Mariel García-Montes

IHTFP. Sociotechnical researcher on privacy and surveillance, digital rights, youth and media, trust and safety. 40% thinker and 60% doer at MIT HASTS, Data + Feminism, and Berkman Klein, though my posts do not represent them.  CW: My feed is political and I won’t CW the posts within fields listed above, but will CW other sensitive content.

Public Key

npub1v66gd4xey08qj5gknlyemjyvhuedp70w8wvmahcwkasll7g537aqlj208u

NIP-05 Address

marielgm@mastodon-mit-edu.mostr.pub

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsxddyx6nvj8nsf2ytfljvaezxt7vksl8hrhxd7mu8twc0lly2glwszmu4l5

Author Public Key

npub1v66gd4xey08qj5gknlyemjyvhuedp70w8wvmahcwkasll7g537aqlj208u

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Last Notes

2025-01-12 17:52:00

Another middle-of-the-night earthquake alert in Mexico City, another time that we got all necessary info on birdsite. Once the LA situation is controlled it will be interesting to hear if bluesky or mastodon were widely used in the emergency context.

2024-11-23 16:02:06

Neuropsych eval results are in. It's time to focus on my kid's new ADHD diagnosis that overlaps with his long-ago diagnosed autism. I ran out of books to read!
Do you have any recommendations on ADHD parenting books or resources, especially on #AuDHD, experiential avoidance, collaborative problem solving? Thanks in advance! (and tagging @nprofile…zvcd)

2024-11-07 02:32:42

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@npub1lrv…tth9 Thank you for the service you do for the community. I share your appreciation of Micah Sifry. My request as your newsletter moves forward: I would love to know more about local/indy journalism that we can fund instead of big corporations.

2024-11-03 01:20:06

With hearts full of love, we await them. 💕
From my family to yours, happy #dayofthedead #diademuertos!
https://mastodon.mit.edu/system/media_attachments/files/113/416/385/250/999/430/original/0909ab5b15f02563.png

2024-10-30 16:39:18

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@npub1y4n…25mf I'm all for thinking and working to end corporate capture of essential comms infrastructure. I also don't think that the affordances of federation and decentralization have accounted for the main benefits of corporate platforms.

2024-10-30 16:25:45

My mid 2020s experience of social media:
signing on to Mastodon to see posts decrying that birdsite is still a thing,
signing on to birdsite to see a bunch of searchable (and algorithmically amplified) real-time information sharing and mutual aid in Valencia.
signing on to Facebook to take part in fast comms for my local mutual aid networks and other local interest groups.

2024-10-04 13:43:15

"In the 10 weeks after the shooting, advertisers paid Meta between $593,000 and $813,000 for political ads that explicitly mentioned the assassination attempt, according to The Markup’s analysis."
Great work by @npub1vuk…q8yv: How Meta Brings in Millions Off Political Violence https://themarkup.org/investigations/2024/10/04/how-meta-brings-in-millions-off-political-violence

2024-09-15 15:46:46

I’m on the main page of www.mit.edu for the day 😱😭😅

2024-09-11 02:34:45

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@npub186j…8z6r There are so many dirty and less dirty tactics that could be getting deployed and I am sad they advised her to play conservatively. Toothlessness does not beat the flaming cheeto.

2024-09-11 02:29:48

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@npub186j…8z6r Exactly. I hate that Harris is taking a conservative stance and letting him go on and on. He's so easily inflamed I am baffled no one prepared for this very scenario

2024-08-24 15:57:24

A dear friend made me read the NYT profile on Alex Karp / Palantir CEO this week. I don't think I've entirely processed it yet, but I do have one comment to make: it always, truly always is a guy who reads Schopenhauer in his free time.

2024-08-20 01:53:39

AOC had the whole arena chanting her name and giving her a standing ovation. Constant camera pans to youth cheering throughout. No one is beyond critique and I wave my white flag at the socialists and anarchists here. We do need to recognize that the political path she has built in 6 years is outstanding.

2024-07-26 18:22:09

Do you have any thoughts about #encryption , secure messaging apps, and content moderation? I certainly do and that's why I filled out @npub1g57…y839 CAT Lab's survey on encryption and moderation. I hope you will, too! opcandado.citizensandtech.org/ #privacy

2024-07-25 16:46:27

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@npub1g57…y839 I'll be filling it in later and will send it to a couple of folks who should have a lot to say about encryption in the global majority world

2024-07-25 16:43:04

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@npub1g57…y839 THANK YOU for doing this project

2024-07-22 21:40:01

OK, I am excited about the FTC's #kids Online Health and Safety Task Force Report published today: https://www.samhsa.gov/kids-online-health-safety-task-force/kohs-report-safe-internet-use
I will do close reading later. In the meantime, a summary of the actually evidence-based recommendations they make to social media companies [Link to FTC Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya's birdsite] https://x.com/BedoyaFTC/status/1815473566693117963
#youthandmedia #kidsonline

2024-06-24 15:29:29

I'm *really* excited about this summer with the kids because it will be fun and lots of personal growth will happen. It's also bittersweet because this is probably the last summer that they'll both get to experience child wonder together. I want to keep these two in a little bubble where nothing bad can happen to them, but they are growing up fast. 😭

2024-06-18 19:11:32

If there is any afterlife, may #NoamChomsky have a joyous homecoming. May he be surrounded by the change-making thinkers that paved the way for him.
I never met him, but MIT Linguistics rumor has it that he hated the his Stata office so much he had a custom-made bookcase to try and mask the unevenness. The not-rumor I know about him is he thoughtfully responded every single email and request sent his way, no matter who the sender was.

2024-06-13 21:12:07

Every year, when it warms up, I get to see flying ants make it past the mosquito screen in my window. They then spend the rest of their lives trying to make it back out.
When I have time, I help them, but there are times that it happens overnight or when I'm away. I see their little corpses on the sill.
I've never known what lures them in. They never venture far. It just seems like a sad existence -- finally achieving something, and then spending the rest of your life trying to revert it.

2024-06-08 13:33:17

The (one of the) problem(s) with increasing a community's #surveillance capabilities is that we never know where all that data is going to end up, because it sure as hell won't end up just in intelligence. Case in point: Bangladesh https://techcrunch.com/2024/06/06/bangladeshi-police-agents-accused-of-selling-citizens-personal-information-on-telegram/

2024-05-28 17:43:33

This coming Sunday, Mexico will have its first woman President -- a huge deal in a country where many women alive today were born without voting rights.
I think of my grandmother who is no longer around to witness it. She was the one who took me to political rallies and who made me run on my first and only ballot (for participatory budgeting, our neighbor group lost, lol).

2024-05-27 22:22:21

Live action shot from the office the social researcher behind this account shares with a cryptographer https://media.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPTc5MGI3NjExaXJ2a3l3eGN6Mzk4eXhzOTlweGIwZjhyOGo5aTNhMjR6NTR0b3pxcCZlcD12MV9pbnRlcm5hbF9naWZfYnlfaWQmY3Q9Zw/l0IylOPCNkiqOgMyA/giphy.gif

2024-05-27 03:54:45

So many lines have been crossed since October 7, so many, and day 233 in #Rafah crossed all of them again.
On birdsite, @npub1qyx…ll05 posted this today: "The only way out of this nightmare is by focusing relentlessly on one goal: peace, freedom, dignity, and security for every person between the river and the sea. There are many ways to get there, but that has to be the North Star."

2024-05-23 19:16:30

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OK, still thinking about it a couple hours later! (Disclaimer: I nearly cried the day I met Maria Ressa in Cambridge, and Rapple is one of the sadly not many non-MX media I read on a regular basis). I don't fully agree with what I read as a flattening of the current threat into a tech issue, as the devil is always in the details of the sociotechnical ensemble. But, truly, her naming and describing of the points where fascism is on the rise was outstanding.

2024-05-23 17:33:16

OK, Maria Ressa (as expected) pulled through and delivered an outstanding commencement speech at Harvard. Names the fascists rising around the world, including in Palestine and in Harvard (2:49:00ish) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1snjxJR_gLk

2024-05-23 16:16:00

I never was a 'go with the flow' kid when it came to fads. I was probably the last millennial to embrace skinny jeans, lol. Same for DH.
My kids are autistic and the 11-y-o is kind of on the same track as I was in that regard. We have had many chats about the market of influencers behind Stanley and Touchland, etc, and she thinks it's all a bit silly. But I also wonder: How do I teach her to read when it's important to fit in, and how to do so?

2024-05-22 15:51:06

You can tell the K-12 teachers in the area met their curriculum goals because colonies of feral children are taking over the streets on their way to field trips. A lot of core memories being formed for these youth <3

2024-05-18 17:19:43

One of my biggest cultural shocks is how difficult it is to find kid-friendly language classes where I live. When I was Big Kid’s age, my mom already had me on my 3rd language, and it didn’t cost her a lot.

2024-05-18 02:17:00

Finally watching Secrets of the Octopus to teach the younger housemates why we don’t eat squid. Big shoutout to Alex Schnell, the one millennial that did persist in her dream to become a marine biologist AND psychologist 👏👏👏

2024-05-17 23:40:13

One of the things I saw on my observations of MIT #Palestine protests: Counterprotesters, pro-war staff, and MIT Police themselves, showed up and took close up shots and #surveillance footage of the faces of students at encampment.
Based on who got suspended, none of their efforts paid off. They apparently profiled and suspended a couple Palestinians who weren't even there, can't make that shit up. However…

2024-05-11 02:30:44

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@npub1qzc…yetl 4 heat stroke deaths already in the state of San Luis Potosí today :(

2024-05-08 22:01:52

For those still following regarding the MIT #encampment, protests:
MIT admin suspended a number of peace student workers. The Grad Student Union announced it will get involved due to violations to labor law.
Notably, to no one's surprise, none of the pro-war student organizers got disciplinary action. They have spent equal time and organizing at the site, with the addition of their bringing in outside agitators with the Israeli consulate.
So no arrests, but same logic. (ETA: nvm, yes arrests)

2024-04-26 20:03:53

Greetings from the MIT #Palestine solidarity #encampment because I, too, want a permanent ceasefire, including the return of hostages. May we never normalize blatant violations of international humanitarian law; schools, hospitals, aid workers should never be targeted. May we never repeat collective punishment through forced famine.
https://mastodon.mit.edu/system/media_attachments/files/112/339/289/330/118/228/original/414d52ba2211d348.jpeg

2024-04-16 21:32:03

Excited for @npub1mww…6s2s and Jesse Gilbert’s book at Microsoft Research! Memorial Drive cherry blossoms (and the Charles! And Boston!) on the background.
https://mastodon.mit.edu/system/media_attachments/files/112/283/027/750/027/758/original/18852187feda89a3.png

2024-03-28 16:16:47

Still proud to live in the ? dumbest ? household in the USA, but this one by @npub1vuk…q8yv is helpful for people looking for #privacy preserving ways to bring smart toys in for their kids https://themarkup.org/privacy/2024/03/28/we-tested-kids-smart-toys-for-privacy-heres-how-you-can-too

2024-01-26 16:13:08

Yessss another great @npub1vuk…q8yv Gentle January #Privacy edition! Don't forget the analog. Leave a Sharpie and some scissors wherever you process your physical mail. https://themarkup.org/gentle-january/2024/01/24/these-reader-tips-are-reminders-of-the-importance-of-analog-privacy

2024-01-02 21:22:15

Now, *this* is a January project to be excited about: @npub1vuk…q8yv is running a Gentle January series with "the least intimidating #privacy tips" https://themarkup.org/gentle-january/2024/01/02/gentle-january-the-least-intimidating-privacy-tips-from-the-markup

2023-12-20 02:55:33

Today's insane birdsite anecdote that will likely make a mini-vignette in my dissertation: the official account of the Benito Juárez International Airport gave a bunch of detailed surveillance data to clap back at a public figure that criticized their immigration processing times, lmao. Now we have confirmation that they use #facialrecognition simply because the CM is petty. #surveillance

2023-11-24 02:28:34

You know you’ve assimilated into your new country when you finally get enough festivity pictures to share on Thanksgiving while everyone else back in your country is having a regular workday Thursday… but hey, food is good, kids are cute, scenic drives are fun, families are great.

2023-09-23 00:21:26

We knew that the use of #facialrecognition tech in policing in Latin America would be problematic, but now we begin to see the evidence. Great reporting by Karen Naundorf on erroneous ID in Buenos Aires https://www.wired.co.uk/article/buenos-aires-facial-recognition-scandal

2023-08-09 21:27:45

I love this explainer on #privacy policies by @npub1j2g…x033. I will be using it in the classroom / in workshops for sure: https://themarkup.org/the-breakdown/2023/08/03/how-to-quickly-get-to-the-important-truth-inside-any-privacy-policy

2023-05-17 13:23:22

Speaking of archives, I found my Mexican spy alter ego/style icon. She pretended to be a domestic employee as part of a sting operation to see if this armory would sell weapons to civilians in the 1950s.
https://mastodon.mit.edu/system/media_attachments/files/110/384/231/299/829/876/original/0dd26fd6c56c66a7.jpeg