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Shannon Mora

@smora.bsky.social
965 followers 1.7K following 304 posts

PhD researcher, MPhil, MPH, CPH exploring intersection of #mourningrituals #digitalmourning #technology #publichealth #SDOH #digitalhumanities #rip.ie @tcddublin@bsky.social Mom. Lover of cats. Infectious laugh. American in Ireland.

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Reposted by Shannon Mora
Carl Zimmer @carlzimmer.com · 27/09/2026
Four days ago, a scientist was surprised by the news that Anthropic discovered new virus genes for making DNA. He says he’s been studying them for years—and feeding his data to Anthropic’s AI as part of his own research. Coincidence? Here’s my story. nyti.ms/3VSWayc
nyti.ms
Did Anthropic’s A.I. Really Make a Scientific Discovery on Its Own? (Gift Article)
An expert at the University of Copenhagen said his team had been sharing its research with the company’s A.I. model, Claude, and that its new finding matched their work.
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Dr Abeba Birhane @abeba.blacksky.app · 24/09/2026
over the past few weeks several AI evaluation/cybersecurity experts have explained how what's happening is a result of human incompetence rather than "AI going rogue". I'm begging the media to show a shred of journalistic integrity and stop parroting what altman or amodei say
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Rich Raho @richraho.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
Pope to Catholic Legislators: “Sadly, we are presented with a subtle form of domination when algorithms decide who is seen, who remains invisible, when digital platforms shape public discourse without accountability, and when the dignity of workers is subordinated to the optimization of systems.”
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Gillian Brockell @gillianbrockell.com · 19/08/2026
If you have anything less than a green card, do not use US air travel, period. Don’t come on a tourist visa, you are not safe. Students, dreamers, TPS, CAT protections or withholding from removal, asylum seeker, undocumented, do not travel in the US by air.
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Shannon Mora @smora.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
Good morning #speirgorm
Picture of poolbeg lighthouse with sunrise in background
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Kurbs @kkurbs.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
Please Use AI
PLEASE USE AI
Shawn Smucker
Be sure to use Al when making your next, I don't know, meal plan, for example. Definitely do not call your friend who loves to cook and ask her for her favorite recipes or tips or ways to save time making meals, because you will end
up talking for longer than you had hoped, hearing, perhaps, about her father's cancer diagnosis or how lonely she's been or even what she's planted in her spring garden and then lost with the early frost.
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Dr. Damien P. Williams, dread portent down from a mountain cave @wolven.blacksky.app · 12/06/2026
Dave Eggers, on NPR's Wildcard with Rachel Martin: www.npr.org/2026/06/11/n...
"This is the first time in history when a whole generation is being told or tempted to have a machine write for them to express themselves. But I say like you are one of one unprecedented in the history of human evolution. There's only one of you. …There's never been you in Ever, and there never will be another one of you. So to give your voice to a machine, to say 'speak for me, I'm going to be silent and I'm going to tell a machine to express myself or to tell my narrative,' is such a crime against yourself.

"It's so dystopian, beyond anything I could do in a dystopian novel— and I did a lot; I never saw this coming— would be an entire generation tempted and too many of them acquiescing to the the silencing of their own voice in favor of a bland unthinking machine to voice their souls.

"But if you can tell them, 'even your roughest drafts, even your most disjointed seeming thoughts are going to be valid; and your voice is essential; the human chorus is incomplete without your voice; and I'm going to listen to whatever you say, even the rough drafts, whatever; I want those; I want to see it all," then we can make sure that that they're heard and that they feel like there are humans out there that want to hear that voice and not the machine processed voice.

"…Good lord, we're at a really scary time, you know, but every adult has to be that person. Every teacher, every parent has to be the one saying, 'Do not do this.' Your voice is the only thing that you have naturally. It's the one thing that nobody can replace. So let's hear your truth. Even if it's raw, even if it's unpolished, even if it doesn't come in the five paragraph essay or whatever. Like, let's let's have it straight from you."
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Sophie E. Hill @sophieehill.bsky.social · 09/06/2026
"nudity today, political speech tomorrow" In five words, @signal.org has given a more trenchant critique of government surveillance tech than 99% of UK legislators, pundits, and NGOs.
Surveillance Is Not Safety: A statement on the UK's latest threat to privacy
June 8, 2026
Children deserve to be safe, protected, and nurtured. They do not deserve surveillance, funding cuts, and cover-ups. Children also deserve their human right to privacy, as does everyone. The UK government's demand that all content on all devices sold or used in the UK be scanned on the presumption of nudity, using a dystopian combination of age verification and content scanning, will not safeguard children. It endangers us all, whilst strengthening Apple, Google, and Microsoft's market dominance and their control over our most personal information.
Forcing all UK residents to prove their age and/or have all their content scanned, simply to exercise their fundamental right to communicate, is a perilous proposition. We know that mass surveillance and censorship capabilities, however sincere-sounding the promises of those who initiate them are, never remain narrowly scoped. Once created, they will be expanded, forming a dangerous tool that will be wielded both in the UK and abroad to censor and surveil whatever they might consider "threats" or "harmful content."
Promises that this system will only run on-device are cold comfort. Wherever it runs, including the "camera" itself once it is in place on UK devices - its scope will be defined by the whims and proscriptions of the government to detect nudity today and political speech tomorrow. We know from history that once in place, there will be an inevitable authoritarian expansion of the kind of content and people these technologies will be expected to surveil.
We also know such tools will be leveraged to automatically report people to government authorities. We have already seen law enforcement agencies ask for similar widely-scoped powers which are ripe for exploitation in an increasingly tenuous political landscape.
This proposal will not keep children safe. Child safety looks like well-funded education, robust social services, a…
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Rachel Maddow @maddow.bsky.social · 08/06/2026
www.medpagetoday.com/special-repo...
medpagetoday.com
Video: Police Tussle With Diabetes Experts at ADA Meeting
Researchers told they could no longer attend the annual scientific sessions
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Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 06/06/2026
Private prison company GEO Group, which runs Delaney Hall, gave $1M+ to Trump's Super PAC in 2024 and his inauguration in 2025. Not only has Trump since rewarded GEO with billions in ICE contracts, but a top former GEO executive has now been named acting ICE director. Cashing in on cruelty.
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Maggie Wiggin @maggie162.bsky.social · 01/06/2026
My god, Octavia Butler, just miss ONCE
 Page from a book saying:

From EARTHSEED: THE BOOKS OF THE LIVING
Choose your Leaders with wisdom and forethought.
To be led by a coward is to be controlled
by all that the coward fears.
To be led by a fool is to be led
by the opportunists who control the fool.
To be led by a thief is to offer up your most precious treasures to be stolen.
To be led by a liar
is to ask to be told lies.
To be led by a tyrant is to sell yourself and those you love into slavery.
t
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Brittany Trang @brittanytrang.com · 02/06/2026
If an inaccuracy has made its way into your doctor's notes because they were using an AI scribe, please email me at brittany.trang@statnews.com! I am a health AI reporter and would love to talk to you about this problem!
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ACLU @aclu.org · 30/05/2026
We all deserve the ability to go about our daily lives without being tracked or surveilled by the government. That's why lawmakers need to act now and pass common-sense protections to defend our privacy.
koco.com
Oklahoma City residents raise privacy concerns over license plate reader cameras
Oklahoma City residents gathered at a town hall to discuss privacy concerns about automated license plate reader cameras, while police defended their use for public safety and investigations.
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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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Anne M. Carpenter @catholickungfu.bsky.social · 25/05/2026
I've already seen people trying to predict how little impact the encyclical will have. lol. It depends on what you mean by "impact!" When the pope speaks, Catholics listen. Initiatives begin. Catholic universities hold events. Catholic service organizations respond. Books are written.
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Christopher Webb @cwebbonline.com · 25/05/2026
THIS IS HUGE MORAL MOMENT… Pope Leo’s first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, is focused on AI ethics and regulation. And the Vatican chose to partner with Anthropic, currently in a major legal fight w/the Trump admin over AI safety and military use of its technology.
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Anna Bower @annabower.bsky.social · 22/05/2026
BREAKING: Federal judge dismisses criminal charges against Kilmar Abrego Garcia storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
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ACLU @aclu.org · 21/05/2026
Warrants are supposed to prevent the police from unconstitutionally searching and seizing our belongings — not open us up to pervasive government spying. That's why we're fighting in the courts, Congress, and state legislatures to stop law enforcement from using overbroad digital warrants.
aclu.org
How ACLU Cases Are Limiting Overbroad Digital Search Warrants
New legal standards are restricting law enforcement’s access to cell phone and social media data
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Shannon Mora @smora.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
Join me 22 & 29 May from 10-11am in the Trinity Long Room Hub for a discussion on The Circle which offers a chillingly relevant look at how our obsession with connectivity, information acquisition, & profit can slowly morph into a surveillance state. @tcddublin.bsky.social @tlrhub.bsky.social
eventbrite.ie
Reading Group: The Circle by Dave Eggers
Sponsored by Trinity’s Centre for Digital Humanities, Trinity Long Room Hub Arts and Humanities Research Institute.
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Allison Gill @muellershewrote.com · 18/05/2026
BREAKING: The judge in the $1.7B slush fund suit has dismissed the case, but she says THERE IS NO SETTLEMENT OF RECORD. As I said earlier, the media must stop reporting that this slush fund is a settlement. It's just plain THEFT. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
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Alex Hanna @alexhanna.bsky.social · 18/05/2026
Sir, another graduation ceremony in which the students booed AI has dropped. "College graduates were pissed after their school used AI to announce graduates’ names and missed hundreds of names" (via @/FearedBuck on Twitter)
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404 Media @404media.co · 17/05/2026
Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt was booed throughout this commencement speech at the University of Arizona for his praise of AI. This comes just a week after another commencement speaker who mentioned AI was booed at a school in Florida. Read more: www.404media.co/ucf-ai-comme...
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Rachel Maddow @maddow.bsky.social · 15/05/2026
They had contracts for prison labor at these camps?? Before they even bought them? www.projectsaltbox.com/p/contracts-...
projectsaltbox.com
Contracts Show ICE Planned Detainee Labor at Warehouse Sites Slated as Short-Term Facilities
Contracts signed before the government owned either warehouse described years of detention operations, and a program to put detainees to work
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Gregg Levine @greggjlevine.bsky.social · 10/05/2026
Kudos to Harvard Prof. Joseph Allen for publicly expressing his concern w/ CDC & WHO, which say the Andes hantavirus can only spread with “close & prolonged contact,” when the literature indicates the virus is aerosolized & can spread more easily. (This confirms how I’ve been reading the lit, too.)
Screenshot of a man in dark coat and pink tie zooming in to talk on Ms.Now. Chyron reads:

BREAKING NEWS
CDC ASSURES AMERICANS HANTAVIRUS IS "NOT COVID"

LIVE>6:36
the Weekend PRIMETIME

PROF. JOSEPH ALLEN
EXPOSURE ASSESSMENT SCIENCE, HARVARD
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Gregg Levine @greggjlevine.bsky.social · 10/05/2026
🤯 I spent the afternoon reading the CDC & WHO guidance and all the documentation (linked above) about the earlier Andes hantavirus outbreak, and then, this hour, I see a former CDC official go on cable news and contradict large parts of what I read, always erring on the side of LESS precaution. 🤯
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Christophe Veltsos @drinfosec.bsky.social · 09/05/2026
🚨🎯 Earlier today, @catinthehat.bsky.social posted the most comprehensive 🧵 I've seen about what is known so far about the 2026 Andes Hantavirus situation... threadreaderapp.com/thread/20530...
threadreaderapp.com
Thread by @_CatintheHat on Thread Reader App
@_CatintheHat: HANTAVIRUS OUTBREAK 🧵 Following the WHO press briefing, I wanted to compile a thread with the key points. 1/ ISOLATION OF PASSENGERS Concerningly, it seems the WHO are NOT recommending ...
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Kai Kupferschmidt @kakape.bsky.social · 08/05/2026
After 15 years of reporting on infectious disease outbreaks, what continues to fascinate me about them is the challenge of making high-stakes decisions under uncertainty. The hantavirus outbreak on the MV Hondius is a perfect example My story in @science.org is here (and a thread to come): 🧪 #IDsky
science.org
What to do with the passengers on the cruise ship hit by hantavirus?
Past studies of Andes virus offer scant evidence on transmission risks, and have sparked debate
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RTÉ News @news.rte.ie · 07/05/2026
A Dutch ⁠woman has been admitted to a hospital in Amsterdam after showing ‌possible symptoms ⁠of a hantavirus infection, the Dutch health has ministry said.
rte.ie
Dutch woman in hospital with suspected hantavirus
A Dutch ⁠woman has been admitted to a hospital in Amsterdam after showing ‌possible symptoms ⁠of a hantavirus infection, the Dutch health has ministry said.
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Your Local Epidemiologist @ylepidemiologist.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
1/ Update on what we know about the evolving hantavirus situation, strap in. A Swiss man linked to the ship has now tested positive after developing symptoms after disembarking. He received an exposure alert, sought care, and tested positive. This means there are 3 deaths and 5 suspected.
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WHO @who.int · 05/05/2026
Update on #Hantavirus cluster linked to cruise ship travel: Based on the current information, including how hantavirus spreads, WHO assesses the risk to the global population from this event as low. More information bit.ly/42Tc4J7
Update Hantavirus on a navy blue background with the World Health Organization logo in white on the right top
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Natasha Simonova @philistella.bsky.social · 24/04/2026
Bluesky nerds! Can you help me get in touch with someone who works on East Indian languages, specifically in the 18th century?
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UCD Research @ucdresearch.bsky.social · 01/05/2026
🎭🔬Don't miss Colin Murphy's new play 'Miasma' at UCD Trapdoor on 5 May! Dramatising the research of the VICTEUR project, this compelling one-hour detective story about the cholera pandemic in 1840s–50s reflects challenges still faced today around misinformation vs evidence. 🎟️ lnkd.in/dazUXnTF
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Signal @signal.org · 22/04/2026
We are very happy that today Apple issued a patch and a security advisory. This comes following 404 Media reporting that the FBI accessed Signal message notification content via iOS despite the app being deleted.
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Rachel Maddow @maddow.bsky.social · 18/04/2026
"She’s been a court interpreter for over 20 years, the only one licensed in Texas for Hindi, Punjabi, or Urdu. Her language skills are requested nationwide..." "One of her children recently enlisted in the military... www.texasobserver.org/immigration-...
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Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 15/04/2026
Amazon will pay $20.5 million to settle allegations that two of its Oregon data centers helped contaminate groundwater. This is exactly why communities across the country are organizing to stop data centers — and winning. Never doubt your power to change the system.
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Shannon Mora @smora.bsky.social · 13/04/2026
The real cost of cheap goods and fast delivery. They are accused of preventing staff from assisting or performing cpr and requiring workers to continue on while a man lay on the floor. imagine the moral trauma to all involved. #speirgorm keep resisting Amazon.ie
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Joseph Cox @josephcox.bsky.social · 13/04/2026
New from 404 Media: WebinarTV is a company secretly scraping peoples' Zoom meetings and posting them online for others to watch. We've now found those include anonymous recovery programs, substance abuse meetings, etc. Supposed to be anonymous but show names and faces www.404media.co/webinartv-se...
404media.co
WebinarTV Secretly Scraped Zoom Meetings of Anonymous Recovery Programs
WebinarTV scraped and shared 12 steps-based anonymous meetings for people recovering from addiction and other private support groups.
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Marty Meany @martinmeany.goosed.ie · 12/04/2026
"Your feed is not Ireland. It is a slice of Ireland that has been assembled by an algorithm optimised for engagement, not accuracy or balance"
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Rachel Maddow @maddow.bsky.social · 12/04/2026
"The judge concluded his opinion with an unusually sharp rebuke of the Trump administration: 'Suppression of political speech is the mark of an autocracy, not a democracy — as the Framers recognized when they drafted the First Amendment'...” www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...
washingtonpost.com
Pentagon violated court order to restore press access, judge rules
Senior U.S. District Judge Paul L. Friedman also admonished the Trump administration, saying suppressing political speech is the “mark of an autocracy, not a democracy.”
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Rachel Maddow @maddow.bsky.social · 10/04/2026
“'I’ve never experienced anything like this in my entire life,' the congresswoman said, fighting back tears. "She described the way people were laying down inside as “like sardines.” “'It is frightening in there,' she said. 'It is disgusting'..." azmirror.com/2026/04/10/i...
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Mike Quigley @quigley.house.gov · 07/04/2026
I'm officially calling for the Cabinet to remove Trump from office under the 25th Amendment. If they can't, Congress must return from recess today and begin impeachment proceedings. Read my full statement below. quigley.house.gov/media-center...
quigley.house.gov
Quigley Calls for Trump's Removal Under 25th Amendment
Today, Chicago Congressman Mike Quigley (IL-05) called for Donald Trump's removal from the office of the President, following his post threatening Iran that "a whole civilization will die tonight":
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Mark Chadbourn @chadbourn.bsky.social · 08/04/2026
And this:
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Florida Democrats @fladems.bsky.social · 08/04/2026
Is Ron DeSantis using taxpayer dollars to torture immigrants? Democrats are fighting to figure out and shut down whats going on at the Everglades Detention Facility. bit.ly/4sZqX8n
naplesnews.com
'The box' at Alligator Alcatraz called a torture device. What we know
"Credible allegation" about 'the box' as a punishment prompted two U.S. Senators to start an investigation March 26. They want answers by April 8.
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Timothy Snyder @timothysnyder.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
“A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.” -Trump Article III The following acts shall be punishable: (a) Genocide; (b) Conspiracy to commit genocide; (c) Direct and public incitement to commit genocide; (d) Attempt to commit genocide; (e) Complicity in genocide.
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Timothy Snyder @timothysnyder.bsky.social · 08/04/2026
Some thoughts about the President of the United States speaking about ending a civilization. The president speaks genocide. Anyone who has been involved in that conversation or associated actions would be complicit. And so we too must speak. Not only about crimes, but about their legal punishment.
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Christopher Hale @christopherjhale.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
BREAKING: Pope Leo XIV declares the Iran War is “unjust” and “is not resolving anything.” After suggesting Trump is committing war crimes by targeting civilian infrastructure, he called on Americans to contact Congress to help end the war.
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Matthew Kirschenbaum @mkirschenbaum.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
Any “deal” that forestalls genocide is a good one, full stop. But Trump getting to make a big announcement claiming victory while casting himself as the savior is classic abuser behavior and will reward his brinksmanship. As always, there are the catastrophic options and just very bad ones.
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Mark Chadbourn @chadbourn.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
New Iran thread. Starting with a Lest We Forget: Hillary Clinton, 9 years ago: “This is not someone who should ever have the nuclear codes – because it’s not hard to imagine Donald Trump leading us into a war just because somebody got under his very thin skin.”
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