Tootfinder

Sequoia, a16z, and other VC firms invested $1.2B into police and public safety tech startups over the past year, following the success of Palantir and others (Abram Brown/The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/briefings/a

Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Add to $1.2 Billion Funding Boom for Police Tech Startups
Over the past year, Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital and many of Silicon Valley’s other top venture capital firms have funneled at least $1.2 billion in funding to startups selling technology to city police departments and local public safety agencies. Those companies illustrate the technology industry’s growing enthusiasm for making software and hardware for the government and law

Fediverse Punk Month — We can grow something better!
We invest too much of our culture in centralized, for-profit, corporate social media platforms. These platforms enrich billionaires, expand surveillance, and fund the cult of capitalist war, all while trapping us with addictive algorithms that feed us mindless content. […]
— by @…<…

Making this a subtoot so I don't come across as smug or condescending...
My decision to stop using github when they started providing services to ICE back in ~2016 felt awkward at times but has been feeling really good in hindsight right now.
I see a bunch of people now saying "why boycott X company over some "minor" transgression or political capitulation (or over a "neutral" stance on LLM code). The answer is: it shows what their values are, which predicts their future behavior, especially under the tilted playing field of capitalism. I'm by no means perfect at this and I don't think shouting at people to boycott is a good idea for several reasons. People should boycott what they want to, for their own reasons. But I am posting this to try to help others be aware of the upsides of taking action when confronted with "subtle" evidence of corporate unvalues.

Is building an LLM inherently problematic? Not necessarily, but there's no good way to do it under capitalism. Is using an local LLM funding these evil companies? No. It's not.
Spelling and grammar checking is one of the few uses of LLMs that is not based on fundamentally failing to understand what an LLM actually is. A statistical model is gonna be *really good* at flagging things that are probably typos (low probability areas). There will be false positives, which is fine if you're actually paying attention...

Lawmakers on Capitol Hill are accusing the Justice Department of
covering up the names of co-conspirators of the deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein
as fallout from the Epstein files grows across the globe.
Millions of pages remain unreleased.
As many prominent U.S. figures evade accountability following mentions in the Epstein files,
a number of European figures have resigned for their relationships with Epstein.
“The most extraordinary and worrying …

Protecting Pedophile Predators: Carole Cadwalladr on Jeffrey Epstein & the Elite’s Veil of Silence
Lawmakers on Capitol Hill are accusing the Justice Department of covering up the names of co-conspirators of the deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein as fallout from the Epstein files grows across the globe. Millions of pages remain unreleased. As many prominent U.S. figures evade accountability following mentions in the Epstein files, a number of European figures have resigned for their relationships with Epstein. “The most extraordinary and worrying thing of what is going on in the United …

The Richmond Free Press, a 34-year-old Black-owned weekly, shuts down due to falling ad revenue as the Black press suffers from the dispersion of its readership (Scott Nover/Washington Post)

A Black newspaper in the former capital of the Confederacy is closing
The Richmond Free Press, a Black newspaper in Virginia’s capital city, ceases publication after three decades.

Entropy, a decentralized crypto custodian that raised a $25M seed led by a16z in June 2022, is shutting down after "several pivots, and two rounds of layoffs" (Zack Abrams/The Block)
https://www.theblock.co/post/386942/entro…

Entropy, a16z-backed decentralized custody startup, is winding down and returning capital to investors
Entropy's "anti-capitalist anarchist" founder is winding down the firm and returning capital to investors after failing to find a scalable business model.

A look at the growth of Belfast in Northern Ireland as a home for producing TV shows, following the success of the comedy Derry Girls (Hollie Richardson/The Guardian)
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2026/feb/13/belfast-home-of-quality-tv-drama…

A leaked memo by U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi
directs the Justice Department and FBI to ❌compile a list of groups that may be labeled
“domestic terrorism” organizations
- based on political views related to immigration, gender and U.S. policy.
The memo was obtained by independent investigative journalist Ken Klippenstein,
who joins us to discuss how it expands on Donald Trump’s "NSPM-7 directive" following the assassination of Charlie Kirk,
--…

“Domestic Terrorism”: Leaked DOJ Memo Targets “Anti-Americanism, Anti-Capitalism, Anti-Christianity”
A leaked memo by U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi directs the Justice Department and FBI to compile a list of groups that may be labeled “domestic terrorism” organizations based on political views related to immigration, gender and U.S. policy. The memo was obtained by independent investigative journalist Ken Klippenstein, who joins us to discuss how it expands on President Donald Trump’s NSPM-7 directive following the assassination of Charlie Kirk, which ordered a national strategy to inv…

Sources say President Trump's efforts to block state-level AI regulations through a preemption proposal are facing significant opposition on Capitol Hill (Axios)
https://www.axios.com/2025/12/02/ai-preemption-push-stalls-trump-pressure

Trump's push to overrule state AI regulations stalls
His calls to block state-level AI regulation are falling short on Capitol Hill.