Reality is just absurd now. Tathony house, where the former tenants were fighting eviction (Jack Power & I wrote articles about it at the time) is now being set up as homeless accommodation under the new owners (great reporting from Dub Inquirer team) www.dublininquirer.com/time-and-aga...

wow, they released the files and it turns out JFK was still alive until just a few years ago, living in an old folks home in rural Texas alongside Elvis Presley

They're called public records for a reason. Starting today, WIRED will *stop paywalling* articles that are primarily based on public records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, becoming the first publication to partner with @freedom.press to offer this for our new coverage.

The first issue of False Flag, my new newsletter on right-wing media for @thebulwark.bsky.social, is coming out this morning! Sign up to get it here: www.thebulwark.com/newsletters

I wrote about Irishness, sort of www.irishtimes.com/life-style/p...

Some news: I'm starting a new job at @thebulwark.bsky.social, where I'll be writing a newsletter twice a week on right-wing media and conspiracy theories. It's exciting! Here's the announcement in today's Reliable Sources newsletter:

Sure looks like Google News caught the Latin Times using a large language model to write an article picking up on my latest report

This has aged so weirdly youtu.be/a2GVxYfKSxA?...

Mark Zuckerberg has invented Bluesky

The entire staff of 60 Minutes should resign. This would be a dangerous, historic act of cowardice. It requires an extraordinary, historic response. www.nytimes.com/2025/01/30/b...

Thousands of datasets have disappeared from data.gov. Determining what's gone, why it's gone, and whether it moved elsewhere will to take time. Things are definitely being purged but archivists working hard to determine exactly what has happened to a given dataset www.404media.co/archivists-w...

Spent this week looking at the digital footprint of Cameron Finnigan, the Sussex teenager convicted for crimes relating to his involvement with the the esoteric nazi abuse network 764. 1/? news.sky.com/story/inside...

Someone has scraped the data of my voice and is using A.i to create a replica of me to promote scams

“Every wildfire is accused of not being a wildfire, but a planned attack to further sinister ends.” Read @annamerlan.bsky.social’s first-person account of living through devastating wildfires while trying to report on the disinformation about them.

We lost our house in the Eaton Fire. We're safe, but the level of devastation is impossible to convey. I won't be able to work for a while, so if you want to support us, I'd appreciate a Patreon subscription or buying one of my books. It will help. www.patreon.com/MikeRothschild

Many useful Community Notes on X cite as evidence articles researched and published by traditional fact-checking organisations around the world, the very same ones that it's now fashionable to call useless, biased and unreliable.

A big one today with @mikecaulfield.bsky.social. It's about Jan 6th but its really about trying to diagnose what precisely is broken about our information ecosystem and why everything feels so stuck. It's about how the internet is a justification machine. www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...

while everyone else was busy writing slop articles about how adrian dittmann sounds like elon musk i decided to actually find him. investigation with @jsweetli.bsky.social and @ryan.staticnoi.se thespectator.com/topic/real-a...

A lot of people are frustrated because everything is a scam, from airlines to Google, now. It's unbelievably irritating that they voted for the biggest scammer of them all. But we're so awash in scams, that it's not surprising Trump hides in plain sight. People can't tell scam from not-scam.

I don’t know if I believe in omens but

❌ Three fake screenshots mimicking Trump's Truth Social have appeared on Bluesky (and other platforms), posing as posts on a rift between the president-elect and Elon Musk. All three of these posts are fake.

I’ve been listening to In Winter by the Unthanks a lot lately. It’s perfect for people who like Christmas but also have seasonal affective disorder.

Thirst discourse around the CEO shooter reminding me of reading Manhunt: The 12 Day Hunt for Lincoln’s Killer many years ago and being struck by how hot John Wilkes Booth was perceived to be by many.

And he's suspended. Gotta be the shortest time it has ever taken for a TD to be suspended from a Parliamentary Party following their election, right?

Did you miss my article going on about verification and misinformation on this here Bluesky? Well, now it's in handy video form. Which means I really can say this time, "me, has this report".

🧵A Day 2 update on how far-right candidates are doing in #GE24. Some high-profile names have fallen this morning, including Independents Gavin Pepper (Dublin North-West), Dolores Webster and Phil Sutcliffe (Dublin South Central) and Stephen Kerr (Mayo)...

It will be overshadowed by the election but the story circulating about an unprovoked assault on a Jewish student a few weeks ago has now been confirmed in the IT

I did a quick mid-count reaction to #GE24 last night Looks like Ireland bucked the global trend of incumbents crashing & burning in 2024 Was it the Multinational cash? Or something else? www.thebriefing.ie/has-ireland-...

Eoin O’Broin elected with a surplus of votes, but Eoin O’Broin could still get a seat if he picks up transfers from Eoin O’Broin #GE24

Been following #ge24 all day and the difference between X and Bluesky is uh stark.

🧵 How far-right/National Alliance candidates are doing based on mid-morning tallies #GE24. These will likely have changed by the time most people read them, but give an indication of the state of play this morn. Have also omitted some candidates in constituencies where no data was available yet.

I’m covering the count in Louth, which has the longest ballot paper in the country. There are a record 24 candidates running in the constituency. I’ll be reporting updates for The Irish Times. #Election2024 #GE24

Irish far-right accounts on X have already started to seed a 'stop the steal' narrative around #GE24 - this time it's more focused on ID fraud than the 'foreign interference' claims we saw during the locals and Europeans in June (though there are still efforts to push that narrative too).

Today is my first general election as an Irish citizen. It is staggering to me just how much more democratic Ireland’s voting system is than the country I grew up in, the US, where the binary is really the only choice. 1/4

Irish democracy thrown into disarray due to widespread voter confusion after @gavreilly.com accidentally eats all of his Skittles

Who’s behind a website and social media accounts ratcheting up support for anti-immigration candidates standing in Ireland? Read more here: dublininquirer.com/2024/11/27/w...

I’ve a round up of the digital campaign for #GE24 in the Irish Times; some nuggets > FF have an attack ad on SF housing they don’t want Dubs to see > Harris uploaded 60 TikToks in 2.5 wks, plus 45 to LinkedIn, yet viral moment dominate > IFP go big on YT ads www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2024...

With rhetoric mirroring the US “Stop the Steal” movement, claims of election fraud in Ireland’s local & European elections gained millions of views. ISD’s new report analyses the trends and how they may affect Ireland’s upcoming general election. ow.ly/Nc0c50UfOiv

www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2024...

The problem is this authora & many others don't realise that you cannot compare X to Twitter, X to Bsky. When I log into X I am presented with hate speech, terrorist content, gore, mass shooter videos. Bsky and its community is not an echo chamber for refusing to accept this content in our feeds.

We teamed up with @seanadavis.bsky.social of @logicallyfacts.bsky.social on this recap of 6️⃣ viral falsehoods about the presidential election that focuses on these specific types of #misinformation: - fabricated content - manipulated content - tricks of context Check it out bit.ly/Election24Fa...

Nice one @ascottreid.bsky.social

Post a perfect album from the 90s that isn't Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Alice in Chains or Soundgarden

I had 60,000 followers on Twitter after 14 years on the site. I have 30,000 after maybe a year here. If journalists are looking for a place to build back up a coherent reading audience that’s actually engaging with our work, this place obviously seems like it has that particular juice

Scientology has recruited hundreds of asylum seekers in Ireland to use as free labour. In return, the 'volunteers' receive certificates they are told will help in their asylum applications. Legal experts told us these certs are worthless. www.irishtimes.com/ireland/soci...

🧵 I’ll be keeping track of claims that pop up here, on Bluesky. I’ve seen this claim surface with some taking it seriously. Mexico’s President didn’t announce that if the Trump administration deports Mexican immigrants that they would deport American immigrants from Mexico in response.

Starter pack for those working on misinfo, disinfo, information integrity, digital authoritarianism, propaganda etc. Definitely a work in progress, reply if you want to be added! go.bsky.app/V4Po9wB

Interesting to see which Irish political parties have started posting here and who haven’t.