William Perrin
@willperrin.bsky.social
1.3K followers 490 following 300 posts
Trustee at Indigo Trust, CarnegieUK. Formerly Good Things Foundation, TPW, UK Civil Service (No10, Cabinet Office, DtI, DCMS). Defence, tech, online safety, rural, tractors, cats etc.
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willperrin.bsky.social
there used to be some very sound stuff on the HSE website on regulating machine learning software under HSAW74 from the late 1990s early 2000s but it mysteriously vanished during the AI nonsense. maybe way back has it.
Reposted by William Perrin
lordrickettsp.bsky.social
It’s striking what a professional job Matt Collins did in these witness statements. The first describes in forensic detail the threat from Chinese intelligence operations and how this was ‘prejudicial to the safety or interests of the state’. 1/2 www.gov.uk/government/p...
Witness statements in relation to alleged breach of Official Secrets Act on behalf of China
As the Prime Minister said in the House, he has carefully considered this matter and, following legal advice, the Prime Minister decided to disclose the witness statements in full.
www.gov.uk
Reposted by William Perrin
sethcotlar.bsky.social
Joking in your Young Republican group chat about the mass murder of 6 million people who'd been scapegoated for decades as morally degenerate ethnic/religious outsiders is just locker room talk. Speaking lightly of the murder of Charlie Kirk to your 400 friends on Facebook is a fireable offense.
Reposted by William Perrin
sundersays.bsky.social
It was backing Robinson (ditching Farage over his exclusion of Robinson) that took Musk to 80% disapproval in Britain - as that was how he secured majority disapproval from Reform, who had been the only group who approved, to go with his toxicity to Conservatives & centre-left voters
Reposted by William Perrin
caseynewton.bsky.social
Marc Benioff's stock is going down because his AI agents don't work so it's time to rev up the hype machine
techmeme.com
Marc Benioff says Salesforce is saving about $100M a year by using AI tools in its customer service operations (Brody Ford/Bloomberg)

Main Link | Techmeme Permalink
willperrin.bsky.social
this
florianederer.bsky.social
Do incumbents buy startups to scale innovation or to stifle it?

New research covering 60 countries finds that acquired startups were highly innovative before their acquisition, but their patenting drops sharply afterward, while acquirers' innovation doesn't rise.

www.oecd.org/en/publicati...
Reposted by William Perrin
caseynewton.bsky.social
"Similar to" but importantly not identical. Meta is drafting off the higher trust that people have in movie ratings to suggest that Instagram is as safe for a 13-year-old as seeing Superman. But movies aren't social media and Meta isn't even publishing its actual revised content policies
techmeme.com
Instagram unveils updates to overhaul the app for teen users, including age-gating inappropriate content, in a bid to make its content similar to PG-13 movies (David Ingram/NBC News)

Main Link | Techmeme Permalink
Reposted by William Perrin
henrymance.ft.com
Elon Musk's key ventures:

SpaceX
xAI
Model X
YaXley-Lennon
Reposted by William Perrin
bleary.off-the-records.com
If anyone needs me I will be in the museum, lying down next to the bog bodies.
Did people really memorize phone numbers before cell phones, or is that just a movie thing?
2? Questions
I was watching some old shows from the 90s and noticed people would just dial numbers from memory - like they'd call their friends or family without looking anything up.
Made me wonder if that was actually normal back then? Did people genuinely have all their important numbers memorized, or did most folks keep a little address book or written list nearby?
willperrin.bsky.social
the good old, though still contentious Hotelling Effect
Reposted by William Perrin
brendannyhan.bsky.social
Incredible public service. See also Congress Data: github.com/ippsr/congre...
Reposted by William Perrin
sjshancoxli.liberalcurrents.com
one thing that has been obvious for a while is this aspect of the authoritarian internationale: they recognize that their allies abroad are not *countries* but *political movements* within foreign countries.

time we liberals woke up and recognized this--because it's the truth.
thefred.bsky.social
Or maybe, just maybe, what was obvious in 2024 was correct: Netanyahu fully backed Trump and would not deal with Biden because Trump would give him a free hand to escalate the starvation, bombing, and do full ethnic cleansing. Which he then did, until Netanyahu embarrassed him by bombing Qatar.
Reposted by William Perrin
larryglickman.bsky.social
The idea that political dissent can only be the product of “paid protesters” or “outside agitators” has a long history. Here is the Mississippi columnist Tom Ethridge in June 1963 concerned that attendees at the upcoming March on Washington might be “whipped into a frenzy by skilled agitators.”
“Aug 28 has been set as the date for this mass invasion of the captial by upward of 100,000 negroes…”
Reposted by William Perrin
chrisgrey.bsky.social
This deserves more attention than it has received.

Gove: "we were too anxious as a government to secure those deals in order to show that Brexit was working".

Exactly as so many of us warned at the time, and as the government denied at the time.
www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/country-and-...
Michael Gove admits that post-Brexit trade deals were bad for farmers
Michael Gove has admitted for the first time that the Australia and New Zealand trade deals negotiated by the former Tory government did not protect Britain’s farmers.
www.yorkshirepost.co.uk
Reposted by William Perrin
bradleyjane.bsky.social
NEW: How a U.S. anti-abortion group has quietly positioned itself as a powerbroker between the Trump administration and Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.

Latest investigation w Elizabeth Dias. 
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/13/w...
They Helped Topple Roe v. Wade. Now Their Sights Are Set on Britain.
www.nytimes.com
Reposted by William Perrin
andrewwatteu.bsky.social
Faced with Trumps' tariff chaos, the EU needs to reach a understanding with China, to reduce disruption. But it cannot be based on China massively diverting sales from US to EU while curtailing exports of critical materials for European production and clean tech on.ft.com/42FMvvI
Reposted by William Perrin
kenwhite.bsky.social
Every time someone makes me read something Peter Thiel said it’s like “Scrooge McDuck is Jesus Christ and Huey, Dewey, and Louie are Gabriel, Raphael, and Uriel and Daisy is Mary Magdalene and that’s why women voting has lowered American sperm count.”
willperrin.bsky.social
St Helens (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)
Reposted by William Perrin
kenwhite.bsky.social
“WHOAH! Be careful not to step in that pile of shit there!” exclaimed the man pulling his pants back up.
theserfstv.bsky.social
Fascinated how the guy who made superstars of Matt Walsh, Candace Owens, Jordan Peterson, and Michael Knowles thought that unfettered racism and every phobia in existence wouldn't eventually include anti-semitism
Ben Shapiro warns that conspiratorial right is taking over social media
willperrin.bsky.social
rural communities still waiting for super fast broadband and 4g notspots (especially where community threw out planning permission for a mast 20 years ago)
Reposted by William Perrin
drjennings.bsky.social
Anyone writing about the influence of these thinkers really needs to provide detail on what they have actually written. Most of it is incoherent, lacking any substance and often downright weird.
huwcdavies.bsky.social
Reading Thiel, Yarvin, Peterson et al. makes you realise what passes for intellectual iconoclasm these days is all absolute bollocks. Why anyone gives any of these people the time of day let alone credibility is baffling.
Reposted by William Perrin
surcomplicated.bsky.social
Or more simply: they're using violence as a tantrum, in the instinctive belief that if they tantrum hard enough they'll get what they want.

This is a recipe for horror, of course, but also for their own overthrow.
danskubi.bsky.social
The right has no compunctions about using violence but they also feel no need to construct a mechanical theory of how their violence will produce political change. Their killings are more like ritual magic than anything else. The highest goal is just to produce a satisfying spectacle.