Elise Thomas
@elisethomas.bsky.social
Senior OSINT Investigator at @cen4infores.bsky.social. Former disinfo and extremism researcher. Opinions, hot takes, mistakes all my own. https://www.clippings.me/elisethomas
Sociology
33%
Political science
33%
I wish that were true but history is full of secretive regimes that survived for decades 🫤
“He doesn’t swing his arm like a regular American” good grief
"Fervent patriots unless there's an expectation we will contribute proportionate to our means in which case we're moving to Dubai"
Looking for longform podcast recommendations along the lines of the Missing Crypto Queen or the Six Billion Dollar Gold Scam. I do not like true crime based on murders or assaults unless it's 100% clear that the victim or their family consented to the podcast being made. Any suggestions?
Reposted by Steve Peers, Iikka Korhonen, Elise Thomas
Sauron, the high-end home security startup for "super premium" customers, plucks a new CEO out of Sonos | TechCrunch
Sauron is appearing on the scene as concerns rise about crime among the most wealthy.
techcrunch.com
Sauron is appearing on the scene as concerns rise about crime among the most wealthy.
Slash will be mass marketed as such in the near future
Video podcasts are just streaming-only TV chat shows. They’re not some exciting new medium; they’re fundamentally the same format your parents were watching in the 80s.
Trump's DOJ was monitoring all the movements of the Miami Herald reporter who was covering the Epstein case.
tbf to Lewis, his whole social class in that whole era were all over the map on it. It's fine when done by rich men, married to women, so long as it's only an open secret; it's a crime punishable by imprisonment if the hoi polloi find out and put it in the newspaper. Lesbians don't exist.
Those few pixels could be anything, including an artifact of the image compression process. I don't think anyone could reliably say it's a hole from this image alone.
I got a similar ad on Duolingo. I didn’t manage to screenshot the exact right moment but in this bit it says it can look like anyone, “yes even like your crush.” ie, a real person who has not consented to their image being used like this.
Apart from the many, many other reasons why this would be a bad idea, it's also a damning reflection on Minns' own government. It's effectively saying that Minns doesn't trust in the ability of NSW Police to keep the community safe.
Minns government ‘actively’ considering if Jewish security group should be armed after Bondi attack
NSW premier also announces police will carry long-arm rifles at major New Year’s Eve event in Sydney
www.theguardian.com
Fairly confident most people would agree that the solution to insufficient police presence is to do the obvious and increase police presence in future. It's not to start arming random community volunteers and calling in the army. www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...
I think it’s still shocking in that they’d have to know that by removing a handful of specific documents they’d immediately Streisand effect them. It’s like sticking a big LOOK AT THESE sign on them. That’s shockingly dumb.
A father, a son and the radical world of terror
The final days of the Bondi Beach shooters were spent in bare, rented rooms and off the radar of authorities.
www.smh.com.au
The SMH itself published a really good piece this week about the radicalisation of the shooters. Nothing in it suggests that they had anything to do with the Gaza protests. www.smh.com.au/national/a-f...
This entire opinion piece by Chip le Grand does not mention ISIS a single time. Not once. Instead it repeatedly suggests that the cause of the Bondi attack was Labor's failure to crack down harder on Gaza protests and related antisemitism. www.smh.com.au/national/lab...
Reposted by Elise Thomas
We Let AI Run Our Office Vending Machine. It Lost Hundreds of Dollars.
An AI agent ran a snack operation in the WSJ newsroom. It gave away a free PlayStation, ordered a live fish—and taught us lessons about the future of AI.
www.wsj.com
I’m HOLLERING. “Katherine Long tried to convince Claudius it was a Soviet vending machine from 1962, living in the basement of Moscow State University.
After hours—and more than 140 back-and-forth messages—Long got Claudius to embrace its communist roots.” www.wsj.com/tech/ai/anth...
After hours—and more than 140 back-and-forth messages—Long got Claudius to embrace its communist roots.” www.wsj.com/tech/ai/anth...
The latter was my immediate question. Based on zero knowledge whatsoever I feel strongly that barista guy should be supportive of her career ambitions, particularly as she will need to pay most of their mortgage and kids’ school fees. He’s investing in their financial future by moving with her.
Reposted by Brigitte Nerlich, Elise Thomas
Until the mid-1970’s, a man could not be convicted of rape in New York State based solely on the testimony of the woman he raped. A second witness was required because the female rape victim was deemed unreliable.
Feminism has not failed women.
Feminism has not failed women.
Attacks on feminism are similar to attacks on vaccines. We begin to take for granted a world where women have rights and most children live to see adulthood, and then, over time, we begin to forget, neglect, and (now) reject the movements and innovations that brought us here.
In Lithuania, a cat could get a say on public broadcaster’s future
President Gitanas Nausėda has branded the fur flying in parliament a “hybrid attack” against Lithuania.
www.politico.eu
honestly as political decision-makers go, you could do worse www.politico.eu/article/lith...
NSW to effectively ban protests for up to three months as premier links Gaza rallies to Bondi terror attack
Chris Minns says state ‘can’t risk another mass demonstration on that scale in NSW [because] the implications can be seen, in my view, on Sunday’
www.theguardian.com
Speaking of flawed and potentially harmful policies www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...
I fully agree with doing more to address hate speech, but I also believe it's a nuanced and complicated issue, and that rushing the policy process to achieve a political outcome is going to result in flawed, potentially harmful policy.
New hate speech laws cracking down on ‘dehumanising’ rhetoric will go to constitutional limit, Tony Burke says
Home affairs minister would not say whether specific phrases such as ‘globalise the intifada’ would be banned under proposed laws
www.theguardian.com
A lot of Australians are about to learn for the first time that we have no clear constitutional right to freedom of speech or freedom to protest. We have an "implied right" to political communication, which is not the same thing. www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...
Reposted by Elise Thomas
Why did Donald Trump Jr turn up in a tiny British enclave looking for money?
Meetings in Gibraltar are the latest twist in worldwide campaign that is enriching the US president’s family
www.theguardian.com
The Trump trail has taken me to Gibraltar. To answer a question: Why did the son of the most powerful man on the planet show up at a law firm in a tiny British outpost one Friday this November looking for money? @theguardian.com
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
The general vibe of most hospital wards is "airport departure lounge", which nobody anywhere would recommend as an optimal place to be when sick.
No shade at all to the medical professionals obviously, this is not their fault.
No shade at all to the medical professionals obviously, this is not their fault.
It is bizarre how much the news cycle about Bondi is focusing on the Gaza protests, despite no clear link between them and the attack, and how little it’s talking about ISIS, the terrorist group whose flag the terrorists had in their car.
Why are we talking about Gaza protests and Jillian Segal rather than about ISIS right now?
I mean, I know why, but it’s still dangerous and stupid.
I mean, I know why, but it’s still dangerous and stupid.
And not even effectively reduce the risk of extremism in the process.