The Bulwark: “Immigrants in this country illegally paid nearly $100 billion in taxes in 2022, according to a report by the Institute on Taxation and Economic policy. But that source of government revenue may soon taper off as the Trump administration pushes the Internal Revenue Service to help it accelerate its program of mass deportations.… Continue Reading
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Author Archives: Sabrina I. Pacifici
How to spot AI slop on Pinterest and why it’s such a big problem
ZDNet: “For years, Pinterest has been dubbed the go-to social media site for inspirational mood boards, tracking lifestyle, fashion, and beauty trends, and finding niche and popular consumer-based products. Recently, however, the site has been plagued with an onslaught of AI slop, making it difficult for users to decipher what’s real, human-made content or fake.… Continue Reading
The Authoritarian Regime Survival Guide
“The text below, dubbed the “Authoritarian Regime Survival Guide”, was published in social media in January 2017 in a series of improvised, spontaneous tweets, which reached 3 million views within one month. Their common element was their trademark signature, “- With love, your Eastern European friends”, and the accompanying hashtag #LearnFromEurope. The Guide went viral… Continue Reading
Half of world’s CO2 emissions come from 36 fossil fuel firms
The Guardian: “Half of the world’s climate-heating carbon emissions come from the fossil fuels produced by just 36 companies, analysis has revealed…The Carbon Majors report calculates the emissions released by the burning of the coal, oil and gas produced by 169 major companies in 2023. The database also includes emissions from the production of cement,… Continue Reading
Archivists Recreate Pre-Trump CDC Website, Are Hosting It in Europe
404 Media: “The team used a Reddit-made archive of the CDC website to create a new live mirror of the site before it was purged. A team of volunteer archivists has recreated the Centers for Disease Control website exactly as it was the day Donald Trump was inaugurated. The site, called RestoredCDC.org, went live Tuesday… Continue Reading
The Digital Packrat Manifesto
404 Media: “Amazon’s recent decision to stop allowing people to download copies of their Kindle e-books to a computer has vindicated some of my longstanding beliefs about digital media. Specifically, that it doesn’t exist and you don’t own it unless you can copy and access it without being connected to the internet. The recent move… Continue Reading
The Biodiversity Collections Crisis
The Biodiversity Collections Crisis – “You might be familiar with the concept of the present “biodiversity crisis“. There is an increasing consensus in the ecological research community that the current loss of species this planet is experiencing is not sustainable, in the sense that the loss of some species may precipitate the loss of more, in… Continue Reading
89% of enterprise AI usage is invisible to the organization
Help Net Security: “71% of connections to GenAI tools are done using personal non-corporate accounts. Among logins using corporate accounts, 58% of connections are done without Single-Sign On (SSO). These interactions bypass organizational identity and access management (IAM) systems, leaving security teams blind to how GenAI tools are used and what data is being shared.… Continue Reading
New Articles and Columns – LLRX February 2025 Issue
Climate and DEI Deleted From Government Websites, Federal Workers Fired, Colleges Erase Programs and Research – “Colleges have been a conservative target for years. Under President Trump, it’s total warfare on all aspects of higher education — from student life to hiring to athletics.” This March 2, 2025 update by Sabrina I. Pacifici chronicles Trump’s… Continue Reading
Global AI Regulation Tracker
techie_ray: “An interactive world map that tracks AI law, regulatory and policy developments around the world. Click on a region (or use the search bar) to view its profile. Other features are also available to support your research of AI regulation (including an AI governance library, country comparison tool, live AI newsfeed and export report… Continue Reading
Some DOGE Staffers Are Drawing Six-Figure Government Salaries
Wired – no paywall: “Engineers and executives at the so-called Department of Government Efficiency are drawing healthy taxpayer-funded salaries—sometimes from the very agencies they are cutting. Some staffers at Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency are drawing robust taxpayer-funded salaries from the federal agencies they are slashing and burning, WIRED has learned. Jeremy Lewin,… Continue Reading
DOGE eliminates critical federal employees, cancels leases on government office buildings across America
TMP Looting Watch by Josh Marshall – In case you didn’t hear the GSA today announced it’s going to sell off many if not all of the central buildings making up the headquarters of the American republic. Those buildings include FBI Headquarters in Washington, DC, the buildings which are the headquarters of the DOJ, HHS,… Continue Reading
