And then go check out the @mediajustice.bsky.social report, Media Capture, which lays out how the whole system works. mediajustice.org/resource/med...

The same billionaires buying up newsrooms are selling surveillance tech to ICE and pocketing $10B from the TikTok deal.

More than a story about media, it’s a story about power. I talked through all of it with @thedailyedge.bsky.social. Check it out!

@stevenrenderos.bsky.social: "There is a push at this moment to build data centers at a scale that hasn't happened before, using quantities of water and electricity that are just unprecedented."

He also notes that while data centers aren't new, the current erosion of planning and public process is.

"There's a real necessity for local elected officials to pay attention to community concerns and design a process that actually feels democratic." - @stevenrenderos.bsky.social

The promise of data center jobs are attractive to local governments, but @stevenrenderos.bsky.social of @mediajustice.bsky.social notes that local governments are spending roughly $2M per permanent job that's created to attract data centers to their towns. All in all, that's not a great trade-off.

I went vulnerable on this one, hope you enjoy it.

These are the oligarchs capturing media.

But here it is in case you do: mediajustice.org/resource/med...

I guess @mediajustice.bsky.social didn’t need to publish our Media Capture report, since Donald Trump seems fine just telling us.

Larry Ellison just became the most powerful media owner in the world. CNN, CBS, and thousands of other media outlets under one person's control. This week, AP leaders told its reporters resistance to AI replacing their writing is "futile." We wrote a report about exactly this and it dropped today.

Sometimes this thing is too on the nose

Power Station: The deportation machine that has been unleashed in our communities would not be possible without tech companies like Palantir In 2001, in the nascent days of the internet, activists came together to wrestle with a growing challenge, the impacts of an increasingly corporatized media ecosystem on communities of color. They set...

Our ED @stevenrenderos.bsky.social joined Anne Pasmanick's @powerstation.bsky.social podcast to break down MediaJustice’s lineage and how our work has evolved to partner alongside on-the-ground organizers resisting the #Tech Oligarchy and #DataCenters.
powerstation.libsyn.com/the-deportat...

Those are small shoes to fill

Donate to Support William and His Family After Unjust ICE Arrest, organized by National Day Laborer Organizing Network On September 12, ICE agents unjustly abducted day laborer Wil… National Day Laborer Organizing Network needs your support for Support William and His Family After Unjust ICE Arrest

I can confirm that Willian Giménez González, beloved day laborer leader and advocate for his fellow workers, has been freed from ICE detention and is back in Chicago! For those interested in supporting him and his family, here is a GoFundMe.

More than a dozen immigration judge were just fired. Such firings have been common on Friday evenings and often involve newer judges still on probation. But today's firings include a Sacramento IJ who's been on the bench close to 20 years.

"The judge version of Jimmy Kimmel," one source told me.

“This is a story about who gets sacrificed along the way in that [AI] arms race.”

Our ED, @stevenrenderos.bsky.social joins our new staff + @nodesertdatacenter.com member, Vivek Bharathan, in @techpolicypress.bsky.social's podcast on the real story behind #BigTech's data center expansion.

So excited to see a byline from @aurabogado.bsky.social.

And wow what a story. A hotel turned ICE detention center. And unsurprisingly tech plays a role in the end. Great read please check it out!

Digital Future Daily How the next wave of technology is upending the global economy and its power structures

The most overhyped tech? How should our government step in during this moment?

@politico.com asked our ED, @stevenrenderos.bsky.social‬, 5 pressing questions about our current tech reality and what it will take to reclaim our tech future:
www.politico.com/newsletters/...

Aura is among the best investigative reporters so this news excites me. We desperately need to understand what is happening to immigrants, to better understand the political moment we all are in.

Today’s Sunday news shows featured a bunch of people talking about Salvadoreans. Yet, not one of them was Salvy. It’s not for a lack of experts, only a lack of trying. Here are a few names in case you were wondering.

Wait, I thought this was satire

DOGE’s tech takeover threatens the safety and stability of our critical data Elon Musk may have run tech companies, but building technology for government is an entirely different beast.

And @stevenrenderos.bsky.social, Executive Director of @mediajustice.bsky.social, shared how the choices of the current presidential administration are wrecking protections around tech infrastructure: www.technologyreview.com/2025/04/14/1...

Kilmar Abrego García and Chris Van Hollen, in a photo posted on social media by Senator Van Hollen.

Kilmar Abrego García, Chris Van Hollen, and an unnamed person (presumably an interpreter), in a photo posted on social media by El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele.

Van Hollen and Bukele couldn’t be more different, but both get to author the story they want to tell. Abrego, meanwhile, is seen but not heard.

A visit is nice. Coming home is better.

Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the alleged MS-13 gang member who was wrongly deported to El Salvador’s notorious megaprison last month, held the rank “Chequeo” and the street name “Chele” within the vicious criminal organization, newly released documents revealed.

Chele is a common nickname in El Salvador and one that has nothing to do with gang affiliation. Using that as evidence is like claiming every guy who goes by Tony is in the Mob.

The most enduring image of Salvadoreans is as prop for Kristi Noem propaganda. To be Salvadorean in the US means to be hypervisible yet voiceless. I created this starter pack as a way to remind everyone that we’re real people and that we exist. If you’re Salvadorean reach out so I can add you. 🇸🇻

What alarms me is the level of negligence with which technology is being built and adopted right now. It’s an approach Silicon Valley has grown famous on. “Move fast and break things.”

That might work when you’re building a subpar social media platform but not to build tech for govt.

Govt tech is not flashy, it helps make government more accessible. Some positive examples include:
💰 IRS Direct File System
✒️ SSA’s integration of e-signature

Each of these involved a clear challenge, time to get it right, and a constant feedback loop. All things currently being abandoned by DOGE.

When we think of government and tech, we might jump to the debacle that was the rollout of Healthcare.gov.

You might not know is that the precursor to DOGE (US Digital Service) was born out of this failure. Since then federal techies have worked to make using tech to access govt services easy.

New from me in @mittechreviewbr.bsky.social: DOGE’s “tech bro” approach to building tech for government isn’t just inefficient, it’s dangerous.

www-technologyreview-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.tech...