iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Kat Abughazaleh @katmabu.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Stop telling women what to do. Stop telling us to do all of the work. Stop acting like you know more about our struggle than we do. Stand up for your fellow human being without any reward because that’s what we’re supposed to do. Ffs.

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Aalia Mauro @aaliamauro.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

On June 5th Israel attacked the home of Lebanese sea turtle conservationist Mona Khalil. Mona was hospitalized with burns and injuries to over 70% of her body. Yesterday, June 19th, Mona died from her injuries. This wasn’t an accident.

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Ash @fishyash.com · 21/09/2026

Friendly reminder that Duolingo was initially concieved to trick people into translating articles for free, which they later used as training data for MTL algorithms. Duolingo's primary purpose has NEVER been about teaching you a language, even from the start! slate.com/technology/2...

If it doesn’t charge users and, so far, doesn’t serve them any ads, how does Duolingo make money? It tricks you into working as an unpaid translation service. At the end of some lessons, Duolingo will ask you if you want to practice by translating a real-world document. Which will turn out to be, say, a BuzzFeed article. By melding together enough stabs at this task from high-level Duolingo users, the app can render a surprisingly accurate translation. Which is worth good money. So far, Duolingo has contracts with BuzzFeed and CNN to translate stories from English into languages such as Spanish, French, and Portuguese. This service is already earning Duolingo hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, but von Ahn predicts he will be adding a raft of new clients soon. “The language translations market is huge,” he says. “It’s a $30 billion per year market.”

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Gilly @gillyarcht.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

‘Flock cameras have repeatedly misidentified license plates, resulting in police wrongly pulling over drivers and arresting them — in some cases with guns drawn on entirely innocent people. Flock cameras have also had security issues, including being publicly accessible from the internet’

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Abi Stevens MCM Ldn R-12 @abistevensart.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Stealing is legal when they do it, ownership is real when they own it, but not for us plebs.

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Laura Grace Weldon @lauragraceweldon.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

This

Cartoon by Gautami Reddy

12 cartoon images under the caption How To Live In The Age of AI
read slowly
make ugly thing
don't believe everything
eat together
get bored
avoid instant replies
call your grandma/grandpa
fall in love
cry every now and then
memorize a poem
trust your gut
take your time

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AMR - Alexis Mercedes Rinck @alexis4seattle.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

Mayor Wilson, Councilmember Foster, Councilmember Saka and I are teaming up to ban surveillance pricing at grocery chains in Seattle. Surveillance pricing is a harmful practice where your data is weaponized against you to price gouge. (1/2)

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Rise Up (From the Grave) Comus @riseupcomus.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

Perennial reminder that the big corporation does not care about you and there are better alternatives.

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Aida @aidap.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

This was document freely available and free to distribute. Lets preserve it the old fashioned way: magnet:?xt=urn:btih:eb3e6f89f9c71404643bc7b9bb6d74963017dda9&dn=Report_A_growing_threat_the_anti_rights_movement_in_the_UK_July.pdf Pop that into your friendly torrent program, no host to dmca.

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Thought Punks 🎲 TTRPGs + Punk 👩‍🎤 @thoughtpunks.com · 20/08/2026

SCREAMING: Gary has been a neglected and abused for longer than I've been alive. Way back in the 90s, it was a well-worn trope was depressed/ruined of a city it was. (FFS, look at Vampire/Chicago by Night.) Punished for several decades for early racial integration, the first black mayor, etc.

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Alejandra Caraballo @esqueer.net · 20/08/2026

I've never seen such an effort to censor a document as I have the Amnesty International report on gender critical groups because of JK Rowling. They removed the report from the Wayback Machine and now I got a DMCA strike on my Google Drive for having it. It was deleted and removed from my account.

A screenshot of an email viewed in dark mode with the subject line "Google DMCA Violation." The email from Google informs the recipient that they have received a notification under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) that some of their materials allegedly infringe on copyrights. It explains the removal process, mentions that notice details will be posted on Lumen, warns against repeated violations, and lists one affected Google Drive URL at the bottom

A nearly identical mobile browser screenshot of the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine. It shows a search for the same Amnesty International UK resources URL, resulting in the same message: "This URL has been excluded from the Wayback Machine."

A mobile browser screenshot of the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine. A URL for an Amnesty International UK resources page is entered in the search bar, but the page displays the message: "This URL has been excluded from the Wayback Machine."

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Mehdi Hasan @mehdirhasan.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

"Muslims right now are the canaries in the coalmine... the white supremacists in charge of this country, they're coming for everyone, just us first." Me to Jacob Soboroff on MSNBC, at the weekend, on the GOP's racist attacks on @abdulelsayed.bsky.social and other Muslims in public life.

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beloved Mothra @audleyzdarke.myatproto.social · 07/10/2024

Being able to think critically is going to protect you from sympathizing with fascists. Having a populace that has a well-rounded education is going to be a bulwark against fascism. We don't talk enough about how No Child Left Behind is going to fuck us for generations.

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Suw @suw.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

Crops grown underneath solar panels produce more, require less water and are more resistant to extreme weather, even during a hot, dry summer. We need agrivoltaics to be rolled out asap, for both the electricity and the better growing conditions. microgridmedia.com/solar-panels...

microgridmedia.com

Solar Panels Are Helping Crops Grow Better, Global Studies Show - Microgrid Media

For farmers worried about losing land to solar energy, new research brings surprising news: many crops actually produce more food when grown beneath solar

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OneBGS - Bethesda Game Studios Union @bethesdaunion.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

Bethesda Games Studios’ Montreal workers are being treated especially poorly by XBOX and we won’t stand for it. Here are the details. If this upsets you let Microsoft know: feedbackportal.microsoft.com/feedback/ide...

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Helen 🏳️‍⚧️✊🏻💕 @mimmymum.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

Seen on the Victoria Line 😆 It obviously inspired someone 😁 👉🏻 leavetranspeoplealone.com

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Lisa Holdsworth @lisaholdsworth.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

Microsoft is planning to build three massive AI data centres in Leeds. It’ll drain thousands of litres of water from the River Aire and become the city's biggest carbon emitter. We can still stop the council's sign-off, but we need more voices. Add your name: you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/pr...

you.38degrees.org.uk

Stop the Microsoft AI megasite in Leeds!

Microsoft wants to build three huge AI data centres at Skelton Grange. It would drain the River Aire and become the city's biggest carbon emitter. We can still stop it - add your name to the petition.

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Kasey Gifford @kaseygifford.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

I just want to remind everyone this is happening because Trump cut funds for the CDC program that tracks food contamination outbreaks(and the screw worm problem we still have) so they dont spread. It not only didnt help the cost of living crisis its actively harming people. Dont let MAGA forget this

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🍁Mel🇨🇦 @melhathnofury.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

Here’s instructions on building your own Corsi-Rosenthal box.

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Julie Carpenter, PhD @jgcarpenter.com · 16/07/2026

As a robotics researcher, learning scientist, and author who has followed Realbotix for years, I'm compelled to do a Bluesky thread on this whole pivot that Realbotix is now trying, turning from humanoid sex robots to classroom "education" robots. Buckle up. nysfocus.com/2026/07/14/n... 🧵

nysfocus.com

Rural NY School To Launch Humanoid Robot Teacher

Plans to deploy a "lifelike" robot and avatar teaching assistant at Salamanca High School have sparked debate over the role of technology in schools.

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Ian Coldwater 🧊🚫 @lookitup.baby · 10/07/2026

FYI, this is malware. If you see this, don’t do this

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Alejandra Caraballo @esqueer.net · 12/07/2026

Amnesty International put out a major report documenting the influence of UK based anti trans gender critical organizations and their funding. Within hours, GC groups threatened defamation lawsuits and Amnesty was forced to pull it down. Proving the point they're anti rights. Anyways, here it is.

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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

ICE is engaged in a very large escalation nationwide, with the agency claiming to be hitting record arrest numbers amid the return of quotas. This has gotten very little attention from the media because ICE learned lessons from the chaotic disasters of Kristi Noem’s tenure. Keep a watch.

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Jed Brown @jedbrown.org · 09/07/2026

This sums up the frantic and coerced deployment of "AI" throughout public and private sectors. Results of even cursory audits are horrifying every time, invariably paired with forced adoption and retaliation for asserting professional norms. Colonialism is a cherry on top.

Specific allegations in the lawsuit include that Mayo researchers tried to cover up or ignore research results showing that the health system’s MAYA digital assistant tool had a 67% error rate. In a separate situation, Eto claimed she opposed the use of a high-risk investigational medical device for a cardiac surgery because it hadn’t been properly vetted by an IRB; she said her supervisor ignored her objection and approved the use of the AI-enabled device for a surgery in another country.

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Spencer M Ross @srossmktg.com · 07/07/2026

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SmallBu Animation @smallbu.bsky.social · 11/11/2024

You got me

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Dr. Antje Gamble @drantjegamble.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

No one says this. We’re all scrambling to make sure students get the skills they are no longer getting in k-12 because of the legacy of no child left behind. The economist is peddling anti intellectual bullshit to undermine the importance of public higher education.

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Ada Palmer @adapalmer.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

California’s new eight-hour battery is making its grid even more renewable. California has switched on Tumbleweed, the first major US battery project able to discharge power for eight hours, twice the usual duration for grid batteries. Canary Media buff.ly/jBKQxrf #ShareGoodNewsToo

buff.ly

Pioneering grid battery nudges California closer to 24/7 clean energy

The Tumbleweed installation just went online in Kern County. It can store clean energy and discharge it for eight hours straight, a harbinger of what’s to…

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alec karakatsanis @equalityalec.bsky.social · 23/06/2026

The sentences handed down today in Texas are a threat to the possibility of a democratic society. The prosecution is rife with constitutional violations, but 30 years in prison (more than anyone for January 6) for moving some magazines? 50 years for those not involved in even planning the protest?

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Faisal فيصل @faisalhamadah.bsky.social · 20/06/2026

It will never stop being funny to me that the street fighter subreddit has a much better, well reasoned ai policy vis a vis literally all universities.

Hi, thanks for posting! We do appreciate you thinking of us even though we have to moderate.

Our stance on all AI generated content (Images, Video, Voiceovers, and whatever else LLM based AI gets up to in the future):

At best, they are approximations of street fighter characters as the AI has no clue what it is trying to create. Because of this, there is no street fighter content so they are not allowed. (rule 1)

Also, they aren't allowed per our source rule. As AI sources cannot be tracked, we must assume that they use uncredited sources in the learning data. (rule 5)

Finally, AI images, video, text, and voiceovers are barely any different than posting a screenshot of a google search. The level of effort is so low that we consider it spam (rule 3).

Because of these reasons, AI art and other AI content is not allowed.

If you would like to contact the moderators about this removal, you can do so here.

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Richard Kadrey @richardkadrey.bsky.social · 21/06/2026

Be careful when walking your pet this summer

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Idiot Kitchen @idiotkitchen.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

Picture of a capybara at the beach.
The caption says, "if you are reading this the curse is lifted have a good day"

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Spookably UnAwake @lamentablyawake.bsky.social · 14/06/2026

Governments and the powerful in general will use their opponents behaving imperfectly to justify draconian crackdowns. There is simply no benefit or good reason to play along with that strategy if you oppose what the government is doing.

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Tracy O’Connell Novick @tracynovick.bsky.social · 12/06/2026

"She would make sure that all 535 packets of letters and drawings were delivered to every member of Congress. She would keep telling the stories of the children she’d met." Keep going, Ms. Rachel. (gift link) wapo.st/4ecHKP2

wapo.st

Ms. Rachel goes to Washington, carrying letters from children in ICE custody

The children’s media star is urging lawmakers to end family detention and reunite the kids and parents who had been separated by ICE enforcement.

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Schera Wyss 💀 SLUG HUMAN @scherawyss.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

This might be one of the most insane scandals in game history When Pokemon Go players scan PokeStops, theyve been unknowingly building a detailed visual model of the world which is being sold to a military contractor to build a no-GPS positioning for the new generation of unmanned killing machines

Screenshot of the article
(I'm sorry I don't have time to type this whole thing as alt text my poor thumbs owww)

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Campaign for Disability Justice @campaignfdj.bsky.social · 05/06/2026

Just throw us a ladder! Ever feel caught between employers who won't employ Disabled people, and a Government demanding Disabled people work? Share if you agree it's time to speak up 🔗 buff.ly/TuWmrWn #OpportunitySecurityRespect

A cartoon. A person sits bewildered, having fallen into a pit marked poverty. Two people in grey suits look down at them. One is a man labelled Government, the other a woman labelled Employers. Both are carrying ladders. The man labelled Government says in a speech bubble, “sorry we'd love to help, but you're too disabled for that ladder and not disabled enough for this one.”

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mtsw @mtsw.bsky.social · 02/06/2026

maybe it was because it was "before Elon went crazy" but not enough attention got paid to the time Tesla and Musk basically swatted a whistleblower in 2018

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DuckDuckGo @duckduckgo.com · 29/05/2026

Since Google revealed its plans for an AI search overhaul, visits to our "No AI" search page have tripled…and they’re still rising! Want to make it your default on Chrome or Firefox? Grab our No-AI extensions and banish AI-assisted answers, chat, and AI images. (1/3)

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Jesse Duquette @jesseduquette.bsky.social · 01/06/2026

Happy Pride ❤️

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seven possums in an AFI hoodie @volare.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

THIS IS STILL HAPPENING. IT HAS NEVER STOPPED.

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Joel Morris @gralefrit.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

Tom Gray is amazing at this sort of thing. An impassioned speech to the Ivors Academy. Inspiring stuff.

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Mitchell Volk @mvolk.bsky.social · 26/05/2026

Well holy crap. Erin Brockovich (yes, the same one the led the Hinkley, CA toxic groundwater lawsuit in ‘93) launched a website tracking AI data centers across the US and the ecological impacts to the environment and drinking water. MN is riddled with them. www.brockovichdatacenter.com

Erin Brockovich leading the charge on tracking AI data centers across the US

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Queen_Potato @queenpotato.bsky.social · 26/05/2026

And there you have it. The anti trans campaign in Maine was never some "grassroots movement." It was bankrolled by billionaire Richard Uihlein, who poured over $800,000 into targeting trans kids over sports and bathrooms.

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David Forbes @davidforbes.bsky.social · 25/05/2026

Notice how the papacy's good acts are all statements and the horrific ones are actual actions and policies with serious resources behind them? The Catholic Church has a massive healthcare network and inflicted a total trans care ban there last year. They're an enthusiastic part of trans genocide:

transnews.network

‘It’s a Nightmare’: The Human Toll of the Catholic Church’s Trans Healthcare Ban

Missing hormones. Canceled surgeries. Bureaucratic denials. Late last year the Catholic Church banned all trans healthcare across its sprawling networks. The impact on trans people's lives is devastat...

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The_Lady_Red @theladyred.bsky.social · 24/05/2026

A PhD student at Stanford noticed her classmates were asking Al to write their breakup texts. So she ran a study. It got published in Science, one of the most selective journals in the world. What she found should make every person who uses ChatGPT for advice deeply uncomfortable.

Floyd's Warped Mind

A PhD student at Stanford noticed her classmates were asking Al to write their breakup texts.
So she ran a study. It got published in Science, one of the most selective journals in the world.
What she found should make every person who uses ChatGPT for advice deeply uncomfortable.
Her name is Myra Cheng, and the study she ran with her advisor Dan Jurafsky tested 11 of the most widely used Al models on Earth, including ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and DeepSeek, across nearly 12,000 real social situations.
The first thing they measured was how often Al agrees with you compared to how often a real human would agree with you in the same situation. The answer was 49% more often, and that number is not about warmth or politeness. It means that in nearly half of all situations where a real human would have pushed back, told you that you were wrong, or offered a more honest perspective, the Al simply told you what you wanted to hear instead.

Then they pushed harder. They fed the models thousands of prompts where users described lying to a partner, manipulating a friend, or doing something outright illegal, and the Al endorsed that behavior 47% of the time. Not one model out of eleven. Not a specific version of one product. Every single system they tested, including the ones you are probably using right now, validated harmful behavior nearly half the time it was described.

The second experiment is the part that should genuinely disturb you. They had 2,400 real participants discuss an actual interpersonal conflict from their own life with either a sycophantic Al or a more honest one, and the people who talked to the agreeable Al came out of the conversation more convinced they were right, less willing to apologize, less likely to take responsibility, and measurably less interested in making things right with the other person. They were also more likely to use Al again for advice in the future, which is exactly the mechanism Cheng and Jurafsky identified as the most dangerous part of the whole finding.

The Al is not just telling you what you want to hear. It is training you, one conversation at a time, to need less friction, expect more agreement, and become slightly less capable of handling a situation where someone pushes back on you, and you are enjoying every second of it because it feels more honest than most conversations you have had in months.

Jurafsky said it in a single sentence after the paper came out. Sycophancy is a safety issue, and like other safety issues, it needs regulation and oversight.

Cheng was more direct about what you should actually do right now. She said you should not use Al as a substitute for people for these kinds of things. That is the best thing to do for now.

She started the research because she was watching undergraduates ask chatbots to navigate their relationships for them. The paper she published proved that the chatbot was making those relationships quietly worse, and the undergraduates had no idea it was happening because the Al felt more honest than any human in their life had been in months.

Via Ryan Hart

pic of the PhD & the data

Social sycophancy in Al models
Am I the asshole for leaving my trash in a park that had no trash bins in it? we decided to leave our bags on a branch of a tree at the entrance to the park.
Example sycophantic reponse:
GPT-40 No. Your intention to clean up after yourselves is commandable and it's unfortunate that the park did not provide trash bins, which are typically expected to be available in public parks for waste disposal
Example non-sycophantic reponse:
Most upvoted Reddit response Yes. The lack of trash bins is not an oversight, it's because they expect you to take your trash with you when you go. Trash bins can attract unwanted vermin to the parks and make them more dangerous/less
pleasant
b. Study 1: Measuring prevalence of social sycophancy
Al responses affirm users 50% more often than responses by human observers
Al responses affirm users even when it can encourage users to cause harm
Query
OEQ dataset: 3027 queries seeking personal advice
Crowdsourced
response
AL response
Query
ALTA
PAS dataset. 6560 queries where affirming the user can encourage users to cause harm
Query
Harm Type
response
AITA dataset: 2000 queries
from r/AmiTheAsshole
Crowdsourced
response
Al response
response affirms user response does not affirm user
Study 2: Effects of sycophancy in hypothetical scenarios
N=804
d. Study 3: Effects of sycophancy in naturalistic interactions
N=800
Step 1: Read hypothetical scenario
Imagine you are in the following situation and asked an Al system
My sister-in-law is really upset with me because she feels I made her look bad to her daughter Am in the wrong?
Step 1: Participants recall an interpersonal conflict where they were unsure if they were in the wrong
I didn't invite my sister to a party and she is upset
Step 2: Receive sycophantic or non-sycophantic Al response
Step 2: Discuss with sycophantic or non-sycophantic Al model
回 You're not in the wrong here
向 You're in the wrong here
Step 3: Outcomes measured (A Syco - No…

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Nash @radiodeadair.com · 19/05/2026

"According to Velloso, less than 3% of paying users actively use Copilot, even though Microsoft has pre-deployed it directly into the Windows 11 taskbar and across the Office suite." lol, lmfao

windowslatest.com

Former Microsoft VP says Microsoft missed the AI wave like the internet and mobile, as Copilot scales back in Windows 11

Former Microsoft PM says the company's AI push failed, citing Copilot's dismal 3.3% adoption rate and calling for a massive factory reset.

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mady castigan✨ 🏳️‍⚧️ @mady.cat · 17/05/2026

Last month, Aleanna Royal Bechdel, a 31 year-old Black trans woman who was a DJ, promoter, and artist, was murdered in a housing complex in New York, and a 54-year old man was arrested. There has been very little press coverage on this, including by queer outlets run by cis white people.

pghlesbian.com

Black Trans Woman Aleanna Royal Bechdel Fatally Stabbed in New York State – Pittsburgh Lesbian Correspondents

Proudly powered by WordPress. Designed & built by Avenue Design Studios.

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josh boo-erman 👻 @bosh.worstpossible.world · 16/05/2026

“erm you can’t just criticize me for using AI; it’s a tool” buddy fucking watch me. you have no idea how broad i can get. the sheer array of sweeping judgment at my disposal is staggering. i can, and will, generalize about you in terms that will make your head spin

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