Kat Lo

pg seems to have this kind of revelation every few months for... years? And then... does nothing and goes back to doing the same things he was doing before and hyping up the same people he was before.

I remember when he quit Twitter for Mastodon. For like a week.

I’m sorry about this capitalist dystopian nightmare, dude. You’re great though, I believe in you.

most of the 'wins' of the past year depended on people fighting for what's right. protest, litigate, organize, speak, write, argue, persuade. 2026 will be better than 2025 the more we do these things.

happy new year everyone. 🥂

In a world without Section 230:

😩 Big Tech companies everyone hates would win. Giants like Meta and Google have armies of lawyers to navigate compliance

😩 Alternative platforms like Bluesky and Mastodon would likely shut down, along with Wikipedia, review sites, how-to resources, small forums, etc

The cable, sent to all U.S. missions on December 2, orders U.S. consular officers to review resumes or LinkedIn profiles of H-1B applicants - and family members who would be traveling with them - to see if they have worked in areas that include activities such as misinformation, disinformation, content moderation, fact-checking, compliance and online safety, among others.

Holy shit.

Reuters reporting that new admin instructions on visas are if you worked at a platform in trust & safety or content moderation or on fact checking or online safety at an platform you *and your loved ones* are ineligible for H-1B visa.

www.reuters.com/world/us/tru...

Airlines Will Shut Down Program That Sold Your Flights Records to Government The move comes after intense pressure from lawmakers and 404 Media’s months-long reporting about the airline industry's data selling practices.

One thing we're vvv proud of: 404 Media independent + journalist-owned. Here's a rundown of some of our recent work:

After months of 404 Media reporting and pressure from lawmakers, US airlines will shut down a program that sold millions of YOUR flight records to the government.

This is, of course, a fascinating thread from Kate asking why Google is effectively cannibalizing its own market for both digital ads on third party properties and search ads, by effectively taking away the incentive to click through to third party sites. I have a theory as to why they're doing it.

After 404 Media's months-long reporting and pressure from lawmakers, the data broker owned by the U.S.’s major airlines will now shut down a program in which it sold access to hundreds of millions of flight records to the government and let agencies track peoples’ movements without a warrant.

A Surveillance Mandate Disguised As Child Safety: Why the GUARD Act A new bill sponsored by Sen. Hawley (D-MO), Sen. Blumenthal (D-CT), Sen. Britt (R-AL), Sen. Warner (D-VA), and Sen. Murphy (D-CT) would require AI chatbots to verify all users’ ages, prohibit minors

The GUARD Act may look like a child-safety bill, but in practice it’s an age-gating mandate that could impose a mass censorship and surveillance regime on nearly every public-facing AI chatbot. Tell Congress to oppose the GUARD Act today. www.eff.org/deeplinks/2...

If women are underrepresented in STEM, it's at least partly because men like this offer mentoring, then embarrass themselves by assuming their mentees must be into them, then decide the best solution is to cut ties, which sends the signal to other faculty that the mentee must not be good enough.

We’re doing a showcase absolutely! I’m just saying we’re doing it primarily for the participants rather than an obligation to our audience, sorry if there was a miscommunication! I’m pretty excited about what weird stuff we have planned for it.

Thanks for the feedback, all feedback is useful. I don’t think I’ll be able to answer your questions to your satisfaction unfortunately, given the short format of Bluesky posts and possibly our different philosophies/expectations for how things should be done or perceptions of what people want!

I see, well as I said the priority of the program were the people who won the residency/scholarships positions. We will talk about them, but not out of a formal obligation to our audience. I cowrite and approve everything in the video so I don’t believe there is a split in communication.

I think I have that impression because people have pretty overwhelmingly reacted positively to these other projects and your complaint doesn’t seem to be the majority opinion as far as I know. If more people express some of the sentiments you’re sharing here, we’ll discuss changing things up.

Thanks for asking questions earnestly, despite your clear frustration with us. You’ve given me a few things to think about in terms of what we owe to our audience…

Oh also with funding, a few people threw addition funds for the Brainmind project in particular that increased the stipends we offered!

I imagine these answers might not be totally satisfying to you, but if we do another residency we probably will make it more public and break it down for people.

There has been a plan to showcase residents’ work in a fun weird way, but it has admittedly taken a very long time to get to this showcase. I hope that when we do celebrate these artists better that it will help their careers or happiness about their work.

Re 3: we’ve received updates from our residents and scholarship winners that make me believe we’ve had successes. We provided references for some and one resident was about to get a bigger grant opportunity bc of Brainmind. Not sure about what we owe the public, since the support was about them.

Re 2: the residency came from the ad revenue because we try to find excuses to support newer and diverse talent in creative industries. There’s a question there about if video production is solely what patrons want to support, and we’re definitely still thinking about that. Thx for the data point!

Re 1: sadly, the dumb anecdote about how we came up with the idea was indeed the catalyst. We used our networks (and considerable amount of time) to recruit and pay $600 each to established award-winning industry mentors who met regularly and advised each resident.

THANK YOU FOR THE HYPE it is keeping us alive and theoretically sane

Re: the lack of communication, you are absolutely correct and I want to apologize for demanding so much patience from you and the rest of our patrons. Let me know if you do want to see the latest draft anyway and I’ll DM you.

Hey! I’m totally down to answer any questions about the Brainmind Residency!

I’m not sure what segment you’re talking about, but we did remove bits and pieces based on the feedback.

First 1 hr 20 minutes of the next video is up on Patreon if you're into that sort of thing

This Pope's subtweet game is strong

Build Community Online with Decentralized Tools | Blacksky Decentralized tools to build community online. The intercommunal net where communities govern, pool funds and stay safe on their own terms.

Our new, rebranded website is live. 🚀

🤓: and, look at that -- it's federated blackskyweb.xyz/.well-known/...

Cool cool cool let's continue to make it a casual endeavor to find all the information you need to radically violate the safety and privacy of anybody whose words or existence makes you personally angry.

We waterboarded a guy for 5 hours for $100,000!! Don't worry he could tap out at any time with a safe word and we gave him PTSD counseling afterwards 😜

oh nvm lol

Emily I can't tell if this is a bit