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esto.bsky.social

@esto.bsky.social
28 followers 63 following 1 posts
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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 08/10/2026
I hate how good this is.
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Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
A phenomenon I've noticed recently is people trying to occupy some untenable middleground wrt to the use of systems sold as "AI" -- this is a position where people try to recognize the harms of this tech but also hold space for "responsible" or "ethical" use. 🧵>>
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Marisa Kabas @marisakabas.bsky.social · 23/05/2026
one interesting thing so far about loudly hating AI is the way AI lovers are like "wow so you're just totally closed off to hearing another perspective??" as if their perspective hasn't been relentlessly pushed down our throats with no space to push back (particularly in professional settings)
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Cabel Sasser @cabel.panic.com · 11/05/2026
this graduation speech moment is notable, and her amazed shock at having failed to read the room feels instructive. when you're inside the bubble, you think everybody else is. but everybody isn't.
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Toronto Star @thestar.com · 06/05/2026
OpenAI, the artificial intelligence company behind the hugely popular ChatGPT, collected “vast amounts” of Canadians’ personal information, a three-year probe from four Canadian privacy watchdogs has found.
thestar.com
ChatGPT collected ‘vast amounts’ of Canadians’ data without consent, privacy commissioners say
The artificial intelligence company behind the hugely popular ChatGPT collected "vast amounts" of Canadians' personal information and failed to obtain appropriate consent for doing so, a three-year pr...
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Katharine Hayhoe @katharinehayhoe.com · 06/05/2026
"Imagine every human decision – personal, professional, political – tested against one simple question: “If we were in a capsule looping around the Moon, would this be a safe use of our shared life support?” climate scientist Chris Rapley asks.
theconversation.com
Why we need to treat Earth like a spaceship
Climate science is the anti-myth. Researchers have long noted that the human brain struggles with psychologically distant threats.
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Paris Marx @parismarx.com · 21/04/2026
Perplexity’s CEO is just the latest tech leader to tell the public their jobs will be sacrificed on the altar of the glorious AI future. It’s a compelling narrative, but it distracts us from the real impact of AI: not to take the human out of the loop, but to take away their power and cut their pay
disconnect.blog
Sacrifice your job for the glorious AI future
How tech CEOs use the threat of job loss to distract from how AI is really used against workers
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The Guardian @theguardian.com · 15/04/2026
‘Misogyny with a marketing budget’: UK AI firm accused of sexist advert
theguardian.com
‘Misogyny with a marketing budget’: UK AI firm accused of sexist advert
Narwhal Labs ad for ‘AI employee’ contains strapline: ‘She outworks everyone. And she’ll never ask for a raise’ A British AI company that recently secured millions of pounds of investment has been accused of running a misogynistic and sexist advertising campaign. The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has received at least seven complaints about the campaign by Narwhal Labs, which includes an advert depicting a woman next to the strapline: “She outworks everyone. And she’ll never ask for a raise.” Continue reading...
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Srravya @srravya.bsky.social · 04/04/2026
"The questions we are litigating now are less ‘is this AI product good or bad’ and more ‘we have seen what it can do, and do we want AI to exist in this space at all?’" writes @bcmerchant.bsky.social on the shift from rejection to refusal of AI that he documents across different domains.
bloodinthemachine.com
It's open season for refusing AI
There's been a wave of successful efforts to ban, reject and shut down AI.
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Brian Merchant @bcmerchant.bsky.social · 20/03/2026
Shame is a powerful force in shaping which uses a society will tolerate for a given technology, and which it will not. There may be many reasonable uses for LLMs, but when they are used to degrade writing and writers' livelihoods, yelling 'we think this is bad' is a justifiable and moral response.
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The Narwhal @thenarwhal.ca · 10/03/2026
Policy restrictions make it nearly impossible to hold a natural burial in some jurisdictions. Here’s the story of one grieving family in Ontario that spent years fighting for natural burial options — and won. thenarwhal.ca/green-burial...
thenarwhal.ca
Breaking down barriers to green burials in Ontario | The Narwhal
An Ontario family’s struggle for a natural burial exemplifies the challenges faced by grieving families
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Sebastian Stockman @substockman.bsky.social · 05/03/2026
Next @vauhinivara.bsky.social proposition: “the future workforce will be dominated by A.I., and students should be prepared.” @alexhanna.bsky.social: “A.I. is not inevitable! You don’t have to work with shit. We don’t need A.I. literacy, we need information literacy.” #AWP26
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saghira efendi @taalluq.bsky.social · 06/03/2026
An AI manifesto that is self-claimed to be "pro-human", and also includes amingst its supporters... Steve Bannon. The whole thread is a must read 👇
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The Guardian @theguardian.com · 17/02/2026
ICE reliance on Microsoft technology surged amid immigration crackdown, documents show
theguardian.com
ICE reliance on Microsoft technology surged amid immigration crackdown, documents show
Exclusive: ICE more than tripled the amount of data stored in Microsoft’s cloud at the same time that its arsenal of surveillance technology ballooned Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deepened its reliance on Microsoft’s cloud technology last year as the agency ramped up arrest and deportation operations, leaked documents reveal. ICE more than tripled the amount of data it stored in Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform in the six months leading up to January 2026, a period in which the agency’s budget swelled and its workforce rapidly expanded, according to the files. Continue reading...
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Ed Zitron @edzitron.com · 11/02/2026
Microsoft, Google, Meta and Amazon paying influencers $400k-$600k to post months of AI hype content. Absolutely busted, failed industry, embarrassing era www.cnbc.com/2026/02/06/g...
cnbc.com
Google and Microsoft offer lucrative deals to promote AI, but even $500,000 won't sway some creators
Tech companies including Google and Microsoft are paying influencers hundreds of thousands of dollars to promote AI products.
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Brian Merchant @bcmerchant.bsky.social · 11/02/2026
The enormous AI expenditures firms need to justify, unprecedented hype machine, and actual automation utility are combining to position as a feature of management's arsenal for the foreseeable future. Power simply finds AI and AI logic extremely useful—whether it works well or not.
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Brian Merchant @bcmerchant.bsky.social · 11/02/2026
The way I look at this is whether or not the hype winds up bearing out—or even a fraction of it—we need to prepare for a long future in which bosses + management are incentivized at every level to proceed as if it's true; cutting labor costs, automating tasks, killing jobs.
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Go Green @ecowarriorss.bsky.social · 03/02/2026
‘Everything is hanging by a thread’: Holding the line for Vancouver Island’s ancient trees A forest defender tries to save an ancient Tree The shame of Canada logging hundreds of years old Trees and arresting those trying to protect them Tell the world ricochet.media/climate/ever...
ricochet.media
‘Everything is hanging by a thread’: Holding the line for Vancouver Island’s ancient trees
As RCMP crackdowns intensify in the Walbran Valley, forest defenders say the fight is about stopping old-growth logging before it’s too late
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The Guardian @theguardian.com · 11/02/2026
Point of no return: a hellish ‘hothouse Earth’ getting closer, scientists say
theguardian.com
Point of no return: a hellish ‘hothouse Earth’ getting closer, scientists say
Continued global heating could set irreversible course by triggering climate tipping points, but most people unaware The world is closer than thought to a “point of no return” after which runaway global heating cannot be stopped, scientists have said. Continued global heating could trigger climate tipping points, leading to a cascade of further tipping points and feedback loops, they said. This would lock the world into a new and hellish “hothouse Earth” climate far worse than the 2-3C temperature rise the world is on track to reach. The climate would also be very different to the benign conditions of the past 11,000 years, during which the whole of human civilisation developed. Continue reading...
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The Tyee @thetyee.ca · 04/02/2026
Politicians love to say youth are our future, but that doesn’t seem to stop their austerity measures from threatening higher education. Solomon Yi-Kieran writes. #bced #bcpoli #canpoli
thetyee.ca
As BC’s Universities Struggle, Students Are Ready to Fight | The Tyee
A deep drop in international students has led to a funding crisis. Cuts can’t be the answer.
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Timothy Snyder @timothysnyder.bsky.social · 02/02/2026
In Springfield, Ohio, people are preparing in advance of a “large deportation” promised by the president. To all appearances, the city is 2 or 3 days from a federal ethnic cleansing, grounded in a hate campaign organized by the vice-president and American Nazis. snyder.substack.com/p/ethnic-cle...
snyder.substack.com
Ethnic Cleansing in Ohio?
Nazi Lies in Vance's America
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Justin Hendrix @justinhendrix.bsky.social · 30/01/2026
A Minnesota woman observing ICE agents in her car was cornered on one-way streets. An agent approached, called her by name—citing facial recognition. Days later, her Global Entry and TSA privileges were revoked, with no explanation.
nytimes.com
How ICE Already Knows Who Minneapolis Protesters Are
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Adrienne Tanner @adriennetanner.bsky.social · 23/01/2026
Hundreds of workers responsible for pollution prevention, weather forecasting, conservation and environmental disaster response are set to be cut from ECCC as Prime Minister Mark Carney's government takes a chainsaw to the public service. www.nationalobserver.com/2026/01/23/n...
nationalobserver.com
Feds target hundreds of Environment and Climate Change Canada workers putting 'public safety and the environment at risk'
Hundreds of workers responsible for pollution prevention, weather forecasting, conservation and environmental disaster response are being at Environment and Climate Change Canada received workforce ad...
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The Guardian @theguardian.com · 22/01/2026
Experts warn of threat to democracy by ‘AI bot swarms’ infesting social media
theguardian.com
Experts warn of threat to democracy by ‘AI bot swarms’ infesting social media
Misinformation technology could be deployed at scale to disrupt 2028 US presidential election, AI researchers warn Political leaders could soon launch swarms of human-imitating AI agents to reshape public opinion in a way that threatens to undermine democracy, a high profile group of experts in AI and online misinformation has warned. The Nobel peace prize-winning free-speech activist, Maria Ressa, and leading AI and social science researchers from Berkeley, Harvard, Oxford, Cambridge and Yale are among a global consortium flagging the new “disruptive threat” posed by hard-to-detect, malicious “AI swarms” infesting social media and messaging channels. Continue reading...
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Christy Thornton @llchristyll.bsky.social · 02/12/2025
That our university leaders do not feel deeply embarrassed by the way they are being so transparently manipulated by bad-faith actors demonstrates the extent to which they agree with the substance of these anti-intellectual right-wing critiques
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Paris Marx @parismarx.com · 25/11/2025
There are many more bad tech products to avoid. But I keep coming back to @hypervisible.blacksky.app and David Golumbia’s concept of luxury surveillance. We need to really think about the surveillance tech we’re adopting — and certainly that we’re pushing on others. disconnect.blog/a-tech-criti...
Ultimately, a lot of these products make me think of a concept called luxury surveillance coined by Chris Gilliard and the late David Golumbia a few years ago. They were arguing that there’s a line where forms of surveillance can feel oppressive to some — particularly poorer and marginalized groups in society — but that more privileged groups can feel are actually benefiting from them by making their lives easier or more convenient. Yet, Gilliard and Golumbia argue that line can easily shift, and while the surveillance may once have felt it was worth the trade off, it can quickly become an oppressive force for a much wider swath of people.

“We need to develop a much deeper way of talking about surveillance technology and a much richer set of measures with which to regulate their use,” they wrote. “Just as much, we need to recognize that voluntarily adopting surveillance isn’t an isolated choice we make only for ourselves but one that impacts others in a variety of ways we may not recognize.” That’s something to consider in our everyday lives as much as when we’re choosing what to gift to others.
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Molly Crabapple @mollycrabapple.bsky.social · 18/11/2025
Hey authors! Check to see if Anthropic stole your book to train their slop generator on. You’re entitled to $1500 per stolen Work. Look up your work, and if you’re in the database, file a claim secure.anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com/lookup/
secure.anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com
Submit a Claim
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Iris van Rooij 💭 @irisvanrooij.bsky.social · 15/11/2025
“While the AI industry claims its models can “think,” “reason,” and “learn,” their supposed achievements rest on marketing hype and stolen intellectual labor. In reality, AI erodes academic freedom, weakens critical reading, and subordinates the pursuit of knowledge to corporate interests.”
project-syndicate.org
AI Is Hollowing Out Higher Education
Olivia Guest & Iris van Rooij urge teachers and scholars to reject tools that commodify learning, deskill students, and promote illiteracy.
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Bay Area Current @bayareacurrent.bsky.social · 06/11/2025
Fuck Waymo—Long Live Kit Kat! A self-driving car killed a beloved SF cat. Kit Kat's murder fits into the long history of tech companies using the Bay as a testing ground — at our expense. But the Bay has had enough. Read @alexhanna.bsky.social's searing take: bayareacurrent.com/fuck-waymo-l...
bayareacurrent.com
Fuck Waymo, Long Live KitKat
A self-driving car killed a beloved SF cat. It’s part of a long history of tech companies using the Bay as a testing ground at our expense. People have had enough.
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Jason Koebler @jasonkoebler.bsky.social · 06/11/2025
I talked to librarians, authors who have had their books banned, and groups that support them for this article. The glee with which schools, libraries, governments, and companies are replacing human workers and nuance with AI would not be possible w/o the successful war on schools and libraries
“One thing that I try to make clear any time I talk about book bans is that it’s not about the books, it’s about deputizing bigots to do the ugly work of defunding all of our public institutions of learning,” Maggie Tokuda-Hall, a cofounder of Authors Against Book Bans, told me. “The current proliferation of AI that we see particularly in the library and education spaces would be possible at the speed and scale that is happening without the precedent of book bans leading into it. They are very comfortable bedfellows because once you have created a culture in which all expertise is denigrated and removed from the equation and considered nonessential, you create the circumstances in which AI can flourish.”

Justin, a cohost of the podcast librarypunk, told me that the project of offloading cognitive capacity to AI continues apace: “Part of a fascist project to offload the work of thinking, especially the reflective kind of thinking that reading, study, and community engagement provide,” Justin said. “That kind of thinking cultivates empathy and challenges your assumptions. It's also something you have to practice. If we can offload that cognitive work, it's far too easy to become reflexive and hateful, while having a robot cheerleader telling you that you were right about everything all along.”
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Jason Koebler @jasonkoebler.bsky.social · 06/11/2025
The long-running ideological war on libraries, education, and government workers is not separate from AI boosterism. It is the same ideological war on human knowledge and expertise. In some cases AI is being used to directly supercharge this effort: www.404media.co/ai-is-superc...
404media.co
AI Is Supercharging the War on Libraries, Education, and Human Knowledge
"Fascism and AI, whether or not they have the same goals, they sure are working to accelerate one another."
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safe-climate @safe-climate.bsky.social · 03/11/2025
They lied as well as knew! Exxon funded rightwing thinktanks to spread climate change denial across Latin America. Documents reveal a coordinated campaign to make the global south “less inclined” to support the climate treaty process. @geoffdembicki.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/environment/...
theguardian.com
Exxon funded thinktanks to spread climate denial in Latin America, documents reveal
Texas-based fossil fuel company financed Atlas Network in attempt to derail UN-led climate treaty process
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The Tyee @thetyee.ca · 31/10/2025
If you think the #COVID19 pandemic is done and ever-evolving variants pose no significant threat, consider these two realities, writes contributing editor Andrew Nikiforuk.
thetyee.ca
This Physicist Says We Don’t Take COVID Seriously Enough | The Tyee
We downplay the virus at our peril, warns Yaneer Bar-Yam. And children are more at risk than we thought.
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Miriam Posner @miriamposner.com · 28/10/2025
Whatever strategy you’re about to suggest, we’ve thought about it. docs.google.com/document/d/1...
docs.google.com
ChatGPT Harm Reduction for Writing Assignments
ChatGPT Harm Reduction for Writing Assignments Because this document has escaped containment, a couple points of explanation. I wrote this for myself and a few colleagues as we work out how to handle...
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Rachel Hands @rachelhands.com · 18/10/2025
here is my favorite sign from today
square concrete slab on the ground with “OLD DYKES AGAINST TECH BROS” stenciled onto it
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Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 17/10/2025
In about three years the entire university pivot to AI curricula and schools and programs is going to be so deeply embarrassing. We will all pretend it never happened and I will be standing there, looking at people with a mirror in my eyes. This is all so embarrassing.
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Still COVIDing Canada @stillcovidingca.bsky.social · 01/10/2025
Long Covid Risk for Children Doubles After a Second Infection, Study Finds The New York Times September 30, 2025 By Pam Belluck 🎁 includes a gift link stillcoviding.ca/en/news/long... #COVID #LongCovid #CovidIsNotOver
stillcoviding.ca
Long Covid Risk for Children Doubles After a Second Infection, Study Finds
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Paris Marx @parismarx.com · 04/09/2025
i struggle to find any ethical justification for using AI-generated imagery in any circumstances, even if it’s for critique of AI or art projects supposed to make you question it
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The Globe and Mail @theglobeandmail.com · 04/09/2025
theglobeandmail.com
Laurentian University finds buyer for former art gallery, despite protests that it doesn’t have the right to sell
Hundreds of Canadian artists and Sudbury residents have signed an open letter protesting the sale
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Tech Won’t Save Us @techwontsave.us · 04/09/2025
AI companies warn their tech will wipe out huge numbers of jobs. But what are workers finding? This week @bcmerchant.bsky.social is back to chat with @parismarx.com about whether the AI bubble is bursting and how bosses are using AI hype against workers. Full ep: techwontsave.us/episode/292_...
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Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · 04/09/2025
a useful counterweight to the criticism the left endlessly gets on here for "purity testing" from liberals (and sectarianism among fellow travelers). having standards, principles, and self-respect is Good Actually
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Alma Avalle @goodbyealma.bsky.social · 03/09/2025
jobs are either "Grant Writer ($32,165–$33,165)" or "Senior Vice President of Child Slaughter ($650,000–$750,000, 401k/medical/dental/vision/you can touch the art at museums)"
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Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 02/09/2025
Mic drop from @abeba.bsky.social at UNESCO Digital Learning Week
Slide: There are no shortcuts--'ugly social realities' 
Fear of being left out a fabricated & marketing public relations rhetoric 
Evidence, rigorous testing and evaluation 
AI in education = commercialization of a collective responsibility 
Outsourcing a social, civic, and democratic process of cultivating the coming generation to commercial and capitalist enterprise whose priority is profit
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Dr. Damien P. Williams, dread portent down from a mountain cave @wolven.blacksky.app · 22/08/2025
Louisiana has to build three new natural gas power plants to accommodate the "AI" data center that Meta just crammed through because said center will use *Three Times* as much electricity (and, thus, attendant resources) as the *Entire City Of New Orleans*, every year. Y'all this isn't sustainable.
kplctv.com
La. regulators approve Entergy power plants for Meta’s AI data center
Louisiana Public Service Commissioners voted four to one to approve Entergy’s three new gas plants to power Meta’s largest-ever data center.
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Brian Merchant @bcmerchant.bsky.social · 22/08/2025
Make 👏 mass 👏 surveillance 👏 more 👏 equal
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Kat Tenbarge @kattenbarge.bsky.social · 18/08/2025
The people dominating our political landscape, culture, and economy are just so stupid and full of shit it's almost impossible to describe
A transcription of a conversation between OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and podcast host Theo Von on Von's podcast, in an excerpt from the Atlantic article "AI is a mass-delusion event" by Charlie Warzel: 

"Sam Altman: I do guess that a lot of the world gets covered in data centers over time.

Theo Von: Do you really?

Altman: But I don’t know, because maybe we put them in space. Like, maybe we build a big Dyson sphere around the solar system and say, “Hey, it actually makes no sense to put these on Earth.”

Von: Yeah.

Altman: I wish I had, like, more concrete answers for you, but, like, we’re stumbling through this."
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The Globe and Mail @theglobeandmail.com · 12/08/2025
theglobeandmail.com
BenchSci cuts 23% of jobs, becoming latest company to replace humans with AI
Before adding new people or processes, CEO asks: ‘Could AI do this?’
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The Beaverton @thebeaverton.com · 09/08/2025
Canada: “We are prepared to issue as many empty statements as necessary to stop this genocide”
thebeaverton.com
Canada: "We are prepared to issue as many empty statements as necessary to stop this genocide"
OTTAWA – Two months after issuing one statement promising “concrete actions” if Israel did not stop intentionally starving Palestinians in Gaza, Canada has joined with 24 other nations to issue a new ...
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esto.bsky.social @esto.bsky.social · 07/08/2025
www.thestar.com/news/gta/how...
thestar.com
How do Canadian officials detect plagiarized refugee claims?
While the refugee board denies the use of AI in its claim processing, the Immigration Department is less clear on how it identifies these cases.
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Paris Marx @parismarx.com · 06/08/2025
Microsoft can no longer deny it’s directly enabling the oppression and genocide of Palestinians by Israel. “According to three Unit 8200 sources, the cloud-based storage platform has facilitated the preparation of deadly airstrikes and has shaped military operations in Gaza and the West Bank.”
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