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David Scales

@tnfalpha.bsky.social
5.4K followers 2.8K following 467 posts

Hospitalist, sociologist @WeillCornell studying information environments, contested illness, medical communication Co-founder, Health for Palestine he/il/el/هو

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Reposted by David Scales
Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 29/09/2026
"I believe that science derives its authority from something more than mastering the pipeline from data generation to publication. Rather, it comes from interactions within a community of people trained to interrogate evidence and answer for the conclusions they draw from it."
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Charles Ornstein @charlesornstein.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Simply 🤯 story! In 2024, the FBI sought to launch a sweeping pay-to-play investigation examining interactions between Sen. Susan Collins and a top donor, records and emails show. After Donald Trump returned to office, the investigation died. www.propublica.org/article/fbi-...
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Arrianna Marie Planey, PhD MA @arrianna-planey.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
That just reads as moralistic and fatalistic. There are solutions. Policy solutions. We can't reduce the work of achieving a just and equitable system of public education to "parent choice" (which is her dominant frame).
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Ambassador Ken Fairfax (ret) @portlandken.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
The accounting is in: In Oregon there are 111 data centers. The TOTAL number of people employed at data centers is just 2,630, or 0.1% of the labor force. Those 100 data centers consumer 23% of all electricity used in Oregon. Meanwhile, electricity rates skyrocket as more centers are built.
opb.org
Oregon data centers by the numbers: 111 facilities consume nearly one-quarter of state’s power, according to new report
A first-of-its-kind report details the footprint of the controversial facilities.
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Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani @mayor.nyc.gov · 17/09/2026
Look outside. Do you see snow? No?  Well, you will soon. You might also see $30/hr more in your pocket if you become an emergency snow shoveler.  Registration begins Saturday, September 19th. Sign up by November 30th for access to paid orientation and expedited payment processing.
on.nyc.gov
Emergency Snow Shovelers - DSNY
Emergency Snow Shovelers are called on after heavy snowfalls to remove snow and ice citywide from public areas like bus stops, crosswalks, fire hydrants, and step streets.
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Victor Pickard @victorpickard.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
The press has been woefully inadequate in covering how Trump is trying to subvert the midterms. @sulliview.bsky.social nails it here: margaretsullivan.substack.com/p/the-truth-...
margaretsullivan.substack.com
The truth about the midterms — and the media’s failure to convey it
Plus: the most distressing media news of the week and the most encouraging
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Brandy Zadrozny @brandyzadrozny.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Anyway, I guess I have to watch this space until November. If you see something, say something! www.ms.now/news/russia-...
ms.now
A Russian disinformation campaign is doctoring celebrity videos to meddle in the midterms
The Kremlin-backed operation, known as Matryoshka, has Hollywood actors telling voters to disavow the Democratic Party and vote Republican.
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Alondra Nelson @alondra.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
Yes. www.amacad.org/publication/...
amacad.org
Field Theory: AI as Social Science Question, Object & Tool
Uses of advanced artificial intelligence are changing how societies organize labor, govern, produce knowledge, and make meaning. In light of these developments, this essay argues that AI models, tools...
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Justin Hendrix @justinhendrix.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
The word “Cambridge" appears 45 times in the $17 billion Meta child-harms settlement, notes Jason Kint. Buried inside: a $459,293,017.80 payment resolving Cambridge Analytica claims across at least 46 states and two territories.
techpolicy.press
The $459 Million Cambridge Analytica Reckoning Buried in Meta's Teen Safety Settlement
Tucked inside the landmark settlement is another settlement, writes Jason Kint.
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Kate Klonick @klonick.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
Louder for the people in the back
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BK. Titanji @boghuma.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
Happy Saturday! For the next 24h, drop any infectious disease and/or vaccine related questions in response to this post, and I will do my best to answer them. Answers are for information only, NOT medical advice. #AskAnIDDoc August 2026 edition.
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Bjørn Ihler @bjornih.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
Yesterday afternoon, a sword attack at a school in Fagersta, Sweden, killed one person and seriously injured two teenagers. Our thoughts are with the bereaved, the survivors, and the affected community. We began structured collection within hours. Observations at the 24h mark 🧵
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David Scales @tnfalpha.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
Honored to be on this episode of The Information Animal with @lageneralista.ca where we also explore some of the origins of her bsky handle in exploring links between generalists in medicine and in (one day, hopefully) the social sciences.
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Geoffrey Hughes @geofffhughes.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
Banger
Read the full text

>

About

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Abstract

Jonathan Marks reads the committee's report on the humanities as an uncredited rehash of the 1990s science wars, a familiar quarrel with the academic left dressed as a defence of knowledge. Rather than rebut it point by point, he sets out ten propositions about human sameness and difference that anthropology has pressed on the comfortable since the 1870s. Much of what feels natural is a product of history rather than biology. Race marks politically relevant groups misrepresented as natural kinds. Human thought is symbolic and linguistic in a way ape thought is not. And one may be an ape and yet, in reading this, certainly human. Anthropology unsettles every generation, he argues, which is precisely why reactionaries find it threatening.
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Chris Osieck @chrisosieck.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
In our latest @newlinesmag.bsky.social investigation, @baydoun.nl and I used site visits, spatial analysis, testimonies and interviews with military and legal experts to present an anatomy of five Israeli "precision strikes" in Lebanon.
newlinesmag.com
Israel Called Its Beirut Strikes Precise. We Reconstructed Five of Them
New Lines investigates attacks in and around Lebanon’s capital, from a single destroyed room to flattened residential buildings, testing Israeli claims about distinguishing targets from civilians
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Michela Wrong @michelawrong.bsky.social · 01/08/2026
The Continent magazine has published an investigation I carried out alongside Kenyan journo James Okong'o exposing how Rwanda's government manipulates social media - secretly paying influencers - in support of the M23 occupation of DRC. Thank you @pulitzercenter.org for your support.
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Philip Gourevitch @pgourevitch.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
sports coverage or war reporting?
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Sophie Fullerton @sophiefullerton.bsky.social · 20/06/2026
It should not be lost on anyone that collective punishment was actively used by the Nazis themselves as “atonement exercises.” In 1941, the Nazis killed around 4,000 Serbs as an atonement for attacks that killed German soldiers.
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Michael Okun @michael-okun.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
Over the last month I saw that human editors are now stripped of control. I could no longer stop the system from auto-inviting "reviewers" with zero relevant expertise. Even worse - the AI began actively revoking the invitations I manually sent out to actual, qualified experts.
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Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 18/06/2026
😬
wired.com
How to Watch the Knicks Parade on NYC Traffic Surveillance Cameras
Artist Morry Kolman will be livestreaming feeds of the NBA champions’ ticker-tape parade from NYC’s traffic cameras—and this time, the city’s Department of Transportation isn’t demanding he stop.
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Swapnil Hiremath 🍁🇨🇦 @hswapnil.medsky.social · 07/06/2026
50,000 page views/PDF downloads and counting Full blown Streisand effect in play diabetesjournals.org/care/article... #ADAGate continues #ADA2026
page views (47,407) and PDF downloads (4482) of the editorial - all in last 2 days
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Joseph Cox @josephcox.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
New from 404 Media: companies are using Reddit manipulate ChatGPT and Google AI Search. The strategy is to systematically manipulate answers provided by chatbots by manipulating the underlying source material those chatbots scrape—in this case, a popular subreddit www.404media.co/companies-ar...
“As AI search engines increasingly pull answers from Reddit, companies are using us for AEO. On top of that, there's been an explosion of peptide interest and AI usage flooding the sub. Together, this has put serious pressure on content quality,” a post by the moderators read. 
AEO is AI-engine optimization, and it is an evolution of search engine optimization where brands and marketing companies attempt to create content that they hope will be scraped by large language models. Manipulating Reddit with bots, sock puppet accounts, and human accounts that are paid to promote brands has become a core strategy of firms that do AEO, because Reddit has become one of most-often cited sources by popular AI tools like ChatGPT and Google’s AI search. For example, a company called RedRover offers AEO and SEO for companies; on its home page, it says “rank #1 on Search and get cited by AI: AI agents that mass publish content to help you rank on Google, ChatGPT, and Reddit—driving traffic to your site from every corner of the internet.”
“An army of agents publishing blog content & reddit posts that solves both SEO & AEO at scale,” RedRover advertises.
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Stephan Lewandowsky @lewan.uk · 07/06/2026
🧵 NEW PREPRINT on AI risks: 272 AI experts (I was one of them) used a 3-round Delphi to answer: which AI risks are worst, who's most vulnerable, and who's responsible? Key findings below. 👇 arxiv.org/abs/2606.0... 1/8
arxiv.org
Prioritization of Risks from Artificial Intelligence: A Delphi...
Artificial intelligence poses many risks, ranging from familiar present-day harms to unprecedented and potentially catastrophic ones. Effective risk management requires prioritization: we must...
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Retraction Watch @retractionwatch.com · 06/06/2026
"Founded in 2010, Retraction Watch has become a central institution in contemporary science watchdog journalism, conducting sustained investigative reporting on scientific retractions, paper mills, instances of image manipulation, and research misconduct."
cogitatiopress.com
Shining Light on “Dark Science”: Mapping the Field of Science Watchdog Journalism | Article | Media and Communication
Aljosha Karim Schapals, Michelle Riedlinger, Silvia Montaña-Niño, Artem Rednikin
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Dannagal Goldthwaite Young @dannagal.bsky.social · 05/06/2026
👋You can take issue with Haidt’s methodology and still think that elevating the issue of social media/phones/kids so parents start to recognize their own agency and obligations as parents is a very good thing. The cell phone ban in my 16 yo’s high school has transformed her learning experience.
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Sky Marchini @sky.skymarchini.net · 04/06/2026
has any man ever been more vindicated? x.com/stuartbuck1/...
Conversation
Crémieux
@cremieuxrecueil
·
Feb 15, 2025
DOGE has a very obvious feedback mechanism for its cuts.

If DOGE makes a big, broad cut against a million programs, people get upset about a few specific, very good ones like PEPFAR, and then that program comes back because DOGE's members are, thus, informed it was good.
Crémieux
@cremieuxrecueil
·
Feb 15, 2025
I can only hope people realizing this won't damage the mechanism, because it's still useful to have professionals getting mad about some very good thing getting cut before it's brought back online as a result.

In a word, DOGE is responsive, which is unusual for the government!
Stuart Buck
@stuartbuck1
·
Feb 15, 2025
I agree, but it would be more efficient to spend one hour ahead of time talking to experts or just reading up on the history of a program for [disease, student testing, nuclear safety, etc.]

Plus, some programs don't have famous proponents with time to dig into the weeds.
Crémieux
@cremieuxrecueil
·
Feb 15, 2025
I'm highly sympathetic, but there really are thousands and thousands of programs and grants to cut, so I'm not sure the small team doing the cuts has the ability to go through them all one-by-one on their short timeline.

Maybe a system can be developed to assist with feedback.
This Post was deleted by the Post author. Learn more
Stuart Buck
@stuartbuck1
Despite some bogus grants, a lot of government is like this cartoon. I bet this "small team" would find a line item for "screwworm sterilization" and delete it, not knowing that they just devastated American farming: https://theatlantic.com/science/archiv
e/2020/05/flesh-eating-worms-disease-containment-america-panama/611026/
Image
5:03 PM · Feb 15, 2025
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Sky Marchini

Stuart Buck
@stuartbuck1
·
Feb 15, 2025
I can see the DOGE tweet: "We canceled a contract for Panamanian screwworms, saving $165 million dollars!!!" [https://aphis.usda.gov/news/agency-an
nouncements/usda-approves-emergency-funding-protect-us…
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Prof Gavin Yamey MD MPH @gavinyamey.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
Hey folks, I'm starting to think AI might be a tad problematic for the integrity of science publishing! A study published as Correspondence in @thelancet.com found 4,046 fabricated references across 2810 papers, presumably generated by AI By @bruceylee.bsky.social www.forbes.com/sites/brucel...
forbes.com
Fabricated Citations Found In Over 2,800 Biomedical Journal Articles
A Lancet correspondence described how over a three-year period, 4,046 references in 2,810 published scientific journal articles had been fabricated, many likely by AI.
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Kate Starbird @katestarbird.bsky.social · 31/05/2026
danah boyd recently argued that social media (as we knew it) is mostly dead; what we have now is parasocial media: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... I agree. Networked social media is disappearing, replaced by a new logic/structure of content creator, creator-centered community, & algorithm.
journals.sagepub.com
Social Media Is Now Parasocial Media - danah boyd, 2026
When practitioners used the term “social media” to describe the internet tools that emerged in the mid-aughts, they were giving a name to the kinds of platforms...
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David Scales @tnfalpha.bsky.social · 26/05/2026
“In a friend-of-the-court brief, two senior psychiatrists at Mount Sinai Medical Center with a combined 40 years’ experience in emergency psychiatric units identified “exactly one instance” in which they remembered police officers agreeing to remove a patient’s shackles.”
nytimes.com
Doctors Asked Officers to Unshackle a Patient. They Refused for 26 Days.
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Sherrilyn Ifill @sifill.bsky.social · 25/05/2026
Again, please share. In every aspect of American history you will run smack dab into the critical contributions of Black people. It’s not Black history. It’s American history. Trying to erase it is a fool’s errand. We live it every day. time.com/5836444/blac...
time.com
The Forgotten Black History of How Memorial Day Started
Historians like the Pulitzer Prize winner David Blight have tried to raise awareness of freed slaves who decorated soldiers' graves in 1865
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Trish Greenhalgh @trishgreenhalgh.bsky.social · 23/05/2026
Every summer I repost this article on how to spot drowning. Please read it and pass on. In the last few years I’ve had SIX messages from people who saved a kid’s life after clicking on the link from my feed. slate.com/technology/2...
slate.com
Drowning Doesn’t Look Like Drowning
Drowning is not the violent, splashing call for help that most people expect.
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David Scales @tnfalpha.bsky.social · 23/05/2026
“the thing holding the coalition together is a base-line eco-fascist motherhood politics that merges libertarian individualism with consumer choice and frames keeping track of it all as women’s natural, right and proper societal role.”
nytimes.com
Opinion | The Moms Delivered for Trump. Now He’s Scamming Them.
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Jonathan Cohn @jonathancohn.bsky.social · 23/05/2026
"As the book goes on, it becomes clear it was more the second explanation rather than the first—DOGE’s destruction of the agency was driven primarily by animosity rather than ignorance." prospect.org/2026/05/22/w...
prospect.org
Who Died When Elon Musk Killed USAID? - The American Prospect
Nicholas Enrich’s new memoir details the human toll of the agency’s dismantling.
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Brendan Nyhan @brendannyhan.bsky.social · 23/05/2026
"approximately 15% of churches in our sample engaged in direct political advocacy during the 2020 and 2024 presidential election cycles, and about 8.4% during the 2022 midterm" www.pnas.org/doi/full/10....
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ProPublica @propublica.org · 21/05/2026
Many of the babies’ autopsy reports were clear: Vitamin K deficiency was the immediate cause of death, or contributed to it. The reports also included details about parents refusing the vitamin K shot, a long-standard injection, for their newborns.
propublica.org
What I Can’t Forget About the Babies Who Died After Not Receiving a Vitamin K Shot
Babies have died after not receiving the vitamin K shot at birth. Their autopsy records underscore how preventable their deaths could have been.
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The New York Times @nytimes.com · 22/05/2026
In @nytopinion.nytimes.com “I’ve seen Ebola up close. I got it while treating patients in West Africa in 2014,” Craig Spencer writes in a guest essay. “I know how destructive the disease can be — and how unprepared we are for its return.”
nyti.ms
Opinion | Ebola Is a Terrible Disease. I Saw It Firsthand.
The Trump administration cut the programs meant to coordinate an Ebola response.
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Victor Pickard @victorpickard.bsky.social · 21/05/2026
My essay pairs nicely with @parkermolloy.com's recent piece in @damemagazine.bsky.social: www.damemagazine.com/2026/05/20/s...
damemagazine.com
Can Treating Journalism Like Public Infrastructure Fix Our Broken Media?
States are experimenting with tax credits and public funding to keep local reporters employed as America’s news desert crisis worsens.
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Kai Kupferschmidt @kakape.bsky.social · 19/05/2026
The contrast between the number of media requests I got when rich people on a cruise were facing a deadly, but contained outbreak versus now that some of the poorest people in the world are facing a deadly and devastating epidemic is just so so stark and it just really annoys the hell out of me.
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Charles Ornstein @charlesornstein.bsky.social · 21/05/2026
Wow, this story. Since 2013, Maricopa County officials have approved $226 million in sheriff’s office spending related to a settlement aimed at rooting out racial profiling. Auditors found that more than 70% of it was misattributed or misappropriated. W/ @azluminaria.org
propublica.org
This Sheriff’s Office Says Racial Profiling Reforms Are Too Costly. Auditors Found It Misused $163 Million.
Since 2013, Maricopa County officials have approved $226 million in sheriff’s office spending related to a settlement aimed at rooting out racial profiling. Auditors found that more than 70% of it was...
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Damon Kiesow @kiesow.net · 21/05/2026
Where’s your free market now, Moses? www.kcrg.com/2026/05/20/i...
kcrg.com
Iowa lawmakers move to mandate students take Center for Intellectual Freedom classes amid low enrollment
A last minute Republican legislative push could force University of Iowa college students to take classes at the newly-created Center for Intellectual Freedom. It's exactly what a report highlighted w...
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David Scales @tnfalpha.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
It's also important to see how this is covered across media. Hard to find on WaPo, non-existent on Fox.
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Sherrilyn Ifill @sifill.bsky.social · 16/05/2026
I have no words. Actually I do. Just not today. www.reuters.com/legal/govern...
reuters.com
American Bar Association votes to eliminate DEI rule for law schools
A longstanding diversity and inclusion requirement for U.S. law schools is teetering amid mounting pressure from the Trump administration and Republican states.
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Jill Walker Rettberg @jilltxt.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
New dataset published: this is the audio + transcripts of AI-generated podcasts using NotebookLM to analyse how it "translated" source documents from different times and cultures. My favourites are the 20 podcasts generated from an empty PDF. The paper about it is in press. doi.org/10.18710/RNT...
doi.org
A dataset of AI-generated podcasts created using NotebookLM
Audio files and transcripts of AI-generated podcasts created using Google's NotebookLM. Four podcasts were created by uploading specific PDFs. Twen...
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LymeScience @lymescience.org · 19/05/2026
Yale undergraduate Mateo Ramírez-Valentini writes about families who travel long distances for experimental treatments. He focuses on how some of these treatments are scams or over-hyped. One Argentinean family raised $350k after being enticed by notorious cancer quack Stanislaw Burzynski.
yaleglobalhealthreview.com
Migrating for a Miracle: The Geographic Divide in Rare Cancer Treatments
BY MATEO RAMÍREZ-VALENTINI Medical Migration in Rare Pediatric Cancers In 2021, an eight-year-old girl named Delfi Bollo traveled from Córdoba, Argentina to Houston, Texas, seeking a treatment that…
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Popehat @kenwhite.bsky.social · 19/05/2026
However appalled you are by this, it’s not enough. It’s a frank statement that Trump and Trumpists are above the law and need not even plausible excuses to loot your tax dollars. It’s a total failure of our civic institutions.
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Brendan Nyhan @brendannyhan.bsky.social · 18/05/2026
Extremely relevant today - our new report on the state of the rule of law in America brightlinewatch.org/erosion-of-t... Most notably, 91% of legal experts say Trump's DOJ provides favors or benefits to his allies, including 56% of legal conservatives. Findings thread below; please read & share.
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David Scales @tnfalpha.bsky.social · 18/05/2026
Initially, elected would-be autocrats often appoint “loyal losers” to important positions to rubber-stamp their power grabs, Ms. Frantz said. “The leader knows that people are going to be more likely to be loyal if they don’t have many other career options,”
nytimes.com
Actually, Democracy Dies in H.R.
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Sol Messing @solmg.bsky.social · 13/05/2026
New in Nature: LLMs give "the party line" in the languages of authoritarian regimes. This works when they control the media, which feeds pretraining data. We show more state control over the media means less critical LLMs. 6 studies spanning 38 languages & 13 models. Details ↓
Scatter plot of 38 countries plus China showing the proportion of LLM responses favorable to the regime in the local language vs. World Press Freedom Index score. Lower press freedom predicts more regime-favorable responses; all production models pooled.
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Matt Negrin still host of Hardball on MSNBC @mattnegrin.bsky.social · 18/05/2026
The NYT removed the "um"s in Trump's answer on Taiwan, but put "um"s in AOC's answer on Taiwan to make her look dumb Trump said "Um, I would say 'like' is maybe too strong a word...um, no, I'm holding that in abeyance and it depends on China, depends, it's a, it's a.." L: Trump R: AOC Video below
The New York Times: The American president’s comments had been released over the weekend, after Mr. Trump left a summit with Mr. Xi in Beijing on Friday. He said he was keeping on hold a decision about a package of weapons to Taiwan worth around $14 billion, and described it as a “very good negotiating chip” that could be used with Beijing.

“I’m holding that in abeyance and it depends on China,” he said in an interview with Fox News. It was not immediately clear what Mr. Trump wanted China to do in return.The New York Times: The visit also demonstrated the relative foreign policy inexperience of Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, who has made a few overseas trips since taking office but does not sit on any House committees devoted primarily to world affairs. She struggled at times to formulate succinct answers at a nighttime panel session, during which she was asked probing and specific questions about how to respond to international crises.

Questioned about whether the United States should send troops to defend Taiwan if China invaded the island, she stalled for roughly 20 seconds before offering a substantive response.

“I think that, uh, this is such a, a — you know, I think that — this is a, um — this is of course, a, uh, a very longstanding, um, policy of the United States,” Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said, before saying that the country should try to avoid reaching that point with China in the first place.
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David Scales @tnfalpha.bsky.social · 18/05/2026
Not the first time. Won’t be the last.
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