How does censorship of science fit into broader US censorship? Excellent year in review by @attorneynora.bsky.social: "Acts of resistance have blunted the potency of Trump’s censorship campaign... Unquestionably, more and more Americans are rejecting his overreach." www.nytimes.com/2025/12/31/o...

The lawmakers who enacted Art. 40.12 were in *no mood* to give platforms gatekeeper power over transparency. The whole point of 40.12 was to unleash what @ethanz.bsky.social calls "unpermissioned" research using public data. Do not let platforms interpret the law to put them back in charge again .

My friend Isaac Brickman of @officehourspodcast.bsky.social and I have a new article out on middleware in the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science: journals.sagepub.com/eprint/JMYZ3...

Thank goodness we can finally rely on an AI that accurately cites academic texts and never makes shit up. (JK. Read the whole thread.)

You can do this right now: Think of a person who wrote a paper you love, whose work influenced or helped you, or has made your professional life better. Search up their email address. Shoot them a quick email of thanks. It means so, so much. This is a rough time of year, share some joy.

great piece from @ethanz.bsky.social on grokipedia: "it promises a backward-looking dystopia where one conspiracy-minded individual can overturn established knowledge, and where all other individual voices eventually blur into one opaque voice." www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/ideas/techno...

Elon Musk loves to hate on “Wokepedia”. But on Grokipedia, his AI-powered rival, neutrality is whatever the X CEO says it is, writes @ethanz.bsky.social.

Sobre el paper de la IA (i els LLM) en l'hegemonia cultural, molt més enllà dels biaixos. De Gramsci a Grok a les llengües minoritzades a Internet. @ethanz.bsky.social : "Gramsci’s Nightmare: AI, Platform Power and the Automation of Cultural Hegemony" ethanzuckerman.com/2025/12/05/g...

I gave a new talk on AI, cultural hegemony and the importance of the digital survival of "small" languages online this past Tuesday at University of Copenhagen. Notes and partial slides now online: ethanzuckerman.com/2025/12/05/g...

Giving a somewhat unusual talk for me tomorrow - it's on what Antonio Gramsci might have thought about large language models, leading off a new series at University of Copenhagen on AI and Democracy. On zoom at 9am Boston time: cpai.ku.dk/events/grams...

Watch the full panel on building democratic tech, featuring @ivansigal.bsky.social, @ethanz.bsky.social, and Mark Surman here: youtu.be/2pAoDrr8-Mg?...

45! 47! Blue 42! Blue 42! Hike!

I'm co-leading a "teach in" with leaders of Surveillance Watch, a terrific project fighting against corporate and government surveillance, tomorrow at 1:30pm. It's online, and you're welcome to sign up here: umass-amherst.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

Australia has so much solar generation capacity that it's offering customers free electricity for three hours in the middle of the day: electrek.co/2025/11/04/a...

I'm here outside Speaker Johnson’s office because he is starving families and gutting health care to cover up the Epstein Files. Change my mind.

This story in the Boston Globe that quotes @ethanz.bsky.social reminds me of the fascinating story over the last decade of how to moderate dopers who cheat their way onto the leaderboards of online sports platforms like Strava (1/n) www.bostonglobe.com/2025/11/01/b...

Liveblogging from BU MISI: Communicating Climate. Cass Sunstein believes we need to communicate about climate with emotion, but with less blame and shame: ethanzuckerman.com/2025/11/07/h...

One analytical model shows that, as of November 5th, the dismantling of U.S.A.I.D. has already caused the deaths of 600,000 people, two-thirds of them children. https://newyorkermag.visitlink.me/jUzNSc

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...