Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Albert Fox Cahn 🦊 @foxcahn.bsky.social · 16h

British friends, excited that UK preorders for my 1st book are live! @evanselinger.bsky.social and I explain why the DOGE (move fast & break things) approach is broken and how we can fix huge problems by moving slow and upgrading. You can get 25% off until Friday! www.waterstones.com/book/move-sl...

1 2

Albert Fox Cahn 🦊 @foxcahn.bsky.social · 2d

My latest piece! I explore the crazy world of #running products and all of the unproven inventions that are inundating my digital life. www.businessinsider.com/rise-running...

How the world's simplest sport became so tech-obsessed

I fell in love with running. Then the Instagram ads started flooding in.

www.businessinsider.com

1 5

Albert Fox Cahn 🦊 @foxcahn.bsky.social · 8d

Watching what’s happening to CBS News is really terrifying. If we keep losing the integrity / independence of institutions like major broadcasters, universities, and newspapers, eventually there won’t be much left that actually ensures the most bedrock elements of an open democratic society.

2

Albert Fox Cahn 🦊 @foxcahn.bsky.social · 13d

Why is it so much harder to find new music now than it was a decade ago? It feels like all of this streaming services. Just use their AI to recycle the same familiar artist and tracks over and over again. It should be the golden Age of music discovery, but it feels like the dark ages instead.

1

Albert Fox Cahn 🦊 @foxcahn.bsky.social · Sep 10

#CharlieKirk says some awful things, but that doesn’t make his shooting any less awful. The more we normalize political violence, the more quickly we doom our democracy. A zealot with a gun can inflict grievous wounds, but they can’t delegitimize the ideology they fight. They only make it stronger.

1 1 4

Reposted by Albert Fox Cahn 🦊

S.T.O.P.—Surveillance Technology Oversight Project @stopspyingny.bsky.social · Sep 2

"A lot of these predictive tools can create unintended errors where certain communities are underserved or misunderstood because of how the model missed or wrongly accounted for individuals’ risks in that community." @foxcahn.bsky.social #AI

www.themarshallproject.org/2025/08/30/a...

From Surveillance to Robot Guards: How AI Could Reshape Prison Life

Critics worry about opaque data collection, privacy violations and the technology’s bias spreading in jails and prisons.

www.themarshallproject.org

3 5

Reposted by Albert Fox Cahn 🦊

S.T.O.P.—Surveillance Technology Oversight Project @stopspyingny.bsky.social · Aug 27

BREAKING: S.T.O.P. Condemns NYPD False Facial Recognition Arrest Of Innocent Black Man

"Facial recognition doesn’t just threaten New Yorkers’ civil rights, it undermines their safety." @foxcahn.bsky.social #NYPD #FacialRecognition
www.stopspying.org/latest-news/...

S.T.O.P. Condemns NYPD False Facial Recognition Arrest Of Innocent Black Man — S.T.O.P. - The Surveillance Technology Oversight Project

www.stopspying.org

1 6 20

Albert Fox Cahn 🦊 @foxcahn.bsky.social · Aug 25

Aww, that’s too kind!

1

Albert Fox Cahn 🦊 @foxcahn.bsky.social · Aug 25

This was such a blast!!! Thank you so much for having me on and for bringing such needed scrutiny to these awful child tracking laws.

1

Reposted by Albert Fox Cahn 🦊

Taylor Lorenz @taylorlorenz.bsky.social · Aug 25

It was such an honor to have @foxcahn.bsky.social from the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project on my podcast to talk about all the horrible invasive ways big tech is using “child safety” to dismantle civil liberties online and off.

Your Landlord Might Be Using Facial Recognition to Spy On You

YouTube video by Taylor Lorenz

youtu.be

1 7 49

Albert Fox Cahn 🦊 @foxcahn.bsky.social · Aug 14

What on earth?? abioticfactor.wiki.gg/wiki/Albert_...

Albert Cahn

CahnCF.png Dr. Albert Cahn is a scientist who seems to have locked himself in a cell in Containment Block Baird. He offers to assist the player in escaping the facility if they free him by resetting t...

abioticfactor.wiki.gg

1

Albert Fox Cahn 🦊 @foxcahn.bsky.social · Aug 13

So excited to be able to partner with the amazing folks at @proton.me (especially Chris Cannucciari and Julia Jade Duffy) for this project on privacy and mass surveillance! youtu.be/QpFw7dk9l-0?...

Privacy Advocate Exposes All The Ways You're Being Surveilled

YouTube video by Proton

youtu.be

1 28 72

Albert Fox Cahn 🦊 @foxcahn.bsky.social · Aug 11

After Tea’s recent breaches, with 70,000 user images allegedly leaked to, I decided to test out their facial verification for myself. Turned out I could break in in just a few minutes. 😬So why is creepy facial surveillance becoming such a big part of digital life? www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...

The Facial-Recognition Sham

Surveillance won’t make the internet safer.

www.theatlantic.com

4 27 57

Albert Fox Cahn 🦊 @foxcahn.bsky.social · Jul 31

(3) Only a desperate person would pay $100 for a couple of pounds of sugar or flour, but that's the reality of life in a place where people had so little money to begin with, and now they so few places where they can spend what little they have.

Albert Fox Cahn 🦊 @foxcahn.bsky.social · Jul 31

(2) Well-intentioned people, imprisoned by ideology, can rationalize the most horrific crimes. But that doesn't make the crimes less horrific. And the reality of starvation is increasingly inescapable.

1

Albert Fox Cahn 🦊 @foxcahn.bsky.social · Jul 31

(1) As I see people denying the awful reality of Gaza, "fact checking" images of starving children for not being the perfect victims, it's hard to know what could possibly break through the wall of misinformation.

1 1 3

Albert Fox Cahn 🦊 @foxcahn.bsky.social · Jul 27

Such quality messaging 😂

1

Albert Fox Cahn 🦊 @foxcahn.bsky.social · Jul 27

I’ve seen some lackluster political events, but the anti-#Mamdani protest at Union Square is channeling a new level of desperation. Basically just organizers and camera crews. Highlights include chants in support of DeSantis and moving to Florida that drew looks of revulsion from onlookers. 🙄🙄🙄

1 1

Albert Fox Cahn 🦊 @foxcahn.bsky.social · Jul 20

Thanks as always! I don’t think I can fully get on board with that message, but I have repeatedly said “fuck the NYPD for co-opting everything good in city government.”

1 3

Albert Fox Cahn 🦊 @foxcahn.bsky.social · Jul 20

Thanks for amplifying this!

1

Reposted by Albert Fox Cahn 🦊

Sanho Tree @sanho.bsky.social · Jul 20

“The NYPD keeps using these incredibly disturbing companies to spy on New Yorkers, while hiding that surveillance from the public & violating NYC law in the process,” said Albert Fox Cahn of the Surveillance Tech.Oversight Project. “The FDNY is clearly being complicit in enabling these NYPD abuses.”

THE CITY @thecity.nyc · Jul 20

A city fire marshal used FDNY’s access to a facial recognition software to help NYPD detectives identify a pro-Palestinian protester at Columbia University, circumventing policies that tightly restrict the Police Department’s use of the technology.

NYPD Bypassed Facial Recognition Ban to ID Pro-Palestinian Student Protester

Barred from using Clearview AI, NYC police relied on a marshal in the fire department to run a search that turned up photos of the student at his high school graduation.

buff.ly

4 20 42

Albert Fox Cahn 🦊 @foxcahn.bsky.social · Jul 5

Isn’t this just reinventing British prep schools? 😬

1 3

Albert Fox Cahn 🦊 @foxcahn.bsky.social · Jul 4

So many who baselessly claimed Mamdani is an antisemite are shockingly silent when Trump justifies his estate tax roll back by saying “Shylock” bankers are coming for family farms. It’s beyond a double standard, it’s complicity in the politicization and horrifying normalization of antisemitism.

1 1

Albert Fox Cahn 🦊 @foxcahn.bsky.social · Jul 3

Fuck

1 2

Albert Fox Cahn 🦊 @foxcahn.bsky.social · Jul 1

Aww, thank you so much!!!!

1 1