There is a CCTV security camera, one specific camera in a planet full of them, that I keep thinking about.
The littlest eye
You have a stake in reading this
Who’s at stake? The (non)performativity of “stakeholders” in UK tech policy
I’ve written far more than I should have had to on the performative inclusion of “stakeholders” in post-2016 tech policymaking. This meant being invited into meetings with government and decision-makers, being told to “assume positive intent” as all manipulative types like to insist, only to find that your presence was strictly performative. You were either there so that they could tick the box of saying they had engaged with you, before proceeding to do what they were going to do anyway, or you were there so that they could spin your presence as an endorsement of what they were going to do anyway.
Turns out it wasn’t just me – the behaviour was so widespread that some academics have now done a study into how UKGov wields “stakeholder” engagement.
They conclude:
These findings show that the use of stakeholder tends to performatively entrench the existing power of “industry stakeholders” or nameless but clearly already engaged and empowered “key stakeholders”. Meanwhile, they also construct a false sense of inclusion through the non-performative use of generic or “other stakeholders”. This creates significant risk of a veil of accountability, and raises significant questions over established processes such as consultation. When it is unclear who is influencing policy, whose voices and interests are being represented, then the indicators from specific uses suggest that the stakeholder becomes a foil for amplifying historical power and privilege, often on political and/or economic lines, and in doing so excludes the needs of those most affected by technologies who already suffer a lack of agency in how data, AI, platforms and other areas are used to shape their lives.
No shit Sherlock.
Queen of the hill
Around this time last year, I was reading in my garden when I got a ping from Guido Noto la Diega at the University of Strathclyde here in Glasgow. I’d messaged him to ask him what the closing date was for applications for Strath’s newly revived techlaw programme, because I was thinking of applying for it, but I needed to figure out how a skint freelancer was going to come up with a full tuition payment upfront. Guido replied by dangling the prospect of a full scholarship at me.
I somehow managed to not fling myself off my chair.
Make Your Basket
Whenever advancements have been made socially, there is pushback. Freedom, justice, democracy: these things are not definitively achieved – they must be constantly fought for. I have found myself wondering what’s best to do. My mind kept returning to the story of Moses. The religious implications are not important. He was born and placed in a basket, sent down the Nile and was found and raised by Pharaoh’s daughter.
I kept thinking about the person who made the basket.
This was in a tumultuous period of massive social unrest. The Israelites were being persecuted, hunted and killed. The community would have been desperately trying to survive, resist, find freedom and justice. I could imagine members of the community looking at this basket-maker and saying, “Why aren’t you protesting? Why aren’t you tweeting? Why are you just sitting there making baskets?” And yet that basket was made well enough that the child who was placed in it survived and became one of the most influential agents of social change.
We each have the potential to effect real positive social change. If the basketmaker hadn’t made it with absolute focus and commitment, human history would have been very different.
So I say, make your basket, or whatever it may be.-actor Giles Terera, speaking to Index on Censorship
Art break: Favourite Darkness
And… one more art musing from my recent wanders, before normal blog service resumes (whatever that is). This one hits the sweet spot of me being in my happy place, and me just asking the questions that I ask for a living. As I do.
Art break: secession resurrection
Yesterday I enjoyed sharing an unexpected art discovery from my recent wanders, so here’s another one, which was also something I quite accidentally wandered into on one of those perfect days which, for many reasons, I didn’t want to end.
Art break: “Archives”
Last month, during my wanders, I turned a corner in a museum and was confronted by this breathtaking musing on privacy and human identity.
That would be me
I am delighted, so I am, that so many of you are discovering what some of us have been warning for six years. And I’m equally delighted that so many of you are discovering what some of us have been working on – or rather, against – for six years.
(Did you detect my dripping Glaswegian sarcasm there? If not, try again.)
I 
do have a few things to say about what the OSA will mean for things going forward, as opposed to engaging in constant retrospection, but I’m in thorough dissertation writing mode right now. So I’ll write ’em when I write ’em.
In the meantime, here’s a tale from the journey. Yes, that “expert” would be me.
I’m laughing at it now, in fact, I was laughing at it on the day. But not everyone would.
Emptying my Pocket
Ahead of Pocket shutting down this month, I did an export of my saves. (As should you.) It occurs to me that some of you might find these interesting, so here they are. The list is heavy stuff, I won’t kid you on that, but I don’t ply my trade in sunshine and rainbows.
Somehow, that Home Office campaign got even worse.
Update: this is now a story in The Register. No I have not stopped cackling with laughter.
There was a piece in 404 recently about the myriad of web sites, including government sites, which have been invaded by SEO AI slop. Those sites had been abandoned or forgotten about or had served their purpose, and now, surprise surprise, they’re linkbait soup.
Bona lavs
As someone whose highest spiritual relationships are with books, and for whom libraries are cathedrals, today brought blessings.
In the oh so wonderful Strathclyde campus library, I spotted this board, which accompanied a generous Pride Month book display. It’s a tribute to Polari.
Polari was supposed to be ancient history, but it’s 2025. Hence the board.
Because these are the days when secret languages are needed again.
I hate that they are. But everything old is new again.
When I posted this to the socials, someone responded with a comment asking “Why do you think secret languages are needed again?” The best way for me to answer that question was to delete it.
Now think about that.
For more on Polari, there is an entire book, good fun, summarised here; you can do that or not, but fellow policy professionals really must read that same author’s book on Section 28, which I’ve previously recommended for its uncanny/terrifying parallels to our current raft of online safety legislation “for the children”. Both best purchased in paper at Queer Lit, Great Ancoats Street, Mcr. Someday, when we’re old, we’ll walk in there and buy the book about the new Polari which was born in 2025, because it had to be. Also, here’s a blog post on Polari as the modern data protection concept of data minimisation.
Mephistopheles and the original sin
Please appreciate the fact, dear readers, that after six years of shoveling coal into England’s dark satanic mills of regulatory hell, your faithful correspondent has sprouted an extra devil floating over her shoulder.