ProPublica
ProPublica boosted

Texas Private Schools Hire Relatives and Enrich Insiders. Soon They Can Do It With Taxpayer Money.

An investigation by ProPublica and The Texas Tribune found more than 60 instances of nepotism, self-dealing and conflicts of interest among 27 private schools that likely would have violated state laws had the schools been public.
https://www.propublica.org/article/texas-vouchers-private-schools-conflicts-of-interest?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=mastodon-post

#News #Education#Texas#School#Law#Ethics#Students#Teaching

Texas Private Schools Hire Relatives and Enrich Insiders. Soon They Can Do It With Taxpayer Money.

An investigation by ProPublica and The Texas Tribune found more than 60 instances of nepotism, self-dealing and conflicts of interest among 27 private schools that likely would have violated state laws had the schools been public.
https://www.propublica.org/article/texas-vouchers-private-schools-conflicts-of-interest?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=mastodon-post

#News #Education#Texas#School#Law#Ethics#Students#Teaching

@d1a2cb70295ac1d421aa0994b7be8008034d56770133e815e178b54737d3b57a @marcoarment

Many reasons, inspired by emotion and logic. I think those can work well together. I embrace and use my rage.

Rather than rehash here, I'll just say I have many posts dealing with it including a recent post dedicated to ethics and computing.

#Apple#Fascism#Ethics#Computing#TimCook#FreeSoftware

https://beardystarstuff.net/posts/2025-07-04.html

@johannab Absolutely, here they are:

1. Content:
“In 2035, will Fediverse content still be peak indie creativity—or will it just be AI-generated Garfield memes, reposted TikToks, and 19 threads about oat milk?”

2. Moderation:
“If the Fediverse hits 500 million users, does moderation scale—or do we just accept every server will operate like a medieval kingdom with blocklists as border walls?”

3. Monetization:
“How do we keep devs, admins, and creators financially sustainable? Do we invent a revenue model, or is the plan still ‘one guy in Germany with a Patreon that hasn’t been updated since 2019’?”

4. Growth:
“Will the Fediverse remain niche forever—or will we have the inevitable ‘My Mom Just Joined’ moment that turns everything upside down?”

5. Governance:
“When the Fediverse scales, do we get democracy, benevolent dictatorships, or the classic open-source governance model: ragequit, fork, repeat?”

6. Culture:
“The Fediverse has a vibe right now—quirky, anti-corporate, allergic to NFTs. Does that survive at scale, or are we heading toward BuzzFeed quiz season?”

7. Technical Direction:
“Will the Social Web converge toward one dominant protocol—or are we looking at a future powered by bridges, adapters, and duct tape?”

8. Identity & Privacy:
“Will the Fediverse lead in privacy innovation—or just remake Facebook’s mistakes, only with a cuter mascot?”

9. Corporate Involvement:
“When brands inevitably show up, will they integrate smoothly—or will McDonald’s spin up mcflurry.social instance and get defederated before the fries are warm?”

10. One Last Question:
“Looking to 2040, which is more likely—
a) The Fediverse is a boring background utility like email.
b) The Fediverse collapses under its own drama.
c) The Fediverse thrives, and the web becomes weird again.”
@atomicpoet @johannab

Great questions. I recently asked another one that might add to this list..

#Ethics. Are we able to control what we create, as we introduce it into society in real-time?

https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/fediverse-activitypub-and-the-ethics/5432

Next was an amazing talk by Russell Poldrack on reproducibility in cognitive neuroscience at the UW eScience Institute. Poldrack combines incisive statistical commentary with devastating analyses and experiments demonstrating the extremely brittle nature of neuroscience results, moving on to suggest approaches to improve the field. Highly recommend https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haNjW58rbWM (4/7) #statistics #neuroscience #science

Next was an incredible talk by Anita Chan on eugenics in Big Tech at the UCSD Design Lab. Chan convincingly demonstrates the connection from the eugenics and anti-immigration movements to today and approaches to resist. Highly recommend https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-Sxm3AJmZg (5/7) #ethics

#Ethics-at-scale in #FOSS. Who cares?

FOSS: "I made actor identity independent of DNS"

FOSS: "Nice! I bridged all the social web protocols"

FOSS: "And I made service development dead easy, intuitive and productive"

Fedizen: "This is so wonderful. What a cozy place we have"

Meta: "We agree! We embraced the technology and today announce free fediverse access for anyone. Our datacenters are primed and ready for a billion more fedizens. That's not all! With Service Mart you're in full control!"

#Ethics-at-scale in #FOSS. Who cares?

FOSS: "I made actor identity independent of DNS"

FOSS: "Nice! I bridged all the social web protocols"

FOSS: "And I made service development dead easy, intuitive and productive"

Fedizen: "This is so wonderful. What a cozy place we have"

Meta: "We agree! We embraced the technology and today announce free fediverse access for anyone. Our datacenters are primed and ready for a billion more fedizens. That's not all! With Service Mart you're in full control!"

Like a lot of nerds I've always had a "Uses/My set-up" page on my site. I'm embarrassed that it hadn't occurred to me that I should also have the opposite. I've set up a "Boycotts" page where I've documented the details of the companies, products and in some cases, categories of products, that I avoid or refuse to buy because they cause harm to my fellow humans and planetary ecosystems.

Ethics should play a role in what we use.
#democracy #ethics #climate #technology
https://beardystarstuff.net/boycott.html

Like a lot of nerds I've always had a "Uses/My set-up" page on my site. I'm embarrassed that it hadn't occurred to me that I should also have the opposite. I've set up a "Boycotts" page where I've documented the details of the companies, products and in some cases, categories of products, that I avoid or refuse to buy because they cause harm to my fellow humans and planetary ecosystems.

Ethics should play a role in what we use.
#democracy #ethics #climate #technology
https://beardystarstuff.net/boycott.html

"The intent of proprietary computing is that everything users do should come under the dictates of the owners of the code...

You can agree to your own subjugation, that’s your choice. It may seem more convenient. It may seem comfortable. It may even seem pleasurable and safe. But in the end, you’re handing over your own fate."

#fsf#FreeSoftware#GNU + #Linux#Freedom#Democracy#Computing#Apple#Microsoft#Google#Amazon#Ethics#Libre

https://beardystarstuff.net/posts/2025-07-04.html

"Важные истории" выпустили продолжение своего расследования про Telegram.

Я подозреваю, что за то, что я напишу дальше меня запишут в кого угодно - хоть в сотрудников ФСБ, но меня прям бомбит.

Как человеку, который не специализируется на этом, но чуть-чуть понимает про сети - уже первую часть их расследования было больно слушать.
Во второй части вместо того чтобы адресовать реальную критику первой (там было много технических моментов!) они решили опубликовать разговор с каким-то чуваком, который владеет точками обмена трафиком и сетями, также предоставляя услуги Telegram.

Как-то даже не хочется начинать говорить про журналистскую этику, но они сами открыто признаются, что он просил их разговор не публиковать, а они (все в белом такие) - его публикуют, хоть и частично. Океееееей.

Смотрим сам разговор. Чувак ровно в тех же местах, где мне хочется им сказать "бля, вы же нихуя не понимаете о чём говорите" делает ровно это и пытается как идиотам объяснять о том, что если они размещают какое-то оборудование для Telegram - это не значит, что у них есть доступ к данным пользователей. Он им прямо открыто говорит: "я могу пойти и поставить какую-нибудь железку между их оборудованием и сетью, только непонятно зачем мне это делать". И правда: ему это делать в общем-то не за чем 🤷
И про то, что ФСБ может получать данные о трафику он им объясняет, что вообще-то у всех операторов стоят ТСПУ и СОРМ и съём трафика там предусмотрен. Если есть возможности работать с big data, то не нужно никаких заговоров оператора со спецслужбами чтобы вычислить сеансы связи между двумя абонентами на территории РФ.

Почему-то при этом его слова "журналистами" воспринимаются как будто бы как подтверждение того, что они ранее говорили и они продолжают задавать ещё более тупые вопросы.

Да, в какой-то момент они там начинают что-то рассказывать про бумажки и кто за кого их подписывал и была ли у него должность в Telegram или нет. Но с технической точки зрения (в которую их и тыкали носом ранее) это вообще не имеет никакого значения. Даже если бы у него была должность в ФСБ это не поменяло бы того, что они несут чушь.

Это так глупо и отвратительно смотреть, что мне сложно выразить всю полноту своих эмоций после того как я это сделал.

Telegram - это не безопасный мессенджер. У него по дефолту не включено E2E шифрование и UX этого E2E там такой, что стимулирует им не пользоваться. Также у специалистов есть вопросики к кастомным протоколам.
Но это расследование не указывает на реальные проблемы Telegram, а выдумывает какое-то соломенное чучело и радостно тычет в него.

И ещё одно. В самом начале они говорят, что якобы многие независимые специалисты критиковали их, но на самом деле это всё был вот этот товарищ, разговор с которым они показали против его воли.
Нет! Их критиковал даже грёбаный Климарёв, который у нас уже давно признан экстремистом. И куча других людей, которые хотя бы базово понимают работу сетей.

То есть вся эта "работа" - это манипуляция на манипуляции. И я даже не знаю - это они специально это делают на заказ или они просто НАСТОЛЬКО некомпетентны.

Короче, пиздец, товарищи. Пиздец и позор.

#log #Russia #Telegram #security #journalism #ethics #thoughts #review #ВажныеИстории

"The intent of proprietary computing is that everything users do should come under the dictates of the owners of the code...

You can agree to your own subjugation, that’s your choice. It may seem more convenient. It may seem comfortable. It may even seem pleasurable and safe. But in the end, you’re handing over your own fate."

#fsf#FreeSoftware#GNU + #Linux#Freedom#Democracy#Computing#Apple#Microsoft#Google#Amazon#Ethics#Libre

https://beardystarstuff.net/posts/2025-07-04.html

There is no mention of me being a geany pig or a lab rat on my French passport... #France#EU

So basically, in the name of decentralization, a small group of people, that have not been elected, decided that nothing could be deleted online (because they let GAFAMs scrap their data while being against it????). That's called democracy? I don't think so. #Diaspora #fediverse#GDPR#rightToBeForgotten #threads#Meta#FB#X ...

And Dennis Schubert is interviewed by Ars Technica, is this a joke?

Mozilla is pro-Ai, there is an AI chat on the web browser now, and this guy Dennis Schubert, the techlead of #Diaspora, is working at #Mozilla as far as I remember. And he is so against deleting anything, leaving all public "public is public", and against blocking GAFAMs' scrapers?? (he was in 2017, 2018, ... I remember)..

(Mozilla which actually helped this project.)

So I am pretty sure, there is a real problem here with conflict of interests..

#ethics #fediverse #dataharvesting

ProPublica
Tim Chambers
ProPublica and 1 other boosted

Kristi Noem, while governor of South Dakota, supplemented her roughly $130,000 salary by secretly accepting $80,000 donated to a political nonprofit she was affiliated with, records show.

She never disclosed this income on federal ethics forms.

https://www.propublica.org/article/kristi-noem-political-donations-income-dark-money-dhs-ethics?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=mastodon-post

#News#KristiNoem#DHS#Ethics#USPolitics#Government#Nonprofit

Next was a fantastic talk by Kathleen Creel on algorithmic monoculture, how it can manifest, and mitigation approaches at LIDS. I absolutely love the lottery approach discussed here. Highly recommend https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h36XKNZlYiE (4/5) #AI #ethics

Kristi Noem, while governor of South Dakota, supplemented her roughly $130,000 salary by secretly accepting $80,000 donated to a political nonprofit she was affiliated with, records show.

She never disclosed this income on federal ethics forms.

https://www.propublica.org/article/kristi-noem-political-donations-income-dark-money-dhs-ethics?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=mastodon-post

#News#KristiNoem#DHS#Ethics#USPolitics#Government#Nonprofit

Something that made me happy this week, shared with permission: a junior researcher in our faculty asked for advice on whether or not to use a GenAI service for cross-validating his hand-coded systematic review results

I advised him to do a quickscan of the service against the core principles for research integrity in our faculty GenAI guidelines: honesty, scrupulousness, transparency, independence & reproducibility https://osf.io/preprints/osf/2c48n_v1

1/2
#GenAI #ethics