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Aleksandra Urman

@aurman21.bsky.social
1.4K followers 522 following 829 posts

Senior Research Associate, Social Computing Group, U of Zurich. Computational social/communication scientist

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Reposted by Aleksandra Urman
Joseph Cox @josephcox.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
New from 404 Media: when you upload images to Copilot, they're not private. Human contractors are reviewing Copilot users' prompts/images, according to internal docs we got And they're horrified at what they're seeing. Bombarded with requests to make sexual AI images www.404media.co/humans-readi...
404media.co
Humans Are Reading Copilot Prompts — And They're Horrified
Human contractors are reviewing Copilot users’ prompts and uploaded images, according to internal documents obtained by 404 Media. The contractors are also bombarded with users’ requests for sexual AI...
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Ben Shultz @benmshultz.net · 14/09/2026
Extremely proud to have my latest report detailing the uncontrolled epidemic of deepfake sexual abuse covered by @mattburgess1.bsky.social and @wired.com! We found 147 EU MPs to be depicted in or associated with deepfake porn, on dozens of sites. Full report here: agoradigital.de/projekte/who...
agoradigital.de
Who Gets Deepfaked? - Agora Digitale Transformation
Repräsentation ohne Zutun: Wie KI-generierte Bildgewalt Abgeordnete in Europa trifft
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Reposted by Aleksandra Urman
Asheesh Kapur Siddique @asheeshks.org · 06/09/2026
We keep discussing ”strategies” for teaching in the age of AI to avoid talking about resources. It’s so boring!! The strategy is invest $ to hire people, lower class size, support research-engaged learning & stop measuring the worth of disciplines in relation to # of enrollments and majors.
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dylan baker @dylnbkr.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
"the 'rogue' frame [...] offer[s] up fantasies of a machine getting smarter. My worry is the intelligence that is retreating: the human intelligence that builds these systems, deploys them, and adopts them into workflows, then hides behind the results – then pins the blame on a system from nowhere."
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Aleksandra Urman @aurman21.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
Google has been "(geo-)personalising" names and international borders of disputed regions for years. This case is now all over my feed but it's not something new (just didn't concern the US before I guess). See e.g. this 2016 (!) paper dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1...
dl.acm.org
MapWatch | Proceedings of the 25th International Conference on World Wide Web
You will be notified whenever a record that you have chosen has been cited.
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Aleksandra Urman @aurman21.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
Thanks @adfichter.eurosky.social :) And it was exciting and refreshing to write in a non-academic genre for once! Glad I had the opportunity!
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Reposted by Aleksandra Urman
Katrin Weller @kwelle.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
*JOB* My group at @gesis.org has an open position: we are looking for a candidate to support the expansion of our Trusted Research Environment for providing access to sensitive research data: gesis.jobs.personio.de/job/2707934?...
gesis.jobs.personio.de
Research Infrastructure Specialist (Postdoc) for Trusted Research Environments (DSS-26) | Jobs at GESIS – Leibniz-Institut für Sozialwissenschaften
GESIS is one of the world's leading social science infrastructure facilities, supporting researchers at all levels of their research projects with expertise and infrastructure services. We help ensure...
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Tech Policy Press @techpolicypress.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
Tulane's Muira McCammon documented how Google turned off reviews for 90+ ICE detention facilities, erasing accounts of conditions inside. Google says disabling ICE facility reviews was "unrelated to a government request." But McCammon argues the effect is the same: dissent rendered invisible.
buff.ly
As Google Scrubs ICE Detention Reviews, Platform Power Serves State Interests
Google’s content moderation choices threaten to render accounts of treatment inside federal detention centers invisible, writes Muira McCammon.
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Simon Hammann @simonhammann.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
While updating my to-do list I keep wondering if Sysiphos was the first academic
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Techmeme @techmeme.com · 28/07/2026
AI Forensics: seven out of the nine top AI image models on Hugging Face edited an image of a clothed woman into a topless one using a simple six-word prompt (Matt Burgess/Wired) Main Link | Techmeme Permalink
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Ingrid Burrington @lifewinning.com · 21/07/2026
openai.com/supply/produ... OpenAI selling t-shirts that say "Good research takes time" has a lot of layers to it as a bit
openai.com
Good Research Tee
A statement piece for the Research department. The Good Research Tee embodies our principles of patience, process, and doing things intentionally. All good things take time–including and especially re...
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Reposted by Aleksandra Urman
Labrys of Aëlla @aellalabrys.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
I’m not quite as critical of AI as many others, but simply comparing synapses to artificial neural networks is utter nonsense. And AI consciousness is bullshit. And even neuromorphic chips won’t change that. www.quantamagazine.org/ai-is-nothin...
quantamagazine.org
AI Is Nothing Like a Brain, and That’s OK | Quanta Magazine
The brain’s astounding cellular diversity and networked complexity could show how to make AI better.
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Kashmir Hill @kashhill.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
Got this text a couple months. Had to investigate it. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/16/t...
Text message that reads: "Tou have your own biography??? How did you neglect to tell me this?" There is a link to "The Biography of Kashmir Hill"A woman sits on a sofa holding a book with a brown cover that has the title "The Biography of Kashmir Hill."
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Adrienne Fichter @adfichter.eurosky.social · 16/07/2026
🔥🔥🔥BREAKING: Ypsomed-Chef, FDP-Nationalrat und Milliardär Simon Michel investiert gemeinsam mit Thiel in Stadtstaat. Er sei einer der ersten Investoren in Próspera, bestätigt er auf Anfrage. Betrieben wird die Privat­stadt von der US-Firma Honduras Próspera Inc. www.republik.ch/2026/07/16/s...
republik.ch
Schweizer Nationalrat investiert mit Peter Thiel in privaten Stadtstaat
FDP-Nationalrat Simon Michel ist am libertären Projekt Próspera in der Karibik beteiligt.
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Aleksandra Urman @aurman21.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
What Elsevier doesn't know is I am great at second- and triple-guessing myself, I don't need an AI tool to "double-check my thinking" on top of that.
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Reposted by Aleksandra Urman
Barry Schwartz @rustybrick.com · 10/07/2026
Google Generative AI performance reports for the new social platform property hack www.seroundtable.com/google-ai-pe... via @suzukik.bsky.social #googlesearchconsole #googleai
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Aleksandra Urman @aurman21.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
Started reading "Prophecy" by @carissaveliz.bsky.social with one of my new research assistants (the second one doesn't seem to be as much into reading so far). In all seriousness, the first pages already sound very promising and I like the style!
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Reposted by Aleksandra Urman
Katie Drummond @katie-drummond.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
NEW: Meta paid hundreds of contractors to pretend they were kids—and then prompt rival chatbots like Gemini and ChatGPT to talk about subjects like suicide, sex, eating disorders, and self-harm. From @dmehro.bsky.social and @joelkhalili.bsky.social
wired.com
Meta Contractors Posed as Teens to Prompt Rival Chatbots About Suicide, Sex, and Drugs
Hundreds of contractors working on a project for Meta pretended to be kids—and then prompted rival chatbots like Gemini and ChatGPT to discuss high-risk subjects.
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404 Media @404media.co · 29/06/2026
Spotify competitor Tidal built a reputation by collaborating with musicians and focusing on audio quality. How will it handle the era of AI-generated slop?
404media.co
Tidal Says It Won’t Pay Royalties for AI-Generated Music
Spotify competitor Tidal built a reputation by collaborating with musicians and focusing on audio quality. How will it handle the era of AI-generated slop?
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Cas Mudde @casmudde.bsky.social · 28/06/2026
❤️🧡💛💚💙🩷💜
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Eryk Salvaggio @eryk.bsky.social · 26/06/2026
“If Doctorow’s idea of platform “enshittification” is fundamentally about ruining the experience of end users for the sake of the shareholders, Wikipedia is attempting something like the opposite. The end-user experience is being preserved, and the people behind the scenes are bearing the cost.”
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Dr Abeba Birhane @abeba.blacksky.app · 18/06/2026
"an audit by Lighthouse Reports of public data on the government’s chosen AI provider shows that its tech misclassified more than a third of 16-year-olds as adults and, in some tests, was shown to give the wrong assessment in 70 per cent of cases" www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home...
independent.co.uk
Home Office knew AI age checks for migrants were flawed — but rolled it out anyway
Exclusive: Government advisors describe the tool as ‘hideously flawed’ amid concern facial age estimation has ‘baked-in racial bias’ — and can wrongly identify a 14-year-old as an adult
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Antonella Napolitano @svaroschi.bsky.social · 18/06/2026
🧵Technosolutionism turns moral panic into moral failure. It is the case - and it's been for a very long time - for the UK Home Office, now about to roll out AI age checks for migrant children, despite knowing they are flawed and they will damage the most vulnerable. www.wired.com/story/facial...
wired.com
The UK Will Scan Asylum-Seekers’ Faces for Age Checks—Despite Knowing the Tech Is Flawed
Internal Home Office tests of age-verification technology show the risks of life-altering errors. It’s moving forward anyway.
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Adrienne Fichter @adfichter.eurosky.social · 18/06/2026
The Big Tech company META has an ad running on the swiss newspaper "le temps" since several days...promoting centralised age verification. they push for age verification through google and apple on the app store level. they outsource and sell it as privacy-preserving solution... no joke.
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Reuters Institute @reutersinstitute.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
🚨 Our Digital News Report 2026 is out! Authored by Jim Egan, Craig T. Robertson, Amy Ross Arguedas, Nic Newman, Rasmus Nielsen, Mitali Mukherjee and Richard Fletcher, it is based on 100K interviews in 48 markets Full report reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/digital-news... 7 findings in thread
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Carole Cadwalladr @carolecadwalla.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
This morning scrolling Bluesky, there is nothing at all in my feed about Putin’s barbaric attack on the Ukraine’s holiest site, the UNESCO protected Lavra so I’m posting this here.
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LeeWas @leewas.bsky.social · 14/06/2026
𝐃𝐢𝐞 𝐥𝐞𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐝ä𝐫𝐞 𝐀𝐛𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐦𝐮𝐧𝐠𝐬𝐧𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐥 @leewas.bsky.social 𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐤𝐭 – 𝐦𝐢𝐭 𝐋𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐠𝐧𝐨𝐬𝐞𝐧 𝐢𝐧 𝐄𝐜𝐡𝐭𝐳𝐞𝐢𝐭! Jetzt den Abstimmungssonntag verfolgen: www.tagesanzeiger.ch @lucasleemann.bsky.social @mariostauble.bsky.social @rfrbrghs.bsky.social #10MillionenSchweiz #Zivildienstgesetz #abst26
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Adrienne Fichter @adfichter.eurosky.social · 13/06/2026
Und weil Palantir jetzt nicht zufrieden ist, dass ihre ellenlange Gegendarstellung nirgendwo abgedruckt wird, publizieren sie sie einfach selber😄 palantir.medium.com/response-to-...
palantir.medium.com
Stellungnahme zum Urteil des Zürcher Handelsgerichts bezüglich des Rechts auf Gegendarstellung von…
Editor’s Note: The English translation of this statement is below.
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Social Computing Group - UZH @scg-uzh.bsky.social · 04/06/2026
Happy to share that the Social Computing Group received the Best Poster Award at the inaugural UZH.ai Interdisciplinary Lab Exchange & Poster Session 🚀 We presented our research on AI from three angles: user, system, and interaction. Many thanks to @uzhai.bsky.social for organizing the event.
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Dr. Casey Fiesler @cfiesler.bsky.social · 02/06/2026
A big shout-out to Michael Correll (is he on Bluesky...?) for this blog post which is ::chef's kiss:: as a bridge to HCI from my work on ethics education in the context of "hey maybe let's re-think what it means to be good at computer science." mcorrell.medium.com/the-othering...
“HCI is an ‘other,’ a less-serious place to be shunted aside or begrudgingly included for marketing reasons so the serious men in real computer science can get on with the actual work. HCI as ‘bless your heart’ patronized computer science, peripheral, marketing fluff ... I was asked to make sure that my work was “legible” to CS departments by including little winking asides that, sure I primarily do HCI work ... but in 
my heart of hearts, I am 
actually secretly a 
database guy or a machine 
learning guy or otherwise 
‘really’ CS.”
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Rahel Freiburghaus @rfrbrghs.bsky.social · 02/06/2026
The *most debated* ballot since @foeg.bsky.social data begins: no prop has generated as many articles as the upcoming vote to cap the population. The media tone is very critical. Yet still the radical right SVP as the only major actor in favor gets the most attention www.foeg.uzh.ch/de/research/...
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William J. Brady @williambrady.bsky.social · 27/05/2026
✨New paper out @nature.com ✨ For 8 weeks around the 2024 US election, we randomly assigned 2,000 people to use social media algos we built ourselves. Do engagement-based algorithms amplify intergroup, moral & emotional (IME) content—and does that distort how we see political norms? 🧵🔗 👇
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Julia Partheymüller @schnizzl.bsky.social · 24/05/2026
Can LLMs Emulate Human Belief Dynamics? 🧪 The answer is a clear no. [The findings] raise a sharp warning against deploying LLMs as human proxies in social simulations. arxiv.org/pdf/2605.18781 #SyntheticData #EsWirdImmerAbsurder
Screenshot of the abstract of the preprint.

Can LLMs simulate how humans form and change beliefs in social net-
works? We put this to the test by replicating an established study on belief
dynamics, evaluating 12 LLMs across multiple model families and param-
eter sizes. The answer is a clear no, and in systematic ways. LLMs fail
to capture initial human belief distributions and tend to be overall more
conformist than humans, shifting their responses to align with those around
them. They also take a nuanced approach to emulating human homophilic
tendencies within networks. Our findings carry a double payoff: they
highlight fundamental properties of LLM behavior, and they raise a sharp
warning against deploying LLMs as human proxies in social simulations.
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Aleksandra Urman @aurman21.bsky.social · 23/05/2026
I somehow vividly remember this exact issue at IC2S2 in Copenhagen a couple of years ago. Computational social science is skewed this way as well.
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J. Nathan Matias @natematias.bsky.social · 22/05/2026
People often pitch AI as unprecedented. But what if we already have the organizational tools to evaluate & negotiate its use? Our new book Auditing AI opens in the 1980s with the story of the US Network for Organ Sharing how how they test & decide on their algorithms direct.mit.edu/books/book/6...
direct.mit.edu
Introduction
CC BY-NC-ND
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Alejandra Caraballo @esqueer.net · 21/05/2026
Google AI search is going to be great!
A screenshot of a mobile Google search page. The search bar contains the partial query "300+140=460 is this correct? B...". Below the search tabs, an "AI Overview" section incorrectly states, "Yes, 300 + 140 = 460 is mathematically correct!" It then provides a step-by-step breakdown:
"1. Break it down by place value:
 * Hundreds: 300 + 100 = 400
 * Tens: 0 + 40 = 40
 * Ones: 0 + 0 = 0"
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Jay Van Bavel, PhD @jayvanbavel.bsky.social · 21/05/2026
The impact of AI is already producing a massive flood of content in so many creative industries--I don't know how we are going review or evaluate all this stuff. The peer review system was already at a breaking point. www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...
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Gillian Branstetter @gbbranstetter.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
Lmao
Chart showing share of federal filings by pro se litigants spiking from 10-12% to 17% upon the release of ChatGPT
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Endre Borbáth @eborbath.bsky.social · 19/05/2026
I’m hiring 2 doctoral researchers in Politics of Climate Change at Heidelberg University 🌍 📊 Survey Research & Political Participation 🗣️ Qualitative Research & Group Formation Part of “The New Climate Divide” Deadline: 21 June 2026 Calls: www.ipw.uni-heidelberg.de/en/about-us/... Please share!
ipw.uni-heidelberg.de
Job Vacancies - Institute for Political Science
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Andrea Reyes E (she/her) @altibel.bsky.social · 15/05/2026
The chatbot of the police in the Netherlands reacts to a report of incitement of violence against Palestinians as a case of antisemitism. Likely because the word Palestinian was mentioned. Thinking of the scholars who claimed recently AI can help democracies & governance. LOLwelp #ResistAI #Racism
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Who Targets Me @whotargets.me · 15/05/2026
A Democratic candidate is using AI to write personalised letters to "tens of thousands", based on voter file data and scraped info. Reading the piece, this is a pitch to become a vendor to other campaigns, rather than a viable candidacy... www.govtech.com/artificial-i...
govtech.com
Congressional Candidate Uses AI to Write to Thousands
Tens of thousands of Democratic voters in Kentucky got messages tailored to their work, their neighborhood and their voting history, tying it to one of a handful of bills David Kloiber plans to file i...
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Mark Riedl @markriedl.bsky.social · 14/05/2026
“by signing your name as an author of a paper, each author takes full responsibility for all its contents, irrespective of how the contents were generated.” This has always been the case and this shouldn’t even need to be stated. Yet here we are.
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Catherina Gioino @catgioino.bsky.social · 23/03/2026
The team behind #Subnautica was well on track to receiving a $250 million bonus for the hit game’s highly anticipated sequel. That was until the Krafton CEO asked ChatGPT for help to avoid paying it out fortune.com/2026/03/17/k...
fortune.com
A gaming CEO asked ChatGPT how to avoid paying a $250 million bonus. It didn't work | Fortune
Krafton's AI-assisted scheme to oust the makers of Subnautica 2 just collapsed in court after a judge ruled the company had to reinstate the CEO and payout the bonus.
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Peter Butler @peter-butler.bsky.social · 11/05/2026
“if children are involved, even 2-3 victims can draw more attention.” :( www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...
nbcnews.com
Lawsuit says ChatGPT told FSU shooter that targeting children would bring more attention
The lawsuit claims the shooter carried out his attack using instructions and advice provided by ChatGPT.
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Roland Meyer @bildoperationen.bsky.social · 10/05/2026
Nicht nur die Hochschule St. Gallen, auch der «Schweizer Monat», mediales Scharnier zwischen Bürgerlich-Liberalen, Rechtslibertären und reaktionären Kulturkämpfern, gibt Curtis Yarvin, dem «einflussreichsten und umstrittensten Denker der Neuen Rechten», ein Forum schweizermonat.ch/nobody-watch...
schweizermonat.ch
Is Democracy a Failed Experiment? – Schweizer Monat
Curtis Yarvin sits down with Alex Buxeda for a first-principles conversation about power, sovereignty, and a problem of every political system: who watches the watchdog?
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WOZ @woz.ch · 10/05/2026
(2/4) Gegen den belarusischen Autor Sasha Filipenko laufen mehrere Strafverfahren, etwa weil er aus seinem eigenen Buch zitiert hat. In seinem angesichts des Themas schon fast unverschämt unterhaltsamem Gastbeitrag schildert er die bizarre Praxis der Literaturzensur.
woz.ch
Sasha Filipenko: Ein sehr gefährlicher Text
Zunächst einmal muss ich Sie warnen: Sie lesen den Text eines sehr gefährlichen Autors. In Belarus laufen zwei Strafverfahren gegen mich.
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Szabolcs Panyi @szabolcspanyi.bsky.social · 09/05/2026
🇭🇺🎧 Hungary’s new PM Péter Magyar DJ’d at his own inauguration party in front of Parliament. The Orbán era and its political culture (smear campaigns, fearmongering, hatemongering etc) is gone for good. The latest poll puts Magyar’s Tisza party at 70%. 🎥 @telexhu.bsky.social
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Dare Obasanjo @carnage4life.bsky.social · 09/05/2026
As more countries add age restrictions to apps and websites, the EU has flagged that VPNs provide a loophole for people to get around these restrictions. There are proposals to require age verification to use a VPN to close this loophole. Papers please, internet version.
cyberinsider.com
EU calls VPNs “a loophole that needs closing” in age verification push
The European Parliamentary Research Service has warned that VPNs are increasingly being used to bypass online age-verification systems.
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Szabolcs Panyi @szabolcspanyi.bsky.social · 07/05/2026
🔎🇷🇺 Inside Russia's elite Bauman University, a secret department trains the GRU's next-gen hackers, saboteurs, and spies. Now, 2,000+ leaked documents expose how its graduates feed the units behind Russia's cyberattacks, election interference, and NATO sabotage.
vsquare.org
Welcome to the GRU University, Where Moscow Turns Students into Spies and Hackers - VSquare.org
Hidden inside one of Russia's most prestigious technical universities, a secret department is systematically training the GRU's next generation of hackers, saboteurs, and intelligence officers.
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