John Skiles Skinner

Software engineering manager of SecureDrop (npub1vvy…4kzm) at Freedom of the Press (npub1hxa…caxd)
Previously, 18F software engineer until we were "deleted" by DOGE

Website: https://skiles.blue
Pronouns: any!

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nprofile1qqsy8nynyd0lkemk6ytx9yarjm3sjln6hjkl06gk509a4fuxenennygpz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0dsgmn6jh

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nos.lol

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npub1g0xfxg6lldnhd5gkv2f689hrp9l8409d7l53dg7tm2ncdn8n8xgs9d2jju

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Last Notes

2026-01-31 03:11:50 GMT

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To target a "criminal or immigration nexus" the software pulls Americans' personal data from across the government, including data from Health and Human Services and other agencies unrelated to law enforcement.
How did ICE and Palantir get all this data together?

2026-01-31 03:11:11 GMT

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Dispatching ICE agents to hit "groups of pre-defined aliens specifically targeted by Leadership for action," the software allows the administration to order up a goon squad wherever they want, at the touch of a button.
Like Uber for authoritarians. Let's call it repression as a service.

2025-11-25 04:03:34 GMT

The "DOGE is gone" articles are clickbait but this one gets it closer to the truth: DOGE is not gone, it just claims to have "no centralized leadership" anymore — in other words, its leadership is hiding in an attempt to avoid blame.
https://www.nextgov.com/digital-government/2025/11/doge-no-longer-has-centralized-leadership-under-white-house-tech-team-personnel-head-says/409765/

2025-11-08 06:09:24 GMT

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I'll save you my soapbox about how Wikipedia's bureaucracy is superior to any real-world government and we should seriously think about implementing it at the national level. Suffice it to say, Wikipedia is my fave thing online and I hope I'll still be editing about 19th century roller skaters in 20 more years.

2025-11-08 06:08:01 GMT

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I believe "Grokipedia" is doomed.
Every Wikipedia article is shaped by the 3 core content policies:
1. Neutral point of view
2. No original research
3. Verifiability (my favorite)
Without policy to anchor the text, there's really no basis to reject any assertion, so no one can meaningfully edit. Grokipedia lacks this and so will fail for the same reason Conservapedia before it failed.

2025-11-08 06:05:45 GMT

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For years I've been fighting neo-Confederates who REALLY DO NOT want the term "white supremacist" to appear in the biography of the 1874 governor of Texas.
The trouble for them is: reliable sources say that Richard Coke *was* a white supremacist. The policy on Wikipedia is: reliable sources win!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Coke

2025-11-08 06:04:56 GMT

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The mechanism here is similar to the now-famous durability of one particular photo of a human penis. Once a good-enough image is in place, there's no longer a good justification to replace it. So it stays.
Consensus is Wikipedia's system of decision-making, and it is fundamentally stable.
https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/wikipedia-penis

2025-11-08 06:03:32 GMT

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I love how slow Wikipedia moves during controversy. For YEARS after the "GamerGate" harassment campaign, editors refused to give up the URL of the *original* meaning of the word: A gamergate is a kind of ant.
Without a consensus to the contrary, the ants keep it.
https://web.archive.org/web/20170916140417/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamergate

2025-11-08 06:02:45 GMT

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To write about the largest mass mailing in American history, "Understanding AIDS" in 1988, I visited an original copy in the Cornell Human Sexuality rare manuscript collection.
The brochure uses good science, kindness, and frank talk about sexuality — shockingly created by an Evangelical Christian.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Understanding_AIDS

2025-11-08 06:01:58 GMT

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I wrote up the first meteorite impact recorded with audio and video. "A near-death experience" for the homeowner who went out for a walk and narrowly missed the meteorite hitting the front sidewalk. The impact was captured on their front door security camera moments later.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlottetown_meteorite

2025-11-08 06:00:59 GMT

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Then there's the inspiring, embarrassing, inimitable Paul Swan. "The most beautiful man in the world" and maybe the queerest one. An unintentional inventor of Camp.
I had a lot of fun writing Swan's bio, even visiting a sculpture of his to snap a picture.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Swan_(dancer)

2025-11-08 06:00:12 GMT

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Remember the last innocent, joyful thing that happened on Twitter before Twitter became irredeemable? To me, it was the time the Library of Congress hooked Lizzo up with James Madison's crystal flute.
I co-wrote this article about the instrument and fought a battle about the definition of twerking.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_flute

2025-11-08 05:59:22 GMT

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His whole life is incredible, but what stays with me most is his retirement. A friend once told me this paragraph epitomizes a happy human life, well-lived.
https://s3-us-east-2.amazonaws.com/carhengeclub/media_attachments/files/115/512/543/980/860/554/original/b9fd207f41b3c660.png

2025-11-08 05:58:25 GMT

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Of the more than 60 articles I've written, this is probably my favorite one: the biography of Bright Star, aka Fred Murree, a Pawnee professional roller skater known in the 19th century as "the fastest man on wheels"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Murree

2025-11-08 05:57:38 GMT

As of today I have been a Wikipedia editor for 20 years
🧵of my favorite things I've seen and done in my two decades on the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit

2025-10-17 02:47:23 GMT

Is there a database of Trump administration crimes / allegations of crimes? Violations of administrative law like the Antideficiency Act, Hatch Act, and Privacy Act are pretty hard for most people to remember. Seems like we should be cataloging them somewhere.

2025-09-21 19:49:22 GMT

"six of her 13 children have died. Usman, 40, told CNN her most recent loss was in March, just days after a US-funded nutrition program that had provided therapeutic food packets to her malnourished twins was abruptly halted"
https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/21/africa/nigeria-malnutrition-crisis-usaid-intl
https://s3-us-east-2.amazonaws.com/carhengeclub/media_attachments/files/115/244/015/891/375/990/original/4228f3b51ae04bdc.jpg

2025-08-28 18:15:11 GMT

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Broken link, fyi

2025-08-17 04:08:00 GMT

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Finally, note: DOGE and the Trump administration are so opposed to remote work that they rushed CDC employees back to the office without active shooter training.
Other security measures failed because of staffing shortages. The shooter killed himself because no one else managed to.

2025-08-17 04:07:31 GMT

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Follow-up:
The CDC boss has attempted to improve communication about this. There have been some comms hiccups but considering her boss is RFK Jr., I find her openness and honesty brave.
https://archive.is/2025.08.12-214833/https://www.statnews.com/2025/08/12/cdc-all-hands-meeting-wake-of-gunman-attack/

2025-08-17 02:14:45 GMT

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This meme expresses the hopelessness that government workers feel. We are enemies of the people, according to our own bosses. Violence against us is tacitly (or explicitly) sanctioned.
Black-majority places, and public health workers, in particular.
https://s3-us-east-2.amazonaws.com/carhengeclub/media_attachments/files/115/041/688/081/920/904/original/fc80d1d4075f5ecc.jpeg

2025-08-17 02:13:47 GMT

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You know why CDC has blast-proof windows? A response to the Oklahoma city bombing, in 1995. That's how long the American right wing has been mass-killing federal workers.
The bombing followed the Gingrich Revolution of 1994, when hatred of government workers rushed into the political mainstream.

2025-08-17 02:13:21 GMT

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CDC leadership also hasn’t been very communicative. To be fair to them, their staff who would would have dealt with this situation were mostly fired by DOGE.
So my fellow civil servants at the CDC feel abandoned. They are hated with a murderous rage and no one cares.

2025-08-17 02:13:03 GMT

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Trump has made no comment. The White House has found the time to post a video of the arrest of that guy who threw a sandwich at a cop, but nothing about a cop killed defending the government's own employees.
Marjorie Taylor Greene, whose district includes parts of Atlanta, has also said nothing.

2025-08-17 02:12:45 GMT

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But a white guy with a COVID conspiracy manifesto isn't news at this point. After all, that’s who runs the government now!
The CDC is a part of Health & Human Services, headed by RFK Jr., whose conspiracy-addled ideology is indistinguishable from the motivations of this terrorist.
https://www.statnews.com/2025/08/15/cdc-shooting-january-6th-for-public-health/

2025-08-17 02:12:02 GMT

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Miraculously, he didn’t hit a single CDC employee! But he did kill David Rose, the police officer who responded, who leaves behind two children and a pregnant wife.
I can't help but imagine the vast attention this case would have received if the race of the shooter and the victim were reversed.
https://s3-us-east-2.amazonaws.com/carhengeclub/media_attachments/files/115/041/679/452/806/670/original/04b67a645403c30e.jpg

2025-08-17 02:11:32 GMT

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First the terrorist tried to enter campus in a car filled with guns. When he wasn't allowed past the gates, he started firing from a CVS drugstore across the street. From a semi-automatic weapon, 500 shots is a lot. He was at it for a long time.
Here are the weapons & shell casings he left behind.
https://s3-us-east-2.amazonaws.com/carhengeclub/media_attachments/files/115/041/674/016/870/194/original/b84cbb5ebdc0f82e.jpeg
https://s3-us-east-2.amazonaws.com/carhengeclub/media_attachments/files/115/041/674/032/484/132/original/759b195c1922c277.jpeg
https://s3-us-east-2.amazonaws.com/carhengeclub/media_attachments/files/115/041/674/014/521/556/original/3a3de7df742db618.jpeg

2025-08-17 02:09:48 GMT

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Here is video taken by an employee, caught outdoors when the shooting started, crouching behind a stone retaining wall
Content warning: gun shots, obviously
https://s3-us-east-2.amazonaws.com/carhengeclub/media_attachments/files/115/041/669/811/703/915/original/f08666e694078ef8.mp4

2025-08-17 02:09:11 GMT

A terrorist targeted federal workers last week. There wasn’t much reporting on it. But I’m not finished thinking about it! 🧵
An anti-vaxxer fired more than 500 gunshots into CDC Atlanta, shattering 150 "blast-proof" windows on 6 buildings. Employees were pinned down in terror.

2025-07-31 18:53:59 GMT

Most types of business exhibit linear growth. But VC will only fund exponential growth.
The result: companies that would create a lot of jobs and actually maintain their products never get funded and never start. If you must hire more to make more product, that's unacceptable linear growth.
We live in an exhausting VC hype machine because it's more profitable to repeatedly hype up and cash out of short-term exponential growth spurts than to build something real.
Paragraphs by [@Mer__edith](https://mastodon.world/@Mer__edith )
https://s3-us-east-2.amazonaws.com/carhengeclub/media_attachments/files/114/949/351/501/624/697/original/f6f904ecc7c221dd.jpg

2025-06-25 01:46:40 GMT

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This is familiar. I get harassed so much for the perception that I am gay that it prompted me to start to identify myself as genderqueer. Like the harassers must be picking up on *something* right? And perhaps I should give that thing a name? But maybe the thing is just general strangeness.

2025-06-17 01:47:13 GMT

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Today a federal judge recognized that DOGE's cancelling of grants is transparently discriminatory:
"I am hesitant to draw this conclusion, but I have an unflinching obligation to draw it – that this represents racial discrimination. And discrimination against America’s LGBTQ community. That’s what this is. I would be blind not to call it out."
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/06/16/judge-rebuke-trump-nih-cuts-00409095

2025-06-17 01:45:45 GMT

The majority of DOGE's "work" is to use LLMs to search federal grants for the keywords "LGBTQ," "BIPOC," and similar, and then to cancel those grants.
They are targeting minorities in the most literal, automated way. The outcomes of this are all over their own website:
https://s3-us-east-2.amazonaws.com/carhengeclub/media_attachments/files/114/696/161/023/437/669/original/de0bd9f9e8ce4741.png
https://s3-us-east-2.amazonaws.com/carhengeclub/media_attachments/files/114/696/161/040/889/149/original/d4b38868f2ea3d92.png
https://s3-us-east-2.amazonaws.com/carhengeclub/media_attachments/files/114/696/161/033/035/685/original/0657eb3bbaa0a0ea.png

2025-06-06 14:47:22 GMT

DOGE is a woodchipper
"Records show Lavingia programmed the AI system to make intricate judgments based on the first few pages of each contract — about the first 2,500 words — which contain only sparse summary information."
https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-doge-veterans-affairs-ai-contracts-health-care

2025-06-04 19:05:23 GMT

DOGE fired the people who built it, parasitized our organizations, and killed the project. But the Direct File codebase lives on. Paid for by American taxpayers, the code is yours.
https://www.404media.co/directfile-open-source-irs-tax-filing-software-turbotax-is-trying-to-kil/

2025-05-28 20:09:06 GMT

My 18F colleagues and I are fighting #DOGE. We swore an oath to uphold the Constitution and WE ARE NOT DONE.
https://18f.org/announcement-of-legal-challenge/

2025-05-11 01:10:13 GMT

I've been a doomer about DOGE data grabbing, but I'll admit it never occurred to me Musk could fire his way to stealing all copyrighted material ever
https://s3-us-east-2.amazonaws.com/carhengeclub/media_attachments/files/114/486/529/421/618/344/original/3f7e0bc43a216bde.jpg

2025-04-06 08:07:23 GMT

I taught a US citizenship class to South Sudanese refugees in Nebraska, 2006-2007. Fleeing civil war, they worked arduous jobs at a meat packing plant. Many had no literacy in any language.
But they studied hard for a citizenship exam which many native-born Americans would not be able to pass.
https://s3-us-east-2.amazonaws.com/carhengeclub/media_attachments/files/114/289/983/333/399/999/original/322a5f3527475b64.jpg

2025-03-22 00:09:55 GMT

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I believe the firings and the AI have the same purpose: to get humans out of the loop of evaluating contracts. To automate the process of spending government money. To rig up a computer that sends taxpayer dollars directly to the broligarchy. And to make sure democracy can't switch that computer off.

2025-03-22 00:09:14 GMT

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The AI's "plan" to simplify the FAR was generic and unusable, of course. But it is a subject that Ehikian and DOGE keep returning to: Contracting. Acquisition. The money.
They want to file the corners off of the process that regulates government spending. They want to consolidate all government contracts in one place. And put AI in charge.

2025-03-22 00:08:22 GMT

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On stage, Ehikian asked GSAi to "write me a plan to rewrite the FAR"
The FAR, Federal Acquisition Regulations, are laws that control how the gov't buys stuff. They are legendary in their complexity for a good reason: to prevent corruption. To protect taxpayer money from theft by beltway bandits.

2025-03-22 00:08:03 GMT

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Honestly: From the 2013 failure of healthcare.gov to today, the government *almost* learned how to build software. We were close. Then a bunch of white men in suits swooped in to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
Maybe they are just incompetent. But I think it's worse than that.

2025-03-22 00:07:44 GMT

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Listen: maybe I'm wrong and this is just the worst software deployment of my career, not actually a conspiracy against democracy.
Maybe these guys just don't see they are frittering away all product and service design knowledge in the agency. And don't even know that they lack this knowledge.

2025-03-22 00:07:25 GMT

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Together, these two faiths crave the end of American liberal democracy and government. You can smell it at GSA.
They won't replace us with AI because 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒚 𝒅𝒐𝒏'𝒕 𝒘𝒂𝒏𝒕 𝒕𝒐 𝒓𝒆𝒑𝒍𝒂𝒄𝒆 𝒖𝒔 𝒂𝒕 𝒂𝒍𝒍. They want our work to end. DOGE is firing us as fast as possible, and that is the whole plan.

2025-03-22 00:07:01 GMT

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There is a quasi-religion in Silicon Valley that views AI as godlike. This faith has always been parallel to Evangelical Christianity: it has salvation (transhumanism), the rapture (the technological singularity), and demons (Roko's Basilisk)
Lately the AI faith has fully fused with Christian Nationalism.

2025-03-22 00:06:18 GMT

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One viewer said "if this is the tool meant to replace us, thank God"
Everyone is afraid for their jobs, their projects, and their democracy. There is a widespread impression that AI is supposed to replace the people who are fired.
I actually don't think that's the plan. Let me explain:

2025-03-22 00:05:36 GMT

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While saying "this is incredible" over and over, Musk's GSA head Stephen Ehikian asked GSAi to "write me a website." The output was not compliant with federal law. It said "Welcome to Our Company" on it and did not resemble a federal website at all.
😟 This garbage demo had a terrified audience

2025-03-22 00:05:12 GMT

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As a fed, I am accustomed to knowledgeable and diverse coworkers who don't get snookered by the latest buzzwords.
But yesterday at GSA headquarters, 6 white guys in suits (one without a tie!) took the stage. They demo'd GSAi like it was pure magic to them.
https://www.wired.com/story/gsa-staff-all-hands-meeting-ai/

2025-03-22 00:04:00 GMT

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As my coworker explains in this demo, we knew AI's capability is limited
"The principle is to show you *not* that AI is great for everything, not to try to encourage you to stick AI into every product.... You can get yourself into trouble thinking that it can do things that it can't."
https://s3-us-east-2.amazonaws.com/carhengeclub/media_attachments/files/114/203/153/682/909/593/original/74f40089fcbec9d4.mp4

2025-03-22 00:03:29 GMT

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No one from the new admin wrote a single line of code for it. But GSAi has become their proud "AI-first strategy."
(Previously at my job, rather than AI or any tech we put *people* first. See 18F's work on "human-centered design.")

2025-03-22 00:02:30 GMT

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From Nov 2023 to Jan 2024 I worked on a tool we called the AI sandbox. Our goal: let federal software devs test out AI tools in a safe way, to discover if they have any use.
Renamed GSAi, the tool has been claimed by DOGE. It is being rolled out on an alarming accelerated schedule.

2025-03-22 00:02:11 GMT

I helped build a government AI system. DOGE fired me, rolled the AI out to the whole agency, and implied the AI can do my job and the jobs of the others they've fired.
It can't. But, what DOGE accidentally revealed about themselves in the process is fascinating. 🧵

2025-03-02 06:52:07 GMT

I got laid off today, with the rest of 18F.
18F was an elite federal software shop. We made gov't websites work better, more efficiently for the American people. We saved taxpayers from getting screwed over by contractors. And were fired for it.
We made this website to tell our story:
https://18f.org/

2025-01-25 23:23:40 GMT

* Waste queer-phobes' money
* Speak in a way broligarchs cannot control
* Hack the planet 🌎
https://johnskinnerportfolio.com/blog/domain_name_battlefield/
My article in @npub19he…ynqw Magazine

2024-11-05 16:31:17 GMT

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nice! An impressive references list