Becca Ricks
@baricks.bsky.social
Researcher, technologist, artist. 🐚 Public interest tech at Data & Society @datasociety.bsky.social. she/her 〰️
Prev: Head of Open Source Research & Investigations @mozilla.org Foundation, Tech Fellow @hrw.org, engineering & art @ITP-NYU.
nyc/slc
Prev: Head of Open Source Research & Investigations @mozilla.org Foundation, Tech Fellow @hrw.org, engineering & art @ITP-NYU.
nyc/slc
Reposted by Becca Ricks
The House Judiciary GOP has made several claims about the EU's decision to fine Elon Musk's X €120 million under the Digital Services Act, arguing it reveals the censorious intent of the European Commission. Do the Republican's claims hold up? Not so much, say Dean Jackson and Berin Szóka.
How the House Judiciary GOP Misread Europe's €120 million X Decision
Dean Jackson and Berin Szóka assess the House Judiciary Republicans’ criticisms of the EU Commission’s fine against X under the Digital Services Act.
www.techpolicy.press
February 3, 2026 at 9:40 PM
The House Judiciary GOP has made several claims about the EU's decision to fine Elon Musk's X €120 million under the Digital Services Act, arguing it reveals the censorious intent of the European Commission. Do the Republican's claims hold up? Not so much, say Dean Jackson and Berin Szóka.
"The field has glossed over the fact that our methods of evaluating these models are deeply unscientific and they are more driven by ideology and policy." Great interview with Rumman Chowdhury on AI governance: www.nosmallendeavor.com/rumman-chowd...
Rumman Chowdhury: Why the Real AI Crisis Is Moral, Not Technical
www.nosmallendeavor.com
February 3, 2026 at 4:55 PM
"The field has glossed over the fact that our methods of evaluating these models are deeply unscientific and they are more driven by ideology and policy." Great interview with Rumman Chowdhury on AI governance: www.nosmallendeavor.com/rumman-chowd...
Reposted by Becca Ricks
"Why is it so normal for law enforcement — those who are supposed to be keepers of law and order — to kill Americans? And why is the only question at the end of the day how much their victims deserved to die?"
Read more from @sarahjeong.bsky.social: www.theverge.com/policy/86745...
Read more from @sarahjeong.bsky.social: www.theverge.com/policy/86745...
January 25, 2026 at 5:12 PM
"Why is it so normal for law enforcement — those who are supposed to be keepers of law and order — to kill Americans? And why is the only question at the end of the day how much their victims deserved to die?"
Read more from @sarahjeong.bsky.social: www.theverge.com/policy/86745...
Read more from @sarahjeong.bsky.social: www.theverge.com/policy/86745...
"Boredom feels like a trap not because it is a static experience, but because it is an all-encompassing way of being; a fog that dissipates attention and dissolves meaning." I liked this essay on boredom (and where it leads us) from @emptysetmagazine.bsky.social www.emptysetmag.com/articles/ent...
Entropic Boredom
How did the internet get this boring? And where is boredom leading us?
www.emptysetmag.com
January 25, 2026 at 8:02 PM
"Boredom feels like a trap not because it is a static experience, but because it is an all-encompassing way of being; a fog that dissipates attention and dissolves meaning." I liked this essay on boredom (and where it leads us) from @emptysetmagazine.bsky.social www.emptysetmag.com/articles/ent...
A new brief from @brianjchen.bsky.social argues that this admin's AI strategy dumps "downside risks onto the American public while actively accelerating AI’s impact on workers, job quality, climate." Instead, we should "reclaim innovation as an essential public good." datasociety.net/library/the-...
The Big AI State
In analyzing major priorities of the Trump administration’s AI agenda, this policy brief finds that the US government is engaging in extraordinary levels of market intervention in order to bolster the...
datasociety.net
January 21, 2026 at 4:38 PM
A new brief from @brianjchen.bsky.social argues that this admin's AI strategy dumps "downside risks onto the American public while actively accelerating AI’s impact on workers, job quality, climate." Instead, we should "reclaim innovation as an essential public good." datasociety.net/library/the-...
This piece opens with an anecdote about Louise Glück laboring over lines of a poem she rewrites for years, reminding us that artistic ego, "the stubborn belief that we—despite our cosmic insignificance—can create something original" is a bulwark against the ease of genAI. lithub.com/against-gene...
Against Generative AI: Is Art the Last Refuge of Our Humanity?
None of this is supposed to be easy. Not writing, not life, not love. Louise Glück’s debut, Firstborn, was published in 1968. One poem that didn’t make the cut was “The House on Marshland.” Glück s…
lithub.com
January 18, 2026 at 6:17 PM
This piece opens with an anecdote about Louise Glück laboring over lines of a poem she rewrites for years, reminding us that artistic ego, "the stubborn belief that we—despite our cosmic insignificance—can create something original" is a bulwark against the ease of genAI. lithub.com/against-gene...
Reposted by Becca Ricks
Been working on this one for a while — it's a little bit of history of a key foundation of internet technology, and a little bit of an explainer about how people _actually_ invent things. This is the amazing (true!) story of how Markdown took over the world. www.anildash.com/2026/01/09/h...
How Markdown took over the world - Anil Dash
A blog about making culture. Since 1999.
www.anildash.com
January 9, 2026 at 4:17 PM
Been working on this one for a while — it's a little bit of history of a key foundation of internet technology, and a little bit of an explainer about how people _actually_ invent things. This is the amazing (true!) story of how Markdown took over the world. www.anildash.com/2026/01/09/h...
Great toolkit from @ainowinstitute.bsky.social on how to stop and restrict data center development. It’s helpfully organized into local and state policy recommendations: ainowinstitute.org/publications...
North Star Data Center Policy Toolkit: State and Local Policy Interventions to Stop Rampant AI Data Center Expansion - AI Now Institute
This policy toolkit is primarily geared toward stopping, slowing, and restricting rampant data center development in the US at the local and state level. Our approach recognizes the extractive relatio...
ainowinstitute.org
January 8, 2026 at 11:06 PM
Great toolkit from @ainowinstitute.bsky.social on how to stop and restrict data center development. It’s helpfully organized into local and state policy recommendations: ainowinstitute.org/publications...
Reposted by Becca Ricks
New: we've obtained material explaining how an ICE surveillance system, called Webloc, works. Draw shape on a map, see all phones available there, follow them home. All without warrant
“This is a very dangerous tool in the hands of an out-of-control agency.” www.404media.co/inside-ices-...
“This is a very dangerous tool in the hands of an out-of-control agency.” www.404media.co/inside-ices-...
Inside ICE’s Tool to Monitor Phones in Entire Neighborhoods
404 Media has obtained material that explains how Tangles and Webloc, two surveillance systems ICE recently purchased, work. Webloc can track phones without a warrant and follow their owners home or t...
www.404media.co
January 8, 2026 at 2:03 PM
New: we've obtained material explaining how an ICE surveillance system, called Webloc, works. Draw shape on a map, see all phones available there, follow them home. All without warrant
“This is a very dangerous tool in the hands of an out-of-control agency.” www.404media.co/inside-ices-...
“This is a very dangerous tool in the hands of an out-of-control agency.” www.404media.co/inside-ices-...
“Much of our storytelling today is individualized and limited in form—therapeutic, gamified…At other times, a prevailing mood of irony ridicules the very desire for narrative coherence.” Great @lareviewofbooks.bsky.social piece on the evolution of narrative forms: lareviewofbooks.org/article/when...
When Story Loses the Plot | Los Angeles Review of Books
Hannah H. Kim ponders the plotless narrative as a tool for meaning-making.
lareviewofbooks.org
December 23, 2025 at 9:32 PM
“Much of our storytelling today is individualized and limited in form—therapeutic, gamified…At other times, a prevailing mood of irony ridicules the very desire for narrative coherence.” Great @lareviewofbooks.bsky.social piece on the evolution of narrative forms: lareviewofbooks.org/article/when...
Great piece by @livgar.bsky.social and @briana-v.bsky.social on their @datasociety.bsky.social research into our relationships with AI chatbots. The "auto-intimacy" of chatbot interactions suggests we use tech "to curate the conditions under which we can be honest." datasociety.net/points/all-t...
All the Lonely People
Researchers Livia Garofalo and Briana Vecchione reflect on what studying AI chatbots reveals about emotional attachment to machines, the power of illusion, and the norms and expectations that define c...
datasociety.net
December 4, 2025 at 12:16 AM
Great piece by @livgar.bsky.social and @briana-v.bsky.social on their @datasociety.bsky.social research into our relationships with AI chatbots. The "auto-intimacy" of chatbot interactions suggests we use tech "to curate the conditions under which we can be honest." datasociety.net/points/all-t...
Reposted by Becca Ricks
Two years into Europe’s Digital Services Act, data access for researchers is on life support, write Mark Scott and LK Seiling. Yet an alternative future is possible—one built on openness, interoperability, and platforms that treat data access as a civic and scientific good.
In Critical Condition – How To Stabilize Researcher Data Access? | TechPolicy.Press
Mark Scott and LK Seiling discuss the struggle for researcher access to social media data and an alternative future where transparency is seen as a civic good.
www.techpolicy.press
November 12, 2025 at 2:36 PM
Two years into Europe’s Digital Services Act, data access for researchers is on life support, write Mark Scott and LK Seiling. Yet an alternative future is possible—one built on openness, interoperability, and platforms that treat data access as a civic and scientific good.
Reposted by Becca Ricks
Three German universities offering post-docs for researchers "who cannot conduct or continue their work in the USA appropriately because of actual political pressure. "
www.uni-konstanz.de/zukunftskoll...
www.uni-konstanz.de/zukunftskoll...
Early Career Rescue Fellowship
www.uni-konstanz.de
November 11, 2025 at 7:10 PM
Three German universities offering post-docs for researchers "who cannot conduct or continue their work in the USA appropriately because of actual political pressure. "
www.uni-konstanz.de/zukunftskoll...
www.uni-konstanz.de/zukunftskoll...
Reposted by Becca Ricks
Hello. I wrote a nice long essay about AI and this very strange moment where we're constantly told we're living in the dawn of a strange new future but the only thing that's actually clear is that everyone feels pretty unmoored and uncertain. I hope you'll read it
AI Is a Mass-Delusion Event
Three years in, one of AI’s enduring impacts is to make people feel like they’re losing it.
www.theatlantic.com
August 18, 2025 at 9:21 PM
Hello. I wrote a nice long essay about AI and this very strange moment where we're constantly told we're living in the dawn of a strange new future but the only thing that's actually clear is that everyone feels pretty unmoored and uncertain. I hope you'll read it
Reposted by Becca Ricks
@tamigraph.bsky.social and I get to some mythbusting today about data centers and the supposed future they bring. Long story short: 😬
Data Centers Aren't the Future of American Prosperity- @tamigraph.bsky.social & @mwoluchem.bsky.social bust the myths of data centers: they don't massively increase jobs, they don't increase clean energy investment, and they don't benefit local communities! OH SNAP datasociety.net/library/data...
Data Centers Aren’t the Future of American Prosperity
Tamara Kneese and Maia Woluchem cut through lobbying points and speculative myths to focus on what the evidence reveals about the tech industry’s claims.
datasociety.net
July 22, 2025 at 7:20 PM
@tamigraph.bsky.social and I get to some mythbusting today about data centers and the supposed future they bring. Long story short: 😬
“…what we are left with is a structure of feeling that is now a part of AI as an artifact, the aspirations pinned to its potentials, which are directing its adoption into spheres of intellectual inquiry where it may have little or even nothing to offer.” www.artforum.com/features/gen...
MACHINE YEARNING
Sonja Drimmer critically examines art historians’ recent embrace of generative AI as a tool for humanities research.
www.artforum.com
July 22, 2025 at 3:20 PM
“…what we are left with is a structure of feeling that is now a part of AI as an artifact, the aspirations pinned to its potentials, which are directing its adoption into spheres of intellectual inquiry where it may have little or even nothing to offer.” www.artforum.com/features/gen...
Reposted by Becca Ricks
And while you’re at it - also read @bcmerchant.bsky.social's excellent AI Now report AI Generated Business, on how OpenAI has used narratives around AGI (front and center in this report) to inflate its business proposition: ainowinstitute.org/publications...
AI Generated Business: The Rise of AGI and the Rush to Find a Working Revenue Model
By Brian Merchant In This Article Introduction OpenAI and the Generative AI Boom Silicon Valley Mythology, Distilled and Accelerated From “Safe AI” to AGI — and the Hype-Led Business Model Genesis Mar...
ainowinstitute.org
July 18, 2025 at 4:49 PM
And while you’re at it - also read @bcmerchant.bsky.social's excellent AI Now report AI Generated Business, on how OpenAI has used narratives around AGI (front and center in this report) to inflate its business proposition: ainowinstitute.org/publications...
Amazing group of AI auditing scholars and practitioners at the AI Accountability Lab @aial.ie, led by @abeba.bsky.social ✨
July 10, 2025 at 6:38 PM
Amazing group of AI auditing scholars and practitioners at the AI Accountability Lab @aial.ie, led by @abeba.bsky.social ✨
Reposted by Becca Ricks
NEW: 911 audio and EMS records from ICE detention centers reveal a surge in medical emergencies — including staff sexual assaults, suicide attempts, and head injuries.
Records also show calls over severe pregnancy complications.
Free to read: www.wired.com/story/ice-de...
w/ @dell.bsky.social
Records also show calls over severe pregnancy complications.
Free to read: www.wired.com/story/ice-de...
w/ @dell.bsky.social
'They're Not Breathing': Inside the Chaos of ICE Detention Center 911 Calls
Records of hundreds of emergency calls from ICE detention centers obtained by WIRED—including audio recordings—show a system inundated by life-threatening incidents, delayed treatment, and overcrowdin...
www.wired.com
June 25, 2025 at 9:25 PM
NEW: 911 audio and EMS records from ICE detention centers reveal a surge in medical emergencies — including staff sexual assaults, suicide attempts, and head injuries.
Records also show calls over severe pregnancy complications.
Free to read: www.wired.com/story/ice-de...
w/ @dell.bsky.social
Records also show calls over severe pregnancy complications.
Free to read: www.wired.com/story/ice-de...
w/ @dell.bsky.social
Reposted by Becca Ricks
While existing disability rights statutes do provide some legal recourse against AI-enabled discrimination, state-level regulation remains a vital avenue for harm mitigation. The proposed federal moratorium on state AI laws threatens those very protections, Ariana Aboulafia and Travis Hall write.
The Proposed AI Moratorium Will Harm People with Disabilities. Here’s How. | TechPolicy.Press
A proposed 10-year federal moratorium on state AI laws could expose people with disabilities to harm, Ariana Aboulafia and Travis Hall write.
www.techpolicy.press
June 19, 2025 at 9:25 PM
While existing disability rights statutes do provide some legal recourse against AI-enabled discrimination, state-level regulation remains a vital avenue for harm mitigation. The proposed federal moratorium on state AI laws threatens those very protections, Ariana Aboulafia and Travis Hall write.
Reposted by Becca Ricks
NEW: A protester was shot and killed at the Salt Lake City 'No Kings' march. A man is in police custody, booked on suspicion of murder—but not the one who fired the gun. From video, witnesses and interviews, @schotthappens.com and I tried to piece together what really happened Saturday.
Our report-
Our report-
What actually happened at the Salt Lake City ‘No Kings’ shooting?
One man is dead. Another is in jail—but not the one who fired his gun.
www.thehandbasket.co
June 18, 2025 at 1:22 PM
NEW: A protester was shot and killed at the Salt Lake City 'No Kings' march. A man is in police custody, booked on suspicion of murder—but not the one who fired the gun. From video, witnesses and interviews, @schotthappens.com and I tried to piece together what really happened Saturday.
Our report-
Our report-
Reposted by Becca Ricks
Most reporting on AI examines worst-case systems deployed under the guise of efficiency. But what would a good faith effort at Ethical AI look like? For two years, we’ve been looking over the shoulder of a city trying to do things differently.
June 11, 2025 at 1:39 PM
Most reporting on AI examines worst-case systems deployed under the guise of efficiency. But what would a good faith effort at Ethical AI look like? For two years, we’ve been looking over the shoulder of a city trying to do things differently.
Reposted by Becca Ricks
Federal data misuse is accelerating, but state and local governments can still act, argue Reem Suleiman, Esra’a Al Shafei, and Brian Hofer. “Before DHS, ICE, or others come knocking, governments should run, not walk! — through this triage checklist to protect the privacy of the most vulnerable.”
Public Sector Triage of the Federal Government’s Data Hemorrhage | TechPolicy.Press
Reem Suleiman, Esra’a Al Shafei, and Brian Hofer urge state and local governments to take action to protect the public amid a federal data-sharing crisis.
www.techpolicy.press
June 7, 2025 at 12:29 PM
Federal data misuse is accelerating, but state and local governments can still act, argue Reem Suleiman, Esra’a Al Shafei, and Brian Hofer. “Before DHS, ICE, or others come knocking, governments should run, not walk! — through this triage checklist to protect the privacy of the most vulnerable.”
Reposted by Becca Ricks
I'm biased, but this report is a must-read for anyone looking to understand the state of AI in 2025.
It explains how AI is entrenching power for big tech and the oligarch class, speeding deregulation, dislodging human expertise and threatening workers—and how there's still time to refuse all that.
It explains how AI is entrenching power for big tech and the oligarch class, speeding deregulation, dislodging human expertise and threatening workers—and how there's still time to refuse all that.
NEW REPORT: Artificial Power, our 2025 Landscape Report, is out.
Today’s AI isn’t just being used by us, it’s being used on us. We urgently need to reclaim public power over the future trajectory of AI. Another path is possible.
Read the report: ainowinstitute.org/2025-landscape
Today’s AI isn’t just being used by us, it’s being used on us. We urgently need to reclaim public power over the future trajectory of AI. Another path is possible.
Read the report: ainowinstitute.org/2025-landscape
June 3, 2025 at 6:10 PM
I'm biased, but this report is a must-read for anyone looking to understand the state of AI in 2025.
It explains how AI is entrenching power for big tech and the oligarch class, speeding deregulation, dislodging human expertise and threatening workers—and how there's still time to refuse all that.
It explains how AI is entrenching power for big tech and the oligarch class, speeding deregulation, dislodging human expertise and threatening workers—and how there's still time to refuse all that.