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Tim Bates

@tbates12.bsky.social
68 followers 154 following 3 posts

Guardian sub/production editor. Views my own, probably thinking too hard about things

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Reposted by Tim Bates
Elizabeth Taylor @elizabethtaylor47.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
This notion of bigoted beliefs being a protected characteristic like gender or race is just absolutely barmy. Those of us who’ve experienced genuine discrimination for who we are know there’s no comparison, and the political and legal collusion on this stuff is disastrous.
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Duncan Hothersall @dhothersall.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
If attendance at a major women's conference was down 80% due to a boycott fighting against trans *inclusion*, it would be all over the Times, Telegraph, Mail etc. This last weekend, attendance at a major women's conference was down 80% due to a boycott fighting against trans *exclusion*. Crickets.
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Talia "ATTACK DOGS is out now!" Bhatt ⚢ @taliabhatt.itch.io · 27/09/2026
Transphobia is genuinely an elite fixation that is much less popular than most politicians and media outlets would have you believe.
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Alex Andreou @sturdyalex.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
I would love to ask a prominent BBC journalist to give me an example of an illegitimate concern. Is seems to me that it has become a question not of fact, logic, or ethics but of volume. If a big enough proportion of a village was anxious about Bigfoot or Chemtrails, BBC would cover it in a way...
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katie @supermathskid.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
Jeremy Vine on radio 2 inviting comment on the thugs last night, literally suggested that you might phone in if "you think they've got a point, because the government clearly isn't doing enough to curb the small boat crossings". How fucking dare you use my licence fee for this fascism
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Alasdair Beckett-King @misterabk.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
I feel very fondly towards BBC News; the way you might feel about a family dog that has rabies.
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The Verge @theverge.com · 02/09/2026
As a new Harry Potter trailer makes the rounds, it bears repeating that there’s no way to watch this show without supporting J.K. Rowling’s bigotry and the structural violence she’s inflicting on the trans community.
theverge.com
There is no ethical consumption of HBO’s Harry Potter series
You can’t without supporting Rowling’s transphobic bigotry.
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Marie Le Conte @youngvulgarian.marieleconte.com · 02/09/2026
again, the knowledge that coverage like this now happens because of some people who call themselves feminists drives me insane - must everyone who happened to have been born a girl be seen through the lens of "but what about breastfeeding"? is that really what we're doing, again?
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Athena Kugblenu @athenakugblenu.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
The Guardian once asked me 'what one change would you make to achieve Black equality in Britain?' and it feels appropriate to share my answer again
Athena Kugblenu: Allow Black people to be mediocre too!
Athena Kugblenu
I would like to replace #blackexcellence with #blackmediocrity. True equality is when our talent:recognition ratio is allowed to be as broad as white people’s. Lewis Hamilton had to win two Formula One titles before he bagged BBC Sports Personality of the Year in 2014; Greg Rusedski only had to get battered by Pat Rafter to win his. Kwasi Kwarteng steered the economy towards an iceberg and got sacked. Jeremy Hunt drove the NHS over a cliff, now he’s chancellor. Don’t get me started on how many football clubs get ruined by freshly retired white footballers while very qualified Black managers are overlooked. When the arc of the moral universe bends towards Black people failing upwards as their peers do, we will be in the promised land.
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The Author, Séamas O'Reilly @seamas.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
An underreported part of UK Transphobe Lawfare™ is that when they lose, they just... say they won. For all the regrettable sway they do have in courts/govt etc, their real power is in the press. So if they lose, they just pretend they didn't and their press friends print the lie. It's ubiquitous.
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Natacha @natacha.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
The person who brought in the Upskirting law is specifically accusing Rowling of breaking it.

Gina @ginamartinuk
I brought the "upskirting law" into affect in 2019.
...
Le'ts talk about that image JK Rowling shared.
She did this to humiliate artist Freda Wallace. That is a specific motivation we included in the Voyeurism Act. We fought for, and included it *specifically* because...
6:44 • 20 Jul 2026 • 229.6k Views
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Casey Explosion @caseyexplosion.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
I fear for so many trans friends in the UK right now, I'm so sorry all of this is happening.
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Erin Reed @erininthemorning.com · 14/07/2026
When I criticize Dems in the United States who waffle on transgender issues, its because I don't want them turning into Labour UK, who pretty much has fully espoused transphobia and is enacting extreme harm on trans people in that country far worse than the conservatives had done.
UK Parliament
Early Day Motions
UK Parliament
>
Early Day Motions
Amnesty Internat
Amnesty International UK report on the anti-rights movement in the UK
EDM 603: tabled on 14 July 2026
Tabled in the 2026-27 session.
This motion has been signed by 4 Members. It has not yet had any amendments submitted.Motion text
That this House expresses extreme concern
at Amnesty International UK's report
entitled A Growing Threat: the Anti-Rights
Movement in the UK, published on 8 July;
condemns its depiction and listing of
organisations defending the rights of
women, girls, children, and gay and
bisexual people as anti-rights on the basis
of them being gender critical; further
condemns its depiction and listing of
organisations of parents and of clinicians as
promoting conversion practices; notes that
organisations depicted as supposedly anti-rights includes many grassroots women's rights organisations doing vital work domestically and internationally with vulnerable women and children, and a rape crisis centre and support service for female that gender critical belief is a protected belief under the Equality Act 2010 and reflects the views of the majority of the public; also notes that it is perfectly
survivors of male violence; further notes
legitimate to organise around the protected
characteristic of sex and to offer single-sex
spaces, as clarified by the recent SupremeCourt ruling in For Women Scotland vs The Scottish Government; recognises that such organisation, work and services are fundamentally important; also condemns the report for making unevidenced characterisations; acknowledges the damaging impact of such baseless accusations for the small grassroots charities and organisations listed; and calls on Amnesty International to withdraw the report, issue a formal public correction and apology acknowledging the reputational harm, and pledge that Amnesty staff who hold gender critical beliefs can express such beliefs without fear of bullying or harassment.Antoniazzi, Tonia
Labour
14 July 2026
>
Gower
Primary
Gilbert, Tracy
Labour
14 July 2026
>
Edinburgh North and Leith
Smith, David
Labour
14 July 2026
North Northumberland
>
Sullivan, Kirsteen
Labour
>
14 July 2026
Bathgate and Linlithgow
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Alasdair Beckett-King @misterabk.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
The great thing about Britain is you're free to think whatever you want to think and say whatever J. K. Rowling's lawyers permit you to say.
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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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Ashleeee 🌊🪭 @reactiveashley.cat · 09/07/2026
1/🧵 We do need to talk more about the illegality and lawlessness of the Cass Review. Hilary Cass cited Anne Wæhre's then-unpublished “study” via “personal communication”. It was later published at doi:10.1007/s00787-024-02508-5 and doi:10.1111/apa.17530, and the papers have now been retracted.
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Tristan Grayford @tristangrayford.scot · 08/07/2026
The new UK Health Secretary reassuring Telegraph journalists that he's transphobic enough for them. Why did he change his mind? Because throwing trans people under the bus is cheap politics for the Labour Party.
CAMILLA TOMINEY: You were quite pro-trans. You’ve appeared in campaigns and things. I mean, do you think a woman can have a penis? Because you did previously. It’s an important question for a health secretary to answer.

JAMES MURRAY: No, I don’t.

CAMILLA TOMINEY: So you’ve changed your mind.

JAMES MURRAY: Yes.

CAMILLA TOMINEY: Why have you changed your mind?

JAMES MURRAY: Well, I think a lot of us have been thinking about this issue over recent years. And, you know, I wouldn’t now say that, for instance, trans women are women. I think that biological sex is important.
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Talia "ATTACK DOGS is out now!" Bhatt ⚢ @taliabhatt.itch.io · 07/07/2026
Okay give me a billion dollars and the ability to set the editorial agenda of the world's leading publications
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Josiah Mortimer @josiahmortimer.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
Britain is more than halfway towards reaching Net Zero. Most people don't realise this, not least as the fossil-fuel fanatics want us to think achieving it is impossible. Via YouGov


**UK public support net zero, but underestimate UK achievement to date**

"Thinking about the government's target to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050, how much progress, if any, do you think the UK has made towards achieving this target?"

**Long way / less than halfway** — 50%

**Don't know** — 28%

**Most of the way / More than halfway** — 8%

---

*All figures, unless otherwise stated, are from YouGov Plc. Total sample size was 2,040 adults. Fieldwork was undertaken between 17th - 18th June 2026. The survey was carried out online. The figures have been weighted and are representative of all GB adults (aged 18+)*
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Frances Ryan @francesryan.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
Let’s not fudge why Starmer is in this mess. Yes, he didn’t have political instinct. Yes, the public is much less patient and more critical. But Starmer was also - to use his own phase - morally bankrupt on key issues of the day, from Gaza, disability benefits, to immigration.
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George Monbiot @georgemonbiot.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
I keep hearing "Keir Starmer is a decent man". Never mind the vibes: decent is as decent does. And all this and more is the opposite of decent.
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Phil Burton-Cartledge @philbc3.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
I don't feel sorry for Starmer. I feel for the Palestinians whose slaughter he enabled, for the trans people and refugees he's victimised, and my colleagues who've had their careers wrecked by Labour's assault on universities. A record to be ashamed of.
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Lee Hurley @hleehurley.com · 22/06/2026
If you think Keir Starmer is a 'decent' person, you need to speak to the many, many minorities his government has targeted mercilessly. You can't speak to all of them, however, because many of them are dead because of choices Keir Starmer's government made
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Adrian Tchaikovsky @aptshadow.bsky.social · 14/06/2026
There have been a lot of counter-racism protests in the UK that demonstrate just what a vocal minority the right are. Not sure if they’ll get the same breathless news coverage…
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The Author, Séamas O'Reilly @seamas.bsky.social · 12/06/2026
On legitimising yet another pogrom.
Some prefer to step two degrees away from the above conclusion, blaming the violence not on one discrete crime, but rather on long-simmering discontent about “unfettered immigration”, to use the words offered by loyalist MP Jim Allister, in the wake of last year’s Ballymena riots. Such riots are appalling, the argument goes, but their anger reflects a legitimate concern; that immigration has simply gone too far.

Again, we risk demeaning ourselves by pointing out that rates of migration into Northern Ireland have never been connected to any rise in crime, and represent a tremendous benefit to the economy, from workers in hospitality and agri-business sectors to manufacturing and academia. Migrants are most beneficial in the health and care sectors, with 22 per cent of carers in the state coming from outside the UK and Ireland, without whom Tracey Reid, chief executive of the Northern Ireland Social Care Council, says the sector “could not survive”. Such statistics are, of course, broadly similar throughout the UK and Ireland, and were regarded as truisms until it became seemingly gauche for any prominent newspaper or politician to repeat them, in favour of contorting gymnastically to flatter the perceptions and prejudices of those who just hate migrants for entirely racist reasons. No matter how much they contribute to society, and no matter how few of them there are.

A compelling argument that this is the case can be found in the demographics of Northern Ireland itself. Its current population is just shy of two million. According to the most recent figures available, net migration in the state between 2001 and 2023 amounted to around 62,000 people, including less than 2,400 refugees in secure accommodation. Ballymena, which until this week had been the most prominent site of anti-immigrant violence in the state, sits in the Mid and East Antrim council area, which has seen fewer than 5,000 international migrants settle there this century. Only 3 per cent of Northern Ireland’s population belong to any ethnic minority at all.

For those of us who find the constant discussion of “the immigration problem” dehumanising and dishonest in any context, it’s revealing to see it deployed in places where immigration barely exists, not least for what it might suggest about such legitimate concerns everywhere else. We are left to presume that any number of non-white faces, no matter how few, is a salient enough horror for locals that their concerns become legitimised automatically. Even one, it would seem, is one too many.Most confusing of all has been the near-total absence of any context regarding who, exactly, is committing all this violence. The reluctance among media outlets to specify that these pogroms are the work of far-right loyalist gangs is particularly odd, given that such groups are fond of signing their work. The LVF, and associated gangs, have for decades sprayed their tags on the houses of the people they burn out, whether Catholics, economic migrants or refugees. Even now their graffiti proudly adorns walls and estates, demanding they be reserved for “locals only”. I’m old enough to remember when the LVF attacked the specially modified home of a severely disabled child because his family was insufficiently Protestant. I’m old enough to remember it because it happened less than two years ago.

When loyalist gangs burned Catholic families out of their homes in past years, there were few stern and sombre pleas that we should understand the arsonists’ concerns. Nor was there a reflexive jolt to place such acts in a context the perpetrators themselves might have liked, perhaps by drawing direct links between their violent acts and the existence of alleged crimes committed by disconnected Catholics many miles away. That this same logic is no longer applied to vast acts of violence against dozens of non-white people of all nationalities in Belfast, purportedly due to the actions of a single man from Sudan, is as preposterous as it is repulsive.
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Colm Murphy @colmpm.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
I have to say, listening to the Today programme dedicate an entire (context free) section about whether migrants are more likely to be convicted criminals *the morning after* hundreds of non-migrants of my own ethnicity committed a pogrom is blood boiling.
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John Merrick @johnmerrick.bsky.social · 08/06/2026
Brilliant from @nesrinemalik.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
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Casey Explosion @caseyexplosion.bsky.social · 04/06/2026
She was someone who's Facebook profile picture was a Barbie doll in an SS officer uniform, people knew exactly what she was, but because she targeted trans people? The overt nazi proclivities get brushed under the rug.
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Minnie Rahman @minnierahman.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
Farage knew exactly what he was doing yesterday. June hit and the far-right needed an excuse to restart another summer of riots and violence that is becoming regular for the UK. Another grieving family manipulated. Absolutely disgusting.
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Mollie Goodfellow @hansmollman.bsky.social · 02/06/2026
Crucially not the main point in all this trans EHRC stuff but it’s crazy that Labour’s “solution” largely seems to be make underpaid and under respected retail staff play as gender police in their culture war.
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Alejandra Caraballo @esqueer.net · 01/06/2026
It's just insane how the minute any Labour MP becomes a minister, they must instantly go on the media to demonstrate how transphobic they are and how they plan to push trans people out of society. There is no dignity in segregating trans people from society. archive.ph/jfMFG
On Monday, Mr Murray was told by BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that Mr Streeting changed his mind on trans rights.
Asked whether he had shifted his position, Mr Murray responded: “Yeah, I have changed what I would say. I wouldn’t say that phrase anymore. And I think that over the last few years a lot of us, myself included, have thought about this question in some detail.
“The Supreme Court has obviously ruled very clearly that biological sex is what matters when it comes to the Equality Act and determining the importance of single-sex spaces.
“I believe that single-sex spaces should be protected on the basis of sex, on the basis of biological sex, whilst at the same time believing in dignity for trans people – recognising that sex and gender are different things, but being absolutely clear that single-sex spaces within the NHS, for instance, need to be protected on the basis of sex.”
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Crowsa Luxemburg @quendergeer.bsky.social · 01/06/2026
hope you enjoyed the equality act 2010 while it lasted folks
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Katy Montgomerie 🦗 @katymontgomerie.com · 26/05/2026
Could there be a better example of "the trans debate" than 98% of women supporting trans people and then one single lone person voting against them and getting their way regardless. It's all such a fucking sham
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Commander Sterling @commandersterling.bsky.social · 24/05/2026
Nah. Not only has Britain eagerly led the charge in our cultural genocide, the cowardly way they call it “guidance” and couch it in faux concern for trans peoples’ safety is a uniquely British insult. All of the hate, none of the ownership. This is the policy you are seeing in Starmer’s Britain.
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Ella Baron @ellabaron.bsky.social · 22/05/2026
Satuday's @theguardian.com cartoon #transrights #EHRC #LGBTQ
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Tom Phillips @tom-phillips.com · 21/05/2026
I don't think it's a good idea to legally privilege someone else's discomfort over another person's rights.
13.147 A legitimate aim for excluding a trans person from a separate or single-sex service for their own sex might be to prevent discomfort or distress for other service users.
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Alejandra Caraballo @esqueer.net · 21/05/2026
The new EHRC guidance is a joke. It defines the protected category of sex by biology and then relies on enforcement based on appearance. The GRC has effectively been nullified. It's involuntary disclosure carries criminal penalties but then requires Anyone having a GRC to constantly out themselves.
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The Author, Séamas O'Reilly @seamas.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
I wrote this about the supreme court ruling last April and sadly, despite repeated slapdowns in court and increasing evidence that ordinary people are not the swivel-eyed transphobe obsessive this government believes, every word of it still applies. www.irishexaminer.com/lifestyle-co...
We might also consider what this means for the millions of cis women who do not fit the standard, sexist notion of “femininity” which logic dictates they must be checked against to enforce this ruling. 

Too tall, perhaps, too strong-jawed, or short-haired — anything that one patron, one witness, one supermarket or leisure centre security guard might consider cause to question their femininity. And how might they prove their “real” gender?

How would you? Perhaps my conception of feminism has been mis-calibrated all this time, and true freedom for women is mandating that they carry their birth certificates around with them all day, so they can be checked by citizen genital inspectors, male and female, encouraged to presume you’re a predator first, and work backwards from there.What conceivable application of this ruling, you might ask, could possibly result in less distress and harassment, even for the cis women it purports to protect?

Let us speak as adults. Despite being around 0.5% of the population, trans people have spent the past decade being attacked in one of the most flagrant moral panics ever perpetrated on the British public.

Spread in the name of a “feminism” centred on a small, committed group of active transphobes backed by the entire might of British politics and media, including every misogynist you can name; either because they share this gut-level hatred of trans folks, or simply because it serves their political interests to heap sadism on a vulnerable minority, instead of addressing the multiple overlapping crises that face the British public, and in which they are directly complicit.
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Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 12/05/2026
Mamdani has demonstrated something that Democrats have largely forgotten. You can't just do good things for voters and expect to be rewarded for it. You have to tell them about it, over and over again. You have to advertise your work in office just as much as you did on the campaign to win it.
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Abigail Thorn @theabigailthorn.bsky.social · 08/05/2026
I’m told my acceptance speech upset some of the BBC journalists who were in the room. I said what I said and it’s the truth 🤷‍♀️
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George Monbiot @georgemonbiot.bsky.social · 08/05/2026
No one expected Keir Starmer to solve our pressing problems overnight. But what we did expect – and had every right to expect – was that he would lay out a clear vision and roadmap for doing so. Instead, we’ve had drift, appeasement and a startling absence of ideas, values and ambition. 🧵1/6
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George Monbiot @georgemonbiot.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
The media forensically dissects the pasts of people who challenge the status quo, such as Polanski and Corbyn. Fair enough, up to a point: we should know about our representatives. But it's far less inquisitive about those who defend power, however great their misdeeds, such as Nigel Farage.🧵
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George Monbiot @georgemonbiot.bsky.social · 03/05/2026
We must stand in solidarity with Jews being attacked by antisemitic criminals and terrorists: no ifs or buts. We must stand in solidarity with Palestinians being murdered by the Israeli government: no ifs or buts. These are not contradictory positions. They are consistent ones. 🧵1/5
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รℓσαɳε ℓყรɓεƭɦ @sloanelysbeth.bsky.social · 01/05/2026
a 16 year old trans girl got brutally stabbed to death and the media and political response was to reintroduce section 28, implement conversion therapy on the nhs, and strip every trans person in the country of our civil rights while smearing us all as rapists.
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Transphobes Can't Read @lordaslan.bsky.social · 27/04/2026
Oh wow really
An article titled "Groundbreaking study finds no evidence that trans athletes are a threat to women's sports
Trans and cis women Show similar levels of p physical fitness in competition, according to the first neta-analysis of the published research"
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Molly Jong-Fast @mollyjongfast.bsky.social · 27/04/2026
The mainstream media is committing seppuku and we’re watching it happen in real time
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