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Dhanaraj Thakur

@thakurdhanaraj.bsky.social
304 followers 628 following 58 posts

Director, Fair Technology Initiative, George Washington University Law School. Board Member: Baltimore Digital Equity Coalition; Friends of Global Voices.

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Reposted by Dhanaraj Thakur
Kylie Cheung @kylietcheung.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
I think its important to understand the campus sexual assault crisis is way worse than you think. universities suspend just 1/12,400 students each year for sexual misconduct & expel 1/22,900. once you read title ix administrators in their own words, you get a sense why that is:
jezebel.com
Not Only Do Campus Sexual Assailants Go Unpunished, They Often Get Special Treatment
Since 2007, Jezebel has been the Internet's most treasured source for everything celebrities, sex, and politics...with teeth.
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Mar Hicks @histoftech.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
“I want to draw your attention to another reality: Right now, the US economy & our financial futures are riding on Silicon Valley's bet that Al will soon be immensely profitable… that bet isn't looking good. The formula for a profitable business isn't complicated: make more than you spend…“
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Hakeem Jefferson @hakeemjefferson.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Nikole Hannah-Jones w/ a sobering follow-up on her decision yrs ago to enroll her daughter in a poor, majority-Black public school rather than a wealthier, whiter private school. You leave heartbroken for the kids being failed by this grossly unequal system. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/20/m...
nytimes.com
In Fighting for Every Black Child, Did I Betray My Own? (Gift Article)
A decade ago, I made a decision about my daughter’s education that I hoped would challenge New York City’s separate and unequal school system. Now 16, she thinks I made the wrong choice.
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Mary Anne Franks @maryannefranks.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
What can a 1985 John Hughes movie about two boys who decide to make a woman with their computer tell us about the dangers of AI? You can find out in this lecture (also featured: Pygmalion, Pandora, and the Pope) www.youtube.com/watch?v=mW94...
youtube.com
Dr. Mary Anne Franks - Weird Science: How Male Fantasies Fuel AI
YouTube video by University of Mary Washington
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Jason Kint @kint.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Eye popping. Court just unsealed Summary Judgment motions in New York Times v OpenAI / Microsoft. Easy to see why the AI companies had so many redactions (pink). Their own people wrote the lede for NYT, the "largest theft of labor in human history"... "more and more substitutive..." /1
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Dhanaraj Thakur @thakurdhanaraj.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
A new journal paper from me - “Our Content Should Be Treated Differently”: Race, Gender, Language, and the Experiences of Quechua Women on Social Media, published in the Journal of Online Trust and Safety by the @techimpactpolicy.bsky.social tsjournal.org/index.php/jo...
“Our Content Should Be Treated Differently”:
Race, Gender, Language, and the Experiences
of Quechua Women on Social Media
Dhanaraj Thakur
I examine online gender-based violence (GBV) targeted at Quechua
women social media users who post in Quechua and how trust and safety
systems address this problem. This builds on previous research on how
such systems operate in low-resource languages (Elswah, Bhatia, and
Thakur 2025) and the literature on online GBV in the Majority World. I
use an intersectional framework to examine how the overlapping identi-
ties of race, gender, and language shape who has power when posting
in a low-resource language (i.e., Quechua). Using a 2024/25 survey of
Quechua social media users; interviews with content moderators, lin-
guistic activists, and others (Thakur 2025b); and social media comments
about Quechua women influencers on TikTok and YouTube during 2025,
I find that Quechua women are targeted with online GBV because of
their race, gender, and language. The analysis also suggests that trust
and safety systems fail to provide protection for these women, in part
because moderation and reporting policies are ineffective and because
the AI-based tools used by social media companies perform worse in
Quechua. I argue that social media platforms should treat the content of
historically oppressed groups differently—with greater protection, com-
munity engagement, and investmen
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Dr Abeba Birhane @abeba.blacksky.app · 11/09/2026
"When a bridge collapses, you don’t analyze whether the bridge was ethical or sentient or why it decided to collapse. You ask, who built this bridge to be so flimsy? There are permits you have to acquire [& supposed] tests. When you ask about the bridge collapsing itself, you’ve lost the thread"
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evacide @evacide.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
If you optimize a model to find exploits, you should expect it to find them—and prepare for that. OpenAI didn't. They built a model, removed the safeguards, gave it the ExploitGym task, let it run, and didn't even monitor it. That's human decision-making. mail.cyberneticforests.com/models-dont-...
mail.cyberneticforests.com
Models Don't Go Rogue
Stochastic Flocks & Cybersecurity 'Pandemonium' 💡This essay was drafted from my appearance on Mél Hogan's podcast, The Data Fix, discussing the OpenAI / Hugging Face hack. Embedded below or find it o...
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Dhanaraj Thakur @thakurdhanaraj.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
The Multiracial Democracy Project at @gwlaw.bsky.social, the @gwclt.bsky.social and @cdt.org are hosting a symposium on the Impacts of AI on Multilingual and Multiracial Democracy. Sept 28, 2026 (9am to 2pm) in Washington DC, with a remote option. Please join us! www.eventbrite.com/e/impacts-of...
eventbrite.com
Impacts of AI on Multilingual and Multiracial Democracy
Exploring the real-world challenges of multilingual AI and how technology and policy can advance greater language equity.
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Justin Hendrix @justinhendrix.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
"School students’ reading scores have plunged across the developed world, as widespread access to AI and social media has harmed teenagers’ ability to concentrate, said a newly published international survey."
giftarticle.ft.com
Reading scores plummet as ‘digital distraction’ harms students
Widespread access to AI and social media has set back educational attainment across the world, study shows
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Dhanaraj Thakur @thakurdhanaraj.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
Please join us this upcoming Wednesday!
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Reposted by Dhanaraj Thakur
Guardian US @us.theguardian.com · 04/09/2026
At the session, 164 countries voted in favour of the resolution, which called to phase out the traditional map that depicts Africa as similar in size to Greenland. Only the US voted no, with its representative saying the resolution was “superfluous”.
theguardian.com
UN votes to adopt new world map that shows Africa’s true scale
Togo-sponsored resolution called to phase out traditional map that depicts continent as similar size to Greenland
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Dhanaraj Thakur @thakurdhanaraj.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Great article by @rinachandran.bsky.social and @restofworld.org. AI safety policies and guardrails designed in one context will not protect all users around the world. This safety gap will lead to another AI divide. restofworld.org/2026/ai-safe... #LLMs #AI #AIsafety
restofworld.org
AI safety is designed in the West, and failing users everywhere
OpenAI’s pause shows the risks of rapid AI development, as safety frameworks fail to account for non-Western languages and contexts where harms are felt most.
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Reposted by Dhanaraj Thakur
gwiddp.bsky.social @gwiddp.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
New from IDDP affiliate @thakurdhanaraj.bsky.social: How do “race-neutral” approaches to law and technology risk reinforcing racial inequities? Thakur examines the parallels between the Supreme Court and Big Tech and what they mean for multiracial democracy. 💻 full article at bit.ly/4wPg4XC
bit.ly
How the Supreme Court and Big Tech Both Weaponize 'Race-Neutrality'
Both online and offline, we are seeing the dangerous adoption of a “race-neutral” approach to consequential decisions, writes Dhanaraj Thakur.
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Dhanaraj Thakur @thakurdhanaraj.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
This is what we mean by AI perpetuating systems of discrimination (in addition to explicit AI bias). A reliance on who you know in the job market is going to promote racism, sexism, ableism, etc.
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Dhanaraj Thakur @thakurdhanaraj.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
In @techpolicypress.bsky.social I argue that the Supreme Court and social media rely on an ideology that promotes race-neutrality dressed up as law or algorithm, which leads to disproportionately negative outcomes for people of color. www.techpolicy.press/how-the-supr... #meta #race #supremecourt
techpolicy.press
How the Supreme Court and Big Tech Both Weaponize 'Race-Neutrality'
Both online and offline, we are seeing the dangerous adoption of a “race-neutral” approach to consequential decisions, writes Dhanaraj Thakur.
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Maggie Harrison Dupré @mharrisondupre.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
NEW: Teen boys are using smart glasses — mainly Meta's AI Glasses — to film themselves harassing classmates at school, following girls around and "rizzing" them or "ragebaiting" them w/ insults. In several videos we reviewed, girls plead w/ the poster to stop filming. futurism.com/artificial-i...
futurism.com
Teen Boys Are Using Meta Glasses to Harass and Bully Girls at High Schools and Middle Schools
Teen boys are using Meta's AI glasses to harass and bully victims -- overwhelmingly girls -- at middle schools and high schools.
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Dhanaraj Thakur @thakurdhanaraj.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
Looking forward to moderating this webinar on AI in K-12 schools with Elizabeth Laird (@cdt.org), @jbbranch.bsky.social (@publiccitizen.bsky.social), and Dawn Sherie (@baltcityschools.bsky.social) Please join us! 🗓️ Wednesday, September 9th 🕛 12:00–1:00 PM (ET) 💻 Virtual: bit.ly/45V5T92
Please join us for BDEC’s September Coalition Convening as we bring together national and local leaders in AI policy, education, and technology for a timely discussion on how we can harness AI’s potential in the K-12 space while ensuring it is implemented responsibly, ethically, and equitably.

With Elizabeth Laird, J.B. Branch, and Dawn Sherie (Baltimore City Public Schools). 

Whether you’re an educator, parent, nonprofit leader, funder, policymaker, technology partner, workforce practitioner, or community advocate, this convening will provide valuable insights into the opportunities, risks, and responsibilities of AI in education. 

 🗓️ Wednesday, September 9th 
 🕛 12:00–1:00 PM (ET)
 💻 Virtual: https://bit.ly/45V5T92
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Reposted by Dhanaraj Thakur
Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 17/08/2026
So many of the norms underlying academic culture relied on frictions associated with writing. It was entirely predictable that academia would be profoundly harmed when a machine came along to remove those frictions by making (insincere, inaccurate) communication effortless.
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404 Media @404media.co · 17/08/2026
SCOOP: 404 Media placed a tracking device in a shipment of rare books to see which AI company was buying it. What did we find? It ended up at an Amazon facility where Amazon scans and destroys books. Yes. This is literally the logo outside the Amazon warehouse door. Read now:
404media.co
We Tracked a Shipment of Rare Books. It Ended at an Amazon AI Training Facility
We placed a tracking device in a shipment of rare books to see which AI company was buying it, and found an Amazon facility where Amazon scans and destroys books.
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Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
Plenty to reflect about re: the Arday affair, but I'm going to repeat this one thing. The playbook the right used here is effective even though it's not especially sophisticated, as it relies on the audience to do the dirty work. I've been calling it "Trojan horse propaganda", let's go with that. 1/
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Justin Hendrix @justinhendrix.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
Roy L. Austin, Jr., Meta's former VP of Civil Rights and now director of the Howard Law Artificial Intelligence Initiative, reads Mark Zuckerberg's new manifesto "The Future is for Everyone" against Meta's record—and finds a widening gap between the words meant to inspire and the company's actions.
techpolicy.press
When an AI Manifesto Runs Into Reality
Roy L. Austin, Jr. was formerly Meta’s Vice President of Civil Rights. He now directs the Howard Law Artificial Intelligence Initiative.
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Dr Abeba Birhane @abeba.blacksky.app · 15/09/2025
AI is the wrong tool to tackle complex societal & systemic problems. AI4SG is more about PR victories, boosting AI adoption (regardless of merit/usefulness) & laundering accountability for harmful tech, extractive practices, abetting atrocities. yours truly www.project-syndicate.org/magazine/ai-...
project-syndicate.org
The False Promise of “AI for Social Good”
Abeba Birhane refutes industry claims about the technology's potential to solve complex social problems.
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Meredith Whittaker @meredithmeredith.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
🎀
Headline from WSJ, screenshotted, saying "Chinese Censorship Is Leaking Into Answers from American AI: ChatGPT, Claud and Gemini unwittingly respond like China's censored chatbots when asked some sensitive questions" Headline from the Washington Post, that says: "Chatbots are doing the work of Congress with little oversight: from writing speeches to sorting constituent mail, AI is spreading through Congress faster than the rules governing its use"
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Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 12/08/2026
“The more surreptitious the filming seemed, the researchers found, the more serious the harassment.”
404media.co
Researchers Show How Meta's 'Pervert Glasses' Are Used to Harass Women
A new study shows how pickup artist influencers use smart glasses to create content, and the connection between covert recording and harm.
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Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 12/08/2026
It doesn’t matter what Meta says. This product is designed to erode and erase consent.
nbcnews.com
Meta A.I. glasses spark privacy concerns as women report being recorded without consent
Meta A.I. glasses draw growing backlash on social media as more people, mostly women, speak out about being filmed, with the videos being posted online without their consent. NBC News’ Yasmin Vossough...
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WIRED @wired.com · 07/08/2026
Many young men are driven to resentment and are financially exploited as influencers sell them classes, pills, and the illusion of clout, a new report reveals. www.wired.com/story/the-ma...
wired.com
The ‘Manosphere’ Isn’t a Movement. It’s a Multibillion-Dollar Grievance Industry
Many young men are driven to resentment and are financially exploited as influencers sell them classes, pills, and the illusion of clout, a new report reveals.
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Dhanaraj Thakur @thakurdhanaraj.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
This will be a collaboration between the Multiracial Democracy Project at The George Washington University Law School and the Center for Security, Innovation, and New Technology (CSINT) at American University. More soon!
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Dhanaraj Thakur @thakurdhanaraj.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
Datacenters are an important part of tech policy discussions. One crucial point is race, including the relationship between the location of datacenters and communities of color. @sbradshaw.bsky.social, Nirvana Saboorian, and I will publish research next month on this. #datacenters
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Dr Abeba Birhane @abeba.blacksky.app · 07/08/2026
AI did not and cannot do such a thing! it is literally in the next line (Scientists trained AI on libraries of DNA and then asked the model to create recipes for viral genomes) but hype and clickbait over accurate reporting i guess www.nytimes.com/2026/08/06/s...
nytimes.com
This A.I. Just Created Viruses Not Found in Nature
Scientists trained artificial intelligence on libraries of DNA and then asked the model to create recipes for viral genomes. Sixteen of them were viable, yielding new viruses.
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Tech Policy Press @techpolicypress.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
Laws against image-based abuse protect people only when images are sexual. Eva Blum-Dumontet argues that's the wrong threshold: any photo shared without consent can be a weapon, and legislation should reflect that.
techpolicy.press
Consent, Not Nudity, Should Define Image-Based Abuse Laws
Eva Blum-Dumontet argues image-based abuse laws should focus on consent, not nudity, to protect people from non-consensual image sharing.
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Nora Benavidez @attorneynora.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
The great unfolding of authoritarianism is a series of plausibly deniable moves in which people choose power over principle, over & over & over. www.wsj.com/politics/pol...
wsj.com
How ICE Is Weaponizing Social Media Against Its Critics
The agency says its surveillance program searches for threats to agents, but critics see free-speech infringements.
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J. Nathan Matias @natematias.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
Welcome to the closed society, as described by Karl Popper.
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Joseph Cox @josephcox.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
That was fast. Google sent me a statement saying it is now “rolling back“ this AI feature after our demonstration and others from OSINT researchers www.404media.co/google-earth...
404media.co
Google Earth’s New AI Lets Anyone Fabricate Completely Bullshit Satellite Images
"Tonight I typed just one sentence into Google Earth and put refugees near the Mexican border. Then I planted a nuclear plant in Iran. Then I put a fatal crash on a street in Amsterdam."
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dell cameron @dell.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
It’s unlikely OpenAI’s agent would’ve escaped to the open internet if the company were following basic security best practices. @lhn.bsky.social reports.
wired.com
OpenAI’s Hacking Debacle Comes Down to Human Error
If the generative AI giant had followed well-known security best practices, it’s likely that its AI agent would never have escaped to the open internet and hacked multiple companies.
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Joseph Cox @josephcox.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
New: I spoke to Samuel Tunick, the man the U.S. is charging with allegedly wiping his GrapheneOS phone before CBP could search it. “I hope people understand that the charges against me are meant to intimidate people against protecting their data and their privacy.” www.404media.co/the-governme...
404media.co
‘The Government Hopes To Set a Precedent’: An Interview With the Man Charged for Allegedly Wiping His GrapheneOS Phone
The U.S. government has charged Samuel Tunick with allegedly typing in a passcode to wipe his phone before officers could search it. “I hope people understand that the charges against me are meant to ...
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Katie Drummond @katie-drummond.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
New: Hugging Face has a widespread problem with nonconsensual deepfakes, including multiple AI models that undress or create sexual images. Researchers even created their own tool on the platform and tracked 1,000 prompts over a week. 73% of the prompts they received were sexual in nature.
wired.com
Hugging Face Has a Deepfake Nudes Problem
Researchers tested top image editing models on Hugging Face and found they could easily create explicit deepfakes—and 1,000 image editing prompts show how people use the software.
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Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 26/07/2026
FWIW, Meta was fully aware of how these glasses would primarily be used. The glasses were designed to erase consent, and that is why they exist. Anything that they do that suggests they want to ameliorate this use is an attempt to win the PR battle and manipulate public opinion.
futurism.com
Meta Desperately Trying to Ban Creeps Misusing Its AI "Pervert Glasses"
Meta is vowing to crack down on creeps misusing its Ray Ban smart glasses. Whether it will be enough to regain trust remains to be seen.
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Data & Society @datasociety.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
New research suggests that LLMs can develop their own biases from experience, separate from their training data. This can lead them to stereotype job applicants even more than humans do. www.technologyreview.com/2026/07/20/1...
technologyreview.com
AI is more likely than humans to form biases when hiring
AI doesn’t just learn stereotypes from its training. It can cook up new ones, too.
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L.A. TACO @lataco.bsky.social · 26/07/2026
Sunday Taquitos #30: Flock This! Art by @ivan-ehlers.bsky.social
A cartoon of two people standing under a flock camera speaking to each other. The man says “I’m fine with mass surveillance ‘cause I’m not doing anything wrong.” The woman responds “… Until someone changes the definition of what’s ‘wrong.’”
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Mar Hicks @histoftech.bsky.social · 26/07/2026
For many years, people didn’t randomly film others in public—not because we didn’t have the technology, but because the social contract said you didn’t do that. That’s why Meta is going full court press on their PR and celebrity endorsements. They remember how people ran google glass outta town.
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Alondra Nelson @alondra.bsky.social · 26/07/2026
Students from all 50 states just drafted an #AIBillofRights. They named cheating, bias, privacy mental health, environmental costs and more. The civic grammar of AI rights is traveling and we're fortunate that young people are leading the way and writing it. www.the74million.org/article/stud...
"High school students, steeped for nearly the past four years in generative artificial intelligence, face this reality daily, attending class largely without a set of agreed-upon guidelines. Over the weekend, a small group of students came together to hammer out a few basic principles for the technology, something akin to an AI Bill of Rights.

Sponsored by a group that includes an MIT research initiative and a national superintendents’ association, 100 students from all 50 states gathered here to debate a first-of-its-kind set of recommendations, to be shared with district leaders nationwide as AI proliferates rapidly in the lives of both students and teachers."
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Nora Benavidez @attorneynora.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
Civil rights records and demographic statistics to be erased into digital oblivion. Such a troubling pattern by this administration: www.latimes.com/world-nation...
latimes.com
U.S. civil rights agency moves to end demographic data collection after 60 years
The Trump administration is seeking to toss aside a 60-year-old requirement for private-sector employers to submit workforce demographic reports to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
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Shobita Parthasarathy @shobitap.org · 22/07/2026
"there’s a glaring problem [with polygenic risk scores]: The tools were trained overwhelmingly on the DNA of people of European descent, so they often fail to accurately assess risks for anyone else. For some conditions, the forecasts for people of color are almost no better than flipping a coin."
nytimes.com
This Lifesaving Genetics Tool Works Best if You’re White (Gift Article)
Genetic prediction models are poised to revolutionize medicine. But because they have been trained on European DNA, they threaten to widen health care disparities.
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Sarah T Roberts, PhD @ubiquity75.xyz · 13/06/2026
The goal isn’t to replace the work of humans. It’s to make a case for its devaluation.
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J. Nathan Matias @natematias.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
"Federal agencies that terminated more than a thousand research grants at the University of California last year admitted that they used keywords related to diversity, gender, vaccine hesitancy and COVID-19" by @mzinshteyn.bsky.social apnews.com/article/cali...
apnews.com
White House admits it used keywords to kill billions worth of California research grants
Federal agencies that terminated more than a thousand research grants at the University of California last year admitted that they used keywords related to diversity, gender, vaccine hesitancy and COV...
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Data & Society @datasociety.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
As web searches are increasingly performed by AI chatbots, the number of people visiting websites is falling. It's a change that poses a serious threat to the open web. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/20/t...
nytimes.com
How Google’s A.I. Search Is Imperiling the Open Web
As Google incorporates more artificial intelligence into search, people are spending more time on Google. Some website operators are crying foul.
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Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 17/07/2026
“…AI cannot account for consent. For women and other marginalized communities, what matters is not the content of the image, but the lack of consent, the harm experienced, and the intention with which the abuse is perpetrated.”
restofworld.org
The problem AI content moderation cannot solve
Meta and other big tech companies are increasingly using AI for content moderation, but as the backlash to Muse Image shows, it cannot protect users because it does not account for consent.
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MediaJustice @mediajustice.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
Big Tech is making moves ahead of the 2026 midterms. We're making ours. ✊🏾 Join us July 30 at 6 PM ET / 3 PM PT as we launch BroBots vs. The People, a new campaign exposing the Tech Broligarchy. We'll kick things off with the first event in our six-part poli ed series. 🔗 RSVP: bit.ly/resistbrobots
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