Sarah
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essyem.bsky.social
Sarah
@essyem.bsky.social
Librarian/research therapist, reposter, map nerd, chapstick femme, helicopter chihuahua mom, radicalized on 2011 Tumblr, nosy. ❤ #critical everything & #OpenEducation. Upper Midwest ➡️ Mid-Atlantic ✨🪩
Not only that, but so much AI tech extracts the metadata and open info created/enabled *by* library and data workers. The labor of our field is being consumed and then resold to us in the hopes that we’ll decide our own jobs are obsolete @404media.co
Librarians told 404 Media they're being inundated with new pitches for AI library tech and catalogs are being flooded with AI slop books.

But more broadly, AI maximalism across society is supercharging the ideological war on libraries, schools, government workers, and academics.
AI Is Supercharging the War on Libraries, Education, and Human Knowledge
"Fascism and AI, whether or not they have the same goals, they sure are working to accelerate one another."
www.404media.co
November 8, 2025 at 2:51 PM
Reposted by Sarah
If you told them people you was leaving... be out ✌️
npr.org NPR @npr.org · 5d
New York City's CEOs and other billionaires spent more than $40 million trying to defeat the mayor-elect. Now they have to live with him. n.pr/4qJe29O
Wall Street reckons with life under Zohran Mamdani
New York City's CEOs and other billionaires spent more than $40 million trying to defeat the mayor-elect. Now they have to live with him.
n.pr
November 6, 2025 at 6:09 PM
Reposted by Sarah
Um, @variety.com?

That’s…not what that means. 😳 variety.com/2025/music/n...
November 8, 2025 at 12:41 AM
Reposted by Sarah
Well now, would you look at that?

A massive study of NEARLY 300,000 people in the United States found that receiving an updated 2024-2025 mRNA COVID-19 vaccine REDUCED people’s risk of severe disease AND death in ALL age groups, REGARDLESS of immunity from prior infection or vaccination.
November 7, 2025 at 5:00 PM
Reposted by Sarah
thank you for all the support; the statement from our union is now live here with some more reporting.

now that this is public I can confirm that the majority of today’s layoffs were women of color. there are no longer any Black women working at Teen Vogue.
November 3, 2025 at 11:25 PM
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AWS outage seemingly takes down Medicare website during open enrollment...
www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...
October 20, 2025 at 4:27 PM
Hey idk if anyone has thought of this but maybe we shouldn’t be hosting 40% of the internet on Amazon servers ?
October 20, 2025 at 4:51 PM
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I am beyond excited (and nervous!) to announce that my first book, "The House Archives Built and Other Thoughts on Black Archival Possibilities" is available for sale!

This series of essay includes reworked talks, new reflections, and a lot of my heart

weherespace.myshopify.com/products/the...
October 16, 2025 at 6:04 PM
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Oh this is so good
Dam been writing a book about this and she just TikToked it in 90 seconds.
September 20, 2025 at 1:05 AM
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Of course there are some things that computers can calculate faster and more reliably than human minds, but that does not mean that computers are superior to our minds. We don’t even know all the things our brains are doing! They are weird and miraculous! And mostly unconscious! A grand mystery!
September 20, 2025 at 1:31 PM
Reposted by Sarah
meanwhile...
Samsung brings ads to US fridges
Samsung’s ‘screens everywhere’ initiative is morphing into ads everywhere.
www.theverge.com
September 18, 2025 at 12:18 PM
Reposted by Sarah
⚠️ AI has some legitimate uses, however...

Under the banner of progress, products have been uncritically adopted or even imposed on users — and in social media.

This can't go on unchecked.

Against the Uncritical Adoption of 'AI' Technologies in Academia 🧪
zenodo.org/records/1706...
September 11, 2025 at 12:30 PM
Reposted by Sarah
or the millions upon millions of people who have died, and will die, from merciless attacks on consumer protection, labor rights, environmental law, corporate oversight, and the social safety net
Thinking about the phrase "political violence" and the number of people who've died on Rikers Island in just the last month.
September 11, 2025 at 4:15 PM
Reposted by Sarah
Like bell hooks said, “I think that we have to restore feminism as a political movement. The challenge to patriarchy is political, and not a lifestyle or identity... we have to return to very basic education for critical consciousness, around what visionary feminist politics really is about.“
September 10, 2025 at 1:03 PM
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kinda feels like this might explain everything
September 8, 2025 at 2:25 PM
Reposted by Sarah
Please do not post pictures of protesters unless you have their consent. Take photos from behind them. Showing faces even with masks on just adds to palantir’s database that it gives to the police.

Solidarity with protests isn’t taking social media pics. This is serious stuff now
August 9, 2025 at 12:59 PM
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librarians everywhere
August 8, 2025 at 1:39 AM
Reposted by Sarah
The more we make humans machine-readable, the closer capitalism comes to its end goal of fully treating humans like machines
August 8, 2025 at 1:38 AM
Reposted by Sarah
If you’ve ever read or discussed Fobazi’s work on vocational awe in librarianship, you know a small bit of what she’s contributed to the world. Help her and her wife make it through this tough time.
August 7, 2025 at 9:20 PM
Reposted by Sarah
say it again:

4 million people work in higher ed, the largest employer in 10 states, second largest employer in 10 more, and in 60 of the 100 biggest cities

demolishing higher education is economic sabotage
It's important to note here that we're not just talking about faculty & university staff. 100s of U.S. colleges are in towns or small cities where they form the major industry & lifeblood of the community. Loss of students -> loss of rent $, restaurant $, bars, bookstores, gaming stores...
The US could see a 30-40% decline in new international student enrollment, resulting in nearly $7 billion in lost revenue and more than 60,000 fewer American jobs. https://www.nafsa.org/fall-2025-international-student-enrollment-outlook-and-economic-impact
August 4, 2025 at 12:30 PM
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I'm so tired of hearing that we need to "teach our students how to use AI" when the thing they most need to use it is a critical-thinking skill set that can only be acquired by NOT using it. I'm tired of hearing that it's inevitable. I'm tired.
August 1, 2025 at 4:52 PM
Reposted by Sarah
We are actively, *right now*, living in an AI surveillance state that profits Big Tech companies while plundering your rights and freedoms. These are not future threats, this is our present oppression. If we can't accept the reality of AI surveillance, we can't properly resist & abolish it
July 30, 2025 at 12:08 PM
Reposted by Sarah
I would once again like to take this opportunity to remind you all to support billionaire free, local, and/or worker run news. if you're in the DMV area:

@washingtoninformer.com
@51st.news
@wcp.bsky.social
@streetsensedc.bsky.social
@thebaltimorebanner.com
@baltimorebeat.bsky.social
Will Lewis emails the Washington Post staff, encouraging those who "do not feel aligned" with the company's future plans to consider the buyout offer.
July 9, 2025 at 11:55 PM
Reposted by Sarah
If there is one lesson to draw from the history of fascism in the interwar period in Europe, it is this:

Democracy falls if and when mainstream conservatives and centrist/center-right elites decide to make common cause with extremists because they consider the “radical Left” the more acute threat.
“The New York Times collaborated with a white nationalist eugenicist hacker and agreed to keep his identity a secret to publish a Zohran Mamdani hit piece” is a way bigger story than “18 year old Zohran Mamdani ticked ‘African American’ on his Columbia application because he was a citizen of Uganda”
July 4, 2025 at 2:13 PM