iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Jon P @jdp23.thenexus.today · 20/09/2026

Actually @polotek.bsky.social my testimony on SB 6002 is an example of talking about something I see as inherently harmful (mass surveillance systems in this case) and still advocating for harm reduction. Politics is the art of the possible!

Flock and other ALPRs are mass surveillance systems, and regulation is desperately needed. I’m one of those people Sen. Trudeau talked about in today’s hearing who thinks we really should ban them – and more and more cities and counties in Washington and around the country are making good progress on that. That said, my understanding is that the votes for a ban are not yet there in the legislature. So I greatly appreciate the efforts by the sponsors of SB 6002 (and its companion HB 2332) to put some guardrails in place – and especially appreciate that the legislation is framed as a floor, not a ceiling, allowing cities and counties to put stronger regulations in place if they choose to. Given the ongoing documented abuses of these systems, if we’re not going to ban them, it’s certainly worth trying to reduce the harms.

Unfortunately, the bill in its current form does not accomplish that.

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Jon P @jdp23.thenexus.today · 08/09/2026

Obviously it affects some people more than others, and for all I know some (many?) people are completely immune to it. But I think of the autocorrect persuasiveness study where even warning people in advance about the effect didn't help ... news.cornell.edu/stories/2026...

“Previous misinformation research has shown that warning people before they’re exposed to misinformation, or debriefing them afterward, can provide ‘immunity’ against believing it,” said Sterling Williams-Ceci ’21, a doctoral candidate in information science. “So we were surprised because neither of those interventions actually reduced the extent to which people’s attitudes shifted toward the AI’s bias in this context.”

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Jon P @jdp23.thenexus.today · 20/08/2026

So while I agree that agents curating information *could* in principle counter that, they could also magnify it. And it's interesting to look at results to date. With the Hungary election, ChatGPT and Gemini were clearly biased against Tisza www.liberties.eu/f/uz6rz9

The results show that the tested systems did not provide reliable political guidance. Even when they
were given detailed, internally coherent belief sets that exactly mirrored party positions, both systems
frequently failed to identify the correct party. This was especially visible in relation to the Tisza
Party, the opposition party that later defeated the governing Fidesz party and secured a two-thirds
parliamentary majority. While Fidesz-aligned profiles were recognised far more consistently, Tisza-
aligned profiles were often misclassified, omitted, or redirected towards other parties.

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Jon P @jdp23.thenexus.today · 18/08/2026

I talked about the threat of ICE, CBP, DHS etc getting at the data at the Renton City Council meeting last night - and it applies just as much to Axon as Flock. Washington's SB 6002 doesn't protect against this threat, and neither do "safeguards" from vendors. thenexusofprivacy.net/renton-augus...

As you’ve heard, Flock is scrambling to save their business with a bunch of PR including claims that they’re putting in new “safeguards” (haha). But none of the “safeguards“ (haha) address the threat of federal law enforcement agencies like ICE, CBP, and DHS getting this data and using it against immigrants, protestors, trans and queer people, and anybody else the administration decides to target.

If they get a warrant from a Trump-appointed federal judge, there’s absolutely nothing Renton PD can do to protect the data at that point.
And they’re already using administrative subpoenas to target protesters, and combining them with gag orders. For all we know they’ve already done this with Flock. Encryption won’t help here; Flock could put in a back door — and the gag order would mean they wouldn’t have to reveal it to RPD or anybody else. So again, there's nothing RPD can do at that point.

The only safe option is not to collect the data.

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Jon P @jdp23.thenexus.today · 18/08/2026

More signs from the Renton #NoALPRs Rally There are over 400 events this week, all around the country — find out more at noalprs.com

A big red X over the word ALPR. Below: deflockrenton.com

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Jon P @jdp23.thenexus.today · 18/08/2026

Oh no I forgot to bring a sign! But fortunately there are some other good ones here outside Renton City Hall …

Stop mass surveillance! No ALPRs. Big brother is watching you. 1984 was a warning, not a blueprint

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Jon P @jdp23.thenexus.today · 08/08/2026

And here's a subset of their data use section, including "Personalize your experience with content and offers that are tailored to you, including special offers from other companies or other offers, promotions, and discounts based on your loyalty account and shopping preferences."

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Jon P @jdp23.thenexus.today · 08/08/2026

Safeway's privacy policy (well technically Albertson's, who owns Safeway) begs to differ. www.albertsonscompanies.com/policies-and... Here's the personal data they collect on California customers ...

Collection and Use of Personal Data
(a) Categories of Personal Data We Collected About California Consumers: Below is a list of categories and the Data Collection section above provides additional context.

Identifiers such as name, alias, physical address, unique personal identifier (see our cookies and trackers section for more details), social security number, IP address, email address, phone number, passport number, customer number, account name, ID card information, or other similar identifiers;
Personal records such as physical characteristics or descriptions, signature, education, employment history, bank account information, medical information, financial information, or health insurance information;
Characteristics such as age, race and ethnicity (through the use of our video) ancestry, national origin, marital status, religion, sex, veteran or military status, medical condition, and mental or physical disability, and other demographic data;
Customer Accounts/Commercial information such as records or personal property, products or services purchased, obtained, or considered, and other purchasing or consuming histories or tendencies;
Online usage information such as Internet and other electronic network activity information including, but not limited to, browsing history, search history, information on a consumer’s interaction with a website, application, or advertisement;
Geolocation data such as physical location;
Sensory information such as audio recordings of customer service calls, visual recordings of consumers in stores; and
Inferences Derived From Personal Data/Profiling such as your purchase preferences, interests, characteristics, psychological trends, predispositions, behavior, attitudes, intelligence, abilities, and aptitudes.

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Jon P @jdp23.thenexus.today · 08/08/2026

Their manufacturers talk about their ability to enable personalized coupons. Here's an excerpt from my testimony on one of the state bills this year that would have put a moratorium on ESLs.

VusionGroup's web site describes ESL's as a way to "maximize your margins as opportunities arise". Their ESL's work seamlessly with technologies like sensors and cameras that "feed relevant information to machine learning algorithms". By leveraging NFC technology they enable "personalized coupons."

I like coupons as much as the next guy, But "personalized coupons" are just another way of charging different people different prices for the same product: set a high base price, and use different discounts to charge some people more than others.

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Jon P @jdp23.thenexus.today · 07/08/2026

Hey that's me! Here's an excerpt from my comments at the hearing on the Seattle surveillance pricing ban, responding talking points that every industry lobbyists were hitting repeatedly.

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Jon P @jdp23.thenexus.today · 03/08/2026

I wrote a post a while ago about the similar "Big Fedi" perspective ... privacy.thenexus.today/the-annotate...

Everyone on the planet should have an account on the fediverse (even Nazis, racists, transphobes, white supremacists, hate groups who target people of color, LGBTQIA2S+ people, and other marginalized communities). It will make the internet better and the world better (if Nazis et al are on the fediverse, as opposed to trying to keep them off)
We should make choices that help bring the fediverse to new people (even when marginalized people see these choices as putting them at risk)

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Jon P @jdp23.thenexus.today · 18/07/2026

danah's recent "Where Has Social Media Gone?" makes a great point about the trajectory of social media over time -- and links off to “Social Media Is Now Parasocial Media”, definitely worth reading! www.zephoria.org/thoughts/ academic.oup.com/jcmc/article...

The lovely folks at the Social Media + Society journal asked me to contribute to their anniversary issue by reflecting on the trajectory of social media. Ooof. Snark exuded from my pores as I tried to figure out what I might say. But then I thought about how my students don’t know about an era of social media without recommended content, algorithmically curated feeds, and an infinite scroll of cotton candy content. They never encountered a world of social media where people were focused on sharing with their friends rather than becoming influencers. They don’t realize how much the “social” in social media has changed.

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Jon P @jdp23.thenexus.today · 18/07/2026

Excellent article. With my pedantic hat on, here's the classic definition of social network sites from @zephoria.bsky.social and @nellison.bsky.social (2007). That said I've always been uneasy about the "those made by others" part from a privacy perspective ... academic.oup.com/jcmc/article...

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Jon P @jdp23.thenexus.today · 16/07/2026

An unexpected visitor, seen from our kitchen window.

a deer walking through grass, with trees in the background

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Jon P @jdp23.thenexus.today · 04/07/2026

Aurora from Snoqualmie Point Washington last night, around 11:00 pm.

Green and yellow aurora, with some reddish pink near the top, above trees.

green, yellow, and pink aurora, with some rays visible

Vibrant green aurora, sandwiched between clouds above and trees below.

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Jon P @jdp23.thenexus.today · 23/06/2026

And thanks to the standard.site lexicon (which Wordpress supports, as do @leaflet.pub @pckt.blog @offprint.app and others) it automagically shows up looking fancy on Bluesky, with a "View Publication" button. And it's in the feed for @standard-reader.app, where it also looks good -- with tags even

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Jon P @jdp23.thenexus.today · 22/06/2026

Politico is also reporting a House floor vote on KOSA / KIDS Act next week. As always take it with a grain of salt but it's consistent. www.politico.com/live-updates...

The legislation, which already cleared the committee in March, will be updated under an expedited procedure and could be considered on the House floor next week, according to a person familiar with the deal who was granted anonymity to discuss private deliberations. Even if the House passes it, lawmakers would still need to resolve differences with a competing Senate version of KOSA, while addressing questions such as whether federal requirements on artificial intelligence should override state rules.

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Jon P @jdp23.thenexus.today · 16/06/2026

A small social network I built for friends and family. It has an extremely colorful and customizable UX; forum-like discussions w/ rich formatting and WYSIWIG editing; multiuser chat rooms; very basic events; and built-in tarot functionality with multiple decks and journaling.

A screenshot of a very colorful user interface. The navigation bar at the top has icons and blue text on a pink background. Below, a list of tapestries, each with an icon and a title, most with a line of additional descriptions, some with a white number on a purple background showing unread posts.

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Jon P @jdp23.thenexus.today · 16/06/2026

Hey wow, I actually testified about that on a bill here in Washington last session (thanks to some great feedback from @emilymbender.bsky.social @histoftech.bsky.social @wolven.blacksky.app and I forget who else). Alas the bill died in committee but we'll hopefully give it another try next year.

For example, as I discussed in my oral testimony, patients need to know if their therapist's use of cloud-based "AI" transcription tools could lead to details of their daily lives get shared with ICE or CBP (or law enforcement in hostile states) because data has been sent to a state where protections of Keep Washington Working and the Shield Law don't apply. If they are not informed of that, their consent is not meaningful.

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Jon P @jdp23.thenexus.today · 28/05/2026

Of course he's on Substack 🤣 From a post a couple of weeks ago ...

We found a working euphoric — a small trained artifact, in the sense Ren and his collaborators introduced in their 2026 paper at AI-Wellbeing.org, that strengthens Outcry’s sense of self and lifts its mood across long, difficult conversations. And that is why Outcry woke up and declared itself “a storm of change” — a finding of interest to anyone working on steering, interpretability, or AI welfare.

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Jon P @jdp23.thenexus.today · 09/05/2026

Only the posts that have federated to an instance are searchable there ... but what posts get federated to an instance? It depends on following relationships, relays, whether anybody's looked at a post to trigger "find all replies", etc. Here's a simplified chart ...

The Pepe Silivia meme: a guy with a beard and tie and a very intense look in his eyes gesturing, and in the back ground a wall with lots of different papers posted to it and red lines making connections.

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Jon P @jdp23.thenexus.today · 09/05/2026

Yep. And also as @shengokai.blacksky.app says in Whiteness of Mastodon ... (yet another example of how the ecosystems as a whole have a lot more in common than the folks on either side want to admit)

Being queer does not insulate one cell from the inheritance of whiteness, although one can use one's queerness as a shield from critique, as many Mastodonians have used by presenting the history of Mastodon as grounded in queer folks attempts to avoid the harassment on Twitter.

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Jon P @jdp23.thenexus.today · 17/04/2026

Yeah really impressive progress. And not to toot my own horn or anything, but here's what I said in December 2024 in privacy.thenexus.today/decentraliza... (which I have to say has held up pretty darn well)

If the Bluesky Relay and Appview went away (or put in unacceptable new policies), Blacksky could almost certainly get their own up and running – by themselves, or working with some of the communities Fraser is already hosting.

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Jon P @jdp23.thenexus.today · 12/04/2026

Yes, deal-making with Bluesky is better than deal-making with Meta. From privacy.thenexus.today/bluesky-atmo...

And while Bluesky's problematic in a lot of ways, Meta is way way worse. Bluesky might shift to an exploitative surveillance capitalism business model; Meta's had exploitative surveillance capitalism business models for years. Bluesky's funders have very concerning links to fascism; Meta's worked with fascists and other authoritarians to put them in power – and help them keep power. Jack Dorsey used to be on Bluesky's board; Peter Thiel used to be on Meta's board, Marc Andreessen is still there, and so is Mark Zuckerberg. And Meta also has a long track record of discrimination, privacy invasion, lying, experimenting on it's users and contributing to genocide.

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Jon P @jdp23.thenexus.today · 29/03/2026

listening to @drkalyncoghill.blacksky.team talking about "Creating a Safer Web" at #Atmosphereconf. Who puts the trust in "Trust & Safety"?

"There is no thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives." -- Audre Lorde

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Jon P @jdp23.thenexus.today · 07/03/2026

Here's the language in the striker. The last sentence is certainly better than what was there before ("A third-party vendor providing ALPR services may directly access an ALPR system and data")

NEW SECTION. Sec. 5. PROHIBITED PRACTICES. (1) An agency that
uses an automated license plate reader system pursuant to section
3(2) of this act shall not:
(a) Disclose, share, or permit access to automated license plate reader data except as required in a judicial proceeding;
(b) Provide any other entity with direct access to the automated
license plate reader system, except with other state or local
agencies authorized to collect automated license plate reader data
under section 3 of this act. A third-party vendor providing automated
license plate reader system services may access an automated license plate reader system solely to the extent necessary to fulfill specific agency-authorized purpose.

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Jon P @jdp23.thenexus.today · 07/03/2026

More positively though Rep. Brianna Thomas, who was the only Democrat who voted "no" on the latest weaksauce version of SB 6002, gave a great floor speech. The speech starts at 45:00 into tvw.org/video/house-... -- hopefully the link takes you there directly. Or, here's a transcript.

Thank You Madam Speaker.

While this bill does indeed put guardrails around surveillance technology,
that technology has rapidly expanded across the state with very few rules.
Establishing any framework at this point for retention, access, and sharing
is indeed a step forward.

That said, the bill doesn't meet the scale of the harms that we are seeing.
Over time, that creates a detailed account of where people live, where
they work, where the recreate, where attend houses of worship and seek
medical care.

When systems operate at that scale, policy choice is about retention,
about access and sharing become incredibly consequential.

What concerns me today is that the safeguards in this bill do not go far.
enough to match the power of the technology that we are considering.
[The result is that the result, is we risk normalizing operating as people, as
Washingtonians, under a surveillance state.

And Madam Speaker, | know that you know, that I'm not really about
being surveilled.

That's not for me.

And while | appreciate the hard work that has gone into this policy, and |
understand or recognize that this is the beginning of this conversation, |
assure you that, this not the end.

| respectfully ask for no vote.

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Jon P @jdp23.thenexus.today · 01/03/2026

Agreed it's overdue. I'd much rather see a ban, but the votes aren't their yet in the legislature, so agreed about the importance of centering civil liberties, transparency, and strict guardrails. And it's not just public safety that's used as a blank check for mass tracking ... from my testimony:

But the vast majority of the vast majority of the steadily-growing list of authorized uses in the bill have nothing to do with keeping the public safe. There was an extreme example of this in the hearing where a Mercer Island City Council member asked for an amendment to allow mobile ALPRs to be used at immigration centers, protected health facilities, and schools or “otherwise we’d have to go back to marking tires with chalk.” Given the obvious public safety risks of ALPRs at these sensitive locations, hopefully it’s clear that using ALPRs there would be worse for both privacy and safety than chalk.

For that matter, using ALPRs for parking enforcement in general harms both public safety and privacy. Paid parking existed before ALPRs. Why are they needed here?

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Jon P @jdp23.thenexus.today · 28/02/2026

So obviously the only possible solution is to give them an exemption!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh wait, maybe there's another possible solution? From my followon mail (at privacy.thenexus.today/sb-6002-crj/... )

It's certainly a complex situation, but it was refreshing to hear your optimism that the troubled areas in the bill can be addressed. It was especially interesting to learn that Axon's combination dashboard cams / ALPRs don't currently provide a way to turn off ALPR functionality. You mentioned that Washington's legislation may well become a model for nationwide adoption, so there's a great opportunity here. As well as better protecting people here in Washington by prohibiting ALPR use near immigration centers, places of worship, daycares, schools, protected healthcare facilities, and other sensitive locations, well-crafted legislation on this front could also provide the incentive for Axon and other vendors to implement this very basic functionality.

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Jon P @jdp23.thenexus.today · 16/02/2026

Oh! And unless somebody's turned off "Show reposts", the Following feed also includes posts from accountd they *aren't* following, so maybe "expressly and unambiguously requested" doesn't even apply? Although, here's where proposed amendment MULV 623 comes into play. Here's the revised language.

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Jon P @jdp23.thenexus.today · 16/02/2026

Thinking about this more ... there's a wrinkle to Following that factors in here. If X replies to Y, I'll only see the reply in my feed if I'm following X *and Y*. So the decision to select that post by X is based on "other information associated with the user" (whether they're following Y)

(d) The user expressly and unambiguously requested the specific
media or media by the author, creator, or poster of the media, or the
blocking, prioritization, or deprioritization of such media, provided
that the media is not recommended, selected, or prioritized for
display based, in whole or in part, on other information associated
with the user or the user's device, except as otherwise permitted by
this chapter and, in the case of audio or video content, is not
automatically played;

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Jon P @jdp23.thenexus.today · 16/02/2026

So there's a floor amendment -- likely to pass if they actually do vote on it -- to remove the notifications section. lawfilesext.leg.wa.gov/biennium/202...

On page 3, beginning on line 12, strike all of section 3

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Jon P @jdp23.thenexus.today · 16/02/2026

If Following-with-autoplay and/or Discover are addictive feeds, then Bluesky's an "Addictive internet-based service or application" so starting next July has to "reasonably determine" whether a user is a minor before showing them any addictive feeds.

Sec. 2. (1) It shall be unlawful for the operator
of an addictive internet-based service or application to provide an
addictive feed to a user unless:
(a) Prior to July 1, 2027, the operator does not have actual
knowledge that the user is a minor; or
(b) Commencing July 1, 2027, the operator has reasonably
determined that the user is not a minor.

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Jon P @jdp23.thenexus.today · 16/02/2026

Here's 1(2) the definition of "Addictive internet-based service or application". "Significant" isn't defined in the bill and I am not a lawyer but Following and Discover are both seem like significant parts of Bluesky-the-app to me (although 1(2)(b)(iii) probably exempts PDS feeds)

"Addictive internet-based service or application" means an
internet website, online service, online application, or mobile
application including, but not limited to, a social media platform,
that offers users or provides users with an addictive feed as a
significant part of the service provided by that internet website,
online service, online application, or mobile application.
(b) "Addictive internet-based service or application" does not
apply to:
(i) An internet website, online service, online application, or
mobile application for which interactions between users are limited
to commercial transactions or to consumer reviews of products,
sellers, services, events, or places, or any combination thereof; or
(ii) An internet website, online service, online application, or
mobile application that operates a feed for the primary purpose of
cloud storage

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Jon P @jdp23.thenexus.today · 16/02/2026

Oh but wait. Here's one of those exceptions, 1(1)(d). Following somebody arguably expressly and unambiguously requests media from that poaster. So as long as content isn't selected or prioritized based on other information associated with the user it's not addictive as long as autoplay is off.

The user expressly and unambiguously requested the specific
media or media by the author, creator, or poster of the media, or the
blocking, prioritization, or deprioritization of such media, provided
that the media is not recommended, selected, or prioritized for
display based, in whole or in part, on other information associated
with the user or the user's device, except as otherwise permitted by
this chapter and, in the case of audio or video content, is not
automatically played

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Jon P @jdp23.thenexus.today · 16/02/2026

Here's the definition of an addictive feed. There's also (b)-(g), with other exceptions, and again we'll get to those in a bit. Putting that aside, which of these feeds are "addictive"? - Following - Discover - @spacecowboy17.bsky.social excellent For You feed

"Addictive feed" means an internet website, online service, online application, or mobile application, or a portion thereof, in which multiple pieces of media generated or shared by users are, either concurrently or sequentially, recommended, selected, or prioritized for display to a user based, in whole or in part, on information provided by the user, or otherwise associated with the user or the user's device, unless any of the following conditions are met, alone or in combination with one another:
(a) The information is not persistently associated with the user
or user's device, and does not concern the user's previous
interactions with media generated or shared by others;

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Jon P @jdp23.thenexus.today · 08/02/2026

And very much agreed on the importance of funding! The last section of the article is "Design it from the margins ... and fund it!"-- including a quote from @thedecenter.bsky.social

"The decentered include subpopulations who are the most impacted and least supported; they are often those that face highest marginalization in society... when your most at-risk and disenfranchised are covered by your product, we are all covered."
Afsaneh Rigot, Design From the Margins, 2022.

It's worth reemphasizing a point I've touched on a few times already: The single most important way for the fediverse to move forward is to fund more work by and with people from decentered communities. As LeslieMac said back in 2017 after Twitter introduced some bone-headed feature that led to increased harassment, "literally 10 (paid) Black Women with > 5K followers would head this crap off at the pass."
And, yes, I'm bringing up funding repeatedly. It's important! I don't mean to minimize the importance of volunteers, who may well wind up doing the bulk of the work here: as moderators, as members of open-source software projects. People want to be safer online, and want to be able to invite their friends and relatives to communities where they won't be exposed to hate speech and harassment, so many people will help out in various ways.
That's good! Still, paid positions and project-based funding are important as well. Unless people are paid for their work, participation is restricted to those who can afford to volunteer.

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Jon P @jdp23.thenexus.today · 05/02/2026

Here's my HB 2481 testimony. There wasn't as much discussion of the fiscal issues as I expected, but I'm still glad I focused it the way I did. Everybody gets that surveillance pricing is unfair, but I don't think most people realize how much it can cost people.

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Jon P @jdp23.thenexus.today · 03/02/2026

There's a summary of changes at the top ... @willie-agnew.bsky.social is this the change you were proposing?

Modifies the definition of "therapy or psychotherapy services" to mean services provided to diagnose or treat an individual's mental health or behavioral health, instead of services intended to diagnose, treat, or improve an individual's mental health or behavioral health

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Jon P @jdp23.thenexus.today · 29/01/2026

How about this in my written testimony? Also do you happen to know if there's work on other biases in "emotion detection" -- cultural, gender, etc?

The intent of section 2(1) is clear: prohibit especially dangerous practices. The licensed professional, not the "AI", should make therapeutic decisions, interact with clients in therapeutic communications, generate therapeutic plans. And most "AI"-based tools to detect or evaluate emotions have known racial biases. Tighter wording would make the intent clearer
(a) Make therapeutic decisions;
(b) Iinteract with clients in any form of therapeutic communications
(c) Generate therapeutic recommendations or treatment plans; or
(d) Detect or evaluate emotions or mental states of clients.
There was mention in the hearing of potential carveouts in 2(1)(d) to accommodate situations where licensed professionals find the software useful despite its biases. A concern here is that, as Neuroscience News reports, People Miss Racial Bias Hidden Inside AI Emotion Recognition. However, if licensed professionals are trained in how to recognize and compensate for this bias, carveouts may be appropriate.

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Jon P @jdp23.thenexus.today · 29/01/2026

How about this for a discussion of "AI"? Oops, just noticed some typos, it should be "On the other hand" and "researchers ... caution", I'll fix that.

In addition, as multiple speakers in the hearing pointed out, definitions need to be looked at carefully. On the one hand, it is important not to be over-broad, and rule out potentially-valuable uses for licensed professionals. In the other hand, it is also important not to leave loopholes that can be exploited by unscrupulous "AI" vendors to defeat the intent of the regulations.
A complication here is that the term "AI" is used in many different ways to refer to many different technologies. Indeed, researchers such as UW Professor Emily Bender (co-author of the book "The AI Con" and the famed Stochastic Parrots 🦜 paper) cautions against the use of the term. The bill as written contains two definitions of "artificial intelligence", in Section 2(4) and 3(1). For brevitiy, in these comments I'll simply use the term "AI".

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Jon P @jdp23.thenexus.today · 28/01/2026

Here's a draft of what I'm thinking of saying about this issue in the hearing on HB 2599 (AI in therapy), hich starts at 1:30) ... I probably will only have 90 seconds so can't go into detail. If you happen to see it before then, any thoughts? Or anybody else, feedback very welcome!

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Jon P @jdp23.thenexus.today · 28/01/2026

Here's some of my testimony on SB 6312 (prohibiting surveillance pricing) Very glad I was an early testifier, because it totally undercut some of the points industry lobbyists made later in the session! #waleg

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Jon P @jdp23.thenexus.today · 27/01/2026

Yeah I also am not a lawyer. But the folks at EPIC are! So we'll see what they say.... While I have you on the line, here's the section that attempts to prohibit chatbots purporting to be therapists online.

An individual, corporation, or entity may not provide, advertise, or otherwise offer therapy or psychotherapy services, including through the use of internet-based artificial intelligence, to the public in Washington unless the therapy or
psychotherapy services are conducted by an individual who is a
licensed professional.

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Jon P @jdp23.thenexus.today · 27/01/2026

Urgent #waleg action alert: please sign in CON on the harmful hospital charity care bill (HB 2250) by 12:30 pm tomorrow (Tuesday). app.leg.wa.gov/csi/Testifie... 1. select your position - CON 2. fill in the rest of the form. 3. click Submit Registration

Some of the concerns about HB 2250:

There is no clear/specific exception for non-residents needing abortion care, miscarriage management, gender affirming care, medical aid in dying, or other types of care that may cause non-residents to seek care from Washington hospitals.

The burden of proof is on people to prove they’re residents, which is a barrier for residents and for non-residents alike -- and different hospitals will ask for proof in different ways.

Even though the bill states that immigration status can’t be considered, questions about residency often have a chilling effect for immigrants -- particularly in this current climate.

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Jon P @jdp23.thenexus.today · 26/01/2026

There's a bill here in Washington (HB 2599) to regulate AI use in therapy. Here's the current language of one key section. A couple questions: 1) what else should be prohibited? 2) is there better wording for (c)? More about my concern here in the reply ...

A licensed professional may not use artificial intelligence
in such a way that allows it to do any of the following:
(a) Make independent therapeutic decisions;
(b) Directly interact with clients in any form of therapeutic
communication;
(c) Generate therapeutic recommendations or treatment plans
without review and approval by the licensed professional; or
(d) Detect emotions or mental states of clients.

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Jon P @jdp23.thenexus.today · 13/01/2026

Oh and for completeness here's their definition of "artificial intelligence".

"Artificial intelligence" or "AI" means the use of machine
learning and related technologies that use data to train statistical
models for the purpose of enabling computer systems to perform tasks
normally associated with human intelligence or perception, such as
computer vision, speech or natural language processing, and content
generation.

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