To begin the week, I was lucky to spend my second weekend in London attending one of the best-organized protests I’ve ever attended – Act Up London’s protest against anti-LGBT action which took place in the Hampstead Heath. I say “protest” loosely, as it featured talks against the many injustices of the world from many different and vibrant speakers, but this was ultimately a celebration of London’s radical queer community in general. It was nicknamed the “George Michael”, after the late London-born singer in WHAM!, and the latter half of this annual gathering is just a music- and laughter-filled party in a space well-known to London’s queers for decades, if not over a century. Of course, the police simply had to shut it down – the banners proclaiming that we should avoid war and protect trans lives were deemed “litter” despite the fact that these banners were picked up afterward – but it was very worthwhile as it was.

This week, I properly began my LiA project – creating foundational resources to aid in the fight against misogynistic AI tools which produce fabricated intimate images of real women without their consent. Though I had an idea of what I wanted to look into (that is, how do people keep gaining access to these softwares even after they are “taken down” by governments and platforms), figuring out how I could do that was the task of this week. I spoke to my colleagues about various methodologies I could employ to get to the heart of the issue without wasting too much of my brief time at the ISD, and found that I could use ISD’s access to data-scraping software to achieve this.