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Tiffany C. Li

@tiffanycli.bsky.social
105K followers 781 following 2K posts

Law professor and writer. Expert on tech, privacy, AI, and sarcasm. 🐦: twitter.com/tiffanycli 🧵: www.threads.net/@tiffany.c.li 🐘: mastodon.social/@tiffanycli TiffanyLi.com if you insist

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Reposted by Tiffany C. Li
Kashmir Hill @kashhill.bsky.social · 6h
Meta is using a radical interpretation of a tax credit for “research and experimentation” to get billions of dollars off GPUs for its A.I. data centers. My latest with Jesse Drucker, @elitan.bsky.social and @mikeisaac.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/2026/09/30/t...
nytimes.com
How Meta Uses A.I. Data Centers to Avoid Billions in Federal Taxes (Gift Article)
Meta is exploiting a lucrative tax break intended to support research and experimentation. Its own accountants say the gambit is risky.
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Tiffany C. Li @tiffanycli.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Quoted in this Al Jazeera tech explainer on AI liability in the British Columbia vs. OpenAI lawsuit: www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/202...
aljazeera.com
Could AI firms be held responsible for mass shootings?
Canadian lawsuits against OpenAI raise questions about liability and duty to warn in the AI industry, say experts.
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Reposted by Tiffany C. Li
Cathy Gellis @cathygellis.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
This is why lawyers generally can't use AI (and clients shouldn't either). www.techdirt.com/2026/08/12/n...
techdirt.com
Not Ready For Prime Time: The Current State Of Legal Ethics And AI
I’ve been presenting at UC Law San Francisco Lexlab Law and AI certificate program its past several sessions, as well as some law school classes, on whether lawyers’ use of AI complies …
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Tiffany C. Li @tiffanycli.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
The default setting on most AI apps is for apps to use the data you input to train their models. So the AI “learns” based on what you put in, and your data influences the AI’s outputs. Deleting your data doesn’t do much, once the AI has already “learned.”
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Tiffany C. Li @tiffanycli.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Took a required Econ class. I mostly remember doing super well on the stock simulation because I bought all the tech stocks. If only I had actually invested in Apple and Amazon back then…
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Tiffany C. Li @tiffanycli.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
A very cute thing about human beings is when the sunset is especially beautiful and everyone just stands outside looking and taking photos of the sky
Vivid sunset
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Reposted by Tiffany C. Li
Jamie Smart @jamiesmart.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Can’t eat a sandwich until you subscribe to sandwiches. Can’t eat today’s sandwich until it has applied daily sandwich updates. Sandwich now has adverts even though you paid for ad-free sandwich. Can pay again to have less sandwich adverts. Now you can eat the sandwich, but it’s smaller.
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Tiffany C. Li @tiffanycli.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Love when we finish discussing how the court ruled on a case in Privacy Law, and a student says “Well, that seems problematic.” Yes, indeed.
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Tiffany C. Li @tiffanycli.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Guy in hot dog costume meme. Text: We're all trying to find the guy who did this
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Reposted by Tiffany C. Li
Privacy International @privacyinternational.org · 23/09/2026
Governments all over the world have been building up arsenals of technologies to surveil and monitor migrants and asylum seekers. We conducted a global survey to map the various technologies reportedly used on people on the move. privacyinternational.org/report/5866/...
privacyinternational.org
An Arsenal of Surveillance: A Guide to the Technologies Harming Migrants
Governments around the world are building increasingly sophisticated surveillance infrastructures to monitor migrants, asylum seekers and refugees at borders and within countries.
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Tiffany C. Li @tiffanycli.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
I find education policy so interesting because it is tied up with what we like to believe about the American Dream, that this nation is a meritocracy where we are all just temporarily embarrassed multimillionaires and every smart and hard-working child can and will succeed. But then reality hits.
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Tiffany C. Li @tiffanycli.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
This is so funny to me. Because, yes, you can use ChatGPT to spit out 200 papers a year if you want. But to what end? What is the point? Did you spend all those years studying and working to make AI button pressing your entire career? www.washingtonpost.com/education/20...
washingtonpost.com
Using AI, a professor wrote 200 papers this year. Researchers are alarmed.
An online platform removed 257 papers written or co-written by the University of Chicago’s Nicholas Polson after other academics raised questions.
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Tiffany C. Li @tiffanycli.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Not surprised actually. The Vatican has been consistently pro-human on AI ethics these past few years.
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Reposted by Tiffany C. Li
Renee DiResta @noupside.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
New work featured in New Public!: There is no neutral feed algorithm. Each one makes source, ranking, & content diversity choices. @jonathanstray.com & I started MySky so you can see - and change! - these settings. Check it out here on Bluesky, in "Feeds" # newpublic.substack.com/p/meet-the-a...
newpublic.substack.com
🎛️📲 Meet the algorithm you can actually control and understand
Jonathan Stray and Renée DiResta introduce MySky, a feed that shows its work
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Reposted by Tiffany C. Li
Jake Laperruque @jakelaperruque.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Starting now: Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Flock, ALPR camera networks, and the dangers of this AI surveillance technology I'll be watching and providing info and reactions on the hearing as it unfolds.... www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_yM...
youtube.com
LIVE: Josh Hawley Probes Flock Surveillance Network In Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing
YouTube video by Forbes Breaking News
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Tiffany C. Li @tiffanycli.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Yikes
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Reposted by Tiffany C. Li
Smooth Dunk @smoothdunk2.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
when ai leaves u behind
7 panel comic.

Panel 1:
A Red Guy with AI across his chest looks like he’s about to run away. A Yellow Guy stands next to him. Red Guy says “I’m the future, buddy. You comin’?”
Yellow Guy replies “Nah”

Panel 2: 
Red Guy is almost out of the panel. He leans in and says “Enjoy getting left behind, pal”
Yellow Guy replies “ok”

Panel 3:
Yellow Guy stands alone.

Panel 4: 
Close up on Yellow Guy, there is a quiet “huff-huff-huff” noise coming from behind him

Panel 5:
Yellow Guy turns to look behind him

Panel 6: 
Close up on Yellow Guy’s face as if from the point of view of an attacker.
Yellow Guy yells “Jesus Christ”

Panel 7:
AI Red Guy is now chasing the Yellow Guy. 
Red Guy: “Use me”
Yellow Guy “No”
Red Guy “USE ME”
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Tiffany C. Li @tiffanycli.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Just a major academic publisher supporting the AI literacy crisis
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Reposted by Tiffany C. Li
Annie Heffernan @annieheff.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
"Since Nebraska began using interRAI last year, the state has cut Medicaid funding to nearly 900 people with developmental disabilities, leaving many caretakers racing to overturn decisions made by an algorithm whose inner workings are largely hidden from the public."
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Reposted by Tiffany C. Li
Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 18/09/2026
Changing the brand of your mass surveillance tool doesn’t make it any less of a mass surveillance tool.
govtech.com
Boston Swaps Flock Safety for New License Plate Readers
A report outlines how Boston police launched pilots with Motorola and Axon as replacement platforms, which raised new questions about compliance with a city council ordinance.
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Reposted by Tiffany C. Li
Hannah BW @hbwhbwhbw.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
for @justsecurity.org, I wrote about why the Privacy Act hasn’t constrained the abuse of surveillance powers by this or prior administrations, and try to think through how we should do it differently. I owe intellectual debts to @barryfriedman1.bsky.social and @salome.bsky.social among others
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Tiffany C. Li @tiffanycli.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Every time someone asks me how to protect privacy using AI, I tell them the same thing: Don’t feed any private info into an AI app if you expect it to truly be private.
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Reposted by Tiffany C. Li
Joseph Cox @josephcox.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Your ChatGPT chats are not private, and humans are reading them. Anthropic's Claude too. More here: www.404media.co/inside-proje...
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Reposted by Tiffany C. Li
Ed Timberlake @trademarksaremagic.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
"State courts have the power to grant a more expansive range of rights than those found in the U.S. Constitution, and state constitutions provide the means for them to do so." - @tiffanycli.bsky.social
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Tiffany C. Li @tiffanycli.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Published a new post on @statecourtreport.org @brennancenter.org today: “State Privacy Rights Are More Important Than Ever” statecourtreport.org/our-work/ana...
statecourtreport.org
State Privacy Rights Are More Important Than Ever
With federal privacy protections receding or unsettled, state constitutions can provide a necessary shield.
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Tiffany C. Li @tiffanycli.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Reminder: AI companies talk up the fear of hypothetical superintelligent AI to distract you from the real, present dangers of AI that are happening right now
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Reposted by Tiffany C. Li
Raffi Melkonian @rmfifthcircuit.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Honestly, as a sometimes tort defense lawyer, I would suggest less public comments about your prior knowledge of your own products' dangerousness.
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Reposted by Tiffany C. Li
Abra / Jessica Conwell, Carmella Creeper's Gender Doula🏳️‍⚧️ 🇲🇽🌼 @pairofclaws.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
"The Transformers do not endorse the views of the President" okay, great, yeah, it's very normal that you had to say that. This is an ordinary world where things make sense. It's normal that I'd wake up to an official statement from cartoon robots denouncing the man who has the nuclear codes.
Image from Hasbro's Instagram: Optimus Prime is a beloved character who represents humility, leadership, compassion and justice. Hasbro is aware of the recent posts using his likeness.
These posts were done without permission and do not represent the Transformers brand or Hasbro.
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Reposted by Tiffany C. Li
Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
This is not what slop refers to. I'm not being purely academic about this. The conflation does matter. Because this is a type of conglation that people do to make any reasonable critique of "A.I." seem overwrought. "Oh they said the same thing about the internet!" And it is not true.
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Reposted by Tiffany C. Li
cait (and adonis) @cait.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
bro i'm SCARED!!! we're so scared of the evil machine we created and continue to develop further which is why we keep developing it and making it do more stuff because we're SO SCARED!!!!!!!!
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Reposted by Tiffany C. Li
David William @nrvscrcts.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Taps the sign
A cartoon of a man saying 'I am alive' to a computer, the computer responding with 'I AM ALIVE,' and the man saying 'oh my god.'
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Reposted by Tiffany C. Li
Brett Frischmann @brettfrischmann.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Still time to register for the Cognitive Security for Human–AI Systems (CogSec) workshop in a few weeks in DC at the 14th ACM Collective Intelligence Conference and HCOMP 2026: ACM Conference on Human-AI Complementarity and Alignment programs.sigchi.org/ci/2026/prog...
programs.sigchi.org
Conference Programs
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Reposted by Tiffany C. Li
Gina Helfrich @ginahelfrich.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Widespread uptake of doorbell cameras paved the way for this. People really struggle to grasp that they are laying down the foundations of privately owned mass surveillance with every “personal” decision to buy this crap.
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Reposted by Tiffany C. Li
David Kaye @davidakaye.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
in the busyness of the beginning of semester i totally missed that the French constitutional council struck down macron’s u-15 social media ban. good overview by the excellent ppl at @techpolicypress.bsky.social
techpolicy.press
France’s Constitutional Council Ruling Tests the Limits of Social Media Bans
Christian Cirhigiri and Sabine Witting unpack France’s ruling against an under-15 social media ban and what it means for future bans across Europe.
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Tiffany C. Li @tiffanycli.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
We need a better word for when an AI agent “acts.” To act implies intent, volition, and, well, agency. What’s a more accurate way to describe when a human instructs an AI agent to perform a function and it does that?
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Tiffany C. Li @tiffanycli.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
The PR spin of “Oh no our AI escaped containment and became a cyber threat totally without our involvement!” is grating when the AI agents essentially just followed the instructions the company gave them
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Reposted by Tiffany C. Li
caroline cash @cashbrowns.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
Nancy 9/7/26 … Happy Labor Day 🛠️
8 Hours for Work, 8 Hours for Rest, 8 Hours for What We Will. Based on a screenprint by Ricardo Levins Morales after the organizing work done by Robert Owen.
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Tiffany C. Li @tiffanycli.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
The Big Politics issues are so disturbing right now that I find myself tuning out and focusing instead on local politics and my small niche fields of expertise where I can make an impact I can see
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Tiffany C. Li @tiffanycli.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
Wonder if Fahrenheit 451 is in the children’s or teen’s section…
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Tiffany C. Li @tiffanycli.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
Honestly, my email wasn’t boilerplate SEO spam. It was boilerplate GEO* spam 🥰 *generative engine optimization
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Ulrike Franke @rikefranke.eu · 05/09/2026
“paradoxically, the biggest leap forward was restraint. The industry stopped chasing “Hollywood, do-it-all” designs. Instead, today’s lighter, more comfortable exoskeletons focus on assisting a single part of the body to perform tasks”
economist.com
Humble exoskeletons work better than combat supersuits
Wearable machines that assist just one part of the body are proving surprisingly useful
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Reposted by Tiffany C. Li
Andrew Guthrie Ferguson @profferguson.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
If you are a news outlet/ #book reviewer/ #bookclub and you passed on the book about the summer’s biggest privacy, policing, surveillance story, I don’t blame you. I, too, am surprised about the anti-Flock news. But the issues are harder and more nuanced. It’s all here. nyupress.org/978147983829...
nyupress.org
Your Data Will Be Used Against You
Interrogates how digital self-surveillance can be turned against us by police, prosecutors, and political whimsFor consumers living in a digitally-connected ...
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Reposted by Tiffany C. Li
Cathy Gellis @cathygellis.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
www.techdirt.com/2026/08/12/n...
techdirt.com
Not Ready For Prime Time: The Current State Of Legal Ethics And AI
I’ve been presenting at UC Law San Francisco Lexlab Law and AI certificate program its past several sessions, as well as some law school classes, on whether lawyers’ use of AI complies …
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Tiffany C. Li @tiffanycli.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
AI-generated flyers caused a huge dustup in my neighborhood foodies FB group. People hate them, but is it fair to criticize a small, local business for using AI?
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Tiffany C. Li @tiffanycli.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
Judges keep penalizing lawyers who submit AI-generated briefs, but lawyers keep doing it. Clear breach of professional ethics.
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Tiffany C. Li @tiffanycli.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
Humans dressed in rags chained together. Walking in front of giant robo cop types. Buildings in back are ransacked or on fire. 

Caption: 
"But the worst part of A.I. is the environmental impact.
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Tiffany C. Li @tiffanycli.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
A few poems in honor of Wendell Berry
The Peace of Wild Things
Wendell Berry
When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
from Openings: Poems (1968)
Questionnaire by Wendell Berry
1. How much poison are you willing to eat for the success of the free market and global trade?
Please name your preferred poisons.
2. For the sake of goodness, how much evil are you willing to do?
Fill in the following blanks with the names of your favorite evils and acts of hatred.
3. What sacrifices are you prepared to make for culture and civilization? Please list the monuments, shrines, and works of art you would most willingly destroy.
4. In the name of patriotism and the flag, how much of our beloved land are you willing to desecrate? List in the following spaces the mountains, rivers, towns, farms you could most readily do without.
5. State briefly the ideas, ideals, or hopes, the energy sources, the kinds of security, for which you would kill a child. Name, please, the children whom you would be willing to kill.
It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work, and when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings.
—WENDELL BERRY
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Lora Kolodny @lorak.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst with the American Civil Liberties Union, said of the [AI & data centet backlash]: “I think there is a long-term grassroots bipartisan suspicion of this kind of surveillance.” www.cnbc.com/2026/08/29/t...
cnbc.com
Tech backlash reaches fever pitch as AI angst collides with social media fears
With data center concerns becoming a major election issue and Meta reaching a landmark settlement in a social media case, the tech backlash is gaining steam.
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Reposted by Tiffany C. Li
Kai Ryssdal @kairyssdal.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
Tell me again history doesn’t matter
nytimes.com
Opinion | What It Took to Dismantle the Most Powerful Company in the World (Gift Article)
A playbook to curb the growing power of Big Tech.
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