universities have the brainpower, resources,+ community obligation to develop on-site secure NON PROFIT learning management systems + ed tech overseen by actual educators, not data-extraction censorious surveillance profiteers! VOID THE CONTRACTS theamericanvandal.substack.com/p/mamdani-wi...

I'm starting a podcast called LESS WORSE. It's about why the future sucks and how the humanities can help make it better. For the first episode, I interviewed @aprilanson.bsky.social and @williamcallison.bsky.social about their work on eco- and fossil fascism. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/e...

"infuse" is the right verb

This was posted by @bydreamphd.bsky.social & @mattseybold.bsky.social yesterday & it is truly, one of the best things I've listened to, in a good long while! theamericanvandal.substack.com/p/historyofc... cc: @chrislhayes.bsky.social @stephruhle.bsky.social @nicollewallace.bsky.social @velshi.com

Haven’t released an episode in over a month, but apparently don’t need to because Canvas fuckups keep us on the charts. And new ones of those drop weekly.

The anti-data center movement isn’t just about limiting local development—it represents a new front in the fight against tech-enabled authoritarianism. Where else can people push back on job-eating algorithms, distorting deep fakes, and autonomous drone strikes? www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

🧵 While Canvas is down, it's a good time to learn more about its parent company Instructure. #AcademicSky #Academia

For each of our state systems, the question is what did the Board of Governors themselves get out of it. Or is this more an ideological project for them. TBC, those two options ain't mutually exclusive. academicaffairs.appstate.edu/news/importa...

Statehouse subsidization of Canvas in places dominated by reactionaries tells you a great deal about what Canvas IS now: an enclosure of educational practices serving the ambition of automation & indoctrination.

For folks wanting more context and history on Canvas & Instructure, @mattseybold.bsky.social and American Vandal are indispensable: theamericanvandal.substack.com/p/historyofc...

Further context from @tressiemcphd.bsky.social in 2024: We've got a captured population. There are only two of those, BTW, students and prisoners. And frankly, the student data is richer, more diverse, [..] in ways that make it more valuable. (1:21) theamericanvandal.substack.com/p/the-educat...

In the span of three months we’ve seen the Einstein agent chasing SSO credentials, ASU Atomic slopping instructor videos, & now the ShinyHunters hack. Maybe it’s time for us the recognize that what makes Canvas a “matrix of vulnerabilities,” as Marachi & Quill put it, is getting worse.

So many miscalculations on the way to this completely predictable c!#$+:f@(k. By Monday, KKR will be rolling out crisis PR to blame this on woke teachers & insufficiently resilient Gen Z students.

Tired: Giving research labor away behind a Canvas firewall. Wired: Giving research labor away via an Apple platform.

EdTech avariciousness once again placing me in severe peril of becoming unbearable.

Cold hard truth.

Column three is toast, so they will revert to column two.

I take attendance by calling out names from my paper grade book in alphabetical order THIS … is Dark Academia

Every CFO at every Canvas institution should put a stop payment on the next SaaS withdrawal. Things do not get better from here.

What I wish for everybody to remember when Canvas comes back online: The reason OUR data can be held for ransom is because Instructure, their owners (KKR private equity & Dragoneer venture capital), & our own employers (see ASU Atomic) monetize it. It's Canvas that hacked education & stole our IP.

I think Canvas has taken itself offline globally.

If you teach classes online at a Canvas school, what are you doing to rely on Canvas less?

And maybe don’t use Canvas or LLMs anymore… Thanks for your work and visiting us at Swat @mattseybold.bsky.social theamericanvandal.substack.com/p/against-te...

Listen to @mattseybold.bsky.social about Canvas theamericanvandal.substack.com/p/historyofc...

I’ve got some thoughts in today’s Chronicle. www.chronicle.com/article/dont...

Surprise guys, it's a seance and we're actually bringing Mark Twain on as a guest

as @bentarnoff.com has been saying, only option is to spread the woke mind virus harder www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

My amateur impression is that OpenAI has taken what was once a nuisance lawsuit with a foregone conclusion & by pure incompetence of leadership have turned it into an existential threat to their company.

Tonight at @haymarketbooks.org!

I don’t think that Mark Twain sucks, but I damn well know Mark Twain would relish every opportunity to record a conversation about whether and how much a historical figure sucks. Tickets available here: marktwainhouse.org/event/he-des...

Tonight in Hartford CT!! There are still a few tickets left, so snap them up while you can! All proceeds go to the Mark Twain House & Museum 👴🏻

you know what's great? a college seminar

Loving this book (a shorter version of Piketty’s Great Tomes) & its focus on EQUALITY rather than eg working class rule is clarifying But I wonder whether there’s a more appealing word that takes into account the universal aspiration to upward mobility Most people don’t want to be “equal”

Breakfast is Rhode Island is better.

Nice to see my FT essay about the "hostile internet" quoted here: www.theguardian.com/media/ng-int...

The streaming window has closed on this, alas. But let’s make sure it finds its way to real theaters in more communities that aren’t Chicago or Oakland, but where courageous people live, work, & build. Absolutely love this film. Props, @tressiemcphd.bsky.social

At Rutgers our union proposed this article last week to stop the top down deployment of unproven and harmful technology. drive.google.com/file/d/1Q3cd...

Hey Connecticuties (and Western Mass too) - there's a TGS/American Vandal live show in Hartford tomorrow evening with @mattseybold.bsky.social and @erinbartram.bsky.social! We'll be at Mark Twain's own house (lol) determining whether or not he sucked. TICKETS: marktwainhouse.org/event/he-des...

I'm not saying the film will suck, but this is literally the only thing I can think about since watching the Odyssey trailer this morning.

hell yeah

billion dollar technology

I bet Greg Brockman wishes he had opted for a paper journal.

Remember when y'all made this thread on Paulina Borsook go viral? Well, that resulted in her getting a deal to re-publish her book in the USA, the UK & Commonwealth, Belgium, France, and Switzerland! Coming Sept. 15—with a foreword by some guy named Gil Duran. Pre-order! www.cyberselfish.com

The American Vandal meets @thisguysucked.com Wednesday at @marktwainhouse.bsky.social

First, video recordings, which are owned by the Universtiy: uvapolicy.virginia.edu/policy/PROV-... Second, as documented by @mattseybold.bsky.social, anything on Canvas can be repurposed regardless of claims to copyright. Curious how this aligns with other institutions, esp. the video carveout.

Really good post from Ben on the masks falling off the “edu” division of OpenAI.

Deliberate deliteracy.

There are so many occasions I wish Gore Vidal were here to comment upon.

Slightly diminish a book The Portrait of a Lad