"...Donald Trump is the enshittifier-in-chief. Under his second Administration, scientific research, diplomacy, corporate watchdogging, and social services have all gotten worse. The beneficiary, of course, is largely Trump himself."

Jane Goodall was my first childhood hero, as I loved animals as a kid and was inspired by her story. I still remember the National Geographic specials about her. RIP.

Social Media, Democracy, and Violence in South Asia: Background Note www.linkedin.com/pulse/social... (LinkedIn) sanjanah.wordpress.com/2025/10/01/s... (WordPress)

OpenAI employees are very excited about how well their new AI tool can create fake videos of people doing crimes and have definitely thought through all the implications of this

from @brianklaas.bsky.social, "a dystopian America, where people blame everything but the real cause: a country awash with unlimited guns" www.forkingpaths.co/p/guns-at-an...

Observe the shared signalling, & semantic similarities in what a white supremacist - true to form - notes, & what a leading government minister avers. What was once relegated to margins, & related to outright terrorism now mainstream political discourse, & platformed publicly on podcasts every week.

*All* of the key themes noted in this @theguardian.com investigation are present, entrenched, & growing in New Zealand's leading far-right, evangelical Christian, anti-establishment, and anti-vaccine Facebook account constellations - extending to Twitter/X, YouTube, & Telegram.

Good to see mainstream media also highlight the threat VFF poses to New Zealand's liberal-democratic firmament, though it's much, much greater than presented in this article. | Behind the boring promises: the protesters trying to reshape local democracy www.thepost.co.nz/politics/360...

"Recent studies reach a similar conclusion: cable news and social media platforms share a key characteristic: both give disproportionate prominence to extreme views & culture-war topics, with measurable consequences for politics and society.⁠" Financial Times video. www.instagram.com/reel/DPD0e_n...

What Sri Lankans negotiated, saw the rise, & expansion of from 1977 onwards (esp. after the anti-Tamil pogrom in July 1983), the US is now experiencing the accelerated entrenchment of, on a weekly basis. It's something else to witness by those of us who know, through profound loss, where this leads.

bit by bit, the administration is laying the groundwork and actually carrying out a system of repressing democratic life in america. redefining opposition as terrorism, targeting critics, investigating civic funders. we're so far beyond normal and, again, only eight months in.

Microsoft blocks Israel’s use of its technology in mass surveillance of Palestinians www.theguardian.com/world/2025/s...

📅 Mark your calendars We'll be joining @sanjanah.bsky.social, @ramshajahangir.bsky.social, Raqib Nahik and Rohit Chopra next Monday for a timely conversation on Big Tech and Mis/Dinformation in #Asia. 🔗 Learn more & register: lnkd.in/eA7xC3Jm

Can't recall the number of times I've talked to secondary, & even tertiary teachers in New Zealand around what's noted in this article, since early 2022. That it's this bad now is awful. | 'Trump boys' in NZ classrooms: Teachers warn of rising student extremism www.thepress.co.nz/nz-news/3608...

Posted a response to this to on LinkedIn from the perspective of power demand in Sri Lanka. For those in New Zealand, the total power generation capacity in 2021 was 10,080MW, which is what just the NVIDIA GPU's at OpenAI propose to use up. From either country's perspective, this is mind-boggling.

Studied 900 tweets feat. 'autism', & 'vaccines'. Compared this corpus with 900 Bluesky posts feat. same terms. All content posted after Trump's pronouncements. Fascinating differences emerge between conversations, beliefs, attitudes, & perceptions informed by or pushing back strongly Trump's claims.

Interesting to see how what the Trumpian White House says - with no basis in scientific evidence - influences, & in near real time, media, and information landscapes globally, including in New Zealand.

Go read @sanjanah.bsky.social's post. Western democracies (and former democracies...) suddenly waking up to the social media outrage machine and how it plays into political violence would do well to look to the rest of the world and understand that none of this is new👇

Comments by @anneapplebaum.bsky.social posted to The Atlantic's Instagram account speak to rise of contemporary American, and global populism instrumentalising social media as a vital vector for violent vernaculars.

Insightful research that in New Zealand context maps on to persuasive, & persistent populist rhetoric - offline, & esp. online - from ACT, Seymour, NZ First, Peters et al that in turn informs hostile, negative behaviours, attitudes, & perceptions against institutions. www.pnas.org/doi/epdf/10....

In sociopolitical theatres now, and coming soon to an election near you... | How Russian-funded fake news network aims to disrupt election in Europe - BBC investigation www.bbc.com/news/article...

The clear embrace, & amplification of white supremacism, & violent extremism by Trump, & White House is, while unsurprising now, still incredible to see unfold. @splcenter.org's cogent capture of Turning Point (penned before Kirk's murder) provides useful context. www.splcenter.org/resources/re...

in an interesting development that neither Israel nor the US will appreciate, Brazil has sought leave to intervene in the South Africa-Israel Genocide Case before the ICJ. www.icj-cij.org/sites/defaul... among other things, its application makes this point 👇

Google’s Nano Banana Editor Makes Political Disinformation Effortless www.boomlive.in/amp/explaine...

Also imp. to recognise that these cuts create research, information, & media vacuums that disinfo on climate change denial exploit at pace. Used seminal @counterhate.com research to map disinfo growth in NZ for report I did in Feb for some academics. Increase in scale, & sophistication *staggering*.

Thank you to the 14,000+ people who shared feedback on our community guidelines! We’re updating our rules for clarity, strengthening enforcement, and introducing product changes for healthier conversations. New guidelines kick in Oct 15. bsky.social/about/blog/0...

Why on earth is John Minto talking about Palestinian rights on the country's leading far-right platform, which promotes, inter alia, the Christchurch killer's 'Great Replacement' violent extremism, & telegraphs quite literally what's in his 'manifesto' - which is about as Islamophobic as it gets? 🤦

“…includes constructing link-analysis diagrams of friends and friends of friends, monitoring social media, opening more intrusive investigations to collect intelligence on potential extremists, watchlisting people, and even arresting people preemptively — all in the name of public safety.”

Maria Ressa tells Jon Stewart Americans are ‘deer in the headlights’ in face of Trump assault on free speech www.theguardian.com/world/2025/s...

The term "Antifa"has a century of history in Europe. It originated in, and was always associated with, opposition to Nazism and other forms of fascism

As expected, New Zealand's far-right, & disinfo social media ecologies leverage Trump's designation of 'Antifa' as a terrorist entity to target those who impede autocracy, & fascism's growth, like activists. Last section of report published yesterday goes into this in some detail. #nzpol

Fascinating research. Well worth a read for academics working on dangerous speech.

After years of complaining about cancel culture, the current administration has taken it to a new and dangerous level by routinely threatening regulatory action against media companies unless they muzzle or fire reporters and commentators it doesn’t like.

DOJ Deletes Study Showing Domestic Terrorists Are Most Often Right Wing 🔗 www.404media.co/doj-deletes-...

From Washington to Wellington: A study of discourse on Telegram featuring, and targeting ‘Antifa’ www.linkedin.com/pulse/from-w... (LinkedIn) www.linkedin.com/pulse/from-w... (Wordpress)

Trump targets Antifa movement as 'terrorist organisation' www.rnz.co.nz/news/world/5... This will have ramifications in New Zealand too. #nzpol

I see Jones was made the Deputy Leader of New Zealand First. The same Jones who recently noted, in recent interview to the far-right RCR network: "Now I don't care if I sound xenophobic. I don't care if I sound off the plate, talking like this. I’m a politician, and I’m a nationalist politician”.

One of the world’s most influential men is amping up apocalyptic rhetoric—and adding a dangerous dose of extremism into an already-fraught culture war. trib.al/lj5ungi Thiel is not a theologian or scholar, but he clearly has a deep belief in religion as a weapon of political warfare—and he’s right.

Women councillors are experiencing a staggering level of online abuse

"Today the United Nations commission that I lead is publishing its legal analysis of Israel’s conduct in the Gaza Strip. Our conclusion is stark: Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza... History will judge how the world responds." www.nytimes.com/2025/09/16/o... (Gift link)

Stochastic terrorism. #nzpol

Insightful explainer of what was on the casing of shell that killed Charlie Kirk by leading 'net culture researcher @aidanwalker.bsky.social. Those in New Zealand may recognise some of the references because of how they were first, & infamously, featured on the ChCh killer's weapons, & ammunition.

🧐🤔

#nzpol not saying #briantamaki is #aotearoa #newzealand 's #charliekirk equal but Tamaki's hate fueled rhetoric covers same talking points of religious intolerance, racism, violence & oppression we ignore him at our peril Dr Paul Spoonley & Dr @sanjanah.bsky.social have spoken of his cult leadership

“Free speech”. 🤡

This is an excellent thread which through Judith Butler's notion of "grievability" captures a really important aspect of current moment: the authoritarian mourning that is demanded for some in place of the cultivation of an empathic and universal humanity.

“I just want people to know that AI is being sold as this tech magic – that’s why there’s a little sparkle symbol next to an AI response. But it’s not. It’s built on the backs of overworked, underpaid human beings.” | How thousands of ‘overworked, underpaid’ humans train Google’s AI to seem smart

Posting manipulated images without any disclosure is a very, very bad practice. Waatea News should know, & do better. Many on NZ Twitter also taken in by manipulated photo, given symbolism around emotive issue. Original pic on PM Luxon's official Instagram account. www.instagram.com/p/DOaga0aEvX...

This is very good. | In Wake of Charlie Kirk Murder, Sen. Bernie Sanders Addresses Rising Political Violence in America www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlIv...

The hypocrisy as an expression of power is a thing, so the contradictions don't actually matter, but if David Seymour really wants to commemorate people killed for free speech in parliament, there have been over 270 journalists killed in Gaza. But I understand David Seymour might object to that.