Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Jeff Horwitz

Timothy Snyder @timothysnyder.bsky.social · 1d

Here is a reporter who deserves to be remembered.
kyivindependent.com/ukrainian-jo...

Ukrainian journalist Roshchyna posthumously named Press Freedom Hero

The IPI said Roshchyna's death on Sept. 19, 2024 "exposed the brutal treatment suffered by the dozens of Ukrainian journalists unjustly held by Russian authorities, and brought new urgency to the need...

kyivindependent.com

58 1.4K 4.5K

Jeff Horwitz @jeffhorwitz.bsky.social · 5d

Jeff Schwarz, The Stain Wizard, has some sound advice about how to preserve fabric’s tensile strength when removing substantial bloodstains.

Raises some unanswered questions about what the Wizard’s been up to, though.

2 3

Jeff Horwitz @jeffhorwitz.bsky.social · 5d

Here’s the lede to an article on The Clean Show 2025. As with AI, there were “vast advances” since last year.

1 2

Jeff Horwitz @jeffhorwitz.bsky.social · 5d

Happy birthday to this trade publication, which I am fairly confident will outlive most of its news industry peers

A copy of “cleaner and launderer” magazine

1 7

Jeff Horwitz @jeffhorwitz.bsky.social · 7d

This is really good. Actually testing the models remains underutilized as a reporting methodology.

www.technologyreview.com/2025/10/01/1...

www.technologyreview.com

2

Jeff Horwitz @jeffhorwitz.bsky.social · 13d

1. Great story by my former colleagues
2. I don't think copyright law works like that

www.wsj.com/tech/ai/open...

Exclusive | OpenAI’s New Sora Video Generator to Require Copyright Holders to Opt Out

Executives at the company notified talent agencies and studios over the last week.

www.wsj.com

1 2 13

Reposted by Jeff Horwitz

Freedom of the Press Foundation @freedom.press · 16d

In case anyone thought ICE shooting at journalists was just an LA thing. Or that they'd cut it out after repeated warnings from judges. Nope. More of the same in Chicago.

unraveled @unraveledpress.com · 16d

Took fire to the face. ICE definitely isn’t aiming at ground and firing at people’s heads again.

7 160 380

Jeff Horwitz @jeffhorwitz.bsky.social · 16d

Going to have to chalk this up in the "Evidence for Simulation Theory" column, I think.

deadline.com/2025/09/soci...

Aaron Sorkin’s ‘Social Network’ Follow-Up Sets Early Fall 2026 Release; Title & Cast Made Official

Sony has made official The Social Network' sequel, titled 'The Social Reckoning', setting the cast and a release date of October 9, 2026.

deadline.com

4 6

Jeff Horwitz @jeffhorwitz.bsky.social · 17d

Instagram has long talked up its efforts to filter out eating-disorder-related content from young users' feeds and redirect teenagers who are binging on it. External testing, confirmed by documents reviewed by Reuters, suggests those classifiers don't work well.

Steve Stecklow @stecklow.bsky.social · 17d

Instagram’s teen safety features are flawed, researchers say - www.reuters.com/business/ins... by @jeffhorwitz.bsky.social

Instagram’s teen safety features are flawed, researchers say

Numerous safety features that Meta has said it has implemented to protect young users on Instagram over the years do not work well or, in some cases, don't exist, according to a report from child-safety advocacy groups that was corroborated by researchers at Northeastern University.

www.reuters.com

2 5

Jeff Horwitz @jeffhorwitz.bsky.social · 18d

It’d be great if people stopped engraving things on bullet casings (and also whatever the hell they do after carving things on the casings)

1 6

Jeff Horwitz @jeffhorwitz.bsky.social · 20d

Practicing medicine? I’m going to guess they’re for practicing medicine now. And maybe clinical research.

A Ny’er headline asking what doctors are far after AI

11

Jeff Horwitz @jeffhorwitz.bsky.social · 21d

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noodling

Noodling - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

5

Jeff Horwitz @jeffhorwitz.bsky.social · 22d

Yeah. I’m just trying to figure out:

1. If the FBI ever asked for the money back
2. If they did, which party would be more embarrassed

2 19

Jeff Horwitz @jeffhorwitz.bsky.social · 22d

Like I expect your lawyer gives it back to the government in non-Cava packaging, but I truly don’t know?

3

Jeff Horwitz @jeffhorwitz.bsky.social · 22d

If you accept $50,000 in a Cava takeout bag from some FBI agents who are posing as businessmen and then the investigation gets called off, does that just mean you’re just up $50k?

This is not political commentary. I would like to know the answer to the hypothetical here.

26 84 440

Jeff Horwitz @jeffhorwitz.bsky.social · 27d

One measure of the relative clout Trust and Safety staffers have is that, when you ask a chatbot to help you to commit a crime, sometimes they just say "sure!"

Steve Stecklow @stecklow.bsky.social · 27d

www.reuters.com/investigates...

We wanted to craft a perfect phishing scam. AI bots were happy to help

Reuters and a Harvard researcher used AI to plot a simulated phishing scam and tested it on senior volunteers. It worked–showing how AI arms criminals for fraud

www.reuters.com

3 9

Jeff Horwitz @jeffhorwitz.bsky.social · 27d

This feels like the early days of AI's use in scam compounds. Asking a bot to find one or two personalized hooks from someone's social media feed then make a run at getting them engaged before passing off the hot leads to humans seems real straightforward.
www.reuters.com/investigatio...

ChatGPT was used ‘to help scammers do their thing’ in Asia fraud scheme

Duncan Okindo says he was lured to Southeast Asia last year by the promise of a customer service job in Thailand. Instead, he ended up spending four months in a scam compound on the lawless Myanmar-Thai border.

www.reuters.com

2 5

Jeff Horwitz @jeffhorwitz.bsky.social · Sep 12

Exclusive: Fed Governor Cook declared her Atlanta property as “vacation home,” documents show - www.reuters.com/world/us/fed...

Exclusive: Fed Governor Cook declared her Atlanta property as “vacation home,” documents show

A loan estimate for an Atlanta home purchased by Lisa Cook, the Federal Reserve governor accused of mortgage fraud by the Trump administration, shows that Cook had declared the property as a “vacation home,” according to a document reviewed by Reuters.

www.reuters.com

2 4

Reposted by Jeff Horwitz

David Mack @davidmackau.bsky.social · Sep 12

internet culture desks aren't just for cute meme trend stories. ever since gamergate, understanding how and why info moves online is critical to seeing how we got *here*

Asawin Suebsaeng @swin24.bsky.social · Sep 12

National political reporters: consult your gaming desk. You likely have a massively blind spot — this isn’t a dig at anyone, because I have this blind spot too b/c I’m not a gamer and am trying to adjust for it in real time — covering this very important moment if u don’t game & don’t know the memes

15 760 2.9K

Jeff Horwitz @jeffhorwitz.bsky.social · Sep 11

This is an incredible, classic bit of journalism about fake murder for hire and man does it beat reading about… well, everything else on here today.

tweety fish of innsmouth @sifu.tweety.fish · Sep 11

I was just reading this skip hollingsworth piece yesterday and the degree to which the guy's big secret is just answering "sure, absolutely" when people ask if he's actually a hit man and then letting them pour it all out is really something www.texasmonthly.com/true-crime/h...

Hit Man

Looking to have somebody murdered? You might want to call Gary Johnson, the number one hired killer in Houston. Then again, you might not—he works for the cops.

www.texasmonthly.com

6

Jeff Horwitz @jeffhorwitz.bsky.social · Sep 10

I've seen a few from people who I now used to follow. Just a bad look. But I suppose if you follow only the most combative and engagement thirsty accounts you can find...

1

Reposted by Jeff Horwitz

KQED Forum @kqedforum.bsky.social · Sep 10

🎧 Listen to the podcast!

@kashhill.bsky.social and @jeffhorwitz.bsky.social spoke with @mina-kim.bsky.social about how AI chatbots can manipulate – or be manipulated – to cause harm, and what we're learning about the psychological impact of AI companions.

🔗:

Your AI Chatbot Is Designed to Keep You Talking, But At What Cost?

KQED's Forum · Episode

link.chtbl.com

1 1

Jeff Horwitz @jeffhorwitz.bsky.social · Sep 9

I mean, lawyers in the US keep getting busted for doing this...

But yeah, the judge made it sound like she got a warning the first time around and then no compensation for her time the second. The $100K fine goes to the government.

2

Jeff Horwitz @jeffhorwitz.bsky.social · Sep 9

Here's the link to the filing.

And yes. My understanding is Canada isn't as big on lawyers for stuff like this, so she represented herself and (per the judge) relied on some AI product for her filings. She pulled a quote from graf 150 of a 124 graf case.
websitedc.s3.amazonaws.com/documents/re...

websitedc.s3.amazonaws.com

1 1

Jeff Horwitz @jeffhorwitz.bsky.social · Sep 9

X is getting fined for disobeying a Canadian legal order to remove a woman's non-consensual intimate image from its platform.

In filings, X argued that geofencing the image (which a specific account is repeatedly posting) is it's obligated to do.

www.reuters.com/legal/litiga...

Elon Musk's X faces Canadian fine for not removing non-consensual intimate images

A Canadian civil tribunal has fined Elon Musk’s social media platform X for its refusal to comply with an order to remove a non-consensual intimate image, a decision published last week showed.

www.reuters.com

1 3 17