A closeup of art that has tiny mirrors with circles cut out woven into a chainlink fence

A human starts the loop, a human can stop it

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In the social good side of the tech world (hashtag nptech), I hear people and institutions talk about the necessity of having “a human in the loop” when working with AI. This usually means that a responsible person reviews output from an LLM before it gets out in the wild. This is a low standard, but it’s not wrong. I hope to see more discussion of what having a human in the loop means for agentic AI, which is generally sold to us as a way to reduce human labor (for better or worse).

But let’s be serious. Humans need to be more than “in the loop.” Humans need to be held accountable for the results of their actions. Software does not build itself. Agents do not tell themselves when to run. When we talk about these tools as if they “went rogue” and “hacked into” things, we are removing the humans that built the tool, configured the sandbox, and gave the instructions.

AI is not people (nor are corporations but that’s another rant). As written in a 1979 IBM training manual, “A computer can never be held accountable, therefore a computer must never make a management decision.”

Software can’t be bound by the law, but its creators can and they must.

Simplified illustration of elder elephants protecting small ones as they cross a river.

Accessible resources for safety & security

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Today I want to share three excellent guides for keeping your self and your community safe. I love how they use clear language and understandable images to convey information. I’ve had these tabs open in my browser for months so I figured I should post there here so I’ll always know where to find them.

My absolute favorite is this zine by the Climate Defense Project that uses elephants to teach about security culture. Developing a culture of good safety practices is one of the most important things any organization or group can do. More than rules about which tools to use and how, this enables people to make good choices and be aware of how their actions impact others who may be more vulnerable.

Digital_Security-Culture-ZineDownload
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AI Framework for an Equitable World NTEN

A much-needed AI framework for a more equitable world

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Since losing my job in a round of budget-cutting layoffs at MomsRising (where I spent 10 years building web sites, IT systems, security protocols, and trainings) I have been seeking a new opportunity to help a progressive organization or campaign to more effectively use technology in support of grassroots organizing for political change. One of the things I have found in every CTO and IT Director position I see is that everyone wants to use AI now, but not everyone is sure why or how.

I am so grateful to have received a scholarship to enroll in classes to earn NTEN’s AI for Nonprofits Professional Certificate. I have been following the discussion around AI safety and ethics for many years, including as MomsRising’s Senior Director of Internal Technology and Security. This certificate program is giving me more practical tools for how to create and guide AI applications that can serve movement organizing while still staying true to our progressive values like justice, equality, and mutual care.

This week, I took a class created by Amy Sample Ward and Tristan Penn about the AI Framework for an Equitable World that was created in a community process led by NTEN in 2023. I greatly appreciate this approach which shows how assessment and impact are essential, on-going elements of any AI intervention. Below is a diagram of the framework. This is exactly the type of useful resource that I and any nonprofit IT leader can use to develop tools and processes that are both more effective and less harmful. I look forward to putting this into use soon!

AI Framework for an Equitable World. A diagram with 3 connected loops. Assessment: Input, outcomes, accountability Impact: Individual, organization, system Intervention: Design, develop, deploy

Learn more and download the full report at https://www.nten.org/posts/publication/artificial-intelligence-framework-for-an-equitable-world

screenshot of 15 domains that are spoofs of lotusmedia.org

An easy way to reduce the ability of scammers to spoof your domain

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I recently participated in NTEN‘s new cybersecurity community, and learned about this wonderful easy tool called DNStwist. All you have to do is enter your own domain name (eg: lotusmedia.org in my case) and it scans global domain registries for common variations designed to trick a reader into thinking it’s your domain.

A very common phishing technique is to send an e-mail seeming to be from your organization that sends people to what seems like your website. Both the e-mail address and URL might look almost exactly like yours, especially to someone who is not paying attention. Often scammers will add an element of urgency which adds to the user’s confusion and lead them to take action before thinking it through clearly.

After running this scan which shows 15 domains spoofing mine, my next step as an organization would be to block all of these addresses from e-mailing anyone in my workspace. Unfortunately I don’t have any way to stop an external internet user from visiting and mistaking one of these sites for mine. So be alert and make sure you always know who is behind what you’re looking at!

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Screenshot of a YouTube video which shows Ronald Reagan wearing a plaid shirt and reading from a paper into two microphones

Republicans reap ‘The Liar’s Dividend’ thanks to AI and corporate journalism

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Parker Molloy has a great new essay on Trump’s repeated subversion of reality, seen recently in his claim that Ronald Reagan loved tariffs when in fact he hated them as accurately portrayed in this Canadian ad with unadulterated clips of him speaking. This reminded me of the often-quoted Hannah Arendt, who I really need to read much more of.

“If the public loses faith in what they hear and see and truth becomes a matter of opinion, then power flows to those whose opinions are most prominent — empowering authorities along the way.”
– The Liar’s Dividend: Trump, AI, and the Death of Shared Reality by Parker Molloy, Oct 28, 2025

“In an ever-changing, incomprehensible world the masses had reached the point where they would, at the same time, believe everything and nothing, think that everything was possible and that nothing was true. … The totalitarian mass leaders based their propaganda on the correct psychological assumption that, under such conditions, one could make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism; instead of deserting the leaders who had lied to them, they would protest that they had known all along that the statement was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness.”
– The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt, 1951

screenshot from native-land.ca showing many overlapping territiries

Land acknowledgement

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For years I have relied on the maps at native-land.ca to help me understand the history of the land I am on. Today I discovered it has an AI tool called Kōrero that you can converse with to create a personalized land acknowledgement statement.

Below is the statement it created with my input. I love it!

With gratitude, I reflect on my lifelong connection to this land—home to the Lumbee, Skaruhreh/Tuscarora, Cheraw, Mánu: Yį Įsuwą (Catawba), Saponi, Occaneechi, Eno, and Shakori peoples, whose care for these waters and forests sustains us still. As someone who walks the banks of the Eno, I commit to honoring their legacy by protecting this river, supporting my neighbors, and tending to the land as a humble participant in its story. Let my actions—from mutual aid to mindful stewardship—be a small continuation of the care that has shaped this place for millennia.

Police officer putting zip ties on a middle-aged white woman

Victory in Graham

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In 2019, I joined hundreds of Jews, immigrants, and our friends in Graham, North Carolina to say “no more” to the the cruel, racist, and unnecessary practices of ICE and to call out Alamance County Sheriff Terry Johnson’s enthusiastic enforcement of their white supremacist agenda. I was arrested at that demonstration, along with nine other lovely human beings.

After a number of tedious trials, the charges against us were eventually dropped since we were breaking no laws. But in 2022 five of the original nine arrestees sued the police for violating our rights by arresting us. Well last month we finally settled that case, and the law enforcement officers that kettled us, assaulted us with sound cannons, shoved us out of the street, and eventually arrested nine of us will be paying out a settlement of $120,000!

As reported in the News & Observer, “Protesters arrested in Alamance County, NC win cash settlement in lawsuit — again” this is part of a clear pattern of racism and violation of the civil rights by the Alamance County Sheriff and Graham Police Department. How much more do they have to pay to make it worth their while to respect the constitution?

In recent years, the city’s downtown has repeatedly been swarmed by protesters opposed to Sheriff Terry Johnson housing federal immigration detainees; the Confederate statue outside the historic courthouse; and the city’s policies restricting protests, which have been accused of violating demonstrators’ constitutional rights. In some cases, those protesters drew counter-protesters. 

City and county officials have faced repeated lawsuits as protesters have objected to now-revoked permit policies and other steps that local officials have used to hinder demonstrations near Alamance County’s detention center and courthouse in downtown Graham. 

The $120,000 settlement agreement stems from a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court after a 2019 demonstration. The 2022 lawsuit contended that local officials, Graham police and county deputies violated the constitutional rights of several people attempting to hold a traditional Jewish mourning service in front of the Alamance County Detention Center. 

Never Again Holocaust Remebrance Day

Yom HaShoah

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On this Holocaust Remembrance Day it feels more important than ever that we understand how such a nightmare could happen so that we ensure it doesn’t happen again to anyone.

It breaks my heart to see Jews taking away the lesson that it’s us against the world (as Prime Minister Netanyahu said today) instead of taking away the lesson that we must not allow fascists to divide us and turn us against each other by fighting over scraps of land and resources.

Yom Hashoah 5784

they told me

never to forget the Shoah and then reminded me every day

i have never needed their reminders the Shoah lives always in me in my life far, far way from the shtetl and in the absence left by family i never met and in the righteousness cradled deep in my heart and in the fear that clings to my doorstep like grave dust and that every morning i try to sweep away

they told me, cynically that we would never let it happen again but deep in their hearts, they cradled the fear and flocked to false idols

now i am reminded every day by images beamed to me across seas from the phone of a journalist murdered in my name

i feel the terror and confusion of unarmed men loaded onto flatbeds i feel it through remembrances of my great grandfather, who i could never know he was loaded onto a truck by men with guns and never seen again

i am reminded how we found his final resting place a mass grave in the forest floor just a few miles from the shtetl just a few days later they did not try very hard to conceal their crimes

that which is buried must always be unearthed that which is obscured, brought into the light

today they closed the offices of the journalists they have not yet murdered they have remembered, cynically and melted our memories into a golden idol shrouded in cloth, blue and white

– Yom Hashoah 5784, by Noah Gordon
A crowd of protesters photographed from above. Some are wearing Jewish prayer shawls and yarmulkes. IN the middle is a sign with large letters reading "JEWS SAY CEASEFIRE NOW!"

Ceasefire yesterday. Ceasefire now. Ceasefire for the future.

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There are many many of us Jews that don’t feel that our own safety depends on the control or suppression of others. While many of the refugees who came to Palestine as pioneers after the Holocaust had intentions to live peacefully in harmony with the Palestinians*, almost every action of the Israeli government since it was founded has been to treat Palestinians just as badly as we had been treated in Europe.

The ultimate consequence of this has been to harm and dispossess several generations of Palestinians which is extremely effective at ensuring they continue to resent Israel’s existence and feel that they must do anything they can by any means necessary to ensure the survival of their people. If Israel can’t exist peacefully with Palestinians, what gives Jews the greater “right” to the land than they have? How can we go from being refugees with no safe place to go, to violently forcing the exact same situation upon another people just for the gall of wanting to continue to exist with their families on their own ancestral land?

Even if I was a Zionist I would think that the last 6 months were creating long term curse on the country of Israel by creating a whole new generation of Palestinians with nothing but rage for Israel and nothing to lose. You can look at even the most sanitized accounts of the assault on Gaza see absolute cruelty on the part of the IDF as well as no concern for human life or international law.

(*) For anyone interested in the politics of Israel’s founding, I highly recommend I. F. Stone’s book Underground to Palestine about the heroic (as he tells it) journey of Jewish refugees trying to reach Palestine in 1946. In 1978 it was republished with 2 new essays from him. One about how Zionism was hijacked by Jews with no regard for Palestinians’ rights or well-being, and the other about how it has become completely impossible to have rational conversations that are critical of Israel.