iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Thomas Batchelor @tobbinatorscw.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

It's ironic that Double Ten day is an extremely ROC feature inherited by Taiwan but Beijing's sheer refusal to acknowledge or accept *anything* done differently in Taiwan has somehow pushed it in recent years into becoming a fully localised Taiwanese national day

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YTSL @ytsl.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

“The Chinese government’s ongoing reliance on torture isn’t a function of gaps in law or process—it’s a political choice,” said @sophiedrich.bsky.social... “When every safeguard against torture is ignored—year after year, nationwide—impunity for police, courts, and officials is all but guaranteed.”

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Thomas Batchelor @tobbinatorscw.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Got the card so now I can celebrate again

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Thomas Batchelor @tobbinatorscw.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

The worst part of this isn't Beijing's inevitable (mostly inconsequential) tantrum over it but actually another round of Taiwanese convinced republicans are on their side (and Democrats somehow not) because they accidentally said the magic word

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Eli Friedman @elifriedman.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

"Two Day Weekend Shopping" 双休购 is an app that allowed Chinese consumers to shop at businesses that provide workers with a real two day weekend, based on worker-provided info. The app blew up, reflecting widespread dissatisfaction with overwork. Then it was banned.

bbc.com

「雙休購」的爆紅與下架：一個網購平臺如何撬動中國勞工權益討論 - BBC News 中文

提倡雙休的民間自發平台「雙休購」曇花一現後快速被下架，中國打工人開始在社交媒體上要求雙休正當權利。學者指這樣的消費抵制是正向的發展。

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Niao Collective @niaocollective.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Note how a good number of activists were convicted under British colonial-era sedition laws

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Niao Collective @niaocollective.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

A reminder that functional constituencies basically grant business interests more voting power than your average citizen in HK

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Thomas Batchelor @tobbinatorscw.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

The DPP continues to invite disaster with these bare minimum wage increases. There will be a time (already passed for local elections) when identity just won't cut it to span the growing wealth gap www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/a...

taipeitimes.com

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Yair Wallach @yairwallach.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

The Knesset barred today the only two Palestinian led parties from running in the coming election. According to an overwhelming majority in the Knesset, the constitutional meaning of a Jewish State is a state where Palestinian citizens cannot run for parliament.

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Nathan Ruser @nrg8000.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

A BBC Verify investigation found that Apple Maps' censoring of Chinese Military and Government sites has included arbitrary detention sites in Xinjiang, including the prison where Ilham Tohti is detained. Watch the investigation.

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Thomas Batchelor @tobbinatorscw.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Is it a good that the rising power's only two consistent guiding principles are insisting on its inherent right to invade a neighbour and ignore human rights

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Thomas Batchelor @tobbinatorscw.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

It is not a good time to be someone people semi regularly say resembles a certain UK singer

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YTSL @ytsl.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Periodic reminder that the most recent time that actual democratic elections were held in Hong Kong (back in November 2019), the result was a "yellow (pro-democracy) tsunami". Re the map below: if the Islands District had fully consisted of elected officials, it would have been yellow too.

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Eli Friedman @elifriedman.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

“If you want to organise a public event, anything explicitly related to feminism or LGBT issues is basically not possible, at least in Beijing." Great news that she's out, but this article highlights how much worse things are now than in 2018... which in turn was more restrictive than 2010.

theguardian.com

‘People had naive expectations’: How MeToo has changed in China

On Friday, MeToo journalist Sophia Huang Xueqin was released from prison. She returns to a landscape changed by censorship, and a new generation of feminists

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Niao Collective @niaocollective.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

A reminder that as much as CCP is ‘socialist’ and workers of the world unite and all that, China treats its workers appallingly

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Thomas Batchelor @tobbinatorscw.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

A key part to becoming a world power is developing a new crank theory that your people got to New Zealand before Maori did and simply disappeared

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Sinan Kose @thesinankose.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Genuinely: where is the Prime Minister? Critical infrastructure has been occupied by a fascist paramilitary, volunteers who save people's lives have been threatened and it seems to have gone unremarked upon.

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John dEFR0G does not pumpkin spice @defrog.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Even in China's SARs, democracy is subversion. Something to keep mind for Westerners saying Taiwan should just give up and become another SAR because China totally will respect their autonomy.

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Thomas Batchelor @tobbinatorscw.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

In Okinawa this week in time for the prefectural elections today and have learnt, having also been watching Taiwan for a long time that Japanese election campaigns are remarkably quiet

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Thomas Batchelor @tobbinatorscw.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

The part about the Padi OWD course I thought would be hardest is actually super easy and the part I thought would be easy is by far the hardest

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Eli Friedman @elifriedman.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Tung was a disaster for Hong Kong's working class. One of the first things he did after assuming office in 1997 was to cancel collective bargaining rights. He should be remembered as a tycoon who ran the city in the interests of the tycoons (and their allies in Beijing).

reuters.com

Tung Chee-hwa, Hong Kong's first leader under Chinese rule, dies at 89

"For the first time in history, we, the people of Hong Kong, will be master of our own destiny." On July 1, 1997, Tung Chee-hwa delivered his first speech as chief executive of the territory, followin...

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Brian Hioe @brianhioe.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Here's me on that Simon Shuster piece in The Atlantic. The reason why I think it struck a nerve is his sympathies are quite transparent. He spends two paragraphs at the start fawning over the grandeur of CCP state ceremonies

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Eli Friedman @elifriedman.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

China did its border wall with Myanmar during the pandemic, India trying to catch up. A somewhat different dynamic than US/EU, but militarization of the border is happening in the South too

asia.nikkei.com

India's Manipur vows to complete Myanmar border fence by 2028

New Delhi's plan criticized as impractical, harmful to frontier communities

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John dEFR0G does not pumpkin spice @defrog.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Well, we figured it was coming. Now it's official: any public memorial of 8/31 is now sedition. It's fair to assume this will eventually be applied to all "sensitive dates" and anniversaries on the pro-democracy calendar (probably starting with 7.21, but maybe they won't wait that long). 1/3

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Thomas Batchelor @tobbinatorscw.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

AfD is one of those parties that's hard to underestimate how insanely far right they are. Their election platform is out and openly nazi, not a single bit of hedging or avoidant language involved like in many other places. And 1/5 of Germany loves it.

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Thomas Batchelor @tobbinatorscw.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

gefällt mir nicht wenn mein feed fast alles auf deutsch ist. bedeutet nur das schlimmste

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Jarrod Watt @jaywatt.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

Nothing says "inciting hatred" for the Hong Kong government quite like a bouquet of flowers. Described thusly as "Police noticed that on the evening of August 31, some people were standing outside MTR Prince Edward Station holding bouquets and shouting seditious slogans..."

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Thomas Batchelor @tobbinatorscw.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Someone's been using AI to label their maps again

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johnraff @johnraff.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

> No independent Tibetan media, nor international media, are permitted to freely cover news from this region ...it is virtually impossible to gauge the scale of the tragedy - the regime seeks to whitewash its international image and stifle any information that might cast it in an unfavourable light.

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Ryan Ho Kilpatrick 何松濤 @ryanhk.blue · 04/09/2026

RIP to this unintentionally scathing piece of public art testifying to how Hong Kong has changed in the past ~6 years.

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Brian Hioe @brianhioe.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

The Chinese government is, of course, perfectly happy to punish Chinese artists as part of efforts to frame Taiwanese artists as the ones who did wrong in standing up for themselves. It shows, of course, how the Chinese government has no respect for Chinese artists either

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Matthew Bradford @matthewbradford.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Ray Addison, who presents the political party’s (Reform) in-house podcast and social media campaigns, fronted films about Xinjiang province – where the Chinese government is accused of committing genocide – for state media in September 2025.

theguardian.com

Reform’s media presenter worked for Chinese state propaganda channel

Party podcast and social media host Ray Addison fronted films about province where China is accused of genocide

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Thomas Batchelor @tobbinatorscw.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

It's cool to look up the person behind a useful old MA thesis and find out that they're not just still active but hold a professorship (and also professional DJ on the side?)

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#StupidSuez @diplomatofnight.com · 03/09/2026

Worth noting that this law specifically prohibits not just boycotts of Israel within the Green Line but also boycotts of Israeli Jewish settlements in illegally-occupied East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Golan Heights. These 33 Dems, all of whom call themselves two-staters, voted for it anyway.

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#StupidSuez @diplomatofnight.com · 03/09/2026

Syrians who live under and near the new Israeli occupied territories since 2024 say that Israel is turning southwestern Syria into a new West Bank— checkpoints, military bases, closed roads, demolition orders on villages, the kidnapping of civilians into military prisons without charge, and more.

amp.dw.com

Why is Israel's military presence growing in Syria?

The recent Israeli attack on a Syrian airbase is just one of many Israeli incursions into Syria. In southern Syria, locals say Israeli troops have detained them, destroyed infrastructure and set up mi...

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Thomas Batchelor @tobbinatorscw.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

All my youtube ads at the moment are for AI music generators and US overseas voters, an all-time personal algorithmic miss for me

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Thomas Batchelor @tobbinatorscw.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

I assume by scrutiny they mean delaying opening negotiations for the 2027 budget until 2/3 of the way through 2027, at which point they panic about the 2028 election, and finally pass it within a week, but not before cutting "kittens and nice things" funds www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/...

taipeitimes.com

Legislature vows to scrutinize budget - Taipei Times

The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) yesterday vowed to strictly scrutinize the Cabinet’s NT$607.63 billion (US$19.13 billion) supplementary budget, blasting a massi...

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Jasmin Mujanović @jasminmuj.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Serbia’s President says the remains of genocidaire Mladic to arrive in the country today and that “tens of thousands” are expected to attend his funeral. There can be no illusions any longer about the nature of this regime, and its direct threat to Bosnia. www.nedeljnik.rs/vucic-preuze...

nedeljnik.rs

Vučić: Preuzeto Mladićevo telo, na sahrani se očekuju desetine hiljada ljudi - Nedeljnik

Predsednik Srbije Aleksandar Vučić izjavio je danas da je telo preminulog generala Vojske Republike Srpske Ratka Mladića, osuđenog u Hagu za genocid i ratne zločine, preuzeto i da bi trebalo danas da ...

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Thomas Batchelor @tobbinatorscw.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

I am pleased to report that our boy Tang Hsin-min has registered for the Taipei mayoral election this year, hopefully to save us from the volcano again by liaising with the angels, later uniting Asia into a tripartite union of Japan, Taiwan and China

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Thomas Batchelor @tobbinatorscw.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

reaching out to other academics as an equal is actually more scary than doing it as a student damn

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