Thistle & Verse (she/him)

Location records from data brokers are typically unlinked to a device owner's name, but police have tools to track where a device has gone, where it spends every night, and where it goes during working hours, EFF’s Bill Budington told @NPR. npr.org/2026/03/25/nx-…

The Trump administration lowered the authorization level for lethal force, broadened target categories, inflated threat assessments and fired inspectors general, according to more than a dozen current and former national security personnel. propublica.org/article/trump-…

'AI Is African Intelligence': The Workers Who Train AI Are Fighting Back Kenyan workers are still the underpaid labor behind AI training, moderation, and sex chatbots. The Data Labelers Association is fighting back. 404media.co/ai-is-african-… | @404mediaco

not enough people are scared of how enforcing a digital ID to use the internet or your devices would completely upend digital freedoms and would be a boon to the technofascists

I’m not shocked. 1 of the reasons politicians and employers convinced people that the pandemic is over and it’s just a cold when they do get sick is so they won’t be held liable If you think it’s a cold or blame yourself, you won’t sue or demand systemic change like clean air

Black feminist. Legal pioneer. Gender non-conforming. Preacher. Lover of women. What Pauli Murray really did was fight to create the kind of world in which every part of her could live. scalawagmagazine.org/2021/01/pauli-…

What's important to note is that some of these tech cos are very PRO school cell phone bans bc they force schools to buy/use school-issued laptops, which conveniently have surveillance tech = more profits for them. They don't want kids to have/use personal devices.

As privacy activists, it's important to support the tools and organizations with good practices, but also to lead by example when it comes to moving away from the surveillance ecosystem. ➡️ Learn more on why and how to move away from Big Tech. 🧰 Check our Privacy Activist Toolbox tip to Migrate Outside the Surveillance Ecosystem: privacyguides.org/en/activism/to… #PrivacyGuides #Activism #PrivacyActivistToolbox #Privacy #BigTech

Age verification risks tying users’ “most sensitive and immutable data” — names, faces, birthdays, home addresses — to their online activity, EFF’s Molly Buckley told @CNBC. “Age verification strikes at the foundation of the free and open internet.” cnbc.com/2026/03/08/soc…

‘Age Verification’ will force trans people to out themselves to use the internet. After Kansas suddenly invalidated hundreds of trans peoples’ licenses, experts warn the discrimination is set to extend to online spaces. theverge.com/policy/892075/…

Everyone’s missing the real story here. Meta’s Ray-Ban glasses need human data annotators to train the AI. When you say “Hey Meta” and ask the glasses to analyze something, that video gets sent to Meta’s servers, then routed to Sama, a subcontractor in Nairobi, Kenya. Workers there manually label objects in your footage. They see everything you recorded, intentionally or not. 7 million pairs sold in 2025 alone. Every single pair generates training data that flows through human eyes in Kenya. Workers told Swedish journalists they see people undressing, using bathrooms, having sex, and accidentally filming bank card details. One worker said “we see everything, from living rooms to naked bodies.” Meta’s automatic face anonymization is supposed to protect people in the footage. Workers say it fails in certain lighting. Faces that should be blurred are sometimes fully visible. The person you recorded without knowing? A stranger in Nairobi can identify them. Buried in Meta’s terms of service is one sentence doing enormous legal work: the company reserves the right to conduct “manual (human) review” of your AI interactions. That’s the legal cover for routing intimate footage from Western homes to a $2/hour labor force operating under NDAs, office surveillance cameras, and a strict no-questions policy. Workers say if you raise concerns about what you’re seeing, you’re fired. This is the same company, Sama, that TIME exposed in 2023 for paying Kenyan workers $2/hour to label graphic content for OpenAI while being billed at $12.50/hour per worker. Workers described the experience as torture. Sama ended that contract, then pivoted to labeling Meta’s glasses footage. Same workforce. Same rates. Meta markets these glasses as “designed with your privacy in mind.” The privacy design is a tiny LED light on the frame that most people don’t notice. The data pipeline behind it routes your bedroom footage to a contractor with a documented history of worker exploitation, failed anonymization, and union-busting lawsuits. And the next generation of these glasses? Meta is planning to add facial recognition. The same system that can’t reliably blur faces in training data wants to start identifying them on purpose. The LED light on the frame is doing about as much for your privacy as the terms of service nobody reads.

This is an important resource for all politically active people. "This book was written by dedicated legal support activists & draws on the wisdom of dozens of people who have weathered the challenges of trials and incarceration." Valuable lessons here: files.libcom.org/files/atiltedg…

I'm also hoping to talk to more Black farmers across the country about their experiences in agriculture. If you know someone who may be interested, send them this short form: forms.gle/pbrmt4FnrPoV38…

You can now block grok from modifying your images! Go on mobile > create post > edit photo > press the little flag button and it will be there!

“Young people still have human rights, and that includes the right to access information and to associate with other people and to speak to the world. These laws are designed to diminish those rights,” EFF’s David Greene told @TheIntercept. theintercept.com/2026/03/05/kos…

371 security/ privacy academics, including a Turing Award winner, just issued a letter saying age verification laws are building global surveillance infrastructure. Every search, message, and article read would require ID verification. reclaimthenet.org/pause-social-m…

🎉 Big Tech alternatives are finally getting mainstream media attention! 🎉 Yesterday, The Guardian published an in-depth piece on how people and organizations can leave Big Tech behind and choose ethical, privacy-focused alternatives, a topic we’ve been passionate about at Tuta for a long time. 🙌🔐 A huge thank-you to Steve Rose for mentioning Tuta Mail in the article. It’s great to see privacy-first solutions getting the recognition they deserve! 🙏 👉 Read the full article The Gaurdian : theguardian.com/technology/202… #BigTech #Privacy #TechAlternatives #DigitalSovereignty

And this is why age verification laws passing anywhere is a danger for everyone everywhere

🚨 Google wants to force every Android developer to register with them, even if you never touch the Play Store. We signed the open letter opposing this alongside EFF, Proton, F-Droid, Tor Project, and 30+ others. Android's openness is non-negotiable. keepandroidopen.org/open-letter/

🚨🚨 The House is MOVING FORWARD with age verification bills like KOSA. CALL YOUR HOUSE MEMBERS! Tell them NO to age verification!! 202-224-3121