Abigail Modaff

Abigail Modaff

@abigailmodaff.bsky.social

American historian working on a book about women’s book clubs. All posts my own, not my employer’s.

291 Followers 315 Following 31 Posts Joined Jul 2023
3 days ago
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'AI Is African Intelligence': The Workers Who Train AI Are Fighting Back Kenyan workers are still the underpaid labor behind AI training, moderation, and sex chatbots. The Data Labelers Association is fighting back.

I met with AI data labelers in Kenya who are organizing their colleagues to fight the brutal working conditions and horrible pay given to the workers at the "bottom of the AI supply chain." They believe the NDAs they've signed are unenforceable so are speaking out:

www.404media.co/ai-is-africa...

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4 days ago

I was briefly convinced that (1) we were amidst the longest storm ever and (2) she was not long for this world

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4 days ago

Sending this to the friend who said “there’s a tornado warning till 6” as she walked to her car at 4pm

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4 days ago

as someone who monitors right wing media, its under discussed right now but i can tell you conservatives are absolutely terrified of the way talarico is using religious messaging against them

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5 days ago

Even if AI could write a novel what problem has been solved? The problem of knowing what you’re reading was written by another person? Who loves reading novels but hates the part where your mind briefly and mysteriously touched another?

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6 days ago
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Video appears to show U.S. cruise missile striking Iranian school compound The seven-second video was released by Iranian state media and directly contradicts statements made by President Trump, who said Iran was responsible for the strike.

The Iranian girls’ school was hit by a US tomahawk cruise missile. NPR has confirmed the footage.

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1 week ago
Tweet from Daniel Pipes: "The uprising in Iran in early January suggested an even greater insurgency would then follow on the U.S.-Israeli campaign to erode regime power. Yet, the populace now appears cowed into near-silence.

This ranks as the most surprising and disappointing development of the past week. Without a new uprising, the regime will likely remain in power, less powerful but more awful than ever. 

(The picture below is from Jan. 10 in Tehran.)"

Amazing how quickly "We're fighting this war for freedom of the Iranian people" becomes "The Iranian people are at fault for not rising up."

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1 week ago
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The March 15, 2025, killing of Ruben Ray Martinez drew almost no public attention.

But Martinez is now the first known American citizen shot to death by federal immigration agents during President Trump’s second term. https://wapo.st/4lbpGYC

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1 week ago
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Thick black clouds and oil‑saturated rain are shrouding Iran's capital this morning after major airstrikes hit refineries and storage sites south and west of the city. CNN's Fred Pleitgen reports. CNN operates in Iran only with government permission.

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1 week ago

we have saved daylight

but at what cost

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1 week ago

I think this deserves at least as much sustained attention from US media as Claudine Gay's dissertation

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1 week ago
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At Largest ICE Detention Camp, Staff Bet on Detainee Suicides, AP Reports Camp East Montana has received several 911 calls in the span of five months about immigrants trying to harm themselves.

Staff at the nation’s largest Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility have placed bets on which detainee will be the next to die by suicide, according to new reporting from the Associated Press based on 911 calls and detainee accounts.

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1 week ago
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Ruben Ray Martinez: Footage shows US citizen shot by ICE agent in Texas traffic stop The Department of Homeland Security did not disclose Martinez was shot by one of its agents until almost a year later.

Newly released footage shows an ICE agent killing Rubin Ray Martinez, 23, in his car in Texas.

"He was shot at point-blank range through his side window by an ICE agent who was in no danger."
www.bbc.com/news/article...

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1 week ago
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Patients say measles 'worse than expected' as Utah hits 350+ infections, doctors say Health officials plead with residents to vaccinate against measles as Utah hits 358 infections.

Over 120 people have been hospitalized due to measles in Utah alone. "It is, at this time a real threat in our state and something we can do to stop it," said Dr. Leisha Nolen, state epidemiologist… pleading for people to get themselves and their children vaccinated.” @jackiantonovich.bsky.social

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1 week ago

So, obviously this isn’t true. But if the CEO actually believes this nonsense, it implies he thinks maybe he’s enslaving a sentient being that has the capacity to feel emotional distress. And he hasn’t immediately halted operations to suss out how to resolve that?

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1 week ago
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ICE detains reporter Estefany Rodríguez in Nashville - Nashville Banner Reporter Estefany Rodríguez, detained by ICE with no arrest warrant, may face deportation. Her attorneys seek immediate review of the legality of her case.

ICE has arrested and detained a Nashville journalist who reported stories critical of ICE. She’s married to a U.S. citizen and has been seeking asylum here after fleeing death threats in Colombia because of her journalism there.

They’ve already sent her to Louisiana.

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1 week ago

accommodations didn’t exist when i was in college in the early 00s. of course there’s a “spike.” that’s a good thing; it means we’re getting better at educating all students.

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1 week ago
I will add one last thought. Many of the responses from Democratic lawmakers and liberal commentators (even the good ones) contain some ambivalence - some hope that perhaps the fall of the Iranian regime, even at the hands of Donald Trump, will be for the best. I understand why. I am the son of an Iranian immigrant. Ultimately I want freedom, democracy, and dignity for the Iranian people. The problem is that I've seen the American government promise all of those things a hundred times, and I've never seen them deliver it once.

one more excerpt

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1 week ago
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Her husband wanted to use ChatGPT to create sustainable housing. Then it took over his life. Kate Fox says Joe Ceccanti was the ‘most hopeful person’ before he started spending 12 hours a day with a chatbot

I recognize I am an extremely rare holdout in that I have been so hardline anti-AI that I have still yet to use a chatbot willingly, but uh, I feel like every other story I read is about how all the consumer-facing stuff is a mental illness particle accelerator www.theguardian.com/technology/n...

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1 week ago

Scenes from a personalist regime

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2 weeks ago
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By Tesla's own math, it reveals that its robotaxis are 4x worse at driving than humans, with redactions hiding even more details | Fortune By NHTSA standards, the Tesla Robotaxis are 8x worse than human drivers.

About every 57k miles driven by Musk’s robotaxis one gets into a wreck. That’s four times the rate of humans.

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2 weeks ago
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S-USIH 2026 CFP: Intellectual Historians’ Toolkits: Methods, Theories, Practices | Society for US Intellectual History Society for U.S. Intellectual History Call for Proposals The 2026 S-USIH Annual Conference will be held in Madison, Wisconsin, on November 12-14, 2026, on the campus of the University of Wisconsin-Mad...

FYI. Great conference, great location, great people. I'll be working up a submission. @susih.bsky.social

s-usih.org/2026/02/s-us...

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2 weeks ago
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How Many Women Teach in FAS? Harvard Won’t Say. | Opinion | The Harvard Crimson Nothing has changed in the composition of Harvard’s faculty to justify abandoning our commitment to racial diversity. The gender ratio in FAS does not suddenly warrant eliminating a modest seminar pre...

I'm in @theharvardcrimson.bsky.social again talking about anticipatory obedience.

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2 weeks ago

meanwhile, war rages on at home.

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2 weeks ago

There was a loud chorus arguing that focusing on Epstein was a distraction from affordability issues, now this is a distraction from Epstein, what if it’s just horrible people doing terrible things and we should try to stop all of it?

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2 weeks ago

"In short, DHS's treatment of human beings citizen and non-citizen alike-reflects a chilling disregard for both human life and the rule of law," writes Governor Mikie Sherrill.

"𝐍𝐞𝐰 𝐉𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐞𝐲 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐛𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐭 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬."

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2 weeks ago

Ever since I was a little girl, I knew that I wanted to answer 275 emails per day and argue with administrators. That’s why I chose a career in academia.

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2 weeks ago

This man was murdered by the federal immigration authorities as surely as Renee Good and Alex Pretti were

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2 weeks ago
Trans Continental Pipeline Queer Relocation Nonprofit in Denver, Colorado

MAKE AN EMERGENCY DONATION to Trans Continental Pipeline right now.

They are a Colorado based org that helps trans people relocate there and they are overwhelmed with requests. CO borders KS, and TCP has the infrastructure to help get people out.

GO DONATE.

tcpipeline.org

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