gina rushton

Identity of Australian behind 'ethical' internet horrifies customers As many as 2,000 people lined up to give this man their money — and then they learned his true identity.

It was pitched as the opposite of the dark web, an "ethical" version of the internet, raising as much as $19 million from backers (including up to 2000 "mum and dad investors"). After 12 years Equilux Lightweb still has not launched.

www.abc.net.au/news/2025-08...

‘A million calls an hour’: Israel relying on Microsoft cloud for expansive surveillance of Palestinians Revealed: The Israeli military undertook an ambitious project to store a giant trove of Palestinians’ phone calls on Microsoft’s servers in Europe

"One afternoon in late 2021, Microsoft’s chief executive, Satya Nadella, met with the commander of Israel’s military surveillance agency, Unit 8200. On the spy chief’s agenda: moving vast amounts of top secret intelligence material into the US company’s cloud." www.theguardian.com/world/2025/a...

Police too often increase family violence risk and harm, new research finds Police responses to family violence are too often harming not helping victims, replicating the power and control dynamics that underpin abuse and increasing risk, trauma and feelings of powerlessness,...

New research has found that in too many cases police responses to family violence are harming them, replicating the power and control dynamics that underpin abuse and increasing risk, trauma and feelings of powerlessness

www.abc.net.au/news/2025-08... via @hayleygleeson.bsky.social

Australia’s potential surrender of creative content to tech giants for free is shocking. Labor must decide where it stands | Josh Taylor The Productivity Commission appears to have bought into tech companies’ brazen arguments – and caught the Australian government off-guard

“Tech companies have devalued the work of creative industries for years. The latest iteration of this is their insistence the AI models they plan to make lots of money from need the labour of all of human creation for free in perpetuity.”

www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

Overwhelming grief of Gaza deaths forces principal from job he loves Sami Muamar says the grief, anguish and mental toll of constant death have forced him to leave the job he loves.

Palestinian Australian principal takes six months’ stress leave after more than 100 family members die in Gaza www.abc.net.au/news/2025-08...

‘Double standards': Confidential DFAT documents warn inaction on Gaza will cost Australia credibility 'Allowing the crisis in Gaza to deepen with apparent impunity undermines our messaging about the rule of law — our adversaries use this to accuse us of double standards.'

A confidential Australian government document reveals internal concerns that Western nations face credible accusations of double standards over their response to Israel’s assault on Gaza.

Via @danielhurst.bsky.social

www.crikey.com.au/2025/08/06/d...

A Mosman resident says she is willing to spend up to half a million dollars legally challenging the NSW government’s low and mid rise housing reforms.

www.smh.com.au/national/nsw...

The killing code: strange symbols in a WA settler’s diaries lay bare frontier atrocities Exclusive: Stories of murders passed down by Yamatji elders are confirmed by a cipher hidden in the 1850s journals of prominent pastoralist Major Logue. Now descendants on both sides want to break the...

www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

Some really brilliant work here … strong recommend

Lawyers fought to reclaim stolen wages. Then they took millions in fees They are meant to deliver justice for ordinary Australians, but class actions are being used by law firms to profit at the expense of some of the most vulnerable members of society.

Lawyers fought to reclaim stolen wages. Then they took millions in fees: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-08-04/class-actions-law-firms-litigation-funders-justice-four-corners/105604998

💼 Lachlan’s lawsuits Lachlan Murdoch is set to have a hand in shaping News Corp’s response to Trump, all while preparing for a fresh legal showdown over the Murdoch family trust in October.

Lachlan Murdoch is set to have a hand in shaping News Corp’s response to Trump’s US$10bn defamation bid, all while preparing for a fresh legal showdown over the Murdoch family trust in October. Plus more news in this week’s newsletter: www.capitalbrief.com/newsletter/l...

Bringing Sexy Back Internet surveillance has killed eroticism. We need privacy to reclaim it.

wrote about how social media kills sex for @readlux.bsky.social lux-magazine.com/article/priv...

Two girls shot in Gaza - BBC pieces together what happened and looks at dozens more child shootings Layan and Mira were killed in proximity to IDF soldiers - the Israeli military says intentional harm to civilians is prohibited and their cases will be examined by the authorities.

From the BBC: “Layan and Mira are just two of more than 160 cases of children shot in the war in Gaza, for whom we have gathered accounts. We found that in 95 of these cases, the child had been shot in the head or chest.”

www.bbc.com/news/videos/...

ABC statement on journalists in Gaza - About the ABC The ABC is the only Australian media organisation with a permanent presence in the region and we have repeatedly tried to get reporters back into Gaza

"The ABC calls on Israel to again allow international journalists to report independently from Gaza, to allow all journalists to move in and out of Gaza and to ensure journalists in Gaza are safe."
www.abc.net.au/about/media-...

Australians don't know how the tax office is performing because the ATO doesn't know itself A decade ago the Australian Tax Office traded people for programs in an effort to cut costs.

Australians don't know how the tax office is performing because the ATO doesn't know itself: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-07-30/ato-tax-performance-technology-tax-gap/105583190

We watched 100 cases in the NT's youth court for a week. Here's what we saw On a Tuesday morning when most kids are at school, a handful of children are waiting to be brought before a judge. This is what a regular week inside the Northern Territory's Youth Justice Court looks...

"After observing 100 cases in the Youth Justice Court over the course of a week in July, some glaring issues emerge."

www.abc.net.au/news/2025-07...

honoured to have CONSPIRACY NATION featured in the inaugural edition of a new newsletter from Capital Brief's @johnbuckley.bsky.social!

(CN drops t!o!m!o!r!r!o!w! http://bio.to/conspi...)

Book cover of Conspiracy Nation by Ariel Bogle and Cam Wilson.

genuinely curious at what secrets will be uncovered in this Aussie exposé of #conspiracytheories down under by @arielbogle.bsky.social and @cameronwilson.bsky.social

It's publishing day for CONSPIRACY NATION: EXPOSING THE DANGEROUS WORLD OF AUSTRALIAN CONSPIRACY THEORIES!

Here's my pitch for why you should read it: open.substack.com/pu...

Is starvation in Gaza really Israel's fault? The facts are clear Rising starvation in Gaza may have a number of factors. But Israel's wartime policies on humanitarian aid are inarguably among them.

For @forward.com, I wrote about how we know that Israel has been withholding food as a military tactic because Israeli officials have said versions of “we are withholding food as a military tactic” for the entirety of the war and pretending otherwise is willful ignorance forward.com/opinion/7586...

Israeli strikes kill at least 36 people in Gaza, officials say, as some aid restrictions are eased Health officials in Gaza say Israeli strikes have killed at least 36 Palestinians. The bloodshed comes a day after Israel eased aid restrictions due to a worsening humanitarian crisis.

A horror without end.

"The dead included a newborn who was delivered in a complex surgery after his mother, who was seven months pregnant, was killed in the strike."

Young men have stopped reading books – and these are the reasons why New data shows just 10 per cent of young men read books these days. And an industry that likes to play it safe isn’t helping matters.

From the ABS sats this article cites, there is no statistically significant difference in male and female readers in any generation except gen X. www.theage.com.au/culture/book...

The reality in Gaza shows Israel is at risk of becoming a global pariah The reality of the situation on the ground in Gaza, and the spectre of children dying of malnutrition or starvation, sits at such extraordinary odds with the language of spokespeople for both the Neta...

This week’s column
www.abc.net.au/news/2025-07...

My grandmother lived through forced starvation during the Siege of Leningrad, and it never left her. Boiling belts for soup, until her last day she would keep a packet of ketchup if it had one drop left. It is impossible to wake up every day and know the suffering in Gaza continues.

The latest child to starve to death in Gaza weighed less than when she was born The latest child to starve to death in Gaza weighed less than when she was born. The body of 5-month-old Zainab Abu Halib arrived at a hospital in southern Gaza on Friday and her family buried her on ...

A mother pressed a final kiss to what remained of her 5-month-old daughter and wept. Esraa Abu Halib’s baby now weighed less than when she was born.

apnews.com/article/gaza...

International students have not driven rents and inflation higher, RBA says An RBA paper suggests the rapid growth in foreign students post-pandemic did not play a big role in pushing rents higher.

International students have not driven rents and inflation higher, RBA says: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-07-24/international-students-did-not-drive-rents-inflation-higher-rba/105562616

Honestly if every network just said “let’s try a freak” more often, we’d fix Australian culture overnight.

As someone who wrote about abortion almost exclusively full time for four years I don’t say this lightly: this has prompted some truly deranged emails

who can give me this feeling again

Separated men are nearly 5 times more likely to take their lives than married men Some men struggle to cope with the stress of a relationship breakdown.

"Most strikingly, we found separated men under 35 years of age had nearly nine times greater odds of suicide than married men of the same age. The short-term period after relationship breakdown therefore appears particularly risky for men’s mental health"

theconversation.com/separated-me...

Loved this!