🔎 Marcelo Alves, (@marceloalvests.bsky.social), professor do Departamento de Comunicação Social da PUC-RIO, apresenta artigo em que se investiga como a pesquisa científica é usada por grupos contrários às vacinas contra a COVID-19 no WhatsApp no Brasil. youtu.be/JCG7uGnGYNQ

I’m excited to announce that my new book, _The Irrational Decision_, is now available for pre-order from Princeton University Press.

Ooh, look. When we covered the climate impacts of machine learning (“AI”) on Rare Earth in June we found it really frustrating that none of the tech companies would tell anyone the water and energy costs. Now Google has made at least some of it public. More of this! (and preferably raw data too).

More zero-click searches, same revenue for Google, less visibility for publishers? Three things to read together on (1) how users respond to AI summaries, (2) what the company says it means for volume of queries and revenue, and (3) outside analysis on publishers’ visibility 1/4

Puzzled by all these AI policies? This Global AI Governance Matrix is very useful 👇 (credits to Walter Pasquarelli!)

Data centers das big techs viraram símbolo de “progresso” no Brasil: ganham isenção, água, energia e terrenos. É a mesma história de sempre: exploram o território enquanto lucram lá fora. Um colonialismo versão 2.0, mas agora com cabos e servidores no lugar de navios.

a couple of hours before my keynote, I went through an intense negotiation with the organisers (for over a hour) where we went through my slides and had to remove anything that mentions 'Palestine' 'Israel' and replace 'genocide' with 'war crimes' 1/

Pra quem quer entender o que Trump fala na carta sobre as big techs, vale ouvir o podcast da @folha.com em que comento o uso de “liberdade de expressão” e “censura” mencionadas por Trump no anúncio das tarifas open.spotify.com/episode/1ZV3...

McDonald's uses an AI bot called "Olivia" for hiring. A pair of hackers found they could access every conversation job applicants had with it—including all the personal info they shared—by exploiting security vulnerabilities as basic as using the password "123456". www.wired.com/story/mcdona...

There is no ethical AI. The tech is based on stolen intellectual property, anti-solidarity between workers, labor exploitation, environmental injustice, climate destabilization, structural racism, and gender inequalities.

The United States, that "beacon of democracy", has intervened in 128 elections since 1946 to shape political outcomes in their own interests.

I am thrilled to share a new article in Sociological Methods & Research, “Quantifying Narrative Similarity Across Languages”. My co-first author Sol Messing and our collaborators developed a new approach to measuring “narrative similarity” between texts: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

The last few months have been the most impactful by 404 Media yet. Stopping ICE data access; triggering changes at AI companies, more. We continue to be the most impactful tech outlet on the internet, and our subscribers let us do this work. Here are some of those recent examples:

Meta's AI discover feed is (still!) leaking user conversations with its AI. With its scale/import in shaping people's perception of reality, it is hard to think of a worse actor in the AI space than Meta, or to imagine a more invasive, user-hostile product than this www.404media.co/meta-invents...

Ad libraries from Meta, Google and other platforms can be incredibly useful for reporting and investigations. Track campaigns and narratives, hunt for disinfo & scams, and more. Here's the Indicator guide to using and investigating ad libraries: indicator.media/p/a-... #OSINT

When asked to confirm the current year, Google’s AI-generated top result confidently answers, “No, it is not 2025.” www.wired.com/story/google...

Data centers em alta, mas a que custo? 🌿 O Brasil está vivenciando uma corrida por mais infraestrutura digital, com a rápida expansão dos data centers. Entenda riscos e o que está sendo feito! ⬇️

Epic triple threat!!

A secret experiment that turned Redditors into guinea pigs was an ethical disaster—and could undermine research that’s only getting more urgent, @tombartlett.bsky.social reports. https://theatln.tc/xtKXNOyA

We are delighted to share the publication of Risky Research: An AoIR Guide to Researcher Protection and Safety, the culmination of over two years of collaborative effort by the AoIR Risky Research Working Group. aoir.org/riskyresearc...

"We are in the midst of a political coup that, if successful, would forever change the nature of US government. It is not taking place in the streets. There is no martial law. It is taking place cubicle by cubicle in federal agencies and in the mundane automation of bureaucracy." @eryk.bsky.social

The AI jobs crisis is not coming—it's here right now. It just might not look the way many thought it would. www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/the-ai-job...

the US Department of Justice has won its antitrust case against Google, which accused the company of operating a monopoly in the ad tech industry. This is the 2nd time in a year that a federal court has ruled Google acted illegally to maintain a monopoly www.theverge.com/news/650665/...

Scammers used OpenAI as part of a bot that flooded the web with SEO spam. Also bypassed CAPTCHA www.404media.co/scammers-use...

Publicamos uma reportagem especial na BBC News Brasil, feita nos últimos quatro meses, que identificou mais de 200 contratos públicos de pavimentação firmados com construtoras autuadas ou que já compraram pedras extraídas de pedreiras que empregavam trabalhadores em situação análoga à de escravo.

Imperdível! Steven trabalha com maestria e acessibilidade o tema. Não menos importante, é uma abordagem crítica sobre o assunto, trazendo alternativas ao marasmo de algumas interpretações hegemônicas. 👇

📢 #Callforpapers: “From Fact-Checking to Community Notes: Structural Shifts in the Fight Against Disinformation on Social Media” Editors: Ramón Salaverría, University of Navarra, Spain Lucas Graves, University of Wisconsin-Madison, U.S. Raquel Recuero UFPEL/UFRGS revistas.unav.edu/index.php/co...

During an inspiring three day workshop organized by @sahanaudupa.bsky.social, a group of expert researchers, practitioners and policy makers presented and discussed the results of their research about extreme speech on encrypted messaging platforms. 1/4

This information could be used to chill out and just let people try to make the best things they can without sweating imaginary numbers, or disregarded in favor of freaking out over what we imagine those numbers to mean. Let me just take a big sip of coffee while I wait to find out which way it goes

Anti AI piece in the New York Times and another in CNN from the excellent @amorrow.bsky.social. Something is changing. amp.cnn.com/cnn/2025/03/...

Inviting a stellar group of speakers to the Munich symposium @caslmu.bsky.social Naomi Miyashita, UN Peacekeeping, Courtney Cooper, WhatsApp Global Director Public Policy, Katharina Goede @hateaid.org Launching "WhatsApp in the World" (New York University Press) & UN commissioned policy report

Some news many years in the making: My book EMPIRE OF AI, out May 20, is ready for pre-order at empireofai.com. It tells the inside story of OpenAI as a lens for understanding the moment we’re in: the tech elite's extraordinary seizure of power and its threat to democracy. 1/

Introducing our brand new NoteTracker Dashboard—an app built for discovering and analyzing X posts with Community Notes. It's designed to give you a comprehensive view of Community Notes data on X. notetracker.socialmediadata.org #weekendproject

As redes sociais estão transformando as cidades – fisicamente. Esse artigo mostra como, em SP, investidores priorizam botar grana em espaços instagramáveis. "Nas cidades contemporâneas, quem controla a atenção das redes sociais controla o fluxo de pessoas – e, portanto, o fluxo do capital":

Will be out soon! UN commissioned policy report on encrypted messaging and extreme speech with this fantastic research group @martinriedl.bsky.social @hwasser.bsky.social @erkan.bsky.social @anmolalphonso.bsky.social @cayleyclifford.bsky.social @caslmu.bsky.social

just reupping this, on the Oscar-winning movie about how life under authoritarianism can feel almost normal until people start getting disappeared.

Very excited to receive the page proofs for my new book, Man Up: The New Misogyny and the Rise of Violent Extremism- forthcoming from Princeton University Press. Stay tuned for preordering & book tour info, hope to see many of you at in person events in the fall 🔥

"Any Sufficiently Transparent Magic…[: On Occultation and Magical Logics in the Realm of 'AI'"] scholar.google.com/citations?vi...

Been seeing an increase of useful terminology developing among academics to describe the right’s appropriation of these ideas: “inverted victimhood” “hijacked victimhood” “imitated victimhood” The challenge is getting media folks to do the power analysis around victimhood claims in real time

JD Vance is proclaiming to the world that the US's AI industry will dominate, Elon Musk and DOGE are hollowing out the government with an AI-first strategy, and Silicon Valley's is stuck on a growth-at-all-costs AI approach. As @katecrawford.bsky.social put it: 'AI is in its empire era'

It's so simple. Against xenophobia, the host. Against hatred, friendship. Against closed doors, the invitation. Against indifference, genuine curiosity. I'm very proud to tell everyone Come to Brazil

In times of hatred and hostile borders, I never thought that an innocent phrase typical of music fans to bring their idols would have such strong political potential: Come to Brazil

Reading list to offer context for today’s environment: 1) Strongmen, Ruth Ben-Ghiat 2) Mafia States, Moises Naim 3) Autocracy, Inc., Anne Appelbaum 4) Tech Coup, Marietje Schaake 5) Corruptible, Brian Klaas 6) Dying of Whiteness, Jonathan Metzl

If only we had done the same.

Oh, look what normal countries do when a former president leads a far right coup attempt.

Good thread by @lorenzspreen.bsky.social about what we know - and do *not* know - about social media and democracy 💡 #commsky @polcomm.bsky.social

E a empresa símbolo do insustentável modelo de streaming musical registrou, pela primeira vez em suas quase duas décadas, um ano de lucros em 2024. Às custas, é claro, do corte de 20% de sua equipe para diminuição de gastos. variety.com/2025/digital... (+)

China’s new and cheaper magic beans shock America’s unprepared magic bean salesmen www.thebeaverton.com/2025/01/chin...