New article out now with @smokegatherer.bsky.social and Nasir Almasri on the Palestinian movement and demobilization. We look at the protests of 2021, the unity intifada, and their aftermath on the structure of the movement. Hopefully the 1st of a few articles on this topic doi.org/10.3167/cont...

In a short span of time there has been a global rise in "fake news" laws - legislation that purports to or is designed to curb the spread of false information. @sbradshaw.bsky.social, Monzima Haque, and I wanted to understand why. "The Global Spread of Misinformation Laws" ijoc.org/index.php/ij...

Folks at #ica25 might wanna check out @ijoc-usc.bsky.social’s Special Section on True Costs of Misinformation, guest edited by me and @bostonjoan.bsky.social. The collection critiques mainstream frameworks of disinfo studies, written during a more hopeful "peak moment": ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc

📄NEW PAPER + 📈DATASET + 🌐WEBSITE Please to be able to share our dataset paper: "An enriched, multimodal social media dataset of a UK General Election campaign." The paper builds off the crowd-sourced publication of candidate lists in advance of the last UK General Election...

AI-powered disinformation is flooding the 2025 election, with deepfakes and fake news posing real threats to democracy. Jennie Phillips says the spread is like a virus, and Canadians must fight it before it takes hold: www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews...

A buy/sell Facebook group mysteriously became a pro-Elon Musk, 51st state forum, without users opting in. @smokegatherer.bsky.social says it's likely hacked or sold. @mika-jpd.bsky.social points to an underground market where groups go for $50-$250. Meta’s fine with it.

Nice to see that all our speakers during this election interference and online disinformation themed month are on bluesky! Alexei Abrahams - @smokegatherer.bsky.social Philip Mai - @philipmai.com Sze-Fung Lee - @imleeszefung.bsky.social Giancarlo Fiorella - @giancarlofiorella.bsky.social

For researchers / #polisky folks: if you’re dealing with online harassment because of your research, here is a useful set of resources (potentially relevant to others too):

Next Tues, @smokegatherer.bsky.social talks to us about Gray Hat Social Media – the tools and techniques being developed by researchers to restore public oversight of the social media space 1 April 7pm, in person/online Plus our usual breakout projects and discussions! guild.host/events/civic...

📢 مجتمع التحقق العربي في مؤتمر #RightsCon2025! يسرنا الإعلان عن مشاركتنا في مؤتمر @rightscon.org في جلسة افتراضية. @abdelrahman.bsky.social @monashtaya.bsky.social @alsayyad.bsky.social @michatobia.bsky.social @smokegatherer.bsky.social @timep.bsky.social

📢 Arabi Facts Hub at #RightsCon2025! We’re excited to invite you to our online session at Rightscon 2025! @abdelrahman.bsky.social @monashtaya.bsky.social @alsayyad.bsky.social @michatobia.bsky.social @smokegatherer.bsky.social @timep.bsky.social

"a lot of automation relies on leveraging convenience. AI summaries do very little to help us learn how to listen... The short-cut on the switchback, the summary of the meeting so you don’t have to go, and in the process, you don’t have to engage with the mess that is a bigger set of relations."

This episode is now unlocked on all platforms. I learned a hell of a lot from these brilliant folks. And their courage inspired me to stop self-censoring about what I think is going wrong on the left. Highly recommend supporting The Fire These Times and the whole From the Periphery network.

Interviewed @naomiaklein.bsky.social about, well, a lot thefirethesetimes.com/2025/01/10/o...

Wicked proud of Alexei! He’s been working so hard to create this code and write this book: nostarch.com/social-media... Get early access today! @smokegatherer.bsky.social

Read every word of this eloquent and thoughtful intervention by @smokegatherer.bsky.social on structural versus kinetic violence in occupied Palestine: www.972mag.com/structural-v...

A moving excerpt from Adam Shatz’s new biography of Frantz Fanon (h/t @smokegatherer.bsky.social):

Great podcast on how to think about violence in Palestinian context, with Dana El Kurd, Diana Greenwald and Alexei Abrahams open.spotify.com/episode/05Nd...

www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4... what an eloquent and insightful essay. It was a relief to read after the past few weeks 👏🏽

My new piece in Foreign Affairs: An Invasion of Gaza Will Be A Disaster and Biden Should Stop It. It’s not dark yet but it’s getting there. www.foreignaffairs.com/middle-east/...

This part of the picture at the moment is receiving almost no coverage www.972mag.com/settler-atta...

Chotiner interview with Tareq Baconi, the president of the board of the think tank Al-Shabaka, the Palestinian Policy Network. www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a...

"I maintain that there are crimes of abundance and there are crimes of hunger, and we have not only brought Gaza to the brink of starvation, we have brought it to a state of collapse...How much security did we get? Where will another round of revenge take us?" amp.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Please watch and listen to Noura Erakat. abcnews.go.com/Internationa...

@neilhimself.neilgaiman.com Could you help me spread the word about this reading list I curate for the Palestinian fantasy, sci-fi, and other speculative genre works (with links of where to find and support the authors? soniasulaiman.com/readpalestin...

I am not a Middle East expert, but @dbgreenwald.bsky.social is. I really appreciate her insights (& reminders of facts/ numbers) here, and can only recommend following her.