Matene Toure's Avatar

Matene Toure

@matene.bsky.social

tech & power reporter • occasional film & culture critic • fact checker @logic(s)mag • formerly @ZDNET contact me @itsmatene@gmail.com linktr.ee/mateneee

158 Followers  |  86 Following  |  6 Posts  |  Joined: 09.11.2024  |  1.9652

Latest posts by matene.bsky.social on Bluesky

ngl I kind of think Sam Altman should be tried criminally? is that … feasible?

27.08.2025 01:26 — 👍 6992    🔁 792    💬 100    📌 91
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What Does Palantir Actually Do? Palantir is often called a data broker, a data miner, or a giant database of personal information. In reality, it’s none of these—but even former employees struggle to explain it.

Palantir is in the news a lot lately. However, the public discourse about the company often misconstrues it as a data broker, a data miner, a single centralized database, etc. But what does Palantir actually do?

I wrote a piece to firmly & clearly answer that question:
www.wired.com/story/palant...

11.08.2025 14:01 — 👍 294    🔁 145    💬 13    📌 9
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CBP Wants New Tech to Search for Hidden Data on Seized Phones Customs and Border Protection is asking companies to pitch tools for performing deep analysis on the contents of devices seized at the US border.

SCOOP: The CBP asking tech companies to pitch digital forensics tools that are designed to process and analyze text messages, pictures, videos, and contacts from seized phones, laptops, and other devices at the United States border, according to documents reviewed by WIRED.

03.07.2025 17:29 — 👍 479    🔁 316    💬 30    📌 79
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ICE Is Using a New Facial Recognition App to Identify People

🔗 www.404media.co/ice-is-using...

27.06.2025 21:07 — 👍 231    🔁 107    💬 14    📌 14
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5% of Undocumented Migrants Are Black. They're 20% of Potential Deportations. Research exposes how racial disparities in policing have created a pathway from routine life to permanent family separation for Black migrants.

One of the most underreported aspects of life for Black undocumented migrants can be summed up in one statistic: They’re deported at a rate four times more often than their numbers would suggest.

capitalbnews.org/black-migran...

21.06.2025 15:35 — 👍 295    🔁 187    💬 3    📌 5
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Tech moguls want to found a crypto paradise on a Native American reservation And hope to gobble up some land near you.

Tech moguls want to build a crypto paradise on a Native American reservation.

And hope to gobble up some land near you.

Read @kieraevebutler.bsky.social's latest.

09.06.2025 12:05 — 👍 1888    🔁 994    💬 147    📌 70
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A Texas Cop Searched License Plate Cameras Nationwide for a Woman Who Got an Abortion The sheriff said the woman self-administered the abortion and her family were concerned for her safety, so authorities searched through Flock cameras. Experts are still concerned that a cop in a state...

A Texas Cop Searched License Plate Cameras Nationwide for a Woman Who Got an Abortion

🔗 www.404media.co/a-texas-cop-...

29.05.2025 19:00 — 👍 170    🔁 88    💬 11    📌 26
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The Massacre of Nine Children of the Al-Najjar Family “I turned on my camera and began recording. I didn’t know yet that the fire was burning the bodies of my neighbors’ children.”

💡NEW at @dropsitenews.com: The Massacre of Nine Children of the Al-Najjar Family

“I turned on my camera and began recording. I didn’t know yet that the fire was burning the bodies of my neighbors’ children.”

Dispatch by Donya Abu Sitta

www.dropsitenews.com/p/massacre-a...

26.05.2025 18:50 — 👍 145    🔁 90    💬 6    📌 2

Hi! I am currently investigating nonprofit newsrooms that have lost funding over their Palestine coverage for @prismreports.org -- please email me at nicolefroio@gmail.com if you have any tips. I guarantee anonymity.

21.05.2025 13:18 — 👍 44    🔁 32    💬 1    📌 0
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Immigration Crackdowns Are Booming. So Is the Digital Resistance Fighting Them. As immigrants face threats under Trump 2.0, a scrappy movement of techies is creating real-time tools to resist.

second, I wrote about the myriad digital platforms immigrant advocates have been coding and launching to notify their neighbors of ICE raids, with a special focus on @joshua.stealingheather.com's new ICEBlock app: slate.com/technology/2...

16.05.2025 15:38 — 👍 56    🔁 25    💬 2    📌 0

It is too horribly perfect that Musk's Grok is spewing racist inanities while fueled by huge methane generators that are menacing the health of Memphis's Black communities.

14.05.2025 21:19 — 👍 628    🔁 221    💬 13    📌 9
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"The children are being used as bait" Thousands of kids are stuck in immigration facilities—with no end in sight.

“We don’t know when, if ever, they will be able to reunite with their family.”

Thousands of kids are stuck in immigration facilities—with no end in sight.

12.05.2025 18:33 — 👍 1065    🔁 505    💬 65    📌 46

Ray Levy Uyeda wrote an extensive piece about Musk's supercomputer last month for @prismreports.org! It's definitely worth a read.

10.05.2025 15:49 — 👍 14    🔁 15    💬 1    📌 0
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ICE Plans Central Database of Health, Labor, Housing Agency Data to Find Targets A document viewed by 404 Media describes ICE's plans to incorporate data from the Department of Labor (DOL), Health and Human Services (HHS), and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) ...

NEW: ICE Plans Central Database of Health, Labor, Housing Agency Data to Find Targets

🔗 www.404media.co/ice-plans-ce...

19.04.2025 15:50 — 👍 204    🔁 102    💬 11    📌 16
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The State Department Relied on Columbia University’s Mischaracterization of Protests to Arrest Mohsen Mahdawi Columbia University refused to retract its statement calling pro-Palestine protests “intimidation.” Now, the Trump administration is using it against Mohsen Mahdawi.

⚡️NEW at @dropsitenews.com: The State Department Relied on Columbia University’s Mischaracterization of Protests to Arrest Mohsen Mahdawi

Story by Meghnad Bose

www.dropsitenews.com/p/mohsen-mah...

17.04.2025 22:51 — 👍 93    🔁 43    💬 1    📌 1
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Mahmoud Khalil and the Necropolitics of Trump’s Deportation Regime The necropolitics of Trump's attack on immigrants like Mahmoud Khalil: Death is the point.

The Trumpian move is to don the Totenkopf, to embrace and supercharge this monstrous and grossly unequal death tableau.
Khalil, meanwhile, continues to show us what it means to fight for the living. @theintercept.com
theintercept.com/2025/04/11/m...

11.04.2025 23:58 — 👍 33    🔁 12    💬 2    📌 0
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AI slop farms are churning out fake heartwarming videos about Trump figures Machine-made YouTube videos are racking up views while fooling the MAGA faithful.

NEW: while researching another story I stumbled across a group of AI slop farms on YouTube, churning out heartwarming fake stories about people in the Trump universe. www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

11.04.2025 13:33 — 👍 1051    🔁 354    💬 47    📌 80
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Revealed: The shocking far-right agenda behind the surveillance tech used by ICE and the FBI Thousands of newly obtained documents show that Clearview AI’s founders always intended to target immigrants and the political left. Now their digital dragnet is in the hands of the Trump administrati...

Revealed: The shocking far-right agenda behind the surveillance tech used by ICE and the FBI

07.04.2025 11:48 — 👍 532    🔁 299    💬 27    📌 31
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Bluesky Can’t Take a Joke Bluesky has been a safe haven for users fleeing X and Threads. But while there’s less hate, there’s also fewer lolz.

Bluesky has been a safe haven for users fleeing X and Threads. But while there’s less hate, there’s also fewer lolz.

07.04.2025 11:02 — 👍 1547    🔁 192    💬 547    📌 1095

The new director of Medicare and Medicaid services was peddling vitamins to teenagers on TikTok Shop just a few months ago. I wish I was joking

04.04.2025 03:20 — 👍 4104    🔁 1056    💬 29    📌 30
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The cost of care In Africa’s migration economy, women’s labor fuels households abroad while their own needs are sidelined at home. What does freedom look like when care itself becomes a form of exile?

In Africa’s migration economy, women’s labor fuels households abroad while their own needs are sidelined at home. Naila Aroni asks: what does freedom look like when care itself becomes a form of exile? africasacountry.com/2025/04/the-...

03.04.2025 16:08 — 👍 14    🔁 6    💬 0    📌 1
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How Eric Adams and the NYPD Helped Create the Xenophobic Tren de Aragua Panic New York City's law enforcement officials were some of the first to push the narrative that a mysterious and deadly Venezuelan gang was running amok, despite little evidence to back it up.

With today's news about Eric Adams running for re-election as an independent, throwing all sorts of wacky chaos into this year's race, we wanted to highlight a story about the mayor's effect on national discourse you may have missed from last week. hellgatenyc.com/eric-adams-n...

03.04.2025 18:11 — 👍 48    🔁 22    💬 3    📌 3
Quote graphic featuring Project Liberty President Tomicah Tillemann. “We believe, as a foundational matter of how the web works, that people should have much greater agency over how their information is leveraged online.”

Quote graphic featuring Project Liberty President Tomicah Tillemann. “We believe, as a foundational matter of how the web works, that people should have much greater agency over how their information is leveraged online.”

@radhikaraj.bsky.social and @matene.bsky.social from @zdnet.bsky.social interviewed Project Liberty President @tomicah.bsky.social about our plan for decentralizing TikTok. Read the full article: www.zdnet.com/article/the-... #tiktokban

01.04.2025 18:46 — 👍 3    🔁 2    💬 0    📌 0
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How Trump’s attacks on DEI and Palestine activists are connected Donald Trump has ushered in his second term with a full-fledged assault on DEI programs and advocates for Palestinian rights. Both attacks should be understood within the long history of White…

🚨 Trump's attacks on DEI and 🇵🇸 activists aren't separate—they’re two sides of the same backlash. Read why Trump's crackdown is part of a long history of White resistance to movements for racial and social justice, and what it means for democracy
mondoweiss.net/2025/03/how-...

30.03.2025 13:01 — 👍 40    🔁 15    💬 0    📌 4
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Even More Venmo Accounts Tied to Trump Officials in Signal Group Chat Left Data Public WIRED has found four new Venmo accounts that appear to be associated with Trump officials who were in an infamous Signal chat. One made a payment with a note consisting solely of an eggplant emoji.

SCOOP: WIRED has found four new Venmo accounts that appear to be associated with Trump officials who were in an infamous Signal chat. One made a payment with a note consisting solely of an eggplant emoji.

27.03.2025 21:53 — 👍 901    🔁 324    💬 33    📌 63
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Super Bowl Halftime Show Complaints Focused on Lack of DEI for White People The FCC received 125 complaints about Kendrick Lamar’s concert, according to public records obtained by WIRED, with many focusing on the lack of white performers.

The FCC received 125 complaints about Kendrick Lamar’s concert, according to public records obtained by WIRED, with many focusing on the lack of white performers.

27.03.2025 18:49 — 👍 720    🔁 140    💬 93    📌 116
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AI for the world, or just the West? How researchers are tackling Big Tech's global gaps Western companies' one-size-fits-all AI strategies don't serve many of the world's populations. These African researchers are working to change that.

Western companies' one-size-fits-all AI strategies don't serve many of the world's populations. These African researchers are working to change that.

My latest for @zdnet.bsky.social:

www.zdnet.com/article/ai-f...

27.03.2025 13:35 — 👍 4    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

@matene is following 20 prominent accounts