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Gaby Hinsliff @gabyhinsliff.bsky.social · 28m

sure, but there are probably some parallels with stuff we do have experience with.

Gaby Hinsliff @gabyhinsliff.bsky.social · 30m

sort of, but it's very clearly aimed at people who present a deadly threat to others. I think the closest thing is more like the feeling you're losing a family member to a cult.

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Gaby Hinsliff @gabyhinsliff.bsky.social · 1h

true, except when it's mixed up with mental health (as you suspect in a lot of cases it is) that's a lot to expect a partner to just deal with on their own.

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Gaby Hinsliff @gabyhinsliff.bsky.social · 1h

yup. Not at scale nor in individual cases. But it shouldn't be impossible to learn.

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Gaby Hinsliff @gabyhinsliff.bsky.social · 1h

it's weird that we are so mental health aware in some ways, learning what to do or say if a friend or colleague depressed/traumatised/struggling with being neurodivergent etc, but absolutely no clue where to start with this one which is becoming a thing in a lot of families/marriages/friendships

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Gaby Hinsliff @gabyhinsliff.bsky.social · 1h

This but also: there's a gaping hole in *useful info if you're just a person whose partner/friend/dad etc has gone off the deep end and don't know how to talk them out of it* ie both a public health/deradicalisation strategy on a national level & a relationship level one.

James Austin @jamesdaustin.bsky.social · 21h

Everyone knows at least one person (normally, but not exclusively, a guy) whose gone properly mental due to net rabbit holes.

We see public figures regularly go mad and destroy themselves.

And we have, at a policy level, just decided to put our fingers in our ears and go nahnahnah

Alastair Meeks @alastairmeeks.bsky.social · 21h

Last night I heard of another friend of a friend who has been lost to a rabbit hole of online propaganda. We need to start treating this as a serious public health concern.

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Gaby Hinsliff @gabyhinsliff.bsky.social · 3d

i'm banking on his ability to believe whatever suits him at this point tbh

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Gaby Hinsliff @gabyhinsliff.bsky.social · 3d

what would worry me most as a parent is the security of the database backing up that digital id, plus all the same concerns as adult id (what use a future govt puts it to).

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Gaby Hinsliff @gabyhinsliff.bsky.social · 3d

yes, but as a parent who is all in favour of smartphone free childhoods) I'm not sure it's realistic to say 14 or 15yos should be phone free, especially as (like I said) it's not the phone itself that is addictive, it's what you're accessing on it. Id wouldn't be compulsory at that age either.

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Gaby Hinsliff @gabyhinsliff.bsky.social · 3d

For the love of God just tell Trump the Nobel Peace Prize is only ever awarded to people who have left office, ideally midterm and in a hurry, why are we wasting this golden opportunity

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Gaby Hinsliff @gabyhinsliff.bsky.social · 3d

Sure, but Google & Apple have steadfastly resisted that, no? Like I said; I think digital id is problematic. But if you were wanting to sell it to parents of teenagers that’s how you would do it, given at 13 it’s not the phone itself that’s the problem but accessing adult social media via it

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Gaby Hinsliff @gabyhinsliff.bsky.social · 3d

To be fair if you live in the country in winter, mud is the predominant feeling

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Gaby Hinsliff @gabyhinsliff.bsky.social · 3d

The obvious use for digital id for 13-15s is to gatekeep access to social media though? (If you are potentially thinking 16 as age limit for social media). I have reservations about digital id generally, and would for teens, but that’s the use case

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Gaby Hinsliff @gabyhinsliff.bsky.social · 3d

thankyou very much!

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Gaby Hinsliff @gabyhinsliff.bsky.social · 3d

(this week it's me on where party conference season leaves us, plus Victoria Beckham's Netflix documentary and other matters of state)

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Gaby Hinsliff @gabyhinsliff.bsky.social · 3d

*cough* plug for Guardian Opinion's new weekly newsletter - a different columnist every week on what we're currently thinking/reading/watching/doing etc, plus a roundup of good reads from the week (It's me this week but don't worry, next week it's someone else) www.theguardian.com/global/2025/...

Sign up to Matters of Opinion: a weekly newsletter from our columnists and writers

Guardian columnists and writers on what they’ve been debating, thinking about, reading, and more

www.theguardian.com

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Reposted by Gaby Hinsliff

James Murray @james-bg.bsky.social · 3d

That England has had its three worst harvests on record inside the past five years really should be being treated as a much bigger cause for concern than is currently the case. www.businessgreen.com/news/4520171...

'This is what farming with climate change looks like': England endures second worst harvest on record

New analysis confirms three of the five worst harvests on record have occurred in the past five years on the back of extreme heat, drought, and rainfall

www.businessgreen.com

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Reposted by Gaby Hinsliff

Keith W. Dickinson @keithwdickinson.bsky.social · 5d

Today is a day when arts degrees are worthless, but the product of those degrees is so valuable it would kill an entire industry if they were made to pay for it.

The Verge @theverge.com · May 26

Nick Clegg says asking artists for use permission would ‘kill’ the AI industry

Paul McCartne, Elton John and others signed an open letter.

buff.ly

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Gaby Hinsliff @gabyhinsliff.bsky.social · 4d

it's also a degree that a lot of journalists do (guilty as charged etc) which practically guarantees you a media backlash. Then again that is very much the Kemi way.

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Gaby Hinsliff @gabyhinsliff.bsky.social · 5d

Anyway good luck to everyone who’s gone full circle from ‘everyone must read Dryden’ curriculums (Gove 2010) to ‘bin English degrees’ (Badenoch 2025), hope the years of rote learning poetry felt worth it

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Gaby Hinsliff @gabyhinsliff.bsky.social · 5d

Fascinating marker of how far the Tory target voter has shifted from ‘middle class parents wanting their kids to go to uni’ to ‘old people who didn’t go and don’t see what anyone else should either’. (Obv there’s a solid case for apprenticeships, but not convinced that’s what this is about)

Times Higher Education (THE) @timeshighered.bsky.social · 5d

Tory leader Kemi Badenoch is expected to announce plans to cut the number of UK university places by about 100,000 annually by reintroducing student number controls, reports Patrick Jack #edusky
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/badenochs-number-caps-plan-would-cut-100000-university-places

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Gaby Hinsliff @gabyhinsliff.bsky.social · 5d

It’s a terrific piece and I’m glad you wrote it

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Reposted by Gaby Hinsliff

Sathnam Sanghera @sathnam.bsky.social · 6d

I've responded to Robert Jenrick's vile comments in @thetimes.com

www.thetimes.com/life-style/c...

I sang Jerusalem with Robert Jenrick at school — he’s wrong about race

The Conservative MP has complained that, visiting Handsworth in Birmingham, he didn’t see ‘another white face’. You can’t judge whether someone is integrated by skin colour, argues fellow Wulfrunian S...

www.thetimes.com

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Gaby Hinsliff @gabyhinsliff.bsky.social · 5d

WELL

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Gaby Hinsliff @gabyhinsliff.bsky.social · 5d

‘Working class girls don’t read’? Jesus wept.