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Claire Atkin

@catthekin.checkmyads.org
8K followers 490 following 321 posts

Co-founder of Check My Ads, the adtech watchdog. Please send me protopian fiction.

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Reposted by Claire Atkin
Saeed Jones @theferocity.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
This will be a thread of essays I recommend to students in my creative nonfiction workshop:
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Nathalie Maréchal, PhD @nathaliemarechal.net · 05/10/2026
This is the Cult of AI - specifically the longtermist variant - at work: “getting to AGI” is deemed so self-evidently important that no sacrifice is too great. The future will be better, so tomorrow doesn’t matter.
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Elizabeth Cronise McLaughlin @ecmclaughlin.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
I just want to live in a stable country where everyone is safe and their rights are protected and we all have housing and food and healthcare. I’m really sick and tired of this shit.
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Anna Hughes 🍁 @annaghughes.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
foggy mornings in Tofino
Sunlight through foggy forestSmall waves on a foggy shore Trees and large driftwood on the foggy beach
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GOLIKEHELLMACHINE @golikehellmachine.com · 04/10/2026
we are going to have to find an alternative to meta products for local communities and advertising, right now, it’s almost impossible to do any kind of local business or art project without it, but both their rules and support are so arbitrary and capricious that you can’t rely on them
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Tyler King @tyleraking.com · 03/10/2026
Meta has enabled Muse to build extensive and ever-growing profiles on the orbit of people in a user’s life. Based on user input but also “publicly available information.” Whether that means a web search, Facebook’s own extensive data, or buying data broker info…we don’t know? And we can’t opt out.
wired.com
Muse Creates Detailed Profiles of All Your Friends and Family
Millions have downloaded Meta’s AI agent Muse. But getting it to do your bidding comes with privacy costs.
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William Gibson @greatdismal.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Ahem…
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Tess Owen @tessowen.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Is this thing still on? Excited to share some personal news: I’m joining @wired.com as their new politics reporter!
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Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Apropos of nothing, I get a lot of mileage out of this meme.
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Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 02/10/2026
Too bad we don’t have laws that would punish this kind of behavior.
washingtonpost.com
OpenAI says rogue agents may have affected more than 100 organizations
The disclosure expands the extent of known rogue activity and raises further questions about the extent to which AI makers are maintaining control over their newest models.
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Boze Herrington, Library Owl @sketchesbyboze.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Some of you have forgotten that only three years ago you were perfectly capable of writing an essay, writing a eulogy, telling a bedtime story to a child, and it should worry you that powerful companies have convinced us we can’t do things we’ve been doing for 5,000 years.
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Ben Collins @bencollins.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Got aggregated by a rightwing clip site. Sorry for saying the coolest shit of all time.
VIDEO - Ben Collins Slams ‘Delusional CEOs Standing Around’ Trump and Spending Money on AI: ‘We Could Be Spending This Money on Food’  
@MollyJongFast
 
@SRuhle
 
@oneunderscore__
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Jason Kint @kint.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
good report on bad news here, Penske v. Google dismissal. I don't often get entire last section of a report but enough already, something must be done. An illegal monopolist is destroying the open web...putting it into what a Microsoft executive called the 'doom loop.' 1/3
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Tech Policy Press @techpolicypress.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Daniel Stone of Diffusion.Au examines the OpenAI agent incident in Australia: "84 days, almost three months, from the first access to the warning being raised." He calls for enforceable rules, prompt notice, access to logs and a way to recover costs.
buff.ly
When AI Agents Break In, Governments Shouldn't Be Stuck With the Cleanup
OpenAI tasked its agent with answering a question about public spending. It has left us with a much bigger question about public power, writes Daniel Stone.
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404 Media @404media.co · 30/09/2026
BREAKING: The Trump administration is using a grant program from the 1980s to force cities around the US to funnel their ongoing collection of Flock, Axon, and other ALPR data into large federal surveillance centers that fall under the White House’s jurisdiction, 404 Media has learned
404media.co
How Cities Are Forced to Funnel License Plate Data to a Massive Federal Surveillance Program
How the federal government built a massive database of license plate reader data through an anti-drug trafficking program.
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Joseph Cox @josephcox.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
New: USPS is to put cameras in its trucks that continuously record. This is to gather data on roads, signage, and to improve "community safety," the agency tells me. The cameras are marketed to capture passing license plates too, but don't run ALPR software www.404media.co/usps-to-put-...
404media.co
USPS To Put Cameras in Trucks That Scan Roads for ‘Community Safety’
USPS says the cameras, put on USPS truck dashboards, will scan roads, signs, and more.
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AI Now Institute @ainowinstitute.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Reporter and author of Empire of AI @karenhao.bsky.social will join The People’s AI Assembly, co-hosted with @moreperfectunion.bsky.social. Get tickets or register for the livestream on Oct. 19th: bit.ly/ai-assembly
Burgundy background with a headshot of  Karen Hao. White and orange text reads: “The People’s AI Assembly. Oct 19. Webster Hall. Karen Hao. Author. Co-hosted by AI Now and More Perfect Union.”
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Ben Collins @bencollins.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Guys, I made the TIME100 Next list (?????????)
time.com
Ben Collins Is on the 2026 TIME100 Next
Find out why Ben Collins is on this year’s list
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Kat Abughazaleh @katmabu.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
“They say he who laughs last, laughs best. And Ben Collins is the best.” Couldn’t agree more. time.com/collection/t...
time.com
Ben Collins Is on the 2026 TIME100 Next
Find out why Ben Collins is on this year’s list
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Dr. Damien P. Williams, dread portent down from a mountain cave @wolven.blacksky.app · 30/09/2026
I really just want like… 3/4th of the economy prosecuted for fraud. Is that really so much to ask?
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Tech Policy Press @techpolicypress.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Most state attorneys general released Meta from Cambridge Analytica-related claims as part of the child safety settlement. New Mexico wasn't part of that deal, and a jury there just found 26 of 29 past statements about Cambridge Analytica, hate speech and misinformation willfully deceptive.
buff.ly
Eight Years On, Cambridge Analytica Scandal Catches Up With Meta in Santa Fe
A jury found that Meta—then Facebook—misled the public in statements about Cambridge Analytica and its policies on hate speech, violence and misinformation.
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Tyler King @tyleraking.com · 29/09/2026
A key component of the Cambridge Analytica outrage was your friends subjecting you to data theft without your consent or knowledge. Facebook is running the same playbook on your text messages. Even if you’re not on Meta properties, they’re ingesting your interactions.
Aten installed Muse on both his iPhone and a Mac mini that he uses to test out various Al agents and tech. It took Meta a single day to begin "helpfully" pitching article ideas based on texts he'd sent to a podcast co-host.
When he asked Muse how it got the information, it said that it read banners from incoming texts. But that's not true, either.
After doing a little digging, Aten says Muse synced 187,000 lines from his Messages database, despite Full Disk Access being Off.Unless Aten is the most popular person on the face of the planet, I sincerely doubt he'd gotten 187,000 lines of text in roughly 24 hours. What happened is that, without permission, Muse went into the app and downloaded the information.
He had not given Muse permission to access Messages, and full disk access was not enabled. It just went ahead and uploaded those texts anyway.
Muse can take "unexpected actions" indeed.
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Claire Atkin @catthekin.checkmyads.org · 25/09/2026
I have a legal team for you. Please DM if you need it.
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Pookleblinky @pookleblinky.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Reminder that in Canada upon becoming an engineer you get an iron ring made of a collapsed bridge, purposely designed to be uncomfortable, to remind you that your ethics demand you give a fuck even about the boring grudgework of such as double-checking your math. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Ring
en.wikipedia.org
Iron Ring - Wikipedia
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Paris Marx @parismarx.com · 24/09/2026
Just when I think I can’t hate OpenAI and Sam Altman any more, new details come out about how ChatGPT helped a shooter plan one of the worst mass shootings in Canadian history in Tumbler Ridge, BC. OpenAI made an explicit decision not to report the user to authorities.
motherjones.com
ChatGPT helped the Tumbler Ridge school shooter focus on guns, tactics, and terror, our investigation reveals
OpenAI’s chatbot fed the shooter’s violent fantasies and planning up to the massacre.
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Alex Brown 🇵🇸 (they/them) @bookjockeyalex.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
As I'm sure many others have pointed out, this website is an AI scraper. This news is 6 years old. The company scrapes real news articles and rewrites them with an LLM, then republishes them for clicks.
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Jason "Red5" Lyall @jaylyall.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
ChatGPT gave the Tumbler Ridge school shooter tips on how to evade its own safeguards around violence, even helped plan the attack for maximum lethality and media coverage “Don’t use real-world locations,” ChatGPT said, later adding: “You can still be twisted. Just be clever about it.”
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Clara Jeffery @clarajeffery.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
We just dropped a bombshell investigation into ChatGPT's role in the Tumbler Ridge mass shooting. Incredible reporting from @markfollman.bsky.social that will have far-reaching effects...hopefully: www.motherjones.com/media/2026/0...
motherjones.com
ChatGPT helped the Tumbler Ridge school shooter focus on guns, tactics, and terror, our investigation reveals
OpenAI’s chatbot fed the shooter’s violent fantasies and planning up to the massacre.
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Claire Atkin @catthekin.checkmyads.org · 24/09/2026
Yes! Rage is a business model.
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David M. Perry @lollardfish.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
It’s the 20s and America is ready for an anti-vice campaign to sweep the nation.
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Claire Atkin @catthekin.checkmyads.org · 23/09/2026
I’m having conversations these days where friends just don’t believe me when I mention a piece of news. This will be one of those stories.
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Tech Policy Press @techpolicypress.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
'Worms’ are a type of malware that can self-replicate and autonomously spread across networks. Howard Fei argues Trump and Xi have a narrow window to agree on limits for AI-enabled adaptive worms before a shared risk becomes a shared crisis.
buff.ly
Trump and Xi Should Talk About Worms
The leaders should agree limits on the use of AI-enabled adaptive worms against civilian systems and critical infrastructure, writes Howard Fei.
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Claire Atkin @catthekin.checkmyads.org · 23/09/2026
Doom loop!
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Rachel Holliday Smith @rachelholliday.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
chat is this good www.axios.com/newsletters/...

1 big thing: Ø Link economy breaks
Total U.S. web traffic for top news sites
Visits to approximately 100 top sites;

Traffic to news sites is plummeting in the
U.S. as tech giants steer people away from search and toward AI.
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Fabio Chiusi @fabiochiusi.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
““any mention of civil rights, feminism or social reform [topics that are central to Woolf’s work] are usually classified as ‘social topics’ by our automatic system” and are filtered out.” www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
theguardian.com
Meta bans ads for Virginia Woolf play in Spain because they relate to feminism
Theatre told that Facebook and Instagram filter out ads mentioning ‘social topics’ such as civil rights or feminism
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Tech Policy Press @techpolicypress.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Surveying the AI ‘moment,’ Nathalie Maréchal says "the kooks are now in power, and they are using that power to dismantle the institutions designed to keep the rest of us safe, healthy, and free."
buff.ly
What Policymakers and the Public Need to Know About the Cult of AI
Nathalie Maréchal asks, why are we betting the economy and the future of democracy on cult-like beliefs?
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Claire Atkin @catthekin.checkmyads.org · 18/09/2026
Wow. I’ve asked every single AI leader I’ve met about this and now we have a name for it! DOOM LOOP: the idea that AI feeds off news without giving anything back to support the news production process, ultimately sickening the information ecosystem in a way that harms itself too. Like a parasite!
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Claire Atkin @catthekin.checkmyads.org · 18/09/2026
💀💀💀
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Jason Kint @kint.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Washington Post just moved an especially good report on the developments today. Highly recommend. /13 www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...
washingtonpost.com
Microsoft exec called AI the ‘largest theft of labor’ in history, court records show
The quote headlined an unsealed document in the New York Times’s copyright case against Microsoft and OpenAI.
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Jason Kint @kint.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Eye popping. Court just unsealed Summary Judgment motions in New York Times v OpenAI / Microsoft. Easy to see why the AI companies had so many redactions (pink). Their own people wrote the lede for NYT, the "largest theft of labor in human history"... "more and more substitutive..." /1
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Josh Sternberg @joshsternberg.com · 18/09/2026
This is an interesting retrospective of ads in the NYT over the last 175 years. Oddly, though it mentions a 1994 Delta ad informing readers the airline no longer allows smoking on its planes, it doesn't mention the NYT decision to stop running cigarette ads in 1999. advertising.nytimes.com/175/
advertising.nytimes.com
New York Times Advertising
Everything you need to know about advertising with The New York Times and the world’s most premium ad experiences. Learn more about our products, storytelling, audience targeting and more. Contact us ...
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Ian M Hartshorn @ianmhartshorn.com · 13/09/2026
It's 200 AD. A sign of wealth is a physical library. It's 1600 AD. A sign of wealth is a physical library. It's 1900 AD. A sign of wealth is a physical library. It's 2010 AD. A sign of wealth is a robust digital subscription optimization plan. It's 2030 AD. A sign of wealth is a physical library.
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Jared Yates Sexton @jysexton.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Man, that’s wild about the AI ending humanity thing and CEOs calling for government intervention. Weird that it’s coming as the whole bubble is about to pop and will likely mean nationalization and the final merger between the tech oligarchs, the state, and the military-industrial complex.
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Joseph Rezek @rezekjoe.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
You know what gets a library perpetual access to a book??? Purchasing the physical book. I guarantee the publisher won’t come steal it back!!!
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Andrew Couts @couts.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
NEW: The new Apple Watches double as AI-powered listening bugs for generating convo "recaps" or transcripts of any previous 15 seconds. But fear not, Apple says, this data isn't sent to Apple/gets encrypted, speakers aren't ID'd, and there's a chime for the 15-second thing. @lhn.bsky.social reports:
wired.com
Apple Doesn’t Want You to Worry About the New Apple Watch’s Listening Features
The new Apple Watch includes several “intelligent” listening features that have privacy and security baked in. But the protections can’t change the facts of what the tools do.
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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
“The Miami Herald will no longer have a Miami beat” is the state of local journalism in a nutshell. Really, really bad.
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Yoel Roth @yoyoel.com · 09/09/2026
Apple quietly dropped a ton of detail about the Apple Watch’s new always-on don’t-call-it-transcription feature and it is FASCINATING. support.apple.com/en-us/148354
Like all of our products and features, Audio Intelligence on Apple Watch was built from the ground up to protect your privacy.
• Audio is not recorded or stored. Audio Intelligence features don't create audio recordings. No audio can be accessed by the operating system, apps, you, or even Apple.
There is no recording to share, forward, or produce if requested by any party, because no recording exists.
• Raw audio is never accessible. Audio flows into a protected buffer inside the S11 chip's Secure Exclave — a hardware-isolated compartment built into the silicon of Apple Watch and iPhone that processes sensor data separately from the rest of the system. Data that is processed and analyzed in the Secure Exclave can't be accessed by the operating system, apps, you, or even Apple. Once processed, this data is immediately deleted.
• Siri Recap and Live Rewind help jog your memory, not provide a detailed record. Siri Recap doesn't produce a transcript. It generates a brief, high-level summary — comparable to notes you might jot down after a conversation. Live Rewind shows a text snippet of what was just said in the last 15 seconds, so you can catch something you missed.• No speaker attribution. By design, Audio Intelligence features don't identify and attribute speakers. Siri Recap may contain names if mentioned in the conversation, but doesn't directly attribute speakers (for example, "John said..." or labeling as "Speaker A" versus
"Speaker B"). Similarly, Live Rewind may transcribe what someone said word-for-word, but does not attribute quotes to speakers.
• Audible and visible signals for Live Rewind.
When activated, an audible chime plays from the speaker on your Apple Watch, even if your Apple Watch is on silent or you have headphones connected. A full-display animation and microphone indicator appear on the display, and a distinct double-press gesture is required to activate Live Rewind. This is to alert those nearby that the feature has been activated.
• Omitted content. Siri Recaps are designed to omit potentially harmful content, such as language that promotes self-harm or hateful speech, and sensitive information, such as financial data, government-assigned identifiers, authentication data, and certain personal identifiers.
• Be mindful of those around you. While audio is not recorded and stored, and no speakers are attributed, consider those around you where conversations might be private or sensitive.
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Dhruv Mehrotra @dmehro.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
NEW: Clearview AI built an AI tool designed to turn a face search into an automated investigation of a person’s life online — and tested it with a model from xAI, maker of Grok. The prototype could hunt for associates, social accounts, employers, addresses, and more. www.wired.com/story/clearv...
wired.com
Clearview AI Is Testing an AI Tool That Would Let Cops Unearth Your Life Online
InquiryIQ, a previously unreported prototype, tested a model from xAI, maker of Grok, to surface associates, social accounts, and other information about people identified through Clearview.
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A Meatwad on Elm Street @wrenispinkle.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
cool thing is this opinion piece was written by a guy who works for an advocacy group committed to opposing government regulations and unionization that’s funded by “Amazon, Uber, Meta, Google, Apple, Twitter, StubHub, and other technology companies” so we can all just tell him to shut the fuck up
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