Some personal news, as they say. Get your submissions ready for when our portal opens February 12. As the founding editor-in-chief of the new Springer Nature academic journal Creator and Influencer Studies, I’m thrilled to welcome them. link.springer.com/journal/44538

The hallucination loop we live in. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Spending some time in Colombia makes me weak. It's 18°C and I AM COLD.

waking up in 2026

Ah shit.

Peer review requests are a tad out of control this month, huh?

Of course it f&&king is. Please don't use GenAI for news. Please don't use Grok for anything. Grok is spreading misinformation about the Bondi Beach shooting www.theverge.com/news/844443/...

Somehow I managed to schedule six meetings and one class today.

I am sick, you are sick, we are all sick

This kind of statements—when read within the historical framework of coloniality—are so horribly cynical.

I am going to start counting the number of academic papers, books, or theses that begin with a quote from Calle 13's "Latinoamerica." So far, it's FOUR—that I know of. (It is such a great song tho, I get it) www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkFJ...

[It has been a while, BUT] New annotated resource on #SocialMediaViolence: The intimacy triple bind: Structural inequalities and relational labour in the influencer industry, by @zoeglatt.bsky.social Read my notes here: esteban-morales.com/lit-review-v...

As an institution you don't have to just be sad about stuff. You can also refuse to comply, go to court, fight, or shut yourself down.

New resource: Culture & Communication in Digital Worlds: A 2025 Review In 2004, Macfadyen et al. published a major review of research on culture and communication in online environments. Twenty years later, we revisit the field to ask what has changed. More info: digitalcultures.ca

Have done so much writing these past two weeks. Brain, completely fried.

Next week (Tuesday, Dec 2, at 17:45h CET), on #PlatGovNet2025, I will present (with João Magalhães) our paper: "Bottom-up moderation as ideological protest: Making sense of Redditors' ban of X links after Musk’s 'Nazi salute'"

I am looking for a Senior Researcher (at least 2 years postdoctoral exp.) for the LivePlatforms project into how people make livelihoods in the platform economy; a 5-year FT post based in the School of Info and Communication Studies at UCD. Do share widely! universityvacancies.com/university-c...

I truly do not understand people who show up to a 30-minute presentation with a 140-page slide deck.

👀👀👀

what's the relationship between algorithmic ableism and platform polarization? In a virtual talk I'm giving later this month at Loyola U Chicago, I trace the sticky relationship between ableism and political polarization in the platform age. thanks to @drgyopophd.bsky.social for the invite!

Do we know when the #AoIR2026 CfP will be published?

A great summary of our latest paper on @socialmedialab.ca. You can read the full paper (open access) here: doi.org/10.1177/1461...

Honestly, the German train system never fails (to fail).

An interesting article on the decay of sociality on digital platforms: "Many of these apps are no longer really social apps in any meaningful sense of the word; they’re screen time maximizing apps, using whatever means necessary to eke out extra seconds and minutes."

Just three weeks until #AoIR2025 Ruptures kicks off in Niterói, Brazil, and we can't wait to see you all!

I never know what to say on these platforms anymore—besides the occasional work-related self-promotion. From now on, I will simply scream into the void whatever great stuff I am watching/reading/listening to. MURDERBOOOOOOOT 🤖

AI may take a lot from me—but they will not take my em dashes.

Have you ever heard of predatory journals? Our new study—published this week in Journalism Practice—suggests many science journalists haven't. When they were familiar with predatory journals, most said they weren't worried, confident they'd "be able to spot one if they saw one." Details in 🧵👇

📝 New publication! 📝 "Stop Being so Fkn Soft": Masculinity, Politics, and the Acceptance of Gender-Based Online Violence Myths Among Young Canadian Men Coauthored with Jaigris Hodson, Yimin Chen, Kaitlynn Mendes, George Veletsianos, and Chandell Gosse. Read the paper here: doi.org/10.1177/2056...

New annotated resource on #SocialMediaViolence: Fast and furious: Temporal patterns of incivility in online comments, by Clarke & Thompson. Read my notes here: esteban-morales.com/lit-review-v...

The call for papers for #SMSociety 2026 is live! I look forward to seeing you in Glasgow. Let me know if you have any questions or comments. In the meantime, all the details are here: socialmediaandsociety.org/2025/call-fo...

Back to work after holiday break.

🚨 PhD Opportunity Alert! Help depolarize climate discourse with Argumentative Language Models 🌍💬 Join the project DeCODA-LM at the University of Groningen! 🧵 Details in the thread 👇 🔗 Apply: www.rug.nl/about-ug/wor...

New annotated resource on #SocialMediaViolence: Unmasking digital threats in the pursuit of human rights and environmental defense in La Guajira, North Colombia, by Laura Guntrum and Verena Lasso Mena. Read my notes here: esteban-morales.com/lit-review-v...

Save the date: The unmissable #SMSociety conference is happening July 13–15, 2026, in Glasgow (!!). socialmediaandsociety.org/2025/cmon-ta... I'm thrilled to be part of the organizing committee (alongside a fantastic group), so feel free to reach out if you have any questions.

How does the professionalization of Trust & Safety shape global content moderation practices? We compare Community Guidelines using the typology of harms from TSPA to identify policy priorities and exclusions, available #openaccess in New Media & Society: doi.org/10.1177/1461...

McDonald's CEO recently told CNBC that if he were a student today, the top skill he'd develop is eating burgers.

The summer in European universities is so, so quiet.

Wow, the film/media/comm list of AUP was sold to Taylor & Francis (huge conglom that makes $$$$ on research that we do on our own dime, submit for free, revise for free, review for free, and pay for OA)- a bunch of editors promptly quit & I suspect more are forthcoming. Good for them

Anyway, getting a cold in the summer should be illegal.

ZACH DE LA ROCHA: some of those that work forces are the same that burn crosses SOCIAL MEDIA: wow, "some"? way to hand-wave the complicity of the power structure. unbelievable. never meet your heroes I guess. do better

New annotated resource on #SocialMediaViolence: Gendered disinformation as violence: A new analytical agenda, by @gehrke.bsky.social and @eedanamitdanhi.bsky.social Read my notes here: esteban-morales.com/lit-review-v...

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.

The story of human invention and innovation is the story of serendipity. So it’s a little bizarre to see so many of the supposed tech elite determined to eliminate serendipity from their lives, and ours.

New annotated resource on #SocialMediaViolence: The rise of war influencers: Creators, platforms, and the visibility of conflict zones, by @tomdivon.bsky.social and @moaerikssonkrut.bsky.social Read my notes here: esteban-morales.com/lit-review-v...

New publication! My latest paper, titled “Unsettling the meanings of everyday platformized violence: Dialogues about online harms to learn about peace” is now published in the Digital Culture & Education journal. 🔗 You can read it here (open access!): shorturl.at/tzryU

An important reading for qualitative researchers (and instructors of qualitative methods courses) dealing with LLMs: "The researcher’s role should not be replaced by machines with mechanical procedure" link.springer.com/article/10.1...

[It has been a while, but...] New annotated resource on #SocialMediaViolence: Rage against the machine: Exploring violence and emotion in conspiracy narratives on Parler, by @darja.bsky.social et al. Read my notes here: esteban-morales.com/lit-review-v...

Exactly one year ago (!!) I came to Groningen for a job interview. I had no idea it would all work out the way it did.

Google and Meta search both report that Cape Breton Island has its own time zone 12 minutes ahead of mainland Nova Scotia time because they are both drawing that information from a Beaverton article I wrote in 2024