I think “social media is harmful” is maybe a more broadly acceptable way of saying “Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk are very evil” but the latter is a much more accurate description of the problem

Referring to CSE as “Canada’s electronic eavesdropping agency” made me chuckle.

Read more about it here migsinstitute.org/migs-release...

Reminds me of this gem:

One of my students asked me for a list of the books that were most influential in my learning journey:

personally I think it's a very big deal that the Canada bureau chief for the @nytimes.com — certainly one of the highest-paid journalists in the country — asked an unspecified "AI tool" what Poilievre said & published its AI-hallucinated quotes in her reporting.

Agartha, a meme rooted in Nazi mythology, is rapidly spreading across Instagram and TikTok. Students are now using the trend to target teachers based on race and religion, while extremists like Martin Sellner openly celebrate its growing reach and role in normalizing white nationalist ideology.

*sigh*

Incredibly timely that this new report from @disinfowatch.bsky.social et. al. dropped halfway through my course on foreign interference. Time to update today’s lesson plan!

I was there for the rise of the internet and smart phones, and they absolutely sold themselves. People took one look and got excited. There was no point, years into the smart phone, where companies were having to be like "you may not like the iPhone but it's here to stay so get used to it"

I wrote about how the data center-related shooting in Indianapolis may be a bellwether for a rise in anti-AI tech violence Researchers are essentially counting the days until the data center Luigi Mangione happens For @heatmap.news heatmap.news/plus/the-fig...

The EU and feminists are colluding to interfere in Hungary’s election, says JD Vance while standing next to Orban and definitely not interfering in Hungary’s election www.theguardian.com/world/live/2...

I hate to praise propaganda, but I do think Iran is succeeding with this one. (Via @underthedesknews.bsky.social on TikTok)

“The jury’s verdict is a historic victory for every child and family who has paid the price for Meta’s choice to put profits over kids’ safety…Meta executives knew their products harmed children, disregarded warnings from their own employees, and lied to the public about what they knew.”

I keep trying to get SF tech bros to understand that if there's a major war, their beloved Flock and traffic cameras will 100% be used to direct strikes against them because SF and the tech infrastructure in the area are massive, juicy economic targets. Usual response is slack-jawed dismissal.

An analysis of over 14 million social media posts from accounts in Canada found that 87% of conspiratorial claims come from just 100 influencers. This minority of users impacts politics, influencing what people view as normal and leads to self-censoring to avoid attacks from conspiracy theorists.

Listening to interviews with a bunch of tech policy people and apparently the term AI now means basically anything a computer does without close supervision by a human. Because AI is just a marketing term that tech companies say means whatever they want.

look at my country man, we’re getting out-No Kings’d by the fuckin’ british

I can’t believe you lefty Luddites hate tech so much that you embrace mRNA vaccines, heat pumps, electric bikes, hybrid work, renewable power (and awesome advancements in storage), space telescopes, and hot/cold running water but reject the planet destroying plagiarism enrich the worst people bots!

CSIS/ITAC saying what researchers have been saying for years: "anti-feminist ideology can function as an enabling factor along pathways to violent extremism" globalnews.ca/news/1166168...

Peter Thiel has been open about this for a long time. Trump is a way to break the republic, which can then be replaced by “free economic zones” with oligarchs as dictators and tech as a taskmaster for helpless humans without any rights. (1/2)

It has never been more clear that unaccountable systems of wealth are the PRIMARY destructive element of our politics, economy, and society as a whole. Unchecked abuse of all kinds. The current US admin is just the latest, purest personification of this trend.

“Given that ‘fetch and follow instructions from the internet every four hours’ mechanism we better hope the owner of moltbook.com never rug pulls or has their site compromised!”

‘It’s frightening’: How far right is infiltrating everyday culture

A Moscow school stabbing shows how far-right extremism operates as a transnational ecosystem. The attacker drew directly from online white supremacist culture—manifestos, symbolism, and the “Great Replacement”—showing how digital radicalization lives across borders and turns ideology into violence.

I may have been overly optimistic about the amount of reading I’d get done on a two week vacation…

“Glitching”

Instagram is letting neo-Nazism go mainstream. Influencers like Hayden McDougall and Dylan Shane push Holocaust denial, Nazi symbols, and extremist merch to millions — all under Meta’s watch. A platform built for connection is now powering the spread of openly extremist ideology. Read more:

This was such a great event!

The crisis of elite impunity that is ruining our society cannot be more clearly or convincingly demonstrated than with the fact that all of these people wrote all this stuff into an email and hit Send.

incredible photo that's definitely worth at least 1,000 words from Andrew Harnik of Getty

Nick Fuentes has long trafficked in racism and misogyny. Now, mainstream podcasters and platforms are helping him reinvent himself—muting his slurs while amplifying his reach. His sanitization shows how extremists are being normalized in U.S. politics and media. Read more:

On the one hand it continues to be disgusting that he demands fealty and terror from his cabinet but on the other hand I love how much he hates Vance lmao

i can’t believe a good thing happened we should do this more often

As Canada prepares for COP30, accurate climate information is more important than ever for effective climate action. The UN’s Global Initiative on Climate Change Information Integrity underscores that policy ambition cannot succeed without trustworthy information environments. 🧵

Say what you want, but these companies’ commitment to releasing half baked, insecure, or just plain dangerous products is something to behold.

🎶 Get a taser and a cop for this wet amphi-bussy 🎵

I just watched a video of an ICE agent trying to find a costumed frog's rear air hole to stick pepper spray in it, and, like, why are we paying people to do this

One of the great ironies of political theory is that the best way to do radical politics is to not scare the hoes, yet many radicals fetishize scaring the hoes because, well, otherwise they wouldn't be radicals!

At a major "anti-hate" conference a few years ago I was on a panel where I lightly suggested big tech companies were faking their concerns about hate/misinfo. It didn't go over too well. But let the record show that once again I was right. They only care about money. www.yahoo.com/news/article...

once again, tapping the sign in most cases trying to identify or analyze the political leanings of a shooter one way or the other is falling for the bit

I've said it before, but I think the current spree of memekillings is the product of an ideological transition. It's hard to parse because it's rapidly evolving. It's clearly derived from far right precursors, but it hasn't progressed to coherence yet.

What’s up with Peter Thiel’s secret Antichrist lectures? Let us pierce the veil. For the @newrepublic.com I studied his past Antichrist speeches to decode his message—a chilling fusion of Nazi political theory and scripture. Consider this an urgent warning: newrepublic.com/article/2004...

During GamerGate, when women were targeted with threats of violence and death, everyone from the local cops to Democratic congressmen insisted “it’s just the internet. There’s nothing we can do.” Now come to find out that when you accurately quote a white man… well then they can do something.

We are rapidly declining across big democratic markers in the U.S. Media are threatened & jailed doing their job. Civilians are targeted by police & online users for their peaceful free speech. Corporate & academic entities bend the knee to our head autocrat. Truth is a fight. Hate is everywhere.

New study by @brendannyhan.bsky.social, @jasonreifler.bsky.social & colleagues demonstrates that prebunking election fraud rumors — by warning about anticipated false claims & filling conceptual gaps that those claims exploit — helps to reduce belief in falsehoods: www.science.org/content/arti...

i can understand why right-wing grifters who want abhorrent ideas to spread or influencers whose bread is buttered by the “creator economy” would be hostile to crackdowns on social media and algorithmic amplification of harmful and sensationalist content, but that doesn’t mean we stop those efforts