"All our staff got out safely. But that group probably lost more than 50 family members. Every single one of them had their house destroyed and some would appear to have been targeted strikes" AFP's Phil Chetwynd on AFP's staff journalists in Gaza reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/news/starved...

AI does appear to be rapidly accelerating human selection of the fittest…. except it’s doing it by straight-up killing people who rely on ChatGPT to plan dangerous trips, not by improving human cognition like the techbros want us to believe:

I realize that even just reposting this interesting piece adds to the environmental pressures created by AI :(

It’s important to pay for local journalism but not like this. www.thecity.nyc/2025/08/20/w...

The story of Andrew Carnegie’s libraries, originally created to spur the "diffusion of knowledge," has resonance in our present digital age, where information is both readily abundant and increasingly scarce or inaccessible, Stefaan Verhulst writes.

Top Republicans and US tech leaders are ramping up a pressure campaign against the EU’s platform regulations, calling it foreign “censorship.” Tech Policy Press unpacks how Washington and Silicon Valley are working to sway Brussels on softening enforcement.

I believe one of the new mRNA vaccines was expected to treat colon cancer, and another had the potential to keep pancreatic cancer from recurring. That’s what they’re taking away.

If you think a golden ballroom is more important than childhood cancer research… I have nothing left to say to you. Please unfollow me. #pediatriccancer #cancermom

The sad outcome of utterly stupid short-sightedness deadline.com/2025/08/corp...

lol

From @nytopinion.nytimes.com “There is no excuse for the world to stand by and watch two million human beings suffer on the brink of full-blown famine,” the chef José Andrés writes about Gaza.

POLITICO compiled a list of all the Washington Post staffers who have left in the past eight months. It’s at least a hundred names, many of them among the biggest names in journalism. This is the fastest erosion of a major outlet ever.

He was the last SS guard, about to be tried when he died at 100. Let this warn the ICE agents who think they are only guards, following orders. Your masked crimes against humans and humanity will mark you to the end of your days. The Last SS Guard @zeit.de www.zeit.de/gesellschaft...

His communication skls are next level - as cool as his political agenda! @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social #nycmayoralrace

If you are a taxpayer in the United States of America, as I am, you are paying for this.

Bye! #vote @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social #nycmayorelections

Consider supporting, especially local stations under threat of closing down #npr #pbs #publicmedia

Organized solidarity

“When asked directly whether he could guarantee under oath that French citizen data would never be transmitted to US authorities without explicit French authorization, [Microsoft France's director of public and legal affairs Anton] Carniaux responded: ‘No, I cannot guarantee it.’”

Call your representatives! bsky.app/profile/navy...

“When they build a camp where they [plan to] ‘clean’ more than half of Gaza, then the inevitable understanding of the strategy of this [is that] it is not to save [Palestinians]. It is to deport them, to push them and to throw them away. There is no other understanding that I have, at least.”

Ex-farm worker here. We need to talk about this whole "But a living wage for farm workers would spike the cost of food!" thing. Not true AT ALL. Y'all don't understand how fast experienced farm workers are. The average tomato picker pulls 650lbs per hour. At $20/hr, that's $0.03/lb for labor.

Pierre at his finest!

Never before in the history of this nation has such a large redistribution of income been directed upward, for no reason at all

Oh wow

Advocacy in Myanmar, Thailand, and Cambodia shows that Global South demands gain traction in platform governance when they align with Western priorities, are amplified by international allies, and build trust with marginalized communities, writes Mai Van Tran.

Too many legacy media are complicit www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

We spent so long treating Americans data like a profit center and not a right that no one is terrified enough at this gross attack on our civil liberties www.nytimes.com/2025/06/06/u...

Americans from across the political spectrum do not subscribe to the notion of a biased PBS. (@christopherali.bsky.social‬ @hildevdb.bsky.social @jonkropko.bsky.social‬ @niemanlab.org) More, via Opinion Today: opiniontoday.substack.com/p/250605-top...

Exciting news today! This morning @hildevdb.bsky.social @jonkropko.bsky.social and I published an article in Current - the premiere publication for public media - about our research on trust and @pbs.org!! current.org/2025/06/stud...

Kirjan työryhmä: Marko Ampuja, Hannu Nieminen, @neuvoton.bsky.social , @hildevdb.bsky.social , Tim Raats, Heikki Hellman, @aslama.bsky.social, Marjaana Mykkanen, Mervi Pantti, Matleena Ylikoski & @mtkopon.bsky.social Rahoittaja: @strateginen.bsky.social

La deuxième journée d’étude du GER Fans, sur le thème “Fans et fandoms en transition(s)” se déroulera en ligne le mardi 17 juin, de 9h30 à 17h45 ! Pensez à vous inscrire pour recevoir le lien de connexion. gref.hypotheses.org/519

So happy about this excellend collaboration with @christopherali.bsky.social and @jonkropko.bsky.social - and thank you @mjanssen.bsky.social at Current for the opportunity #pbs #publicmedia

A must-read report form @dmehro.bsky.social that @wired.com made free to read because it is based on government documents (it's their policy to make FOIA-based reporting free as well). Thank you for making important journalism based on public records available to all.

NPR sued President Trump on Tuesday over his executive order that aims to end federal funding for NPR and PBS. The lawsuit said Trump’s order violated the Constitution and the First Amendment’s protections for freedom of speech. nyti.ms/3FAAM98

“Sesame Street” has found itself a new home. Netflix announced that the decades-old public educational television program will premiere its 56th season on the global streaming giant, along with 90 hours of previous episodes.

This is a good and important thread. The Trump FCC wants to exploit real problems (media consolidation, retransmission fee fights) to concoct a fake solution whose primary function is to coddle right wing propaganda broadcasters like Sinclair and stifle critical local journalism

Watching a 'civilisation' self-destruct in real time, is not the popcorn-in-reclining-seat moment you thought it would be #depressing www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Soooo happy with this outcome (ánd the colab!!!)

Def worth a read!

🚨Report your NSF grant terminations! 🚨 We are starting to collect information on NSF grant terminations to create a shared resource as we have for NIH. The more information we collect, the more we can organize, advocate, and fight back! Please share widely! airtable.com/appGKlSVeXni...

“The Trump administration’s attempt to deny due process is especially galling because the man who leads it has benefited from—some might say exploited—his own right to due process so extensively and so recently,” @dgraham.bsky.social writes in the Atlantic Daily:

... aaaaand back to more terrible news

Some tiny bit of good news

No words 😞

Big Journalism (esp. @nytimes.com) failed to adequately & accurately cover the #handsoff pro-democracy demonstrations. Local outlets did *much* better. Newsroom leaders need to defend democracy from autocracy. Read our latest blog post. 1/n mediaanddemocracyproject.substack.com/p/local-news...