💸 Do you know how much money Big Tech is spending on lobbying in Brussels? How has this amount been increasing? On what is the money being funnelled to and what can we do about it? 📻 Listen to our new #podcast episode to find out 👉 corporateeurope.org/en/2025/11/t...

Agree And politicians too

What you’re witnessing is a populist assault on the BBC. This is not an institutional scandal in any meaningful sense of the word. It is an attack on public service broadcasting. iandunt.substack.com/p/extra-edit...

And if we think it’s bad now, imagine what it could look like, say, two months from a U.K. general election? Could imagine huge sums in US far right cash flooding in, much of what would only be declared after the election (our electoral rules really are a jape)

It’s not just the Telegraph it looks like deliberate destruction from within, driven by hard right Robbie Gibb PR friends on an odd committee. Alan Rusbridger worth listening to here podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/m...

This is absolutely nuts Trump did incite the January 6 riot. Splicing a video to make that point is shoddy editorial but hardly a resignation event When BBC is needed more than ever, Telegraph/Boris Johnson running the show www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cd...

Irish public sector broadcaster justifying moving documentary staff to soap - fair city- and entertainment and entirely outsourcing documentaries ! RTÉ moving towards a publisher broadcaster model with public secretive focused on news and entertainment.. gotta say the unions should be listened to

X is designed to radicalise people. The algorithm promotes Elon Musk's agenda to promote racists and people who want violence bought - specifically - to the streets of Britain. Members of Parliament, major institutions and the media should not be there. news.sky.com/story/the-x-...

Very good reason for policymakers to quit X. They’ll end up imagining they’re living in a country far more right wing than it is. Inside their own angry micro public. Combine that with real threats and the impact must be toxic.

As Zohran Mamdani wins the New York election, check out our @empirepoduk.bsky.social special, an interview with his father, my friend the wonderful Professor Mahmoud Mamdani on his family's history in East Africa & their journey to America. Zohran zindabad! share.google/RS4MWp65kxNy...

WOW. 81% of women 18-29 voted for Mamdani, 80% for Sherril, and 78% for Spanberger. Gen Z women aren't playing around.

Fintan O’Toole: Simon Harris is deliberately spreading disinformation on immigration

And there's also a very cool piece by @davekarpf.bsky.social where he argues that digital analytics hastened the GOP's radicalization. Highly recommend! 👍⤵️ academic.oup.com/book/60493/c...

Another paper (not yet officially out but hopefully soon), where we show that various degrees of online connectivity are strongly associated with far-right issue uptake by partisan elites: mikecowburn.com/wp-content/u...

We have a paper tracing US Members of Congress' engagement with far-right and questionable sources on Twitter. This correlates with how extreme they are. doi.org/10.1177/1354...

Seeing lots of comments and sounds plausible. But is there any research on the toxic impact on policymakers of spending much time on Twitter?

If you're in the vicinity of @dculibrary.bsky.social, please pop in to see an exhibition selected from the archive material I've donated. It relates to my first book, The Destruction of Dublin (1985), and the Dublin Crisis Conference I helped to organise in February 1986. A blast from the past!

Thinking about the top down approach of this Irish government It’s clearly a retrograde step Allowing old and new pathologies to emerge Yes decisions around elections and not listening to backbenchers are a symptom but so too is the absence of listening through citizens assemblies

Ireland disinformation update: Reddit locked down one of the most-used parts of its platform in Ireland (r/ireland, claiming 1.2m members) due to what moderators called a “wave of new and inactive accounts spreading disinformation and hate speech connected to recent events.”

For more on Irish disinformation see our edmo hub here edmohub.ie/index.php/ed...

Interesting the role of young men on Twitter and TikTok here. Much more research required into precise pathways. Appears to be a similar group to those who are anti immigrant and believe conspiracies in previous research

Great service and really interesting. Those who spoiled their votes were young men in particular active on social media. “the largest groups who spoiled were people who had voted for Independents, Aontú and Sinn Féin at the 2024 election”

The New York Post is owned by Lachlan Murdoch, solely because his daddy bought it and passed it on to him. And it's backing Andrew Cuomo, a meathead whose whole career in politics stems from his daddy being good at it. But *Mamdani* is the nepo baby, because his mom was a filmmaker? Sure.

The Irish Council for Civil Liberties has signed a joint letter to the government to express our deep concern at the recent appointment of the third Commissioner of the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) ➡️ www.irishtimes.com/business/202...

Ireland has joined CERN which means that Professor Brian Cox can walk into your house whenever he wants and take things to use in his "experiments." Disgusting.

@businesspost.bsky.social our final presidential poll for @businesspost.bsky.social will be released tonight at 8pm.

Pope Leo quotes Hannah Arendt: “The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction and the distinction between true and false no longer exist." www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news...

Mark Bray teaches the history of antifascism at Rutgers U. He is trying to leave the US with his family bc of death threats they are receiving since Charlie Kirk’s outfit called him an antifa terrorist. Situation sounds crazy. Bookmarking this until I hear they have successfully left the US.

Trump's secret police are aiming to be the state surveillance organ for the regime. ICE has bought access to a surveillance tool that is updated every day with billions of pieces of location data from hundreds of millions of mobile phones, according to ICE documents reviewed by 404 Media.

Nature in Ireland is in a “very poor” state with the country’s economic growth achieved at the expense of the environment, EU analysis has found. - @codohertynews.bsky.social www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2025...

Why did it take so long for these “malicious smears”, as Gavin characterised them, to be addressed? Smears, recommender systems, AI; it's been quite the two weeks in the presidential election. And the campaign has just begun. Wrote about this for @irishtimes.com. www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2025...

It is a good time to learn how to find accurate information online. We’re offering virtual training sessions over the month of October, teaching you Bellingcat’s investigative techniques…

This @zackbeauchamp.bsky.social piece pulls it all together nicely. www.vox.com/politics/462...

Meta owning its facemash roots

The Defence Forces' Explosive Ordnance Disposal Unit, aka the bomb squad, is on the way to Dublin airport following the discovery of a suspicious item in the lugagge of a departing passengers. Terminal 2 evacuated and flights suspended.

On 20 September 2025, the second Citizens' Jury of the Hanseatic city of Lüneburg will begin. The topic to be addressed by the 30 participants: Consumption-free places for children in the city centre. www.buergerrat.de/en/news/citi... #CitizensAssembly

Congratulations to Eoin O’Malley @dublincityuni.bsky.social on the success of his new book ‘Charlie vs Garret’ which was launched by Sean O’Rourke last night at a lovely event hosted by Dublin Lord Mayor Ray McAdam.

We are delighted to announce that the European Parliament's Bluesky family is expanding, with the arrival of accounts for each of the Parliament's Committees 🦋 Check out the full list below, and follow them for regular updates on Committee activity - votes, meetings, etc.!

“You used to be able to say anything” comedians never been more quiet in their lives

trickle down economics trickle down economic trickle down economi trickle down econom trickle down econo trickle down econ trickle down eco trickle down ec trickle down e trickle down trickle dow trickle do trickle d trickle trickl trick

This is a shocking breech, individual phone tracking movements for sale without knowledge. The Irish DPC has serious questions to answer around ongoing inaction

Anyone have a link to this research on microplastics @irishtimes.com Nanoplastics contributing to rise in Alzheimer’s, TCD research finds www.irishtimes.com/science/2025...

Simon Harris and Mary Lou McDonald still active on X , a platform that has promoted direct violence against them. Seems bizarre to me and maybe the media who also are still all over the platform can ask them why they help bolster the platform by using it

Writing about the nomination process for the presidential election in @irishtimes.com Presidency is the highest political office and if we allowed everyone to compete, our ballot paper would probably look like an old-style phone book. www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2025...

Interested in the future of journalism? Like to hear from someone at the coalface in the US? Join us and the NYT's Malachy Brown for a special event on Friday 19 September at 10am in DCU. Link to register below. www.eventbrite.ie/e/dcu-fujo-a... www.linkedin.com/feed/update/...

Colm Keena continues his roll of stories about Irish presidential hopeful Sheridan’s Russian Moldovan business links. Super reporting

Sweet story. Irish presidential hopeful will have to address questions about Moldovan and Russian connections

Interesting and mirrors my experience …LLMs are not principled reasoners but rather sophisticated simulators of reasoning-like text

Just filled it out We’ll need to expand basic income if US style job cuts come in wake of ai and automation