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Jonathan

@jrothwell.bsky.social
98 followers 100 following 52 posts

Mostly not posting. he/him

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Reposted by Jonathan
Natalie Brender @nataliebrender.bsky.social · 14h
Just because you/I don't understand AI doesn't mean that no one does. So many people buy into this 'poorly understood' line that lets commercially-motivated tech companies off the hook for harms & near-catastrophes. Kudos to @emilymbender.bsky.social & @timnitgebru.blacksky.app for this.
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QueerAF @wearequeeraf.com · 18h
ICYMI: NHS Wales admits its “urgent review” still hasn’t begun over a month after pausing all gender-affirming surgeries for adult patients
wearequeeraf.com
NHS Wales apologises for withdrawal of trans healthcare, admits "urgent review" still hasn't begun
NHS Wales Joint Commissioning Committee apologises for "distress" caused by a withdrawal of care but admits its "urgent review" had still not begun nearly a month after hundreds were denied care
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Trans+ Solidarity Alliance @transsolidarity.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Today is Andy Burnham’s first party conference speech as PM. We’ve taken your messages from the mass lobby on tour to Labour conference in Liverpool, with our friends at @transactualuk.bsky.social and @scottishtrans.bsky.social We aren’t going anywhere.
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Curse of the Libby Dead @captainlibatron.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Worrying that organ donations have fallen when demand has risen. A close family member of ours had a double lung transplant this year and it was nothing short of a miracle, so please make sure you tell family and sign the donation register if you would want to donate news.sky.com/story/urgent...
news.sky.com
'Urgent action' needed to help thousands of patients waiting for organ transplants
NHS Blood and Transplant has launched an "urgent response plan" to tackle a drastic fall in organ donations across the country.
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Nagihan Haliloğlu @nhaliloglu.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
black man dies and the white guy suffers 'lynching' what do words mean any more
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Annalee @flowerhorne.com · 19/09/2026
This is why I think it's so important to push back against the personification of LLMs. If a person shoots someone while wearing a hand puppet, they can't claim the hand puppet did the murder.
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Tade Thompson @tadethompson.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
I'm constantly torn between the idea that people should read more sci-fi and people should read less of it. Why are people so eager to believe the 'Kill all humans" AI narrative? The folks in charge of creating narratives are using the silliest Sci-fi scenarios and the public just lap it up.
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Chris Bertram @crookedfootball.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
"RNLI crew members had been forced to take their permits off their cars after their tyres have been repeatedly slashed. Most of them have been pilloried at the school gates or turned away from local pubs. One man who worked in search and rescue had been beaten unconscious and hospitalised"
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Foucault's Pudendum @kaitave.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
The same cover, but with the "say 'i am alive'" AI meme pasted on top of it after 10000 hours in MSPaint
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Dr Jo Kershaw @mthrjo.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
The RNLI have some of the best people in Britain volunteering for them. They put their lives on the line when they are called on and they will rescue anyone who needs them. Because every life matters, and offering help is the right thing to do. You can donate here: rnli.org
rnli.org
RNLI - Royal National Lifeboat Institution - Saving Lives at Sea
The RNLI is the charity that saves lives at sea. We do this through lifeboat search and rescue, lifeguards, water safety education and international interventions.
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Joanna Bryson @j2bryson.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
Watching those horrific videos of Nepal & Tibet, I was reminded of the stories of Germans watching their life partners and houses swept away by flooding rivers only a few years ago. How is this not what our planet is fully focussed on?
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Aideen Blackwood @aideen.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
A cool thing about AI is how it has completely flattened all individual cultural expression so I can see exactly the same ugly sign in Rio de Janeiro as I would see in Dublin
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Evan Greer @evangreer.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
Over and over the cycle repeats: Bad tech do bad thing Politicians: make bad tech not to bad thing? Companies: no bad thing make money Politicians: ah okay keep doing bad thing just add more spy
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Jonathan @jrothwell.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
@rantyhighwayman.bsky.social From the #SignMakeItBetter department. (Old Street roundabout, eastern arm)
A lamp post in front of a wide road, with a bus lane with a bicycle symbol painted in the middle of the lane. There is a temporary TfL Buses branded sign with paper reading “CYCLISTS BEWARE, BUSES ARE MERGING FROM THE RIGHT.”
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Jack Grimes @jackapedia.design · 16/07/2026
Furious that Chris Nolan would disregard historical accuracy in adapting The Odyssey by making a "movie" with "cameras" instead of memorizing the entire story and then going on a nationwide tour to sing it to us while tripping on ergotized barley
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Max Kennerly @maxkennerly.bsky.social · 13/06/2026
It's an objective fact that Elon Musk is a mass murderer. He intentionally caused the deaths of millions of people. There's no caveats to this, no alternative explanations, no defenses, no missing context; that was the sole reason for doing what he did.
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Andy Craig @andycraig.bsky.social · 06/06/2026
Thinking of X as the comments section on Elon Musk's personal blog is a reasonably accurate model.
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TACC @tacc.org.uk · 25/05/2026
"Forty-nine votes were cast against the new rules, whilst only one vote was cast in their favour", yet still they went ahead with the ban. Clearly, women's opinions do not count!
cherwell.org
Change to Rowing Clubs' Rules of Racing for transgender athletes sparks backlash - Cherwell
A change to Oxford University Rowing Clubs’ (OURCs) Rules of Racing means that only athletes assigned female at birth may now row in a Women’s boat.
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Micah @rincewind.run · 14/04/2026
everyone involved in the dismantling of USAID should be forced to spend their lives watching graphic videos of what they have subjected people to in their callousness, clockwork orange style
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Elizabeth Jacobs, PhD @elizabethjacobs.bsky.social · 19/02/2026
A new paper shows that less than 2 months of exposure to Twitter’s algorithmic feed significantly shifts people’s political views to the right. Moving from chronological feed to the algorithmic feed also increases engagement. This is one of the most concerning papers I’ve read in awhile.
The political effects of X's feed algorithm
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10098-2
Received: 16 December 2024
Accepted: 4 January 2026
Published online: 18 February 2026
Open access
• Check for updates
Germain Gauthier,5, Roland Hodler?5, Philine Widmer35 & Ekaterina Zhuravskaya3,4,5 m
Feed algorithms are widely suspected to influence political attitudes. However, previous evidence from switching off the algorithm on Meta platforms found no political effects'. Here we present results from a 2023 field experiment on Elon Musk's platform X shedding light on this puzzle. We assigned active US-based users randomly to either an algorithmic or a chronological feed for 7 weeks, measuring political attitudes and online behaviour. Switching from a chronological to an algorithmic feed increased engagement and shifted political opinion towards more conservative positions, particularly regarding policy priorities, perceptions of criminal investigations into Donald Trump and views on the war in Ukraine. In contrast, switching from the algorithmic to the chronological feed had no comparable effects.
Neither switching the algorithm on nor switching it off significantly affected affective polarization or self-reported partisanship. To investigate the mechanism, we analysed users' feed content and behaviour. We found that the algorithm promotes conservative content and demotes posts by traditional media. Exposure to algorithmic content leads users to follow conservative political activist accounts, which they continue to follow even after switching off the algorithm, helping explain the asymmetry in effects. These results suggest that initial exposure to X's algorithm has persistent effects on users' current political attitudes and account-following behaviour, even in the absence of a detectable effect on partisanship.
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Maia Kobabe @redgoldsparks.bsky.social · 26/02/2026
If you have the means, please donate to the Trans Continental Pipeline right now. They are a Colorado based org that helps trans people relocate and they are overwhelmed with requests. Colorado borders Kansas, and TCP has the infrastructure to help get people out. tcpipeline.org
tcpipeline.org
Trans Continental Pipeline
Queer Relocation Nonprofit in Denver, Colorado
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Jordan @jordanpfot.bsky.social · 22/02/2026
You spend a decade trying to understand the UK’s baffling relationship to class, you think you’ve finally started to get it, then you see something like this and realise you’re right back to square one.
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Amy Hoy @amyhoy.bsky.social · 15/02/2026
douglas adams was our most accurate futurist
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Rob Palk @robpalk.bsky.social · 07/02/2026
He looks as though he's been caught cooking and also as if he mistakenly believes cooking to be illegal
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Cristian Farias @cristianfarias.com · 06/02/2026
The United States government is retaliating against 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and his family for having the temerity to challenge their unlawful detention with a habeas petition. That’s retaliation. This is Kilmar Ábrego García all over again. www.mprnews.org/story/2026/0...
mprnews.org
DHS has requested expedited deportation proceedings against family of Liam Conejo Ramos
The federal government has filed a motion seeking to end asylum claims for the family of Liam Conejo Ramos, according to the lawyer representing the family.
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Leah McElrath @leahmcelrath.bsky.social · 01/02/2026
Liam is back home. He is only one of the approximately 3,800 children in ICE custody. (Source: www.themarshallproject.org/2026/01/29/i...)
Photo of a young boy wearing a blue knit hat with floppy ears
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HK @hkesvani.bsky.social · 31/01/2026
Really cool that while we have a national panic about teenagers on phone too much, phone is also causing pensioners to build car bombs www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...
theguardian.com
Ulez bomber: the retired electrician who turned bomb-making extremist
Shy 63-year-old’s decision to blow up London traffic camera linked to online conspiracy theories and Islamophobia
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Kristen Radtke @kristenradtke.bsky.social · 27/01/2026
I wrote about my childhood friend Alexi Pretti. Please read it and share it and remember him as a human being. @theverge.com
theverge.com
I grew up with Alex Pretti
The kind-hearted ICU nurse shot by ICE agents was my childhood best friend.
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Jim Waterson @jim.londoncentric.media · 24/01/2026
This is one of the strangest and most screwed-up stories I’ve worked on. www.londoncentric.media/p/tiktok-lon...
londoncentric.media
Who's secretly filming fake TikToks inside Londoners' homes?
We tracked down the viral video account invading people's houses to spread false claims about immigrants.
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Samit Sarkar @samitsarkar.bsky.social · 10/01/2026
"How *do* you plan to defend getting rid of the ICEBlock app while allowing X to generate degrading images of a woman ICE killed? Can Apple and Google even identify their values beyond their commitment to ‘shareholder value’? What’s your fucking endgame here, guys?"
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Sarah Z @sarahz.bsky.social · 09/01/2026
I would really caution anyone against implying that paywalling this feature is a legitimate response to public outcry. The paywall is an endorsement, not a restriction. Musk is saying "this thing you're all talking about is valuable. Pay me for it." The actual material effect is just monetization.
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Chris Franklin @errant-signal.com · 02/01/2026
I know everyone is pointing it out but I do think it is absolutely reckless editorial practice to cite what an AI says, especially in a headline. Grok has no authority, nor does it have a meaningful explanation for what happened, and citing it obscures those actually responsible for literal crimes.
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derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.social · 29/11/2025
calmly explaining why we shouldn't bomb random venezuelan boats to people who argued we should torture random iraqis and then won an election by saying they were against a war they advocated for
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Brendan Keogh @brkeogh.bsky.social · 24/11/2025
Great thread and investigation. Exactly what we all assumed: the ‘confidential information’ was wages and work conditions discussed in a worker-only Discord, not leaking anything about the game. Pure union busting.
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HuffPost UK @huffpost.co.uk · 18/11/2025
Lord Dubs said he was "lost for words".
huffingtonpost.co.uk
Labour Peer Who Fled The Nazis Condemns His Party's Immigration Crackdown
Lord Dubs said he was "lost for words".
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Globe Emoji Žižek Capital @cesigno.bsky.social · 09/11/2025
twitter being bought and turned into a propaganda machine for fascism, which is directly pumped into every journalist in the world's brain, is one of the worst things to happen in the last few years. we might not survive it.
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Nick Walker @nickwalker.bsky.social · 06/11/2025
What a dystopian quote from Rupert Lowe MP
Mr Lowe told us: "Even a dinosaur like me understands that if content is engaging and popular, it receives more attention in the algorithm." He added: "There is no conspiracy. It just turns out that British people enjoy some straight-talking from a politician for a change. Mass deportations are popular, and the algorithm picks up on that and rewards it."
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Dr Phoenix CS Andrews @thatdocphoenix.com · 01/11/2025
So retro that people are bringing up Russian bots again as a reason why people are bigoted dickheads as opposed to accepting that polls show that at least 30% of people are just always like this and always will be
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The Trandalorian @charliejaneanders.com · 21/10/2025
I'm so sick of discourse from supposed allies about where trans people went wrong. Where we "went wrong" is that billionaires spent unimaginably large sums to attack us repeatedly and major media outlets have spent a decade piling on.
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Duncan Hothersall @dhothersall.bsky.social · 21/10/2025
1993: Stephen Lawrence is murdered by racists. 1999: The MacPherson Inquiry recommends recording of non-crime hate incidents. 2005: After the Discrimination Law Review, non-crime hate incidents begin being recorded by UK police. 2025: Mainstream transphobia ends a harm reduction policy that worked.
bbc.co.uk
Met Police says it will no longer investigate non-crime hate incidents
The move comes as an investigation into Father Ted creator Graham Linehan is dropped, after his arrest over a post on X.
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Emanuel Maiberg @emanuelmaiberg.bsky.social · 17/10/2025
wikipedia's data shows that AI is siphoning traffic away from the site, which is a danger to its sustainability. ironically Wikipedia is more important than ever to users who want reliable information instead of slop, and to AI companies that need it for training data www.404media.co/wikipedia-sa...
404media.co
Wikipedia Says AI Is Causing a Dangerous Decline in Human Visitors
“With fewer visits to Wikipedia, fewer volunteers may grow and enrich the content, and fewer individual donors may support this work.”
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Katie West @katiewest.bsky.social · 01/10/2025
Here is a direct link for this consultation. It only took me about five minutes. Please take the time to answer. hampstead-heath-bathing-ponds.commonplace.is
hampstead-heath-bathing-ponds.commonplace.is
Future access to the Hampstead Heath Bathing Ponds
Inviting feedback from pond users, the local community, and stakeholders on how the Kenwood Ladies’, and Highgate Men’s ponds should operate in the future.
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Jonathan @jrothwell.bsky.social · 01/10/2025
Counting down the days until Kier Starmer throws a halftime orange into a machine at a laminating factory and calls someone a “citric idiot” (This is a very deep-cut shitpost)
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The Guardian @theguardian.com · 16/09/2025
Israel has committed genocide in Gaza, says UN inquiry
theguardian.com
Israel has committed genocide in Gaza, says UN inquiry
Commission’s 72-page legal analysis cites examples including scale of killings, aid blockages and forced displacement * Middle East crisis – live updates A UN commission of inquiry concluded on Tuesday that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza and that top Israeli officials including the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, had incited these acts. It cited examples of the scale of the killings, aid blockages, forced displacement and the destruction of a fertility clinic to back up its genocide finding, adding its voice to rights groups and others that have reached the same conclusion. Continue reading...
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Wesley Morgan @wesleymorgan.bsky.social · 09/09/2025
IDF sniper from Chicago who says he killed Gazan teenager just for trying to retrieve his brother's corpse: “They’re thinking, ‘Oh I don’t think [I’ll get shot] because I’m wearing civilian clothes and I am not carrying a weapon' and all that, but they were wrong. That’s what you have snipers for.”
theguardian.com
The Gaza family torn apart by IDF snipers from Chicago and Munich
Five-month investigation reveals how four members of one family were shot and killed in a single day and highlights a pattern in which Israeli troops target unarmed civilians
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nilay patel @reckless.bsky.social · 12/08/2025
Congratulations, Tim Cook
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Al Jazeera English @aljazeera.com · 11/08/2025
Four Al Jazeera staff, including reporter Anas Al Sharif, were killed in an Israeli attack on a tent for journalists outside the main gate of Gaza's al-Shifa hospital aje.io/onll19
aje.io
Anas al-Sharif among five Al Jazeera journalists killed by Israel in Gaza
Al Jazeera staff killed in targeted Israeli attack on a tent housing journalists near al-Shifa Hospital, Gaza City.
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Mike Masnick @masnick.com · 06/08/2025
I feel like every single day I need to post a reminder: if you ask an LLM about itself it DOES NOT KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT ITS INNER WORKINGS and WILL NOT TELL YOU ANYTHING ACTUALLY ABOUT ITSELF. It just (as it always does) will make up some plausible sounding answer.
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