Check out my post about using a custom class instance of Mastodon to teach about the ethics of social media and moderation: www.socialmediaalternatives.org/2026/01/12/t...

My new book is out: LiveJournal and Russian Disinformation: The Rise of Epistemic Sabotage (Bloomsbury). It traces how LiveJournal became an early testing ground for influence tactics that later scaled outward. Please consider reposting to share! #misinformation #disinformation #mediastudies

This was a fun read: Body Slams, Curated: Pro Wrestling Enters Its Museum Era www.nytimes.com/2025/11/18/a...

Anyone else think it’s sort of funny how AWS laid off 40% of its DevOps staff in July because AI made them “redundant” and then it suffered a catastrophic outage?

Long Covid Is Real — And It’s Changing an Entire Generation Hundreds of thousands of kids in America are struggling with an illness that many doctors and schools refuse to recognize.e Feature: www.rollingstone.com/culture/cult...

Spoke with cnn while sitting on the floor of my hotel room hallway bc my family were asleep in the other room.

I think we’re really going to have to do a lot more of this. A massive deprogramming so that people can read more than ten words at a time without anxiety. www.thetimes.com/uk/education...?

Just as COVID never ended so too the Spanish flu pandemic never ended either. But we now have the technology to end them both with an indoor air revolution. Two birds, one stone #COVIDisAirborne #InfluenzaIsAirborne

public goods "47% have “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in higher ed institutions, w a net positive rating of 33—up 13 points since 2023. more confidence in higher ed than in the police (44%), the medical system (38%)+large tech companies (25%)" www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-t...

How many recognized @jimmykimmel.com's opening line was a tribute to Jack Paar? "As I was saying before I was interrupted," was Paar's opener upon his return after walking off the Tonight Show for 7 weeks in 1960 when NBC censors cut a joke about a water closet (bathroom). youtu.be/c1tjh_ZO_tY?...

Love to give this guy control over a video streaming platform www.404media.co/larry-elliso...

I meant this deeply: My work now is all dissent work. I write for a future I likely will not see.

New post: ALFA Class: Technologies of Truth: Russian History from Cyrillic to Cyberwar jjsylvia.com/alfa-class-t...

I’m doing this! I’ve been working on it for months. All my newsletters, pub updates, gallery announcements, etc, are moving over to RSS. Then I’m unsubscribing from, like, 3000 mailing lists + quitting social media. Reverting to my Google Reader days, w/o the Google part 📬🍻🏖️

it looks like the only way to have honest media is directly support them. i currently subscribe to WIRED and rolling stone, and about to subscribe to 404 media. any other WOKE and antifa media orgs i should support?

When we told you democracy was on the ballot we weren’t lying.

As you cancel streaming services, here is a casual reminder that only 16% of Americans read for pleasure anymore, and your local library has hundreds or thousands of books you haven't read. They would love to see you stop by and renew your library card.

www.theguardian.com/world/2003/j... One of Putin’s first acts after he solidified power was to silence all media outlets that criticized him.

You know things are rough when the AAUP's advice on how to use social media is just "set all your accounts to private."

Russia's latest with AI and disinformation: www.404media.co/russian-stat...

Russia designated the 'LGBT Movement' as a terrorist organisation. They know there is no such group; that's the point. It means they can choose to arrest ANYONE with any association with LGBT issues and treat them as a terrorist. The fact that 'antifa' is not a group should not be a comfort here.

The whole discourse of digital sovereignty is massively problematic. Even as authoritarian states like Iran and China use this to create surveillable space, too many on, even on the left, seem to think digital sovereignty or nationalism is some kind of progressive answer to platform capitalism.

Poland closest to open conflict since World War Two, PM says after Russian drones shot down - live updates www.bbc.com/news/live/c2...

Russia Steps Up Disinformation Efforts as Trump Abandons Resistance www.nytimes.com/2025/09/07/b...

The cover for my book is now live! LiveJournal and Russian Disinformation: The Rise of Epistemic Sabotage releases on December 11th! www.bloomsbury.com/us/livejourn...

Is anyone who teaches law in the U.S. teaching about the relationship between fascism and the rule of law? Suggested readings? Approaches?

This is a fun read. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/26/b...

Wired interview with BlueSky CEO. Monetization is coming. Enshittification likely won’t be far behind.

When I got into the weeds understanding COVID, I said we were going to eventually figure out heart disease is linked to the common cold.

My kids spent two years making a game they love and now have launched it on Kickstarter. I k ow the world is crazy right now, but if you’re able to support their project, it would bring a lot of joy to two kiddos. #softball #boardgames #kickstarter www.kickstarter.com/projects/240...

It might be time to revive Bauldrillard's simulacrum theory.

My friend and high school classmate, Jess Ruliffson, was a Pulitzer finalist in illustrated reporting for her series in the Boston Globe. It's fantastic work, and you should check it out now: apps.bostonglobe.com/opinion/grap...

@jjsylvia.bsky.social #mediacrit Orwell: Keeping An Eye On You is one of the most shocking and engrossing games that I have played in a while, having kept me on the edge of my seat during the entire play through. #Orwell #gaming #bigbrotheriswatching

You either die young or live long enough to see yourself become the conspiracy theorist.

Student post for #MediaCrit: Hatsune Miku is a Japanese vocaloid that has gained the most popularity out of all the vocaloids by far.

Student post for #MediaCrit: By showing how individuals might get obsessed with a celebrity's image rather than their actual life, Simone provides a blistering evaluation of how audiences interact with celebrity culture.

Student post for #MediaCrit: S1m0ne places critique on audience interactions with celebrities, showing how audiences can become so obsessed with a person’s image that they disregard other key factors about this person. S1m0ne’s fame rose so quickly that she became well known for being well known.

Student Post #MediaCrit: In The Social Dilemma, a mother buys a lock box to try to minimize phone use and make the most of family time. It cannot be opened until that time has passed. Would you try this? What kind of boundaries do you think are necessary for parents to set regarding screen time?

Learning from WW2 Italian Era Anti-Fascist Rhetoric in the Age of Social Media Virtual Event with Dr. J.J. Sylvia IV 📅 April 7, 2025 🕧 12:30 pm eastern 🔗 jjsylvia.link/talk FSU Speakers Series (With logos for Community Read and Fitchburg State University - Amelia V. Gallucci-Cirio Library)

Looking forward to my @aacu.org presentations at #AACUFDI this week! @fsucommmedia.bsky.social

Student post for #MediaCrit: Ashley O’s persona wasn’t just in the episode of Black Mirror, they marketed her to us IRL! Miley Cyrus released “On a Roll” … and it’s on YouTube under the name Ashley O. #BlackMirror #AshleyO #MileyCyrus #OnARoll

In 25 years of covering national security, I’ve never seen a story like this: Senior Trump officials discussed planning for the U.S. attack on Yemen in a Signal group--and inadvertently added the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic. www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...

I was at a conference about a decade ago with folks from Columbia, and their presentation was about how they couldn’t be pro-democracy/democratic values in the classroom because that would be biased. I learned a lot about Columbia and myself that day.

I’m just gonna say it. At this point, if you aren’t fairly familiar with the neo-reactionary “Dark Enlightenment” movement that Moldbug and Land built up and Thiel became a champion of… you simply are not qualified to talk about Republican Politics anymore. The Republican Party is neo-reactionary /1

Student #MediaCrit thread on The Social Dilemma: The social dilemma presents important representations of human agency and tech corporations in the lens of what is and what can be humane technology.

They say you need a united front to beat a coup. If you are a student or an educator or in the academic system, this is where you can plug in and help build your corner of the movement. Grab a shovel. Get to work. Organize.

“The US of AI,” public draft of a talk given yesterday at Princeton. drive.google.com/file/d/1O2qk...

📣 New zine! "Radical Books That Aren't a Slog : Leftist Book Recommendations for Newly Radical Folks." If you're a baby leftist looking for a place to start imagining new possibilities, here's 17 books to get you started! violetbfox.info/radicalbooks/ 📚

This is the same thing the Kremlin did, eventually giving access only to specific, friendly bloggers. How did that turn out? At least one of these bloggers now lives in exile.