The Observatory’s non-election work has included developing #curriculum for #teaching#college students about how to handle #trust & #safety issues on #socialmedia platforms & launching the 1st peer-reviewed journal dedicated to the field. It has also investigated rings publishing #child#SexualExploitation material #online & flaws in the US system for reporting it, helping to prepare #platforms to handle an influx of computer-generated material.
#OpenAI adds #Trump-appointed fmr #NSA director to its board
OpenAI has tapped fmr US Army general & #NationalSecurity Agency dir Paul M. Nakasone to join its board of directors, the continuation of a reshuffling spurred by CEO #SamAltman’s temp ousting in Nov. #Nakasone, a Trump appointee who took over the NSA in 2018, will join the board’s #Safety & #Security Cmte, which OpenAI began in late May to evaluate & improve policies to test models & curb #abuse.
If you're using DuckDuckGo, they have AI Assist on by default. Go to duckduckgo[dot]com main page, click on those three little lines in upper right corner-->Settings --> AI Features --> Toggle all features to OFF.
DC #ElectionWorkers have been fielding angry calls & emails for over a month from people who oppose allowing #noncitizen residents to #vote in local #elections, leaving the head of the DC Board of Elections concerned about #safety at the polls in Tues’s primary.
“I am definitely nervous,” said Monica Evans, BOE exec dir. “The environment around elections has felt more unsafe.”
In one vm…, a caller yells: “Where the hell do you get off letting illegals vote? This is the nation’s capital. You are traitors, traitors to our country.”
Evans said that employees have been encouraged to cover up any DC BOE paraphernalia they may be wearing or holding while outside the office in case someone who opposes #noncitizen voting directs their opinion toward a staffer. DC police spox said in a stmnt that officers would be near polling locations “ensuring #safety for voters” #democracy
It's :_gaysparkle: Pride :_gaysparkle: month, which means it's time to bring on the corporate rainbow washing!
Before we get started, here's a content warning (#CW) for some swearing, dark topics, and a lot of :100_gay: If that's alright with you, then let's goooo!
Okay, so it's been an interesting past year. The Cass report came out and helped roll back trans rights in some pretty serious ways, the conservative Right kept right on proving to be downright 💩 humans, there's at least one genocide threatening people's right to exist, and billionaires continued to exercise their (money-given) right to make everything worse for everyone but them. Rights have been a big topic lately.
Oh, and I almost threw myself off a bridge several months back—but we'll get to that in a moment.
Fuck. I need some rainbow-safe brain-bleach before we continue, so here are some good things that happened:
I traded in my old gender for a shiny new one :v_trans: (technically I just binned the old one—it was pretty outdated). Speaking of dating, I started seeing a lovely enby (hi @catsalad!) from the infosec community. All the people I do safety checks with are still here, and Trump became an official felon 🎉
Alright, that's a bit better. Now on to the actual point of this article: acceptance, community, and safety.
Those three things are right up there with staying hydrated and memes when I think about what any queer person needs to thrive.
Acceptance is a prerequisite for community. Our diversity of experience is just as important as our shared experience. Without being accepting of what makes us each unique and wonderful, our communities are fragile and prone to fracturing. You only have to look at those who try to define what a "real man" or "real woman" is to see how they draw circles around their in-group that get smaller and smaller until no one fits.
Community breeds safety. You may snap a twig with your bare hands, but bind 'em together and you'll find a fagot much harder. Members of our community support each other—and that support becomes so much more important when our queer friends and family run up against the bigotry and horrors of this world. But we're not just one community; we're an alphabet soup of people who come together under the LGBTQIA+ umbrella. Regardless of the specifics, we're the ones who weren't born with the default settings...and that's beautiful—that's worth protecting.
So what about the bridge? Well, like so many people who identify as LGBTQ+, I had a lot of trauma growing up. Trauma that I continue to collect and box up like newly caught Pokémon. There are a lot of sources of that trauma for me: tech-industry layoffs, an abusive partner, neuro-divergence, as well as non-conforming gender and sexuality in a world whose motto might as well be "Of the Default, by the Default, and for the Default".
This all came together one day after a fight with my spouse that left me in a very dark place. I didn't feel safe, I didn't feel like I really belonged to any community, and I didn't feel accepted by those closest to me.
As I stood on the bridge, I got a notification on my phone...then another. It was enough to snap me out of it for a second, and I checked my messages through the tears. Thinking back I honestly don't remember who they were from or what they said, but I do remember that they were from Mastodon, from a couple people who just happened to reach out at the exact right moment. I'll skip the rest of the details, because some of you have already heard this story and they're not really important to this article.
The important part is that I made it home in one piece because someone reached out. Someone who didn't even know how much I needed them to.
That little tie to the queer community was all it took to ground me in the moment and save my life.
Since then I've been keeping an eye out for others that might need grounding and doing my best to make sure they feel accepted. I've been welcoming as many new people into the community as I can, and I've been trying my best to be a safe space for anyone who needs it.
So, wrapping this up, I want to ask you to do the same. Not just today, but every day—as often as you can. Sometimes all it takes is showing a little kindness and compassion to make a big difference in someone's life.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go check in on some people and tell them how glad I am that they're here.
9 things you need to know about the inside story of how 3M allowed PFOS to seep into all of us while sitting on research that showed the chemical is toxic.
In Vox, I explained how federal policy encourages car bloat, making American vehicles more enormous, polluting, and dangerous than they'd otherwise be.
That's the exact opposite of what we should be doing.
New York’s #Guardianship System Is Broken. Will Lawmakers Pay for a Modest Fix?
As legislators negotiate a budget worth hundreds of billions of dollars, advocates wonder whether Albany will approve $5 million for reforms to the state’s troubled guardianship system.
Trump’s attacks also come amid growing concerns about the #safety of federal #judges. Reuters found that #threats against fed judges have more than doubled since late 2020, when #Trump significantly increased his criticism of the #judiciary.
#GagOrder Against #Trump Is Expanded to Stop Attacks on Judge’s Family
Donald Trump had in recent days targeted the daughter of Juan #Merchan, the judge overseeing his #criminal trial in Manhattan, in blistering social media posts.
#Merchan: “Such concerns will undoubtedly #interfere w/the fair administration of #justice & constitutes a direct attack on the #RuleOfLaw itself. Again, all citizens, called upon to participate in these proceedings, whether as a #juror, a #witness, or in some other capacity, must now concern themselves not only w/their own personal #safety, but w/the safety & the potential for personal attacks upon their loved ones. That reality cannot be overstated.”
Nearly Two Years After #Uvalde Massacre, Here Is Where All the Investigations Stand
As a grand jury considers whether any law enforcement officers are criminally charged for their inaction during the Robb Elementary #shooting, some families say they feel they've been let down and betrayed by elected officials.
"Just how outsourced is Boeing’s production? Almost two weeks after the Alaska Airlines blow-out, it was revealed that the door plug that blew out of the Alaska Airlines plane wasn’t actually produced in Wichita. It was produced in Malaysia, where workers’ concerns about speed of production and quality oversight are apt to have even less impact on their managers than in the United States."
Washington Post: Using AI to spot edible mushrooms could kill you
"Now, a new assortment of AI-powered mushroom identifiers are popping up in the Apple, Google and OpenAI app stores. These tools use artificial intelligence to analyze photos or descriptions of mushrooms and compare them to known varieties....With its high stakes and frequent mess-ups, mushroom identification is a bad candidate for automation, but companies are doing it anyway..."
(maybe paywall)
Previously: “OSHA is ineffective because it has been starved of resources from the start and really never got proper funding and staffing and saw reductions during the Trump years. Even today, now that it’s more than a half-century old, it is still ridiculously understaffed.”
Sweden joined NATO in Washington on Thurs, 2yrs after #Russia's #invasion of Ukraine forced it to rethink its #NationalSecurity policy & conclude …the #alliance was the Scandinavian nation's best guarantee of #safety.
PM Ulf Kristersson handed over the final documentation to the #UnitedStates govt on Thurs, the last step… to secure the backing… to join the #military alliance.