Tom Stoneham

https://dair-community.social/@tomstoneham

Academic philosopher at a UK university.

Likes: #Linux, #GrapheneOS and #e2ee

Cares about: #DataPrivacy #AIEthics #ClimateChange #DigitalDivide

Currently thinking about the structure of normative theory, #ReguloSolutionism, AI value alignment

Regular conference and workshop speaker raising awareness of social and environmental impacts of #genAI and #AIHype

Motto: Think slowly and fix things
Blog: https://blog.24601.net
Full contact details: https://24601.net/site
Study with me: https://www.york.ac.uk/study/postgraduate-taught/courses/ma-applied-ethics-governance-data-privacy/

Public Key

npub1ttdjsgp49cyv72ftyctqlr8uf4dpg9cs5fg3gk4p7xexmn29s99q35tvc8

NIP-05 Address

tomstoneham_at_dair-community.social@momostr.pink

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nprofile1qqs94kegyq6juzx09y4jv9s03n7y6ks5zug2y5g5t2slrvnde4zczjspz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0dsuss22a

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relay.damus.io

nos.lol

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npub1ttdjsgp49cyv72ftyctqlr8uf4dpg9cs5fg3gk4p7xexmn29s99q35tvc8

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Published at

2026-11-05T14:28:14Z

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Last Notes

2026-08-15 18:08:07 UTC

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That brings back memories!
I switched to Demon ISP about the time I got an eMac G3.
I remember the setup question from that and other Macs at the time, but not the prompt for a specific ISP.

2026-04-27 14:01:44 UTC

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I don't know much about image editing, so I assume you are right.
I wonder if a methodology designed for text editing has been applied to images without checking it is still applicable?

2026-04-27 11:57:41 UTC

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You are right - I was spiralling off to bigger issues!
As I read it - and methodologically this is way out of my area - there are two assumptions here:
1) Effective delegation requires delegated actions to be reversible
2) A minimum requirement for professional editing software is that it tracks changes and these can be individually reversed in any order
I am far from sure that 1) is true, but 2) does seem reasonable. But I am out of my AoC here.

2026-04-27 11:32:57 UTC

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Good point. I see this as one of the tensions in the technology.
Current 'general purpose' models need very careful prompting to do anything worthwhile, but the vision is to have models which will produce human-like results from the sorts of vague, context-sensitive, and mutual knowldge presupposing instructions we give human assistants. So no one can decide which prompting styles are relevant for evaluation of capabilities.

2026-04-10 09:19:05 UTC

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It is not just developers. Even #Signal needs a network effect to achieve its mission and missed notifications turn people away from an app. [@Mer__edith](https://mastodon.world/@Mer__edith ) has been clear about the need for this and the way it affects design decisions.
The question they face is whether this is the right compromise between making the app attractive to mass users and respecting those users' autonomy. A three way option might solve that.

2026-04-04 06:22:33 UTC

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Do you have a link to the FT article?

2026-03-31 06:37:49 UTC

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All based on an underlying premise that it is just fine to normalise proving your nationality/citizenship to go about your daily business.
If you want tourists to pay for free stuff, charge tourist tax.
Trouble with that is businesses complain and the primary duty of government is towards business, isn't it?
(Also, HMT will not accept hypothecated taxes so the money may never get to the museums.)

2026-03-23 07:05:05 UTC

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What an excellent write up! I haven't had the bandwidth to keep up with French politics recently, but this careful and detailed analysis of yesterday's elections has got me up to speed again in minutes. Congratulations to your colleague Hugh Schofield.

2026-03-20 16:04:36 UTC

"UK Biobank said the re-identification scenario tested by the Guardian did not highlight a privacy risk because without additional information it would be impossible to identify individuals."
Do these people understand nothing about #DataPrivacy or #Ethics? Or are they just swimming in a deep sea of white, male, establishment privilege?
This is why I teach #DataEthics and it will become a lead example for my session with the MSc Data Science students next month.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/mar/14/confidential-health-records-exposed-online-uk-biobank

2026-03-13 10:45:29 UTC

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I am inclined to think tax funded universities are a necessary but not sufficient condition for academic freedom and a healthy public realm.

2026-03-13 10:13:07 UTC

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Globally there is a funding crisis for #HigherEducation especialy in not directly vocational areas. The job market is ridiculous in my discipline with 50-100 qualified applicants per post.
Google and its peers could pay more #Tax so that universities could employ more philosohers and ethicists.
Instead they are seizing teh opportunity to exploit the labour market and create private research institutes under their control.
(2/)

2026-03-13 10:09:57 UTC

Yesterday I was proudly told by a senior academic now a senior researcher at #Google #Deepmind that they are hiring more philosophers and ethicists.
This is a BAD THING. Settingaside teh fact that these are insecure jobs since corporations may change their mind about this direction on a whim, and only have the thinnest veneer of #AcademicFreedom, this is a further example of the privatisation of the #PublicRealm
#AI #AIEthics #Philosophy
(1/)

2026-02-04 10:12:02 UTC

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Amazing work!
It would be great to see your server installation guide, if it simplifies the 'official' process. I don't read Persian but maybe @npub1e8h…7zjt could help translate?
With the Signal servers under pressure (technical or political?) yesterday, we need more decentralised options here too.

2026-02-01 14:11:21 UTC

I ought to write this up properly, but here's a tl;dr in advance:
#AI does not *summarise* documents - it *shortens* them by using structural similarity to documents in its training data to guess/predict which sentences are important and which are not.
If that is what you want, fine. But don't be fooled into thinking it is doing anything like human summarisers do. They work on the *meaning* of the document in front of them.

2026-01-22 18:21:31 UTC

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So my technical question is whether these MXB apps will allow the Jinping option.

2026-01-22 18:20:21 UTC

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I have no doubt they are pretty invasive surveillance tools, as is WeChat which even appears to have Client Side Scanning.
I am interested in a political question about the régime: will a digitally shut down Iran allow citizens to "freely" communicate with the outside world so long as it is under their surveillance? Or will the endstate of the Iranian Intranet be one where communication with the outside of any form is cut off for the general public. Mao's China or Jinping's China?

2026-01-22 17:33:22 UTC

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I was thinking in general. Interested to identify differences from China if the general external connectivity block becomes permanent. WeChat allows global communication for all Chinese but at the cost of surveillance. Will Iran do that? Or is even that too risky now?

2026-01-22 08:09:03 UTC

#Hive mind : anyone use #ShouroushPlus #Rubika #Eiraa or another app on Message Exchange Bus #MXB?
I am curious to know if - once you have the app and an account - it allows (presumably heavily surveiled) cross-border communication with #Iran (as #WeChat does with China).

2026-01-14 12:47:00 UTC

Look, if you are interested in #DigitalSovereignty it is important to realise that the #Iran #InternetBlackout is not really that. It is not the sort of damaging loss of services we have seen recently with #Crowdstrike or #Cloudflare.
The National Information Network of Iran or #IranianIntranet is structured so that they can cut the cables to the outside world and (most) Iranian digital services continue to function. (1/3)

2026-01-09 13:56:50 UTC

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Would #Simplex @npub1gsu…fy6l be an alternative?
https://simplex.chat/docs/xftp-server.html

2026-01-09 13:53:59 UTC

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Thanks. That is really interesting information. Is there any publicly available documentation about this "national network"? I assume it would be in Persian, but a machine translation should help me identify what needs proper translation. (For reference, I am doing research on different approaches to digital sovereignty and need some more infor on so-called 'digital nationalism' options.)

2026-01-09 13:24:13 UTC

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Interesting - Briar needs people to be moving about (and thus coming close to other users) or a chain. I am lucky enough never to have been in a situation where I could stress test it. But if the reality on the ground means those physical conditions aren't met, I can see the problem.
Interesting that only international connectivity down. That allows for self-hosting as you suggest.

2026-01-09 11:03:07 UTC

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P.S. What is espeially important about #Briar is that the app can be shared user to user over Bluetooth, allowing it to be installed during an internet blackout, so long as a few users already have it to seed the network.

2026-01-09 10:46:51 UTC

If anyone has a way of connecting with people in #Iran right now, please download and send the the #Briar @npub1sh9…r3ez APK. Briar is a #PeerToPeer secure #e2ee messaging app which can work without internet connectivity (using Bluetooth and local wireless networks). It is designed for exactly the situation that is happening there right now.
https://briarproject.org/installing-apps-via-direct-download/

2026-01-09 07:44:35 UTC

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Is there a public source for this? I would like to scare a few people off GMail who should know better.

2026-01-05 20:48:18 UTC

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Another 'Inverse Ratner' from these guys. Did they miss the class in their MBA where they were told: if your customers don't like your product, that's your fault not theirs.

2025-12-07 10:38:56 UTC

Today's mood #ClimateEmergency #Capitalism #Fascism #AIHype
https://cdn.masto.host/daircommunitysocial/media_attachments/files/115/677/839/865/452/322/original/7780fae4013ed1ee.jpg

2025-12-05 22:23:33 UTC

Today someone I know slightly was sentenced to 30 months in prison, and sent to a high security facility. Their crime was disrupting traffic - they and others climbed a gantry on the M25, the major orbital round London, to drop banners protesting at government inaction on climate change.
If a young woman studying for a PhD had been treated like this for nonviolent protest in, say, Iran or China, how would it be reported by our press?
#Law is about #power not #justice

2025-11-11 09:45:50 UTC

I was renewing an #Insurance policy this morning and they said they no longer accept @npub19kd…t56d emails addresses because 'they are associated with fraud'. WTAF?
They used my #Protonmail address happily for 3 years. Where has this change come from? Is this #BigTech selling #CyberSec #InfoSec products which just happen to lock end users into their products?
#Allianz since you asked.

2025-10-27 07:27:16 UTC

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How many teachers could you get for an investment of $850m (and that's just the upfront cost)?
#AI is capital. Governments need to spend on people. Because people in (good) work buy stuff and pay taxes and generally make your country better.

2025-10-27 07:18:17 UTC

"underlining the challenges in embedding the technology in education"
It is only a *challenge* against the background belief that there is a future where genAI in education is a good thing for anyone other than the bullshitters selling the technology.
Governments, universities, schools around the world need to listen to the sceptics before spending money. Flashy presentations and cool toys are obvious marketing tricks you keep falling for.
#AIHype #AI #Education
https://restofworld.org/2025/south-korea-ai-textbook/

2025-10-24 18:44:37 UTC

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That would be weeks, not years.

2025-10-24 18:00:38 UTC

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What is so frustrating about this system is the wastage. The time and effort put into the application cannot be repurposed for anything (in 90% of cases). Rejected papers can be rewritten and submitted elsewhere.

2025-10-24 17:58:42 UTC

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My hunch is that Waitrose do not have any provision for volunteers and this had been a local initiative which some jobsworth at HO shutdown when they discovered (when the mother wrote and asked for paid work) rather than develop a volunteering policy.
The real question for Waitrose is not about this lad, but whether they are willing and able to employ people with cognitive and developmental disabilities at all their stores.
Employment of any sort is an essential dignity for many people.

2025-10-22 18:01:13 UTC

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🤦🏻‍♂️

2025-10-22 17:56:04 UTC

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What is even more frustrating is that it undermines all the cyber security training we try to give.

2025-10-22 17:30:00 UTC

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Ah, perhaps. After all, they seem to believe in carbon capture as a way of making burning trees carbon negative 😳

2025-10-22 14:40:35 UTC

Oh FFS! The Department of Science, Innovation, and Technology has just described nuclear fission as 'renewable energy'. I can see how they could re-define 'clean' to amke it 'clean energy' (it isn't, of course, for very obvious reasons) but 'renewable'? Have I missed some scientific breakthrough? Or does #AIHype allow on eto disengage with all forms of reality?
https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2025-10-10/78334

2025-10-22 14:06:43 UTC

I must admit, I have done the same in equal ignorance of this law.* And I am absolutely certain that my being a white man had absolutely nothing to do with the fact I was never fined. Nothing. At. All.
*: I knew I shouldn't pour engine oil or paint or all the other pollutants I regularly see being poured down drains. Just not coffee or things I would happily drink. That seems an important difference to me.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cg435gg66gpo

2025-10-01 11:32:16 UTC

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I agree entirely with the mission creep objection (see also Live Facial Recognition).
Interestingly, physical ID cards don't seem to generate the same mission creep in countries where they pre-date the surveillance society we live in.
But no UK government has the political will to introduce physical ID cards - they will only go for technosolutionist options. So stop digital and you stop all ID cards without having to have that argument.

2025-10-01 11:03:17 UTC

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I do sometimes worry that these petitions are ineffective precisely because they mix issues. The question of whether there should be national ID cards is different from the question of teh #BritCard.
Even if having ID cards rather than relying on some mix of passports and driving licences was a good idea, a digital-only version is a terrible idea.
And in practice, blocking #BritCard will block any ID card system. But mixing the issues will put some people off signing.

2025-09-26 10:56:27 UTC

So #StarmerOut is strongly committed to spending huge sums developing a Digital ID. The project will go over budget and probably fail, just like previous #TechnoSolutionist fantasies which don't address the real problem.
The question is: how can we make sure this otherwise wasted £££ goes somewhere it will do some good rather than to foreign, #TaxEvading #BigTech?

2025-09-26 06:29:09 UTC

China has "pledged to more than double today's [wind and solar] capacity of around 1,400GW to 3,600GW by 2035". The UK's total energy consumption is around 35GW and we struggle to produce that.
Any government that believes the future requires energy-guzzling data centres (it doesn't, fwiw) ought to be thinking very, very hard about those numbers.
#AI #AISustainability #ClimateCrisis #DigitalSovereignty
https://news.sky.com/story/china-does-targets-differently-to-the-west-and-it-may-be-just-what-the-world-needs-13437634
https://grid.iamkate.com/

2025-09-24 12:54:20 UTC

I used #genAI for a 'mundane administrative task'. It did a good enough job and saved some time, but ... that just drew attention to the fact that the task was unnecessarily complex and time-consuming in the first place.
tl;dr - making tasks less labour-intensive does not thereby increase efficiency
https://listed.to/@24601/65527/more-on-efficiency-and-genai

2025-09-21 16:20:49 UTC

Oh FFS! Do politicians not understand anything? While the #OnlineSafetyAct is busy f**king up the internet in the name of #SaveTheChildren , the same government is giving instructions on how to evade such surveillance for anyone who has something worth hiding.
https://news.sky.com/story/mi6-launches-new-drive-to-recruit-spies-including-russians-13433714

2025-09-17 06:12:04 UTC

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Thanks for sharing. I crossed in 1987 as a tourist on a day pass. Weird experience. It was a Sunday and the East was deserted. I was stopped for jay-walking on a completely empty Karl Marx Platz (wandering around with a camera) and the on-the-spot 'fine' was conveniently exactly the 20 marks we were allowed to take across the border. Memorable experience for a student.

2025-09-15 06:42:54 UTC

"great people" = people good at making money, mainly for themselves but also a small group of others who don't need any more money.
This is the problem with thinking about the economy in terms of GDP: it masks extreme inequalities on which millions suffer.
#Taxation of the super-rich punishes greed not ability. Join the rally: 12 noon, 20 Sept, Portland Place to Westminster. #MakeThemPay
#Limitarianism
https://news.sky.com/story/dont-drive-great-people-away-tory-peer-urges-rachel-reeves-to-think-again-on-tax-rises-13429377

2025-09-04 13:14:19 UTC

“using GenAI resulted in the knowledge workers creating new cognitive tasks such as assessing the AI-generated content to determine its relevance and applicability to their specific
tasks which they would not necessarily do if they had generated the content themselves.”
#AIHype is getting subtle. Determination of relevance and applicability to task is *inherent* to generating content yourself. So nothing new here. No actual cognitive gain from using #genAI
https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.00852

2025-09-04 07:33:55 UTC

The charges use the following action words: 'managing', 'assisting in arranging' and 'addressing' meetings.
I wonder what the evidence threshold is for first two, especially 'assisting in arranging'? Also, does it not matter what you say when addressing a meeting?
#DoJ #PlasticineAction
https://www.cps.gov.uk/cps/news/organisers-charged-over-arranging-and-managing-meetings-support-proscribed-palestine

2025-08-30 12:35:01 UTC

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Even if they come up with some fictional savings, those are savings in *staff* costs. So they have - like good little capitalists - already ruled out improving services by spending the £500k on more *staff*. (Which would likely be a bigger service improvement.)
How did we get to a place where people managing essentially human activities are able to spend money on technology to reduce spend on humans?
They have swallowed the neoliberal mantra 'hiring people is inefficient'.

2025-08-30 06:57:36 UTC

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I am interested because I find an iPad really rubbish for handwritten notes on a PDF which can be easily shared outside the Apple Walled Garden. I find the annotations often don't align correctly when exported. (And become stupidly large files >20mb which can't be emailed back to the person who sent it.)

2025-08-30 06:44:22 UTC

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"Preserve the light of consciousness" is just #Longtermism, a confused and repugnant 'ethical theory' turned into a pseudo-religion.
#TESCREAL nonsense where individual people have no intrinsic value but are just (contingent) vehicles for conscious states like pleasure and pain.

2025-08-30 06:33:21 UTC

"When contacted by YorkMix about what had happened Joseph Moulton, who launched the York Flaggers and Litter Pickers campaign, said he condemned the racism. Then he went straight down and helped to clean off the graffiti on the brickwork."
Maybe, just maybe, Mr Moulton is that naive. But we all need to be completely clear that the harm - making some people feel unsafe in their homes and businesses - continues after the graffiti has gone.
#StopFlags #Antifa #Antiracism
https://yorkmix.com/this-is-heartbreaking-racist-graffiti-scrawled-on-york-takeaway/

2025-08-29 17:00:27 UTC

I have been thinking a lot about the ubiquitous talk about how genAI 'saves time' and thus 'increases efficiency'.
Here I construct an argument - bound to be controversial but the point is to have a realistic discussion - that humans are 3x more efficient* at writing short emails than ChatGPT4.
#AI #AIHype #AIEthics #ClimateCrisis
https://listed.to/@24601/64744/time-and-the-ai-machine
*: In the same sense that cycling is more efficient than walking

2025-08-29 05:45:11 UTC

A friend has one of these and the hardware seems good but I cannot find any information on software support, particularly Android security updates policy (it ships with 14).
Anyone out there have experience if #XPPen #MagicNotePad?
https://www.storexppen.co.uk/buy/magic-note-pad.html

2025-08-24 10:42:33 UTC

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Of course it is a very clever trick - there is no denying that - because the way #DeepLearning breaks down complex tasks into millons of simpler ones is completely opaque to us. What the cleverness masks is the #Illusion of #Efficiency

2025-08-24 10:40:36 UTC

We need to talk seriously about #genAi and #Time. It *appears* that tools like ChatGPT and Copilot complete tasks *much quicker* than humans, thereby offering increased #Efficiency
But the way they do this is by breaking the tasks into millions of simpler subtasks which can run simultaneously i.e. #ParallelDistributedProcessing
If we completed those tasks serially, it would likely take longer than a human. And takes many times as much of our finite planetary resources. It's a trick, an #Illusion

2025-08-22 17:39:34 UTC

My council - like many others - uses the comany www.registersecurely.com to manage the updating of the #ElectoralRoll.
When I click on the 'Deny' button in the #Cookies popup, it *redirects me to the Google Homepage.
I assume this is just sloppy coding, but curious if this might be a known #DarkPattern or scam.

2025-08-22 14:59:31 UTC

This comment on Ingrid Robeyns’ *Limitarianism* is a bit long and academic, but I needed to work it through. On first reading I misunderstood and thought the Ethical Limit was higher than the Riches Line. When I realised the mistake, I had to think hard about where the disagreement lay.
tl;dr = The inference from ‘X is good’ to ‘You ought to do X’ should be challenged. This will result in a less moralistic version of #Limitarianism but the same political conclusions.
https://listed.to/@24601/64583/limitarianism-the-ethical-line-and-moral-perfectionism

2025-08-20 13:33:00 UTC

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This is a good overview of the move to #OpenSource in Europe, but everything in it would be equally true and important if the word 'foreign' was deleted throughout. It is the state's reliance on a *company*, which can be bought and sold and act according to its own values, to provide its tech stack that is the real problem.
https://www.resiliencemedia.co/p/as-european-governments-combat-digital

2025-08-20 13:23:55 UTC

The problem with *all* the views reported here is that they assume the only challenge to #DigitalSovereignty is the so-called 'nationality' of the company providing the services and infrastructure. They overlook two crucial points:
1. The nationality of a company is fungible.
2. Some of these companies are capable of being geopolitical actors themselves.
#Neoliberalism and #ReguloSolutionism blinds them to the need for #Nationalisation of essential tech infrastructure
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3dpr2zkny0o

2025-08-20 12:22:26 UTC

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Like many others, I voted for #noAI because it has punch and take-up. But my personal favourite is #JustStopAI

2025-08-20 10:19:50 UTC

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Sadly no mention of RSS as a controllable way of generating an informative personal "feed"

2025-08-19 08:51:44 UTC

Does anyone #Legal on here have a link for an amateur interested in the current status of a #WarrantCanary in UK law?

2025-08-19 08:05:12 UTC

I have just edited a toot because I have applied for a Government expert panel and the civil service do social media checks on academics. I decided that I could do more good on the panel than by displaying solidarity on social media. But it feels dirty. A small but quotidien version of the problem of #DirtyHands. Also, more problematically, it shows that #SelfCensorship is becoming increasingly necessary in our surveillance state.

2025-08-19 06:50:54 UTC

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That is very risky. They use LFR to identify people breaking bail conditions and move in hard. DoJ have been hit with that before.
The real question is: what is the level of state violence against protestors that the general public will tolerate? They are testing that ...

2025-08-19 06:45:54 UTC

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He was de-arrested. Which means they admit they shouldn't have arrested him and no record of arrest is kept. Wasn't even 'No further action' where arrest stays on record. Simple (both senses) embarrassing mistake.

2025-08-19 06:42:29 UTC

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I don't think so. They can now impose very restrictive bail conditions for protest offences and that is the way they are handling NVDA. Protestors lose freedom of assembly, freedom of movement, jobs, homes etc. while waiting two years to appear in court. Very few are kept in remand. Exploits crumbling justice system to punish peaceful protestors. #GuiltyUntilProvenInnocent

2025-08-19 06:36:00 UTC

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And of course Keir Starmer is the person who 'invented' magistrates courts sitting all night to process rioters, so that would have been in the plan somewhere. #Cynicism but ...

2025-08-19 06:30:59 UTC

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I gather they had prepared for that. One report mentioned prisoners being moved out of London jails days in advance to make space.

2025-08-19 06:17:47 UTC

It has just occurred to me that the real point of the mass arrests of #DefendOurJuries protestors against the proscription of #PalestineAction was to demonstrate to organisers of mass civil disobedience protests that the Met *can* arrest that many.
Up to know, organisers have assumed that if 500 engage in disobedience, arrest is impractical. The number has just gone up, making effective #CivilDisobedience harder and riskier.
#Article11 #RightToProtest

2025-08-19 06:10:51 UTC

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I suspect that it is as simple (both senses) as having been persuaded by those who already benefit that any interference in business models would be 'anti-growth'. If you run a country but don't understand technology or economics, you are quite vulnerable to manipulation by the powers that be.

2025-08-15 19:10:04 UTC

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I hope this is true and all comes out in the judicial review. Then it should be a resigning matter.

2025-08-15 12:24:01 UTC

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Thanks. That's really helpful. In which case I find Peter Kyle's behaviour hard to understand. He seems very pro Big Tech with the AI policy and Government Data Service, but also very pro OSA.
But I agree about the rent-seekers. I just assumed they were being used as beta, or maybe alpha, testers and when the technology settled, other bigger players would step in.
Your analogy with Prohibition is very nice, btw!

2025-08-15 10:05:31 UTC

This BBC article drew my attention to there being planning approval for a #DataCentre in #York. I have found it on the council website (well done CoYC for having a search tool which brought it up with just the keyword 'data'). It has a small footprint and nowhere in the application does it state the intended capacity in mW but it does say that 95% of energy used will be returned as heat from dry air coolers to the neighbouring swimming pool.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clyr9nx0jrzo
https://planningaccess.york.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=summary&keyVal=SLX5VMSJK6Z00

2025-08-15 09:02:21 UTC

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Not sure I agree with the analysis (though I hope you are right about how it will pan out). The current UK Gov is very much not part of the techlash and Peter Kyle in particular is clearly listening to Big Tech lobbyists.
So why aren't they telling him this is stupid? Because they hope that the way it will pan out is users do age verification on their Google/Meta/Apple/Microsoft/Amazon account and then use that to log in to *everythng else*. Log-in with Google etc will become obligatory

2025-08-15 08:44:52 UTC

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I can confirm Llama 3.2 running locally gives:
"Signal: Signal is my go-to choice for private conversations. It's end-to-end encrypted, meaning only the sender and receiver can read the messages. It also has a clean interface and works on both iOS and Android."
But also mentions Wire and Telegram Secret Chats

2025-08-10 15:37:46 UTC

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Interesting. I am hoping the full script of Andor will be published one day.

2025-08-10 09:42:06 UTC

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Yes. And in England fwiw. Also, most universities now have foundation programmes for international students which go as low as 16 y.o.
We do have special safeguarding procedures in place but I don't think they take OSA into account.

2025-08-10 08:32:20 UTC

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Meanwhile DfE is insisting, through OfS, that freedom of expression trumps all other values on university campuses.
To the extent of finding University of Sussex >£500k for the wording of an internal guidance document.
https://www.sussex.ac.uk/broadcast/read/67853

2025-08-10 07:17:02 UTC

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From a democratic point of view, the problem with this law is that the people it is aimed at controlling - the big platforms - can afford to take a calculated risk that it will be impossible to enforce. But the people it isn't aimed at - the small independents - cannot afford to take that risk and close down instead.
We really are led by donkeys ...

2025-08-10 07:07:25 UTC

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If Yvette Cooper was actually confident that her ever-so-secret briefings from her secret police justified proscribing #PalestineAction , then people are being arrested for not knowing what they are not allowed to know.
Does she ever lie awake before dawn wondering if the secret police might have a - secret 😆 - reason to mislead her? I hope so, but fear not.
The one thing we *know* the secret police are good at is manipulating politicians.

2025-08-10 06:50:03 UTC

"The Imperial need for control is so desperate because it is so unnatural. Tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks, it leaks. Authority is brittle. Oppression is the mask of fear." (Nemik's Manifesto)
That is where we are. A government confident in its legitimacy could have completely undermined yesterday's protest by *not arresting people*. Instead, millions will wake up this morning more angry than they were yesterday, more aware of the true nature of this government. #DefendOurJuries

2025-08-05 09:18:23 UTC

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Tellingly:
Ofcom, “will take a sensible approach to enforcement with smaller services that present low risk to UK users, only taking action where it is proportionate and appropriate, and will focus on cases where the risk and impact of harm is highest.”
Confuses law and policing! The police/OfCom may not prosecute harmless law-breaking but the law-abiding citizen will still feel the need to obey. Most people think they have a moral duty to obey the law even if they had #GygesRing

2025-08-01 19:10:19 UTC

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And all in the name of trying to criminalize allowing/enabling/not stopping people posting stuff that is potentially "harmful but legal" on your service.
When you base law in a category mistake, no wonder it is a shit show.

2025-08-01 17:51:03 UTC

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When I heard Matthew Hodgson (co-founder of Matrix) said he had a server on a Raspberry Pi under his bed, I thought "That's the one for me" and did the same ... Well, not under my bed! 😆
As to apps, I usually recommend FluffyChat.

2025-08-01 17:42:59 UTC

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Important to remember that the solution to this is NOT more facial recognition in stores, which affects everyone on a guilty until proven innocent principle. It is to deal with the people who fence and buy stolen goods. The rise in shoplifting is to do with the market for stolen stuff.

2025-08-01 17:39:03 UTC

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Ah! I hadn't spotted that Revolt can be self-hosted. And that will be interoperable with the rest of the Revolt platform? (Unlike e.g. Mattermost which you can self-host but different instances can't communicate?) That is a good feature.

2025-08-01 11:38:37 UTC

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Haha! I wasn’t feeling judged - in fact there was a bit of p/a judgement in my reply! I think there is a weak, pro tanto duty for those of us who can to use a VPN by default.
Even more so if you have ‘nothing to hide’, because that protects those who do *need* to use a VPN to protect themselves.

2025-08-01 11:35:17 UTC

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(2/2)
… even if they were UK companies, if they had the scale and legal clout of Big Tech you would still be losing #DigitalSovereignty.
When will politicians understand that they are the state and they have to maintain their power by force and not by contracts? That means, they need to have physical control of the IT infrastructure that the state relies upon. If they don’t have that, they face the problem of losing access while trying to enforce any contract.
#ReguloSolutionism

2025-08-01 11:30:59 UTC

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What a spectacular, point-missing reply! Micro$oft is not breaking UK law if it decides not to provide a commercial service to someone, like an email address. It might - at worst - be in breach of contract but good luck making that stick in court. UK law general protects companies in situations like that.
By handing over the entire Civil Service tech stack to a few, huge companies, you surrender #DigitalSovereignty. As a matter of fact, these are foreign companies, but … (1/2)

2025-08-01 11:26:29 UTC

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I run a VPN by default for external connections because it does reduce the data trail picked up by ISPs and web services, it has an effective ad blocker, and, most importantly, it is essential to exercise your rights before someone takes them away.
Using a VPN by default is a small act of #DigitalResistance against state and commercial surveillance.

2025-08-01 11:21:39 UTC

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It is great that the Government Data Service has a Security by Design policy, but what about Privacy by (Default and) Design? That would be the *good* answer to this question.
#DataPrivacy

2025-08-01 11:10:32 UTC

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Same but presumably because we both use VPNs by default?

2025-08-01 10:13:54 UTC

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I am curious why Revolt rather than Matrix? Matrix is an open protocol and federated, so users have a choice of servers (including creating their own) and apps - like email. What’s not to like? (Especially for someone on Mastodon!)
Revolt looks like a Discord clone, sharing all the disadvantages of a centralised platform with an opaque business model.

2025-08-01 10:01:59 UTC

“The parties did not disclose details of the settlement and defense lawyers did not address the judge, Kathaleen McCormick of the Delaware Court of Chancery. McCormick adjourned the trial just as it was to enter its second day and she congratulated the parties.”
WTAF? The obscenely rich pay to avoid testifying under oath and the judge congratulates them? This is law as a service industry whose clients are wealthy individuals and companies.
#Capitalism #RuleOfLaw #Meta
https://www.france24.com/en/americas/20250717-zuckerberg-settles-8-billion-lawsuit-over-cambridge-analytica-scandal-avoids-testifying

2025-07-31 21:28:38 UTC

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“History tells us that it's never a good idea when governments start demanding censorship of encyclopaedias.”
Worth putting on a t-shirt, that is.

2025-07-28 10:16:12 UTC

I see @npub19kd…t56d is now offering a genAI tool. I asked it about environmental impact data and it told me that is 'not publicly disclosed'.
And: 'If environmental impact is a significant concern for you, it might be worth reaching out to Proton directly to express your interest in more detailed disclosures. Many companies are responsive to such feedback and may provide additional information upon request.'
I am doing that now and look forward to your response. #AI #genAI #ClimateCrisis

2025-07-25 09:51:44 UTC

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I agree there is a step-change with genAI, but that is a symptom. I started noticing the basic problem 20 years ago: people are arriving at university with no concept of *interrogating a text* to answer a question. That text could be a book or an article or even a social media post.
They haven't been taught the skill of going from raw information to the answer to a question.
The ones who rely on AI are doing that because they don't know how to do what the AI does, even badly.

2025-07-24 15:10:14 UTC

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Presumably Yes = Car crash? Disjunctive questions are confusing!