Notices by Mariel GM (marielgm@mastodon.mit.edu)

We watched the ACT UP documentary (How to Survive a Plague) in class today and I cried from beginning to end. I thought I was moved because I was a '90s kid who lost 'uncles' to HIV, but so many of the students were moved, too. An incredible story of the people who, as they were dying, found it in their hearts to fight for their right to live, and saved so many lives as a result.

Thanks to everyone reading me recently (or at all)!
I'm a former #nonprofit tech worker from Mexico, current sociotechnical scholar at MIT (#STS or Science, Technology, and Society -- or Science and Technology Studies!). I study media and IT, especially as they contribute to public interest and social change.

My current work: What does it entail to challenge #surveillance in a place where #privacy is not to be expected? Some of my ethnographic fieldwork notes from MX https://blog.castac.org/2024/08/challenging-normalized-surveillance-birds-on-the-wire-surveillance-in-mexico/

How has VC funding shaped the rapid global expansion of worker surveillance technology?
In Mexico, a country that historically imported most of its surveillance tech, we see a new trend. The funding supports an emergent made-in-Mexico industry, where vendors promise higher efficiency and accountability through worker biometrics and geolocation tracking. The ultimate selling point? That much of this software fulfills government reporting required by Mexican labor and tax law.

"I have nothing to hide," say the ICE agents that detained my neighbor while he was on his way to drop off his kid at daycare. #EverettMA #GreaterBoston

The most recent Surveillance & Society is out with a very timely theme: Authoritarian #Surveillance. I contributed a review of @petramolnar 's "The Walls Have Eyes: Surviving Migration in the Age of #AI ." My favorite article this time around is by Vita Peacock, who did ethnographic fieldwork with #privacy rights activists in Germany and is basically theorizing on their scatological humor! https://ojs.library.queensu.ca/index.php/surveillance-and-society/issue/view/1068

I'm sure that the T&S decisions at Meta mean that they will reinstate Shaun King's account, right?

That didn't take long at all https://www.404media.co/facebook-is-censoring-404-media-stories-about-facebooks-censorship/?ref=daily-stories-newsletter

@baconandcoconut @stevegis_ssg I respectfully solicit all and every pie pic on this pie holiday

This past June, in the Mexican election, we learned it no longer is a regime transition phase. It's the next step in power consolidation. Maybe Biden 2020, not Trump 2016, was the historical accident. This mandate is best understood as the next step in power consolidation.

Now, both sides of the border seem to be on a speedrun to see who can remove counterweights faster. Mexico dissolved its Supreme Court (and reformed the judicial system) and is on track to kill autonomous oversight bodies.

"In the 10 weeks after the shooting, advertisers paid Meta between $593,000 and $813,000 for political ads that explicitly mentioned the assassination attempt, according to The Markup’s analysis."

Great work by @themarkup: How Meta Brings in Millions Off Political Violence https://themarkup.org/investigations/2024/10/04/how-meta-brings-in-millions-off-political-violence

If you want to listen to *really good* salsa music, tune in to Johnny Giraldo's (Salsa y Control) weekly radio show airing right now on ZUMIX Radio (Greater Boston 94.9 FM and online on https://www.zumix.org)

I thought I was a #salsa fan until I met Johnny. His descendants will be fighting over his vinyl collection one day! He shares a lot of great and off the beaten path music.

It’s my (errr…) 27th first day of school, and probably my last one ever! To be honest, I wish there still were many more ahead.

I think if you had told 8-year-old me that one can get paid to go to school to study computers (and people), I would have never wanted to be a marine biologist nor a diplomat nor a translator. I would have wanted to be a grad student, and I am truly grateful I was able to be one for so long.

Interrupting this fine quiet Saturday to share that I just saw credible reports of Pavel Durov’s arrest in France on The Other Platform. @jsrailton mentions French government comments to media with concerns on #Telegram content moderation?!?!?!

I didn't have time to pick up fiction from the public library, but this week's news on narco arrests, Venezuelan elections, and escalating conflict in MENA are exercising the same part of my brain, with the bonus that the anxiety will be over something real.

@quinn I wanna get off this train Quinn

OK, I am excited about the FTC's #kids Online Health and Safety Task Force Report published today: https://www.samhsa.gov/kids-online-health-safety-task-force/kohs-report-safe-internet-use

I will do close reading later. In the meantime, a summary of the actually evidence-based recommendations they make to social media companies [Link to FTC Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya's birdsite] https://x.com/BedoyaFTC/status/1815473566693117963

#youthandmedia #kidsonline

I have a #NewEngland #Massachusetts #BostonWeekend -adjacent question. What does one do in Cape Cod on a day visit to the hydrangea festival?

Oof, this read on Birdsite and the Japan earthquake breaks my heart. Twitter was a crucial means to dispel misinfo + an essential aid coordination platform in the aftermath of the 2017 earthquake in my beloved Mexico City. https://www.vice.com/en/article/wxjkkz/x-kicked-off-2024-by-screwing-up-during-japans-earthquake-emergency