Small social networks like Strava are having a moment, according to Aidan Ryan in the Boston Globe: www.bostonglobe.com/2025/11/01/b...

Friend and colleague Ryan McGrady has an excellent piece in Tech Policy Press on Grokipedia. Rather than excoriating the new project for Elon worship (true, but hardly interesting), he looks into how Grokipedia redefines sources for encyclopedic knowledge: www.techpolicy.press/with-grokipe...

Journalism has been facing existential threats from technological advances for a while now, but the rise of AI could be a knockout blow unless we're thoughtful and proactive: www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/ideas/techno...

"It feels less like incidental inclusion and more like large-scale extraction of intellectual property without consent.” www.niemanlab.org/2025/10/hund...

Important note on journalism by @ethanz.bsky.social. Generative AI and chatbots challenge democracy: But (public service) journalism and fact-checking, "tools for anchoring debate in a shared reality—must continue to be financially viable and available" www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/ideas/techno...

My latest column in Prospect: Don't worry about AI video destroying democracy. AI's destruction of the journalism business is a much more serious threat: www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/ideas/techno...

As the #climatecrisis quickens, so does mis/disinformation. How to move forward? Join us at the (free!) @misibu.bsky.social Summit: Communicating Climate, Fri. 11/7 featuring @mikegrunwald.bsky.social, @casssunstein.bsky.social, @ethanz.bsky.social & so many more combeyond.bu.edu/offering/mis...

From day two of Attention: Govern or Be Governed in Montreal Gary Marcus on why not just chatbots, but LLMs as an approach to AI, are likely overhyped. ethanzuckerman.com/2025/10/24/g...

Govern or Be Governed: Donald Trump will Seek an Unconstitutional Third Term: ethanzuckerman.com/2025/10/24/g...

Govern or Be Governed: Donald Trump will Seek an Unconstitutional Third Term: ethanzuckerman.com/2025/10/24/g...

Govern or Be Governed: Donald Trump will Seek an Unconstitutional Third Term: ethanzuckerman.com/2025/10/24/g...

From Attention: Govern or Be Governed in Montreal, Day 2 Whistleblower Miles Taylor predicts that Trump will seek an unconstitutional third term in office ethanzuckerman.com/2025/10/24/g...

From Attention: Govern or Be Governed in Montreal, Day 2 Meetali Jain and Megan Garcia on the possible psychological harm of chatbots. (This was the best panel of the conference, IMHO) ethanzuckerman.com/2025/10/24/g...

From Attention: Govern or Be Governed in Montreal, Day 1 Jameel Jaffer, Imran Ahmed and Kate Klonick on threats to online speech ethanzuckerman.com/2025/10/23/g...

From Attention: Govern or Be Governed in Montreal: Gary Marcus believes that not only are chatbots overhyped, he's bearish on neural network approaches to AI as a whole ethanzuckerman.com/2025/10/24/g...

From Attention: Govern or Be Governed in Montreal: Cory Doctorow's strategy for a Canadian trade war on the United States: ethanzuckerman.com/2025/10/24/c...

Protecting creativity is part of protecting democracy: Baroness Kidron on AI and copyright at Govern or Be Governed: ethanzuckerman.com/2025/10/23/g...

Frank McCourt believes data is a human right and a property right. (I'm just transcribing here.) His talk at Govern or Be Governed Montreal: ethanzuckerman.com/2025/10/23/f...

As usual, @stephenharrison.com has a great community-focused take on the #WikiConferenceNA incident this weekend (something I say even when I'm not quoted in the article). slate.com/technology/2... @slate.com

I'm liveblogging today at the Govern or Be Governed conference in Montreal today and tomorrow. Impressed with the opening speech by EU Commissioner Michael McGrath: ethanzuckerman.com/2025/10/23/g...

Take note of all these people turning out for protests in small towns in red states. Remember them the next time you’re inclined to write an area off because “they voted for this.”

[email protected]'s and my kid gave the closing speech at today's #NoKings rally in #NorthAdams and I may be biased but I think he rocked it. On insta here: www.instagram.com/p/DP9VrbSjY4C/

🟡 My report on Public Service Media and Democracy in the Digital Age, ft. insights from leading thinkers @ethanz.bsky.social @idpiumass.bsky.social @publicspaces.net @angelquicksey.bsky.social @newpublic.org @vpro.nl @felixsimon.bsky.social @reutersinstitute.bsky.social @zizip.bsky.social 🟡

High school students are using the Media Cloud database to map ICE activity around the US via news reports at icemap.dev ethanzuckerman.com/2025/10/16/t...

Just caught an amazing talk by amac - Alex MacGillivray - at UMass Amherst on regulating the actual harms of AI, not just science fiction fantasies: ethanzuckerman.com/2025/10/08/a... #umass #umassamherst

This is the obvious absurdity of pulling ICEBlock. It is obviously legal, protected speech for anyone to say, in any forum, “I just witnessed some police activity at location X”. Indeed, people have been doing this regularly on social media since its inception.

Training AI doesn’t only depend on data but on the way humans, with all our drives and flaws, interact with it, writes @ethanz.bsky.social. And is that really destined to improve?

There’s no guarantees that LLMs keep getting better - just look at search engines: www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/ideas/techno...

Today we also celebrate the launch of our new podcast season "Internet Futures". In the first episode @fergallenehan.bsky.social and Luisa Conti discuss random archives, global YouTube and rewiring the Net with @ethanz.bsky.social. Stay tuned for episode 2 next week! letscast.fm/sites/redico...

My #UMass friend and colleague Jamie Rowan has a new book coming out about Veterans Treatment Courts, a "problem solving" court that helps veterans access VA medical and social services in resolution of cases concerning drug abuse and mental health issues.

My #UMassAmherst colleagues Jen Lundquist and Kathy Forde ran a great workshop - "Reclaim the Narrative" at UMass last week on helping university staff and faculty tell stories about the importance of the work we do for our students and for society as a whole.

Thrilled that Alaa will be free. Heartbroken at the costs paid by his family and everyone that loves him: www.theguardian.com/world/2025/s...

Our latest issue is out! featuring @benansell.bsky.social on left populism, @jenstout.bsky.social on landmines, @jamesball.bsky.social on big data, @ethanz.bsky.social on how tech used to be progressive, @sarahelizacollins.bsky.social on goodbyes and yours truly on the new-not-so-new misogyny

We used to think technology was inherently liberatory. Now it’s empowering corporations and conmen, writes @ethanz.bsky.social.

Terrific thread from my friend and colleague Ryan McGrady, who studies Wikimedia closely and knows a lot about what information is available (and not available) to respond to this (chilling, stupid, threatening) information request from the House committee on intimidating academics.

We used to think technology was inherently liberatory. Now it’s empowering corporations and conmen, writes @ethanz.bsky.social

The tech world's lurch to the right is the subject of my latest column for Prospect: www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/ideas/techno... - it offers a super-brief history from the Whole Earth Catalog to cryptoconmen and anti-labor AI.

For two decades, Global Voices has amplified the voices of people from all around the world, making it possible to hear perspectives usually left out of the news. @ethanz.bsky.social #KeepGVStrong

I wrote an article about linguistic bias and the internet for the BBC, based on a paper @ze.vin, @ethanz.bsky.social, and I wrote comparing four language-specific samples of YouTube. www.bbc.com/future/artic...

"These are not normal times. and these are not my normal job duties." My friend Catherine d'Ignazio describes being a professor under state terrorism, a description that resonates with my experience as well: academeblog.org/2025/08/05/h...

Lots of fun and worthwhile stuff on this thread - thanks for amplifying the Reimagining the Internet interview with Alondra Nelson!

Fun: @ethanz.bsky.social crunched data on restaurants in 340 American cities ... ... to see which towns have "statistically improbable" cuisine i.e. which towns have unexpected concentrations of Lebanese food? Item #3 in my latest "Linkfest" newsletter, free here: buttondown.com/clivethompso...

August is here, and with it my 236th #ScholarSunday thread of great public scholarly writing & work, podcast episodes, new & forthcoming books from the past week. Add more below, share widely, & enjoy, all! 🗃️ + americanstudier.substack.com/p/scholarsun...

"It’s a dark & difficult time in the world right now. @globalvoices.org has long represented a vision of how the world could be different. We could listen carefully to one another, to understand our world from multiple points of view." by @ethanz.bsky.social ethanzuckerman.com/2025/07/30/k...

Recommend this podcast with @alondra.bsky.social and @ethanz.bsky.social. Read the remarks they discussed- "Three Fallacies: Alondra Nelson's Remarks at the Elysée Palace on the Occasion of the AI Action Summit"- here: www.techpolicy.press/three-fallac...

I admire the hell out of @globalvoices.org -- always have. I made a small donation because that's what little I can do. I commend this org to all of y'all -- they do amazing work that's even more important now than it was 20 yrs ago. Give if you can.

What an pleasure to join @ethanz.bsky.social for what may be the final episode of the Reimagining the Internet podcast. Congrats and thank you for creating space for essential discussions about AI governance--including auditing, the role of expertise in democracy, and the "Three Fallacies" of AI.

Important post from @ethanz.bsky.social about what we're trying to do at @globalvoices.org - and how you can help ethanzuckerman.com/2025/07/30/k...

For two decades, Global Voices has done something uncommon and vitally important: it’s amplified voices of people from all around the world, making it possible to hear perspectives usually left out of the news. We’ve done this work for over twenty years, powered by volunteer writers and translators,

This is probably the last episode of "Reimagining the Internet", the podcast Mike Sugarman and I have produced for the last five years. Talk about going out on a high note: I interview Alondra Nelson on AI, universities and the Trump administration: publicinfrastructure.org/podcast/117-...