Democrats Take Control of US Congress As Voters Reject Trump’s Republicans
Tuesday, November 3, was Election Day in the United States, and the results are (mostly) in: Democrats are projected to win control of both the House and Senate in the 2026 midterms. The blue wave turned out to be more of a blue tsunami (which is an actual term), ending Republican control of Congress for the final two years … ⌘ Read more

Epic’s Tim Sweeney believes AI notices on Steam are a “political statement” for the “hate mob”
Valve requires developers to disclose AI-generated content in games and on Steam store pages, something Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney isn’t happy about.

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Read the full article on [GamingOnLinux](https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2026/10/epics-tim-sweeney-believes-a … ⌘ Read more

Trump DHS Officials Asked CISA To Secretly Aquire and Hack a Voting Machine
Longtime Slashdot reader fahrbot-bot shares a report from ProPublica: A few months into President Donald Trump’s second term, political appointees at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) wanted Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to secretly acquire a voting machine and hack it. The appointees wa … ⌘ Read more

‘The Social Reckoning’ Bombs with $5.5 Million Opening
Why didn’t The Social Reckoning enjoy the box office success of 2010’s The Social Network, asks IndieWire/A>:

[T]here wasn’t the same urgency in the story being told. The Social Reckoning focuses less on Zuckerberg, and more on data engineer Frances Haugen’s decision to blow the whistle on how Facebook’s algorithms were promoting political content that radica … ⌘ Read more

AI Execs Game Out ‘Political Revolt’ after a Catastrophic AI Event
Top executives at Anthropic, OpenAI and other AI companies “are privately gaming out scenarios for a public and political revolt after a catastrophic AI event,” reports Axios, one that turns “an already wary public further against the technology and its leaders…”

These AI company executives “anticipate a large-scale event, most likely a cyber … ⌘ Read more

OpenAI Disrupts Two AI-Enabled ‘False Front’ Influence Operations That Included Seven Fake Journalists
OpenAI announced it’s recently banned two “influence operations” — one from Russia and one from Iran — that were using its models “to launder geopolitical, conflict-related messaging” in sophisticated “false front” propaganda campaigns:

The Iranian operation included a … ⌘ Read more

Trump Hosts AI CEOs to Discuss Safety Standards, Rebrands AI as ‘Super Intelligence’
hcs_$reboot writes: Trump hosted executives from OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, Google, Nvidia, and other tech companies at the White House. They agreed to voluntary AI-safety standards, including independent audits and safeguards aimed at preventing AI systems from accessing or hacking technical systems in uni … ⌘ Read more

Are AI Chatbots Spreading Misinformation to US Voters?
Are AI chatbots quietly shaping the perceptions of U.S. voters? Voters trying to educate themselves about candidates “are unknowingly being served partisan talking points in the guise of neutral news summaries,” write two news researchers in Politico magazine:

Leading AI chatbots cite partisan websites masquerading as independent local news outlets nearly half o … ⌘ Read more

Trump Denounces Attempts to Control AI, Wants It Renamed ‘Super Intelligence’ in US Documents
U.S. President Trump addressed the United Nations on Tuesday. And a half hour in, after decrying immigration, Trump pivoted to add that “The United States also totally rejects any attempt to construct a globalist scheme to control for the artificial intelligence being spoken of so much no … ⌘ Read more

~3 Days till elections… and the campaigns have been nothing but a Shi* Show.

P.S: We’ve got +30 Political Parties BTW.

Tech Industry Scratches Its Head Over Trump’s ‘AI Force’ Proposal
Saturday morning President Trump announced he’s creating an AI task force and appointing an AI czar, reports Politico.

“I am forming the AI Force, much like I did Space Force, which has been a tremendous SUCCESS,” Trump wrote Saturday in what Politico earlier described as “a lengthy Truth Social post on Saturday morning.”

TRUMP: Over the ye … ⌘ Read more

How US Campaigns Are Already Using AI to Try to Sway Voters
39 U.S. congressional candidates “reported paying for an OpenAI subscription this election cycle,” writes the Washington Post, citing campaign finance disclosures.

This means the campaigns “are using the technology to court voters — despite limits imposed by leading AI companies to protect elections from the technology’s risks.”

Two [candidates] sai … ⌘ Read more

Is ChatGPT Changing How You’re Writing?
An anonymous reader quotes a report fro SFGATE: From “rizz” to “meat proxy,” words and phrases have fallen in and out of favor for centuries. Culture, politics and technological development have long influenced these trends, and now, new research shows that ChatGPT is beginning to influence how humans communicate. The findings from a team at the Pew Research Center show how, in a short time since OpenA … ⌘ Read more

Voters Aren’t Waiting For November to Try Ousting Officials Over Data Centers
A growing backlash against AI data centers is spilling into local politics, with residents in more than a dozen communities pushing recall elections against officials who approved projects. “People are standing up and saying, ‘Sorry, we don’t want these data centers in our communities for a number of reasons,’” Senato … ⌘ Read more

X’s Algorithm Feeds Off Ragebait and Impacts Democrats More, Study Finds
An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: X’s algorithm learns what you hate and shows you more of it, according to a new study just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The paper, titled Value misalignment of X’s feed algorithm is a reflection of value tensions in engagement, found … ⌘ Read more

Lawmaker Who Wants Data Center Pause Wins Kansas Democratic Primary
Kansas Democrats nominated State Senator Cindy Holscher for governor after she defeated party-backed rival Ethan Corson. “The race became a test of what sort of candidate Democratic voters prefer in what is expected to be a challenging general election race: a more moderate candidate like Mr. Corson with endorsements from party leaders … ⌘ Read more

ABC Accuses FCC of ‘Attempted Censorship’
ABC accused FCC Chair Brendan Carr of “attempted censorship,” arguing that an early review of its eight broadcast licenses is politically motivated retaliation over the network’s coverage and could chill the entire media industry. “The retaliation against ABC is a signal to every media company in the country: accommodate the Administration’s view of what news coverage should look like or pay th … ⌘ Read more

‘Inside the Dystopian World of Germany’s Free Speech Crackdown’
Thousands of Germans have been threatened with fines or prison sentences for social media posts, reports The Telegraph, calling the country’s political speech laws “unusually stringent for an EU member state.”
One German had his home raided for calling a minister a “Schwachkopf [dummy]” while another was fined €2,000 (£1,700) for calling Friedrich Me … ⌘ Read more

@lyse@lyse.isobeef.org Found it and fixed it! 🎉 The crawler’s discovery spider was fetching every feed a second time, without any conditional headers (plus a couple of other politeness bugs: redirected feed URLs never stored their cache validators, and there was no floor between re-fetches). Now every feed is fetched at most once per crawl, always with If-Modified-Since / If-None-Match, and never more than once per 15m no matter what. Just deployed — please keep an eye on your access logs and let me know if you still see anything impolite from the crawler 🙏

New Super PAC Aims to Rally Tech Workers to Help Limit AI: ‘the Guardrails Alliance’
“A grassroots movement is forming among everyday tech workers who are demanding their companies develop and deploy AI responsibly,” reports TechCrunch.

Hoping to leverage that discontent is a new super PAC called the Guardrails Alliance. The New York Times reports that it launched Thursday with backers t … ⌘ Read more

What does the centre of politics look like?
Readers question what each of the major parties really stands for. ⌘ Read more

Truth submerged? AUKUS will cost us $368 billion, so this is no time for secrecy
Secrecy in policy development is rarely justified – and it certainly isn’t for AUKUS, our eye-wateringly expensive defence deal with the US and UK. ⌘ Read more

‘I don’t earn enough to rent anything’: How Sydney’s grand housing vision was whittled away
For nurse Talei Williams, a 90-minute commute is her only option. ⌘ Read more

Stalled Ukraine security pact could leave Australia ‘fighting with one hand behind its back’
Australia’s ability to tap into Ukraine’s expertise in drones and other advanced technologies is being hampered by delays in striking a security pact. ⌘ Read more

‘Watch your back’: Hanson’s family succession plan leaves Barnaby as a spare heir
The One Nation leader’s suggestion that her daughter could succeed her has prompted Coalition MPs to warn her about Barnaby Joyce’s leadership plans. ⌘ Read more

The next federal poll is two years away, everyone, cool down
As the political temperature rises, it is worth noting the next election isn’t until 2028. ⌘ Read more

Senior Liberal warns party to stop talking about One Nation as Hanson hits back at PM
The One Nation leader posted a report about its fundraising campaign on social media after Albanese questioned its veracity, Hanson saying it proved the money was “ridgy-didge”. ⌘ Read more

Following The Bride! Flop, Maggie Gyllenhaal Is Set for a ‘Dark Humor’ Spy Movie
After the box office disappointment of The Bride!, Maggie Gyllenhaal is already moving toward a dramatically different project. This time, it takes her into the world of espionage, dark humor, and political intrigue. Maggie Gyllenhaal to adapt Rachel Kushner’s Creation Lake next Warner Bros. is continuing its collaboration with Maggie Gyllenhaal despite the commercial performance […]

The po … ⌘ Read more

Trump, Iran and political footballs: One World Cup match-up could fixate the planet
If results fall a certain way, the United States and Iran could meet in the knockout rounds – compressing decades of geopolitical tension into 90 minutes of football. ⌘ Read more

Hanson scoffs at Albanese’s scepticism of One Nation fundraising, releases audit
The One Nation leader posted the report on social media and said it proved the millions raised in her Fire the Liar campaign were “ridgy didge”. ⌘ Read more

Reading the riots: Belfast reveals a nation at boiling point
In the aftermath of this week’s shocking scenes in Northern Ireland, some say they sympathise with the rioters, revealing the moral and political complexity of the migration debate across Britain. ⌘ Read more

Firefighters’ union boss unmasked over bid to suppress corruption report
United Firefighters Union secretary Peter Marshall has lost a court bid to keep his identity a secret as he fights to block the publication of an IBAC investigation. ⌘ Read more

‘Hands Off Our NHS’: Anti-Palantir Protests Break Out in UK Over Deal With National Health Service
Crowding the gates of a major health care conference, protesters called for Palantir to be booted out of the UK’s National Health Service over privacy concerns and political grievances. ⌘ Read more

Why One Nation can win the next federal election
People keen to write off One Nation as the party of angry, old, white men are now demonstrably wrong in the same way Democrats were wrong about Donald Trump in 2024. ⌘ Read more

(g+) Russian Politics: How the FSB cut Russia off from the internet
Shutdowns have made one of the world’s most online nations resort to cash, paper maps and pet cams ( Russland, Internet)

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Jon Stewart Compares Donald Trump to Iron Man, Jokes About Doctor Doom Return
Jon Stewart recently used the Marvel Cinematic Universe to make a point about Donald Trump‘s political influence. He compared the president’s role within MAGA to Iron Man‘s importance to Marvel. During a recent Daily Show event, Stewart questioned whether the movement could maintain the same level of support under a different leader. Jon Stewart uses […]

The post [Jon Stewart Compares Donald T … ⌘ Read more

Labor ramps up Hanson attacks, as Taylor rebukes ally in phone call
The Coalition has also gone on the attack about Pauline Hanson’s admission on the Inside Politics podcast that her party was being “infiltrated by extremists”. ⌘ Read more

Best of cartoons, June 12, 2026
The news of the day as interpreted by our talented artists, illustrators and cartoonists. ⌘ Read more

The latest illustrations from artist Simon Letch
Gallery of illustrations by the Sydney Morning Herald artist. ⌘ Read more

Best of cartoons, June 12, 2026
The news of the day as interpreted by our talented artists, illustrators and cartoonists. ⌘ Read more

‘Simply wrong’: former Queensland premier says Hanson was not jailed in a ‘witch hunt’
The One Nation leader on Thursday accused Beattie and Liberal Party president Tony Abbott of orchestrating a “political witch hunt” that led to her 11-week imprisonment. ⌘ Read more

Hanson opens up on domestic violence, prison and racism claims
While detailing her life running a small business prior to politics, Hanson admitted that she had experienced domestic violence in her life but refrained from going into detail. ⌘ Read more

‘Significant risk’: Disability ministers defy Butler’s NDIS overhaul
State and territory ministers say NDIS participants will be left in inappropriate settings under Mark Butler’s reforms. ⌘ Read more

Shorten’s Trump fears on AUKUS revealed
The former Labor leader raised concerns about the prospect of Donald Trump being elected and compromising the AUKUS deal in a cabinet meeting in 2023. ⌘ Read more

One Nation has six more months to raise uncapped political donations
Nobody can see detail of who donated what to Pauline Hanson’s party this financial year until February 1. ⌘ Read more

One Nation has six more months to raise uncapped political donations
Nobody can see detail of who donated what to Pauline Hanson’s party this financial year until February 1. ⌘ Read more

One Nation has six more months to raise uncapped political donations
Nobody can see detail of who donated what to Pauline Hanson’s party this financial year until February 1. ⌘ Read more

National security risk as parliamentary network fails seven out of eight basic cyber checks
A damning report from the auditor-general reveals deep vulnerabilities across critical federal government safeguards, amid warnings the system may no longer be fit for purpose against sophisticated foreign espionage. ⌘ Read more

One Nation has six more months to raise uncapped political donations
Nobody can see any detail of who donated what to Pauline Hanson this financial year until February 1. ⌘ Read more

‘Significant risk’: Disability ministers defy Butler’s NDIS overhaul
State and territory ministers say NDIS participants will be left in inappropriate settings under Mark Butler’s reforms. ⌘ Read more