Charlotte Willner

christ

A recurrent theme in this excellent story about China’s progress is that people there regard Trump as essential to their success, including his ability to drive scientific talent from the US www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

This is a really good explainer about the mortality estimates around USAID. One big point is that dismantling USAID also dismantled one of the main sources of mortality data in some of these regions. Early indicators of mortality are very worrying.

where was he

A Minnesota woman observing ICE agents in her car was cornered on one-way streets. An agent approached, called her by name—citing facial recognition. Days later, her Global Entry and TSA privileges were revoked, with no explanation.

@techpolicypress.bsky.social was kind enough to host my reflections on just how far we’ve already come with AI-assisted content moderation. We’ve got a long way to go, but the difficulties that used to serve as (legitimate) excuses are fading fast. www.techpolicy.press/ai-is-removi...

A federal judge, in a published order, so very much on the record: “ICE has likely violated more court orders in January 2026 than some federal agencies have violated in their entire existence.”

The fundamental thing Democrats don't seem to get is that we are not just asking for things to get better we're asking for consequences for those who made it worse.

Reminder: All it would take to end the murder of American citizens by an untrained government goon squad is 16 Republicans in Congress voting with Dems to defund ICE (or 23 to impeach and remove Trump — 3 in House & 20 in Senate). That’s it. 23 Americans can vote for the public and end all of this.

ICE secretly told its officers that any time someone has been ordered removed, ICE can break down their door. It has been accepted for generations that the only thing which can authorize agents to break into your home is a warrant signed by a judge. No wonder ICE hid this memo!

/2 Never mind. Apparently there is an electrical issue on the plane. Specifically, between neurons.

ICE: "followed by will stancil"

Until Jan. 20, 2025 much of what DHS has posted on X could have got you kicked out of the military for extremism

We just published the methodology behind CoPE, our 9B parameter model that matches GPT-4o at content classification at 1% the size! The model is already open source, but now we're sharing our training technique. blog.zentropi.ai/how-we-built... 🧵 1/6

Stunning photos from Minneapolis, including this one by John Locher for the Associated Press. www.theatlantic.com/photography/...

Let’s talk about abolishing ICE. Very few people who say “abolish ICE” mean “abandon all immigration enforcement.” Rather, they mean “the structure of immigration enforcement is irretrievably broken and needs to be reorganized, just like we did 23 years ago when we created ICE.” /1

BREAKING: James Rodden, an ICE prosecutor who the Observer identified last year as the operator of an X account that posted “America is a White nation," “‘Migrants’ are all criminals,” and apparent praise of Adolf Hitler, appeared to be back at work Tuesday. www.texasobserver.org/ice-prosecut...

This is what AI-assisted trust and safety can look like. When a platform doesn't prevent this kind of abuse, it's not because they can't figure out how. It's because they've decided not to. 🧵 6/6

Over the weekend I used Zentropi to build a labeler that blocks requests to use AI to undress or sexualize real people. The labeler itself took maybe 30 minutes to a first solid draft, with another 30 minutes of tweaking. In my testing it's got an F1 of .98 on real examples pulled from X. 🧵 1/6

semi-regular reminder that ICE was only created in 2003 when you are asked to imagine a world without ICE, you're basically being asked to remember where you were when Lilo & Stitch came out

Frey: "Last week a group of our city's Public Works employees were stopped by ICE agents. 3 of the 4 employees were not white. The ICE agents asked to see the IDs of the 3 non-white employees and didn't even bother to ask the white employee for identification."

Happy 13th birthday to the most essential artwork of the current era, @kcg.bsky.social ‘s “This is fine,” to all those who celebrate.

love to be a libertarian whose response to the summary execution of an american citizen is “you shouldn’t say bad words”

Marco Rubio is reportedly saying Maduro will stand trial in US courts. Which means it’s now the US administration’s position that US courts can hold foreign presidents, but not the US president, accountable for crimes.

This from @vinsoncunningham.bsky.social @newyorker.com is brilliant and necessary. I'm grateful for it. What Kind of New World Is Being Born? www.newyorker.com/culture/2025...

Why do farmers need relief??? 🤔🤔🤔

The thing that always gets me is that Tolkien obviously would have hated Silicon Valley generally, and these particular guys specifically.

Use of the word "evil" in official congressional e-newsletters, over time, by party

We already have good answers on how to reduce gun violence, infant mortality or climate change. The problem is too many people have a vested interest in the problems being unsolved. It isn’t because we haven’t invented smarter than human AI. When we do, we’ll ignore it too.

For 17 years working in trust and safety, I've watched talented people burn out on impossible tasks. The problem isn't the people, it's the systems. Traditional moderation requires months of retraining for every policy change. Only big companies can afford it, and even then it works poorly. 🧵 1/9

Dan Driscoll [answering cell phone]: Hello? Voice: Hi it’s the moon Driscoll: I told you to stop calling Voice: I going to hit your eye like a big pizza pie Driscoll: I HAVE ALERTED THE FBI TO THIS HARASSMENT Voice: I have a man in me Driscoll: THIS IS DISRESPECT TO THE MILITARY

I look at close to 100 stories a week and even more outside of work. I’ve done this ten years. This is among the most horrific things I’ve ever read — testimony from dying children whose access to medicine has been cut off by the Trump administration. www.npr.org/sections/goa...

literally me

"they hate our beef because our beef is beautiful and theirs is weak" our beef:

Remember these guys did multiple days about a squirrel that was killed by animal control right before the election as if it was the crime of the century. And now they're dismissing human trafficking an innocent guy to a foreign slave labor camp as no big deal.

Roses are red Violets are blue

New Yorkers and DC residents trying to talk with @schumer.senate.gov are having to push notes through a locked door with police posted outside.