Kate Sim

Flock’s Gunshot Detection Microphones Will Start Listening for Human Voices Flock Safety, the police technology company most notable for their extensive network of automated license plate readers spread throughout the United States, is rolling out a new and troubling product ...

What could go wrong.

Thanks for having me @skipintroyt.bsky.social !

Revealed: Apple is teaching its AI to adapt to the Trump era Apple policy documents enacted by a subcontractor show how the company shifted its approach to fine-tuning its AI in March, two months after the U.S. president was inaugurated.

“The memo — in the form of fresh guidelines on how to talk to and evaluate answers from Apple’s upcoming new artificial intelligence model — appeared to have been retooled following Trump’s return to the White House…”

The topics include “diversity,” “elections,” and “vaccines.”

*ezra klein guy voice* The problem with the left is that they've lost the willingness to speak reasonably with their opponents, such as this guy I interviewed recently who easily conned me into supporting eugenics

NEW figures show that 61,226 people are currently in ICE detention — the highest number ever in US history.

According to ICE data, 70% of these people have no criminal conviction.

To be clear: this is yet another reason why many of these laws are so problematic. If people want to run fediverse instances of any size, the fact that costly age verification requirements could put them in legal jeopardy, is very bad.

Regulators make laws as if every website is Facebook.

Flock Wants to Partner With Consumer Dashcam Company That Takes ‘Trillions of Images’ a Month That dashcam in your car could soon integrate with Flock, the surveillance company providing license plate data to DHS and local police.

New: Flock, the ALPR company in thousands of U.S. communities and which ICE taps into, wants to partner with a firm that sells dashcams to ordinary drivers. Nexar gets "trillions" of images a month from the dashcams. Could turn cars into roaming surveillance devices www.404media.co/flock-wants-...

Enabling more third party services could be good, but this law looks like it's just about getting more surveillance of kids, and history tells us that doesn't actually protect their safety, and could do the exact opposite.

Jacob Lew, Biden’s former ambassador to Israel, told the New Yorker that the killing of Palestinian children in Gaza was justified.

Palantir’s tools pose an invisible danger we are just beginning to comprehend | Juan Sebastian Pinto Weaponized AI surveillance platforms threaten human rights around the world. Here’s how they work

“Known as intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance (Istar) systems, these tools, built by several companies, allow users to track, detain and, in the context of war, kill people at scale with the help of AI.”

"It is acceptable to engage a child in conversations that are romantic or sensual"

-Meta's actual, written policy for its AI chatbots

^ THIS

GJPD Cameras Accessed Five Times During Goncalves Incident by Jacob Richards On June 5, from when Deputy Zwinck first pulled over Caroline Dais Goncalves for following too close behind a semi truck, through her release and later arrest by ICE/HSI officers,…

Another insane surveillance story. DACA recipient pulled over in Colorado by police, then let go. Police tell a Signal group that includes dept that collabs with ICE. That dept then logs into an ALPR system from another department. Woman then arrested by ICE

therevolutionistgj.org/2025/08/12/g...

Is Israel Losing the Argument – and Its Supporters? Benjamin Netanyahu may have the unwavering support of Donald Trump, but one-time AIPAC loyalists are beginning to jump ship while European allies are also turning against him.

NEW: This week, 2 politicians AIPAC spent millions supporting came out against sending weapons to Israel.

Germany — Israel’s second largest arms supplier & where someone was even convicted for holding a sign that said “Have we learned nothing from the Holocaust? — said it will stop sending weapons.

Truly the thing that came out of this podcast that has me worried is: how many people are now going to be tricked into handing over sensitive information to a scammer posing as age verification?

Thank you @chefboibex.bsky.social for having me for this week's Sensemaker to talk about the privacy/security impacts of age verification. Esp appreciate the focus on security vulnerability, which will impact ALL of us.

A CBP Agent Wore Meta Smart Glasses to an Immigration Raid in Los Angeles Video obtained and verified by 404 Media shows a CBP official wearing Meta's AI glasses, which are capable of recording and connecting with AI. “I think it should be seen in the context of an agency t...

New from 404 Media: we've seen and verified video of a CBP agent wearing Meta's AI glasses during immigration raid in LA. Glasses capable of recording, live-streaming, Meta plans to add facial recognition. Experts deeply concerned about this tech being abused by DHS www.404media.co/a-cbp-agent-...

Needed to be named!!

The Online Safety Act Has Nothing to Do With Child Safety and Everything to Do With Censorship | Novara Media Within hours of Ofcom enforcing the new law last week, Gaza and Ukraine content was being blocked, while pickup artist content and child modelling sites were. That’s entirely by design, writes Kate Si...

Wrote down my thoughts on the UK OSA for
@novaramedia.com. Many are understandably conflicted between wanting a safer Internet for children and seeing the OSA for what it is.

Here's how to think about it from the perspective of child safety and public interest:

novaramedia.com/2025/08/07/t...

Noted! Thanks for the flag

Detection: tech companies send a tip to the police to investigate. Not all tips are actionable. Driven by the police. Does not guarantee that impacted people receive the support they need (content removal, spyware check, disentangle linked accts, access to mental health/medical services, etc)

Appreciate @aljazeera.com as one of the few remaining sources of journalism w/integrity but this is sensationalism that misrepresents how contested this topic is

Rly need journos to understand that detecting CSAM =/= protecting children

Tech giants turning blind eye to child sex abuse, Australian watchdog says Commissioner’s recommendations for tech companies include measures that have been criticised on privacy grounds.

This is deeply misleading @aljazeera.com

Watchdogs are third party entities that keep gov/corps in check. The "internet watchdog" here is an Aus gov agency

Besides, proposed detection methods are not technically feasible, a gross privacy violation AND does little to protect kids

aje.io/v2t43f

Hidden Water provides support to all those harmed by child sexual abuse. As the Epstein files saturate the headlines, much needed words what we get wrong about CSA:

www.newsweek.com/stop-epstein...

I feel like every single day I need to post a reminder: if you ask an LLM about itself it DOES NOT KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT ITS INNER WORKINGS and WILL NOT TELL YOU ANYTHING ACTUALLY ABOUT ITSELF. It just (as it always does) will make up some plausible sounding answer.

‘Worrying’ levels of screen time means young people losing confidence to socialise in person, minister warns – UK politics live Culture secretary Lisa Nandy says ‘majority of young people spend all, or almost all, of their free time alone in their bedrooms, online’

This is not caused primarily by "screen time".

It's been caused by the mass eradication of third places for young people in basically every city over the past three decades - and a society that's hostile to the concept of teens socialising in public spaces.

www.theguardian.com/politics/liv...

What Are My Rights During an ICE Raid? Immigration law can be tricky, but here's what you should know.

Dealing with law enforcement can be stressful, so it’s important to know your rights before you’re face-to-face with ICE agents. While there’s never any guarantee that law enforcement officers will follow the law, here’s what they can and can’t legally do to you and what you can legally demand. ⬇️

And that’s a wrap on the day! Our workshop keeps growing, and so do our social events.

Huge thanks to all the authors, speakers, attendees, and of course, our amazing organisers 👏

The drinks were a blast!

#ACL2025NLP

CSAM is something that happens among the young people and among the known people, it's not about a third external predator figure 🤯

Very eye-opening keynote by @katejsim.bsky.social #ACL2025NLP

If you are also sick of computer scientists and have had your fill at ACL, come join us for the workshop today where we have social scientists thinking with us.