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samantha floreani

@floreani.bsky.social

1.1K followers 630 following 230 posts

digital rights advocate / writer / PhD candidate researching tech + housing justice 🏠 surveillance isn't safety xoxo samanthafloreani.com

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samantha floreani @floreani.bsky.social · Jun 18

I’m researching ways that digital technologies in Australia's private rental sector are impacting renters and housing justice.

I’m looking for more interview participants. If you are a renter and have experience using ‘RentTech’ - I want to speak with you!

More info and EOI here:

The Machine-Readable Renter — Samantha Floreani

Participants needed! Are you a renter in Australia? Have you ever used tech to find and apply for a home, log maintenance, or pay rent? I want to speak with you!

www.samanthafloreani.com

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The PS1 startup sound as a lesbian @janus.bsky.social · 13h

Hello~ i wrote something for @theverge.com about the surreal horror of online transness in a fascist surveillance state.

it’s time to change tactics and make ourselves less legible to this machinery of death — but *without* sacrificing our connection and community.

The return of the trans underground

The internet once helped trans people connect and organize. Now it’s a dangerous liability. What comes next?

www.theverge.com

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Sam Cole @samleecole.bsky.social · 7h

OpenAI has chosen the worst, weirdest possible time to embrace the fact that people want to fuck chatbots www.404media.co/chatgpt-erot...

ChatGPT’s Hail Mary: Chatbots You Can Fuck

As recent reports show OpenAI bleeding cash, and on the heels of accusations that ChatGPT caused teens and adults alike to harm themselves and others, CEO Sam Altman announced that you can soon fuck t...

www.404media.co

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samantha floreani @floreani.bsky.social · 1d

lmao after watching successive governments do absolutely nothing meaningful about the data broker industry nor targeted marketing, I’m not above laughing at them for this

Anthony Albanese, Sussan Ley and Scott Morrison’s private phone numbers exposed on US marketing databases

Richard Marles says investigation under way into how the prime minister and other senior government staff’s phone numbers appeared in the databases

www.theguardian.com

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samantha floreani @floreani.bsky.social · 1d

yeah! a gorgeous feeling that I would never want to give up!!

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Overland Journal @overlandjournal.bsky.social · 2d

“The goal of funwashing is to humanise its subjects — but what happens when you attempt to funwash things that weren’t human to begin with?”

@martynpedler.com on showing the softer side of killer robots. overland.org.au/2025/10/kill...

Killer robots can dance, too - Overland literary journal

Promoting Phantom as having multiple functions foregrounds the notion that it’s a tool that can be used for good or bad — for fun-having or death-dealing.

overland.org.au

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samantha floreani @floreani.bsky.social · 2d

I suppose the idea is to not have to think at all, better or worse lol

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samantha floreani @floreani.bsky.social · 2d

even when writing makes me want to tear my eyeballs out of my skull, I still wouldn't want AI to take away this experience. the uncomfortable friction between what's in my brain (makes sense!) and what's on the page (does not make sense!) is where the good shit happens

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Jake Goldenfein @jakegoldenfein.bsky.social · 19d

New one from James Parker and me - wading into the fights between artists and AI companies. We suggest artists need a vocabulary beyond copyright to articulate their grievances: www.versobooks.com/en-gb/blogs/...

Labor not property: Why artists are fighting the wrong battle on gener

This cover image depicts the display screen of the Suno-generated song 'created' using the text of this piece as the prompt. You can listen to the song by clicking the hyperlink where you see "Bad son...

www.versobooks.com

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Julia Carrie Wong @joolia.bsky.social · 19d

Microsoft will no longer allow Israel to use its cloud services to enable its mass surveillance of occupied Palestinians – "the first known case of a US technology company withdrawing services provided to the Israeli military since the beginning of its war on Gaza"

Microsoft blocks Israel’s use of its technology in mass surveillance of Palestinians

Exclusive: Tech firm ends military unit’s access to AI and data services after Guardian reveals secret spy project

www.theguardian.com

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samantha floreani @floreani.bsky.social · 17d

one of the worst genres of influencer post is the sorry I haven't been posting post. the presumption that your ~content~ is such an important part of people's day that they would be actively missing you such that it warrants a 'sorry I promise I'll post more soon' post is so deeply embarrassing help

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Edward Ongweso Jr @edwardongwesojr.com · 25d

wrote a little about the inspiration for Frank Herbert’s Butlerian Jihad (Samuel Butler and his novel EREHWON), as well as Luddism & democratic governance

thetechbubble.substack.com/p/on-the-ori...

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Rohan Pearce @rohan-p.bsky.social · 27d

Kmart’s use of facial recognition to tackle refund fraud unlawful, Privacy Commissioner finds www.oaic.gov.au/news/media-c...

Kmart’s use of facial recognition to tackle refund fraud unlawful, Privacy Commissioner finds

The Privacy Commissioner has found that Kmart breached Australians’ privacy by collecting their personal and sensitive information through a facial recognition technology system.

www.oaic.gov.au

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Data & Society @datasociety.bsky.social · 27d

As big tech companies appeal to small island countries’ anxieties about being left behind, @emmaquilty.bsky.social considers how efforts to transform islands into digital hubs obscure the power and agency of these places and their people. datasociety.net/points/confr...

Text on a green background that shows the new Points piece titled "Confronting Data Centers, Deep-Sea Cables, and Colonial Legacies in the South Pacific" by Emma Quilty. This blog is part of the series called "The Cloud is Dead: A Series on Living with Legacies of Resource Extraction."

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Meredith Whittaker @meredithmeredith.bsky.social · Sep 9

📣 NEW -- In The Economist, discussing the privacy perils of AI agents and what AI companies and operating systems need to do--NOW--to protect Signal and much else!

www.economist.com/by-invitatio...

An illustration of me, and the headline: "AI agents are coming for your privacy, warns Meredith Whittaker
The Signal Foundation’s president worries they will also blunt competition and undermine cyber-security"

To put it bluntly, the path currently being taken towards agentic AI leads to an elimination of privacy and security at the application layer. It will not be possible for apps like Signal—the messaging app whose foundation I run—to continue to provide strong privacy guarantees, built on robust and openly validated encryption, if device-makers and OS developers insist on puncturing the metaphoric blood-brain barrier between apps and the OS. Feeding your sensitive Signal messages into an undifferentiated data slurry connected to cloud servers in service of their AI-agent aspirations is a dangerous abdication of responsibility.

Happily, it’s not too late. There is much that can still be done, particularly when it comes to protecting the sanctity of private data. What’s needed is a fundamental shift in how we approach the development and deployment of AI agents. First, privacy must be the default, and control must remain in the hands of application developers exercising agency on behalf of their users. Developers need the ability to designate applications as “sensitive” and mark them as off-limits to agents, at the OS level and otherwise. This cannot be a convoluted workaround buried in settings; it must be a straightforward, well-documented mechanism (similar to Global Privacy Control) that blocks an agent from accessing our data or taking actions within an app.

Second, radical transparency must be the norm. Vague assurances and marketing-speak are no longer acceptable. OS vendors have an obligation to be clear and precise about their architecture and what data their AI agents are accessing, how it is being used and the measures in place to protect it.

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Simon Rosenberg @simonrosenberg.bsky.social · 28d

“Its loss is not just a literary blow,” concludes Max Kaiser. “It signals a narrowing of public debate and unfortunately a chilling message to people daring to support the publication of inconvenient truths."
@nickfeik.bsky.social on who killed Meanjin. #auspol
www.crikey.com.au/2025/09/16/m...

Who killed Meanjin?

And why won’t Melbourne University Publishing engage with efforts to save it?

www.crikey.com.au

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samantha floreani @floreani.bsky.social · 28d

My review of Madison Griffiths' SWEET NOTHINGS is out now in the spring edition of Meanjin.

It's bittersweet to be in one of Meanjin's last editions. The loss of this literary institution is a travesty. I've loved reading and writing for Meanjin, and especially working with @mxcreant.bsky.social

Not like the others: on power, pedagogical relationships and being special

In Sweet Nothings, Griffiths once again delves into confessional waters by examining romantic and sexual relationships between students and their professors while ruminating on her own experience.

meanjin.com.au

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Osman Faruqi @osmanfaruqi.bsky.social · Sep 1

It would be a massive mistake for progressive folk to convince themselves the March for Australia was a bust, or can safely be ridiculed.

It was an alarming escalation of far-right action, and we need to reckon with it.

More thoughts (un-paywalled) here:

www.lamestream.com.au/how-mainstre...

How mainstream media and politicians fuelled Australia's biggest far-right rally

Six takeaways from the March for Australia and why it should be a wake-up call.

www.lamestream.com.au

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Ben Eltham @beneltham.bsky.social · Sep 4

Melbourne Uni is killing the literary journal Meanjin. It's cultural vandalism. Australian universities are now deeply anti-intellectual places www.crikey.com.au/2025/09/04/m...

Literary journal Meanjin to close after 85 years of publishing

Meanjin, a mainstay of Australia's cultural landscape and the nation's second-oldest literary publication, is shuttering after Melbourne University Publishing decided to cease financial support.

www.crikey.com.au

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Josh Taylor @joshtaylor.bsky.social · Sep 1

The federal government wants to charge for making FOI requests. Ridiculous for a government allegedly committed to transparency. www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/freed...

www.theaustralian.com.au

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JP @daedalus.eigenmagic.com · Sep 2

This is an excellent response to the "we have to charge for FOI because forren AI bots!" nonsense from the A-G. www.righttoknow.org.au/request/evid...

In recent public media, the Attorney-General and other government ministers have referred to “AI bot generated requests” and FOI requests being made by “foreign powers, foreign actors, (and) criminal ...

www.righttoknow.org.au

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Rohan Pearce @rohan-p.bsky.social · Aug 22

@floreani.bsky.social 🎂

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samantha floreani @floreani.bsky.social · Aug 22

thank you friend!!!

samantha floreani @floreani.bsky.social · Aug 22

"Ex meth-lab in a great location, include your blood type on the tenant application"

Playlunch really capturing the essence of my research interviews with renters here 🎶

PLAYLUNCH /// Real Estate Apps feat. Aunty Donna (Official Music Video)

YouTube video by Playlunch

www.youtube.com

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samantha floreani @floreani.bsky.social · Aug 22

it was lovely to chat with Matt for the @admscentre.org.au podcast about my research. if you're interested in tech x rental housing or want to have a sticky beak into what I'm working on, this is a good overview 🏠

ADM+S Centre @admscentre.org.au · Aug 21

New ADM+S Podcast episode: PhD researcher Samantha @floreani.bsky.social explores her study on the growing influence of digital technologies in the residential real estate sector.

🎧 Listen now: admscentre.org/461k5OE

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Jathan Sadowski @jathansadowski.com · Aug 21

New research shows "home insurers consider the credit score of the homeowner more important than the location of the home in setting prices... On average across the nation, it is more expensive to have a poor credit score than to live in a zip code with a high disaster risk."

Map of the United States showing data at the county level for insurance premium price difference caused by credit score. The map is titled:

What's The Credit Score Penalty in Your County?
How Much More a Typical Homeowner Pays in Annual Home Insurance Premiums for Having a Low or Medium Credit Score

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