New paper alert! Challenging Privatization in Governance by AI I argue that the harms of generative AI are exacerbated through governance by AI: - at the expense of workers and the environment - in the name of partnerships at any cost - to concentrate power via familiar acquisition patterns

Freedom of speech is under attack on both sides of the Atlantic, from the same people who hypocritically call themselves "free speech defenders". Make no mistake, if the British far right win power they will follow the example of their American brethren. My latest for @heraldscotland.bsky.social.

An INTENDED result of going after free speech is it scares people into being silent in a moment where we need everyone to be the loudest.

“Bad governance in Australia and how to mitigate it” … by re-separating political and civil service roles once again. Nice paper from Keith Dowding, Marija Taflaga doi.org/10.1111/1467... onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

🥸

Team Ta-Nehisi Coates.

Janay Harding (Waikato-Tainui, Ngāpuhi) grew up disconnected from te ao Māori, but says reclaiming her reo has given her identity, grounding, and strength.

Interesting effort to make public administration address key questions about "anchoring democracy'" instead of destroying it like NPM, or neglecting it like neo-Weberians. cadmus.eui.eu/server/api/c... But it really needs also the "micro-institutions" concept eprints.lse.ac.uk/111431/

Have just recorded an episode of @bunkerpod.bsky.social on AI-induced psychosis with the brilliant @drkatedevlin.bsky.social – coming this week I think. If governments won’t regulate and AI businesses won’t regulate themselves (lol), the courts may effectively force them into harm reduction.

👇🏽

Welcome to Rip-Off Britain. A country remade by privatisation. Our latest project — Who Owns Britain? — explores how a radical experiment transformed our society and shapes your life. 🧵

#nzpol What the poster says.

Just leaving this here for later.

In “the late 19th century and much of the 20th, this country’s most storied intellectuals transfigured hate-mongers into heroes and ignored their words—just as, right now, some are ignoring Kirk’s”

Ānei ngā monolingual, e ngangare anō ana.

"We need to reckon with the ways in which today’s AI isn’t just being used by us, it’s being used on us." ainowinstitute.org/publications...

BREAKING: UN inquiry finds Israel’s war on Gaza to be genocide aje.io/2h84g2

Weird thing about last week, now the rest of the world knows just how splintered the American Right is: and how it's powered mainly by memes.

Your regular reminder that the “free speech movement” isn’t about free speech. It’s about dodging the consequences of crude, hateful and venal kōrero: while trying to police what others can say. It’s not freedom, it’s control of the public square.

Wealthy donors are increasingly funding political campaigns, eroding the public’s trust in the political process. The Government has the opportunity to reverse that trend, argues Rose Whiffen. blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandp...

It melts my head that X is still used for official Government communications, and, catching up on today's news and the fact we have a foreign billionaire inciting violence on our streets, it's clearer than ever that this should end. I raised this in Parliament last week 👇

Bluesky isn’t perfect but at least its owner isn’t demanding violent insurrection in the UK from thousands of miles away

I’m grateful to Annabelle’s parents for sharing her story. Their genuine hope is that it helps other kids. TW: suicide

One of the reasons why people often prefer debating ("dining across the divide") with the far right than the left is that the former makes them feel good about themselves by comparison Debates with/amongst the left bring up uncomfortable reflections about our participation in systems of oppression

A friend of mine was on Charlie Kirk's "watch list" of Black professors. She received so many death and rape threats that her university offered her a security detail for the walk to class. This is Kirk's legacy. You would never know it from reading all of these legacy newspaper op-eds about him.

Shot, chaser Young men more likely to vote Green than Reform. Young men second most progressive group of any demographic. Combined right-wing vote barely bigger than Green vote alone for young men

There is a clutch of pundits who treat the world like it’s an Ivy League seminar course, mostly because that’s the environment in which they emerged. They think debate and white papers are the pinnacle of political action. They fume at anyone who approaches politics in any other way.

Given the context and the crowd, despite Musk’s weasel words, this was a call for violence against the British state, from a foreign national who controls a major propaganda engine, and has engineered it to monetise hate

“Using woke as a slur dismisses not only a word but the centuries of struggle, pain, and progress it represents. Whether intended or not, it aligns with the same forces that upheld slavery, apartheid, and white supremacy.” — Gregory Fortuin.

“Generational trauma rises in me every time I think of Nana as a little girl being violently punished for speaking the only language she knew. Generational aroha pushes me forward to the mic.” — Marama Davidson on her reo journey.

“She had emerged from a year of mourning for her father, and her remedy for Māori advancement was couched in encouragement to let wounds turn to scars, and to turn from anguish and protest to acceptance and new economic plans.” — A commentary on the first speech from Te Kuini.

“Increasing deportations may look strong on law and order domestically, but it will cause untold damage to our Pacific relationships.” — Henrietta McNeill-Stowers.

“It was a thrilling cacophony of joyous birdsong. A jostling, prancing throng of utterly diverse tangata whenua giving vigorous and unified voice to a new māori era.” — Tainui Stephens on the response to Kuini Nga wai hono i te po’s first speech.

The media is scrambling to assign a motive to this because they have no one outside of the elite J schools on their staffs. If they just asked Mike Rothschild or Robert Evans there would be zero question whatsoever. It's obvious who this guy is.

At Victoria Park and 15 minutes after filming this, crowds still streaming in.

Tom Phillips is dead after a police shooting, and his three children have been found alive. The immediate danger is over. But a larger question lingers: who decided Tom Phillips was safe enough to be left alone with his children - and why? My story: www.rnz.co.nz/news/nationa...

The reason Charlie Kirk is being lionized by so many journalists is simple: he was very good at cultivating journalists and it seems a lot of journalists don't seem to understand the concept of being cultivated as a pet reporter in exchange for scoops or leads. They think he was their friend.

In today’s Weekend Herald

A defining moment in our history. 44 years ago, a lone Cessna flew over a packed stadium during the 1981 Springbok tour, dropping flour bombs to protest South Africa's apartheid. Outside the stadium, protesters and police clashed. Iconic.

2025 word of the year - incoherence.

A first in Vanuatu! Pierre Metsan becomes the first doctoral student to defend his thesis on site at the National University of Vanuatu, supported by France. Supervised by Catherine Ris (UNC) and Matthias Kowasch (Sorbonne), it illustrates Franco-Vanuatu academic cooperation.

Back to the very deep South again on Friday. I love my days there.

Extreme views are heavily over-represented on social media Social platforms’ tendency to reward hostile content creates incentives that systematically reward simplistic messages and extreme positions and this fuels populism www.ft.com/content/9251... via @jburnmurdoch.ft.com

I don’t usually comment on mainstream media in AoNZ, but today I will. This weekend there was a major shift in the relationship between rangatiratanga me kāwanatanga. The gallery’s take? Conspiracy theorists at NZ First conference and why Te Pāti Māori are ‘too radical’. That’s it? That’s analysis?

Updating my comparative public admin seminar class—which was decimated by AI last year—to maybe be a little more LLM-proof by adding a 20–30 minute start-of-class writing & discussion activity. Will it work? Who knows! Full details and PDF here: governancef25.classes.andrewheiss.com/assignment/c...