Kashmir Hill

@kashhill.bsky.social

Journalist, currently at The New York Times. I cover privacy, technology, A.I., and the strange times we live in. Named after the Led Zeppelin song. Author of YOUR FACE BELONGS TO US. (Yes, in my head it will always be All Your Face Are Belong To Us)

@dmehro.bsky.socialReposted by @kashhill.bsky.social

NEW: Footage from Thursdays shooting shows an ICE agent in a construction vest brandishing a rifle. His name is Brenden Cuni. Federal judges have found multiple arrests involving Cuni unlawful. He has been accused of repeatedly Tasing a handcuffed man and tackling a pregnant woman in Minneapolis.

wired.comICE Agent at NYC Shooting Has History of Alleged Violence and Illegal ArrestsBrenden Cuni, an ICE supervisor, has been accused of excessive force and tackling a pregnant woman to the ground. Several of his arrests were later found to be unlawful in federal court.
@doctorow.pluralistic.netReposted by @kashhill.bsky.social

We're repeatedly told that the killer app for pervert glasses - Meta's AI-enabled camera glasses and their imitators - is that they will remind you of someone's name and spare you the social awkwardness of not recognizing them.

Medieval peasants working the fields in front of a walled city. Their overseer rides a horse; his head has been replaced with a robotic camera. From all sides, gory, anatomical eyeballs intrude upon the scene, each one with a different colored iris.
@justinhendrix.bsky.socialReposted by @kashhill.bsky.social

Meta is tapping "into a tax credit intended for research and experimentation. It’s an aggressive interpretation of the tax break, which Meta embraced to claim billions of dollars in tax credits for data center expansion."

@nytimes.comReposted by @kashhill.bsky.social

Meta is using its A.I. data centers to exploit a lucrative tax break intended to support research and experimentation, according to an exclusive report by The New York Times. The company’s own accountants recognize that the strategy is on shaky legal ground. nyti.ms/3VlavDw

@kashhill.bsky.social

And this is almost an aside in the story, but also absolutely bonkers. Meta claimed Zuck as a "researcher" to get a $355 million tax break on his $4.1 billion stock-based compensation.

Screenshot from New York Times article: "Meta is already in one sizable dispute with the I.R.S. over this tax break, for using it to subsidize its chief executive’s multibillion-dollar pay package. In 2013, Meta claimed that $4.1 billion of stock options exercised by Mr. Zuckerberg counted as a research expense because he helped invent new software, such as Facebook’s News Feed. The I.R.S. is trying to claw back the company’s resulting $355 million in tax savings, court filings show."
@kashhill.bsky.social

Blogging was my start in journalism. I loved comments as a writer at Above The Law. They cracked me up and I learned from them. It's also what sent me down the privacy path because commenters managed to dig up the darnedest things like the MySpace profile I forget and my "anonymous" OKCupid profile.

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