Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

John Pettus @johngpettus.bsky.social · 10h

Every interaction with an AI will effectively be you talking to a personalized spy and stalker.

Truly horrific and dystopian.

Jathan Sadowski @jathansadowski.com · 12d

What an unsurprising decision by corporations that desperately need to make money with AI. If every other company with a chatbot isn't already doing this, then expect them to be following Meta's lead soon. The chatbot is not your friend; it's a corporate listening device. www.ft.com/content/22f7...

Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles. Copying articles to share with others is a breach of FT.com T&Cs and Copyright Policy. Email licensing@ft.com to buy additional rights. Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per month using the gift article service. More information can be found at https://www.ft.com/tour.
https://www.ft.com/content/22f7afc3-8ac0-4ca1-9877-fd3f8ddcc986?desktop=true&segmentId=7c8f09b9-9b61-4fbb-9430-9208a9e233c8#myft:notification:daily-email:content

Meta will use conversations people have with its chatbots to personalise advertising and content across its platforms, in a sign of how tech companies plan to make money from artificial intelligence.

The owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp on Wednesday said it would use the content of chats with its Meta AI to create advertising recommendations across its suite of apps.

“People will already expect that their Meta AI interactions are being used for these personalisation purposes,” said Christy Harris, privacy and data policy manager at Meta.

5

Reposted by John Pettus

Jathan Sadowski @jathansadowski.com · 12d

What an unsurprising decision by corporations that desperately need to make money with AI. If every other company with a chatbot isn't already doing this, then expect them to be following Meta's lead soon. The chatbot is not your friend; it's a corporate listening device. www.ft.com/content/22f7...

11 180 400

John Pettus @johngpettus.bsky.social · 11h

If I were an investor in one of Elon's companies, I would not allow him to F me over and transfer profits and losses between independent companies.

NY Times Pitchbot @nytpitchbot.bsky.social · 20h

Elon Musk is doing Enron the right way.

by Ezra Klein

electrek.co/2025/10/13/e...

Elon Musk's SpaceX and xAI are buying Tesla's unsold Cybertrucks

Hundreds of Tesla Cybertrucks have been spotted being delivered Elon Musk’s private companies, SpaceX and xAI, as Tesla is having...

electrek.co

1 3

Reposted by John Pettus

Mike Masnick @mmasnick.bsky.social · 17h

Was waiting to see how Olivia Reingold (who Oliver's piece destroyed almost as much as Bari Weiss) would respond, and you can see the tweet below which also shows she either did not watch his piece, or just didn't understand it, since he actually addresses this point directly.

Olivia Reingold quote tweeting Variety.

The Variety tweet is about John Oliver's piece on Bari Weiss leading CBS News, saying:

John Oliver slams Bari Weiss' takeover of CBS News:

"I wouldn’t want anyone who led a pure opinion outlet, not even one that I happened to agree with, to suddenly be running CBS News. But it is especially alarming to have someone doing it who has spent years putting out work that, in my opinion, is at best irresponsible and at worst deeply misleading."

Reingold then quotes it saying:

Why does this sound like John Oliver commenting on……John Oliver

59 570 3.8K

Reposted by John Pettus

Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 17h

The concentration of wealth in the hands of a few isn't just bad for our economy. It's corrosive to our democracy.

When the wealthy and well-connected control our political system, regular people don't have a voice.

The result? The demagoguery and corruption we're seeing now.

220 2.6K 8.6K

Reposted by John Pettus

George Conway 🇺🇸🚫👑🐸 @gtconway.bsky.social · 19h

480 7K 28K

Reposted by John Pettus

Brendan Nyhan @brendannyhan.bsky.social · 21h

In the United States. Not another country. Happening right now.

Nick Kristof @nickkristof.bsky.social · 1d

In Portland, an ambulance was summoned to the ICE office to treat an injured protester (not clear how he was injured). But when the patient was loaded inside, ICE officers refused to let the ambulance leave and threatened to shoot the ambulance driver: www.wweek.com/news/2025/10...

Documents Allege a Federal Agent at Portland ICE Threatened to Shoot an Ambulance Driver

Feds delayed medics who had come to pick up an injured protester. Then, according to confidential incident reports, the agents became aggressive.

www.wweek.com

19 230 610

John Pettus @johngpettus.bsky.social · 12h

A Message From The Frog Resistance

YouTube video by The Late Show with Stephen Colbert

youtu.be

1 1

Reposted by John Pettus

Kevin Elliott @kjephd.bsky.social · 22h

Very importantly correct

Jake Grumbach @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social · 23h

“Win every election” is not a viable strategy for preventing authoritarianism

4 32 280

Reposted by John Pettus

Khashoggi's Ghost @urocklive1.bsky.social · 19h

IDK how anyone could continue to call themselves a journalist without asking this question every single day.

Wajahat Ali @wajali.bsky.social · 19h

What did Tom Homan do with the $50K he took in a CAVA bag from undercover FBI agents?

Just keep asking this everyday. Its a big scandal they can't escape because Pam Bondi and her DOJ killed the investigation. They're cornered on this and the Epstein Files.

4 85 310

Reposted by John Pettus

Pat Bagley @bagleycartoons.bsky.social · 19h

3 62 200

John Pettus @johngpettus.bsky.social · 19h

Says the guy who famously said he didn't have a single thing he regrets.
So was he lying then or lying now?

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 1d

Trump: "I don't think there's anything that's gonna get me in heaven. I think I'm not maybe heaven bound. I may be in heaven right now as we fly on Air Force One. I'm not sure I'm gonna be able to make heaven."

1

Reposted by John Pettus

Asawin Suebsaeng @swin24.bsky.social · 19h

I keep saying this but I can’t get it out of my head that we must be led by political and military leaders who saw the movie The Siege and thought Bruce Willis was the good one.

Asawin Suebsaeng @swin24.bsky.social · 19h

I am absolutely not saying that the court orders demanding the blockage, even just for now, of Trump’s military invasion of Chicago aren’t good; what I am saying is that even without the troops, his *militarized* invasion, with the guns and military-style gear and fatigues or whatever the fuck, has…

2 11 67

Reposted by John Pettus

Jesse Mermell @jessemermell.bsky.social · 1d

He is 13. A 7th grader w/ a pending asylum case. Being held more than 500 miles from home & housed w/ adults. He called his mom crying, & reported that he’s sleeping on concrete w/ an aluminum blanket.

How is this anything other than sick & shameful? www.bostonglobe.com/2025/10/12/m...

Everett 13-year-old arrested by ICE and sent to Virginia detention facility - The Boston Globe

The boy’s mother, Josiele Berto, was called to pick her son up from the Everett Police Department on Thursday, the day he was arrested.

www.bostonglobe.com

48 610 1K

Reposted by John Pettus

southpaw @nycsouthpaw.bsky.social · 23h

Auspicious start for the new CBS News, laundering unattributed cop shit-talking through the incoming editor-in-chief’s blog and failing to correct a misspelling of the story subject’s name in the web headline for three days.

480 1.9K 8.1K

John Pettus @johngpettus.bsky.social · 23h

Yep. Has been for a long time.

John Pettus @johngpettus.bsky.social · 23h

Pedantry is in the eye of the beholder and this genre of post is specifically designed to create a self-licking ice cream cone.

It’s like when people post how much they hate other people replying to them, or correcting them, or disagreeing with them, or being wrong, etc.

Some aren’t bullied by it

1 1 4

John Pettus @johngpettus.bsky.social · 23h

It was, though depended on your corner / follower base & culture.

2

Reposted by John Pettus

Hakeem Jefferson @hakeemjefferson.bsky.social · 23h

Agree 100% @stanfordaaup.bsky.social!

“When it inevitably comes time for Stanford to choose, we must remember that we owe our loyalty not to any executive branch official but to our own foundational principles. We must be ready, when it’s our turn, to walk away.”

stanforddaily.com/2025/10/12/f...

From the Community | We must refuse the 'Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education'

Associate professor Greg Martin writes on behalf of the Stanford's AAUP chapter to condemn the White House's compact on higher education.

stanforddaily.com

2 120 380

John Pettus @johngpettus.bsky.social · 23h

Oh so someone IS keeping a list!

Good!

Mark Hennessy-Barrett @markhb.bsky.social · 23h

docs.google.com/document/u/1...

Today the list of right-wing sexual predators stands at 1,472 entries.

Trump's spiritual advisor wasn't at Church on Sunday because he was starting a prison stretch for raping a 12-year-old girl.

He's entry #1313.

#RightWingSexualPredators

docs.google.com

1 3

Reposted by John Pettus

Jeffrey Vagle of the Carcosa Vagles @jvagle.me · 23h

A great moment from Oliver:

“While I would love to keep splitting hairs on whether a country’s starving kids is better or worse if those kids are already sick, let’s just table that discussion for when I see you in hell.”

Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 1d

Absolutely brutal.

Bari Weiss: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

YouTube video by LastWeekTonight

www.youtube.com

9 310 1.5K

John Pettus @johngpettus.bsky.social · 23h

They WANT a massacre.

Trump, Miller and the whole Republican Party is cycling through pretextual reasons to use violence against Americans. They are just waiting for a spark to catch.

The Bulwark @thebulwark.com · 23h

"If you keep pushing the envelope and keep militarizing the streets, sooner or later, you could have a massacre."

Watch the latest George Explains with @gtconway.bsky.social and @sarahlongwell25.bsky.social now.

2 3

Reposted by John Pettus

Jay Van Bavel, PhD @jayvanbavel.bsky.social · 23h

We have gone from "echo chambers" to "echo platforms"
Users migrate between platforms in search of environments aligned with their preferences

A new paper analyzes 117 million posts from the 2020 US elections from 9 social media platforms and finds big differences
academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/ar...

2 2 11

Reposted by John Pettus

Old White Nepo Hat @kenwhite.bsky.social · 23h

ICE is thug trash.

Jonah @anotherjonah.bsky.social · 1d

This morning I was filming ICE abducting sometime in Petworth. One of the agents told me "the last US citizen that did this he put in cuffs all the way to the courtroom".

230 1.5K 5.4K

Reposted by John Pettus

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 23h

Trump points at UAE official during photo op and says, "A lot of cash. Unlimited cash."

310 680 1.8K