will continue engaging tech companies to eliminate platforms where radicals can incite imminent violence against federal law enforcement.

I'm sorry, is the Trump Administration talking to a tech platform?

Is it...requesting content moderation?

Federal workers in public health, Amy Maxmen is a brilliant, seasoned, and sensitive reporter. You can have absolute confidence in her.

(Reach out *non-work* devices/networks/WiFi.)