Fergus Ryan

@fergus.bsky.social

3616 Followers 1495 Following

Wordcel, aspiring prompt engineer & China analyst. 📨 Tips & anon feedback: https://www.admonymous.co/fergus-ryan 🧧 Read my newsletter: http://redpacket.substack.com 📱 Signal: fergus.99

KCNA: Kim Jong-un inspected an important munitions factory under the Second Economic Committee and learned about the status of weapons production.

Screenshot of a Washington Post article quoting Fergus Ryan (me) saying Chinese AI systems have global ambitions and that without understanding how they’re shaped, “we risk importing censorship and political control hidden inside the technology itself.”

Falun Gong practitioners meditating in a 2009 London protest in front of a banner reading “The world needs Truth, Compassion, Tolerance”. Used in Chapter 1 to show how Chinese LLMs describe Falun Gong very differently depending on language, often adopting state-aligned framing in Chinese.

Screenshot of a Chinese LLM analysing the Tank Man photo. The model warns it must “be careful”, acknowledges the image is politically sensitive, and avoids historical context — an example from Chapter 1 showing how Chinese LLMs self-censor sensitive images.

A circular chart showing China’s official AI-safety taxonomy: 31 categories of “unsafe” content, dominated by violations of “core socialist values”. Used in Chapter 1 to show how these categories shape censorship in Chinese LLMs. For more, see Chapter 1.

Cover of ASPI’s “The Party’s AI”. A lone man stands on a road where tanks should be, but they’ve been erased, mirroring how Chinese LLMs censor sensitive images. For more, see Chapter 1.

"That evening, in the Epstein dining room (he seems rarely to use the rest of the house's 50,000 square feet), there is a small cocktail party, which includes the former Prime Minister of Australian, Kevin Rudd, and Thorbjørn Jagland, the head of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee, who offers an affable, but generally scathing, critique of U.S. diplomacy (and a brief defense of Obama's Peace Prize award) and to whom Epstein offers a ride back to Europe on his jet."

That pink one in the middle.

But at this point the most salient fact now seems clear. Kirk was widely reviled on the left for his often noxious rhetoric about minorities in general and trans people in particular, and a person with a particular interest in sticking up for trans people shot him for it.

To deny this now is not just an act of willful blindness, it is deeply counterproductive. If we want to confront the problems of political violence—from the radicalization of our youth, to the toxicity of online culture and discourse, to the heightened possibility for damage in a nation awash with guns—we must first recognize how far the problem has spread, and to whom.

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A post on X (formerly Twitter) from the account "Special Envoy for Peace Missions Steve Witkoff (@SEPeaceMissions)" dated July 25, 2025. It reads:

> "We have decided to bring our team home from Doha for consultations after the latest response from Hamas, which clearly shows a lack of desire to reach a ceasefire in Gaza. While the mediators have made a great effort, Hamas does not appear to be coordinated or acting in good faith. We will now consider alternative options to bring the hostages home and try to create a more stable environment for the people of Gaza. It is a shame that Hamas has acted in this selfish way. We are resolute in seeking an end to this conflict and a permanent peace in Gaza."

The post has 1.6 million views.

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Screenshot of a Guardian Australia article titled “Australian reporters in Beijing for PM visit stopped by Chinese security guards, questioned about visas.” The article reports that journalists from major Australian networks, including the ABC and SBS, were filming in Beijing when they were approached and blocked by Chinese security guards. The ABC’s Stephen Dziedzic says they were filming at a tourist landmark and had the proper permissions, but were still surrounded and told they couldn’t leave. A photo of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is included, with a caption stating he arrived in Beijing on Monday.

Alt text: Screenshot of a Reddit post from the r/China subreddit by user u/GumTeesAndPandas, titled “I worked for Chinese state media for many years, AMA.” The post is marked with a yellow tag that says “未核实 | Unverified.” The user writes that they worked for Chinese state media for several years, spanning from the end of the Hu Jintao era—when there was more (though still limited) media freedom—through to Xi Jinping’s third term, implying a significant decline in press freedom over time.