After more than a year since completing my doctorate, my PhD thesis, “The Construction of Values by Social Media Platforms,” has finally made its way into the library (open access)🥳 huji.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/fu...

Good morning #Brussels!

"[...] In the broadest spectrum of awareness about these matters we need to ask: Are the practices, relationships and institutions affected by people's involvement with networked computing ones we wish foster? Or are they ones we must try to modify or even oppose?" Winner, 1997.

«Silicon Valley isn’t building apps anymore. It’s building empires.» The Authoritarian Stack: A mapping of firms, funds, and political actors turning core state functions into private platforms, by @francescabria.bsky.social et. al. for @fesonline.bsky.social www.authoritarian-stack.info

Michelle has been invaluable in that role for nearly a decade now, but the time has come for @aoir.bsky.social to find a new coordinator to take on these vital duties. 2/2 Job posting is on our listserv. Please share & apply! listserv.aoir.org/pipermail/ai...

@elinorcarmi.bsky.social tackling my pessimism with inspiring work on “the human data good practice” - very curious to see how this project will develop 🙂 #ZeMKI20

Very much enjoyed this presentation on the role of social norms & demarcation in platform regulation by @nathalievanraemdonck.com - long story short “democracy is hard” @ckatzenbach.bsky.social #ZeMKI20

Also very much enjoyed the presentation by @hheuer.bsky.social on co-creating social media with some peak visuals #ZeMKI20

Throughly enjoyed this talk by Marilia Gehrke and @eedanamitdanhi.bsky.social on gendered disinformation as violence (as always, slides were 🔥) #ZeMKI20

#ZeMKI20 started off with a fantastic —and optimistic—keynote by José van Dijck on how to achieve digital autonomy in Europe

Last session on a Friday afternoon is always a hard one, but we made the most of our small round table discussing lessons of the @aoir.bsky.social flashpoint on platform & AI governance. thx to @tomdivon.bsky.social @taylorannabell.bsky.social @deeliu97.bsky.social & Thales Lelo!! #aoir2025

Hey #AoIR2025 catch me today at 4 pm with a wonderful group of scholars - Taylor Annabell, Diyi Liu, Thales Lelo and Tom Divon - for a roundtable on the future of tech governance research. This is going to be an open discussion, so please join and share your thoughts!

Olá #AoIR2025, I’m in Rio and have already been very much enjoying my time in this beautiful, beautiful city! Feel free to reach out if you wanna chat! ☕️

1/ A longtime Wired editor just wrote a mush-brained essay about how he totally missed the political rot of Silicon Valley (& still doesn't get it). But in the late 1990s, a Wired journalist warned of a toxic ideology bubbling up from tech. Paulina Borsook has largely been erased. Let's change that

I'm really trying to follow US news but what the actual f is even happening at this point?!

"As for the algorithm, if the concern had been that TikTok could be a conduit for Chinese government propaganda—a concern the Supreme Court declined to even consider —people can now be concerned that TikTok could be a conduit for U.S. government propaganda." www.eff.org/deeplinks/20...

insert “this is fine” meme

Working on my syllabus for an undergrad class on "Tech Cultures: Innovation, Ideology & Influence." think cyberlibertarianism, tech bros, manosphere, tech/politics entanglements. Anyone already designed classes on these topics & willing to share their syllabus? happy to share mine once finalized!

BIG NEWS (!!) I’ve received an ERC starting grant for my project PAY4PLAY: Entrepreneurial Organizing in the Platform Society. Please prepare to hear me talking about how platforms, creators, 💸, organizing, and power for the next five years. Read more here: www.blakehallinan.com/pay4play

Shout out to @adriennemassanari.bsky.social for introducing me to David Golumbia. Already shed some tears over the foreword. Considering the current state of…things, I’m both excited and terrified about reading his work. But here we go

💥new paper out in New Media & Society💥 In this collaborative paper, led by @blakeplease.bsky.social, we compare Community Guidelines using the typology of harms from the Trust and Safety Professional Association to identify policy priorities and exclusions. Check out Blake’s thread for the deets👇

“We all know that senior scholars need to do more to help out. But I also think it’s important for junior scholars to think about how to create an academic climate that they want to be a part of rather than just waiting for senior scholars or administrators to fix it.” ✊

shocker

Are you attending #AoIR2025 @aoir.bsky.social in Brazil? Are you an early-career scholar? Then maybe you'd like to help me coordinate and organize the face-to-face early-career workshop! Reach out if you are interested or if you know anybody who might be the right fit.

I've gotten a lot of review requests recently & this isn't the first time I've come across this evaluation, but I really wonder how much more unpaid labor by journals (who make huge profit, just think of the ridicoulously high OA fees) will be put on academic reviewers?

Heyyy excited to see a new edition of this conference happening! Also a great space for continuing the discussions of the AoIR Flashpoint Symposium, and to add some more and much needed non-Western perspectives :)

Did we mention registration for #AoIR2025 is now open? 😉 aoir.org/aoir2025/

This was a much needed escape. #ICA25

Really enjoyed being part of this panel, thanks all for coming - on a Sunday noon (my European mind still shook 🤯)- and for the great questions. Shout out to @sbradshaw.bsky.social & @martinriedl.bsky.social for organizing it!

At #ICA25 and interested in platform governance? Come catch a panel Samantha Bradshaw and I organized called "Platform Governance and the Tensions Between Public and Private Values" at Mineral C (Regency 3) (noon)- w/ @robyncaplan.bsky.social, @rscarlets.bsky.social @sbradshaw.bsky.social & myself

Hey #ica25! You'll find me presenting Sunday at noon in the pre-constituted CLP panel "Platform Governance and the Tensions Between Public and Private Values" organized by @martinriedl.bsky.social & Samantha Bradshaw, w/ @robyncaplan.bsky.social & Philip Napoli. Come join us!

This morning started off with a little workshop on LLMs as tools and objects of research with input by @hill90210.bsky.social, Jiahui Xing, Vasilisa Kuznetsova, @gorwa.ca & Tarleton Gillespie. Super glad so many showed up and definitely a discussion to continue! #AoIR2025Symposium

This morning started off with a little workshop on LLMs as tools and objects of research with input by @hill90210.bsky.social, Jiahui Xing, Vasilisa Kuznetsova, @gorwa.ca & Tarleton Gillespie. Super glad so many showed up and definitely a discussion to continue! #AoIR2025Symposium

Full house at the #AoIR2025Symposium 🥹 so wonderful to see it all coming together and that so many tech governance scholars made it to Bremen!

So excited so many amazing people will join us and present their work. Trust me, by now I know this program inside & out. 🙃

New transparency report from Meta following content moderation changes This begs for actual data transparency: “according to its own sampling, Meta estimates that users were exposed to about one to two pieces of hateful content on average for every 10,000 posts viewed” www.wired.com/story/meta-c...

I have note tab open that’s titled “why genAI isn’t ‘her’”, but:

Posters are here, stickers are in print, things are getting real :O One week to go until #AoIRSymposium2025 in Bremen @ckatzenbach.bsky.social @pgmt.bsky.social 💖🫏🐕🐈🐓

📢✨ New OA book out now with Amsterdam University Press: Governing the Digital Society: Platforms, Artificial Intelligence, and Public Values, edited by José van Dijck, @kfvanes.bsky.social, @silvertje.bsky.social, & @fvandervlist.bsky.social. Access: www.aup.nl/en/book/9789...

📣 The final program for our #AoIR2025Symposium in Bremen is out now and it looks amazing! ℹ️ Find the full program here: platform-governance.org/aoir-flashpo... ✍️ Registration for a few remaining seats is still available (10-50$): members.aoir.org/event-6113333

What if platforms decided what you should search for, without telling you how or why? In this position paper co-authored with @taylorannabell.bsky.social, @gorwa.ca, Jacob van de Kerkhof & @thalesbertaglia.bsky.social, we explore the TikTok Search feature and the governance challenges it creates.

She always said it best.

Truly excited I get to work with this great group of scholars on the future of @aoir.bsky.social 💖🥹

We are delighted to share the publication of Risky Research: An AoIR Guide to Researcher Protection and Safety, the culmination of over two years of collaborative effort by the AoIR Risky Research Working Group. aoir.org/riskyresearc...

‪ Personal win: Got a €13 refund from Amazon for an item they claimed wasn’t returnable according to their return policies. I read through their policies, complained, and won. I guess being invested in the knitty gritty of policies finally paid off. Take that, multi-billion dollar tech company!!!

The mods of r/ChangeMyView shared the sub was the subject of a study to test the persuasiveness of LLMs & that they didn't consent. There’s a lot that went wrong, so here’s a 🧵 unpacking it, along with some ideas for how to do research with online communities ethically. tinyurl.com/59tpt988

Hey folks I've put my name forward for an Open Seat and I'd be excited about the opportunity to contribute to the future of AoIR. That said, there are FANTASTIC colleagues standing for positions this year, so take a look at our statements and make your own choices but most of all use your vote!!

📢 The Internet Archive needs your help. At a time when information is being rewritten or erased online, a $700 million lawsuit from major record labels threatens to destroy the Wayback Machine. Tell the labels to drop the 78s lawsuit. 👉 Sign our open letter: www.change.org/p/defend-the... 🧵⬇️

Social media 🤝 GenAI — now only regulators need to catch up on this sooner than later