Tom Thorley

So what do we do - defenses need to evolved and to be layered dynamic and adaptive. We need to build the ethics and human-rights based approach into our security programs and technical expertise into safety.

2/ High end capabilities evolving rapidly. Adaptive Malware and Semi-autonomous agents are probing networks already to find and exploit vulnerabilities at a pace no one is set up to defend from.

Two very different threat types here to talk about! 1/ LLM backed applications making it easier than ever and more accessible to create harm … even creating the applications themselves is now accessible to a far wider pool of people with coding agents getting more and more effective

Trust & Safety, Remotely: Culture at a Distance I’ve worked in Trust & Safety long enough to know this: a platform’s culture is not what its brand deck says, it’s what its enforcement does. Every policy choice, every proportionality call, every “ye...

I’ve worked in Trust & Safety long enough to know this: a platform’s culture is not what its brand deck says, it’s what its enforcement does. Every policy choice, shows customers who a company is.

tgthorley.com/blog/f/trust...

Great so now let’s also have age verification and gating (which all evidence says makes kids less safe) for a specific set of types of content based on estimated location and estimated age… what could go wrong!

First community labeler taking actions on atproto using @roost.tools’s Osprey. entire Ozone and Osprey stack running on a $50/m OVH machine, with up to seven days of full firehose backfill for investigating patterns and exploring the network.

Love these suggestions - great blog post - Thank you. I’ve sent them to the relevant product teams to evaluate.

What adults lose when kids are banned from social media Banning kids on social media today will hurt tomorrow's internet.

"The case for letting kids stay on social media. America is banning more and more kids from social media. That's bad news for kids" www.businessinsider.com/kids-parenti...

Trust & Safety, Remotely: Onboarding, Boundaries, and Wellbeing High‑performing Remote Trust & Safety teams start solid foundations: clear governance, empowered experts who can operate independently, and a hiring pipeline that prioritizes aptitude over narrow prio...

As we see images of violence and brutality in our streets, Moderators can burnout fast when it has impact to their communities and their lives. Making sure we are looking after them and their wellbeing is a responsibility we should not take lightly.

tgthorley.com/blog/f/trust...

Bad Bunny condemns ICE during his #GRAMMYs speech for Best Música Urbana Album:

“Before I say thanks to god, I’m going to say, ICE out. We’re not savages, we’re not animals, we are humans and we are Americans.”

a woman in a feathered dress says " im off to get ready " ALT: a woman in a feathered dress says " im off to get ready "

Catherine O’Hara was a genius, a light, and a joy-maker.

What a loss to the world.

Introducing Osprey V1.0: Open Source Infrastructure for Real-Time Abuse Mitigation Robust Open Online Safety Tools or ROOST is a new non-profit entity designed to address the urgent need for accessible, high-quality safety tools in the rapidly evolving digital landscape.

Meet Osprey V1.0, a new open source online safety tool designed to help platforms investigate and address their priority threats at scale, without sacrificing data privacy or performance. roost.tools/blog/introdu...

Definitions of terrorism are aways debated… but they generally contain:
- Political Motivation
- Violence
- Intent to intimidate a population
- Targetting civilians

I wonder if there are any examples that come to mind…

Every moment now, every day, more & more Americans realize they can no longer trust anything the federal government says. The blatant propaganda and lies about a legal observer they shot in cold blood will bring a new swell. To those of you who were not here before: Welcome. We need you.

Microsoft Gave FBI BitLocker Encryption Keys, Exposing Privacy Flaw The tech giant said providing encryption keys was a standard response to a court order. But companies like Apple and Meta set up their systems so such a privacy violation isn’t possible.

Do not store your Bitlocker encryption keys on Microsoft's servers if your threat model includes governments or law enforcement. As this article points out, this is the result of a design choice Microsoft made. It didn't have to be this way. www.forbes.com/sites/thomas...

As someone who at times watch execution videos professionally; don't watch execution videos if you can avoid it.

🧵“How do seemingly ordinary people become agents of state murder?” This is one of the guiding questions I ask students in my graduate class on genocide/state violence. With recent events, it is a question many Americans are asking.

I do not have a definitive answer, but here is a reading list: 1/

for sure, but this obviously goes well beyond the ICE murderer who pulled the trigger.

there is culpability all the way to the white house. and the culture of elite impunity in this country has to end now.

What is happening on the streets of the US with “Law Enforcement” agents killing people is disgusting, horrific and outrageous. I don’t have a take. I don’t have words. I don’t have advice for how to fight back. I am just grieving.

Many things one can say about this outrage, but as a terrorism researcher, I want to say to current and future students that this is one reason you should never rely on government databases to tell you who or what is a 'terrorist', domestic or otherwise.

Trust & Safety, Remotely: Hire for Aptitude, Not Experience One key challenge of building remote Trust & Safety teams is that very often, especially for smaller companies, individuals are working alone, independently and the immediate supervision that they get...

For remote teams working in T&S hiring is one of the most important (and expensive things we do, good decisions pay massive dividends, mistakes cause massive headaches (for both employer and employee!) - and I've made plenty of both!

tgthorley.com/blog/f/trust...

🚨#Job ! Come and work for my Safety Engineering team at @github.com building agentic safety workflows and advanced malware detection infrastructure www.github.careers/careers-home...

It’s literally just direct copy and paste from an AI model… these are classic Gen AI artifacts.

🇮🇷 NEW: Real-time monitoring shows Iran is experiencing a nationwide internet blackout, following digital censorship linked to escalating protests in Tehran and other cities.

Withdrawing the United States from International Organizations, Conventions, and Treaties that Are Contrary to the Interests of the United States MEMORANDUM FOR THE HEADS OF EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS AND AGENCIES By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United

WTF … this is basically the equivalent of we arent playing in the UN…

I think the UN should look for new accommodation before Trump renames the UN HQ in New York…

Trust & Safety, Remotely: Proximity, a Cure or a Coverup? What two decades in digital safety, and five years fully remote, taught me about building remote teams to deliver trust and safety.

I've been thinking about #remoteworking and how to build teams and culture while working remotely, especially in #Trust&Safety - The proximity of in-person work environments is very often just making it easier for us to navigate ambiguity.

tgthorley.com/blog/f/trust...

Check out our most recent episode to find some inspiration going into 2026.

I’m going to say the @xcorail.bsky.social is probably the person best placed to have coherent thoughts about this

And so many others fought back against the worst aspects of the human race

@xcorail.bsky.social and team publish some truly ground breaking research